I Forgot To Post This

Do not, under any circumstances, click this link. After all, you remember what happened the last time I warned you not to click a link that I had posted...

On the Road with Tom and Amy (and Bambina, too)

It's been a busy month away from the couch:

1. May 3-4, spent in Pittsburgh, PA for the wedding of Rebecca and David, and spending a day with long-time friend, Rich. Amy had never met Rich's wife, Essi, and I hadn't seen their lovely daughters since.... well, it'd been a long time. Best wishes to Rebecca and David (hope you're settling in well to your life together), and many, many thanks to the Pinkerton family.
2. May 10-11, spent in Indianapolis, IN for the wedding of my cousin Kevin to his lovely bride, Jenni. Kevin is on my mom's side of the family, who had not yet met Bambina. The wedding and reception was almost as lovely as the bride. Sunday, my cousin, Lisa and her hubby, Tim, hosted a sumptuous brunch. Best wishes to the Kevin and Jenni, and thanks to Lisa and Tim for getting us all together.
3. May 17-18, spent in NE OH, working in my parents' kitchen ripping up linoleum flooring and helping install a new cabinet that my dad built. Game night with Xabu and a fist full of Youngkins, followed by copious quantities of wine with Xabu and Piglet. Back to my parents' Mosquito Ranch and Bird Sanctuary (their term, not mine) to pick up the wife and kid.
4. May 24-26, spent in NE OH, surprise birthday party for Piglet (won't say her age, I'm told that's not nice), went on an actual date with my lovely wife, holiday picnic with Amy's clan.

And that's just what we did on the weekends! Weekdays were interspersed with friends (Rattus, and Darrin and Maryann with their lovely girl), a baseball game, a trip to the pediatrician, six-month pictures for the Bambina, and various and sundry chores. Whew!

Bambina held up surprisingly well through it all. She traveled very, very well, sleeping most of the time, and only had one really bad meltdown that I think we're going to chalk up to a nightmare or somesuch.

So, it'll be nice to stay home next weekend. More news to follow soon, I'm just too tired to keep going tonight.

Trip to the Pediatrician

Tom took Teagan to the doctor today for her 6 month check up. She got another round of shots today. Someday, she will appreciate the Scooby-Doo and Tazmanian Devil band aides. The doctor gave us the green light for starting cereal and solids. We have been giving her some cereal but not consistently so we need to work on adding it to the schedule.

Some stats:
Weight: 15 lbs 4oz- yeah she has more than doubled her birth weight (50th percentile)
Height: 23.5 inches- a little on the short size.
Head Circumference: 17 1/8 inches -75th percentile -we love our little bobble head.

We finally dumped the camera! We had over a month of photos to go through. We picked the best added them to Teagan's photo gallery. (Again, if you want the link/password drop us a note.)

Talk to the hand

This morning, Teagan was in her crib while Tom and I were getting ready for work. We could hear her talking up a storm. I went to investigate I found her talking to her hand. I would love to know what she was saying.

Questions For Those With Kids

So, we wanna know:

1. Teagan has begun repeatedly smacking herself in the head. On the one hand, I think it's pretty comical, but I'll agree with Amy that on some level, it is somewhat disconcerting. What does this mean, should we be worried about it, and what, if anything should we do? I really don't want my li'l girl to grow up to be a masochist...
2. How do you manage when you both are ill? We've managed (just barely) to stagger our illnesses: Amy had a bad end of the week last week, I was out Saturday night through Monday morning, Amy was back down Monday afternoon til this morning, now I'm down again. Whaddya do when you're both too sick to take care of the kid(s)? The last thing we want to do is give Bambina what either of us have (oddly enough, we both have different crud).

Pass the Puffs, please

After our trip to return the ink we went out to celebrate a belated birthday for Tom. Unfortunately, Tom wasn't able to finish his meal and we came home early. Why... Tom officially caught a cold/flu. I have been fighting allergies/cold since Tuesday and Teagan has had a cough for a good week. So it has been a fun weekend so much fun we used a lot of products that I would like to plug:

Items used in no particular order:
- Puffs
- TP (emergency Puffs)
- Benedryl
- Mint Tea
- Theraflu
- Nightquill
- Pepto
- Immodium
- Tylenol
- Chicken Broth
- Extra blankets for the chills
- Cough Drops
- OJ (extra vitamin C)

I felt bad for Teagan this weekend. She had to entertain herself a lot. We wanted to keep our distance so she doesn't catch anything. We want her healthy for Becky Rebecca and David's wedding on Saturday.

