May 2005 Archives

We had our first (and I'm sure not the last) experience with "Foreign Object in the Poop" this past weekend!

First, let me start by saying that Hannah is terrible for putting things in her mouth!!! They say all kids do it, but this is getting ridiculous! From ties on sweatpants to hair and eyeglasses... to ANYTHING at all she finds or can crawl to... from hand to mouth!!! I'm actually thinking about mittens for her teeny little hands!!!!!

Saturday, after lunch of green beans and fruit cup, the odor hits me ... stinky diaper!! I take Hannah up to the changing table for a fresh diaper. As I look down, I notice a florescent green color in the large pile of stuff and I think, "Hmmmm, the books all say poop can change colors drastically based on their intake." But this looks different... too bright and shiny. I grab a wet one and touch it... and lo and behold... it's a LITE BRITE peg!!!!

I called my sister (she's also my sitter) and ask her about it... she's upset and apologetic! Hannah must have found it somewhere on her floor and ate it. Now mind you, my sister has the cleanest house I've ever seen, so I know it was just bad luck.

I was a little worried that she might have eaten more, so I called the Pediatrician as a precaution. The pediatrician told me not to worry... she's seen children with many more items come out (coins, pins, nails and even a dentists drill bit). Just to keep an eye on her and call back if I was concerned.

Needless to say, all is fine and this is (I'm sure) the first of many great stories for the baby book! We'll be extra diligent in vacuuming and cleaning up, as will my sister, but if there's something little to be found and eaten, Hannah will find it! I don't know how long this hand-to-mouth thing lasts, but hopefully she passes this stage soon!!!!!

We've mentioned before how Sophie resists going down for a nap or at bedtime like a cat getting a bath, but I believe we've neglected to mention how her hands have a will of their own when she's asleep: in the middle of the night Sophie's hands strip the pacifier out of her mouth, pull her hair, claw at her face and find any way possible to make her cry.

To counter them we still swaddle her, but the hands are getting better and better at Houdini'ing their way free. Plus the blanket is ending up in worse and worse positions for them to wrestle with, around her neck and over her face.

She still has a cough from the bout with conjunctivitis, and hasn't slept more than an hour or two straight for going on two weeks now. Her daytime crying fits are worse since she's overtired most of the time, we're really hoping this isn't a new phase but just leftover from being sick!

Most of the houses in our neighborhood were built in 1999, and are just starting to show some signs of needing paint. (Our porch and decks were actually peeling pretty badly, and probably should have been painted last year at least.) Several neighbors had their house painted recently and advertised the painter they used, so we called the number on the board. It turned out to be someone who lives in the neighborhood, and after getting an estimate and checking out their work on the neighbors' houses we signed them up.

The late rain delayed them a bit, but we were still surprised at how quickly we got into the queue. Taping started on Tuesday, and all the windows were covered with plastic sheeting. During the day the interior had a great diffuse light, and for once we didn't feel like the whole neighborhood could see into our living room. It made me wish window technology had advanced to where you could flip a switch and turn a transparent pane into something like sanded plexiglass to get the same effect.

If surfaces like water can be used to display images, maybe someday all our windows can replace our tvs, and with enough computing horsepower the 'screensaver' could be a view of the Golden Gate from Pacific Heights, or of Lake Tahoe or Hawaii. Or maybe even licensed screensavers with views of Hobbiton or Tatooine. To completely suspend the illusion the 3D image would be correctly mapped around the house so that the view from each window is unique and accurate.

We love our house, but wish we had a view of something other than our neighbors' bedroom from our living room (Myrn's view of Lake Norman for instance, would be great!) The building trend in California at least doesn't seem to be putting more room between houses, so something like that would really make these crowded homes more bearable.

Our company celebrated its seventh year of business with a BBQ out at Angel Island State Park. Thanks to everyone made it happen, the food was excellent, the setting was beautiful and good fun apparently had by all!

I decided to head to E3 for one day as our game was going to be showing on the floor and seeing how this will hopefully be my first project that I have worked on start to finish, I really wanted to see it on the floor. My itinerary was pretty straight forward leave OAK at 9:35 am, depart Bob Hope airport at 7:10 pm. The show was open from 8 am to 4 pm so it seemed like I was planning it just right.

