I am in Love

...with a machine.

After the flood, and the fact that I had toyed with the idea of buying one before we went out and bought this...

The living room is clean, the rug we had in the living room that the neighbors were tossing to the curb and I got to cover the cold tile in the living room, is now about 50x better. Maybe more than that. I even cleaned half of the large rug we have in the dining room. (I would have done the other half, but Alice hadn't napped yet, and it was about 6pm by the time I finished. Besides I would have had to move the table legs onto the rug, and supposedly if you put furniture on wet carpet the stain on wood might bleed. At least that's what the vacuum's manual said.

I even steam cleaned the living room chair. No it didn't take the pen out, but really, the cushion cover is washable, so I can try harder if I feel like it.

I also learned about some amazing stuff, that I am surprised I hadn't found out about until it was May. "Furnace Caulk" also called cement caulk or heat resistant caulk. It comes in black and is used to seal furnace joints or whatever AND the gap between the fireplace and the fireplace doors etc. Yes, for less than $20 I can solve the problem with the drafty edge there. And I thought we would have to do some major damage (i.e. remove the doors, insert LOTS of insulation, and put it back). Trust me, that was not something we were looking forward to. In fact, I might have put that off for a while, just to not have to deal with it. I mean, a blanket is perfectly useful. It might look sort of tacky, and strange, but it helps stop the cold wind. Plus, its not winter anymore and I can deal with warm air more than cold since I have a barefoot ankle biter.

Oh, and yesterday I was given some plants. I now own Obedient Plant and some slightly illegal Moroccan Mint. (It was smuggled out of Morocco by the lady's friend.) Supposedly it makes great tea, but right now I am excited to have some invasive ground cover on the side of the house. I mean sure I moved some Iris over there when I thinned the patch, but this way I won't have to pull out 500 tiny trees when the trees try to proliferate this fall (the spring seeders are done thank goodness).

Anyway, Daniel is awake so I should go say hi. Later on Bodacious Blogity Blog. I shall have to write about my new (and 3rd) calling later. Go me. I must appear to have spare time.

Today WILL be a good day

So I feel like blogging. I think its because I got 7 consecutive hours of sleep last night. Ah, sweet sweet sleep. Its been a long week. A long stressful week. I even got a cold sore. I haven't had one of those since I was in pharmacy school. I got them at the start of every semester like clockwork. Too, too stressful for me. The most recent one is a result of waking up every couple of hours to a baby crying/yelling "Da!" because she can't breathe out her nose. Followed by torturous nose irrigation and nose suckage. I detailed it all previously.

But, I slept from 11pm to 6am. At 6am, Alice wanted to nurse, and kept pulling off to breathe (a sure sign that nose irrigation is in the near future). After some torture, and her being very slippery, but not as powerfully strong as usual, we sucked the nose and left her breathing almost properly. Within 10 minutes of completion she was asleep. And I realized I was awake.

Man, my punctuation in this is horrible, and I don't even care!

So my goal is for the kid to get well enough we can go to mommy and me music time at the church on Friday. She has 24 hours to start eating food again.

My boobs will thank her.

And, maybe she will even eat more baby crack. Her appetite has consisted of "Ooo baby crack! I want some" to within 2 minutes, lets feed Daddy the baby crack. Daddy of course lets her and say "Yumm" Even though I think all those baby puffs are pretty yucky and strangely sweet. I mean, it says sweet potato, but it tastes like sweet potatoes covered in brown sugar. She still sees the container and is all excited about it, but doesn't care to eat.

Here I was all excited that she was nursing less and less often. Then, KABAM!, she got sick and if she could breathe, nursing was all she wanted. She probably has lost weight. Or at least hasn't gained any this week. Even though she ate cookies. (go figure, the only things she wants when she is sick is baby snacks and cookies)

My cooking plan has been modified to deal with all the sickies in our house. Partly because its hard to remember to get thigns ready for the next day. Take last night. I put a chicken and veggies in the crockpot around 12. The chicken had been out of the freezer and thawing in the fridge for 24 hours and was still rock hard. And perhaps people will say, I shouldn't have tried cooking it when it was totally frozen, but I don't feel like arguing about temperatures and cooking food properly in crockpots.

