Good, Bad & Ugly

Good: Baby.

Bad: Baby spit-up.

Ugly: Baby spit-up in mom's hair.

If only she would stay this easy to please...

One day Little Button will be a teenager and she'll start listening to all the funky new radio stations playing the wacky music that her father and I simply cannot understand the coolness of. And she'll probably call in on occasion with her friends to see if they can win the "caller number xx" contests for a free trip to Cancun or a new Louis Vuitton purse. And one day she might actually get through on the line and be put on hold so the DJ can talk to her on the air. And they may even tell her that she's won the new sports car of her dreams, in electric red.

And I think her elation at that moment will still not equal the ecstatic joy that emanates from her when we turn the wheel on the mobile that makes the little animals go around again.

The Hard Way

Lesson #41.

Today I had chicken fried rice for lunch. I like ordering chicken fried rice because they always give you enough for two meals and it keeps pretty well for a few days.

Today I ate the entire dish of chicken fried rice.

Bad idea. Bad bad idea.

Who let the dog out (woof woof woof...)

In the past several days, Hastings has escaped twice for a run around the neighborhood. Shiba Inus are natural runaways, and since we lost our previous dog to a speeding car during a similar escapade, we tend to be a bit paranoid about "letting the dog out." But things happen and after two years of confinement, Hastings darted out after the sweet aroma of freedom and I felt my heart leap into my throat as I ran after him with flashbacks of my bleeding puppy laying limp in the road.

We managed to catch him both times - a miracle in and of itself, as a shiba on the loose is faster than a cheetah with its tale on fire - so this story does have a happy ending. The other miracle is that he allowed himself to be trapped in the same space twice, a mistake he usually doesn't make the first time.

Through the ordeal, it became glaringly apparent what a role upheaval our household has gone through since Button's birth. During the first year we had him, Hastings escaped and I came very close to a nervous breakdown, even after we caught him. J came home to a very exhausted and teary wife who was quite ready to give the dog up because I couldn't endure the stress of it.

But this week we both found ourselves able to take the incident more or less in stride - a good thing, because if he had escaped twice in 4 days a year ago, it would probably have sent me over the edge. This four-legged rocket that used to be our child has now, to his confusion, been reduced to the role of the family pet. Now that we actually have a child, our lives and well-being are not so entertwined with the dog's and, though it would be a tragedy, we would be able to function if something happened to him.

Now let's just hope Button doesn't run away any time soon.

Technically Speaking

We've been duped. We just found out that in the phrase "sleeping through the night," the term sleeping carries approximately the same significance as the term slumber in "slumber party." What a misnomer.

All the books and baby know-it-alls say that most babies start "sleeping through the night" between 7 and 9 weeks of age, so we were expecting soon to be putting her in her crib at night and not waking (or being woken) until approximately 8 hours later.

We've been a little disturbed, however, because even though Button is just about to be 7 weeks old, it is apparent that we're not going to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep any time soon, barring some miracle sleeping potion or coma. She still needs to eat every 2.5-3 hours during the night, and I can't imagine her suddenly being able to go a full 8 hours without food.

Found out last night that "sleeping through the night" doesn't actually count mid-night feedings...it just means that the kid usually sleeps during the night time when she's not eating.

Well she's been doing that for weeks. And here we were getting worried about her developmental progress.

Apparently we don't get the full 8 hours until sometime around a year or so. Bummer.