HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Purple Nurples

I have thrush. For those of you who don't know, thrush is a yeast infection of the booby. It's awesomely painful when Tai nurses.

In addition to a 10-day course of Diflucan, everyone who knows anything about thrush recommends gentian violet as a topical treatment. So, that's what I wanted to get. I called a local CVS and was thrilled to find they had one bottle left (apparently the stuff is kind of hard to come by, even in the hippy-dippy valley). Later that afternoon I was amazed at how....well, violet...the gentian violet is. Tai's been going to school each morning looking like a goth high schooler wearing deep purple lipstick. All he needs to complete the look is a black onesie and a book of poetry under his arm.

I am also stained deep purple...though not on my lips :)

Update

Well, the San Diego fire is even worse than I realized when I first posted. I talked to Charlie (the San Diego groom-to-be) yesterday and he described all the smoke and ash in the air and how it feels very Katrina-esque there. And he's not even IN San Diego yet.

The bride's family, as well as Minh's California family, are all safe and sound, though some have been relocated from their homes.

Charlie assured me that the fires are not in downtown San Diego, where the wedding will take place on Nov 3rd. He's confident the wedding is still on, but is waiting a bit before making any final decisions. So, we're sitting tight hoping that mother nature sends some rain their way...

San Diego's on Fire!

We're flying to San Diego a week from Thursday and, unfortunately, SD county is currently ablaze. People are being evacuated and losing their homes. And my friends must be terribly worried that this will ruin their wedding plans (and to think, I was all stressed out over a little rain on my wedding day).

Even worse, the Wild Animal Park is closed. And this is after we purchased three-park-passes from Costco to get us into the Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and Sea World. Perhaps I am destined to never get my day at the Zoo? At least Sea World should still be open despite the fires, since it's underwater.

You Know You Live in The Valley When....

...you accidentally step into someone else's black Dansko clogs and wear them home without noticing.

You see, in order to go into Tai's "classroom" at "school" you have to take off your shoes. They like to keep the floor very clean, what with all the babies crawling around. So last Friday I apparently slipped out of my brown clogs and went in to pick up my boy. After chatting with his teachers and another mother for about 15 minutes, I left the room and stepped into the other mother's black clogs and went on my way.

I didn't realize what I had done until Sunday morning when I noticed that our shoe shelf at home contained two pairs of black clogs.....and no brown ones. I instantly knew what I had done. Luckily, the other mother was good natured about it (and willing to wear my brown clogs home Friday afternoon). She emailed me yesterday wondering if perhaps I knew where her shoes were spending the weekend.

Apparently, I need some more distinctive shoes....

New Life in the Neighborhood

Two of our neighbors have just adopted new pets. One one side of us is Jerry, the 8 week old grey tiger kitten. And across the street is Miles, the 8 week old German Short-haired Pointer. They are both adorable and we are taking full advantage of every opportunity to play with them both. Buttons has met Miles and it seems like they will be good friends. Miles enjoys chew toys and rough-housing. I think he'll be interested in chasing Buttons around before too long, which will just delight her to no end. Tai has met both Jerry and Miles, and is particularly taken with Jerry. Jerry enjoys chasing after kitty toys and coming to a halt so quickly that his whole body flips over. He's also into snuggling on his mom's lap.


This is all happening just a few days after I stepped outside to visit with some neighbors and realized that we have three little boys in the neighborhood, each only six months apart. Tai is the youngest and the oldest will turn 2 at the end of next month. And the two young couples who have adopted the pets are each at different stages in the popular cat-then-dog-then-baby plan. So it looks like we'll have even more babies around before too long. Pheasant Lane is just bursting with new life! I love it!

Life's Little Pleasures

The other night I dreamed that Minh and I won a year's supply of chocolate milk and Chicken McNuggets. It was the best dream I've had in a long time.

The Shit Hit the Fan...

...of course, by"the fan" I really mean my feet.


The other night Minh was out returning a piece of rented equipment to Home Depot (yes, we rented more heavy machinery...more on that in a future post, if you're good) and I was bathing and putting Tai to bed by myself. No big deal--I often handle bath and bedtime by myself. Usually the only tricky part is wrestling a squirming Tai into his PJs without (1) letting him climb down off the changing table, (2) zipping his wriggly skin into his PJs, or (3) cursing at him. I can usually manage to avoid pitfall numbers 1 and 2. Let's leave it at that.


So, fully aware of the green beans and baby carrots boiling on the stove, I plopped Tai down in the bathtub and we proceeded to have a delightful time splashing, playing, and washing. This is always the best part of the day for both of us. But just as the fun was ending and the last drops of water drained from the tub, Tai pooped. Excellent. He's pooped in the tub before, but I always had backup. This time I was on my own. But really, since the tub was already empty this was pretty easily fixed. I plucked him from the wreckage and left the poop there to be dealt with later. Mentally reminding myself to check on the beans and carrots as soon as Tai was in his crib, I carried a dripping wet, and rather poopy baby to the changing table. Once his ass was wiped and diapered I dried him off and forced him into his pajamas.


