Richenza

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:37:00 GMT

Sigh. Baby tunics came in the mail - don't fit at all. Seller is going to make new ones, which is good, but I will have to meet up with her at Pennsic to get them, which is less than ideal.

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:12:22 GMT

Oh internet. The baby has killed our love affair. I never write or call, I know... I'm going to try to update but it feels a bit like this:

So, we went to Canada for Darius and Lynette's wedding and Known World Dance Symposium. Both were lovely. Both were full of babies - it seems Nathan was born into a SCAdian baby boom. That's not a bad thing, though it was a bit funny at the wedding how one hallway ended up being claimed by the nursing mothers. It was somewhat out of the way of the rest of the event, and had nice comfortable couches in little alcoves every nine feet or so. If someone was already nursing in the first alcove, you'd just move on back to the next one down. It was strange to see so many SCAdian faces in everyday clothes. I was sitting at a table with Del and didn't recognize him until he started talking. We made some new friends at our table - Wilhelm and Cristobel are lovely Canadians we hope to see again. (As opposed to Wilhelm and Connedale, who are lovely New Yorkers whom we expect to see again, also seated at our table) Anyway, the wedding itself was lovely and the couple were endearingly awkward and beaming with happiness. That's a good match, there.

KWDS was a different experience with a baby in tow. I was occasionally annoyed by the fact that my dancing was fairly limited. Overall, though, it wasn't too bad. I took several interesting classes with Nathan strapped into the Bjorn, and watched several others from the sidelines. Baby falls asleep to saltarellis - strange. I am reminded that I need to hassle someone in the know to repeat Gregory's daunting galliards-every-day-at-Pennsic feat. I enjoyed Del's class, but frustratingly could not make my feet remember the steps even an hour later. Repetition with a teacher really drilled the steps do I know in. Susan said she might be up for it, but doesn't like camping and so would only consider Pennsic if she were given a pretty extensive class roster - she'd like to do one hour of galliards every day, plus two hours of other dance class. I wonder with whom I should discuss such a thing? I don't know how badly overbooked the dance tent is, or how willing the site is to let us use non-traditional spaces. I remember Greg's clas moved from the barn (terrible floor) to that little arcade room next to the flushie toilets after just one day. There weren't that many of us, so we all fit more or less ok in there. Must think more on this...

Last weekend was the test run for Pennsic - I took Nathan to Great Northeastern War. Camping solo with a baby was something of an experience, though not nearly as bad as I had feared. I think Pennsic will be just fine. I ate barely any of the food I packed, as Jess and John seemed determined to feed us at every opportunity. The Carolingian encampment were lovely campmates, and with Jen and Troy also camped nearby, I was able to hand off the baby for a bit while I did take-down the next morning. I broke down quite early, as the baby went down for his first nap at 8:30. 'Make hay while the sun shines', and all that. Break-down was significantly expedited with the help of Lucien and Dreda, and the sweet German lady whose name I have once again forgotten. The double-bell wedge can be erected and dropped with 1.5 people, but it's super-fast to do it with four.

Tomorrow is week 2 of baby swim. Time to un-bury the swimsuits!

Whew. It feels like it took nearly as long to write as to do. Back to work with me!

tired

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:29:08 GMT

The short version is that our USAir flight home was full of epic fail. We ended up having to take our 5 month old home via the last Fung-Wah bus of the night. We didn't get in until 3 a.m. and I have no brain right now. More details later, when I can think again.

general updatey stuff

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:58:40 GMT

Nathan's developed a new skill. If we're sleeping in the bed, I'm sleeping on my back, and he wakes up hungry, he'll just reach up and grab the breast and drag it sideways into his mouth. Ouch!!! Waking up because someone is trying to yank your breast into your underarm is not ok.

Went to Pride last Saturday. It was largely fun, except for a couple of bitchy queens making comments about "all the babies" and how "it's just not the same". Suck it bitches! It's not just us supporters who are having babies, you know. Of course, for every gay guy who didn't like kids there was one who was like "BAAABYYY!!!" Nathan had a fantastic time. In fact, on Sunday, he was really put out that we just stayed home and didn't take him anywhere fun where there would be confetti and people to admire him.

This weekend starts the begining of our massive summer travel schedule. We leave tomorrow morning for Baltimore, to go to DaveDave's wedding and let my brother see his nephew for the first time. It's good on the one hand - two birds and one stone and all that. Apparently, however, I misheard Dave and Philly is actually the closest airport, so we have a 3 hour drive to get to the wedding. Suck. Oh, well.

