First tooth!

The first tooth just started poking through today. It's in the middle on the bottom. You can't really see it yet, but if you run your finger over her gum, you can feel it. It's sharp!

She's also getting pretty adept at pulling herself up to standing, as you can see. She's inched her way along the sofa a couple times too, and can get back down from the standing up position.

The "getting her to sleep on her own" thing ended abruptly with a whimper. Hosanna decided she couldn't handle listening to her cry anymore. So, we're back to nursing her to sleep. I'm relieved too, to tell the truth. We noticed a really big change in her during the day after a night where she cried herself to sleep. She seemed much more insecure and anxious.

short entry

Charlie looks great today. He's like himself again. He ate a whole bunch and even chased a toy around.

Put Aria to bed at 9:07. She cried like usual. I went in after ten minutes. She fell asleep at 9:23. Sixteen minutes.

It's funny that during the day I'm trying to shave minutes off of how long a java program takes to run, and at night I'm trying to shave minutes off how long it takes my daughter to go to sleep.

Off to knock more wood.

When it rains, it pours and floods the bathroom

So... in keeping with the crazy frigging week we are having, things just got crazier today.

At about 7:00 a.m. all three of us were awake. Aria seemed completely unaware of her traumatic going-to-bed routine from the night before. She was in a great mood, all giggly and smiley.

At about 7:45 a.m. I was out the door to take Charlie to the vet, where he was getting his second abscess surgery. The one on the top of his head was healing fine but he got a second infection under his chin, so we had to repeat the whole process.

At about 8:15 Hosanna had just changed Aria into the day's clothes and gotten herself dressed, and was going to come down to eat breakfast. Instead, Aria puked all over both of them. The hugest spitup she's ever had. Drenched both mommy and baby, all the way down to both of their underwear. So they both had to strip off their clothes and get in the bath.

By all accounts they had a lovely bath. But when Hosanna unplugged the bathtub, it dutifully sent the water down the pipes downstairs - which then hit a giant clog in our sewer, and decided to re-route itself back into our downstairs bathroom via the toilet. Hosanna just happened to come downstairs to grab a diaper and discovered the whole bathroom flooding with warm soapy water. (Hey, we really needed to mop that floor anyway, right?)

She grabbed a bunch of towels, threw them on the floor, and then spent the next hour juggling the phone (Roto-Rooter, frantic messages to me), about twelve sopping wet towels and a bucket, and a suddenly unhappy baby who refused to be put down. Not too fun.

Hosie eventually got ahold of me right when I sat down to my desk (after being accosted by the usual suspects right when I walked in the door at my office). I decided to just come back home.

So, we both ended up taking the day off work. Roto-rooter came out eventually and unclogged our sewer. (It's the third time they've been out in the past ten months. Previously they had to replace the pipes for two of our four sinks which had completely corroded.) The whole process took several hours. We were gratified to learn that years of buildup and a few tree roots were the problem, not our recent switch to GDiapers. GDiapers rule and we were going to be really bummed if they were stopping up our toilets. They may have caused the problem to manifest faster, but still we're happy to find out they aren't the cause of our woes.

Charlie's operation went OK, although the vet is still absolutely baffled as to what is causing his infections. It took him a long time to wake up from the anasthesia this time - it was at least 8 hours before he could walk without falling over. They removed the sutures from the top of his head, but now he has some in his chin. It looks like he's wearing a shoelace bow tie. We have another follow up on Saturday to check him out again and get the last sutures removed. I am going to freak if anything else comes up after this. It's been going on for over two weeks now and we've gone to the vet 6 times I think.

Anyway, after that the day got better. Although the plumbing and Charlie situations were very stressful, it was also nice to spend the day at home with Hosanna and Aria. We had a good day. We even managed to plant a few herbs in the garden. My allergies hit in full force though so I had to come back inside. (As a side note, I would like to blame my terrible writing on the copious quantities of Benadryl I took about an hour ago.)

At bedtime tonight we put Aria down in the crib at 8:56 p.m. She cried until 9:13 and then fell asleep. Hosanna reassured her once after five minutes. So, the first night it was a total of 70 minutes before she got to sleep. Last night, it was a half hour. Tonight, it was twenty minutes. Now I will spend the rest of the night vigorously knocking on wood and hope that trend continues.

the continuing sleep saga...

I had to put up a cute picture because today's entry is going to be very bland reading for all y'all. I'm keeping track of this on advice on my friend Pat who reassures me that when the next kid comes (by the way, we're planning on having a second) you need a written record to prove your (in)sanity as you face all the same issues again.

Anyway...

