How cute is she????

Seven things about me…

Because I know I'm so important to you all (heeheehee), I've decided that I had better offer up a post to keep you all coming back, just in case you decide to abandon me due to lack of posting. The only problem is nothing worthy of an entire post has happened to me lately.

You see, it's summer, so I'm naturally distracted from anything that requires much brain power (throwback to childhood summer vacation I guess). And I'm still (STILL!) cleaning my house from top to bottom, and baby is it getting organized! But I've still got a bit more to do so I'm spending every spare minute doing that.

So, to keep you all interested until I am done cleaning and back to my usual self, here are some random things in my life from the past few weeks:

1. I am totally in love with the new Tide laundry detergent that smells like white lilac. Makes my clothes smell so nice, I actually WANT to do laundry.

2. I am addicted to the new Peek Frean Cranberry Citrus Oat Crunch cookies. Yummy!!! Dip them in a little vanilla yogurt: even yummier!

3. I just found out that my next door neighbor and her teenage daughter have been going to the food bank to get them through some tough times. Now all I want to do is bake for them and do whatever else I can for them.

4. Gracie has decided to be a night owl like mommy and daddy. She goes to bed at 1 a.m. and sleeps until 10 a.m. She can sit up on her own now too. Well, most of the time. When she's bored of sitting she just falls backwards, which is fine when she's sitting on my bed while I fold laundry, but not so fine when we are in the living room on the padded foam tile thingies. Or at the Superstore getting family photos taken and you have to sit on the cement floor.

5. I have been watching Little House on the Prairie every day at 5 p.m. while Gracie naps and I make supper. Embarassing, but true. Did you know that Jason Bateman and Shannen Doherty were on that show when they were little kids? It's kinda funny to watch.

6. I had my first "I can do it myself Mommy!" moment with Gracie the other day. It was only the third time I've let her sit up while she takes a bath, and since I'm trying to be a responsible adult and not let her drown, I kept holding onto her. And she kept grabbing my hand and pushing it away. The fifth? time, she looked right into my eyes and started baby-babbling in a very annoyed voice, her little face all scrunched and mad. I'm pretty sure she was telling me off in her own little language.

7. Speaking of language, she's getting very close to saying "Mommy." Whenever she is upset, scared, crying, or just generally annoyed with something, I get an "Uhhh-meeee!" At first I thought it was just coincidental baby babble, but she's doing it pretty consistently now. I have to say I'm kinda surprised. The way she's been trying to get the cats, I was certain her first word was going to be Kitty.

Well, that's me in a nutshell these days. As soon as I get a minute, I'll scan the family photos we had taken and post them here.

My kid's bigger than your kid…

I took Gracie to her 6-month check-up this afternoon, and after the nurse did the preliminary height and weight check, this is what I overheard just outside the door of the little room they stuck us in:

Doctor: This can't be right.

Nurse: But it is. I checked twice. Her mother helped me hold her still.

Doctor: But she can't be 74 cm tall. She's only 6 months old.

Nurse: You can measure her again yourself, but she's 74 cm tall.

Doctor: Then I guess the weight must be right too. 9.43 kg? That's over the 100th percentile. Holy crap, that's one big kid.

So apparently, my kid's bigger than your kid, and your kid, and your kid too. Not unhealthy -- the doctor said she's quite proportional -- just big.

And nobody is more surprised than me. For those of you who don't know me in the flesh, I'm only 5'3" tall. So when I got pregnant I just assumed that I was going to have me a nice little 6 pound baby, because seriously, where would a bigger baby than that fit? And even when presented with ultrasound results that told me Gracie was at least 7 pounds and probably more, I didn't really believe it. Induce me today? But it's only my due date! Let's not be hasty. If Gracie doesn't really want to come out, then I don't think we should force her just yet…

Then a week later, when they told me I shouldn't wait any longer and made me come in for an induction, I still didn't really believe the baby could be that big. When asked if I wanted some morphine or an epidural, I naively said no, I thought that I could probably get by just fine with some of that nice laughing gas I had read about. And I did get by just fine -- until my giant baby got stuck and they had to do some nasty things to get her out. FYI, laughing gas is NOT effective when they need to reach in and rip out a baby who is going into distress. I won't go into details, but when all was said and done, Gracie's collarbone was broken and I didn't walk so well for quite awhile…

Where was I? Oh yes - my big baby weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds, 10.75 ounces, and she's been big ever since. At this rate, she's going to outgrow me sometime next year. And that's just fine with me. Maybe she will grow up to be one of those lucky ladies who doesn't have to shop in the petites section. Sigh…a mother can dream, can't she?