Greedy People Suck

The ink cartridges on our printer have been dying over the last week or so, so today, while we were out, we stopped at our local, mega-office supply store to buy new. I bought a pack with both color and black, paid my coin and went home. When I opened the box, I discovered that the color cartridge was completely out of its protective wrapper, the piece of tape over the jets had stuck to the inside of the box, and ink had spilled all over the inside. The black one seemed intact, but the protective wrapper was torn. What I assume happened is that someone came in and bought the cartridges, swapped the new ones for his/her old ones, hot-glued the box, then went back to the mega-office supply store, asking for a return because they bought the wrong one. Since the box was still hot glued, the staff simply returned the box to the shelf for some other innocent patron to pick up.

Now, I hate when stores' return policies screw over the honest customer (Amy could tell stories about her disdain for that of the Red Bullseye), but considering what stupid, greedy people will do, is it any wonder?

Yep, greedy people suck.

Improve Your Vocabulary...

...feed the world.

Saw that on the news the last night and thought I'd give it a try. It was Slashdotted all night, so I only got around to playing tonight. It's pretty addictive, Amy and I both had fun (although I probably had more fun since I was driving and she was feeding Bambina), and if the site does what it says, I think it's worth a couple of minutes a night. Enjoy!

Socks on Saturday

Teagan and I had on matching socks yesterday. I thought it was cute. I told Tom, "Quick take a picture to post on the blog!". It is amazing how tiny her feet are vs my size 9's.


A few new pictures out on photobucket if you are interested.

Opening Day!

Today is a day to celebrate! It's Teagan's first Opening Day! To celebrate, Amy got her decked out in the gear of my favorite major league team, and we watched a few innings together. OK, it was more like a few pitches. But, hey, WE WATCHED BASEBALL TOGETHER< GOSHDARNIT!!! Over time, there will be opportunity to discuss the infield fly rule (Amy's favorite rule in all of baseball), fair-vs-foul, suicide squeeze plays, the benefits of the sacrifice, etc. But today, it was just fun to see my kid decked out in baseball paraphernalia.

Update: Updated Teagan's photo gallery. Same URL and password as before. E-mail me if you need them.

$204,060

News in the house this week. I have a new full time job! What started out as a way to help out a little with the bills resulted in a new job for me. Starting April 7th I will be the new Membership and Marketing Coordinator for a Corporate Credit Union. I feel extremely blessed by this opportunity. However I have mixed feeling- This means our baby girl is heading to Daycare. My head knows she will be fine, it is my heart that is aching. However with the USDA report out this week we need $204,060 to raise our girl to age 18. This doesn't include college or the must have Christmas toy... I need a raise!

Routines in our house are going to drastically change so please bear with us if we are a bit grumpy in the coming weeks.

MLB Screws the Fan (Again)

It's rare that I don't catch a televised broadcast of my favorite major league baseball team, but from time to time, they'll play a day game during the week. In the past, it was possible to at least listen to the game on an internet stream. But this year, MLB has decided that people have to pay for the pleasure of listening to something that, if they had a radio handy, they could listen to for free. Thanks, MLB. You've provided me another reason to stop following your teams.

I'm Getting Old

... but you knew that, right? :P

So, yesterday, as Amy and I were walking to get a cup of coffee at lunch, we noticed a sign for an emergency blood drive. Now, you might remember that I had decided not to donate any more after a bad experience last year. Well, with the passage of time, and particularly after the response I got, I'd been considering changing my mind, and since there was an emergency drive right where I work, I decided to give it a go on the provision that there was absolutely no line. There wasn't, so I gladly sacrificed a pint.

Later in the afternoon, nearing the end of the day, I decided to rearrange my new office (I've recently occupied a vacant one). It involved switching two desks around. I got to pushing and pulling, and after about 15-20 minutes, I felt like I my heart was going to beat out of my chest, and I was going to either pass out, puke or both. It was only then that I remembered that I gave blood and I shouldn't have tried moving stuff that heavy. The thing is, once upon a time, I used to play racketball within a few hours of giving blood.

