Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, dear readers.  I hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful day.

We had a great afternoon and evening with the collective grandparents and two aunts at my parents house for Christmas Eve dinner last night, which was a lot of fun.  This morning was present-opening at both Diana's parents house, and then my parents.  Allison was only partially interested in opening presents and playing with things, so it was a little bit of a tag-team affair to keep her occupied.

Then home for a nap, and now some nice family time for the afternoon.

Best wishes to you all.

Smell you later, Weekend...

I'm glad this weekend is over.

Everything started fine enough, with Diana's parents coming over to visit on Friday afternoon.  We had dinner, and they left when Allie went to bed.  That night, Allison woke up crying at about 11:30pm.  Diana looked on the monitor, and watched her throw up in her crib.  Ugh.

The last time Allison got sick like this, Diana and I also both got sick a day or two later, and it was AWFUL.  One of the worst times of my life.  So of course I start freaking out.  I happen to have a box of latex gloves, so I put those on and start changing sheets and doing laundry while Diana attends to Allison.  I tried to be extremely cautious about keeping my hands clean and not touching my face and infecting myself.  Soon enough, everything is clean and we put Allison back to bed.

An hour later, the process repeats itself (though with slightly less mess).  And then again, an hour after that (with even less mess).

At this point in time (1:30am) I take the monitor and sleep in the study.  I'm "on duty", taking a hit for the team and letting Diana sleep, the understanding being that Diana will let me sleep late in the morning.  Allison woke up every hour after that, but didn't throw up anymore and was easy to get back to sleep.  But I didn't really get any sleep for the rest of the night.

The next day, I was a mess.  With the combination of no sleep, totally freaked out about getting sick, and potentially fighting something off, I had no appetite and no energy.  I spent a long time in bed, and a long time on the couch.  Allison was pretty much her normal self all day, which was great.  She also took a three hour nap with no fuss, so that was a good thing too.  The whole day, I drank some water, and had a piece of bread with peanut butter on it.  And I really only ate that because I felt like I had some responsibility to eat it.  Diana was a hero, playing with Allison and being in charge for the day.

Saturday evening was Eryn's annual holiday Secret Santa party, which we were really looking forward to.  The plan was for Diana's parents to come babysit, but since Allison still had a fever, we all agreed that that was a bad idea.  Diana and I were both still pretty zonked from the night before, and at the time, unsure if we were breeding some stomach virus that would unleash itself at a moments notice.  Frankly, if we were at the party, we wouldn't want someone in our condition showing up.  So we decided to skip.  Super bummer.

The night was thankfully uneventful.  Allison went to bed early and slept for twelve hours.  Diana and I watched the end of the new "Star Trek" movie (second time seeing it, and REALLY enjoyed it), and went to be around 8pm, which felt great.

Sunday was a much better day.  Allison and Diana appeared to be 100%.  I had a some appetite back.  We hung out with my parents and aunt in the morning, which was nice, and I went over to Eryn's to watch the Charger game in the afternoon.  The aftermath of the party was still in effect, with some people just rousing and getting vertical.  After missing the previous night and feeling left out, it was really nice to see everyone.  And the Chargers game was totally fun to watch.  I can't wait to watch it again.

Another uneventful night last night, though I didn't sleep very well because of Diana's lingering cough.  Diana called me after dropping off Allison at Dorrie's house, and reported that Dorrie and her family were all sick over the weekend, too.  So either something is going around, or perhaps they had some bad food, but a little piece of the puzzle fell into place.

This weekend could definitely have been a lot worse, but I'm frankly glad that it's behind us.

Talk to the moose...

It's stuff like this that makes me so scared to have a daughter...

Followup

I was re-reading my blog and saw my post about the incorrect string cheese trivia facts.  They never wrote me back.

Fuckers.

Birthday weekend

Happy Birthday to me!  I'm now 35 years old.  Yeesh.

A little while back, we planned on going out to dinner on Saturday night with friends.  Diana's parents were going to babysit, and we were going to have them do the whole Bedtime Routine with Allison.  To that end, we had them come over on Friday night and do a practice run (with us around), to see how it went.

