ridiculous

So most of you have probably noticed by now that I take great pains to be at least somewhat anonymous on this blog.  What you probably don't know is that I actually slip up pretty often and start using names, so I have to go back and edit myself.  It's been especially hard these days now that I often write about the baby.  I don't even want to think about how often I've referred to her as "the kid" just to avoid using her name.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my husband and I actually do refer to her that way between ourselves at times.  But nowhere near as often as I do here.  And it's true, even in real life, I call her lots of things besides her name: pumpkin, princess, butter ball, cherry pie, pretty much whatever pops out of my mouth including lots of things that make no sense whatsoever.  But it seems silly to deliberately avoid her name altogether.  And there are lots of bloggers who come up with very creative nicknames, but apparently the best I could really do consistently is "the kid."

I don't know why I worry about it.  I guess a part of me wondered how she'd feel about her name being thrown around years from now when she's old enough to know.  Assuming, of course, I have the blog then, it seems like an invasion of her privacy.  But here's the thing, I plan on airing pretty much all the funny stories on the internet.  Isn't that one of the reasons you have kids, to make sure you always have blog fodder?  So the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it really matters.

Anyway, doesn't it all seem ridiculous when you all already know that her name is Diya?  And that she's absolutely adorable?

so many toys, so little time . . .

studiously enjoying her book

until distracted by dad taking pictures

and then finding something better to do with the book :)