Last night - tried the usual routine of nursing her, rocking her, etc starting at about 9:00 p.m. Finally at 9:51 p.m. I just put her in the crib and laid down on the floor in the room. After five minutes got up and reassured her, but didn't pick her up. Then laid back down on the floor. Eventually figured out that she knew I was still in the room, so I left the room. Was going to go back in after an additional ten minutes but she fell asleep first. Then she woke up about 10:50 and started crying again. Hosie went up, picked her up and held her; she fell back asleep within a couple minutes. Put back in the crib. Didn't wake up again until 5 a.m. when Hosie woke up, found her face down, and tried to roll her over onto her side. Hosie picked her up again, rocked her, she fell back asleep. Woke up again to nurse at the usual time (6:30 or so).

Tonight: she was tired really early because didn't have a good afternoon nap. Hosie nursed her at downstairs on the couch at about 7:45 and she fell asleep for about fifteen minutes. At 8:00 we took her upstairs and started the bedtime routine. By 8:30 we had gotten her into her "jammies" (just a different onesie since it's too hot for the wearable blankets now) and read her three books. Hosie nursed her again sitting up. We put her into the crib and came downstairs at 8:37. She started crying immediately when we left the room. I went back in after five minutes. Then Hosie went in again after an additional 10 minutes. I was going to go in after another fifteen minutes (at 9:10) but Aria was asleep shortly before that.

She crawled today

Today was like an antidote to yesterday. I got home early because it is Hosie's day to work. I took Aria to home depot and carried her around looking at tools and random stuff for a long time. She loved it in there. She kept craning her head around to look at all the people and lights and stuff. I thought she would get scared by all the noise but she didn't.

Then we came back home and had dinner. Afterwards, we were all hanging out in the living room. Nana/Kathy and I were on the floor with her. Oddly, Hosie was up on the computer, which she almost never does. :) Aria was up on all fours, and Kathy was showing her: "OK, now move your right, then your left, then your right, like this!" And then Aria did it. It was so cool. She crawled forward just a couple steps the first time, then after about fifteen minutes she moved four or five, um, paces? I don't know what you measure crawling distance with. I was just so happy that we were all there when it happened.

Another milestone at sleep time. I just put her down in the crib and let her cry herself to sleep. I hated it and it didn't feel good at all. But on the other hand, she was asleep in about twenty minutes. Sigh. Hosie got a bit upset at me for just doing it without talking to her about it first. But I was sort of at a loss for what else to do. And I was getting mad about the whole two-hour routine. Still, I felt kind of dirty afterwards. I guess sometimes there's no choice that feels right.

Charlie looks a little better. He still looks ragged and is drooling all over the place, but he's kept eating, and the swelling under his chin looks a little better. I cleaned out the little holes in his head for a long time this evening. He hated it, but by the time I was done all the clotting was gone and he looked much better. I can't wait for him to get the sutures out. Hosie got mad at me because I called him Frankencharlie once.

hard week, sick cat, Aria's almost crawling

Fucking draining week. Our poor cat Charlie got some kind of crazy infection on his head and has been really sick. He was really lethargic and wouldn't eat, and his eye was swelling shut. Multiple trips to the vet, multiple eyedrops and antiobiotics, but the doc couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. About five days into it he finally started eating again and looked almost normal, so we thought all was okay. Then a day later his head swelled up. He looked just like in the cartoons when daffy duck gets an anvil dropped on his head. A big ol' goose egg under his fur, and his eye was swollen up again. Back to the vet. This time they had to open up his head with a scalpel and drain out all the infected gunk. Now he's back home with an awkwardly shaved head, and two little holes in his head with what looks like a shoelace coming out of them. He's miserable and still having trouble eating, and now his jaw is swelling up. I feel so bad for him. I thought for sure he was going to die when they told me he was going in for surgery. I thought he had a brain tumor or something. It's been an emotional rollercoaster - he looks terrible, we think he's going to die, then a day later he looks fine - repeat ad nauseum. Another vet visit tomorrow, so hopefully good news will come of it. I just feel so bad. I've already been feeling so guilty about Charlie because I hardly spend any time with him anymore. It's crazy.

Added to that, Aria is having even more of a hard time sleeping now. She fights every nap and it sometimes takes two hours to get her to sleep at night. She's almost crawling now - can get up on all fours, and has even moved her knees up one at a time. She just needs to learn how to move her hands and she will take off. This means we put her down in her crib and she starts rolling all over it, getting up, crawling around... argh.

Oh yes, and work... *sigh* let's just say it's been hard for a while.

We got our garden ready to plant. Our neighbor lent us a rototiller and showed us how to use it. I had one of those moments where I feel really stupid because I barely know how to use a frigging hammer, much less a big ol' rototiller. But then he told me that he grew up on a farm and that made me feel better. How the fuck am I supposed to know this shit? I grew up in San Jose for fuck's sake.

Jesus. I am absolutely emotionally drained. Fuck.