So I picked up Keegan from daycare yesterday, and the teacher said he had a good day, and praised how smart he was, because he has started talking up a storm. The teacher mentioned that Keegan was saying "done" (which he does a lot at home when done eating!!) and "duck", something he has not done at home. So I was wondering what else he has been saying when we turn our backs..... Anyway Keegan has been saying hi for quite a while, and sometimes does "kitty". To that list he has started saying "bye", and as Karissa mentioned dog is coming along too. Man it is amazing to think just a couple weeks ago we were lucky if he would say hi. Now the the vocabulary is growing much faster than I expected. I mean I know most kids start talking right around a year or a little earlier, but I have never really thought about it until it was my own son that was starting to talk. Of course that means soon he probably won't ever be quiet... hopefully that doesn't happen on the plane........
To finish up the story, I dropped Keegan off at daycare this morning, and talked to a different teacher who mentioned that he and two other kids were walking around all day yesterday saying "duck". I knew one of the other kids and Keegan were talking to each other before as Karissa walked in when the two of them just kept saying "hi" to one another and then smiling. If only the video camera had been there for that.
Speaking of the video camera, I feel bad because I haven't been getting the video camera out much lately. Actually I still have to convert the video from Christmas, and Keegans 1 year birthday. I feel like I am so far behind, but I guess that is the way it goes when you have a little one in the house.
Ok now kind of a sad story... not sad as in boo hoo, but sad as in we are sad people. Keegan got a belated present from some friends who came over for D&D on Sunday. It is a worm that has all the letters of the alphabet on it. If you turn a switch in the front, it will switch from saying the letter to sounding it out phonetically or telling you what color the foot is etc. We had seen this toy over at some other friends house and had played with it for a while because it was kind of funny. Of course the first thing that I do is try to sound something out phonetically that would make a naughty word. Don't ask me why, I just had to do it. There is some part of my inner kid that said I just had to do it. Of course I justified it by saying I want to make sure there is a safety on the toy, but in reality I am sure I am just a sick kid. Well to make a long story short, there are some words that when you sound them out it will not let you it will giggle and say that tickles. At least that is the way that our friends worm works... Well ours on the other hand, does it kind of the same way, it will let you get half way through and then giggle and say that tickles, but then it still pronounces the letter.
So what was the point of putting the safety in there if you are still going to pronounce it? I just don't really get it. Of course they also did not get all the words ;). It made me wonder if kids will start to try combinations to find out what words are restricted so they actually know which words are prohibited? I know when I was a kid I would spend hours doing something I wasn't suppose to do just because I wasn't suppose to do it. All kids spend time like that. I don't think they do it to be mean, they just want to know why they are not suppose to do a thing. Well I guess I will just have to watch Keegan with this toy to make sure that he doesn't spend hours and hours doing what I would have done as a kid :). Not that I will be able to stop him anyway, so in reality it probably won't matter in the long run.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Getting ready...
So as Lyle mentioned, I've been getting us ready for this week trip to Florida for what seems like a long time now. Maybe it's silly to be stressed about it. But this is the first time Keegan is flying and I want to make sure it's a good experience for him, for us, and for everyone on the plane with us!
Little does Lyle know; I have packed many times in my head already. Trying to figure out what we need, what we can buy when we get there and where things will go. I've got it all planned out. Keegan will have a diaper bag. I will have a backpack with toys for him and a couple books for me. Lyle will have the bag with all the electronics stuff. We'll also have Keegan's carseat; that's just the carry-on items!
We'll need two big suitcases and probably one small one. Keegan's clothing is already packed, my clothing is already packed. I am going to pack his toys and dishes, snacks, water toys, portable bed, and portable booster seat tonight.
These trips always encompass so much more than just the packing. For instance Ruby is going to be kenneled. So I need to pack up food for her, treats for her, toys for her, her dog bed, and anything else I can think of to make her more comfortable while we are gone.
Next we have to get the cats set up. So we need to make sure all the nails are cut, water put out, that we have enough food. Etc, etc.
Then I have to stop the mail. So that it doesn't sit in the box forever.
I am normally a nervous traveler anyway. Even a routine trip out to the manufacturing plant in Oregon gets me in a bit of tizzy. Of course when I was going out every other month I just never unpacked my travel stuff. But traveling with Keegan just makes me nervous.
The thing I am most concerned about is something that I can't do anything about. Keegan is just getting over an ear infection. Unless he re-developes a fever I won't know if he has an ear infection, if he's gotten over it, or if he is getting another one. I know it really hurts to fly with an ear infection. So, I am crossing my fingers and hoping that he will be okay. I really just don't want him to be hurting while we are flying.
I guess the next thing that worries me is getting delayed. We'll have enough stuff in the diaper bag to probably survive with Keegan 12 hours. Since it's a direct flight I am sure we won't have trouble. But you never know! When you travel there are just *so* many unknowns.
I also really don't want to bother the people around us. Traveling, especially for business, can be harrowing. I know. I've been the person next to the lady with the 15 month old who crawls all over me for 3 hours. I've been the person next to the 2 year that throws pop into my lap. I've been the person sitting in front of a baby the cries the whole flight. To be completely honest, I have probably audibly groaned in misery to find out I am sitting next to someone with a toddler. It's not that I don't feel for the parent. It's more that when you are taking a 5am flight out after a week of working 20 hr days and you feel like crap and have a headache the last thing you want is to be pestered and cried at. A little harsh I suppose, but I understand, and I don't want to cause anyone abject misery on their flight to where-ever. That's part of the reason we got Keegan his own seat on the plane.
Oh, and I am also nervous about getting the carseat, carry-ons, and Keegan through security. I don't know why but security always makes me nervous. I always let out a huge sigh of relief once I am checked in, through security, and to the gate.
I do realize that I get crazy about this stuff. I am trying to calm down about it. What works to calm me down is to think of the worst case scenario. So, we miss our flight. Well, then we catch the next one or we go back home. So, Keegan screams for 3 hours on the flight (my absolute worst fear). Lyle and I will sweat it out, try to comfort him, and hope no one goes postal on us. So, his carseat doesn't fit in the airplane, then we gatecheck it. So, Keegan has blowout diarrhea. Then we'll change his cloths and stink out the place for a bit. Seriously I think the plane crashing is probably not in my top 10 for travel worries.
Ah, well, have I made you all tense yet?! And to think last year I was seriously considering taking Keegan to Japan. Good lord, we are just going to Florida, I can't imagine how I would be if we were traveling to a country where I couldn't speak the language.
Anyway, one a more interesting note. Keegan has learned how to curdle yogurt. On Saturday night at Chile's I was feeding Keegan some yogurt. When the waitress brought the drinks (mine was a water with lemon) Keegan saw the lemon and wanted it. For some reason Keegan loves lemons. He loves to suck on them and then make horrible yucky faces about how awful they taste. I think part of why he does it is because it makes us all laugh. When he threw the lemon on the floor and looked at me he had curdled all the yogurt over his chin. Ewww...
Keegan is also trying very hard to say "doggy". He points at Ruby and says "dawga". He'll get it soon enough.
This Thursday at daycare they are having a 50's dance. So Keegan is supposed to wear a white t-shirt and jeans. Would you believe that Keegan does not own a white t-shirt? Guess we are just not white t-shirt types. So, as if I am not stressed enough, I had to run out and get Keegan a white t-shirt lest he be an outcast at daycare. Ah, well life is interesting.
I am really looking forward to the warm weather though. Anything about 40oF is going to feel like Nirvana.
Little does Lyle know; I have packed many times in my head already. Trying to figure out what we need, what we can buy when we get there and where things will go. I've got it all planned out. Keegan will have a diaper bag. I will have a backpack with toys for him and a couple books for me. Lyle will have the bag with all the electronics stuff. We'll also have Keegan's carseat; that's just the carry-on items!
We'll need two big suitcases and probably one small one. Keegan's clothing is already packed, my clothing is already packed. I am going to pack his toys and dishes, snacks, water toys, portable bed, and portable booster seat tonight.
These trips always encompass so much more than just the packing. For instance Ruby is going to be kenneled. So I need to pack up food for her, treats for her, toys for her, her dog bed, and anything else I can think of to make her more comfortable while we are gone.
Next we have to get the cats set up. So we need to make sure all the nails are cut, water put out, that we have enough food. Etc, etc.
Then I have to stop the mail. So that it doesn't sit in the box forever.
I am normally a nervous traveler anyway. Even a routine trip out to the manufacturing plant in Oregon gets me in a bit of tizzy. Of course when I was going out every other month I just never unpacked my travel stuff. But traveling with Keegan just makes me nervous.
The thing I am most concerned about is something that I can't do anything about. Keegan is just getting over an ear infection. Unless he re-developes a fever I won't know if he has an ear infection, if he's gotten over it, or if he is getting another one. I know it really hurts to fly with an ear infection. So, I am crossing my fingers and hoping that he will be okay. I really just don't want him to be hurting while we are flying.
I guess the next thing that worries me is getting delayed. We'll have enough stuff in the diaper bag to probably survive with Keegan 12 hours. Since it's a direct flight I am sure we won't have trouble. But you never know! When you travel there are just *so* many unknowns.
I also really don't want to bother the people around us. Traveling, especially for business, can be harrowing. I know. I've been the person next to the lady with the 15 month old who crawls all over me for 3 hours. I've been the person next to the 2 year that throws pop into my lap. I've been the person sitting in front of a baby the cries the whole flight. To be completely honest, I have probably audibly groaned in misery to find out I am sitting next to someone with a toddler. It's not that I don't feel for the parent. It's more that when you are taking a 5am flight out after a week of working 20 hr days and you feel like crap and have a headache the last thing you want is to be pestered and cried at. A little harsh I suppose, but I understand, and I don't want to cause anyone abject misery on their flight to where-ever. That's part of the reason we got Keegan his own seat on the plane.
Oh, and I am also nervous about getting the carseat, carry-ons, and Keegan through security. I don't know why but security always makes me nervous. I always let out a huge sigh of relief once I am checked in, through security, and to the gate.
I do realize that I get crazy about this stuff. I am trying to calm down about it. What works to calm me down is to think of the worst case scenario. So, we miss our flight. Well, then we catch the next one or we go back home. So, Keegan screams for 3 hours on the flight (my absolute worst fear). Lyle and I will sweat it out, try to comfort him, and hope no one goes postal on us. So, his carseat doesn't fit in the airplane, then we gatecheck it. So, Keegan has blowout diarrhea. Then we'll change his cloths and stink out the place for a bit. Seriously I think the plane crashing is probably not in my top 10 for travel worries.
Ah, well, have I made you all tense yet?! And to think last year I was seriously considering taking Keegan to Japan. Good lord, we are just going to Florida, I can't imagine how I would be if we were traveling to a country where I couldn't speak the language.
Anyway, one a more interesting note. Keegan has learned how to curdle yogurt. On Saturday night at Chile's I was feeding Keegan some yogurt. When the waitress brought the drinks (mine was a water with lemon) Keegan saw the lemon and wanted it. For some reason Keegan loves lemons. He loves to suck on them and then make horrible yucky faces about how awful they taste. I think part of why he does it is because it makes us all laugh. When he threw the lemon on the floor and looked at me he had curdled all the yogurt over his chin. Ewww...
Keegan is also trying very hard to say "doggy". He points at Ruby and says "dawga". He'll get it soon enough.
This Thursday at daycare they are having a 50's dance. So Keegan is supposed to wear a white t-shirt and jeans. Would you believe that Keegan does not own a white t-shirt? Guess we are just not white t-shirt types. So, as if I am not stressed enough, I had to run out and get Keegan a white t-shirt lest he be an outcast at daycare. Ah, well life is interesting.
I am really looking forward to the warm weather though. Anything about 40oF is going to feel like Nirvana.
Hey look I have a nose... and my finger fits pretty well!!
I assume that must have been what was going through Keegans mind over the past few days, as he now finds it interesting to stick his finger up his nose and see what is up there. I don't think that he has gotten his finger up far enough to pick at his brain, but you never know :). Really we have been leaving him to it for the most part, there isn't a whole lot we can do since telling him "no" seems to make him want to do that thing more.... like the water bowl that he constantly wants to play with in the worst way. I put his arm down if I am holding him and he decides to do it, but I don't say anything. So hopefully no permanent brain damage will come out of it, and we can get him to stop that when he gets a little older and finds out that picking your nose in public is frowned upon.
Other than that, things are going pretty well, other than Karissa being a bit stressed out over taking Keegan on a plane, and traveling with him in general. You would have thought we were leaving last week based on Karissa's nerves :). On the other hand, she started packing stuff up last night, and thinking back on it, I think that she is late compared to other trips we have packed for. Usually she is packed and ready to go two weeks before we are even thinking about leaving. Of course over the rest of the week she will be packing and repacking, and double checking that everything is there. Overall I am glad that she does it since it would be a pain to do myself :)...... actually I just would pack once, and hope that I got everything I needed. I guess that is the biggest difference between the two of us when it comes to packing.
Either way Florida better start getting ready, cause we are coming soon to raise heck! It really is our way everywhere we go now that Keegan is in tow. I hope that the restaurants there have good vacuums and mops! Needless to say we will be taking lots of pictures... you can tell by visiting our pictures site, which probably has a thousand or so pictures by now. Sadly that isn't even all of the pictures in our collection, those are just most of the pictures we have taken in the last two years.
