5 month checkup

Calina's now 15lbs 5.5oz. Now, that's obviously big for her... she's still growing, of course. But we just learned that our friend Mark's new baby boy, Christopher, weighed in at a whopping 13 lbs at his 5 WEEK checkup. So, wow. We think that might beat Jhonen for monster huge.

From August 09

The Cutest Damn Babies EVER

Hopefully, you all have remembered to check the picasa web page -- it's updated fairly frequently, even though I don't write all that often here.

Can I just say that we have the cutest babies around? And also, how much fun is it that they get to hang out together all day long? I cannot WAIT until Calina is up and moving around with Jhonen. They're already a riot together.

From August 09

From August 09

From August 09

From August 09

Time Suck

I've discovered that, despite the fact that I am now waking far earlier than I have in years, I am losing days left and right. Just, poof, gone. Today, I was up too early, went to Dunkin Donuts for Coffee, drove to Kohl's and Target to let Jess return something and to pick up some new picture hangers, and suddenly it was 5:00. I don't have any idea what happened there.

So if I haven't been faithful about updating this daily, it's because by the time I can even think to remember to sit down and write something, it's hours past the time I should already be asleep.

Like now, for example. It's midnight, and Calina's been sleeping for 5 hours. That means she'll want to be up for good at 7am, and I'm looking at another disappearing, sleepy day ahead of me.

I did make dinner tonight, around 9pm.

What You Can't Store... Use!

We may have just doomed ourselves to a lifetime of obsessive picture-straightening, but we had to do something to relieve our storage issues in the garage. Hanging the art on the giant blank wall over our couch was a good step toward organization.

Colin was kind enough to provide a size comparison. He's not a small boy by any means... We like how the massive wall-full dwarfs the ridiculously monstrous couch we have.

From August 09

That's our living room -- we used to have a big bookcase on that wall behind the couch... then we moved the bookcase and that wall looked really bare... and we realized that we had a TON of art & mirrors in the garage that was weird and old, along with a creepy haunted-mansion type lamp, and some weird old books. None of it really goes with anything else in the house, but our living room didn't really have much personality. So we decided to roll with it.

Holy Hotness

So, have I mentioned that it is freaking miserable in Florida right now? I mean, I suppose it goes without saying... like Chicago in January. Only the opposite of that.

I went outside late this afternoon after a rain, when I figured it would be coolest... Maybe a little breeze following the storm. I needed to stain some shelves I bought for the house. So I laid out some newspapers on the driveway, and got to work. 3 shelves in, I started feeling lightheaded, so I went inside for some water. When I walked into the air conditioning, I realized that every inch of my body and all of my clothing was already soaked.

Keeping Up

I hope you are all keeping up with do a thing a day...It's much more active these days as we are becoming more and more active! You should definitely also subscribe to my YouTube Channel, so you can keep up with the videos I post there. I'm really loving my video camera so much.

Speaking of videos, my friend Julie Norris (of Dandelion Communitea if you're from around here), is about to have a baby (probably this week), and not long ago she posted this video to her website. Aside from being quite amusing, it definitely hits upon what I believe to be the biggest problem with public education: a lack of interdisciplinary learning. Enjoy.

Bravery

I spent the day yesterday painting Calina's future bedroom a soft, soothing pale yellow-green "Captured Moment". The day before, I tackled painting the ceiling a with a fresh coat of white. I think it turned out quite well.

There's something really soothing about the light coming into this bedroom. We noticed it when it was the guest room, too, but now the new wall color really makes it feel like a sanctuary. Somewhere you'd want to sleep for a very long time. We hope it makes Calina feel that way someday. ::grin::

Other rooms in the house are either coming along swimmingly, or not at all. The guest room? Best room in the house currently:

It's even got a DVR box. Cray-cray! Ben uses it for watching shows & playing games, Colin uses it for reading, and the babies use it for TV time and safe baby-proofed playing.

Our bedroom, on the other hand, looks like we raided a Goodwill seconhand store and it just spewed all over everywhere.

Pretty horrific. I suppose we'll get to it eventually. Unfortunately, Colin doesn't really mind it like this, so... It might be a while. The wall to the right of the door there could have a door installed that would lead to a walk-in closet (the closet in the guest room), which would really help our clothing storage situation. We were hoping that the flowered couch could go in Calina's room, but we realized that it won't go through her door, due to positioning of walls around the doorway. So it's continuing to live in our room, but we repositioned the bed to be under the A/C vent, and despite the fact that it's a pretty large room, you can't really walk anywhere in the room anymore.

It's OK, though, because we're comfortable sleeping, and... it's representative of our current life. It'll get put together when we get put together.

Sending off

While I was in the airport in Bangor, I was surrounded by soldiers waiting for their plane to Iraq. Probably a couple hundred in all. Many talking quietly on borrowed cell phones that the airport military office provided, some surrounding the TV blaring Fox News and its updates on Afghanistan, a few milling around the tiny gift shop. I bought a moose picture frame on the clearance rack, and listened to a few guys in camo behind me asking for scratch-off lottery tickets. One joked about "winning $100,000 right before getting on the plane to Iraq. Wouldn't that suck?"

I passed through security to one of three gates in the airport, on the other side of a glass wall from them all in the main terminal.