The night before I got Sophie to bed on time (around 9 pm) and crawled in for an early night. Now, I don't know if she could sense that I was leaving or was just starting to get her cold but she was up every hour throughout the night. I finally just stayed up around 5 am and started getting ready. The morning was pretty uneventful, not too much traffic on the way to the airport; flight was on time, got to the convention center just fine (and without a map Mr. Ching!). So I first stepped into the convention center around 11:20 am. So far 4 hours of travel time clocked.

The EA booth was directly in front of the door at the south hall and I met up with Dan and Marc who were showing the game to various press, fans and buyers. Dan gave me the thumbs up on the report so far and we congratulated each other on the good show. I continued on my way, viewing various other fighting games and some Narnia stuff.

The whole of my day was broken into a couple parts. 1) Meet up with other folks from NSI and give them status on our latest milestone. 2) Meet up with other friends and congratulate them on their show. and 3) Hunt down swag with Joe for Owen and Laney. Once all that was done, I had a nice margarita with Joe and Matt and headed out to the airport.

I met my Super Shuttle outside of the convention center at 4:50 and we had one pick up before heading to the airport. I pulled out my book and started reading... for an hour. The guy got so lost that I finally asked if he needed help with the map. It seemed as though he was just turning down random streets and then turning around. I started getting car sick we were turning around so much. I started getting stressed that I wasn't going to make my flight. It was almost 6 and we still hadn't found the address of the second pick up. Thankfully, he did find it and we were only about 10 minutes from the airport.

I checked in, everything seemed fine, ran into some people I knew from the show, then there were fire trucks and a police car on the runway. Apparently there was an indicator out on the plane and we would be delayed. To be honest, I don't know why the fire men or police were there for a light but ignorance is bliss and if they want to tell me it was a light that didn't turn on, I'll buy it as long as it gets fixed and I get home to see my husband and baby. I had a drink with my friends whose flight was due to depart an hour and 20 minutes after mine. I ended up finishing that drink alone as their flight left on time, while my plane was still sitting on the runway.

We finally take off, and I get to OAK at about 10:20 pm. So far 9.5 hours of travel time for the day. But at least I have a private shuttle home, right? Well it seems that everyone's flights were delayed so my shuttle that would usually take just me straight north, had 4 other passengers all going to various Marin locations, Larkspur Landing (not bad, close to the highway), Fairfax (I like Fairfax, but not at 11:30 pm) and finally Western Novato. Western Novato was where I started to lose it. We drove so far out that I was certain we were going to hit Pt. Reyes Station. To top it off, on our way back, the driver turns south and gets on the freeway 2 exits south of where he could have.

I just started crying, silently in the back seat. Was it honestly too much to ask to get home on time, to see my baby in her crib? I thought about screaming at the driver, but decided that wasn't in my usual character. So I struck up a conversation with him. He turned out to be a very nice Lebanese man who gave some great marital advice and loved life. I was so happy to have talked with him that it made me forgive him for the 10 extra minutes we spent driving south just to head north again.

All in all it came out to 12 hours of travel time and 5 hours at the show. Definitely not worth the effort or loss of precious sleep. But it was still fun to see the game; I just think I'll stay overnight next time.

Little did we know pink eye wasn't just an itchy, irritated eye with lots of discharge - apparently it can come with a cold and flu symptoms upgrade package, free of charge! The things you learn.

We took Sophie out of daycare after lunch today as these worsened, and she took advantage of the quiet at home (a solid hour and a half of sleep on her own plus an extra half hour with mom.)

She ejected the contents of her bottle immediately after eating this afternoon though, so we took her back in to the afterhours clinic this evening. The doctor said the good news was that she didn't also have an ear infection, and that this stuff just had to run its course.

Based on what we've read we're lucky that this was the first time she has really thrown up on us - the other times were just 'spit up', minor leaks compared to a full bottle's worth.

It seems like only yesterday she was seven, and asking Brandie if we were married (after noting we had both slept on the inflatable mattress in Sarah & Anthony's basement.) Now look at her! Happy Birthday Chris, hope you had a great one.

