From our pregnancy email newsletter…

You’re 14 Weeks Pregnant
Welcome to your second trimester! Your energy is likely returning and your queasiness may be settling down, too. If not, hang on — chances are good it’ll soon be behind you (although a few unlucky women will still feel nauseated even months from now). While the top of your uterus is just a bit above your pubic bone, for some women that’s enough to cause a little tummy pop. Your baby’s body is lengthening, and although you can’t feel movements yet, she’s busy putting her tiny muscles to work. See what your baby looks like now, and find out which pregnancy discomforts may disappear, how to handle a sweet tooth and more.

It seems to be fairly accurate, but Sami would be a better voice on those issues.  I’m sort of excited about something else as well – will post about it later.

Allergies, I guess.

I wrote about my crazy allergy-ish experience at my other blog today.

Not sure exactly what triggered it, but I figure it wasn’t really an allergic reaction, even though that’s what the doctor says it “must have been”.

More likely it was a delayed reaction to all the paper insulation I must have inhaled while feeding the hopper while we blew insulation into the crawlspace this weekend.

On that note, it feels like we’re finally making progress in our house.  We have the pump and sump for the basement bathroom, we have the crawlspace vapour barriered and insulated, partition walls built and insulated, and we’re going to start putting up gyproc pretty soon. 

We also got our beds switched with Tom and Hilma, so I’m sleeping on something different, and it is better, though still not perfect.  Need more time at the gym I guess.

Trim is the next big project, and maybe vents for the dryer.  Right now it’s venting into a “bucket”, a little deal they build for people like us with no working dryer vents that catches the moisture.  It’s far from efficient though, and it would be nice to get all that moisture out of the house.

That’s enough update for testing the computer I’m working on I guess.  More later.

Sippy Cup

This is a repost from my ex-blog at myspace. I wrote this late one night after a scary experience, and decided it was good enough to make the transition over here. If you’re reading this in a RSS reader the story is (should be) after the cut.

Sippy Cup – A Story

Upon reflection, my first mistake, like probably that of most men, began with (mostly) altruism .

It was the middle of the night and I heard the baby crying pitifully through the baby monitor. I thought to myself.

“Self”, Says I, “The baby is crying.”

“Yeah”, Says my tired man brain. “Get stuffed.”

“Self, if you was to get up and give the baby her juice and change her diaper, the mom might like it.”

“Yeah”. Says my still very tired man brain. “Get stuffed.”

“Self!”

“Yeah?” The response was sleepy now.

“Think about, how shall we say, the benefits.”

“Ooooh.”

I got up.

I got the sippy cup.

I entered the tired, crying, child’s bedroom. There was entirely too much light, and the child was entirely too thirsty. I was tired, so everything was a little “too” something.

I changed the child. Figuring in my tired way that damp pants means a damp diaper, and that can’t be too comfortable to sleep in. Besides, I told myself, when I relate the story to the thankful girl in the morning, changing the kid makes me look better.

More like a hero.

We’ll get to that part.

Midnight juice and diaper changing duty done I tucked the newly pajama changed, diaper changed, juice filled girl into the crib. She promptly began to cry.

I wasn’t sure if this was worth the hassle, reward or no.

I took the sippy cup, and went back to bed. On my way back to the bed, something curious happened.

Just as I was approaching the bed, to put the sippy cup on the bedside table beside the baby monitor, the alarm clock, the water jug and the woman, (before scarpering back to my warm side of the bed and turning off my brain for a few more hours) she woke up.

She must have slept, much like I intended, through the part where I got up and got out of bed, and stumbled out of the room, and stubbed my toe and cursed and did my heroic midnight baby changing.

She must have slept well, and still thought I was beside her. Because the look of horror that crossed her face, thinking I was an intruder, was classic.

She clutched the bed, shrank back, and inhaled. Loudly.

You know the sound that girls make when the chainsaw wielding psychopath jumps out at the lone escaping hero near the end of the horror movie, right when you know he will and anticipation has been building for minutes on end? (Ok, that’s the sound I make, the girl normally screams.)

That’s what she did. Loudly.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmph!, Says she, shrinking back.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” Says I, Frightened by her overly enthusiastic intake of breath.

That’s right, I screamed.

Then I made the worst mistake my overtired, overstressed, fight or flight animal/lizard hindbrain could have made.

I did the only thing I could.

I threw the sippy cup at her.

#####

Sippy Cup by
Jeff Closs is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Scaredy-Cat.

Sam probably thinks I’m nuts.  Every time she asks me to look after Ivy I stall.  I look around, hoping to find something to distract her from this dangerous line of questioning.

I hum, haw, tap my foot.  Get antsy.

Now, keep this in mind.  It’s not cause I don’t like to, or don’t want to.

Straight up, it’s because I’m scared.   I’m not sure what I’m scared of exactly, but Stephen @ Live Granades in an old post summed it up succinctly:

“Each time I keep him I think, this is the time that I’ll feel like I know what I’m doing. So far, that hasn’t happened. I need some kind of manual. I can’t believe people let me take care of this person even though I don’t have a clue about what I’m doing.”