Speaking of lots of pictures, I was musing the fact that Keegan will have sooooooo many more pictures than I have of myself as a baby. I have a sum total of 1 picture from before I started elementary school. So I can only imagine that it will be very different for Keegan who will have hundreds if not thousands of pictures by the time he reaches school age. As a matter of fact they were talking on the radio about the first child getting a lot more pictures, and scrap books etc, and the children that come later basically get nothing by comparison. I know that parents just get busy, and probably don't have the time to work on that kind of thing as well as they did with the first child. But you have to assume it also becomes a been there done that kind of attitude that also starts to degrade the picture taking and time spent scrapping for the later kids. I guess it make sense, but I would think it makes the later children feel less appreciated. Gee there must be some other advantages to being a later kid...... ;)
Other than that, things are going pretty well, other than Karissa being a bit stressed out over taking Keegan on a plane, and traveling with him in general. You would have thought we were leaving last week based on Karissa's nerves :). On the other hand, she started packing stuff up last night, and thinking back on it, I think that she is late compared to other trips we have packed for. Usually she is packed and ready to go two weeks before we are even thinking about leaving. Of course over the rest of the week she will be packing and repacking, and double checking that everything is there. Overall I am glad that she does it since it would be a pain to do myself :)...... actually I just would pack once, and hope that I got everything I needed. I guess that is the biggest difference between the two of us when it comes to packing.
Either way Florida better start getting ready, cause we are coming soon to raise heck! It really is our way everywhere we go now that Keegan is in tow. I hope that the restaurants there have good vacuums and mops! Needless to say we will be taking lots of pictures... you can tell by visiting our pictures site, which probably has a thousand or so pictures by now. Sadly that isn't even all of the pictures in our collection, those are just most of the pictures we have taken in the last two years.
Speaking of lots of pictures, I was musing the fact that Keegan will have sooooooo many more pictures than I have of myself as a baby. I have a sum total of 1 picture from before I started elementary school. So I can only imagine that it will be very different for Keegan who will have hundreds if not thousands of pictures by the time he reaches school age. As a matter of fact they were talking on the radio about the first child getting a lot more pictures, and scrap books etc, and the children that come later basically get nothing by comparison. I know that parents just get busy, and probably don't have the time to work on that kind of thing as well as they did with the first child. But you have to assume it also becomes a been there done that kind of attitude that also starts to degrade the picture taking and time spent scrapping for the later kids. I guess it make sense, but I would think it makes the later children feel less appreciated. Gee there must be some other advantages to being a later kid...... ;)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What a sick baby...
So Keegan was diagnosed with an ear infection a couple weeks ago. He was put on antibiotics and he seemed to be getting better.
Then Monday night he had a fever of 102.5oF. We gave him some Motrin and put him to bed. On Tuesday morning he seemed okay. He was at my mom's on Tuesday and had a slight fever (99oF) but was very needy. Keegan needed my mom to hold him constantly.
As has been the case constantly things were crazy yesterday. Lyle and I had to stop by the accountant's office after work to get our Eckert Consulting and individual taxes done. My mom called in the middle of the meeting to let us know that we could stay for dinner when we came to pick Keegan up. So thankfully, we didn't have to make dinner. Keegan was needy the whole night. By the whole night I mean from 5pm to 5am.
The whole night he would sleep for about half an hour and then wake up screaming. The only thing that stopped him screaming was for one of us to hold him and rock him. After about half an hour of rocking, he would sleep for maybe an hour and then we would start the screaming, rocking, sleeping cycle all over again.
I was really worried his ear infection was back; so I told Lyle we needed to get him into the doctor Wednesday morning so that we could get him diagnosed ASAP. If he has an ear infection it has *got* to be cleared up by next Friday. We leave for Florida next Friday and I don't want Keegan's first flight to be with an ear infection.
Unfortunately I started an experiment Tuesday afternoon and I absolutely had to come into work Wednesday morning to complete it. I couldn't delay it because they are taking my coater down for calibration on Thursday and Friday; so I just had to get this stuff done today. So I asked Lyle if he could take Keegan into the doctor. Lyle complained about how he had a lot to do in the last month of his contract and how he wouldn't get paid for the time. I was like, come on here, I have taken this kid in for every doctor's appt he's ever had and I have stayed home with him every time he has been sick (excepting one occasion when he got sick while I was out in Oregon). No one knows better than I that you will not be getting paid for being at home.
So we came up with a compromise. I would go into work early (6am) and get my experiment done; aiming to be home by 10:30am so that Lyle could leave for work. I called daycare to let them know Keegan wouldn't be in at 6:30am and at 7:30am Lyle called the doctor's office. The earliest they could get Keegan in was 10am. So Lyle had to sit around waiting to go to Keegan's appointment until 10am. We had kind of been hoping he could get in for an appointment at like 8am, and that Keegan would be okay and Lyle could drop him off at daycare and go to work.
Well that would not be the case. Lyle called around 10:45am to say that the doctor said Keegan's ears are fine. His throat is red though so they did a swab for strep throat. The doctor concluded that Keegan had....a virus! Wow, what a surprise there. Apparently the doctor said Keegan was sick, but that he had probably picked this up at daycare so there wasn't any reason we should keep him home from daycare. So Lyle dropped Keegan off at daycare and went to work. I ended up being able to stay at work; which is nice.
Keegan doesn't have an ear infection which is even nicer. Hopefully he will sleep some tonight.
To top off the day we just had an emergency meeting; in which I learned that our plant run has been canceled. So all of the work we busted our butts to get done last week was for not. In fact we don't have any budget to coat at the plant until the second quarter. This makes me nervous because every program I have been on that has gotten canceled started with management saying "Oh, well, we need to cancel this plant run to save money." Then within a month or two the program was completely shut down.
Oh, well hopefully at least our trip to Florida will work out well. I pray to the gods of health and illness to keep us healthy and drive away all evil ear infections and other illnesses, at least until we get back from our vacation! I try to be grateful that we haven't ended up in the hospital for any really severe illnesses as of yet.
Then Monday night he had a fever of 102.5oF. We gave him some Motrin and put him to bed. On Tuesday morning he seemed okay. He was at my mom's on Tuesday and had a slight fever (99oF) but was very needy. Keegan needed my mom to hold him constantly.
As has been the case constantly things were crazy yesterday. Lyle and I had to stop by the accountant's office after work to get our Eckert Consulting and individual taxes done. My mom called in the middle of the meeting to let us know that we could stay for dinner when we came to pick Keegan up. So thankfully, we didn't have to make dinner. Keegan was needy the whole night. By the whole night I mean from 5pm to 5am.
The whole night he would sleep for about half an hour and then wake up screaming. The only thing that stopped him screaming was for one of us to hold him and rock him. After about half an hour of rocking, he would sleep for maybe an hour and then we would start the screaming, rocking, sleeping cycle all over again.
I was really worried his ear infection was back; so I told Lyle we needed to get him into the doctor Wednesday morning so that we could get him diagnosed ASAP. If he has an ear infection it has *got* to be cleared up by next Friday. We leave for Florida next Friday and I don't want Keegan's first flight to be with an ear infection.
Unfortunately I started an experiment Tuesday afternoon and I absolutely had to come into work Wednesday morning to complete it. I couldn't delay it because they are taking my coater down for calibration on Thursday and Friday; so I just had to get this stuff done today. So I asked Lyle if he could take Keegan into the doctor. Lyle complained about how he had a lot to do in the last month of his contract and how he wouldn't get paid for the time. I was like, come on here, I have taken this kid in for every doctor's appt he's ever had and I have stayed home with him every time he has been sick (excepting one occasion when he got sick while I was out in Oregon). No one knows better than I that you will not be getting paid for being at home.
So we came up with a compromise. I would go into work early (6am) and get my experiment done; aiming to be home by 10:30am so that Lyle could leave for work. I called daycare to let them know Keegan wouldn't be in at 6:30am and at 7:30am Lyle called the doctor's office. The earliest they could get Keegan in was 10am. So Lyle had to sit around waiting to go to Keegan's appointment until 10am. We had kind of been hoping he could get in for an appointment at like 8am, and that Keegan would be okay and Lyle could drop him off at daycare and go to work.
Well that would not be the case. Lyle called around 10:45am to say that the doctor said Keegan's ears are fine. His throat is red though so they did a swab for strep throat. The doctor concluded that Keegan had....a virus! Wow, what a surprise there. Apparently the doctor said Keegan was sick, but that he had probably picked this up at daycare so there wasn't any reason we should keep him home from daycare. So Lyle dropped Keegan off at daycare and went to work. I ended up being able to stay at work; which is nice.
Keegan doesn't have an ear infection which is even nicer. Hopefully he will sleep some tonight.
To top off the day we just had an emergency meeting; in which I learned that our plant run has been canceled. So all of the work we busted our butts to get done last week was for not. In fact we don't have any budget to coat at the plant until the second quarter. This makes me nervous because every program I have been on that has gotten canceled started with management saying "Oh, well, we need to cancel this plant run to save money." Then within a month or two the program was completely shut down.
Oh, well hopefully at least our trip to Florida will work out well. I pray to the gods of health and illness to keep us healthy and drive away all evil ear infections and other illnesses, at least until we get back from our vacation! I try to be grateful that we haven't ended up in the hospital for any really severe illnesses as of yet.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
And he winds up his arm for a fantastic pitch...
So I am being out-blogged by Lyle here. Although I guess blogging isn't traditionally a contest. I am sure I could make it one; just ask Lyle, I make everything a contest :-)
Keegan has been doing a couple fun new things. He recently figured out how to throw. He throws with pretty darn good accuracy. It started with throwing food; which was not popular with me or Lyle. It has now progressed to throwing other objects. Mostly throwing little plastic balls at...the cats. He loves throwing things at the cats because then they will chase the balls around and Keegan thinks this is hilarious. Unfortunately Keegan has developed deadly accuracy and more than one of the kitties was thunked on the head by a plastic ball last night. Jubei could care less, and Seras thinks it is all in good fun, but Loki was not amused. Loki keeps his distance from Keegan and was not thrilled to find out that Keegan now has a six foot reach.
My mom told me Keegan spent today bouncing plastic balls off of the dogs at her house. I guess it is good he's developing new skills, but oh the poor animals. The only good part about this is Keegan thinks that every small object should be thrown into a box. This comes in really useful for picking up toys. He put most of his toys away (kind of) by himself last night.
There were a couple other things that Keegan did yesterday that were funny. The first one was of questionable intelligence. Keegan toddled over to Ruby's (empty) dog bowl, got on his hands and knees, stuck his head in the dog bowl, and proceeded to lick the bottom of Ruby's bowl. It took me a couple seconds to figure out what he was going to do. I had a little trouble getting over to him fast enough because I was laughing so hard. Keegan looked up from the dog bowl with a "yucky" look on his face. Apparently he didn't find Ruby's dog bowl residue as yummy as Ruby finds it. All I can think to say is Eeeewwww!!!!
After the dog bowl licking. Keegan grabbed Ruby's bone and very nicely brought it over to Ruby and tried to stick it in her mouth. Ruby gave me a withering look that said "I don't really want my bone right now," but she took it from him and that made Keegan very happy.
Next it was over to mom's purse where he dug out my cell phone. He accidentally hit send and called Lyle. My phone was really low on battery so I saw it die before the call went through. I thought well, since it's dead it probably won't hurt to let him have it. Keegan put the phone up to his ear and proceeded to walk around the house, going "dat, dat, blah, ma" etc. into the phone. Guess he learned something from us about cell phones already. He got to keep the phone until he went over to the dog bowl of water and held the phone over it. Then the phone went "bye bye" and out of Keegan's reach.
All this happened in the first 30 minutes we were home; so you can imagine what the rest of the night was like.
As for Keegan's birthday; everything went well. The big birthday party we had for him went great considering how sick I was for it. I had the flu and was really sick all Saturday morning. But my parents came over to help Lyle get stuff set up. I sat in a chair and tried not to puke, and all was well. Keegan got some cheetos and ate his birthday cupcake with great gusto. It was wonderful to have everyone over and I was really bummed that I was so sick!
We are all still fighting colds right now but hopefully we will be better by the time we go on our trip to Florida.
Lyle and I got Keegan a car that he can ride in while we push. He loves it. I really didn't think he would be that excited about it. We got it so he could ride in there when we go on walks come this spring. We got that car out and he climbed in it in no time. He thinks getting pushed around the house in that car is just awesome. He also likes the hood it has; in the front there is a little spot where he can lift the hood up and stick things in there. I shudder to think what we might find under the hood as he gets older and the car goes outside. Keegan's been having a great time with all the other presents people got him too!
Anyway, that's probably enough of an update for now! Hope that everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!
Keegan has been doing a couple fun new things. He recently figured out how to throw. He throws with pretty darn good accuracy. It started with throwing food; which was not popular with me or Lyle. It has now progressed to throwing other objects. Mostly throwing little plastic balls at...the cats. He loves throwing things at the cats because then they will chase the balls around and Keegan thinks this is hilarious. Unfortunately Keegan has developed deadly accuracy and more than one of the kitties was thunked on the head by a plastic ball last night. Jubei could care less, and Seras thinks it is all in good fun, but Loki was not amused. Loki keeps his distance from Keegan and was not thrilled to find out that Keegan now has a six foot reach.
My mom told me Keegan spent today bouncing plastic balls off of the dogs at her house. I guess it is good he's developing new skills, but oh the poor animals. The only good part about this is Keegan thinks that every small object should be thrown into a box. This comes in really useful for picking up toys. He put most of his toys away (kind of) by himself last night.
There were a couple other things that Keegan did yesterday that were funny. The first one was of questionable intelligence. Keegan toddled over to Ruby's (empty) dog bowl, got on his hands and knees, stuck his head in the dog bowl, and proceeded to lick the bottom of Ruby's bowl. It took me a couple seconds to figure out what he was going to do. I had a little trouble getting over to him fast enough because I was laughing so hard. Keegan looked up from the dog bowl with a "yucky" look on his face. Apparently he didn't find Ruby's dog bowl residue as yummy as Ruby finds it. All I can think to say is Eeeewwww!!!!
After the dog bowl licking. Keegan grabbed Ruby's bone and very nicely brought it over to Ruby and tried to stick it in her mouth. Ruby gave me a withering look that said "I don't really want my bone right now," but she took it from him and that made Keegan very happy.
Next it was over to mom's purse where he dug out my cell phone. He accidentally hit send and called Lyle. My phone was really low on battery so I saw it die before the call went through. I thought well, since it's dead it probably won't hurt to let him have it. Keegan put the phone up to his ear and proceeded to walk around the house, going "dat, dat, blah, ma" etc. into the phone. Guess he learned something from us about cell phones already. He got to keep the phone until he went over to the dog bowl of water and held the phone over it. Then the phone went "bye bye" and out of Keegan's reach.