PMS Day. Need I say more?

I am grumpy and frustrated beyond measure today. Gracie is being a crying, whining, teething 6-month-old (which I know she can't help), and all the things I usually do to cheer her up are not working and all she does is cry if I don't hold her, so I've been holding her and walking around the house for three hours straight. I'm PMS-ing and there is no chocolate left in my house, and hubby will not be home until midnight tonight so I'm all alone all day with a baby who won't stop crying and if it wouldn't wake her up (she finally fell asleep) I would be screaming in a pillow right now so I'm doing this instead.

Okay. Better now. Maybe I have time to make some cookies…


Postscript: It's now midnight. After I posted this afternoon, Gracie had a 2 hour nap and woke up a different baby. And after she went to bed Mommy had a Smirnoff Ice and some popcorn and she feels MUCH better now. Damn it, I guess Scott Reid was right: we parents do squander our money on beer and popcorn.

Things I didn't know before I got pregnant #274

When I got pregnant, I knew that my body would suffer some irreparable damage. I knew that I would gain weight, acquire a spare tire that would never really go away, and that I would likely lose a large percentage of my hair.

But no one ever told me that one of my boobs would end up bigger than the other. That's right: one of my boobs is bigger than the other. And not just a little bit bigger. Waaaay bigger. I discovered this this morning, trying on my old bras.

You see, I'm fortunate enough to have lost about half of my pregnancy weight, and since I'm no longer breastfeeding, my breasts have returned to close to their original size. Not their original perkiness of course, but size wise, pretty close to normal. So, I hauled out a bunch of my old bras, hoping that perhaps some of the push-up variety I used to wear might make me look a little bit better. I figured that I could probably squeeze back into my good ol' 36C's if I did up the very last hook instead of the first hook that I USED to use…

And that's when I discovered that one of my lovely ladies is bigger than the other. The right side fits quite nicely, thank you very much. But the left side? Refused to stay in the cup. Popped right out every time I tried to stuff it back in.

How does this happen? Will it go back to the right size eventually? How on earth am I ever going to find a bra that fits me, ever, ever again?

Only me. Something like this would only happen to me, I swear.

Bestest Toy Ever!

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. You know how a few weeks ago I wrote about how I was going to re-organize my house and turn myself into a neat freak? Turns out that re-organizing can create a bigger mess than you had in the first place. Nobody told me that part. And, when you are spending all your time re-organizing, it gives you less time for silly things like vacuuming and doing the laundry, which you end up doing at 2 a.m. because it still has to get done. So, writing on my blog (which I would rather be doing than ANY of those aforementioned things) has become a bit of a lower priority.

But I'm almost done. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My house will be neat and tidy and presentable in no time (or, alternatively, just in time for Gracie to crawl, which looks like could be any minute now).

But I gotta tell you all about this cool thing I bought yesterday, in honor of Gracie's first grocery shopping trip without the infant car seat. She's pretty good at sitting up on her own but is a teeny tiny bit wobbly still, so I needed something to, um, hold her up a bit while I spend and hour and half shopping. (If any of you can get out of the Real Canadian Superstore in under an hour and half, please tell me how).






Anyway, I bought an Infantino shopping cart cover. It has toys on it for her to play with, a little pillow for a head rest, and a handy-dandy strap to put through the back of the shopping cart to hold her up. And she LOVED it. I put her in the shopping cart, strapped her in, then told her: "Look! You're sitting up all by yourself like a big girl!" I tell you, you've never seen a smile so big. She grinned for a half an hour. She looked at EVERYTHING with such intensity, as if she had never seen any of these things before. She played with all the little toys, and when she got tired, the little strap kept her upright and the bone-shaped pillow was the perfect little head-rest.