tidbits

1. At the hospital last week, the staff pediatrician (who I liked on the whole) told me this about my daughter's illness:  "I'm very confident that your daughter's condition isn't serious.  In my experience, these kinds of things always end just fine.  But 99% of the time, we never find out what the source of the fever is.  However, you seem to have a lot of questions.  And if you'd like, I can refer you to an infectious disease specialist to see if he might recommend more testing.  I find that a lot of Indian people do better with more information."  Um, ok.  Really?  He was a bit more tactful I guess in his phrasing, but I didn't know whether to start laughing or be offended.  Especially on behalf of all those poor white people who didn't get the benefit of the 2nd opinion.  
2. I am going back to work next week, and I'm not ready.  She has this thing that she does now where she stares intently at me until I look at her at which point she breaks out into a huge grin.  It's the cutest thing ever.  She does it when she doesn't want to nurse or when I want her to fall asleep.  I try not to look when I don't want to encourage the distraction, but OMG, it's hard when you got that grin waiting for you.  And OMG, I'm not ready to give that up during the day.  Though I've been dying for adult conversations, so I guess I'll have that going for me at least.  
3. This morning, the princess woke up at 4:30.  I don't know what's up with her.  She used to sleep through the night and kind of sleep in too.  Then, a few months ago, she started waking up once in the middle of the night.  I read that at 4 months, babies go through a sleep regression period.  OK, fine.  She's mostly gotten past it now, but still wakes up pretty darn early.  She's usually asleep by 8pm or so, so I guess she sleeps a decent amount still, but it's not like we're falling asleep at 8 right after she does.  We're lame but not that lame.  I've been discussing with her the benefits of sleeping in a bit more, but so far, my pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
4. So I was up from about 4:30-5:30 nursing and then tried to fall back asleep.  Between G snoring, his alarm going off at 6:15, then him leaving a little before 7, it was tough going until he finally left.  Guess what time the dogs got up?  Tucker started getting antsy at 7:30, jumped on and off the bed a few times and hung out by the door.  I managed to somehow convince him to get back to bed.  Then Bandit started trying to get up about 10 minutes later.  I ignored her until I heard this loud thud in the bathroom.  Figuring it was a lost cause, we all just got up at 7:45, and the baby followed suit less than 10 minutes later. Poor Tucker had to poop, it turned out. Not sure what Bandit had to do.  
5. All dogs are now officially now free to good homes.  Take your pick, the old senile one, the not-quite-so-old snuggle bug that just won't sit still no matter how loud his feet sound against the hardwood floor, or Mia.  Mia's actually been all right lately, very friendly and protective towards the baby, very affectionate towards me, and she even drastically toned down her bark yesterday when the UPS guy rang the doorbell (managing to not wake the kid up for a change).  Mia's all right.  Oh, wait, that's her guarding the baby from Bandit and attacking her an inch away from the baby's head.  Please excuse me while I break up the dog fight and clean the blood off the floor.*  OK, yes, all 3 are up for grabs.  
6.  Speaking of dogs, my brother C was around during one particularly lovely afternoon over the holidays when the baby wouldn't stop screaming and Bandit  peed in the hallway.  I was trying to drag her outside without having to touch her and without having too many pee prints everywhere, my brother was holding the screaming kid, and basically all hell broke loose.  Once outside, he tried to keep an eye on her and hold the baby while I cleaned up.  Bandit started wandering and of course couldn't hear when he tried to call her back.  My brother said that if this were his life, he'd shoot himself.  So I rest my case, cute smiles not withstanding, it has NOT been fun around here lately.
7. We are trying to break our little pumpkin of the swaddle.  She's been a huge fan from the beginning, and during the first couple of months when I was going insane because she wouldn't nap unless I was holding her, I discovered that the swaddle made all the difference.  But she's almost 6 months old now, and it's not good for her to have her hands bundled up if she starts rolling over.  Plus, she's starting day care in a few weeks, and G says he doesn't want her to be THAT kid, the one that needs the extra step to put to sleep.  I say she's already the kid that likes being rocked, bounced, and walked to sleep and then needs utter silence to stay asleep, so what's one more thing to throw at them?  But whatever, I guess he has a point.  So we started a while back, and I caved when her naps went to shit.  Then I tried to leave just one arm out figuring we'd transition slowly.  That went all right for a while, but really started working at the hospital when they needed her IV arm out at all times.  Since I'm not really wanting another hospital stay, this whole 2nd arm thing had better take more quickly because I'm already going a little nuts.  
8. She's been reaching all sorts of milestones these days though.  Working on sleeping like a big girl, and has even been sleeping in her crib at night.  That adjustment was harder for me than her.  For the first several nights, I took a sleeping bag and slept on the floor in her room.  G wants to know what I'm scared about, but I don't know.  The world just seems so much scarier now, and I suddenly get why our parents were so protective about everything.  If nothing else, I worry that she'll be crying, and I won't hear her even though she's right next door and sound carries in this house like you wouldn't believe.  Oh, and we have a video monitor.  But still, you never know with technology.  Mostly, I think I worry that I won't be able to go to her quickly enough.  But G is right, we all sleep better now.  I don't wake up everything she breathes a little funny, and we can move about and talk a bit more without worrying about waking her.  It was getting to the point where we'd be tiptoeing into our room each night, trying to keep the dogs quiet, looking for clothes in the dark, etc. And she gets some peace and quiet too.  
9. Oh, and her first tooth just popped up!  She didn't want to sleep on NYE (unlike mom and dad who were ready for bed by 9:30) and wanted instead to just sit in her bouncer and chew on her toys.  We didn't know what was up, but then the next day, we were at a family New Year's party when she reached for my finger to chew on it.  And all of a sudden, I felt this sharp little poke, and there it was. 
10. Last night, while we were eating dinner, we kept hearing a helicopter circling our neighborhood.  And then we heard a "This is the police.  You are surrounded."  Apparently there was a manhunt going on just a few blocks away or something.  I wonder what kind of neighborhood we've moved to.  

*I'm exaggerating.  It's not THAT bad, so please don't call Child Protective Services on me.  

fed up

After raving last time about how much I love my pets, is it totally inconsistent to now tell you how fed up I am with them?  Especially Bandit?

I'm not sure I've blogged much about this, but a few months ago, Bandit started having what we thought were seizures.  It was a Fri night, some friends were over for dinner and all of a sudden she started falling to the floor, wetting herself, and shaking a little.  I think the first time might have been earlier in the afternoon, but I didn't realize that there had been anything wrong until hours later when she did it again.  That first time, i just heard a clattering as I was getting out of the shower and came running out to find the water bowl knocked over and Bandit on the floor.  I assumed she had walked into it as she's getting clumsy in her old age and just helped her up and threw a large towel over the carpet.