So Friday night, after an afternoon of playing, Diana and I got Allison all ready for bed, and then in her bedroom started saying goodbye.  She got the idea that we were leaving, and wasn't really that down with that.  She walked us to the front door, and we said goodbye and pretended to leave, and heard her screaming and crying as Gramma Dawn carried her back to her room.  Ouch.  As soon as they were clear, we went back inside to the family room, and listened to the ensuing chaos on the baby monitor.

Dawn, for her part, was a trooper.  Allison was crying and calling for Mommy for along time, with Dawn provided a constant barrage of distractions that eventually took hold.  Soon they were chatting happily and playing in her room.  Better than crying, but not really making progress towards bedtime.  At some point, Allison decided that she needed a tissue, but a tissue from the Kleenex box in the room that Diana and I were standing in.  Dawn called down the hallway an "incoming" warning.  Diana and I literally hid in the curtains as Allison ran by a foot away from us, got a tissue, and ran back to her room.  We were in stitches.

Bedtime was rough, but she eventually calmed down and went to sleep.

Saturday, we repeated this whole process, but ended up leaving the house earlier, while she was still playing.  We said we were leaving, and she said "Bye Mommy!  Bye Daddy!" and had no problems walking us to the door and saying goodbye.  Dawn reported in through the night that she went to bed without any problems or tears.  The only issue was that at some point she stood up and took off her pants and diaper, and then lay back down and went to sleep again.  Given how full her diaper is in the morning, letting her sleep all night diaperless is NOT an option.  So when we got home, we did a ninja diaper re-application.  She woke up briefly, but was groggy and didn't stay awake.  Very cute.

Dinner was nice.  Unfortunately it conflicted with some previous plans with some folks, so it was a more intimate affair with Mike and Gwen and Little Buhr, but still a great time, followed up by some epic TF2 with Mike and our new "dueling medics" team play that had me in full smiles all alone in the dark in my office.

Sunday was my birthday proper.  We went to my parents house for breakfast and up to the park for some running around.  They got me the only thing I really wanted this holiday season, which was a PS3 Slim to replace the one that was stolen months ago.  We came home for lunch, and then I head over to Mike's for the Charger game.  At one point I looked around and noted that we had three 50+ inch TVs (each playing different games) and four laptops spread out in front of three guys.  It was a real Fantasy Football geek-fest.  Diana noted that Allison took her nap without a peep and slept for two and a half hours, which further let me relax and not feel guilty for being gone all afternoon.

Much of the evening was spent fiddling with the PS3 and getting it set up to stream ripped DVDs from my Windows Home Server.  The streaming works great, with only one tiny little perfectionist detail lacking.  Rather than seeing a generic "movie" icon next to each movie, there should be a way to show the box cover or movie poster for the movie.  A totally minor issue, but something I'd like to try to solve.

All in all, a decent weekend.  Coming up is Baditude's Annual Holiday Extravaganza, and New Year's plans are already being formulated.  And Diana is soon getting two whole weeks off for winter break!  Should be a fun couple weeks.

Strawberry Shortcake Ice

We have a thing in our freezer that we call "Strawberry Shortcake ice".  It's an icepack in a little pocket shaped like the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon character.  Whenever Allison gets hurt, we usually apply some ice and the hurt goes away.



The other night, we were going through the bedtime routine, and I was taking Allison to the bathroom.  Bedtime can be a difficult transition for Allison, frequently taking 30 or 40 minutes of bargaining (her, not us) and so forth to quiet down and get in bed.



She's already said goodnight to Mommy, who was out in the front room, probably a few sips into an adult beverage.  As it was bedtime, and I was really trying to limit her exposure to only her room and the bathroom, lest she run off and get distracted and I'd have to wrangle her back again.   With her pants off and climbing on the pot, she slipped a little and scraped her leg on her step.  Nothing serious at all, but the non-stick rubber on the step probably pulled at her leg hairs a little.  She cried, and called for Strawberry Shortcake ice.



After initially reassuring Allison, I kind of froze, weighing my options.  Here was a child, hitherto moments away from peeing, with a painful but otherwise trivial injury.  I could try to get her on the toilet, and leave her there while I went and got the ice, but she was unhappy enough that she wasn't ready to sit still.  I could carry her out to the front room, but Diana was out there watching TV.  It would distract her from her owie, but getting her back to her room could be difficult.  I could call for Diana to get the ice, but after saying goodnight to her with some finality, I didn't want to bring her back into the picture.  All of these thoughts ran through my head in the space of a couple seconds.