All this happened in the first 30 minutes we were home; so you can imagine what the rest of the night was like.
As for Keegan's birthday; everything went well. The big birthday party we had for him went great considering how sick I was for it. I had the flu and was really sick all Saturday morning. But my parents came over to help Lyle get stuff set up. I sat in a chair and tried not to puke, and all was well. Keegan got some cheetos and ate his birthday cupcake with great gusto. It was wonderful to have everyone over and I was really bummed that I was so sick!
We are all still fighting colds right now but hopefully we will be better by the time we go on our trip to Florida.
Lyle and I got Keegan a car that he can ride in while we push. He loves it. I really didn't think he would be that excited about it. We got it so he could ride in there when we go on walks come this spring. We got that car out and he climbed in it in no time. He thinks getting pushed around the house in that car is just awesome. He also likes the hood it has; in the front there is a little spot where he can lift the hood up and stick things in there. I shudder to think what we might find under the hood as he gets older and the car goes outside. Keegan's been having a great time with all the other presents people got him too!
Anyway, that's probably enough of an update for now! Hope that everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!
Happy Valentine's day
Hope that you all are having a good romantic Valentine's Day. Not much really going on along the home front for Valentine's day, just going to hang out and have a good time. Keegan did his Valentine's stuff for daycare yesterday, and gave his teachers a home made card, that he worked on with a little help. So there is a little crayon on there, and some finger paints that basically did stain him even if they said they wouldn't . Though after a couple of days of blue hands and a blue mark on his forehead, the paint did come off! Anyway the teachers thought their card from him was "age appropriate" as I was told. So I guess he is acting his age ;).
Anyway have fun other there tonight!
Anyway have fun other there tonight!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Thank you one and all
Thanks to everyone who came to Keegan's party over the weekend. That is right Keegan turned 1 last Wednesday (Happy B-Day buddy if you ever read this). Anyway we had his party on Saturday, and he seemed to have a pretty good time. Keegan got some nice gifts, and played with them a fair amount yesterday since we were not going anywhere because of the cold. He did get a couple of presents on his birthday too, and has been having fun with those as well. The toy that we bought for him is a large car looking thing that has a handle coming up the back to push him around in. We actually bought that for when the weather gets warmer and we can take him outside on walks in that instead of his stroller. I think he will like that better. Keegan has been playing in it since he opened the box, and loves it. The only problem is that Karissa and I have to expend a lot more energy pushing him around in that then he does ;).
Other than that the weekend was kind of a downer. Karissa and I are both sick, and Keegan has an ear infection, so it wasn't an especially happy weekend around our house. Actually being at work today I still feel quite ill, and Karissa stayed home.
Ok, so the other thing of note is that Keegan had his one year appointment on Thursday. Keegan got a couple of shots. The doctor said he was doing good for height and weight (23lbs & 29"). Dr. Kuku said she was happy to see he still has a little pot belly going on, cause that means he is still eating well. I can really attest to that most of the time, though some days he doesn't eat much. I have read that a child will self-regulate their eating, and I think for the most part we have been adhering to what Keegan wants to do for eating. Though Karissa goes overboard sometimes when he hasn't eaten very well for a day or two in a row.
So there you have it, Keegan's 1 year update! Hope you all are doing good out there! Next on our list is our trip to Florida! We are looking forward to that.
Other than that the weekend was kind of a downer. Karissa and I are both sick, and Keegan has an ear infection, so it wasn't an especially happy weekend around our house. Actually being at work today I still feel quite ill, and Karissa stayed home.
Ok, so the other thing of note is that Keegan had his one year appointment on Thursday. Keegan got a couple of shots. The doctor said he was doing good for height and weight (23lbs & 29"). Dr. Kuku said she was happy to see he still has a little pot belly going on, cause that means he is still eating well. I can really attest to that most of the time, though some days he doesn't eat much. I have read that a child will self-regulate their eating, and I think for the most part we have been adhering to what Keegan wants to do for eating. Though Karissa goes overboard sometimes when he hasn't eaten very well for a day or two in a row.
So there you have it, Keegan's 1 year update! Hope you all are doing good out there! Next on our list is our trip to Florida! We are looking forward to that.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Thou shall not use baby shampoo....
Don't know if anyone else actually went to read the articles that Karissa posted on her Monday blog, but the second one had an interesting one liner.
I thought that was pretty funny since I guess we don't have a choice as parents to make our own decisions as to what we want to do with our own children ;). Anyway, there is your funny for the day!
As for other things, well Karissa pointed out most of the interesting stuff in her post about how Keegan is doing. Though we got him on film last night laughing so much when Karissa and him were playing with the tunnel we picked up at Ikea. He was giggling for a good 10 minutes or so, which is always so funny it makes you giggle. Anyway tomorrow is Keegan's first birthday, so I am sure he is looking forward to that.... though I suppose he might not actually notice. We did wrap his present last night though, and that was kind of funny since we didn't actually have enough of the same paper to wrap his whole present. So he has two different wrapping papers on there. It also has a very big bow. I would tell you all what the present is, but I wouldn't want you to spoil the surprise for him.
Lastly, the pictures have been updated. January pictures were finished uploading last night, so you can see his new haircut, and Kim and Roberto while they were here. Sorry we didn't get that many pictures, for some reason the camera seemed to be hiding every time I was thinking of taking pictures.
In addition, parents shall seek products labeled “phthalate-free” to be sure their babies are safe.
I thought that was pretty funny since I guess we don't have a choice as parents to make our own decisions as to what we want to do with our own children ;). Anyway, there is your funny for the day!
As for other things, well Karissa pointed out most of the interesting stuff in her post about how Keegan is doing. Though we got him on film last night laughing so much when Karissa and him were playing with the tunnel we picked up at Ikea. He was giggling for a good 10 minutes or so, which is always so funny it makes you giggle. Anyway tomorrow is Keegan's first birthday, so I am sure he is looking forward to that.... though I suppose he might not actually notice. We did wrap his present last night though, and that was kind of funny since we didn't actually have enough of the same paper to wrap his whole present. So he has two different wrapping papers on there. It also has a very big bow. I would tell you all what the present is, but I wouldn't want you to spoil the surprise for him.
Lastly, the pictures have been updated. January pictures were finished uploading last night, so you can see his new haircut, and Kim and Roberto while they were here. Sorry we didn't get that many pictures, for some reason the camera seemed to be hiding every time I was thinking of taking pictures.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Strange how things work out...
This morning while reading through the morning headlines there were two that caught my eye:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22979800/
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Chemicals_in_Baby_Products_Linked_to_Possible_Hormonal_Problems_13562.html
Weird how these things pop up just when you are thinking about them.
Anyway, all that aside. Keegan had his 12 month pictures on Sunday. They went really well. We took him to Proex this time. It was the best place we have gone to have pictures so far. They didn't make us wait when we got there, they offered to do multiple backgrounds, the photographer was energetic and did a good job making Keegan smile, and they had nice props. We still had to pick the pictures out right away but the really nice thing is that all of his pictures will be ready by Wednesday (not in 2 weeks). We paid less for the pictures there than we did at Sears and we got a DVD of pictures, a photobook of the proofs, and the big picture comes framed. All in all it was much nicer than Sears or JC Penny and cheaper!
Keegan, of course, was wonderful about the whole thing. Even though he was kind of tired he smiled like a champ for the camera.
Keegan has a few new tricks now. He likes to run up to you, smile, and say "hi". He also likes to point at things. He points at things and says, "dat" and I tell him what it is. It is kind of funny because he will point back and forth between a couple things and watch me. It seems like he is trying to figure out if I call it the object the same thing every time he points at it. Sometimes I think he is way smarter than we give him credit for.
He's been trying to jump too. Can't quite get both feet off the ground, but he tries. He also made a big breakthrough with crayons on Saturday night. We went over to Chianti Grill on Saturday night to eat dinner with my parents. The waiter brought out a big piece of paper to cover the table cloth so that Keegan could color. Keegan didn't know what to do with the crayons. So mom and I showed him. He looked at us and then picked up the crayon (upside down) and screwing his face up in concentration carefully drew a couple lines on the paper. Of course, all of us clapped for him, which startled him (and the rest of the restaurant) but he looked up with a big smile and proceeded to color some more. For some reason I was really proud of him for working so hard to color with the crayons. It was fun to watch him.
Anyway, there's your Keegan update. Hope everyone has a good week.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22979800/
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Chemicals_in_Baby_Products_Linked_to_Possible_Hormonal_Problems_13562.html
Weird how these things pop up just when you are thinking about them.
Anyway, all that aside. Keegan had his 12 month pictures on Sunday. They went really well. We took him to Proex this time. It was the best place we have gone to have pictures so far. They didn't make us wait when we got there, they offered to do multiple backgrounds, the photographer was energetic and did a good job making Keegan smile, and they had nice props. We still had to pick the pictures out right away but the really nice thing is that all of his pictures will be ready by Wednesday (not in 2 weeks). We paid less for the pictures there than we did at Sears and we got a DVD of pictures, a photobook of the proofs, and the big picture comes framed. All in all it was much nicer than Sears or JC Penny and cheaper!
Keegan, of course, was wonderful about the whole thing. Even though he was kind of tired he smiled like a champ for the camera.
Keegan has a few new tricks now. He likes to run up to you, smile, and say "hi". He also likes to point at things. He points at things and says, "dat" and I tell him what it is. It is kind of funny because he will point back and forth between a couple things and watch me. It seems like he is trying to figure out if I call it the object the same thing every time he points at it. Sometimes I think he is way smarter than we give him credit for.
He's been trying to jump too. Can't quite get both feet off the ground, but he tries. He also made a big breakthrough with crayons on Saturday night. We went over to Chianti Grill on Saturday night to eat dinner with my parents. The waiter brought out a big piece of paper to cover the table cloth so that Keegan could color. Keegan didn't know what to do with the crayons. So mom and I showed him. He looked at us and then picked up the crayon (upside down) and screwing his face up in concentration carefully drew a couple lines on the paper. Of course, all of us clapped for him, which startled him (and the rest of the restaurant) but he looked up with a big smile and proceeded to color some more. For some reason I was really proud of him for working so hard to color with the crayons. It was fun to watch him.
Anyway, there's your Keegan update. Hope everyone has a good week.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Toxic free household....just too much to think about
I recently got into a bit of a row with a co-worker over something really stupid - cosmetics. She was having an Arbonne party at work and wanted all of the women to come for free lunch and to listen to her prattle on about how great Arbonne is. I was actually looking for a new cleanser and moisturizer so I thought well, why not.
So I went. Arbonne is very big on how natural and good all of their cosmetics are. I am not even going to touch on Arbonne as a way to make a living. I was talked into signing up to be a consultant (much to my shame); mainly for the 45% discount and so that I could easily return the products if I didn't like them without my co-worker knowing (which I ended up doing..and Arbonne was great about it). I began to wonder how "natural" their products really were. So I did some research on-line and then on the way home that day there was an interview on FM107 with a lady who wrote a book advocating cosmetic consumer safety. It was ironic. She mentioned a database called www.cosmeticsdatabase.org that independently tests cosmetic products and lists all the ingredients in a cosmetic along with a toxicity rating and a data gap percentage (how sure are they that the ingredient is really that toxic).
Well Arbonne was just as "toxic" as anything else. In fact Cover Girl was in general less "toxic". This just stumped me. How can a company get away with this type of advertising? Well I went through my Arbonne consultant materials and Arbonne is being honest. They say they use natural fragrances; and they do. Fragrances are in general not tested all that well and tend to have a lot of negative neurological and toxic effects (when was the last time someone's perfume gave you a headache); Arbonne does not use synthetic fragrances. They do however use synthetic preservatives; chemical surfactants; etc. etc. Arbonne leaves it up to their consultants to misunderstand and misconstrue the meaning of their natural message. That being said why can't we use more natural products?
I mean soap has been around forever. Why can't soap be "natural"? Why can't more things use essential oils as fragrance? We all know the answer; because it is cheaper to make chemicals in bulk than it is to get natural oils. It's all about profit. Also most of the evidence that some of these things (parabens, dioxanes, etc) are toxic to you is scanty. People use very small amounts of these things, they haven't been around for that long (less than 50 years in many cases), so there aren't many long term studies have been done. Still it's disturbing to look up the ingredients of the Johnson and Johnson baby wash and see that there are parabens in there, mysterious fragrance, and other ingredients that give it a moderately toxic rating on cosmetic database.com. Sure the studies supporting these results are a little bit contradictory but why take a chance?
I work at a chemical company. I know that getting products to the public is about doing it as fast and as cost effective as you can. Is the FDA going to require a 30 year study on the effects of a new fragrance and chemical in a new baby wash...ummm no, they are not. The FDA doesn't have the staff or funds to do something like that; they are way backed up on prescription drugs and medical devices. Most long term studies are ongoing and commence as the product is being sold.
So all of the above has led me to start looking into some new things. Especially in the area of bath products. What's out there? How "natural" can you get? What happens to shelf-life when you use a natural product? How crazy should you get about the whole natural and organic thing? I mean you can clothe your child in organic cotton for goodness sake and use unbleached toliet paper on your behind...where do you draw the line? Do you need to draw a line? I mean when you get right down to it everything, and I mean absolutely everything, is a chemical. Does it matter if it occurs in nature or synthetically? History tells us it does. So far I believe only synthetic chemicals have been found to be bio-accumulating. But still, poison ivy gives you a rash and it's "natural".
Science always outpaces safety. It has always been this way. Chemists used to have the shortest lifespan of any professional; that there should tell you something about chemical safety. Everyone is always eager to have the latest and greatest; and inventions are normally done in good will. All of us chemists are trying to make people's lives easier; no scientist I know is intentionally trying to poison people. It still begs the question, how do you make your home safe? How many unsafe things are we ignoring because it is too much and too scary to think of them otherwise? I mean you could drive yourself crazy with this. We already eat organic when we can but what to do next.