The second time that it happened, G just found a large wet spot after he came home and we couldn't figure out who had done it.  It was while we were dogsitting my brother's dog and all 4 had been rushing him when he came home from work.  About an hour later, our friend saw Bandit having some sort of weird convulsion in the kitchen.  She fell and wet herself.  It was then that we started wondering about the previous episodes.  G mentioned that actually, when he had picked up the wet towel from the water bowl incident, he thought he had smelled pee but hadn't been sure.  And then, a final time while we were eating dinner, Bandit did it again.  We freaked out, left our guests to fend for themselves, loaded up the baby, Bandit, and Porter (because he had been barking at the guests a lot and we figured he'd be happier with us in the car) and headed over to the emergency vet in Capitola.  It happens to be where Bandit's specialist is for her Cushing's.  By this point, it was about 10 pm on Fri night, so you can see how exciting our weekends can be.

They wanted us to leave Bandit overnight for observation and start her on anti-convulsant medication. I expressed some concern about the effects of these medications on such an old dog (because the vet mentioned how powerful they were and how some dogs had difficulty adjusting).  To be honest, I was less than thrilled with the vet overall, I'm pretty sure he spent his downtime surfing and doing dope (this is Santa Cruz after all).  But whatever, Google told us how serious 4 seizures in a 24-hour period can be, so we were ready to do whatever needed to be done.

Early next morning, the vet called us as he was finishing his shift.  He apparently had had 2nd thoughts about the anti-seizure medication and had decided to leave Bandit be and just observe her.  He said that he had been prepared to give her the meds if she had another seizure, but he had been thinking more about our concerns and thought waiting might be more appropriate.  Later that morning, our regular specialist happened to be in and had also examined Bandit.  The rest of the day passed without incident, so we came back to take Bandit home and scheduled a follow up visit with her vet a few days later.

Our vet wasn't convinced that Bandit had had seizures at all.  Rather, she suspected (and still does) a heart issue.  She thinks that Bandit has mitral valve regurgitation which causes her heart to work extremely hard.  Or something like that.  Anyway, she thinks that Bandit had lost consciousness for brief periods, and those were the moments when she fell over and peed herself.  Further testing revealed that she was probably right, so we started her on heart medication.

Except that the next week or so ended up being the worst time ever.  Bandit stopped eating and became so weak that she couldn't move.  We were picking her up and taking her out to pee.  Based on the vet's suggestion, I went out and bought her a bunch of baby food and we'd spend forever trying to coax bites into her with little success.  We were supposed to go to Oregon for a weekend, and we were so scared of leaving her that G stayed behind while I took the baby up on my own (her first flight!).  We were prepared to call our local vet to see if he'd come over to our house when the moment came.

And then suddenly, after 3 days of not eating, Bandit expressed some interest in my mac n' cheese one afternoon, so I gave her a bunch.  G came home and fed her a bunch of peanut butter filled pretzels and she wolfed them down, along with a ton of water.  That afternoon seemed to be the turn around.  The vet had already taken her off the heart medication and also suggested that we could try giving her steroids if we wanted.  She warned us though that putting her on steroids was unlikely to help in the long run.  It was just that she was concerned that Bandit's issues might also involve swelling in her brain due to her Cushing's which the steroids could help temporarily.  Bandit seemed to regain her appetite before we started the steroids, but she's been on them since, so it's hard to say if she improved because of them or not.

All of this happened about 3 months ago.  Since then, she's continued to receive a low dose of steroids every day.  Before we moved, she was mostly getting up by herself and letting herself out the dog door.  She's been a bit of a medical mystery in that she doesn't really respond to her Cushing's medication and she didn't really respond to the heart medication either.  But as far as we can tell, she hasn't had any more "seizure-like" incidents.  She's been completely off her Cushing's meds now for months and her appetite has been ridiculous (i.e. she's eating her own poop again).  Her vet wondered about brain issues stemming from her Cushing's but back then, her neurological exams were pretty normal.

These days, I'm a little less sure.  Since we've moved to the new house, she's been struggling to get up on the hardwood floors.  If we leave her for even a few hours, we come home to find a puddle of pee or poop on the floor.  What's especially awesome is that since she can't get up, we've found her sitting in her own pee on several occasions.  She seems constantly thirsty.  And finally, nowadays, I wonder how aware she is of her surroundings.  I mean, she knows us and all that.  But I see her staggering at times.  I've caught her running into the patio door when it was closed.  She seems more disoriented.

