First Trimester Blues

I haven’t posted in far too long. Normally I have several topics floating around in my head and I have to space them out. I had intended to put up my travelogue from our North Carolina trip but it’s been over a month now and that seems kinda dumb at this point. Obviously some stuff has happened in the meantime to distract me. Heh. I’ve been pretty much useless by the time I get home from work each day. The exhaustion continues but at least the queasiness after eating has lessened considerably. However, in its place, I now feel beyond bloated after I eat anything. It hasn’t moved into the heartburn phase yet either, which is good because yay no heartburn but bad because antacids don’t actually help. I need to buy a new Boppy pillow for sleeping. Mr. b says I should just take the old one from Kirk but it’s Kirk’s! And besides, why should Child Person Mark II have to begin in vitro with hand-me-downs? Lord knows that’s gonna happen plenty as it is just being a younger sibling. I can feel the expansion tension in my stomach. In fact, I can feel all sorts of uterine movements. Not fetal fluttering yet but there are still familiarities. Unfamiliar, however, is constipation. That was not an issue last time. It actually hurts to poop and I feel like I’m tearing open scabs, which must be the case due to the occasional blood. Guess I’ll have to ask if stool softeners are on the list of OK meds for preggos. Not that I want more drugs. I’m already on antibiotics for this frickin’ sweat gland infection in my arm pit. Which in turn forces me to use anti-fungal cream (externally thank you very much) to keep any yeast infection at bay since antibiotics apparently make women prone to that fun side-effect. And as long as I’m complaining about the functions between my legs, why has the middle of the night peeing already begun? Dammit. I need sleep! My bladder can’t possibly be operating under that much real estate reduction yet. I’m only like 9 weeks fercrissakes! And if I don’t wake up to pee then I wake up to let the damn cat in when I hear her yeowling outside because she wouldn’t frickin’ come in before I went to bed. And if it’s not the cat then it’s the boy and he really sucks these days. He is just mean and a total jerk to both his mama and his daddy. The hitting and the spitting and the screaming and the crying fits and jeez, it’s like he’s three or something. Time outs are ineffectual and we haven’t figured out what to do next. Taking away toys seems to work somewhat. I can’t believe we’re having another one. We are clearly insane.

Backyardigans

At some point towards the end of the winter, maybe in February?, we started letting Kirk play outside by himself. The backyard is fenced in and we have the gates "locked" - there's a carabiner on one and an unlocked padlock on the other to prevent him from lifting the latches. He asks to go out and will put his shoes on (he can do it by himself about 20% of the time) and gets all excited for his coat and hat and mittens. He loves it when the kitties are outside with him. He and Chloe the Annoying One will actually play games, like chase each other around! He's got a stash of sticks from our fire kindling pile that he plays with - they're the Doobie Sticks - and he can just generally amuse himself for at least a half hour with whatever toys happen to be in the yard instead of the garage porch. I peek out the window every 2 or 3 minutes though! If I can't see him or hear him I poke my head out the door and call to him. I'm not particularly worried but...he's 2. And I'm still not quite used to the idea of him being out completely unsupervised.

It's fun seeing the yard get used in such a complete manner. He's got all his little spots, like next to the air conditioning unit or along the side of the garage where I excavated a long buried sidewalk last summer. It seems like such a small yard but it's his. I find myself sometimes just watching him when I meant to do a quick check. I'll be mesmerized by his play, listening to his running commentary to himself with a goofy half grin on my face.

Poor Kitty

Sally’s not getting better. It’s been over a year since we got Chloe and she’s still completely bonkers and hiding and not using the box and barely eating. She was semi-fine in the basement living room if we kept the door latched. Yet even then she rarely came out from under the bed. And the door didn’t stay closed all the time because it’s not her room, it’s our room dammit! We’ve evicted her a few times over the past year but she always seems to end up back in there. I feel sorry for her crazy ass and let her go back in. But it was starting to reek of catshit from her crapping under the bed whenever she was too chicken to go the three feet to her catbox. So we evicted her when we were staying down there while my in-laws were visiting. It seemed like she was better for a little while. She even came part of the way up the stairs! And then she started hiding. I would find her behind a box or under a desk or on top of my sewing basket or under a table and sure enough, there would be a pile of turds right next to her. She even pissed all over the old iMac! I’d clean it all up, put her back into her box in the laundry room, stop up the access to the space, rinse and repeat. Right now she’s been sitting in the laundry room sink. I don’t know if she’s moved out of there for a couple of days. She’s not the kitty that I used to know and love. She’s an empty shell.