So I took the first step. Bath products are notorious for their lack of regulation by the government; the US has some of the worst standards for cosmetics. So now we are using California Baby for Keegan. It smells great and works really well and I like the fact that the company supports the advocate group for safer cosmetics. I've switched to Giovanni organic hair products. They are not at all expensive and work well. I found some great skin care in Korres skin care, you can eat most of this stuff, it works well, but is a bit expensive. Still I am getting older so I am willing to put some money into my face.
Then what's next. Well now I am looking at cleaning and paper products. I started thinking about how the Windex makes me cough and makes my eyes run (ammonia content); and how the toilet cleaner burns my skin. I decided to look into Seventh generation products. Ironically the same day I made this decision, Cate called me up and started talking about how she was intrigued by these products. Then I got my Cookie magazine for the month and there was a big article in there on having a toxin-free household which mentioned Seventh Generation products. Still it is a lot to grasp and the products are more expensive, and in the end you are left wondering if it actually makes a difference to your health and the health of those around you.
While reading reviews about Seventh generation products online I stumbled upon more disturbing info. As I chemist I know all plastics leech over time. This means any water bottle you drink out does have some pthtalates and other monomers in it. It may be a minuscule amount, does this matter? We don't know. Can you believe they sell non-leeching aluminum sippy cups for babies? I guess since bottles and sippy cups are the main form of beverage transport for our babies it makes sense. It set my head reeling; I mean all Keegan drinks out of are plastic cups. Plastic is a relatively new technology; and there are some dutch companies working on non-leeching plasticware for babies. But, oh my, it makes my head hurt, really it does! Ever notice how these problems come out in the news and then go away? Why is that? Is it because the huge corporations spend a lot of money lobbying to have the government ignore these issues; a big part of me wants to believe that's not the case. What are the alternatives though? Did everyone decide that it is just too scary to deal with so we all choose to ignore it?
I kind of agree with the Cookie article when the writer mentions that a large amount of these issues are ignored because they are scary, immense, and people are willing to take the risk for the immediate convenience of things. I can't help but wondering if some people are thinking about it too much (like myself) or if we aren't thinking about it enough and it will bit us in the rear in 30 years.
All of these issues still leave me a bit confused and concerned, but I guess my decision is to support companies that either 1) donate part of their profits to create biodegradable and renewable resources or 2) support additional testing and consumer safety. Sure these products are more expensive, but we can afford it right now and I guess if it gives a sense of safety (even if it's a false sense) it might be worth it. At least some part of my stressed out chemist-self feels a bit better when I can pronounce and understand all of the ingredients on my bubble bath. It's a lot to grasp and it's something I think you address more avidly if you have been chronically ill or have a little person in the house. Still, I really love my Windex; it's going to be very hard to let go of the beautiful blue, eye stinging formulation that is my Windex.
So I went. Arbonne is very big on how natural and good all of their cosmetics are. I am not even going to touch on Arbonne as a way to make a living. I was talked into signing up to be a consultant (much to my shame); mainly for the 45% discount and so that I could easily return the products if I didn't like them without my co-worker knowing (which I ended up doing..and Arbonne was great about it). I began to wonder how "natural" their products really were. So I did some research on-line and then on the way home that day there was an interview on FM107 with a lady who wrote a book advocating cosmetic consumer safety. It was ironic. She mentioned a database called www.cosmeticsdatabase.org that independently tests cosmetic products and lists all the ingredients in a cosmetic along with a toxicity rating and a data gap percentage (how sure are they that the ingredient is really that toxic).
Well Arbonne was just as "toxic" as anything else. In fact Cover Girl was in general less "toxic". This just stumped me. How can a company get away with this type of advertising? Well I went through my Arbonne consultant materials and Arbonne is being honest. They say they use natural fragrances; and they do. Fragrances are in general not tested all that well and tend to have a lot of negative neurological and toxic effects (when was the last time someone's perfume gave you a headache); Arbonne does not use synthetic fragrances. They do however use synthetic preservatives; chemical surfactants; etc. etc. Arbonne leaves it up to their consultants to misunderstand and misconstrue the meaning of their natural message. That being said why can't we use more natural products?
I mean soap has been around forever. Why can't soap be "natural"? Why can't more things use essential oils as fragrance? We all know the answer; because it is cheaper to make chemicals in bulk than it is to get natural oils. It's all about profit. Also most of the evidence that some of these things (parabens, dioxanes, etc) are toxic to you is scanty. People use very small amounts of these things, they haven't been around for that long (less than 50 years in many cases), so there aren't many long term studies have been done. Still it's disturbing to look up the ingredients of the Johnson and Johnson baby wash and see that there are parabens in there, mysterious fragrance, and other ingredients that give it a moderately toxic rating on cosmetic database.com. Sure the studies supporting these results are a little bit contradictory but why take a chance?
I work at a chemical company. I know that getting products to the public is about doing it as fast and as cost effective as you can. Is the FDA going to require a 30 year study on the effects of a new fragrance and chemical in a new baby wash...ummm no, they are not. The FDA doesn't have the staff or funds to do something like that; they are way backed up on prescription drugs and medical devices. Most long term studies are ongoing and commence as the product is being sold.
So all of the above has led me to start looking into some new things. Especially in the area of bath products. What's out there? How "natural" can you get? What happens to shelf-life when you use a natural product? How crazy should you get about the whole natural and organic thing? I mean you can clothe your child in organic cotton for goodness sake and use unbleached toliet paper on your behind...where do you draw the line? Do you need to draw a line? I mean when you get right down to it everything, and I mean absolutely everything, is a chemical. Does it matter if it occurs in nature or synthetically? History tells us it does. So far I believe only synthetic chemicals have been found to be bio-accumulating. But still, poison ivy gives you a rash and it's "natural".
Science always outpaces safety. It has always been this way. Chemists used to have the shortest lifespan of any professional; that there should tell you something about chemical safety. Everyone is always eager to have the latest and greatest; and inventions are normally done in good will. All of us chemists are trying to make people's lives easier; no scientist I know is intentionally trying to poison people. It still begs the question, how do you make your home safe? How many unsafe things are we ignoring because it is too much and too scary to think of them otherwise? I mean you could drive yourself crazy with this. We already eat organic when we can but what to do next.
So I took the first step. Bath products are notorious for their lack of regulation by the government; the US has some of the worst standards for cosmetics. So now we are using California Baby for Keegan. It smells great and works really well and I like the fact that the company supports the advocate group for safer cosmetics. I've switched to Giovanni organic hair products. They are not at all expensive and work well. I found some great skin care in Korres skin care, you can eat most of this stuff, it works well, but is a bit expensive. Still I am getting older so I am willing to put some money into my face.
Then what's next. Well now I am looking at cleaning and paper products. I started thinking about how the Windex makes me cough and makes my eyes run (ammonia content); and how the toilet cleaner burns my skin. I decided to look into Seventh generation products. Ironically the same day I made this decision, Cate called me up and started talking about how she was intrigued by these products. Then I got my Cookie magazine for the month and there was a big article in there on having a toxin-free household which mentioned Seventh Generation products. Still it is a lot to grasp and the products are more expensive, and in the end you are left wondering if it actually makes a difference to your health and the health of those around you.
While reading reviews about Seventh generation products online I stumbled upon more disturbing info. As I chemist I know all plastics leech over time. This means any water bottle you drink out does have some pthtalates and other monomers in it. It may be a minuscule amount, does this matter? We don't know. Can you believe they sell non-leeching aluminum sippy cups for babies? I guess since bottles and sippy cups are the main form of beverage transport for our babies it makes sense. It set my head reeling; I mean all Keegan drinks out of are plastic cups. Plastic is a relatively new technology; and there are some dutch companies working on non-leeching plasticware for babies. But, oh my, it makes my head hurt, really it does! Ever notice how these problems come out in the news and then go away? Why is that? Is it because the huge corporations spend a lot of money lobbying to have the government ignore these issues; a big part of me wants to believe that's not the case. What are the alternatives though? Did everyone decide that it is just too scary to deal with so we all choose to ignore it?
I kind of agree with the Cookie article when the writer mentions that a large amount of these issues are ignored because they are scary, immense, and people are willing to take the risk for the immediate convenience of things. I can't help but wondering if some people are thinking about it too much (like myself) or if we aren't thinking about it enough and it will bit us in the rear in 30 years.
All of these issues still leave me a bit confused and concerned, but I guess my decision is to support companies that either 1) donate part of their profits to create biodegradable and renewable resources or 2) support additional testing and consumer safety. Sure these products are more expensive, but we can afford it right now and I guess if it gives a sense of safety (even if it's a false sense) it might be worth it. At least some part of my stressed out chemist-self feels a bit better when I can pronounce and understand all of the ingredients on my bubble bath. It's a lot to grasp and it's something I think you address more avidly if you have been chronically ill or have a little person in the house. Still, I really love my Windex; it's going to be very hard to let go of the beautiful blue, eye stinging formulation that is my Windex.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Antics at the MOA
This weekend Keegan, Lyle and I went to the Mall of America (MOA) with my mom, dad, sister, and, her husband, Roberto.
Initially Keegan was strapped into his stroller, but as has lately been the case, that did not last long. The boy wanted to boogie. Lyle, my dad, and sometimes my mom took turns watching him while Kim, Roberto, and I went in and out of stores there.
There were a couple highlights to this trip, regarding Keegan. While Lyle, me, Kim, and Roberto were in Express my dad was standing outside with Keegan. My dad was on his cell phone, when a lady looked at him and said "Looks like someone is trying to escape!" My dad looked down and Keegan had gotten his seat belt off and was shimmying down towards the ground. He had gotten his head down below the tray on the stroller and his toes were almost to the ground when he was found out.
After that my mom took him and let him run around The Limited some. The store wasn't that crowded and Keegan had a ball running around between display tables and shaking his butt to the music there. Of course, everyone in the store thought he was "sooooo, cute".
Outside of a different store Lyle and dad were waiting with Keegan. When my mom saw them she laughed at the manly pose Keegan has assumed. He was leaning on the railings looking down to the 1st level just like Lyle and dad. She thought this was super cute until she realized that Keegan was trying to scrape his shoes off of his feet and drop them down onto the people below. What a stinker!
Keegan also loved the window displays. In front of Victoria's Secret there was a stuffed Pink dog with wings and a halo pinned on it for Valentine's day. Keegan toddled over to it and proceeded to "pet nice" on the doggy's head. It was really cute until Keegan decided that he had had enough of "petting nice" and he pulled the wings off of the stuffed dog. We had to chase Keegan down and Lyle was stuck standing in front of Victoria's Secret pinning stuffed wings back on a stuffed dog while I took Keegan to a safer, less destructive play area.
In general Keegan loved looking over the rails, running between columns, and looking at people and shopping items with equal vigor.
Everything went swimmingly until we got to Famous Dave's to eat dinner. Keegan had enough of everything by then. This is going on probably 5 hours at the mall, so who can blame him. The only thing that would appease the boy is eating corn muffins. So everyone donated corn muffins to the "keeping Keegan happy" fund. Keegan liked to rip the tops off of the muffins and then stuff them in his mouth.
Even that wasn't enough to keep him placated toward the end. So I took him out of the restaurant and we examined the giant bear (which he also nicely patted on the nose) and then we started doing heroic jumps up onto and off of the columns outside of the restaurant. This got the little man giggling pretty hard. A lady in the restaurant and her mother were watching us closely. The mom finally said "my daughter will have one of those any day now!" Ends up the woman's daughter was 39.5 weeks pregnant. I sympathized with the daughter and told her that she was doing the toughest part right now and that it does get better (although given the activities I was partaking in, she may not have believed me)!
Probably the most amazing thing is how many people want to stop and talk to Keegan and talk to us about Keegan. It's great how many nice people you meet. Of course Keegan is very inviting; he always walks around with a huge grin on his face, he waves at people who wave at him, and gives high-fives aplenty. I hope that he can keep his positive attitude of the world for a long time to come!
Initially Keegan was strapped into his stroller, but as has lately been the case, that did not last long. The boy wanted to boogie. Lyle, my dad, and sometimes my mom took turns watching him while Kim, Roberto, and I went in and out of stores there.
There were a couple highlights to this trip, regarding Keegan. While Lyle, me, Kim, and Roberto were in Express my dad was standing outside with Keegan. My dad was on his cell phone, when a lady looked at him and said "Looks like someone is trying to escape!" My dad looked down and Keegan had gotten his seat belt off and was shimmying down towards the ground. He had gotten his head down below the tray on the stroller and his toes were almost to the ground when he was found out.
After that my mom took him and let him run around The Limited some. The store wasn't that crowded and Keegan had a ball running around between display tables and shaking his butt to the music there. Of course, everyone in the store thought he was "sooooo, cute".
Outside of a different store Lyle and dad were waiting with Keegan. When my mom saw them she laughed at the manly pose Keegan has assumed. He was leaning on the railings looking down to the 1st level just like Lyle and dad. She thought this was super cute until she realized that Keegan was trying to scrape his shoes off of his feet and drop them down onto the people below. What a stinker!
Keegan also loved the window displays. In front of Victoria's Secret there was a stuffed Pink dog with wings and a halo pinned on it for Valentine's day. Keegan toddled over to it and proceeded to "pet nice" on the doggy's head. It was really cute until Keegan decided that he had had enough of "petting nice" and he pulled the wings off of the stuffed dog. We had to chase Keegan down and Lyle was stuck standing in front of Victoria's Secret pinning stuffed wings back on a stuffed dog while I took Keegan to a safer, less destructive play area.
In general Keegan loved looking over the rails, running between columns, and looking at people and shopping items with equal vigor.
Everything went swimmingly until we got to Famous Dave's to eat dinner. Keegan had enough of everything by then. This is going on probably 5 hours at the mall, so who can blame him. The only thing that would appease the boy is eating corn muffins. So everyone donated corn muffins to the "keeping Keegan happy" fund. Keegan liked to rip the tops off of the muffins and then stuff them in his mouth.