I imagine they made some sort of announcement I couldn't hear, asking them to pass through a set of double doors leading to their plane. They all calmly passed along the other side of the glass, shaking hands with a line of well-wishers to their right; I caught the eye of a young guy, and waved to him. Calina was sleeping in my arms. He smiled and waved back, glancing over at her on my shoulder. I wondered what he was thinking. Maybe just taking note of her helmet. Or maybe that she was why he was getting on a plane.

I like to imagine our military with noble ideals like that. Even if I sometimes think that their goodwill is abused or misused, it would be nice to know that they hope they're doing some good.

Maine, Grammy

While I've been away from here, I've been super busy doing things. Calina and I took our first trip together (of many, I'm sure). We flew up to Maine to enjoy some cooler air, some woodsy fun with long-lost friends, and some beautiful coastline. I took loads of video that needs to be pared down, but I'll whet your appetite for visuals with a snapshot:

Needless to say, traveling with an infant alone is very, very hard. Thank goodness I had the help of friends on the other side to help us with the impossible bits -- there is NO way I could have managed to carry a suitcase, a diaper bag, a stroller, a baby, AND a carseat onto an airplane. Just couldn't happen. Thankfully, I was able to secure a borrowed carseat on the Maine end, thanks to Chris's lovely mom Julie, and what was probably quite a lot of legwork by his sister Natalie.

We spent most of our time at Chris's family's "camp" which, translated from Northern-speak, is basically a little house on a (gorgeous) lake, with an extra cabin on the side. Jess, Ben, Jhonen, Calina and I had the cabin all to ourselves. We were a bit worried about the babies keeping each other up all night long, but they actually did quite well. I think Calina slept about what she usually does these days: 7pm-7am-ish with a half-dozen breaks for snacks.

Our second day there was filled with a fantastically fun and perfectly lovely day -- a big get-together to celebrate Chris & Leslie's wedding (on the anniversary of the ceremony we all missed going to). Perfect, perfect weather, great food, beautiful water, fun conversation, awesome cake. It was so nice to just enjoy the company of a ton of people who were all pleasant and having a good time.

Having just barely survived a 4-day trip on my own with Calina, I'm thinking it might be a while before I try it again... Though we are planning a trip our to Oregon at some point in September. At least Colin and probably Gramma will be going along for that one, though, so... That should be much easier. It was really just the fact that I didn't get any break whatsoever. She'd scream if I put her down for even a second to use the bathroom or take a shower.

She seems to have hit a little bit of a rough patch the last couple of weeks. I don't know if it's helmet-related (if this one's getting too small), or teething-related, or illness-related, or just baby-getting-older, but she has been so much more difficult lately. Crying a ton, having trouble sleeping, drooling, chewing, eating a bunch then spitting it all up, and basically being a grumpy mess. Super fuss-face.

She was in rare form for Colin's Mom who came to visit over the past few days. I'm not sure if she's still recouperating from our trip or if she's really just taken a turn for the worse, but she's just terribly touchy, scared, exhausted and unwilling to nap, and antisocial with everyone except me and Colin (and gramma to some extent). She's decided that napping will only happen either in the Moby wrap on Colin or me, or on gramma's shoulder in her new rocker. Maybe in the carseat if she's really tired, but if she wakes up in the car, it's all over.

It was still great for Peggy to get to see her only grandchild for a couple of days, I just wish she had been in better spirits.

Calina's Owlies

I'm not sure how long this one will last, because the stickers aren't quite as sticky this time... but I picked these out the first day at Joann's and knew I had to use them eventually. Not quite as awesome as the cherry blossoms, but still super cute.

I unfortunately took these photos with my phone... so they're not great.

Next will be an adorable set of Disney Princess stickers I found... then prolly back to cherry blossoms... then we'll probably need a new helmet!

The Home Stretch

We're getting close to making our house manageable with all of this jumbling. I was foiled by Ikea (as tends to be the case with that place): I ended up coming home with one of the wrong pieces for my new desk, so... We have to go back yet again to exchange it. Which is OK, really, because I had to go back anyway -- they were out of something else I wanted. Grrr.

I spent a little time getting some videos off my camera... did a bit of uploading to youtube:

This is pretty much a nightly occurance:

Trying to get Jhonen to say "yeah yeah yeah". He totally did it.

Right now, this is Calina's favorite activity:

So, sure, it's a lot of babies. But... that's pretty representative of my life right now. And, who doesn't love watching babies?

R.I.P. Harrison Kitty

Our beloved cat Harry was found this morning to have met an untimely death at the hands of the brutal Florida heat. His curious nature led him to investigate the inside of our minivan, unfortunately without anyone's knowledge.

He'd recently been granted a life of pure catness in the great outdoors: chasing lizards, battling with yard snakes, gifting us headless rats. Basically living as the great hunter he was born to be. But even let loose, he was still a great friend. Every time we'd walk out the door, he'd let out a yowl and stand up on his hind legs to meet our fingers for a scratch on the noggin.

He was silly, pushy, powerful, and wicked smart. A star among our crowd of cats, right from the start.


I trust that he is as happy now as ever. As we buried him, an unseasonably cool breeze passed by the back of my neck. Comforting in a small way, possibly his way of letting me know that he's okay, and reminding me that we're surrounded by Love everywhere, even when things get tough.

Cupcakes, Done!

These are probably the best cupcakes I've ever eaten. The Martha Stewart chocolate chip cupcakes are a close second. Come to think of it, those two are the only cupcakes I've ever made from scratch. Maybe cupcakes are just awesomer than I realized.