The following week is Known World Dance and Darius and Lynette's wedding. The weekend after that is Great Northeastern War. The weekend following GNE is empty, but the weekend after that we're going to see Rob's folks on the Cape. The week following the Cape trip is Pennsic, of course....

Good god, where does the time go?

Also, is anyone going to Pennsic who is willing to rent cargo space in their truck/van? Could anyone pick up/drop off Nathan and I at the Pittsburgh airport?

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:25:23 GMT

OH MY GOD!!! No wonder Allston is overrun with rats! It's fucking impossible to get any information out of City Inspectional Services!!! ARGHHH!

Thu, 21 May 2009 18:40:43 GMT

I'm suddenly not feeling well - scratchy throat, slight dizziness. Probably the ham pizza I had for lunch gave me swine flu.

(Best quote on the subject: "You can only get swine flu from pork if it's fresh enough to sneeze on you.")

Still, wish it was time to go home already....

"Pirates" review

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:47:46 GMT

Many thanks to amerigance and jjaynes for one of the most truly enjoyable evenings out I've had in some time. amerigance gave us tickets to see Pirates and jjaynes took the tiny terror so that we might go.

Now, as a caveat, I generally hate Gilbert and Sullivan plays. I know, I am a bad geek. I'd really only planned to go because Jack enjoys a nice G&S from time to time.

This production, though, was utterly charming. They edited out all the crappy parts and replaced them with Awesome (Calypso policemen! Dance-off!). There were so many winks to the audience that I just loved - the pirate ship is introduced as the "HMS Teabagger". (Which was a one-off joke that was promptly never mentioned again.) The general was awesome and clearly loving the part. Mabel was decidedly steampunk. The Pirate King was clearly doing his best Johnny Depp impression, and I have to say, it was adorable. The sets were pretty clever - it took me until halfway through to notice that the basic framework stayed largely the same, they just added or subtracted embellishments and backdrops to change scene.

We're still quoing the funny bits around the house this morning:
"Where is Frederick?"
"I have a piece of bad news for you..."
"We're not getting any weapons, are we?"
"..."
"I have two pieces of bad news for you..."

So anyway, if you can at all make time or scratch for an evening out, you should definitely see this play!

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:06:35 GMT

Life is getting back to an even keel. robdamnit, recently laid off, is minding the bun for cash while we sort out a more permanent nanny. When I came home yesterday, they'd been doing boy-things all day: watching the History channel and listening to Cyndi lauper. Work has settled back to its usual level of anarchy, and the only thing currently pissing me off is that for some reason Yahoo won't let me compose email right now. I have to use the "reply" feature, then clear all the fields to send a new email. Programmed by monkeys, I tell you. Still worried about devoken, but there's not much to do at this point but wait and see how it settles out. Send her good karma if you have extra lying about.

Wed, 13 May 2009 16:19:54 GMT

AAARGH!

Work explode.

That is all.

Tue, 12 May 2009 23:05:14 GMT

It's been a hell of a day. devoken suffered a seizure this morning and had to go to the hospital. Fortunately, robdamnit was here when it happened and called the paramedics. Nathan was napping in his crib and missed the whole thing. She's better now, but I'm obvously not comfortable continuing our nanny arrangement. I feel pretty crappy about that, since Nathan is really fond of her and she's been at it for less than two weeks, but she was very understanding about everything. I'm worried about her, but hopefully she'll be ok once she gets a full night's sleep and sees her regular doctor.

My mother-in-law was up today to visit the baby, and succeeded in getting him worked up to such a state that he barfed all over everything when he wasn't crying. More than usual.

My work is exploding - the one good thing is that they are having me back as a full-time employee rather than as a 1099.

I would like life to slow down a little, so I can catch up, ok universe?

help me, internet!

Wed, 06 May 2009 20:06:05 GMT

I need a general contractor.

We have money. We have an attic. We have an architect's plan to expand the attic into three bedrooms and a small bath. We currently have 3 adults and a baby living in a two bedroom apartment (which is admittedly large).

Chris Smith did a great renovation for a friend. He can do the attic renovation for the money we can spend, but isn't available for another year. The general contractor we've used before has gotten way more expensive, and I am pissed at him for not giving us enough information in the last renovation. (We apparently now have to tear down either the wall in Rob's bedroom or the wall in the bathroom because when we pulled the plumbing stack into the attic neither the general contractor nor the plumber asked us if we wanted the vent stack pulled up while we were in the neighborhood.) While I will badly miss Mark the carpenter, I really do not want to deal with Peter. We looked at a third guy, but he wants even more money than Peter, and has shifty eyes besides. I call him the sketchy guy. He's not welcome in my house.

