BLOG POST

I'm Internet-shouting that, by the way. BLOG POST. I was implored - no, really - by two friends and my sister on Facebook to post something, anything here for their entertainment this week. Welllll, I didn't post on Monday b/c my weekend/early part of the week sucked giant balls. Ellie is teething, has gnarly diaper rash, AND a cold so sleep and happiness were in short supply until yesterday.

Guess what happened yesterday? Oh, the husband returned from his 12-day odyssey to Israel. Of course on the day he comes back, Miss Thang turns a corner and stops being a total sleepless crankball. Babies.

END BLOG POST.

Monday Musings, No. 2, Vol. 22

Dude. So, the husband left for Israel again (work trip, again) on Friday morning. I am officially On My Own with Ellie and I'm really tired. I love my child, but being a single parent is hard! Especially when one is not used to it. Mommied-out Musings below:

Coming to work today feels like a vacation. That's messed up.
On the other hand, Ellie's been a trooper for me. No real fits or whinefests. She did get pissy last night when we were at church b/c I was helping with our Youth Group and she was with a sitter - her usual sitter, but in a different place - and would randomly start fussing and crying for me.
I am in my new office today and it's cool. I mean, the guy across the hall could be a SMIDGEN quieter, but overall, I like it. No more gray-on-gray-on-gray at the Nerd Farm.
My football hiatus is going well. And apparently it's working, because the Niners won this week...against the gross Raiders, but a win's a win. So yeah.
I think I need to see a chiro about my back/neck pain. But I'm scared b/c I'm a baby about getting my neck and back popped. I fear paralysis, seriously.
The flight back from Folsom last week went well. Flights, actually. I wasn't late for either of them.
Tonight after Ellie goes to bed, I am watching the season finale of Mad Men on the DVR. I am very excited but also sad...why do the good shows have to have fewer episodes? Quality > Quantity, I suppose.
Ellie's cruising all over now. I think she'll start walking before her first birthday. She refuses to let anyone 'help' her practice standing or walking...it's actually hilarious how mad she gets. She'll stomp her wee feet and yell at you until you let her go and she sits down, then crawls over to the nearest table/chair/whatever and pulls herself up and goes.
Target has really cute winter coats for $20 this week. I got one for Ellie and I love it! It's a 4-in-1 system so we can get a lot of use out of "one" coat.
I ate a Lean Cuisine chicken enchilada suiza for lunch. I like it, but it makes me all burpy and heartburny for some reason. Blech.
We have this fancy Starbucks coffee dispensing contraption in our new office kitchen space. I am half-afraid to try it. What if scalding hot coffee spills all over me and I have to be in a burn unit for weeks? I'm paranoid.
Ellie is rocking a bit of a bullet (baby mullet) right now. It's so cutely white trash.

Quick On-the-Road Post

I am sitting in my hotel room in Folsom, CA and missing my baby. Oh, and my husband too. :) I am here for work training through Thursday night and it sucks! No offense, but Folsom isn't really that interesting, nor do I know where to find anything cool to do. (I did locate an In-N-Out, so I've got that going for me.)

I nearly missed my flight this morning. Quick note: the company where I work has a fleet of small planes to ferry us worker bees among our 4 major US sites, and they fly out of a small airport about 5 mins from my house. Which is AWESOME on a regular day and EXTRA SUPER EFFING AMAZING AWESOME on a day when I set my alarm wrong and didn't wake up until 7 minutes before check in started. After throwing my hair up in a messy ponytail, brushing my teeth, smearing on deodorant, and getting dressed/throwing toiletries into my suitcase, I got out of the house at 5:25am. When check in started. I made it to the airport and got checked in with about 6 minutes to spare before check in closed for the flight.