Even that wasn't enough to keep him placated toward the end. So I took him out of the restaurant and we examined the giant bear (which he also nicely patted on the nose) and then we started doing heroic jumps up onto and off of the columns outside of the restaurant. This got the little man giggling pretty hard. A lady in the restaurant and her mother were watching us closely. The mom finally said "my daughter will have one of those any day now!" Ends up the woman's daughter was 39.5 weeks pregnant. I sympathized with the daughter and told her that she was doing the toughest part right now and that it does get better (although given the activities I was partaking in, she may not have believed me)!
Probably the most amazing thing is how many people want to stop and talk to Keegan and talk to us about Keegan. It's great how many nice people you meet. Of course Keegan is very inviting; he always walks around with a huge grin on his face, he waves at people who wave at him, and gives high-fives aplenty. I hope that he can keep his positive attitude of the world for a long time to come!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Asserting his will...
So as I mentioned briefly in the last post, Keegan is definitely making progress on becoming his own person. This started a couple weeks ago and seems directly linked with his mastery of walking.
When Keegan initially started walking he loved to hold onto your hand. Part of the was necessity to help him keep his balance, and part of it was insecurity on his part. Well that has pretty much gone out the window. Keegan is *very* adept at walking now and he seems to feel secure and confident of who he is.
Lyle and I really like Keegan to explore his boundaries and to stretch his limits of comfort. We may regret this mentality later, but I have found personally that people grow the most, mentally and personality-wise, when they can test their limits of comfort and expand them. For Keegan this new limit was walking on his own. Keegan loves crowds of people and loves exploring new places. Lyle and I didn't have a lot to do and weren't in a hurry, so we went to the mall.
We found out that Keegan does not believe that he needs to ride in a stroller anymore. That was okay, as I said we weren't in a hurry, so we let him walk. Usually he holds your hand and walks nicely beside you. Alas, it 'twas not meant to be! As soon as I grabbed Keegan's hand he jerked his hand out of mine and, with a defiant look, took off. This behavior was slightly bratty and kind of amusing. We had purchased a harness for Keegan, so this little fit got Keegan the privilege of wearing a harness. Kind of a compromise; Keegan could walk and not hold our hand as long as he wore the harness.
We meandered through Macy's; sometimes letting Keegan lead the way, sometimes not. By the time we got the entrance of the mall from Macy's Keegan was getting tired. He kept tripping over his feet. So we put him in the stroller. This was not popular with Keegan but after a couple minutes of protesting he calmed down and enjoyed the ride. That is one thing I am learning about babies. Although I like Keegan to test his limits, he doesn't have the common sense to know when he has reached his limits.
So a quick side note: the mission of this whole shopping trip was to get me a new swimsuit. I hate shopping for swimsuits. Interestingly enough I did find some swimsuits in Macy's. Lyle and Keegan came into the colossal fitting room with me so I could try them. I like Lyle to give his opinion on the suits but I refuse to walk out of the fitting room in them. Somehow the lighting in the department store is made to make you look as horrible as possible. Somehow Lyle also seems to have a much better opinion of my body than I do. These two things balance each other out. Lyle knows just what to say to make me feel like the swimsuit looks good on me and I stand and stare at myself in the mirror trying to see what he sees :-)
Something we learned about fitting rooms: fitting rooms and babies don't really mix. Keegan liked peeking under the fitting room wall into the stall next to me. This was fine until a lady went in there. Then the lady got a surprise. There is something wrong about my 11 month old son peeking at ladies changing cloths under a fitting room wall. Luckily he is cute enough that people still have a sense of humor about it.
Okay, back to Keegan walking. We went the Herbergers and Keegan was starting to get restless in his stroller. So we let him out and put his harness on. He immediately ran underneath a display table with purses on it. I gently corralled him out of there. He did it again. Keegan thought it was *so* funny to run under there because we couldn't. Finally Keegan went under the table and wouldn't move. So I crawled under and got him out. Keegan was not pleased. As I mentioned in the last post, he screamed and kicked and hit, then screamed some more. At that point I got kind of pissed off. This was no longer fun; this was about Keegan being stubborn and persistent and deliberately doing what we asked him not to. Screw Keegan testing his limits, he was just being a brat. So with screaming child under arm and Lyle trailing with an empty stroller we left the store. We then put Keegan into the stroller (more screaming ensued) and left the mall.
There were two things that really surprised me about this experience. The first was that my sweet little boy, who loved holding hands and walking and always let me lead him places, had disappeared to be replaced by a assertive, opinionated little brat. The little angel that has never thrown a fit in public; threw one. The second thing was that it didn't really bother me as much as I thought it would. I thought I would be embarrassed when Keegan threw a fit, I thought my face would get red with embarrassment and I would get stressed out and break into a cold sweat. I didn't. It seemed as natural as anything to force this boundary on Keegan and take him screaming out of the store.
This incident wasn't about the people around us; it was about me, Keegan, and Lyle. I am not sure what the second part says about me; maybe I have relaxed some in my old age. Or maybe I just know Keegan. His is outgoing, adventurous, and fearless...I have known since he was born that he was going to be a boundary pusher. It seems completely natural that we are going to have some power struggles; boundaries and discipline will be needed. It will be difficult to find the right balance between giving him the freedom he needs to grow, and setting boundaries so that he becomes a responsible, well-mannered child and adult.
Ah well, someday I will read this entry and laugh about the naiveness in letting Keegan have maximum free will. Whatever the future; raising Keegan promises to be an adventure.
When Keegan initially started walking he loved to hold onto your hand. Part of the was necessity to help him keep his balance, and part of it was insecurity on his part. Well that has pretty much gone out the window. Keegan is *very* adept at walking now and he seems to feel secure and confident of who he is.
Lyle and I really like Keegan to explore his boundaries and to stretch his limits of comfort. We may regret this mentality later, but I have found personally that people grow the most, mentally and personality-wise, when they can test their limits of comfort and expand them. For Keegan this new limit was walking on his own. Keegan loves crowds of people and loves exploring new places. Lyle and I didn't have a lot to do and weren't in a hurry, so we went to the mall.
We found out that Keegan does not believe that he needs to ride in a stroller anymore. That was okay, as I said we weren't in a hurry, so we let him walk. Usually he holds your hand and walks nicely beside you. Alas, it 'twas not meant to be! As soon as I grabbed Keegan's hand he jerked his hand out of mine and, with a defiant look, took off. This behavior was slightly bratty and kind of amusing. We had purchased a harness for Keegan, so this little fit got Keegan the privilege of wearing a harness. Kind of a compromise; Keegan could walk and not hold our hand as long as he wore the harness.
We meandered through Macy's; sometimes letting Keegan lead the way, sometimes not. By the time we got the entrance of the mall from Macy's Keegan was getting tired. He kept tripping over his feet. So we put him in the stroller. This was not popular with Keegan but after a couple minutes of protesting he calmed down and enjoyed the ride. That is one thing I am learning about babies. Although I like Keegan to test his limits, he doesn't have the common sense to know when he has reached his limits.
So a quick side note: the mission of this whole shopping trip was to get me a new swimsuit. I hate shopping for swimsuits. Interestingly enough I did find some swimsuits in Macy's. Lyle and Keegan came into the colossal fitting room with me so I could try them. I like Lyle to give his opinion on the suits but I refuse to walk out of the fitting room in them. Somehow the lighting in the department store is made to make you look as horrible as possible. Somehow Lyle also seems to have a much better opinion of my body than I do. These two things balance each other out. Lyle knows just what to say to make me feel like the swimsuit looks good on me and I stand and stare at myself in the mirror trying to see what he sees :-)
Something we learned about fitting rooms: fitting rooms and babies don't really mix. Keegan liked peeking under the fitting room wall into the stall next to me. This was fine until a lady went in there. Then the lady got a surprise. There is something wrong about my 11 month old son peeking at ladies changing cloths under a fitting room wall. Luckily he is cute enough that people still have a sense of humor about it.
Okay, back to Keegan walking. We went the Herbergers and Keegan was starting to get restless in his stroller. So we let him out and put his harness on. He immediately ran underneath a display table with purses on it. I gently corralled him out of there. He did it again. Keegan thought it was *so* funny to run under there because we couldn't. Finally Keegan went under the table and wouldn't move. So I crawled under and got him out. Keegan was not pleased. As I mentioned in the last post, he screamed and kicked and hit, then screamed some more. At that point I got kind of pissed off. This was no longer fun; this was about Keegan being stubborn and persistent and deliberately doing what we asked him not to. Screw Keegan testing his limits, he was just being a brat. So with screaming child under arm and Lyle trailing with an empty stroller we left the store. We then put Keegan into the stroller (more screaming ensued) and left the mall.
There were two things that really surprised me about this experience. The first was that my sweet little boy, who loved holding hands and walking and always let me lead him places, had disappeared to be replaced by a assertive, opinionated little brat. The little angel that has never thrown a fit in public; threw one. The second thing was that it didn't really bother me as much as I thought it would. I thought I would be embarrassed when Keegan threw a fit, I thought my face would get red with embarrassment and I would get stressed out and break into a cold sweat. I didn't. It seemed as natural as anything to force this boundary on Keegan and take him screaming out of the store.
This incident wasn't about the people around us; it was about me, Keegan, and Lyle. I am not sure what the second part says about me; maybe I have relaxed some in my old age. Or maybe I just know Keegan. His is outgoing, adventurous, and fearless...I have known since he was born that he was going to be a boundary pusher. It seems completely natural that we are going to have some power struggles; boundaries and discipline will be needed. It will be difficult to find the right balance between giving him the freedom he needs to grow, and setting boundaries so that he becomes a responsible, well-mannered child and adult.
Ah well, someday I will read this entry and laugh about the naiveness in letting Keegan have maximum free will. Whatever the future; raising Keegan promises to be an adventure.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Keegan speaks his first words...
At least I think you could call them words. Keegan has been doing "da da da" for a while. Just this weekend he's started saying "ma, ma, ma".
He has also started repeating syllables but not the noises. So he tries to say "bye, bye", although it comes out more like "baa, baa".
This morning he saw Jubei and pointed at him saying "ki, ki" which I think was a reasonable attempt at kitty. He then turned around and pointed at Ruby saying "dag, da" which could have been an attempt at doggie. It's always hard to tell but I think the little guy is really trying to give this talking thing a go.
We have still been trying to do sign language with him. Keegan has the sign for milk down really well. He seems to use the sign for milk when he wants something...not necessarily milk. He is pretty good with "all done" too. If you tell Keegan "No" for something (for example when he is trying to stick his foot in the dog's water bowl) he will look at you and smile and shake his head "no".
Although I can tell Keegan gets frustrated sometimes when he wants to do something and we just don't get it. Sometimes it takes quite a few tries before we can figure out what he wants. Keegan has definitely been exerting his will. He knows what he wants to do and throws a fit sometimes if he doesn't get to do it. It is interesting to watch him develop this strong, confident, sense of self. At the same time it gets frustrating when I am carrying him through a department store screaming (Keegan not me) because Keegan wanted to stand under the display table with purses on it all day and I wouldn't let him.
Quick note on Christmas...Christmas was fun and very busy. Keegan got a ton of presents and he also had a great time meeting all the "new" people. We'd like to thank everyone for the great presents and the wonderful company we had over Christmas!
He has also started repeating syllables but not the noises. So he tries to say "bye, bye", although it comes out more like "baa, baa".
This morning he saw Jubei and pointed at him saying "ki, ki" which I think was a reasonable attempt at kitty. He then turned around and pointed at Ruby saying "dag, da" which could have been an attempt at doggie. It's always hard to tell but I think the little guy is really trying to give this talking thing a go.
We have still been trying to do sign language with him. Keegan has the sign for milk down really well. He seems to use the sign for milk when he wants something...not necessarily milk. He is pretty good with "all done" too. If you tell Keegan "No" for something (for example when he is trying to stick his foot in the dog's water bowl) he will look at you and smile and shake his head "no".
Although I can tell Keegan gets frustrated sometimes when he wants to do something and we just don't get it. Sometimes it takes quite a few tries before we can figure out what he wants. Keegan has definitely been exerting his will. He knows what he wants to do and throws a fit sometimes if he doesn't get to do it. It is interesting to watch him develop this strong, confident, sense of self. At the same time it gets frustrating when I am carrying him through a department store screaming (Keegan not me) because Keegan wanted to stand under the display table with purses on it all day and I wouldn't let him.
Quick note on Christmas...Christmas was fun and very busy. Keegan got a ton of presents and he also had a great time meeting all the "new" people. We'd like to thank everyone for the great presents and the wonderful company we had over Christmas!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Finally a main goal has been reached!
Okay I should be blogging about Christmas, and I will at a later time.
Last night Lyle and I finally reached a great milestone since Keegan has been born....are you ready for it??
Last night at around 7:30pm Lyle and I finished the first video game since Keegan has been born. Yes, we have only completed one video game since the little man joined our lives.
In case you are wondering the game was Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. It was a super tough game and the end boss battle was anticlimactic to say the least.
Last night Lyle and I finally reached a great milestone since Keegan has been born....are you ready for it??
Last night at around 7:30pm Lyle and I finished the first video game since Keegan has been born. Yes, we have only completed one video game since the little man joined our lives.
In case you are wondering the game was Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. It was a super tough game and the end boss battle was anticlimactic to say the least.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Waxing philosophical on work-life balance and...oh, my knees
It's always really busy during the holidays; this always makes me think about how much time work takes up. Of course, with Keegan in the picture, this has become more of an issue for me than it ever was before. I made the decision to come back to work full-time. At the time my options were basically quit or come back full-time. I did talk my employer into letting me come back 1/2 time until Keegan was 5 months old. This was a wonderful thing. I don't think I could have lived with the thought of my little 8 week old being in daycare and getting sick all of the time.
