Robin on Video!
December 25th, 2007
5 minutes of Robin - baby fan service for those who want it. Includes him talking, being cranky, studying his hand and looking cute.
Categories: Updates From the Void | 3 Comments
Resolved: This isn’t working (a writing post)
December 19th, 2007
I have often been of the opinion that practice only makes perfect if you’re actively trying to improve. That is, repetition does not guarantee an increase in skills if you’re not seeking to challenge and improve yourself.
Writing has been hard for a long time. A while back I realized it had something to do with the words– with thinking about the words rather than being caught up in the story. When I’m caught up, it’s much easier, and faster. I realized this but I couldn’t really identify any more than that and I kept on slogging away at the words. I kept hoping one day the words would get easier, magically– that if I kept on slogging I’d somehow learn to write more quickly again.
It just now occurred to me that was repetition for repetition’s sake– that if I want to improve my speed, I need to stop trying the same thing over and over and over again without any basic variation or analysis. I know thinking about the words isn’t fast. It doesn’t work. Why am I still doing it?
Time to start practicing something new.
In other news, Robin can roll from back to side to front, given the slightest bit of uneven surface to start from. No progress on front to back. Practice, practice.
Categories: Updates From the Void | Tags: Writing | 4 Comments
Sudden onset illness complicates things
December 18th, 2007
Fever and headache yesterday, abdominal cramps throughout the night, slept until 3 today.
Well, okay, so my lovely Christmas cards will probably be late. That’s okay, right? And some people I want to send presents to after Christmas, when I feel less stressed, because I want to give my gifts out of affection, not a desire to escape stress. And to everybody, I wish the most pleasant holidays possible. Please, be more relaxed than me!
Robin’s 4 month doctor appointment was yesterday. He was pronounced normal in every respect, from the ’stork bite’ mark on the back of his neck to his differently-sized pupils. He’s midrange in weight and length (15.75 lbs) and has an oversized head. He got vaccinations and slept the sleep of baby Tylenol much of the rest of the day. Oh, and the doctor laughed off the horrifying event of the night previous, when Robin flipped himself and his chair off the raised surface it was on. He still has a bruise on his forehead, and he kind of squints with his right eye. I’ll just call him Quasimodo.
Categories: Updates From the Void | No Comments
Research question
December 14th, 2007
What do you do when you feel helpless and out of control? I don’t mean general coping mechanisms like cleaning or nagging your family or whatever– I mean, how do you deal with the situation where you feel helpless and out of control? I just realized all my characters respond to bad, uncontrollable situations like I do– by having a temper tantrum, feeling self-destructive, and then, eventually, vowing to gain a modicum of control over the situation, somehow. I think it’d be good to spice things up some, but I need more ideas!
Categories: Updates From the Void | 3 Comments
Oh the things you will see (once I have a video camera)
December 13th, 2007
On one side of me, Robin is pushing against the carseat with his feet to lift his butt up and slide way way down in the seat, almost tipping it forward. On my other side, Dante is shoving a chair across the room trying to get the ball underneath it.
For Robin, this is part of the 3 day long (so far) cranky marathon. He pushes, slides, slouches, whines. I reposition him. We repeat. Eventually I move him somewhere else and he breaks down in sobs, or I don’t move him somewhere else, and he breaks down in sobs. I think it’s a weird intellectual-emotional-physical-my-body-scares-me growth spurt.
Categories: Updates From the Void | 3 Comments
Tired tortoise
December 13th, 2007
Sometimes, most times, pumping isn’t really a burden. Sometimes, it is. Sometimes I hook up and immediately slump in exhaustion. Today, my reaction surprised me: I felt so sick of it that there was even a brief flash of physical nausea.
Because I made some mistakes, or maybe not because of that, who knows? my supply has dropped from ‘almost meeting Robin’s needs’ to ‘providing about half of what he eats in a day’. And I spend hours pumping to get that much.
I really hate formula. I hate the way it smells, (though I used to like it as a teenager with an infant brother), and I hate its short shelf-life once prepared. Oh, and I hate the price point of the name brands.
Most times I don’t feel like pumping is taking much out of me; I spend a lot of the day on my butt in any case, and hooking the cups into my bra lets me do it hands free. But sometimes, like today,I wonder if I’d have more get-it-done energy if I weren’t pumping, if it isn’t pulling something less definable than 20 calories an ounce out of me.
Robin basically ’sleeps through the night’ now. Kevin puts him to bed between midnight and 1, and I usually go to bed around 3. I’ll sometimes give him a bit of a snack before I go to bed, but with the exception of last night (when he woke up at 6 am), for the last week he’s been waking up at 9ish, hungry, whether or not I give him a snack. I feed him, pump, and then we go back to bed for a couple-few hours. He catnaps some throughout the day with occasional long naps.
I wish finding out if I felt better sans pumping wasn’t an irreversible step.
Off to try to go write a few measly words. Wish me energy.