Try it! I highly recommend it. Now, back to the giant mess…

A small request…

Can I please freeze time to the very moment in this picture? I would like Gracie to stay almost 6 months old forever, and I would like every day to end like in this picture: going to the park at sunset, pushing Gracie in her toddler swing for 20 minutes while she laughs and hubby and I smile and hug and kiss in the warm summer night breeze, and all is right with the world.

Four years and 30 pounds ago…

Today is hubby and my fourth anniversary. Four years of wedded bliss, filled with moving to Airdrie, buying 20 per cent of an independent newspaper, buying our first home, and best of all, having our first child.

It's been the best four years of my life, bar none.

Although, the three years we lived together prior to getting married were pretty damn awesome too. Which (awkwardly) brings me to today's topic: Is an anniversary less special when you've lived together before getting married?

Last year, a slightly more religious acquaintance of mine insinuated that since hubby and I had lived in sin for so long before we got married, our anniversary didn't really mean anything. That since it wasn't really the beginning of our life together, it wasn't really the celebration of anything other than "making it legal."

After I got over wanting throw her over the nearest cliff (which is pretty hard to find on the prairies), I started thinking about what she had to say. I mean, I guess, in a way, she was a teeny, tiny bit correct. Our wedding day was not the beginning of our lives together. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it made the day MORE special, not less.

You see, by the time you've shared an abode with someone for three years, you've learned pretty much everything about them. You've moved past the "crazy in love" phase, and entered the "this is real life" phase. You know, the phase where you ask your sweetie why the hell he has to take his socks off and just leave them on the floor in front of the couch, and he answers by saying: "I don't know. Why the hell does it take you an hour to get ready to go anywhere?"

We knew each other's likes and dislikes, pet peeves and peccadillos. We knew each other inside and out, warts and all. We knew better than a brand new couple exactly what we were getting ourselves into. And we still stood up in front of all of our family and friends and spilled tears of happiness as we promised to love each other until death do we part.

Now, come on, isn't that romantic?

Update to the Instruction Manual:

Since I wrote that post on Friday, it has been pointed out to me that I'm doing two stupid things:

1. Boiling water before I make formula.
2. Sterilizing the bottles every night.

So here is my lame defence for each point:

#1: I've been boiling the water for the formula because, well, it says to in bold, all caps letters on the side of the can; and being the polite and obedient Canadian that I am, I followed the instructions. It has since been pointed out to me both online and in person that only new Moms like me follow that instruction. Apparently, most of you all buck the system and just use hot tap water. So, I've been using hot tap water for the last couple of days and sweet Gracie still seems to be alive and well, so I've eliminated that step from my night time routine.

#2: I've been sterilizing the nipples to her bottle every night since she got thrush three months ago. I didn't use to. I used to just put them in the dishwasher and then sterilze them once a week like it said on the instructions. (I'm a real follow-the-instructions kind of gal). But the first time she got thrush it didn't go away until I started sterilizing every night. Once the thrush cleared up I went back to sterilizing once a week, but by the end of the week the thrush was back. I did that three times. The third time she got thrush I had to give her a super strong prescription medicine, throw away all of the bottle nipples, throw away all of her soothers, throw away all of the gripe water that I had dipped a soother in, and take away a number of toys that she had chewed on and sterilize them too. I didn't want that thrush to come back ever, ever again, so I just got into the habit of boiling all the bottles nipples for a half hour every night before I went to bed so they would be ready for morning.

But she hasn't had thrush in two months now, so I could probably be safe in going back to once a week. And I've decided that this is the week. So thanks everybody! Maybe with all the extra time I'll have, I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy of the new Harry Potter book…

Instruction Manual for being Gracie's Mommy

You know the saying that babies don't come with instruction manuals, but it sure would be nice if they did? Well, today I decided to start a new feature here at Denice-isms. I call it: Instruction Manual for being Gracie's Mommy. Every time I stumble upon something very important to Gracie's upkeep and general well-being, I'll add it to the manual.