At that moment, I heard a scraping sound behind me.  There, shoved under the door by some mysterious force, was the Strawberry Shortcake ice.



My wife is awesome.

Rough Day

It's been a rough day today, starting with an early rise at 4:30am, when little lovely decided it was time to wake up.  She eventually went back to sleep at around 5, but by then the damage was mostly done.

Allison, who was perfect last week curling up and taking her naps, didn't want to sleep today.  We do our best to get her to nap, but if her mind is set against it, we're pretty much screwed.  I've said this before, but it really frustrates the hell out of us.  Today, however, she rebelled and tried to climb out of her crib.  I was just coming out of the bathroom when Diana came tearing around the corner saying that Allison had fallen out of her crib.

Then I heard the scream.  I'd never heard anything like it.  I hope I don't hear it again anytime soon.

10 minutes later and it was all forgotten.  But it took her that time to catch her breath and calm down.  We have no idea how she landed, but it didn't appear to be on her head or anywhere fragile, because she didn't have any apparent injuries.  Probably just knocked the wind out of her and scared the daylights out too.  But she was as upset as I've ever seen her, all crying and trying to catch her breath and talk to us at the same time.

I took her to the park this afternoon, and she was mostly fine, but turned a little rebellious.  After warnings about running away and staying on the sidewalk, she disobeyed me multiple times, so the park was cut.  She was given the opportunity to get in her carseat all by herself (as she normally does), but chose to waive that right, so Daddy did it (amidst screams of "No, Allison do it!").

So far so good this evening.  We're working on an early bedtime, which I really hope goes well.  Then a stiff drink and some mindless TV will go down nicely.

Mike just called to invite me to the movies, and asked how my day was.  I said it's been kind of a rough day, but it's hard to really explain it in any kind of meaningful way.  He was inviting me to go to the movies, which would normally be great, but as I said, I have other plans for tonight.

I think it's easy for non-parents to see the difficult side of having kids.  It's obvious that they take up a lot of time and energy, and can be difficult and frustrating.  What non-parents don't normally see, or can never really understand first-hand, is the boundless pride and depth of love we have have for her.  How often we look at each other and share a smile when she does something cute or particularly clever.  All those little moments are much harder to share with others in any sort of meaningful way.

Time to go say goodnight.  Bye blog.

More conversations in the car...

Allison heard a loud motorcycle on the way to daycare today.

 

Allison:  Motorcycle, Daddy!

Adam:  I heard it, Allison, but I didn't see it.  Allison, where are your ears?

Allison:  Here.  *points to her ears*

Adam:  Right.  And do you use your ears to see?  Or to hear?

Allison:  Hear!

Adam:  Right!  Now where are your eyes?

Allison:  *points to her eyes*  TWO eyes!

Adam:  Good.  Now do you use your eyes to see?  Or to hear?

Allison:  SEE!

Adam:  Good, Allison!  Now where is your nose?

Allison:  *points to her nose*

Adam:  *intentionally switching to an open ended question* And what do you use your nose for?

*pause*

Allison:  Tissues!

 

 

Delicious

Heard in my car this morning:

Adam: Allison, what did you have for breakfast this morning?

Allison:  Bagel…. And... pear.

Adam: Oh!  That sounds good.  Was it delicious?

Allison:  Yes!

Adam: Say "delicious".

Allison:  De-wish-us.

Adam: De-wish-us.

Allison:  No, daddy.  Say "de-wish-us".

Adam: De-wish-us.

Allison:  No, say "DE-WISH-US".

Adam: Delicious.

Allison:  Good, Daddy!

Cute

Diana went to get Allison this morning when she woke up.  Diana left for work shortly after that, but I just got this report via email:

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Allison was very cute in her room today.  "Good morning.  Nice to see you mommy.  Pants all wet.  A wittle bit of pee pee in them.  Mommy take them off."  Then she noticed a little wet on her bed, too: "Look mommy.  A wittle bit of pee pee in the bed.  Yeah there it is!"

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"Wittle" is actually pronounced "wiiiiiiii-tle", drawn out and spoken two octaves higher than normal speaking pitch.