So...yeah, flight went well, and I got to Folsom on time. Since my training didn't start until 9:30am, I was able to come to my hotel and get an early check-in so that I could shower and stop being gross. That was pretty rad, I think my classmates today would agree. Class went well, I came back to the hotel, finished getting settled in, and got to talk to the husband and babeh (yay for iPhone 4 and FaceTime!) for a bit before grabbing a gourmet meal at the Taco Bell that is just across the parking lot from my room.

One quick football-related musing: I need to take a break from the NFL. The Niners are 0-5 and my FF team isn't doing much better. I will check my lineups to ensure it is full (meaning: no players on bye or injured in my starting lineup) and that is it. No checking the scores of either a)Niner games or b) my FF matchup. I am not on anxiety meds, and if I don't want to be, I have to take this break before I lose it. I realize I shouldn't be so invested in this, especially since there really isn't any of my money involved, but dang.

Oh, one more: I saw the photos of "Mini Favre" on deadspin.com. Um...not that impressive, asshat. Keep that in your pants, where it belongs.

Update Tuesday

No real Musings again this week. My Muse-dar is on the fritz, I guess. But I do have some updates for you lovely readers:

1. Ellie is a BEAST these days. The Teething Demons have gotten a hold of her again, but this time it's bad. I hope that means we will see some teeth this round. Otherwise, I may cut her gums open my damn self. I hate teething. Probably not as much as Ellie does, but still.

2. My sister and stepmom are coming over for a visit this weekend! We are planning a weekend chock full o' fun - assuming El's 2nd flu shot doesn't kick her wee arse like the first one did. I really want to go to a pumpkin patch, and with the husband's travel schedule, this is the only weekend this month we can do it. Fingers crossed.

3. Ellie had her first swimming lesson last Saturday and did AWESOME! The husband was in charge of her in the water and he did a great job. Out of the 7 babies in her class, all of them were with their daddies. Pretty nifty, if you ask me. Ellie's a natural in the water, she just loves it. I hope this continues, since I love to swim too.

4. Our friends C and A are getting married on Saturday night (which is extra awesome b/c we have free babysitting courtesy of Grandma and the Nanny-Auntie!) and I'm so excited for them! And to get dressed up and have a fun night with the husband. Grown up time!

5. The Blazers' preseason games kick off tonight but Ellie and I are staying home. With her beset by demons, I didn't think it would be a good idea to haul her all the way to the Rose Garden and deal with a very-likely cranky and tired wee one there. So we'll hang out at home and I can watch last night's episode of Gossip Girl.

6. I leave for four days of work travel on Monday...to scenic suburban Sacto. Oh yes, don't be jealous. I'm not at all excited about this because a) I can't bear to be away from my Bear that long and b) the suburbs of Sacramento are...not...fun. I do get to go to bed whenever I want though...and that is awesome. I can go to bed at 7pm if I want to! So I've got that going for me.

7. The Niners are killing my soul. For realsies. I cannot bear this trainwreck of a season for much longer. At least the Vandies are doing well, but otherwise, gah. Football is making me teh crazee.

Dragalicious

I didn't do a Musings post yesterday, just didn't feel like it. And today I have something more important to discuss, fair reader. My inner drag queen. Oh yeah, she's fierce, fabulous and LOVES sparkles. I realized that I have an IDQ the other day...I was looking at shoes online and I immediately gravitated to the photos of the sparkly, flashy, nearly-impossible-to-walk-in ones first. And it hit me: I am a drag queen at heart.

If I could, I would dress like Joan on Mad Men all the time, but with a draggy twist. Sparkly shoes, bigger hair, you know the drill. But I don't have the money or time to invest in said style, so I dress very plainly and wear Chuck Taylors most of the time. But inside....lawd, inside my heart bursts with joy at a nicely teased and sprayed bouffant, sparkly 5.5-inch platform heels, and a form-fitting retro dress with cap sleeves. Honestly, I have no idea what this says about me. I figure it's good to have an alter ego, even if it is super dragalicious.