Categories: Updates From the Void | 4 Comments
Holiday angst
December 12th, 2007
I am so close to giving up and pretending Christmas isn’t on the way. A few presents from afar have already arrived and will be enjoyed as much as humanly possible, and my Christmas cards have arrived, so I have to send those out… but all the other stuff I typically do for Christmas, from a Christmas tree to cooking to, well, even shopping… feels hard. Harder than usual. Maybe it’s because Kevin is working so hard that he’s always exhausted when he’s home from work, and I usually rely on him to help me get through the holiday blahs. We’re barely managing to keep our acts together enough to pay some bills before utilities get turned off or tickets get issued. I really want to work on finishing TFN 2, not spend time staring into space stressing about the holidays. No Zoloft this year… and it’s been definitely worth it up until now…
But now I must go, for while I thought yesterday was the worst day of young Robin’s life (judging by the amount of clinging and crying) it turns out? Going by the same criteria? It’s actually today.
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That one tiny guy, age 4 months
December 12th, 2007
Yes, today, Robin is 4 months old, or so they tell me.
I took this picture a week or two ago. He is still a serious baby. But he does have a burgeoning Harrison Ford grin. I tell him, “Babe, cultivate that. It will serve you well in the future.”
Robin was grouchy yesterday. Very grouchy. He spent part of the evening flopped over my shoulder, which he usually hates, but last night he was so miserable he just laid there. My theory is early teething, but it could be a growth spurt. Or both! Last night, after midnight, while Robin was grouching loudly (so, today, really), Kevin came stomping downstairs and swooped down upon the baby rice cereal and the baby spoons I’d picked up earlier. I’ve been meaning to get spoons for a while because a.) he likes to put things in his mouth– well, he likes us to put things in his mouth (he’s still working out how to use his own hands)– and I figured it’d be good to get him used to spoons and b.) he’s been giving me very meaningful looks as I eat lately (which is also why I got the rice cereal… for eventual use). Very meaningful looks– when Kevin gives me those looks, I know he’s about to steal my food, and when other people do, I usually end up offering them some. It’s spooky getting those looks from somebody with no teeth.
Anyhow, Kevin mixed up some cereal according to the package instructions for Baby’s First Feeding, which means it was formula thickened with just enough cereal to not slip off the spoon, and Kevin fed it to that one baby because, as he informed me, He’s Four Months Old Now (which is the minimum recommended age for rice-cereal-thickened-liquid to be administered).
Enjoy the pictorial.
Categories: Updates From the Void | Tags: Robin | 4 Comments
Delicious food
December 7th, 2007
Earlier this week I bought a 3 lb bag of shallots at Costco, because it was $6, and this seemed like a good deal. And, ok, when I opened it, the shallot at the top of the bag was rotten. But the rest have been good so far.
Yesterday for dinner I made a dish involving roasted herbed golden potatoes, mixed with glazed whole shallots. Mmmm. I am eating the leftovers now. MMMMM. The glazed whole shallots recipe came with the bag: 20 shallots, 2 oz butter, a tablespoon of sugar, cover with water, turn to high heat and let the water cook away. Cube potatoes, put in pan, drench with olive oil, sprinkle with herbs of choice, maybe add a couple of whole garlic cloves. When the potatoes are almost done, spread the glazed shallots across the potatoes. Eat the remaining brown glaze in the pan with bread.
They recommended the shallots as a garnish for beef and I bet that would be lovely, too. If only I had some beef.
Anyhow, I have 2/3rd of the bag of shallots left, and right now all I want to do is make the same dish AGAIN. But perhaps that would be depriving myself of new opportunities. Any suggestions?
Categories: Updates From the Void | 2 Comments
Fascination (baby update)
December 5th, 2007
Robin’s always been vocal beyond crying, whining and cooing. A few weeks ago, he started going ‘ooh’ and ‘ahhh’ at us in speech-patterns and grinning if we mimicked him. But then he got distracted by his hands and his mouth, and bringing the two into a more perfect union, and he mostly stopped that.
But a couple days ago, around the same time that he started incremental laughter, he returned to babbling. Oh wow, did he return! He doesn’t just babble, he gets irritable if he wants to babble and nobody is willing to babble with him. He wants to talk to people! And he grins and giggles and hides his face and squirms with joy when we talk back at him, real words or word sounds. He seems totally convinced that he’s talking just like we are, which is utterly fascinating (and adorable). I was talking to another mother at Costco today, and he decided he wanted to be part of the conversation. He treated us to a lecture on the meaning of ‘oooahhh’ and I melted all over the floor. Very messy.
I weighed him today via the time-honored method of weighing myself while holding him. I think he must weigh 15 lbs or so. I no longer get remarks on how small he is; instead people tell me he’s so big! when I tell them how old he is. And indeed, he only seemed a little smaller than the 14-month-old daughter of the lady I was talking to, though I didn’t see them side by side. Unsurprisingly, this kind of remark gets me right in the motherhood, and I get all proud and everything. He also gets compliments on his eyes, which I’m a bit more uncertain about, since probability says his eye-color is only temporary and aren’t most Caucasian baby eyes blue, anyhow?
Oh! He also played by himself with a toy for the first time ever yesterday. Well, I say ‘play’ but it was more ‘wrestling/staring in awe/trying to eat’. I think that counts! It was one of his many cuddly dragon toys (we kind of have a theme going).
Categories: Updates From the Void | Tags: Robin | 4 Comments