So, anyone know a contractor who is conscientious and reasonably priced?

[edited for clarity regarding the targets of my ire]

Wed, 06 May 2009 14:31:50 GMT

Made it through the weekend. Still alive. Go me!

So, Nathan was baptised on Sunday. It was a scene. Every other time he's been to church he's been a little angel. It figures that the one time he's center-stage, he screams his fool head off and barfs everywhere. The priest didn't seem to mind much, though, and at least we weren't the couple who showed up 20 minutes late. I'm pretty sure what happened was that he overheated. The church was really warm and I hadn't realized that the baptismal suit that my mother saved from my brother's christening was all polyester and did not breathe worth a damn. Oh well, such is life.

Good news - Nanny Search '09 is over! I can't tell you how psyched I am that we finally found someone, and the fact that the someone is devoken is the cherry on top. I am convinced she is made of magic. My son took most of his naps yesterday in his crib, which left me in awe of her mad skillz. Hell, I can't get him to sleep in there more than half of the time.

Ok, should go back to working...

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:31:25 GMT

So, today while I was home for lunch, Nathan managed to poo all over me. (He did it to Rob a couple of days ago.) Some of the problem is that the elastic on about half of his diapers is kind of shot. Yesterday, I bought new elastic with which to repair them. However, having a baby makes finding time for sewing repairs complicated, and thus he's still wearing the ones with loose elastic. Fortunately, my mother is coming this weekend for his Baptism and has volunteered to help me fix the rest. Yay for grandmas!!!

child care is a pain in the ass.

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:56:40 GMT

So, we're looking for a nanny. We like the nanny we got from the service and would be willing to buy out her contract, but she's looking for health insurance, and we can't afford that on top of the rate we are paying her. So, we start the search again.

I f'ing hate interviewing people. I always really want to like them, and then something comes up or it doesn't work out or whatever and I almost feel like it's my fault that person doesn't fit my needs. Two cases in point - first is a grad student majoring in early education, but she looks at baby like he's made of glass and further looks repulsed upon having "spitty baby" explained. No go. The second is a non-citizen, and isn't sure whether she has the employment eligibility papers we would need. (We're doing this above-board.) I hope she does have them because she had incredible references, and Nathan liked her right away - he settled after a very grouchy afternoon.

So, I just went and edited my care.com posting to include a note that we are doing this above board and we'll need to see some paperwork. I also added that we aren't able to pay much more than $12 an hour. (We might be able to throw in health care at that rate. It would eat most of my salary, though.) I feel faintly bad that we can't afford better. On the other hand, I worked for two years at $11 an hour, and I have a college degree. God forbid we actually needed most of my salary!

Sigh... I'm starting to rant and make no sense, so I will wind this up. I just wish we were done already.

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:26:00 GMT

So I'll admit to enjoying "What Not to Wear". I put it on in the background, because Nathan likes the noise during his naps. The downside is he's out cold on my lap and I don't want to wake him by getting up to get the remote. TLC has switched over to "A Baby Story" - possibly the worst programming ever created. Now I am stuck listening to some nut try to convince his nuttier wife that she needs to go through with the tubal ligation they planned once the baby is out. She's on her fourth baby, she admits to being overwhelmed by the child care needs of the existing three, and yet she's still crying about how not being able to make yet more babies would make her feel "useless" and "like [her] life is over".

What the hell is wrong with people??

not a good start to the day...

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:53:17 GMT

City inspectional services stopped me on my way out the door to talk about our rat problem.

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:24:21 GMT

My sad little bun is talking in his sleep. And by talking, I mean crying. In between the snores...

needs more snuggles...

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:46:48 GMT

I'm avoiding work right now, though I need to get busy shortly. It's hard to leave the baby home with someone else, but Jaclyn (the nanny we got from the service) has been great, and Nathan appears quite fond of her. It's going so well, actually, that we are considering contracting her for a full-time, permanent position, even though it means we'd have to go through the service and there is a not-inconsiderable upcharge.