Monday Musings, No. 2, Vol. 21

It's a post-vacation Monday and I'm swamped with work. But I need a short break, so I thought I'd post some Musings. We spent Thursday thru Sunday in Spokane, WA, visiting the husband's family. It was a good trip b/c we got to meet our baby niece for the first time...I had forgotten how tiny 2 month old babies are! And how snuggly, and sweet, and just plain wonderful. It almost made me want another one now...but then Ellie would start shouting for no reason, or fall down and bonk her noggin, or some such thing and snap me out of it. She's such a helpful baby. Musings are a go:

New trick alert!! Nose picking is now a 'skill' mastered by the little lady. Very ladylike, indeed, especially when she offers her boogery finger to you as a snack. Um, thanks, but no.
And yes, we are working on the concept of sharing. Which is definitely a work in progress and probably will be for a long time. Ellie's like her momma, and doesn't share well with others.
I am addicted to the Mad Men cocktail-mixing game on my iPhone.
The Vandals are 2-1 after a resounding win over UNLV in the Dome on Saturday night! I wish we could have gone...we were so close! Only 1.5 hours away!
Ellie now has a Halloween costume: she will be a giraffe. The husband found it at Old Navy and we had to get it. She's the cutest giraffe you've ever seen.
I need a vacation from my vacation. I'm so tired today.
The Niners are playing the Saints tonight. I want to be excited and think happy thoughts of a Niners' upset victory but I can't. I'm too much of a realist.
I think it's funny how people romanticize the idea of owning an old house. And then they get to see one for themselves and recoil at the work it takes to bring it up to snuff. Having grown up in an old house, yeah, I find it funny. It's also why I live in a brand-new house. I don't need that much work.
It's apple season! I love Fall food.
Speaking of Fall, I suppose now that we have a kid we have to do the whole pumpkin patch thing and carve a jack-o-lantern this year. Of course, she won't remember it at all, but we need the photo op. Parenting!
I rode in the backseat with Ellie on our way to and from Spokane (when I wasn't driving on the return trip...the husband got sick the night before we left so I had to help with driving duties). It is a good way to pass the time. Keeping her entertained also keeps me entertained.
Blazers preseason games start up in about two weeks. Where does the time go, seriously??
I keep finding stuff I "need" in the PB catalogs that come to my house every other day. This is a problem. But their blue smoke velvet curtains are just so divine, dammit. I NEED THEM.
I got the paper I need to make Ellie's b-day invites over the weekend too. We're going with a snowflake "theme" and an ivory/light blue color palette.
Pilates is working. I can feel my abs getting stronger all the time. Even my butt is firmer. Aren't you glad you know that about me?

Growth News and Flu Shot Blues

So, the little lady had her 9-month check up on Friday. She is doing so great! Almost in the 75th percentiles for both length AND weight (w00t!) and even her teeny noggin has grown - from the 5th to the 10th percentile. We were told no vaccines this time, except...the flu shot.

I was actually glad for Ellie to get the flu shot. She goes to daycare and we all know daycares and schools are like giant petri dishes of germy badness. So we assent to the shot and are told that she'll need a second one in a month to complete the series (this is SOP for all infants under 1 yr old). After a brief cry, Ellie is fine and we head back to daycare. She had a great rest of the day - no reaction to the shot or anything like that.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. Ellie wakes up and is a little snuffly and crabby, but she sometimes is in the morning, no big deal. Well, as the day goes on, she becomes crankier and crankier, and her face is a mess of green slimy snot and slobber. She's a hot flu-shot-reacting mess. That dead virus in the vaccine has triggered her army of white blood cells to go on the attack and now she's the walking wounded. Okay, crawling wounded. Whatever.

She hardly slept on Saturday night (whyyyyyy didn't we set up the humidifier before bed that night?? We are dumb, that's why) and was a fussy butthole all day on Sunday. We did set up the humidifier on Sunday night - which uses some sort of liquid Vicks VapoRub in it, so it's extra awesome - and she slept great. I also think she was just exhausted. By Monday morning, she was back in good spirits. Still snotty nosed, but not nearly as bad as the weekend.