Well come dinner time (6 hours on high later) it looked pretty not done. So I cooked up a vegetarian risotto. Only, we didn't have any corn in the freezer. Shocking I know. I mean, we still have 6 bags of frozen broccoli, but no frozen corn. So I used peas. I also didn't have any garlic cloves, so I used garlic salt in the water (no broth). Lets just say, it was ok, but daniel was pretty sick of it after he are most of his bowl. Just a hint, if you are supposed to use parmesan and mozerella cheeses together, don't switch out the mozerella for sharp cheddar. Its really not the same.

Ok, my brain has been flushed of all thoughts. except i think there is a woodpecker outside attacking the neighbors trees. I would look, but its the east side of the house, and who knows opening curtains might be enough to wake babies. We want her to sleep another 4 hours. Then wake up eat baby cereal, and go back to sleep for another couple of hours. That would be my idea of a good day.

Teething and cooler weather part 2

So we put the groceries away and I tell Daniel to call his mother (she called while he was at school and had poor reception so we talked for about 5 minutes between two different calls and I figured whatever Daniel can call back when he gets home).

I come down after Alice passed out within 30 minutes to find the strangest looking rice crispy treats I have ever seen. Daniel got too excited about eating them and didn't melt the marshmallows down enough. That means there were random marshmallows amongst the cereal. Plus it was REALLY sticky (also because it wasn't cooked long enough).

Alice wet herself awake every hour for the next 4 hours. I passed out with Daniel on our floor reading right before midnight.

Alice woke me up a few more times. The last time it looked bright. I woke Daniel and asked what time it was. 10:10. Oops. We rushed about getting dressed and the bulletin printed and off to church where we were surprisingly not late.

Sunday night was a similar thing. Only, her fever which was really low until then, spiked to 103.2 and at 5am I was sitting in a bathtub holding a crying baby and pouring water over her.

Alice woke us at 8:20. Daniel works at 8:30. She felt really really hot. Her temp was 104.4. She got a blessing and fell asleep and began feeling cooler. She still had abit of a fever the rest of Monday, but we drugged her. Between benzocaine on the gums and tylenol down the gullet she was manageable.

By Monday evening she had no fever and had little daggers coming out of her gums.

Daggers for chomping.

She also thinks she needs to be standing all the time. This results in falling. And bruises. She had a nice shiner on the edge of her chin that looked like a tiny fist clipped her. It was part pf the chair she was climbing. Luckily she seems to get over the pain rather fast.

Daniel said I needed to correct things from my last post, but I don't remember what they are. Oh well. Maybe I will post them some other time, maybe not.

How to get your sleep!

Alice is sleeping.

And, she has been asleep in the bed since 9. She was probably asleep around 8:30 and then she did not wake upwhen I put her down. Yes, you read that right.

I sort of feel like a 4th grader at her first sleepover...its probably a high induced by the lack of irresponsibility, or freedom from opression, or something.

So how did I do it? I read up on high needs infants, and what to do with them to get them to sleep. Maybe Alice isn't as bad as some babies, but trust me, this girl is needy. Then I decided to implement some of the suggestions.

1. I let her sleep. As much as she wanted, everytime she acted like she wanted to. There was a point where my legs were falling asleep because I had been holding her sleeping for a while. I got a foot rest. Problem solved. (Yes we do attachment parenting)

2. We did all sorts of 'wind down' type things. We found the sling, and carried her around in it for 30-40 minutes. She was physically opressed, but still allowed to stare at things, and it worked.

3. We fed her. I tried to get her on a schedule of eating in the day...12 lunch, 4:30 dinner, 7:30 cereal snack. Yes, I drugged her with carbohydrates.

4. We watched some old school Tom Hanks movie. Alice was asleep in bed the whole time. Happy happy times!