Even though I made the decision to come back to work full-time, this decision constantly haunts me. There are a million thoughts about the working vs stay-at-home options always buzzing through my head. When Keegan gets sick, I think I could have prevented his discomfort if I stayed at home with him and he hadn't gone to daycare. When Keegan comes home from daycare tired and crabby, I feel like if he had spent the day with me he would have been happier. Sometimes I feel like daycare is raising Keegan. I wonder about the intelligence of having my child raised by a bunch of girls in their mid 20's to mid 30's. The saving grace of this all is my mother. Had she not offered to watch Keegan a couple days a week, I don't think I would be working still. Well, maybe I would be working.
That leads to thoughts of working and many more questions. Is it selfish that I like my work? Is it selfish to enjoy the challenges of work and the camaraderie of my coworkers? Is it selfish to like the extra money that me working brings into the household? Am I wrong for believing that all my hard work to get through college should be put to use on a daily (or at least weekly basis)?
Like any problem there are many aspects to it. Lyle and I discussed all of these issues many times through and came up with some answers that led me back to work. Of course, like any problem, the questions and situation keep rapidly changing.
When I spent those 5 months at home with Keegan, I was not happy. I missed my work and I missed my friends. I began to see how staying home with Keegan would be mentally very challenging. Staying at home with your child is grueling and under-appreciated work. At times I would even resent Lyle because he could go out to lunch and he could talk about interesting things that happened in his day and I couldn't.
This was part of the decision to go back to work for me. Keegan deserves to have a happy, energetic mommy around. He does not deserve to have a depressed and jealous mommy around. My mental well-being was part of me going back to work. The other part of the decision to go back to work was the money. I make good money. With this money I make we can save up for Keegan's college, we can take Keegan interesting places, we can do interesting things, and we can reduce the general stress of the household. Money isn't everything, but it goes along way in keeping a household secure and running smoothly.
Do all of the above out-weight having somebody else raise my child? I guess I really don't know. To be quite honest up to this point Keegan hasn't needed much direction. We have also been fairly happy with daycare. There have been a couple incidents where daycare skipped a nap, forgot to do his diaper ointment, or forgot to give him his morning bottle. I always talk to them about these issues and the issue is quickly corrected. I understand no one is perfect and they have multiple babies to take care of.
As Keegan has gotten older and can do more things I really enjoy being with him. Sometimes it makes me very sad that he does something at daycare or my mom's house before he does it for me. It does make me happy that Keegan is always happy to see me and always crawls over into my lap when he doesn't feel good. I guess I feel like the time I *do* spend with Keegan is high quality. Lyle and I and Keegan get time to sit down and play almost every night. To be honest more than a couple hours of playing can start to get a little bit boring to me. Sometimes I think Keegan has so many toys so that I can stay interested in playing and not him ;-)
As Keegan gets older and needs more direction though I am revisiting the topic of staying at home. Last week I talked to my manager about going down to 4 work days a week. He was very amicable to the suggestion; although he said it would have to wait until after our project gate in Feb. He suggested a compromise instead; he thought I could work four 10 hour days and stay at home on Friday. Since I am already at work 9 hours a day, it is not a bad suggestion. I will try this schedule out starting in the new year (prior to upper management approval). I was very pleased that he was willing to hear me out on this!
Most of the mothers I know that work say that if they had a choice the perfect work-life balance would be to work part-time. Luckily I am at a job that may be able to accommodate this. If that is the case maybe I can stop angsting a bit about the work-life balance and find a perfect balance with working part-time.
Okay second topic...my knees.
I mentioned a couple posts ago that my knees were giving me awful troubles. Well they are better, but still swelling and hurting. So I had a doctor's appointment today. I love my internist; she is funny, concerned, takes me seriously, and gets straight to the point about a diagnosis. So the diagnosis, while not pretty, was as follows.
Both of my knee joints grind; she jokingly asked me how old I was because usually they see knees like this on a 60 year old. This is because of bone spurs in my joints. The swelling is bursitis (not sure how to spell this).
The bone spurs can be caused by trauma (back to marching band maybe) or can be hereditary. No one knows why it happens to some people and not others.
Short-term the bursitis can be controlled by wearing a splinted brace over my knee, icing it, and taken large does of anti-inflammatory meds. She mentioned taking glucosamine might help if I want to give it a shot.
Longer-term it will not get better, only worse. I can mitigate it by controlling the bursitis (see above) and avoiding high impact activities (like DDR and running).
If the swelling and pain continues long term there are two options; surgery and shots. I can get a series of three very expensive shots into my knee joints. These shots help the knee to lubricate itself and should last a year or so. The surgery would remove any bone spurs from the joints, but would probably only be effective for 1-2 years before more spurs developed.
If my knee at any point gives out I am in trouble. It was pretty wobbly last week but it never gave out. She told me that if it does give out I need to call her immediately; they will have to do a scan to make sure I don't need re-constructive knee surgery. She prefaced all this by saying that this is serious and if I don't take care of myself I will probably need knee replacement surgery by the time I am 40.
So, that sucks. I have had trouble with my knees as long as I can remember, I figured it would catch up to me eventually. Oh yeah, and the doctor also said that she thinks DDR is great fun and recommends that I try limiting my sessions to 30 minutes or so and wearing shoes. She would hate for me to have to give up that fun activity :-) I loved the fact that she was straight forward, laid out my options, and tried to do it with a sense of humor!
She also, like usual, asked me about everything else in my life to make sure I was doing okay in every way. She wanted to know how Lyle was doing, how Keegan was doing, how work was, and how I was handling Keegan having to be in daycare. We discussed the whole work/child thing. She sympathized with it all, told me that she hopes the part-time thing works out, and told me that it sounded like I was doing okay mentally :-) She is great about trying to track overall health to make sure that nothing else is causing me undue stress or discomfort. Anyway, my family has heard enough about how much I love this doctor. Anyway, back to work. I will do my utmost to help my knees be better.
Even though I made the decision to come back to work full-time, this decision constantly haunts me. There are a million thoughts about the working vs stay-at-home options always buzzing through my head. When Keegan gets sick, I think I could have prevented his discomfort if I stayed at home with him and he hadn't gone to daycare. When Keegan comes home from daycare tired and crabby, I feel like if he had spent the day with me he would have been happier. Sometimes I feel like daycare is raising Keegan. I wonder about the intelligence of having my child raised by a bunch of girls in their mid 20's to mid 30's. The saving grace of this all is my mother. Had she not offered to watch Keegan a couple days a week, I don't think I would be working still. Well, maybe I would be working.
That leads to thoughts of working and many more questions. Is it selfish that I like my work? Is it selfish to enjoy the challenges of work and the camaraderie of my coworkers? Is it selfish to like the extra money that me working brings into the household? Am I wrong for believing that all my hard work to get through college should be put to use on a daily (or at least weekly basis)?
Like any problem there are many aspects to it. Lyle and I discussed all of these issues many times through and came up with some answers that led me back to work. Of course, like any problem, the questions and situation keep rapidly changing.
When I spent those 5 months at home with Keegan, I was not happy. I missed my work and I missed my friends. I began to see how staying home with Keegan would be mentally very challenging. Staying at home with your child is grueling and under-appreciated work. At times I would even resent Lyle because he could go out to lunch and he could talk about interesting things that happened in his day and I couldn't.
This was part of the decision to go back to work for me. Keegan deserves to have a happy, energetic mommy around. He does not deserve to have a depressed and jealous mommy around. My mental well-being was part of me going back to work. The other part of the decision to go back to work was the money. I make good money. With this money I make we can save up for Keegan's college, we can take Keegan interesting places, we can do interesting things, and we can reduce the general stress of the household. Money isn't everything, but it goes along way in keeping a household secure and running smoothly.
Do all of the above out-weight having somebody else raise my child? I guess I really don't know. To be quite honest up to this point Keegan hasn't needed much direction. We have also been fairly happy with daycare. There have been a couple incidents where daycare skipped a nap, forgot to do his diaper ointment, or forgot to give him his morning bottle. I always talk to them about these issues and the issue is quickly corrected. I understand no one is perfect and they have multiple babies to take care of.
As Keegan has gotten older and can do more things I really enjoy being with him. Sometimes it makes me very sad that he does something at daycare or my mom's house before he does it for me. It does make me happy that Keegan is always happy to see me and always crawls over into my lap when he doesn't feel good. I guess I feel like the time I *do* spend with Keegan is high quality. Lyle and I and Keegan get time to sit down and play almost every night. To be honest more than a couple hours of playing can start to get a little bit boring to me. Sometimes I think Keegan has so many toys so that I can stay interested in playing and not him ;-)
As Keegan gets older and needs more direction though I am revisiting the topic of staying at home. Last week I talked to my manager about going down to 4 work days a week. He was very amicable to the suggestion; although he said it would have to wait until after our project gate in Feb. He suggested a compromise instead; he thought I could work four 10 hour days and stay at home on Friday. Since I am already at work 9 hours a day, it is not a bad suggestion. I will try this schedule out starting in the new year (prior to upper management approval). I was very pleased that he was willing to hear me out on this!
Most of the mothers I know that work say that if they had a choice the perfect work-life balance would be to work part-time. Luckily I am at a job that may be able to accommodate this. If that is the case maybe I can stop angsting a bit about the work-life balance and find a perfect balance with working part-time.
Okay second topic...my knees.
I mentioned a couple posts ago that my knees were giving me awful troubles. Well they are better, but still swelling and hurting. So I had a doctor's appointment today. I love my internist; she is funny, concerned, takes me seriously, and gets straight to the point about a diagnosis. So the diagnosis, while not pretty, was as follows.
Both of my knee joints grind; she jokingly asked me how old I was because usually they see knees like this on a 60 year old. This is because of bone spurs in my joints. The swelling is bursitis (not sure how to spell this).
The bone spurs can be caused by trauma (back to marching band maybe) or can be hereditary. No one knows why it happens to some people and not others.
Short-term the bursitis can be controlled by wearing a splinted brace over my knee, icing it, and taken large does of anti-inflammatory meds. She mentioned taking glucosamine might help if I want to give it a shot.
Longer-term it will not get better, only worse. I can mitigate it by controlling the bursitis (see above) and avoiding high impact activities (like DDR and running).
If the swelling and pain continues long term there are two options; surgery and shots. I can get a series of three very expensive shots into my knee joints. These shots help the knee to lubricate itself and should last a year or so. The surgery would remove any bone spurs from the joints, but would probably only be effective for 1-2 years before more spurs developed.
If my knee at any point gives out I am in trouble. It was pretty wobbly last week but it never gave out. She told me that if it does give out I need to call her immediately; they will have to do a scan to make sure I don't need re-constructive knee surgery. She prefaced all this by saying that this is serious and if I don't take care of myself I will probably need knee replacement surgery by the time I am 40.
So, that sucks. I have had trouble with my knees as long as I can remember, I figured it would catch up to me eventually. Oh yeah, and the doctor also said that she thinks DDR is great fun and recommends that I try limiting my sessions to 30 minutes or so and wearing shoes. She would hate for me to have to give up that fun activity :-) I loved the fact that she was straight forward, laid out my options, and tried to do it with a sense of humor!
She also, like usual, asked me about everything else in my life to make sure I was doing okay in every way. She wanted to know how Lyle was doing, how Keegan was doing, how work was, and how I was handling Keegan having to be in daycare. We discussed the whole work/child thing. She sympathized with it all, told me that she hopes the part-time thing works out, and told me that it sounded like I was doing okay mentally :-) She is great about trying to track overall health to make sure that nothing else is causing me undue stress or discomfort. Anyway, my family has heard enough about how much I love this doctor. Anyway, back to work. I will do my utmost to help my knees be better.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Of course we do SIR
Well we did have a night out which was really great. The movie was ok, I wouldn't say it was the best movie I had ever seen, but then The Matrix is pretty hard to beat :). Anyway just another couple quick things. Keegan is as Karissa mentioned walking a lot more since Sunday. I have to concede that it has to do with the fact that Corinne came over and he watched her for quite a bit and probably did learn it from her! Which if you ask me is kind of cool since it means that he can do anything if he just has the right motivation :).
Also Keegan has gotten much better at copying you if you do something funny. Like Monday night Karissa and I were making faces at him, and he would try and copy the face. Now I am not saying that he has complete control, but just a couple of things like making a kissing sound he was able to manage. Of course he has been able to copy sounds for a while, and is getting pretty good at that too. So all in all I think he is progressing very well, and will be running circles around us in no time. Ice skating is coming soon!!
One other funny story this morning. I was getting him ready for daycare, and while I was holding him I went and got his nuk. I gave him the nuk, and he started to put it in his mouth like he usually does, but he fumbled with it and it started to fall. So I caught it, and grabbed on to the edge of hard plastic with my teeth to hold it while I repositioned some stuff to get ready to go. Keegan immediately reached for the nuk like he normally does, which is what I expected him to do. So he grabbed the nuk, and looked at it for a second, then a wide grin stretched across his face and he push the nuk right back towards my mouth. I grabbed it with my teeth like I had before, and then he giggled a little. He smiled again, and then grabbed the nuk back. After that we repeated this little game about 5 times and every time he would smile and giggle. I guess that means he is starting to learn to share, which is cool. Sharing is suppose to be something they pick up around this age, so I am not really surprised by that, but it was just kind of a funny moment.
Also Keegan has gotten much better at copying you if you do something funny. Like Monday night Karissa and I were making faces at him, and he would try and copy the face. Now I am not saying that he has complete control, but just a couple of things like making a kissing sound he was able to manage. Of course he has been able to copy sounds for a while, and is getting pretty good at that too. So all in all I think he is progressing very well, and will be running circles around us in no time. Ice skating is coming soon!!
One other funny story this morning. I was getting him ready for daycare, and while I was holding him I went and got his nuk. I gave him the nuk, and he started to put it in his mouth like he usually does, but he fumbled with it and it started to fall. So I caught it, and grabbed on to the edge of hard plastic with my teeth to hold it while I repositioned some stuff to get ready to go. Keegan immediately reached for the nuk like he normally does, which is what I expected him to do. So he grabbed the nuk, and looked at it for a second, then a wide grin stretched across his face and he push the nuk right back towards my mouth. I grabbed it with my teeth like I had before, and then he giggled a little. He smiled again, and then grabbed the nuk back. After that we repeated this little game about 5 times and every time he would smile and giggle. I guess that means he is starting to learn to share, which is cool. Sharing is suppose to be something they pick up around this age, so I am not really surprised by that, but it was just kind of a funny moment.