You’d think there would be licenses for parenthood.  I drive a car, and I had to get a license to do that – c’mon, I could kill someone if I didn’t know what I was doing.

And somehow, raising a kid is different?  Whoah!

And in the spirit of honesty, I must do alright.  Everytime Sam has come home Ivy has been alive and well.  I can manage diaper changes and whining, and crying and cartoons and buckets for hats and growling and everything.  I can manage hours if she’s (Sam) in bed, and there if I need her, and usually, I don’t.

But to be left alone with a child who I am supposed to be responsible for?  Scary.

And next March, we have 2.  Somehow I imagine it’s going to be more than twice as hard, and scary to match.

…Just Sayin.

Salsa.

I need to make some.  Or stew tomatoes.  Or something.

I have 30lbs of Roma tomatoes.  I have about 4lbs of green peppers.  I can buy some hot peppers cheap, and celery is cheap.  Onions are fairly cheap too.

What I need is time.

Time to go home, and make the aforementioned salsa.  Then to can it. (A process I don’t know how to accomplish, but I’m told it’s dead easy.)

Time to get the damn pictures and videos off my camera I’ve been meaning to for two weeks! Grrr.

Time to … get the trim up in the livingroom.

Where does the time actually go?  Is that there isn’t any, or that I’m just not sufficiently motivated enough to get up and do it.

I get off work at 5 today.  We feed ourselves and the munchkin after that.  Then I go to the gym at 8.  So that gives me somewhere around 2 hours that I could do something, but if I go and work in the basement I don’t get any play time with the child who goes to bed at 8.

It’s a vicious freaking cycle.  I guess I should have done it last night after Ivy went to bed – some of it anyway, instead of sitting around watching NCIS.  But I enjoyed last night!

Ah well, just needed to rant.

In other news the BBQ on sunday went off well.  It rained all morning but was nice in the afternoon.  My ribs smoked for about 5 hours in the BBQ, the smoke box needed lots of refilling with little hickory chips, about every 25 minutes.  It was tasty though.

Everything was good.  I even made fresh BBQ sauce.  Here is a rough recipe:

Jeff’s Hot & SpicY BBQ Sauce

6 Roma Tomatoes, roasted w/ skins removed after.
3 Pimento Peppers, Roasted w/ skins removed after.
(Process above in blender until pureed)
1 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Coke Zero Cola (It’s what I had on-hand)
3 Tbsp. Merlot Wine Jelly w/ Jalepeno
3 Tbsp. Honey

Heat until all is liquid.  Add after:

1/2 Cup Heinz Tomato Ketchup
1/4 Cup “good” mustard
1/3 Cup remaining BBQ sauce in fridge
2 Tsp. Smoked Paprika
2 Tsp. Crushed Black Pepper
3 Tsp. Minced Garlic

Continue to heat and blend ingredients.  When taste is good, allow to cool and pour into bottles.  (The above is a rough approximation, I may have missed something, cook it until it tastes good to you.)

Run Fat Boy, Run!

Scalzi called himself “Chunky McChunkerson” a while ago in one of his blog entries.

It’s applicable to me.

Visit runfatboyrun to see my blog on getting and hopefully staying fit.  This is a new thing for me, and I’m hoping it helps keep me motivated.

Little Girls Growl Alot.

Right.

I wouldn’t have thought so before I started this whole daddy thing.

She’s started yet another new thing.  For awhile she’s been growling when she plays – she goes to daycare with two little boys, so that’s expected.  She learns all sorts of fun things like “show me your muscles grrr!”

But now, when she’s angry, in addition to crying she’s started growling.

Now – to figure out how to get her to stop – it’s creepy.  I don’t know whether to call a priest or tarzan.

First Post

I, for one, welcome our new embryonic overlord.

Mmm..Perogies. And Gym.

Perogies were good.

Because perogies aren’t awful enough for you already, I added cheese, onions and smokies to my package.  BBQ for a few minutes and tasty dinner was made.

I went to the gym with Chris tonight.  Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-10ish is gym time again for me.  I’m going to start a related blog to track my progress and fitness goals.  It’ll show up in the sidebar under links eventually.

Time for some work on my story – it’s been trickling around in my head for about 14 years now, so perhaps it’s time it saw a little bit of daylight.  Not too much though.  I may post excerpts here if there is anything I think is worth excerpting.  I’m expecting this to take a long time though, as I don’t get much solo time when my mind is awake and I can be in front of a computer.  Yeah story, see you in another 14 years.  Rough draft.

Barbecued Perogies

Place CHEEMO Perogies on a double layer of aluminum foil. Dot liberally with butter or margarine and season with salt and pepper. Add 1-2 tbsp. water. Add chopped or sliced onions if desired. Wrap loosely, but be certain to seal the edges of the foil. Place on low to medium heat on the BBQ. Turn frequently. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes.

Nabbed from, obviously enough, cheemo.com

Mmmm…Perogies!