Today's inaugural entry:

Rule #1: Never, ever, under any circumstances, wake her up in the morning before she is ready to be awake -- or suffer the consequences!

I could write a really long blog about how much she cried and how frustrated I was last week, but I'll keep it to the basics.

For the past couple of weeks, Gracie has been going to bed later, and later, and later, to the point where all last week she didn't go to bed until well after midnight. Which isn't that bad, really, considering her Dad and I are night owls and we probably wouldn't go to bed before then anyway. But since she's formula-fed now, after she goes to bed I have to wash and sterilize all the bottles, boil enough water for the formula for the next day and then mix the formula -- plus do a couple of loads of laundry, clean up the kitchen, tidy the living room -- you get the idea. So when Gracie goes to bed at midnight, I don't go to bed until 2:30 a.m.

Now, when she goes to bed at midnight, sweet Gracie will usually sleep until at least 10 a.m., maybe even 11 a.m. if I'm really, really lucky. But one day last week, I heard her stirring a bit at 9 a.m. and instead of just going into her room and sticking the soother back in her mouth and fixing the blankets so she could instantly drift back off to sleep, I got the brilliant idea that I would instead turn on the lights and wake her up, so that tonight she would go to bed earlier.

Let's just say that didn't go over well. And she punished me for the whole rest of the day. She was grumpy all day, and even though she was clearly tired, she absolutely refused to go to sleep. And she still didn't go to bed until well after midnight.

So in the future, if it doesn't look like she is ready to get up, I will not, under any circumstances, try to wake her up. It's just easier that way. Who needs to go anywhere at 11 a.m. anyway? Stores stay open pretty late here…

Neat-Freak in the Making

My house is a total disaster. And I'm not just being one of those people who SAY "please excuse my messy house" when you come over, and really, the only thing that is messy is there are a couple of bills and flyers on the kitchen counter that haven't been filed neatly away somewhere.

My house really is a total disaster. Every thing is totally disorganized. We moved into this house three days before Christmas in 2004, so in order to get everything unpacked quickly, things just got put where they got put. There was no real thought put into whether it was a GOOD place to put it. If it fit there, that's where it went. At the time, I just figured that I would reorganize everything later, when I had more time. But life got busy and now it's how many years later? and it's still disorganized. Plus, it doesn't really help that I'm the worlds' biggest pack rat. I hate to throw things away, because I'm sure that if I throw that item away, in one week I will need said item. Also, I'm terribly sentimental. I have a whole box of left over wedding invitations and the materials I used to make them. Do I need 50 extra invitations for a wedding that was 4 years ago? No. But can I throw them away? No! They were our wedding invitations!!!

See what we're dealing with here?

In my wildest dreams, I live in one of those perfectly organized houses you see in the Ikea catalogue. A perfect place for everything, and everything in it's perfect place. Sleek, modern furniture, perfectly organized kitchen…everything they are, I want to be. But until recently, I had absolutely no idea how to do it.

I've been watching this show on HGTV called Neat, where a professional organizer comes to your house, helps you clean it out, and then shows you how to organize all your stuff so that it never gets super-scary messy ever again. (I tried to apply to get them to come to MY house, but apparently HGTV thinks the only messy people in the country live in Toronto.)

I have been learning a lot from Neat. And I think, for the very first time, I might just be able to organize this house and keep it that way. Apparently, according to the host Helen, messy people like me have just never learned how to make a system for keeping their house clean. Apparently all of you neat-freak people out there have systems for exactly where everything will go when it enters your house -- instead of sitting on the kitchen table until you can decide what to do with it.

And you also have schedules for cleaning -- like Monday is vacuuming day, Tuesday is laundry day, etc. You see, I didn't know this. I thought that most people just vacuumed when the floor was starting to look dirty. Apparently not. Apparently, most people vacuum the house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday whether it needs it or not.

You learn something new every day.