Night on the Town
My dismal week last week was finally broken after I wrote that last blog. When I got home Lyle has already cooked dinner and Keegan was peacefully sleeping. My shoulder miraculously stopped hurting the next morning, and everything in general seemed much better.
So, the movie, The Golden Compass came out in theaters last Friday. I thought it would be fun to make an effort to go and see this movie some time the coming week. We talked to my parents and my mom agreed to keep Keegan through Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night so that Lyle and I could go and watch a movie.
Lyle and I left work a bit early and met at home. We looked up movie times and then jumped in the car in an attempt to catch a 4:15pm movie. When we got to the theater we found out that between 4pm - 6pm the Carmike theater in Mounds View has their bargain matinée. Tickets were only $5 a piece and, if you brought your own bucket, you could get it filled with popcorn for only 50 cents. Who knew there was so much benefit to going to a movie at 4:15pm on a Tuesday night?
The movie was excellent and afterwards we discussed where to go and eat dinner. Neither of us were all that hungry. We decided to stop by a Caribou. After getting some drinks and pastries we went over to pick up Keegan. We picked him up a little before 8pm and he was sleeping. He went back to sleep easily when we got home. All in all it was a very nice afternoon/night out. Lyle and I are very grateful that my parents could watch Keegan so that we could have an adult afternoon out together. Although I did miss seeing and playing with Keegan a little bit.
As for Keegan...on Sunday we played Dungeons and Dragons. Aaron and Michelle brought Corinne along. We gave Corinne her bday present and Corinne and Keegan trucked around after each other for a bit. This always ends up being very significant for Keegan, he studies Corinne very intently. In the last month or so Corinne has become a very proficient walker. Keegan has been able to precariously toddle across the distance of maybe half a room. He seems to get a bit nervous and then he falls down. Well that all changed on Monday.
After spending a couple hours observing Corinne he figured it all out! At daycare on Monday his teachers exclaimed that he was walking everywhere. Monday night we got to observe this as Keegan quickly walked across the room. He now walks very rapidly, usually between things that he can grab onto. He also is getting better at bending over and picking things up off the floor while walking and not falling over.
Late last week we found out that Keegan had picked up the sign for milk. We don't think he knows what it means yet but he can do that sign very well. So there's your update (disjointed as it is) and an assurance that this week is better than the last.
So, the movie, The Golden Compass came out in theaters last Friday. I thought it would be fun to make an effort to go and see this movie some time the coming week. We talked to my parents and my mom agreed to keep Keegan through Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night so that Lyle and I could go and watch a movie.
Lyle and I left work a bit early and met at home. We looked up movie times and then jumped in the car in an attempt to catch a 4:15pm movie. When we got to the theater we found out that between 4pm - 6pm the Carmike theater in Mounds View has their bargain matinée. Tickets were only $5 a piece and, if you brought your own bucket, you could get it filled with popcorn for only 50 cents. Who knew there was so much benefit to going to a movie at 4:15pm on a Tuesday night?
The movie was excellent and afterwards we discussed where to go and eat dinner. Neither of us were all that hungry. We decided to stop by a Caribou. After getting some drinks and pastries we went over to pick up Keegan. We picked him up a little before 8pm and he was sleeping. He went back to sleep easily when we got home. All in all it was a very nice afternoon/night out. Lyle and I are very grateful that my parents could watch Keegan so that we could have an adult afternoon out together. Although I did miss seeing and playing with Keegan a little bit.
As for Keegan...on Sunday we played Dungeons and Dragons. Aaron and Michelle brought Corinne along. We gave Corinne her bday present and Corinne and Keegan trucked around after each other for a bit. This always ends up being very significant for Keegan, he studies Corinne very intently. In the last month or so Corinne has become a very proficient walker. Keegan has been able to precariously toddle across the distance of maybe half a room. He seems to get a bit nervous and then he falls down. Well that all changed on Monday.
After spending a couple hours observing Corinne he figured it all out! At daycare on Monday his teachers exclaimed that he was walking everywhere. Monday night we got to observe this as Keegan quickly walked across the room. He now walks very rapidly, usually between things that he can grab onto. He also is getting better at bending over and picking things up off the floor while walking and not falling over.
Late last week we found out that Keegan had picked up the sign for milk. We don't think he knows what it means yet but he can do that sign very well. So there's your update (disjointed as it is) and an assurance that this week is better than the last.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
One of those weeks...
I know people don't necessarily want to read about what a crappy week it has been. I think it would be very therapeutic for me to vent though so, I am going to write about it anyway. With the disclaimer that this entry is purely a rant of frustration you can read, or not read, as you feel fit.
Things have been stressful in general because of all of the holiday stuff that has been going on. We have even tried to tone it down some this year. Still there are presents to be wrapped, etc, etc.
I think the frustration started last week when the left headlight went out in my car. Lyle, Keegan, and I ran to Target to get a replacement and promptly replaced it. The next day it was out again. For the last week and a half I have been trying to remember to replace it..again. Last week I was also trying to finish up a cute yearly calender with pictures of Keegan in it. It was supposed to be a surprise Christmas present but since they were sitting out when Lyle got home on Monday I ended up just giving them to my parents and Lyle.
Of course Keegan was sick this whole weekend which resulted in near to zero sleep for Lyle and me. Keegan is doing better now but is very persistent about eating at 3am in the morning. This is especially irritating because it is only 1.5 hours before we normally get up. He goes right back to sleep after eating a bottle but Lyle and I can't get back to sleep before it's time to get up again. As if the normal mad dash of trying to get Keegan dropped off, get to work, get home, get errands run, and get Keegan to bed wasn't bad enough it had to snow.
I normally love the snow. I still try to tell myself that I love the snow. On Tuesday when it snowed I had gotten into work late because of dropping Keegan off. I left an hour early to avoid a two hour commute home. Instead of having my normal 35 minute drive home (I left at 2:30pm) I had a 1.5 hour drive home. It sucked. But not as bad as it sucked for Lyle. He left at 3pm and didn't get home until almost 6pm. There went the whole night. By the time Lyle got home I was getting ready to give Keegan his bottle and put him to bed.
Then the next morning (Wed. morning) was no better. It took me an hour to get into work (I left at 6am) and it took Lyle over 2 hours to get into work. When I backed out of the driveway this morning and saw it was, once again, snowing. I had a few things to say about that; I am grateful that Keegan isn't picking up any of the words I say...yet.
To make matters worse last Friday I woke up with a horrible pain in my neck. You know how that happens sometimes. Well it hasn't gone away. It has just gotten worse to the point where it hurts up the back of my head and down my arm. It hurts to pick up Keegan and it hurts to drive. Since I am on a rant about bodily pain; let's next address my knees. I have always had bad knees. During marching band my left knee swelled up to 5x its normal size. I was on crutches for 6 weeks and on painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. So we have started playing DDR a lot. Last night while I was crawling around after Keegan my left knee made a crunch sound and then started swelling. I spend a good portion of last night with ice tied to my knee. Not sure what made my knee give, it could have been the DDR or it could have been all the crawling around on wood floors. I am not sure. It really makes me wonder what my knees will be like when I am 50.
So since the weather, the sick baby, and my body are not enough to throw me in complete chaos; the powers that be have decided that work should uber suck this week too. The only good thing that has happened at work is that I do not have to go out to the plant this month. The bad thing is that they have split our coating run at the plant into 3 parts. 12 hours of our stuff, 12 hours of salable product, 12 hour of our stuff, 12 hour of salable product, 24 hours of our stuff. Now changing the coater back and forth from an experimental set up to the set up for product we actually sell is always a huge endeavor. With this schedule we are not going to get any coating done and the experimentation is going to be so fractured that it's useless.
There are tons of arguments about what should be run and how useful it is to run it. We are already over budget, yet upper management is determined to spend another half million on this fractured experimentation. Now you ask should I be blogging about this; well, trust me they already know what I think about it.
To make matters worse I am the only woman engineer on the team and I have asked to not travel this month since it is hard for Lyle to drop off and pick up Keegan from daycare with his long drive to work. I have traveled a lot lately, I have a 10 month child, and I am the female of the household. I have been getting a lot of accusatory glances and comments of "well, I guess you're lucky you have an excuse to not go." or "well, you won't be there to observe it will you? So why do you care?" I feel guilty about not going out there; but on the other hand I think I am entitled to a little break given all the extra hours and extra travel I have done recently and in previous years.
One of the other female engineers and me were discussing how unfair this is especially during Christmas. I make sure that we get all of the presents, I make sure they are wrapped, and I make sure all the Christmas cards get sent out. I make sure we make cookies and I make sure the Christmas decorations get set up. This is not to say that Lyle doesn't help a ton with all of this stuff, but he does not drive it. I think if I weren't there, none of it would be done. After talking to my male counterparts it seems that this is the case with most of them also. They talk about their wives getting this and that done for Christmas. So, they aren't that concerned about being out at the plant the week before Christmas. Well, unfortunately, not only do I have a small child, I *am* responsible for making sure all the Christmas stuff gets done.
The topper on everything last evening was yet another attempt to help Keegan celebrate something fun for Christmas. I saw a police car coming down the road and asked Lyle if he knew what that was about. He mentioned that it was probably Santa coming around on the firetruck like he does every year. I, was like, well we have to get Keegan out there to see it. I whipped on a coat and slid my shoes halfway on. We threw on Keegan's snowsuit. It really only took a couple minutes. I picked up Keegan and went limping down the driveway with him; my knee an shoulder killing me. We got to the bottom of the drivway just as Santa was getting there. I got Keegan to wave at Santa and...Santa didn't even look at us. We were the only people out there and somehow he didn't see us :-( Keegan liked the lights though, so we stayed and waved at the police car that was trailing Santa. No response there either. Feeling somewhat defeated, yet proud that Keegan had made an effort to wave, I limped back to the house. I heard somebody call "Hey, miss". I turned around to find one that one of the firemen had seen us and run all the way from the firetruck to give me and Keegan a candy cane and wish us Merry Christmas. It made me feel much better :-) That is until I got to the front door and it wouldn't open. Lyle pounded from the inside, while I tried to wrench it open from the front...still no luck. I had to go in through the garage. The door is still broken; we need a new handle.
Oh yeah, one last thing...our computer died last night too...we think the motherboard gave out. I can here money draining out of the bank account from here...
I guess I am running out of steam and I do need to get some other work done. I am just at the end of my rope with work right now and have negative desire to be here. I have to sit through a 3 hour design review this afternoon and I am hoping, with Keegan's new penchant for 3am feedings, that I can stay awake through it.
Things have been stressful in general because of all of the holiday stuff that has been going on. We have even tried to tone it down some this year. Still there are presents to be wrapped, etc, etc.
I think the frustration started last week when the left headlight went out in my car. Lyle, Keegan, and I ran to Target to get a replacement and promptly replaced it. The next day it was out again. For the last week and a half I have been trying to remember to replace it..again. Last week I was also trying to finish up a cute yearly calender with pictures of Keegan in it. It was supposed to be a surprise Christmas present but since they were sitting out when Lyle got home on Monday I ended up just giving them to my parents and Lyle.
Of course Keegan was sick this whole weekend which resulted in near to zero sleep for Lyle and me. Keegan is doing better now but is very persistent about eating at 3am in the morning. This is especially irritating because it is only 1.5 hours before we normally get up. He goes right back to sleep after eating a bottle but Lyle and I can't get back to sleep before it's time to get up again. As if the normal mad dash of trying to get Keegan dropped off, get to work, get home, get errands run, and get Keegan to bed wasn't bad enough it had to snow.
I normally love the snow. I still try to tell myself that I love the snow. On Tuesday when it snowed I had gotten into work late because of dropping Keegan off. I left an hour early to avoid a two hour commute home. Instead of having my normal 35 minute drive home (I left at 2:30pm) I had a 1.5 hour drive home. It sucked. But not as bad as it sucked for Lyle. He left at 3pm and didn't get home until almost 6pm. There went the whole night. By the time Lyle got home I was getting ready to give Keegan his bottle and put him to bed.
Then the next morning (Wed. morning) was no better. It took me an hour to get into work (I left at 6am) and it took Lyle over 2 hours to get into work. When I backed out of the driveway this morning and saw it was, once again, snowing. I had a few things to say about that; I am grateful that Keegan isn't picking up any of the words I say...yet.
To make matters worse last Friday I woke up with a horrible pain in my neck. You know how that happens sometimes. Well it hasn't gone away. It has just gotten worse to the point where it hurts up the back of my head and down my arm. It hurts to pick up Keegan and it hurts to drive. Since I am on a rant about bodily pain; let's next address my knees. I have always had bad knees. During marching band my left knee swelled up to 5x its normal size. I was on crutches for 6 weeks and on painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. So we have started playing DDR a lot. Last night while I was crawling around after Keegan my left knee made a crunch sound and then started swelling. I spend a good portion of last night with ice tied to my knee. Not sure what made my knee give, it could have been the DDR or it could have been all the crawling around on wood floors. I am not sure. It really makes me wonder what my knees will be like when I am 50.
So since the weather, the sick baby, and my body are not enough to throw me in complete chaos; the powers that be have decided that work should uber suck this week too. The only good thing that has happened at work is that I do not have to go out to the plant this month. The bad thing is that they have split our coating run at the plant into 3 parts. 12 hours of our stuff, 12 hours of salable product, 12 hour of our stuff, 12 hour of salable product, 24 hours of our stuff. Now changing the coater back and forth from an experimental set up to the set up for product we actually sell is always a huge endeavor. With this schedule we are not going to get any coating done and the experimentation is going to be so fractured that it's useless.