We had a nice Easter - we took Nathan to Mass, and then had the usual suspects over for a gluttonous brunch of epic proportions:
bacon, sausage, dates wrapped in bacon, deviled eggs, frittata, shrimp cocktail, waffles, strawberries, cinnamon buns, pavlovas and mimosas

After brunch, we basically just sat around and talked nonsense. That's my favorite kind of weekend...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:37:54 GMT

I groused at Jack to get an hour off of parent duty - I worked a full 7 hours today from home while minding the baby. I heard screaming coming from the bedroom for twenty minutes, and then it died away. I went in just now to get my slippers - Jack is out cold and snuggled up to a tiny person in a fuzzy bear suit. Too cute. If it wouldn't wake the both of them, I'd take a picture...

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:45:35 GMT

Very tired but can't sleep. In lieu of well thought out commentary, I give you pictures....

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:38:14 GMT

So, today is my last day at home with Nathan with no obligations. I'm definitely having some trepidations about leaving him with anyone else. Jack is taking him all day tomorrow, though, so at least I will get a realistic assessment of how well or poorly he actually does without me. He'll most likely be just fine, but childcare providers are paid to tell you that your child was an angel, even if he cried for two hours straight.

I am glad to be going back to work, though. It'd be nice to have something notable happen in the course of a day which is not directly related to my son's effluvia.

That said, he managed to pee in his own face yesterday. We're bad parents because we laughed our asses off before giving him (another) bath.

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:56:59 GMT

Nathan's morning checklist:

~~Wake Mommy and Daddy~~
~~Barf on everything~~
~~Take giant dump~~
~~Go back to sleep~~

Mission accomplished.

Of course, it's hard to stay mad at him because I'm still feeling a bit guilty about the vaccination torture of yesterday afternoon. It's hard to explain to your two-month old about civic duty and public health concerns. He pretty much just thinks "Why did you bring me here and let them jab needles in my little legs? That hurt!"

thoughts, in no particular order...

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:49:24 GMT

My god, do paper diapers suck. I thought it was just propaganda that cloth was better - we're doing cloth because no matter how much energy it takes to wash them, I refuse to believe that something reusable is worse for the environment than something disposable and non-biodegradable. Anyway, we had a few disposables leftover from the sack the hospital gave us and I mistakenly thought it would be easier to do disposables on the flight. Not only did he need to be changed twice as often, but once he peed right out the side and all over my lap! Yuck. I'd rather haul a bag of dirty cloth diapers across an airport. At least that way, the pee is in a smell-containing plastic-lined sack, and not all over me.

They totally made me take off Nathan's baby shoes at the security check on the flight back. What the fuck? Since when is my seven week old the Shoe-Bomber? What kind of explosives could you possibly hide in inch-and-a-half long shoes? Additionally, I realized later that their search totally missed the ten-ounce tube of baby sunscreen I'd forgotten to take out of the diaper bag. Way to go, airport security. Though I suppose I should be grateful for small blessings...

Visit with Grandma went great. My dad bailed because he is on a business trip to Bolivia, but Mom, Jack, Nathan and I had a nice day at the San Diego Zoo, followed by an excellent dinner at Roy's.

Nathan was so good on the plane - almost no fussing and no real crying at all. I was pretty worried, but nursing him during takeoff and landing worked like a charm and he slept for most of both flights. The people behind us said that if they hadn't sen him getting on, they would never have known that we even had a baby. Jack said that if Nathan was an adult, he'd have bought him a drink after a good day's work like that.

Pictures of Nathan

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:01:02 GMT

Happiness is a full belly, a clean bottom, and sleeping dead center in the grownups' bed.

Also, baby smiles.

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:32:18 GMT

We've been trying to introduce bottle feeding, as the time when I must return to the world of the employed draws near. In my baby-prep, I had bought the Playtex drop-ins system, with the special orthodontic nipple, on the grounds that the internet said it would help avoid colic. I had looked at (but didn't buy) the Medela bottle system, which was better reviewed but was stupidly expensive. Anyway, bottle feeding has not been going well. Nathan has trouble latching, and ends up swallowing lots of air trying to grip the nipple, so the "anti-colic" liners are a waste of time. He hates bottle-feeding, and that makes everyone unhappy.

Today I caved and bought a set of the Medela bottles. As I write this, Jack is giving Nathan a bottle in the other room with no screaming involved. I can hear that Nathan's still getting a fair bit of air in his tummy, but it has to be better than it was - judging simply by the relative quiet. (I attribute some of the relative calm to the FirstYears bottle warmer, which has eliminated ten minutes of trying to reheat breastmilk while juggling a screaming infant.)

Anyway, I know it's common to go through several types of bottles before finding the one that works, but I wish I had just gone ahead and bought the Medela bottles in the first place. As it stands, I ended up paying for the expensive bottles and the cheap bottles. Talk about false economy!