So, armed with several great ideas I've gotten from her show, I have decided that over the next couple of months, I am going to re-organize my house from the bottom up. Maybe I'll take some before pictures, and when I'm done I'll post the after ones next to it.

Wish me luck! Or, if it's been like a week and I haven't posted anything, please send someone to the basement to dig me out from under the giant pile of stuff…

I need a new look!

I'm not a celebrity watcher by any stretch of the imagination. I don't buy the celebrity magazines and I don't watch the TV shows, because, well, I just don't care. Maybe it's the journalist in me, but I just don't think it's NEWS when a celebrity names her baby something stupid, or shaves her head, or goes into rehab for the 10 jillionth time.

But when there's a 15 minute wait at the Superstore check-out, there's really nothing else to do but read those stupid tabloids. And that's where I noticed that Katie Holmes has a new haircut.



I hate myself for it, but I want that haircut. I need that haircut. I would totally ROCK that haircut! I haven't really changed my hair in about four years -- since I grew it out so it would be long for wedding pictures. So I really need a change in my look. Plus, it would be nice to go a few hours without having to wash the Gracie spit-up out of my shoulder length hair. (Yes, I put it in a pony tail, but the magic Gracie spit up seems to even find it there).

I would also like to be wearing that same outfit (I LOVE that top!), but I haven't been quite as successful at shedding those pregnancy pounds as she was. Oh well. At least I can rock the haircut.

Dear Gracie…

When Mommy leaves you with Grandma all day for the very first time, you should know that the polite thing to do is at least PRETEND you missed me -- just a little bit?

I wasn't worried about you -- I knew that you were fine alone with Grandma. But I still spent the entire day at work wondering what you and Grandma were doing, and if you were napping well for her, and if your teeth were bothering you today, and if I remembered to tell Grandma about your favorite go to sleep blankie, and if I was being a terrible mother by leaving you so soon to go to work, even though it was only for a couple of days.

Oh my Gracie girl, I missed you like crazy! But when I came home, you were smiling and happy, and gave me this very cute smile that said: "Hey Mommy! Have you played with this Grandma lady yet? She's great!" And then you ignored me and went back to playing with Grandma.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad you had lots of fun, instead of being upset without me. But still, the next time I leave you, can you pretend you missed me just a little, tiny bit? It will make Mommy feel a little bit better. It's selfish, I know. I'm working on it.

Love, Mommy

My new reality

About a month ago, I was reading a post from a mommy-blogger that I totally related to. She was talking about how as a mom who didn't start having kids until she was well into her 30's (like me), her new life as a mommy didn't really feel "real" to her for a long time. She said she spent so many years as a stressed out workaholic (again, like me) that when she quit her job to stay home and raise her kids, she felt a bit like it was a long vacation, and not really her real life. She said that even though she was absolutely having the time of her life, she felt like at any moment, someone was going to show up, take her daughter and say: "Okay, vacation's over. Time to go back to your real life now." She said it took a real "A-ha" moment for her to internalize her new role as mommy and really integrate it as part of her new self-image.

I couldn't get that post out of my mind, because it was exactly how I felt. I'm LOVING staying home with Gracie. But I felt like at any moment, someone was going to find me and say: "Ha! You didn't think you were going to escape that easily, did you? Did you really think we were going to let you spend your days playing with that beautiful little girl forever? Go sit in your windowless office, and get back to working 60 hour weeks right now!" (Yes, my imagination talks to me in cheesy dialogue from a really bad detective movie).

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking: "Um, didn't pushing an almost 9 pound baby out of your va-jay-jay without any drugs make you feel like a real mother? I mean, you'd think that the labour, the breastfeeding troubles and the sleepless nights would make you realize - hey, I'm a mommy now!"

But, like her, I didn't really feel like I was a "real" mommy yet -- until yesterday, when I had MY "A-Ha" moment.

This week, the guy at work who has my old job is on vacation, so I've been taking Gracie to the office to fill in. It's been going pretty well, but yesterday Gracie was just not co-operating. She slept in, so her morning nap was going to be too late for me to take a shower and still get us out of the house at a decent time, so I had to skip the shower. I just washed my face and put on a little makeup, found a headband and put my hair back and headed to the bedroom to find some clothes.