Now that I'm writing all this, I feel sad.  But this is where the being fed up part comes in too.  I know, you were starting to wonder where all this was going, weren't you?  I hate to say it, but more and more, I'm a little over it.  The constant cleaning up -- the other night, G stepped on a puddle without realizing it and got pee all over his socks and jeans.  We had guests over and he had been in the process of changing the baby's diaper when it happened  So that was fun.  He and the kid were essentially stuck in one spot until I could clean up and get him a change of clothes.

This morning, she got me up at 8 when I heard her struggling to get up on the hardwood.  When I let her out, the other two dogs decided to head out too.  Except that it takes her 3x as long as it does the others, so while I was helping her down the hallway, Tucker pitter-pattered up and down it multiple times, and what do you know, I see on the baby monitor that the kid is getting up too with all the ruckus.  We finally got outside and it turned out that Bandit didn't need to go out at all!  She just stood there staring blankly at nothing.  And  I know what you're thinking, dude, it's 8 already, what are you complaining about.  Yeah, but I had already been up at 5 with my early-to-bed-early-to-rise kid and G had let everyone out when he got up to get ready for work at around 6:15.  I was still half awake when he took off for work, so yeah, being up at 8 wasn't exactly my plan for the morning.

When Bandit leaves messes, the other two sometimes step on it and leave little pee prints all over the floor, so the clean up involved can get extensive.  If we leave her outside too long, she wanders the yard and starts eating poop.  We've thought about leaving her in the garage, but it's still pretty messy from the move, and one thing we discovered while moving is that if there's a way to get stuck in a pile of crap, Bandit finds it.  She's been constantly knocking stuff over and getting stuck between boxes and furniture.

We can't walk with her because she can't keep up for even a block.  But it's hard to leave her because she looks so sad.

So I'm sorry to say it, but I'm fed up.  Three months ago, I was preparing myself for the worst.  And now I hate myself, but I'm not sure how much longer I can take this.  I find myself getting impatient with her, and it makes me feel terrible.  I kind of feel like I'm watching a movie that used to be awesome but now just won't end no matter no painful and repetitive it's getting.  What does this say about me?  How would I deal if my child or husband ever got really sick if  I can barely handle a few months of doggie old age.

oh puh-lease

Recently, I was on a friend of a friend's blog and she was ranting about people who liken having pets to having a child. Essentially, she was po'd that people did it and believes that there is no comparison. She's a new mom who I'm guessing has never had a pet. I don't really know this girl, so the subject is unlikely to ever come up in person, but I was offended by the post and felt like venting about it somewhere.

As a dog owner and recent parent, I think that's crap. Sure, there are pet owners and PET OWNERS. Of course, there are weirdos who dress their dogs up in children's clothing and carry them around in their purses and speak to them in baby talk. Can we just agree that those people are from another planet and leave them out of the discussion? And sure, I know that there are obvious differences. I didn't give birth to my dogs. I know that they're not physically a part of me the same way my baby is. And yeah, there's a life span difference, and I hope that my daughter will be around long after my dogs are.


But anyone who's ever spent a night at the emergency vet with their dog knows that in so many ways, the experience is almost exactly like being there with your child. G's had Bandit for over 15 years, longer than he's known me. He's spent money on vet bills when he could barely afford to eat (but always plenty in the budget for alcohol of course) in college. We've woken up with her every 2 hours in the middle of the night when she couldn't go any longer without having to be let out. We've watched her struggle now in her old age. A few weeks ago, when we thought her time had come, neither G nor I could bare to even think of it let alone say the words aloud. When the moment does really come, I know that I will feel like I've lost something precious. Maybe it won't be like losing a child, but honestly, I've never lost a child, so how would I know. Neither has this girl. So who is she to tell me that it's not every bit as heartbreaking.

When the vet told me that Mia had such severe hip dysplasia that she was amazed that my puppy could even walk, I sat in my car and cried. I used to watch G playing with Mia and that was probably the first time I realized that he'd make a pretty awesome dad. I know so many pet owners who invest their hearts into their pets, so on behalf of all of them, I'm offended. When we had the baby, of course I knew that life would change. But call me cheesy, I never saw our kid (no matter how much I instantly and intensely I fell in love with her) as a replacement for our dogs. Yes, they get less attention now. But when G and I combined households, Mia suddenly went from an only child to one of three. So having a baby, in some ways, I see as adding to the brood.