However, on Monday morning guess who woke up with a sore throat and a stuffy nose? If you guessed ME, you are correct. I didn't even get a flu shot, and I'm dealing with the aftermath. I'm a casualty of germ warfare. *sigh*

Seven Hundred Twenty-Nine Day

729 = 9 cubed. Today is 729 Day for Ellie - she's 9 months old today, 9/9. Pretty cool if you ask me. Hard to believe that my little baby is not a little baby anymore...very much a bittersweet feeling. I thought I'd do my quarterly list of things I've learned from her, as I do learn more and more all the time.

1. Being chased up the stairs is the BEST.GAME.EVER. Or being chased around the kitchen. Or around the living room. Just being chased is the coolest. Being "dropped" is also fun, as is being dangled upside down for a few seconds.

2. Talking to inanimate objects is a great way to pass the time. I mean, someone's gotta engage the rattles and rings and stackers and stuffies in conversation, right? Bonus points for screaming or squealing at them before you stuff them into your mouth.

3. Crawling is the coolest...until you learn how to pull yourself to a standing position. And it's best to hold onto the sofa or table and then pound it with your hand until Mommy or Daddy looks at you, then give them your sweetest dimpled grin. Taking a few steps while holding onto these things is fun, but kinda scary too.

4. Dog is baby's best friend. Mostly because he's chaseable and just the right size. And his crate is a great climbing wall. But also because he likes to leave his chew bones laying around the house. They are even cooler than baby toys - especially because Mommy and Daddy don't approve of them as teethers.

5. Eating food is fun. If you don't get your food fast enough, just pound your hand on your highchair tray. Mommy or Daddy will get the hint and shovel another bite in your mouth, or set out more snacks to eat. Shouting between bites is effective too. Oh, and try everything...all food is delicious.

6. That funny looking black thing with a round piece that sticks out and flashes light at you is called a camera. It is important to make a funny face when Mommy or Daddy has it out and flashes the light at you. It makes them laugh and laugh.

7. Snuggling is optional at this point. Sometimes you just need alone time - well, alone with your lovies and your aquarium in your crib. Naps are good, because playing hard all day is downright exhausting. But it is good to snuggle with Mommy or Daddy sometimes, since they really like it.

8. If you learn something new and show Mommy or Daddy what you can do, they get REALLY excited and will clap and yell for you. Then you clap and yell and they get even more excited. Maybe they need a new hobby? Nah, it's cool to get all that attention. The more attention, the better. In fact, it's good to crawl wherever they are and yell the whole way until you reach the desired parent just to make sure they don't forget about you. They are old, after all.

9. Teething sucks. It really does. But if you get too fussy or upset, Mommy or Daddy will give you the magic purple stuff that tastes nice and sweet. It makes the pain go away pretty fast. Sometimes, they will give you some water that tastes a little funny because it has teething tablets dissolved into it. That stuff is good too, but the purple magic is the best.

10. Finally, don't get sad when Mommy looks at you and her eyes fill up with water. She's not really sad, she just can't believe how fast you are growing. Apparently, growing up into a big girl is very hard on the parents. It's so much fun, though, and every new day is full of excitement and new adventures!

Monday Musings, No. 2, Vol. 20

It's a rainy Monday here in the greater Portland metro area. Boo. The rain and cool temps remind me that fall is just right around the corner and I'm not ready to let go of the sunshine and warmth of summer. Pitter-pattering musings below:

Football starts this week. We had our FFL draft last Thursday and I got a decent team for the season. I mean, it'll change as dudes get hurt and I get bored, but I'll be okay to start. Oh, my team name this year: "I've Got A Tim Tebow-ner"...I love puns.
Our new feeding technique, aka staggering, is working so well right now! Ellie hardly barfed at all this weekend. Sure, it's a little tedious to feed her solids and then wait an hour before giving her a bottle, but it's cutting down on her spitting so much and she seems happier too.
I am excited for my extra-long Labor Day weekend next week.
So, I've been doing Pilates at the work gym and it kicks my butt. But I do like it.
I have decided on a color scheme for Ellie's 1st birthday. Why so soon? Because I think I'ma end up making the invites, decor, etc myself. I know, that's crazy. But see...this is likely the ONLY birthday where I can control the theme. Going forward it'll be all cartoons and crap of Ellie's choosing. So I'm doing the party the way I want to do it this year. Boom.
I need a nap. Scratch that - I need a Nap Day, where I can just sleep off and on all day long. That is my fantasy.
Sometimes I get a little bit of paranoia that I'm pregnant again. I know I'm not, but I still worry. I never did before I had a baby, but now that I have, I worry about it.
Our salad bar at work is awesome, but I can't stomach (PUN!) paying $3.50 a day for nommy salad. Why does it have to cost that much?
We are caught up on this season of Entourage as of last night. It's really good this year.
I haven't heard the new Kanye and the All-Stars single, Monster, yet. But I need to...Kanye himself said it's amazing. So it must be, right?

Monday Musings, No. 2, Vol. 19

'Tis a gymkatatastic Monday here at work. Our newly remodeled fitness center opened today with a super-fun open house and demos of the new equipment for us worker nerds. I am stoked about this new facility, except it means that I am officially out of excuses to not work out. Not with a fully equipped and awesome gym just down the stairs from where I sit all the live-long day. Sweatin' to the oldies musings below:

I went with Ellie to the outlet mall on Saturday. The husband was spending the day and evening in Seattle for a football game, so we girls went shopping. I spent way too much money, but got lots of clothes in the next size up to last her 'til next spring.

Oh, and Ellie started fussing really loud as we were finishing up our economic stimulus and I found out why when we got to the car. She pee-pants'd herself, aka leaked through her diaper. Yep, that sucked.

I wish clementines were on sale more often. I love them.

My engagement ring needs a good cleaning. And my car needs a good oil change. Ugh, maintenance of this stuff is such a first world problem.

Pandora on the iPhone is awesome. I love it. I use it in the mornings while I'm getting ready in the bathroom. The acoustics in there are pretty solid.

My new nickname for Ellie is "the Terrorizer" (thank you, Will-Ferrell-as-Dubya for the inspiration)...she rallies around the house, screaming at the top of her lungs, chasing us from room to room. Terrorizing.

Boris is not as happy about the human puppy's swift moves as she is. He just sits there and stares at her, like he's not sure what to do. Terrorized.

I'm writing down my weight loss goal for posterity's sake, and also to motivate me: 15 lbs in 3 months. Boom.

We have no plans for Labor Day weekend and that is awesome. And because Ellie's daycare takes the Tuesday after LD off as an 'in-service' day, I get a 4-day weekend of NO PLANS! Maybe she and I will rally out to Tillamook that day.

No more teeth have appeared in the baby's mouf, but man, they've gotta be RIGHT THERE! I wish they'd just come out already. I think Ellie does too.

I kinda want to be Joan Harris (from Mad Men) for Halloween. I wonder if they sell non-cheesy MM character costumes online.

Also, as we rapidly approach fall, I'm considering going darker with my hair. I thought about blonde-izing it, but I think darker would be less work since it's already heading towards full-on auburn anyway.

Saw the cover art for Tay-Tay Swift's new album...could be better. A lot better.

NBA season starts in a couple of months. I'm excited...but I'm wondering how much fun Ellie will be at the games now that she's fully mobile. I have a feeling we'll be spending more time cruising the concourse than actually watching games.

I am totally intrigued by the new spin-pin thingy from Goody. I keep seeing the commercials and I really want to get a package of them to see if they work. I hate bobby pins.

PS: Here's my new Mad Men Yourself avatar. Not bad, eh? :)