That's when I discovered that I had been doing lots of laundry for Gracie and hubby, but that there wasn't a single clean shirt to wear for myself. So I actually sorted through the laundry hamper, pulled out all of my t-shirts, laid them out on the bed and compared which shirt had LESS spit-up on it. And that's when I had MY "A-ha" moment.

It just totally hit me, like a ton of bricks, right then and there. I am a mommy now. Choosing your least spit-up on shirt to wear out in public is a totally "mommy" thing to do. This really is my "real" life.

And I'm loving every minute of it.

Be my Friend

Okay, I get the Facebook appeal now. One day of playing on it and I'm totally addicted. There are about 8 million things I should be doing right now, but all I want to do is look up people I used to know, send them messages and ask them to be my friend!

On another note, I took Gracie to the health unit today to weigh her, and you will never guess how big my little monster is getting! She is 4 months and one week old, and weighs a whopping 17 lbs, 11 oz. She has outgrown her 6 month size clothing and is now wearing the 9 to 12 month size, and everybody who sees her swears she's 6 or 7 months old. At her 3-month check-up a month ago, the doctor said she was in the 97th percentile for both height and weight, and she's just been growing like a bad weed ever since.

At this rate, I'm starting to have hope that she'll get her Daddy's height instead of my paltry 5'3". But then, who knows? I used to be one of the tall kids in the class too…until I stopped growing at age 14.

Anyway, here's another cute pic of her taken about a month ago. I know, I know, I really need to take my film in more often. But I'm busy! (Playing on Facebook…)

I'm back!

So I have an internet connection once again, after not having one for freaking ever.

It's a really long story that starts with a power outage and the possibility of the entire logic board of my beloved iMac needing to be replaced, and ends with the problem being a fried ethernet cord that I should have checked BEFORE I packed my four-month-old and my computer up and drove to Westworld Computers, sat for an hour in traffic while Centre Street was closed for construction, and then paid $50 for them to tell me there was absolutely nothing wrong with my computer.

Anyhoo… I have my internet back and thank God because I was really, really missing it. Gracie's been sleeping so well lately that I had a ton of blog entry ideas and some actual time to blog -- but no internet connection to make it happen. I had a really good one written for May 31, all about how one year ago today I was waking my hubby up by jumping on the bed and waving a urine-soaked stick in his face yelling: "WAKE UP! IT'S POSITIVE! Look! There are two pink lines in the window! The second one is kinda faint but it's there! IT'S POSITIVE!!!!!!!!!" I'll spare you the rest of the entry 'cause it got kinda sappy, but you get the general idea.

So, I'm making up for lost internet time today. I joined FaceBook, just so that I could look up people that I haven't heard from in forever, and now I have no idea what to do with it. What does the "Poke" thing mean? And why can't I read a person's profile without adding them to my Friends list? I mean, there were 50 people with the same name that I was looking up in some instances -- do I have to add every single one to my list of Friends before I get to find out if any of them is the person I am actually looking for? I consider myself fairly internet savvy, but I don't understand the appeal of FaceBook. Maybe I need to spend more time at it. There has to be a reason why the Province of Ontario has banned it in all government offices so their employees will get some actual work done.

I'll end this mish-mash post that, now that I re-read it doesn't seem to any real point to it, with a picture of my little family. Awww…how cute are they?

This may be too much info…

Yesterday, I had one of those days that reading a parenting book could not have prepared me for.

I had the worst diarrhea I've ever had in my whole life. I don't know what I ate to make my digestive tract so angry at me, but it was the kind of "feel the rumble in your tummy, stop what you are doing and RUN" kind of diarrhea.

But what do you do with your 3-month-old when you have to drop everything and run?

Well, luckily the first couple times it happened, she was happily playing under her baby gym in the living room, so I just left her there and ran. I'm not sure she even noticed I was gone.