This week, as I sit at the hospital with all kinds of time on my hands, I'm struck more than ever of the similarities as well as the differences. Maybe it's different if you get your dog after you have a child. But for me, and for many others I'm sure, my pet was my baby for a long time. That doesn't change now that I have a "real baby."


This was the same girl, who a while back, blogged about how people who didn't have children had no right or excuse to be late. Really? I know we're biased, G and I have always had difficulties with time management. And sure, sometimes we were late for no reason, but other times, things came up that we hadn't foreseen. I would never tell a friend that her excuse for tardiness wasn't valid because she doesn't have a kid. I think mostly, I'm troubled by this, "having a child trumps everything" attitude. Oh puh-lease, you've had your kid for like a year, are you telling me you were never late before that? Or that people with kids get some sort of pass for being late? Sure, I'll grant that sometimes, when you're late and I've scheduled something around my child's nap or eating time, it's a bit of more of an inconvenience. But whatever, I'll deal with it the same as any other person deals with the inconvenience that tardiness brings (or if it keeps happening, stop hanging out with you just like you'd have the right to stop hanging out with me).


Seriously, it's not like our lives begin when we have kids or something. So get over it.

rewind repeat

I don't know about you but I love Tivo and DVR so that I can pause when I need to, replay parts that I want to see again, or skip the parts I'd rather miss.  I've also been known to find a good song and play it over and over on repeat, especially when I'm driving.  So don't get me wrong, I'm all about repetition sometimes.  

This week, though, I feel like I'm stuck on a holiday marathon of the Wizard of Oz without DVR or any way to change the channels or turn the damn tv off.  Because this week, we got to live last weekend all over again as if it hadn't been enough fun the first time around.  There have a few tweaks here and there as if the network has maybe cut a few of the worst commercials, but still, it's been pretty painful.  

Little did I know when I was chronicling my baby's crankiness on Fri that she was actually getting sick.  There may have been a few expletives thrown around under my breath that day, and OMG, for that, I'm so sorry, baby.  By Sat morning, there was no question that the kid was burning up.  We unearthed our thermometer finally from the moving boxes and checked her temp - 102.something.  So we started looking for a pediatrician open on Sat mornings.  I guess at least we are up in San Jose by this point, because the chances of finding that in Hollister would have been nil.  We're lucky, sometime during the move, I had found this list of San Jose peds offered by my OB, and for once I set something aside and actually managed to find it later fairly easily.  And the first pediatrician on the list had both good internet reviews (we like to shop for docs the same way we pick where we want to eat) and Sat morning hours AND had an opening.  

Took her in.  A blood test run at the doc office (yay, no waiting in line at the labs like I'd had to at the Hollister hospital) revealed another (or the same?) bacterial infection and likely a viral infection, as well.  If it had been just a viral thing, we'd have breathed a sigh of relief and gone home.  G's been sick with a cold/cough since mid-last week, so we figured it was only a matter of time before the kid and I picked it up also.  But instead, we received another antibiotic injection (poor kid STILL has the marks from last week, as well as a bruise from the failed IV site).  We were sent home but with orders to check in with the doctor at home that evening.  Yeah, the doc gave us her home number.  She also wrote us a prescription for another oral antibiotic and told us to give DZ both Advil and Tylenol that night.  Usually, they don't recommend Advil  for babies under 6 months, so between that, the home number, and the fact that the doc wanted to see us again Sun during her off hours had us pretty worried.  Are you sensing a trend here?  Maybe I should rename this blog something like, "Sunday s at the Doctor's Office with the W's".  Or "Meeting the Bay Area's doctors, one emergency at a time.'  Because you know, we've already exhausted the local vets.    

Anyway, one thing we've learned about our daughter now is that she does not like taking medications of any kind.  She usually promptly vomits them out, along with whatever else she may have in her stomach. So there were some fun cleanups that day.  But she seemed to improve a bit until we woke up around 9am on Sun morning and her temp was at 105!!!  We thought we were reading the thermometer wrong, so checked again about 10 minutes later, and it was still 104.5 or something.  So we called the doc and rushed her into the office.  And the doc admitted us to the hospital.  My face must have been pretty expressive because the first thing she said after that was that I shouldn't worry, that she wouldn't send me to anyone that didn't know what they were doing.  