I can’t blame Chloe though. It’s not her fault. Sally was like this before but hid it better. When you live in a one bedroom apartment it’s easier to overlook the fact that she’s never in the same room as Smoe; she’s just sleeping in the bedroom! But the truth is, she can’t live with other cats. And we would’ve gotten another cat eventually. I’m sure the only reason she was fine with Tron is that she could sense he was dying.

Sally has really brought this upon herself. We did everything right to introduce those two cats to each other. But she chose to let her hate consume her. I don’t know why I should’ve expected any other fate for a Sith lord. So now I have to call a vet and find out if they think she can be rehabilitated. I have to keep hope that she’ll be fine in a house without any other cats. With a patient human that will care for her and not have the distractions of a two year old son. She’s only ten; she’s got a lot of years ahead of her. But I’m terrified that the answer will be that Xenoba cannot be turned from the dark side. I’ve never had to bring a pet in for *that* reason before.

Kitty

I woke up about 3 this morning. I couldn’t get back to sleep and just had this feeling that I needed to check on Kirk. The cat was in the crib with him! So cute. But she jumped out like she was doing something naughty as soon as I peeked in. When I told this to Mr. b this morning he peeked in and she was back!

I’ve been waiting for that to happen for a while now. I’ve busted her in the crib in the middle of the day when no one’s even in his room at all. And since she’s only lived with us for less than a year, she certainly didn’t have the no-bassinet-EVER rule drilled into her head like the Squirrel. Besides, she and Kirk are totally friends. They pick on each other and love each other. When Kirk’s sitting on one of our laps before bed, she’ll pile on, too. Sometimes much to his dismay. So I always figured she’d end up sleeping with him when he graduates to a big boy bed. She’s just starting early!

Daycare Blues

Kirk had an angry morning at daycare according to K. I'm not surprised. This was only the 6th time he's gone there, even though he's been at new daycare for two weeks. He just had so much Mommy and Daddy time last week from being sick. And Labor Day. And we kept him home one day the first week due to his cold.

It's weird because I can't tell if his new developments are circumstantial or actual new developments. He's been taking only one nap per day. He was previously still on the two-per-day baby schedule. But is that just because he's been able to sleep later in the morning?

He's been actually playing with the cats, too. The Squirrel hides most of the time (she's not doing well with the new arrival) but when Kirk can get at her, he "pets" her and screams in delight when she bats his hand away with her paw. Chloe, the little attention whore, lets him totally molest her. He chases Chloe around the house, wags her tail, "pets" her head, nuzzles her with his head, sits on her feet, lays right next to her. It's adorable! But again, is that just because he's been home more so he's had more time to interact with the other inhabitants?

It'll be interesting to see if anything reverts now that he's back to daycare and the schedule that requires. I feel bad but we can't afford a nanny and we can't afford to have one parent stay at home. He's just going to have to learn to deal with that.

Good Luck Charm

I find it interesting the different levels of freaked-outedness that other parents of young babies show regarding what their baby puts in his mouth. Mr. b and I are very lax. Kirk was out in the yard last night while Mr. b was putting up gutters. (Murphy’s Law states that the day you buy said gutters, because you don’t have any on the house at all, it will then rain non-stop for 3 days so you can’t put them up.) He was eating grass and dandelions and clovers the whole time. He thought it was great! He had spit-covered clovers glued all over his head and neck! I wasn’t at all concerned. Why should I be? Those are all edible plants and we never did put weed n’ feed down on the lawn so it’s chemical free. Of course when I took him inside for a pants change I found he was sucking on a rock. Oops!

Contrast with my brother and his wife. They were washing their son’s hands after their own dog licked him. Because they didn’t want him putting dog saliva in his mouth. The dog was all o’er Kirk, licking his hands, face, whatever. Kirk loved it!

He's a growing boy

Kirk loves his exer-saucer. He's so strong. He about 80% able to sit up on his own. And he loves laying on his side. He has just discovered the crib toy attached to the slats on his crib. And he is realizing that his feet are always there, not just when he's on the changing table.

It's kind of strange comparing him to his tiny new cousin. Kirk was that small. But I don't remember him seeming quite *that* fragile. He was always strong, he just happened to also be tiny. And he was little because he was early, not because he was just little. Is it revisionist memory? But Mr. b and my sister both agree that Kirk didn't seem so frail, even when hooked up to all his hospital wires. Maybe our opinions will change when the poor little guy gets a chance to put on some weight. I'm sure he'll fill out eventually. Or else Kirk is just always going to be the bigger cousin!

Diablo and Jon: I'm so very sorry about George. How heartbreaking for you to go through another loss so soon. Like I said in my message last night, let me know if there is anything we can do. I hope Larry is coping with the loss of his buddy. Who knows, maybe he'll stop being such a douchepacker now that he's a solo kitty! I know that Sally the Squeakers Squirrel certainly came out of her shell when her oppressor, poor Mister Smoe died.