But the third time it happened, poor Gracie was snuggled into my lap enjoying her second breakfast when Mommy had to get up and run. I grabbed the bouncy seat on my way to the bathroom, put her in it in front of me on the floor, and stuck the bottle in her mouth. She had this absolutely shell-shocked look on her face like "what just happened?" but my little trooper just kept on eating. Until yesterday, I had been absolutely heartsick that I had to give up breastfeeding; but it was decidedly handy to be able to feed her while I sat on the toilet because I tell you, I had to do that a couple more times before the day was done.

By early afternoon I had the bouncy seat staying in the small downstairs bathroom, an extra towel on the floor on top of the bath mat in the upstairs bathroom, and a variety of toys with which to keep my Gracie entertained in both. I sang songs, read her books, and tickled her tummy with my feet, all while sitting on the toilet. That worked for most of the day -- in fact, she seemed to be rather interested in these new rooms that she hadn't spent much time in before.

But boy, when she decided she really, really didn't want to be in that stinky room with me ANYMORE, things got ugly. How do you placate a baby who wants to be picked up when you really don't think it's a good idea to get off the toilet? Poor Gracie was just SCREAMING on the bathroom floor, her chubby arms stretched out towards me, tears streaming down her little face.

So why didn't you just take some Pepto-Bismol or something, you ask? Well, we were out. Completely out. No Pepto, no Tums, no Rolaids. Nothing. Apparently I cleaned us out while pregnant and have not needed them since. So I spent a good long time wondering how I would ever be able to pack this kid up, put her in the car, and get somewhere to buy some medicine without desperately needing to go in the meantime.

Luckily by late afternoon, I appeared to be, um, thoroughly cleaned out, so to speak, and no longer needed the medicine. And though awful, the one screaming incident was pretty brief, and she got over it quickly. But I'm never, ever eating whatever that spicy dish from the chinese food restaurant was ever, ever again.

Long time no post

Hi everybody! (Hi Dr. Nick…)

Sorry I've been absent for so long. A couple of my graphic design clients begged and basically suckered me into doing a few projects for them, which left precious little time for frivolously fun things like this here blog.

These projects also nicely coincided with Gracie deciding that she no longer needed to take naps. When I agreed to do these projects, she was napping rather nicely, thank you very much, so I figured I could spend those hours designing ads and a pretty tourism guide -- and make a few extra bucks with which to buy cute outfits and toys for my new sweet pea.

But as soon as I agreed to do these projects, Gracie decided that napping for hours in the daytime was for 2-month-olds. Three-month-olds apparently take 20 minute naps that are just long enough for mommy to have a shower, or make a sandwich, or throw in a load of laundry. Not long enough to design a 32-page, full-color tourism guide, and design all the ads inside it to boot.

So, I've been waiting until she goes to bed at night and then working into the wee hours of the morning to get everything done. And I found a wonderful person to do the Tourism Guide, because it rapidly became obvious that there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to get it done. So, if that wonderful person is reading this…
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU MARTINA!!!!!

At this point, in case people think I was complaining about the lack of naps, I should disclose that Gracie goes to bed at 11 p.m. and doesn't wake up until 8 a.m. So I'm absolutely not complaining. I point this out because every time I tell another mother that my 3-month-old sleeps nine hours at a stretch, she always gets that look on her face like she'd really, really like to hit me. Hard. With a diaper bag with a couple of bricks hidden in it.

So I'm not complaining. Honest.

But I don't want a needle!

Her first immunizations last Friday. She didn't like it so much. But then, would you?

All winter and no spring makes Necie a cranky girl…

It's snowing outside. I can't believe it's April 18 and it's still snowing.
WHY IS IT STILL SNOWING?????

Don't get me wrong. I love winter -- when I can spend my nights at the curling rink, followed by a nice cold Smirnoff Ice. But I couldn't do either of those things while preggers, and I now that Gracie is here I wake up every day hoping that today will be that bright sunshine-y day when I can take out the stroller I bought months and months and MONTHS ago and actually use it. I NEED to get some fresh air and exercise and not be stuck inside my house day after day after day.

But nooooooo. It's the middle of freaking April and still snowing.
I can't take much more of this winter crap. Global warming my ass.