So at the moment, we are again hanging out at the local hospital, this time,  probably for 3 nights.  I'm hoping we get to go home tomorrow morning, and so far, the only upside is that I've had lots of time to blog.  On top of whatever other bacterial infection she has, DZ has now picked up G's cold (as have I), so we both spend our days sniffling and sneezing.  She's been on IV antibiotics since Sun evening.  But guess what, the nurses here could actually insert the IV!!  Not only that, they did it in no time at all.  They only allowed one parent in the exam room while they were inserting it, and I couldn't do it.  G went in instead but I expected to hear prolonged screaming since the exam room was right across the hall from our room.  But to my surprise, they were out in less than 5 minutes, and G said most of that time was spent bandaging up the IV so that she wouldn't jar it loose.  In Hollister, the nurse must have spent more than 45 minutes just looking for a site and then messed up twice.  

 

They were also able to get a catheter in to collect urine from her.  I couldn't watch that either, but the screaming lasted much longer that time.  It took 10 minutes and I heard screaming the entire time.  These days, though, if we come anywhere near a doctor or nurse, the kid seems to know a poke or prod is coming, so she starts screams immediately, even if they're just checking her temp or listening to her heart beat.  But G said it had been painful to watch.  I guess the urethra is hard to find in babies, and they had to try several times with different sized needles before they were able to extract any urine out.  I'm kind of glad the Hollister nurse gave up after two tries, saying that "she thought she had the right spot but still nothing came out."  She was SO reassuring, let me tell you.  

Also, rather than asking me repeatedly whether I wanted to nurse my baby to calm her down, these nurses freely admitted that babies are quick to learn that nurses coming close to them = bad news.  I got that a lot in Hollister, and I wanted to tell them that if they didn't take so damn long to do everything wrong, she wouldn't be close to a feeding anyway.  

So anyway, I guess it's not an exact repeat.  It's like a new and improved Wizard of Oz or something though I  can't even imagine there being such a thing.  Maybe in HD?  We're at Good Samaritan in San Jose and they have an excellent pediatric unit here.  The nurses in our unit are actually experienced working with infants.  The doctors have inspired nothing but confidence so far.  And although there's been a lot of nurses barging in randomly still, they are on the whole a bit more respectful of letting DZ sleep.  The nurse last night almost drove me insane because she was clearly young and new and not inclined to bending the rules, "I have to check her vitals every four hours, I'm so sorry, but I'll be quiet, I promise."  This said in a loud voice right next to DZ's crib, of course.  The nurse the night before had let us get monitored at 2am when she absolutely had to deliver the IV antibiotics.  I mean, I don't want to be woken up at 2am either, but if we have to, let's at least get it all done then.  But no, the nurse promised, she could be quiet and wouldn't even need to disturb DZ at the 2am waking.  Sounded great in theory except that she forgot to do something with the IV monitor and two seconds after she left the room, it started blaring and flashing red.  So yeah, that plan didn't work so well.  Plus, my kid just doesn't sleep through anything now.  Partly it's the age, partly she's freaked out and wary of anyone coming in to poke her, and partly because it's just her.  But whatever, crap is still crap however you dress it up.  But I guess I'll still take this experience over last week's nightmare.  DZ was born at this hospital, and if there's one place trust, it's here.  

At the end of the day, though, the ending is still pretty unsatisfying, which is why I was never able to tolerate Wizard of Oz even once let alone multiple times.  They still have no idea what's wrong.  Just to be on the safe side, we're talking to an infectious disease doc before we're out of here.  But the  pediatrician here told us that fevers at this age often remain mysterious.  That's not what I want to here.  We're not in the middle of a House episode, I want answers dammit.  But the most he could offer was that he's confident that DZ will be just fine and that none of this is likely to be very serious.  So I guess we'll see.  

"What do you DO all day?"

I get asked a lot these days what I do with my spare time. You know, now that I have nothing to do but stay home all day. So just for kicks, I decided to document a random day and share. I tried to do this several times but started to lose track of the day by mid-morning. This just happens to be the first day where I plodded through for an entire 24-hour period (just this last Fri actually).