Some Random Observations

Baby Yawns are contagious to mommies. However, Mommy Yawns are not contagious to babies.

Oftentimes, when I have Kirk up on my shoulder to pound out a burp, I'll burp instead.

It's very strange, and kind of neat, when my stomach growls and at the same time Kirk's stomach growls and our bellies are pressed up against each other because he's nursing.

All my life I've always enjoyed having "conversations" with my cats. She'll meow and I'll meow back. She'll mrrup and I'll mrrup back. It's even more fun to do with a baby. He'll ling loo and I'll ling loo back. He'll aheai and I'll aheai back.

Huzzah!

A work crew finally hooked us up again this morning. I'm so glad our frontier time is over. (Knitting by candle light is so Little House.) Living without electricity made me think a lot about what it would be like to have a baby as a pioneer. Midnight feedings alone would have been so much more difficult. Sometimes just using a nightlight hasn't been enough. And what would you do for a baby that didn't nurse well? Presumably there were glass bottles but what material was used for nipples? And even before that, what about the apnea that Kirk had when first born? Surely Dr. Quinn would have saved him but then what do you do about the jaundice? I guess since it was July I would have just let him sit out in the sun a lot. But clearly that wouldn't work if he had been born in the winter. It trips me out to realize that my son likely would have contributed to a high infant mortality rate if he hadn't been born in 2005 in the United States of America. I can't imagine what I would do without him.

Getting electricity back gave me a chance to catch up on my reading. And I discovered the sad news about Jon and Diablo's dear Agnes of Dog. I'm so sorry guys. She was such a good girl and you can take comfort in the fact that you gave her a wonderful life. I know I felt completely ripped off that Tron was taken from us after only 6 months but at least he was loved during that time. So was Agnes.

Sally the Squeakers Squirrel has taken over the bassinette. She just *knows* that Kirk is done with it. I guess it's obvious since he's only been in it a couple of times over the past week, and it's always been during the day when I need to set him somewhere when he's awake. (Squeakers only once tried to go in the bassinette while Kirk was in it; she aborted mid-jump when she saw that it was inhabited.) I yelled at her and evicted her yesterday morning when I busted her in there. This morning Mr. b and I decided that she can have it back since Kirk really is at the borderline of being able to use it anymore anyway. It'll force us to use his swing and stuff instead.

She also really loves the new bedtime rules for Kirk. It means she gets her humans back all to herself, at night at least!

It's official: I am both a nerd and a new mom. I just cried over Data's daughter dying. "Thank you for my life."

I think that Tron's soul got a do-over. That's why Kirk came early and is small. He's just continuing the Policy of Tiny-ness.

R.I.P. Tiny Tron

Tron died yesterday. He never really been well and Hunny and I knew he wasn't going to make it. Especially the last 3 or 4 days. He had FIP so there was only a 5% chance he would survive. We had taken Tiny Buddy to the vet 3 times in the too-short four months that we had him and we were on prescription number 6. It was prednisone so clearly it was a last ditch effort. Vet said that the main problem for Tiny Kitty was that he had a type of anemia that reduced red blood cells instead of iron levels. That meant that he had low hemoglobin; he literally couldn't get oxygen from his lungs through his body. So he wasn't just a lazy kitten like we joked. He literally couldn't expend much energy. Everything was difficult for him at the end. Saturday night we cried over him before finally falling asleep. We cried over him some more Sunday morning and I really said goodbye to him then. We left for breakfast and to run some errands and I didn't think he'd be alive when we got home. I guess we were just avoiding the inevitable. When we did get home he had waited for us. But he was in bad shape. The panting had changed to wheezing. Hunny stepped up to the plate and stayed with Tron until the end. I wussed out and hid outside shoveling off the sidewalk. When Hunny brought the lifeless body out to me and said, "He's gone" I just bent over the shovel ashamed at my weakness. We tried to bury him in the backyard but the ground is too frozen. So we held a little funeral service in the living room. We lit a candle, listened to Tiny Dancer, wrapped him in our sheet, and bawled. Then we enshrined him in the garage porch. Hunny was reluctant to bring him up to the other cats at my parents' house since TK never knew Smoe or Cheddar. But now that we can't just bury him at the only home he ever had, we think we'll take him up there anyway. We'll either have a bonfire to thaw the ground or just build him a funeral pyre. Either way, we'll be able to visit him when we are there. Tronald R. Tronlan will join Mister Seymore von Billi and Big Fat Cheddar. He was tiny and lived a tiny life. We loved him dearly. His one big adventure in his brief life was escaping out the back door and getting chased by us down the alley. It was truly the only moment he got to be a naughty kitten. Now he'll get to be outside forevermore. Rest in peace Tiny Tron.