So, which is the sign of age? Not being able to be physically active after giving blood, or forgetting that I had given blood in the first place?

Just a Quick Post

... to wish you a Happy St. Urho's Day.

Public Service Announcement

When you check the batteries on your smoke detectors (you have smoke detectors, right? and you check the batteries twice a year, right?), remember to check the batteries on your carbon monoxide detectors (you have a carbon monoxide detctor, right?), too. Even if yours is a wall-mounted version, it's likely that it's got a battery backup. Regular checks may help you avoid panicked 6:15AM calls to your local fire department while packing up cats and kid and preparing to evacuate, only to be told, once the local fire department arrives, that all you need to do is change batteries.

Not that that happened to us this morning. Nope.

And continuing the PSA, remember to change your detectors every five years. Not that we were told to do that by the firemen who didn't come to our house this morning...

A Battle of Wills

In case I'd wondered if someone had switched babies at the hospital, Teagan is proving that she most definitely is our daughter. This may be a surprise to our respective parents, but Amy and I are both... hmmm... strong-willed individuals. It seems that our lovely daughter has discovered her own will, and is practicing asserting it.

Tonight, Amy went out and Teagan and I stayed home together. Teagan wanted held. I was willing to hold her and play with her, but I also wanted to get some other things done. So, after some play time, I put her in her swing and set it in motion, which usually puts her to sleep. Teagan decided she wasn't done being held, and thus the screaming began. I walked over to the swing to soothe her, cooed at her a bit, but she wasn't having any of it. After a few minutes I caved and picked her up. Shortly thereafter she stopped screaming again. I put her down. Same song, different verse. After a few put-down, pick-up iterations, she realized that after she calmed down she was going to be deposited in the swing again, so she just kept screaming. This time, I laid her down in her crib and gave her some toys. She cooed and gurgled a bit, played with Mrs. Ducky and Mr. Lion, so I left her. Cue the screaming. I let her scream for a few minutes, then went back in, soothed her, put her back down, more screaming. AUGH! She ended up getting herself so wound up she even made herself sick. Of course, when Amy walked in the door, she settled down and started cooing again.

Anyhow, I was thinking that I won that round until I realized I didn't get anything done. D'oh! I guess I'll have to try harder next time...

Monday update

Happy Monday!

• Teagan had her 3 month check up today- more shots (ouch!)
  
• She is weighing in at 12lbs. 8oz. (50th percentile),
  
• She is 22 inches long (25th percentile)
  
• Her head circumference is 16.25 inches (75th percentile) - still a bobble head!
• Teagan's gallery has been updated in photobucket.
• Spring is coming! Since it was SO warm today Teagan and I went for a walk and saw crocus blooming.

Don't forget if you live in Ohio tomorrow- GO VOTE!

Training Required

True story. Some things you just can't make up.

When I first heard about this story, I'll admit, I scoffed. However, on Tuesday afternoon, Amy and I stopped by one of the several locations near where we work to get a cuppa, and I asked for a "grande black Estima" (for those not familiar with the parlance, "grande" is the size, and "Estima" was one of the coffees available that day). The young man behind the counter, who must have been new, said, "Sure! You want room for cream?" His barista co-worker looked at him and said, "No, he said black." I rolled my eyes, chuckled under my breath, and thought that was the end of it until he stepped over to the urns, looked at them both, and then asked the same barista co-worker, "Breakfast blend is black, right?" She looked at him like he'd grown a third arm out of his left nipple and replied, "No, 'black' means he doesn't want cream in his coffee." Now, for those of you reading who don't drink coffee, you might not think that's all that funny, but this guy WORKS FOR THE LARGEST COFFEE CHAIN IN THE WORLD, FER GUNNESSAKE!!! Good thing he was going to class that night...

and time for an oil change...

Clever comments and phrases usually come from Tom on this blog... So I have to share the cute one he had this weekend. He said " WOW, I have known you for 50,000 miles!" Now that is love.

I Know I'm a Dad....

... 'cause I have formula stains on the left shoulder of all my shirts.