OK, now I just had to nurse him, put him to bed, and go check on those beans and carrots. Oh, and THEN go clean the poop out of the tub. I had everything under control.


But actually, Tai was the one in control. He has instituted a new regime of Refusing to Go to Bed. Despite the smell of poop saturating his room, I nursed him to sleep. But as I lowered him into the crib he snapped awake and started screaming his head off. We returned to the glider and nursed and rocked some more, still marveling that the poop could smell so strongly that the odor was wafting across the hall, under his closed door, and into his room. A few minutes later, when I walked near the crib with him in my arms, he started screaming again. OK, back to the glider for more rocking with a pacifier and Emmit, Tai's favorite stuffed animal. We rocked and rocked and rocked. He was not falling asleep.


Suddenly I smelled another odor, layered over the smell of poop. It was the smell of...well, of burning. "Oh shit," I thought, all the water must have evaporated from that pot and I was about to burn the house down. Like it or not, I put Tai in his crib and ran to the stove to find that the beans and carrots were now black and becoming one with the bottom of the pot.


Just as I was heroically saving us from a house fire (that would have been my fault) Minh arrived home tired, sore, sweaty, and dirty after a long day of manual labor. He came in to find the house smelled like fire, the baby was SCREAMING in his crib and his wife's feet were smeared with baby poop. Apparently, some poop fell out from between my son's ass cheeks and landed on the top of my foot and then I crossed my feet at the ankles while nursing Tai and rubbed it all over both my feet (no wonder it smelled so bad in his room!)


Good husband that he is, Minh cleaned up the poop in the bathtub while I washed my feet and then went back in to nurse Tai some more (when in doubt, give 'em milk, right?) Tai finally went to bed, the house is still standing, and poop washes off. So, in the end, all was well. Whew!

No Turning Back

Once you've put three coats of dark red paint on your bathroom walls, there really is no changing your mind, even if you are not in love with it. So, here it is. Despite my concerns that it would look too patriotic, we did end up using "magic spell" blue to soften the transition between the red walls and the white ceiling. Minh painted some crown moulding and put that up. It looks a little patriotic. But like I said, no turning back now.

So, it's a conversation piece. Some folks will love it, some will hate it. Minh and Tai and I will live with it. It's actually pretty cute and fun, which works well since it's "Tai's bathroom". But the next time I start talking about painting something, someone needs to (gently) remind me of the following:

* I get really excited about painting projects

* I have little patience for all the prep and clean-up associated with painting

* I'm not a very neat and careful painter (this is especially noticeable when painting a very dark color, as I now know)

* I don't actually like executing my grand painting schemes (can't I just be the idea person?)

Somehow, in between painting projects, I always forget all the miserable parts and only remember the fun of coming up with the idea and the satisfaction of the end product. I block out all the miserable in-between stuff. Maybe it's like childbirth. They say that if women actually remembered all the pain (and not just the happy end-result) no one would have more than one kid. I guess I should keep that in mind for the future too :)

Number 1 and Number 2

Our cats have two litter boxes for some strange reason that I cannot remember. What fascinates me is that they seem to have both agreed on a system of exclusively peeing in the box on the right and pooping in the box on the left. Who says animals don't communicate with each other?

The Perfect Storm

This weekend Tai was suffering from all of the following, simultaneously:

an ear infection
a high fever
a runny nose
constipation
oh, and he's cutting his top teeth as well.

But we had plans for the weekend. So we packed up our sick kid, the Tylenol, the teething tablets, and the Amoxicillin and headed east to visit some friends. Tai actually did quite well. He had a great time visiting his buddy Aaron and playing with all of Aaron's toys.

The high fever actually did not show up until we we already at Aaron's house. (I'd just like to point out that there are actually some cases in which I would have cancelled my plans and kept Tai home. He did not have a fever when we headed east). But that night, at 3am, he woke up on fire. His temp was over 102 and we were in an unfamiliar house, far from home. Poor thing. Minh and I dosed Tai with the Tylenol and then I put Tai in the wrap and paced the house until he fell back asleep around 4:30am.

The next morning he was feeling better so we decided to take him out for his very first Dim Sum -- Tai enjoyed some shrimp and pork along with his baby cereal puffs. Then we said goodbye to Aaron and brought Tai to a high end mall where we can barely afford to window shop. The only reason we set foot in that place was to visit a friend who works in a pricey baby boutique. He was feeling feverish again and getting grumpy, so naturally we decided to torture and humiliate him by making him try on a Halloween costume. I knew he'd only stand for trying on ONE costume, so we had to choose wisely.

This Halloween, Tai will greet the trick-or-treaters who ring our doorbell dressed as a Kangaroo.