4:57 – I woke up, not intentionally but because DZ has decided that it's a nice time to wake up, at least for this morning. I was just glad that it wasn't 1 am like it had been the day before. But of course I would have preferred that it was closer to 7 or 8am like it used to be up until a few weeks ago when al hell broke loose and she stopped sleeping through the night.

6:00 – We went back to sleep, after feeding my darling child, changing her diaper (2x because she pooped after she ate), and letting the dogs out. G woke up momentarily when DZ started wailing, and grabbed her. I had to pee, you see, and was generally not letting her at my boobs fast enough, so the little drama queen wanted to let the whole world know how terrible I was. I doubt G even remembers all this happening because 5 minutes later, he was snoring away like nothing had happened.

6:15 – G's alarm went off; he snoozed and then it went off again. Since he was snoring like an elephant, I hadn't been able to sleep anyway, so until he finally hit the shower around 6:30, I stayed awake.

7:50 – Woke up again, this time to hear Bandit scrambling around trying to get up. She's been having difficulty getting herself up on the hardwood floors at the new place. I ignore her and try to keep sleeping, figuring that since I had just let her out less than 2 hours before, there's no way she should have to go out again. But she continued to scramble so I finally got up. She's already left several puddles of urine for us when she hasn't been able to get up (and then continued to sit in them so not only do we have to clean the floors but also her each time this happens). I looked over and saw that DZ has woken up also and is staring at me wide-eyed through the mesh of her bassinet. Figuring it's now a lost cause, I finally get up and help Bandit up and outside. She stared blankly for a bit before proceeding to just come back in without peeing.

8:05 – Nurse, change diaper (for the baby, not me).

8:50 – Feed the dogs. This is more of a project than one might think. For one, it takes Bandit forever now to get up and down the hallway. She also seems to get lost. I brought the baby with me and poked into her room to grab her bouncer so that I can set her down while going out to the back patio to feed the dogs. Bandit took this opportunity to go back to the bedroom and lay back down (meaning I again have to help her up and coax her down the hallway). Mia, meanwhile, started growling at Bandit pretty much right when we got up, so every time Bandit got up, Mia would try to rush her, I'd push her back and we'd go through this process over and over again. Also today, we were out of dry food, so I grabbed a can of wet dog food to mix in. Even Bandit kept trying to poke her head into her food before I was ready. Mia, on time out from her growling, was supposed to be laying down in the hallway but kept trying to rush out for the food, especially once she realized they were getting the good stuff for a change. So the whole thing was broken up with me rushing back inside to put Mia back to where I had left her in the hallway and then coming back to finish getting the food ready (as taught by our hundreds of dollars worth of training classes).

9:10 – Finished feeding dogs. Yes, it took me 20 minutes. Left Mia out with the empty dog food can (maybe I shouldn't tell you that I spent a good 2 minutes trying to shake the lid loose from the bottom of the can before realizing that I had already thrown the lid away anyway – the dogs can't have the lid because it's sharp).

9:15 – Hopped in shower, leaving DZ in her bouncer. Then came rushing out thinking she was falling asleep and god forbid she actually falls asleep in her bouncer because then what? Would I move her or keep her there? These types of decisions plague me daily: is she ready for a nap or isn't she? Crib or bassinet? Cloth diaper or disposable? Walk now or later? The best thing is to try to avoid pretty much any situation that might involve any conflict whatsoever. Turns out, though, that she's not sleeping anyway, so basically I'm still soapy for no reason. I'm just excited that I'll be able to knock shower off my list of things to do for the day. Yeah, showering is on my list, don't you dare judge me. Deciding to dress up for a change, not wanting to feel like an slob, because the pair of jeans I had worn a few days before was still laying around, I put on pair of jeans instead of my usual sweats.

9:50 – Start trying to put the baby down for a nap. We're working on taking away the swaddle these days so naps are more inconsistent than they used to be. The process has been more drawn out than I expected, largely because I am inconsistent about when I choose to wrap her up and when I don't. It used to be too that DZ would get wrapped up and then just doze off on her own, especially in the mornings. But without the comfort of her swaddle, she needs a little more help. So I walk around and rock and bounce her until my arm is about to fall off.

10:10 – She was asleep and swaddle-free, so I gently laid her down in her bassinet. She woke up but tossed for just a minute or so before falling back asleep.