Today Sophie had her first non-cereal solid food, sweet potatoes. Brandie steamed and pureed a big one, then packaged it into servings for future dinners. Sophie didn't have any trouble getting it down (always a voracious eater!), but looked uncomfortable and cried a few times at the new taste and sensation. At lunch she didn't cry but seemed less interested in the sweet potatoes (it was more fun to watch Mom bake, and to blow potatoes at her), and didn't eat as much as at breakfast.

Last night we took Sophie to the afterhours pediatric care center at the hospital (about 45 minutes away), to get some prescription drops for pink eye. The daycare had posted a notice on Monday that all the kids had been exposed to conjunctivitis, and to be on the lookout for symptoms. Friday she woke up with an abnormal amount of crusty stuff in one eye, so we called the pediatrian but were told not to bring her in until it got red or puffy.

By Saturday evening it was both and she had developed a dry cough so we called the advice nurse and got an appointment to come in. The pediatrician on-call confirmed that she had pink eye and wrote out the prescription for the drops. As far as Saturday evening pediatric visits go it was pretty mild, but still not the relaxing evening we had hoped for.

The drops seemed to work right away, but of course she doesn't enjoy having them put in. The cough continued all night though, which kept waking her up. She's still coughing a bit today, and is somewhat mellow from the lack of sleep (it was actually her third night in a row of waking up every hour or so), but otherwise seems her usual cheery self.

I finally figured out how to automatically send out emails to a mailing list when we've updated the site. If you're interested in receiving a mail when there's a new post, let me know and I'll add you!

This weekend we passed an important milestone in parenting: the loaning out of rarely-used stuff to friends who are expecting. We cleared out some much-needed space in the loft, and just as quickly filled it up again with the rocking horse that had been displaced out of the dining room by the new high chair. Phew, crisis avoided.

We also tried out the bumper jumper for the first time this morning, to great results: Sophie was an instant pro, and really seems to love twirling herself around in it. Eula unexpectedly had no issues with the strange sight of Sophie, upright, suspended from the ceiling: she sniffed her, tried to lick her face and then splayed out her front paws and stuck her butt in the air in the "come play with me" pose. Then she rolled on the floor in front of bumper for a while, as if to further entertain the baby.

At nearly 5 and a half months, Sophie's still a very happy baby. Her favorite noise is sucking in her bottom lip and going "FOOO!" with a big exhale (she loves it when you look at the ceiling and do this with her.) She really loves being outside, and being under trees especially. She seems to fight sleep harder and harder every day so both naps and bedtime can be pretty rough, but she's also sleeping fairly consistently from 9pm until 5-6am most days so we can't complain too loudly.

Grammy drove down from Oregon to visit us for Mother's Day. We went out to brunch in Point Reyes Station rather than our original plan of hitting the Bovine Bakery for morning buns and heading out to Limantour, because we were getting a big rainstorm.

After brunch we came home and took a nap, then went out to the outlet mall to do some shopping in spite of the downpour. Afterwards we ordered a pizza and settled into our pajamas to watch The Incredibles. Grammy and Sophie took more naps, definitely a great day for it.

It seems very late in the season to be getting such wintery weather, usually the hills are starting to dry up by now. We're not complaining though, pretty soon we'll be wishing for a nice rainy day like this one to stay inside and watch movies!

Thanks again for coming to see us, Grammy!

That's him there in the foreground looking bewildered: a big Montrose wrestling shout out to Danny R, who turns 32 today! We miss you, big guy - hope you're enjoying your big day!

We finally saw Sophie roll over this weekend. She had been going to her side and then getting stuck before but we saw the real deal. Jake saw her do it on Friday while she was playing on the floor. THen on Saturday morning I set her on the bed and turned around for 2 seconds and when I looked back at her she was on her tummy pushed up and looking around.

Over the weekend we saw her roll to her tummy probably 20 times. She seems to dig it. She also made it from her back to tummy and then back to her back a couple times which seemed to really confuse her. "How did I get here?"

She is such a blast to be around. I love watching all of her new milestones.