There are tons of arguments about what should be run and how useful it is to run it. We are already over budget, yet upper management is determined to spend another half million on this fractured experimentation. Now you ask should I be blogging about this; well, trust me they already know what I think about it.
To make matters worse I am the only woman engineer on the team and I have asked to not travel this month since it is hard for Lyle to drop off and pick up Keegan from daycare with his long drive to work. I have traveled a lot lately, I have a 10 month child, and I am the female of the household. I have been getting a lot of accusatory glances and comments of "well, I guess you're lucky you have an excuse to not go." or "well, you won't be there to observe it will you? So why do you care?" I feel guilty about not going out there; but on the other hand I think I am entitled to a little break given all the extra hours and extra travel I have done recently and in previous years.
One of the other female engineers and me were discussing how unfair this is especially during Christmas. I make sure that we get all of the presents, I make sure they are wrapped, and I make sure all the Christmas cards get sent out. I make sure we make cookies and I make sure the Christmas decorations get set up. This is not to say that Lyle doesn't help a ton with all of this stuff, but he does not drive it. I think if I weren't there, none of it would be done. After talking to my male counterparts it seems that this is the case with most of them also. They talk about their wives getting this and that done for Christmas. So, they aren't that concerned about being out at the plant the week before Christmas. Well, unfortunately, not only do I have a small child, I *am* responsible for making sure all the Christmas stuff gets done.
The topper on everything last evening was yet another attempt to help Keegan celebrate something fun for Christmas. I saw a police car coming down the road and asked Lyle if he knew what that was about. He mentioned that it was probably Santa coming around on the firetruck like he does every year. I, was like, well we have to get Keegan out there to see it. I whipped on a coat and slid my shoes halfway on. We threw on Keegan's snowsuit. It really only took a couple minutes. I picked up Keegan and went limping down the driveway with him; my knee an shoulder killing me. We got to the bottom of the drivway just as Santa was getting there. I got Keegan to wave at Santa and...Santa didn't even look at us. We were the only people out there and somehow he didn't see us :-( Keegan liked the lights though, so we stayed and waved at the police car that was trailing Santa. No response there either. Feeling somewhat defeated, yet proud that Keegan had made an effort to wave, I limped back to the house. I heard somebody call "Hey, miss". I turned around to find one that one of the firemen had seen us and run all the way from the firetruck to give me and Keegan a candy cane and wish us Merry Christmas. It made me feel much better :-) That is until I got to the front door and it wouldn't open. Lyle pounded from the inside, while I tried to wrench it open from the front...still no luck. I had to go in through the garage. The door is still broken; we need a new handle.
Oh yeah, one last thing...our computer died last night too...we think the motherboard gave out. I can here money draining out of the bank account from here...
I guess I am running out of steam and I do need to get some other work done. I am just at the end of my rope with work right now and have negative desire to be here. I have to sit through a 3 hour design review this afternoon and I am hoping, with Keegan's new penchant for 3am feedings, that I can stay awake through it.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Having a sick baby sucks!
Everyone already probably knows that having a sick baby sucks. I just thought I would reiterate the fact out of frustration.
After bragging to a coworker on Thursday that Keegan had been perfectly healthy for over 3 weeks, I came home to find that Keegan had developed a fever during the day. This fever persisted to Friday morning. And, though I was tempted to give him some Tylenol and send him to daycare, I didn't. I stayed home with Mr. Crabby, as we have taken to calling him over the last 4 days.
It kind of sucked because I had stuff I needed to get done at work; alas it was not meant to be. Keegan has been unhappy every night because he coughs, wakes up, and doesn't feel good. So there has been a lot of rocking Keegan in the glider at 2am in the morning. He has been unhappy all day. I was thinking about taking him in to the doctor today but yesterday he finally pulled out of his sickness and out of his seemingly chronic crabbiness.
Yesterday afternoon Keegan finally took a nap. Lyle and I collapsed on our bed and took a nap ourselves. After that we were all much happier.
Still it sucks when the baby is sick. You can't do a whole lot to help them out and they can't tell you what's wrong. The only thing you *can* do is be there for them. So, that's what I did on Friday I rocked Keegan, I played with Keegan, and I did my best to comfort the horribly crabby baby. Sometimes I guess that's all you can do!
Thank goodness that he is finally feeling better and cracking frequent smiles again!
After bragging to a coworker on Thursday that Keegan had been perfectly healthy for over 3 weeks, I came home to find that Keegan had developed a fever during the day. This fever persisted to Friday morning. And, though I was tempted to give him some Tylenol and send him to daycare, I didn't. I stayed home with Mr. Crabby, as we have taken to calling him over the last 4 days.
It kind of sucked because I had stuff I needed to get done at work; alas it was not meant to be. Keegan has been unhappy every night because he coughs, wakes up, and doesn't feel good. So there has been a lot of rocking Keegan in the glider at 2am in the morning. He has been unhappy all day. I was thinking about taking him in to the doctor today but yesterday he finally pulled out of his sickness and out of his seemingly chronic crabbiness.
Yesterday afternoon Keegan finally took a nap. Lyle and I collapsed on our bed and took a nap ourselves. After that we were all much happier.
Still it sucks when the baby is sick. You can't do a whole lot to help them out and they can't tell you what's wrong. The only thing you *can* do is be there for them. So, that's what I did on Friday I rocked Keegan, I played with Keegan, and I did my best to comfort the horribly crabby baby. Sometimes I guess that's all you can do!
Thank goodness that he is finally feeling better and cracking frequent smiles again!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Something not to try for Christmas....
The night before last we tried something that I recommend not doing. I don't think we'll ever do it again; at least not until Keegan is older.
In one of the many kids' catalogs that I now receive (not sure what mailing list I ended up on to receive these) there was a really cute kit to make a plaster caste of your baby's hand. The kit was set up to turn the caste into a Christmas ornament. I had been trying to think of something neat to do for Keegan's first Christmas, I really wanted something cool that we could hang on the Xmas tree that would have some significant meaning.
The kit was $9.95 so I went online and ordered it. I was so excited. Apparently I hadn't thought this one through very well.
When I received the product, the picture on the box showed a pristine baby handprint complete with fingerprints. Did I mention I thought I was clever for doing this and super excited for having found this? So I read the directions.
Step 1 - mix plaster with 3 cupfuls of water (cup provided) and stir until even consistency
Step 2 - pour the mixture into the mold and let sit for 2-5 minutes until the mixture firms up.
Step 3 - Dampen child's hand and place on plaster firmly pressing the hand down to get good indentation of all fingers.
Step 4 - Let mold sit for 2 hrs for plaster to completely harden
Easy breezy, right? So I mixed up the plaster. Some of the plaster missed the mixing bowl and ended up on the floor and counter. Seras (our three-legged wonder) thought it was baby formula and tried to eat it. As the mixture lumps together in the bowl I am chasing Seras away and trying to clean the plaster up off of the floor.
I mix the plaster to "even consistency" and pour it into the mold. There is too much plaster for the mold and it drips over the edges of the mold onto the counter. It also drips off of the counter to land on my new black suede shoes. That sucks.
Still, I am doing okay here. I set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes and clear all cats from the area. 5 minutes goes by and I check the mold. There is no firmness here; it is still liquid. I refer back to the directions. In tiny letters at the bottom it says that setting time may vary depending on room conditions. Okay the house is at 70oF and ~35%RH...pretty standard.
I wait another 5 minutes...still liquid. I set the timer for 10 minutes and wonder if maybe they wrote these directions in Arizona in the middle of the summer.
After - add it up - 20 minutes, the mixture is somewhat not-liquidy. Keegan is crabby because he is tired. We were going to do this right before his bedtime and now it is getting late. Lyle brings him over and holds him up while I straighten out Keegan's hand and hold the mold. I carefully, painstakingly, press Keegan's hand into the somewhat firm plaster. Now, everyone think about what is going to happen here...wait for it....
What does a 9 month old baby do when something touches its hand? Yes, you have it! Keegan closes his hand trying to grab the plaster. We now have a pretty darn ugly plaster Christmas ornament and Keegan has a handful of plaster he is trying to eat. Lyle gives me a look that says that this was just a great idea of mine.
I will not be detered though. After washing the plaster of Keegan's hand; I flatten out the plaster and we try again. We still are not able to keep Keegan from grabbing the plaster. I suggest we let the plaster firm up a bit more.
10 minutes later I realize the plaster is almost solid and I have an epiphany. Let's do Keegan's foot instead. I pull of Keegan's sock and get Lyle to hold him over the mold. I press his foot into the plaster cast and Keegan starts crying. He is tired and wants his foot back! A vaguely foot-shaped print is in the plaster. I don't like the way it looks. We wash off Keegan's foot.
I rewet the surface of the plaster and we try Keegan's hand again. He is unable to dig his fingers into the plaster now but instead leaves only a vague handprint. Keegan is crabby and Lyle is pissed that I didn't leave the footprint on there. I say "Let's just do it one more time." Lyle says "Keegan's going to bed now." I glare at the vague handprint and shrug. Taking my fingers I press down into the vague handprint shape with my fingers making it deeper while keeping it Keegan sized.
I look at the mold, it is disgusting. Apparently Keegan had been playing with the cat between prints, so there is cat hair stuck in the mold. Now it's not even Keegan's handprint but my fingerprints following the trace of Keegan's hand print. I suppose one way to look at it is that that the ornament has a little bit of everyone (including the cats) in it. I am not sure if I should keep it or toss it.
As Lyle comes back into the room; I suggest next time maybe we should stick with finger paint and construction paper.
To add insult to injury apparently Seras had her paws down the drain in the garbage disposal again. She does this every night to look for food. I guess this time she found some leftover plaster. When I came out yesterday morning there was plaster tracked all over the kitchen in the shape of little cat pawprints. She only has three legs so we know it was her.
Note to self. This was all a bad idea.
In one of the many kids' catalogs that I now receive (not sure what mailing list I ended up on to receive these) there was a really cute kit to make a plaster caste of your baby's hand. The kit was set up to turn the caste into a Christmas ornament. I had been trying to think of something neat to do for Keegan's first Christmas, I really wanted something cool that we could hang on the Xmas tree that would have some significant meaning.
The kit was $9.95 so I went online and ordered it. I was so excited. Apparently I hadn't thought this one through very well.
When I received the product, the picture on the box showed a pristine baby handprint complete with fingerprints. Did I mention I thought I was clever for doing this and super excited for having found this? So I read the directions.
Step 1 - mix plaster with 3 cupfuls of water (cup provided) and stir until even consistency
Step 2 - pour the mixture into the mold and let sit for 2-5 minutes until the mixture firms up.
Step 3 - Dampen child's hand and place on plaster firmly pressing the hand down to get good indentation of all fingers.
Step 4 - Let mold sit for 2 hrs for plaster to completely harden
Easy breezy, right? So I mixed up the plaster. Some of the plaster missed the mixing bowl and ended up on the floor and counter. Seras (our three-legged wonder) thought it was baby formula and tried to eat it. As the mixture lumps together in the bowl I am chasing Seras away and trying to clean the plaster up off of the floor.
I mix the plaster to "even consistency" and pour it into the mold. There is too much plaster for the mold and it drips over the edges of the mold onto the counter. It also drips off of the counter to land on my new black suede shoes. That sucks.
Still, I am doing okay here. I set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes and clear all cats from the area. 5 minutes goes by and I check the mold. There is no firmness here; it is still liquid. I refer back to the directions. In tiny letters at the bottom it says that setting time may vary depending on room conditions. Okay the house is at 70oF and ~35%RH...pretty standard.
I wait another 5 minutes...still liquid. I set the timer for 10 minutes and wonder if maybe they wrote these directions in Arizona in the middle of the summer.
After - add it up - 20 minutes, the mixture is somewhat not-liquidy. Keegan is crabby because he is tired. We were going to do this right before his bedtime and now it is getting late. Lyle brings him over and holds him up while I straighten out Keegan's hand and hold the mold. I carefully, painstakingly, press Keegan's hand into the somewhat firm plaster. Now, everyone think about what is going to happen here...wait for it....
What does a 9 month old baby do when something touches its hand? Yes, you have it! Keegan closes his hand trying to grab the plaster. We now have a pretty darn ugly plaster Christmas ornament and Keegan has a handful of plaster he is trying to eat. Lyle gives me a look that says that this was just a great idea of mine.
I will not be detered though. After washing the plaster of Keegan's hand; I flatten out the plaster and we try again. We still are not able to keep Keegan from grabbing the plaster. I suggest we let the plaster firm up a bit more.
10 minutes later I realize the plaster is almost solid and I have an epiphany. Let's do Keegan's foot instead. I pull of Keegan's sock and get Lyle to hold him over the mold. I press his foot into the plaster cast and Keegan starts crying. He is tired and wants his foot back! A vaguely foot-shaped print is in the plaster. I don't like the way it looks. We wash off Keegan's foot.
I rewet the surface of the plaster and we try Keegan's hand again. He is unable to dig his fingers into the plaster now but instead leaves only a vague handprint. Keegan is crabby and Lyle is pissed that I didn't leave the footprint on there. I say "Let's just do it one more time." Lyle says "Keegan's going to bed now." I glare at the vague handprint and shrug. Taking my fingers I press down into the vague handprint shape with my fingers making it deeper while keeping it Keegan sized.
I look at the mold, it is disgusting. Apparently Keegan had been playing with the cat between prints, so there is cat hair stuck in the mold. Now it's not even Keegan's handprint but my fingerprints following the trace of Keegan's hand print. I suppose one way to look at it is that that the ornament has a little bit of everyone (including the cats) in it. I am not sure if I should keep it or toss it.
As Lyle comes back into the room; I suggest next time maybe we should stick with finger paint and construction paper.
To add insult to injury apparently Seras had her paws down the drain in the garbage disposal again. She does this every night to look for food. I guess this time she found some leftover plaster. When I came out yesterday morning there was plaster tracked all over the kitchen in the shape of little cat pawprints. She only has three legs so we know it was her.
Note to self. This was all a bad idea.
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