10:11 – Mia, who is still outside, decided to bark at something or another. She was practically next to the bedroom window when she did it, so the baby woke up with a start and looked wide awake. I let Mia in, gave her a couple of good whacks, and started the napping process all over again. (I found out later that she had been barking because Jehovah's Witnesses had been outside our door. I felt bad then for whacking her).

10:30 – my arm is officially dead and I give up and lay DZ in her bassinet wide awake. She started yammering about something but isn't crying so I go make myself a bowl of spaghetti for breakfast (again, no judging). I came back every so often and she still looked wide awake and thrilled and smiley every time I walked in. I swear, the only reason the kid gets away with everything is because she's so darn cute.

10:50 – My noodles were done and I was just about to take my first bite when the kid decides to stop chatting to herself and decided to start crying instead. So I went back to the bedroom with my bowl and let her stare at me gulping down my spaghetti.

11:00 – Deciding it was pointless to continue trying to get her to nap, I picked her up, made myself a cup of chai (yes, some sort of caffeinated beverage is also on my to-do list and I was way over-due this particular morning). We grabbed my cup and started nursing because this whole process had taken so long that it was time to eat all over again. I drank my chai while nursing, usually not my preference since the whole point of a coffee break is to, you know, actually have a break. I also was so fed up this morning that I turned the tv on while nursing (usually a no-no these days because the kid decides that she'd rather watch tv than eat and nursing takes way longer than it should).

11:45 – Finished nursing, the kid promptly pooped. Oh, I should probably mention that there have been several diaper changes already this morning. But anyway, she pooped and looked like she was ready to nap again. So I changed her, wrapped her, and started the whole napping process all over again. This time, decided to just wrap her up in the damn swaddle and be done with it. Except that she fought me the whole time and had it off almost before I finished wrapping her up. So I wrapped her leaving one arm out, walked around and bounced.

12:00 – No sign of napping, so I did another no-no, brought her all wrapped up, laid her on my knees facing towards me, and turned the tv back on.

12:15 – She began to fuss and again looked tired, so decided it was time to go again. This all happened several times so I think I'll just leave it at that instead of telling you how many times I wrapped her, re-wrapped her, changed her diaper, rocked her, left her, etc etc. The problem is that once she doesn't nap once, she's super tired and cranky and it just gets harder and harder to get her to sleep.

1:15 – Napping at last, completely swaddled. All dogs kicked out. It had been close call there at least once because just as she was about to fall asleep, I heard Bandit struggling to get up in the living room and by the time I went to help her and came back, the kid would be wide awake all over again.

And after that, she slept for an unprecedented 4 hours!! So she must have needed it. I grabbed a rare 2^nd cup of chai and some lunch before beginning to attack the boxes still hanging around in the kitchen.

5:00 – Woke up. Changed and nursed. Dad came home at 5:30 (early for a change) and she briefly looked up before going back to my boob. Then promptly pooped.

6:30 – Bath!

7:30 – Nursed again while G went to go pick up dinner (sadly, we still have no food at the new house).

8:00 – G started walking around with her and rocking. Usually, this takes approximately 10-15 minutes. That night, we're at it for over three hours, with numerous moments when we think she's out but then she woke with a start and the process started all over again. I threw a fit because G started making “oh my back” motions within half hour or so. He didn't complain aloud, but I took it personally since I had been walking around all morning and how dare he start getting fed up almost immediately. So at least a half hour of this was spent with “No, I have here; here I got her” between us.

11:15 – Finally asleep, but not before we realized that she was awfully warm, so now we were concerned that she was getting sick AGAIN (or still?). So we finally went to bed, as well, but worried that it would be a fitful night.

11:15 – 8am ASLEEP

the girls behaving . . .

Bandit and Mia, temporarily united in their confusion at a new house:

The next morning, at the exact location, Mia decided to attack Bandit for no reason as she was trying to head out to the backyard. I was holding the baby, so had to set her down, and then break the two of them up. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a shot of that interaction.

So much for the hundreds of dollars we spent on training this year.

Later in the day, at the exact same spot, Bandit left me a nice puddle of urine to clean up since she's been having difficulty getting up in the tile and hardwood floors. Somehow, I didn't think to get a picture of that either.

This little corner of the family room has seen a lot of action so far.