Thanksgiving was great; Kevin and Ringo came down from Philly, and we ate, talked, laughed, played games, played with Eilonwy, and generally had a very friendly time. Just what we needed. I cooked a big dinner and had fun doing it. Everything bready was made with spelt, so I could eat it. I've been pigging out on pie and stuffing for three days. Whee!!

 

We've made a lot of progress on the house - unpacked most everything we want to keep out, hung up a bunch of pictures, and rearranged things a little. We have a lot of boxes of pictures, knick-knacks, and books still packed & in the basement. Once it gets cold and we can't go outside and play, we might go down and sort through everything again. There are probably lots more things we can sell or donate. This move has made us painfully aware of the quantity of stuff we have!

 

Eilonwy is chattery these days, although she has few actual words. She says "hi", "bye", and "hello" all the time. "NANANANA" is Banana, and she knows exactly what that is, although on occasion she slips into calling all food NANANA. She says "gah?" to mean "I'm thirsty, give me something to drink," although she knows what "milk" is, if you say it to her. In fact, she understands almost everything we say about concrete objects and processes she's familiar with. She understands bath, diaper, shoes, "other one", "can you get me the...?", although sometimes she doesn't know what you mean by what fits in the "...?" spot, so she just brings you something random. The other day, I pointed at a pair of boots and said, "can you bring me my shoes?" Apparently, the boots didn't look enough like shoes to her, because she went to the other side of the room and got me a different pair of my shoes.

 

Eilonwy also acquired two more teeth this week, so she was slightly crankier than usual, and she's not sleeping as well as she would otherwise. And the drool is really impressive.

---

November 2007:

HAHAHAHAHA. We just got another "jobs for philosophers" publication. With another 35 positions to apply for.

Bryan made a funny: "Wish they all could be Ca-li-forn-ia... Jobs....!"

---

Sorry for the lack of new pics. It's been... um... three of "those weeks."

Good news - we sent in the last bit of paperwork today before the actual closing on our house. So unless something bizarre happens, our house is for all intents and purposes sold. What a relief.

 

And, in other good news, we've sent in all of Bryan's job applications for the fall round, so now we're just waiting to hear about interviews.

---

We now are under contract on our house in Austin. If all goes well, it'll be somebody else's house by December. We had a good seven-ish years in that house and made lots of memories there (in addition to Eilonwy), so it'll be missed. But not that much - we've moved on. We were in Austin this past week and didn't even make it by to look in on it.

 

In other news, the trip to Austin went well for the most part. We decided, though, that the next trip down would be much more productive and less stressful if it were longer (and sooner). So we intend to return sometime before Christmas. Never know what life'll throw at ya', so not sure exactly when. But we'll let all interested parties know as soon as we do. Many thanks to my (Sarah's) parents for putting us up (and putting up with us). And many apologies to those we spent less (or little, or no) time with on this trip. This whole move and everything with which it's associated is a big learning process. Next time will be better.

 

9/30:

Lease on the apartment expired at 10 AM today. We moved out just in time, into the house. From now 'til Saturday, we're "camping out" in the house. We decided to wait to bring out the POD for unloading 'til we have help. Mom (Karen) and Sherry are coming on Saturday, as is the POD, and we can unload then. Our kitchen is relatively comfortably stocked - enough pots, pans, plastic/paperware, and serving/cooking utensils to get by. But the furniture situation is comical - we have an air mattress to sleep on (Eilonwy is still sleeping on her futon), and we have a pop-up hammock for Bryan to sit around in, a floor-lounger for me, a card table, and a single folding chair we found in the basement (we'll just have to eat one at a time).

 

We're doing fine - Bryan is exhausted from running up and down the stairs a thousand times to bring down our stuff from the apartment, and my back is cranky, but we're still in relatively good moods and love our house. We met the owner yesterday when we signed the lease and picked up the keys, and she is a very sweet lady.

 

Once a little time has passed, ask us about our banking experiences over the last week. Suffice it to say that we spent many hours dealing both with the University Federal Credit Union and Citibank. Many, many thanks to Laura at UFCU for saving our skins more than once. On the Citibank side - word to the wise: if you're dealing with a large multinational bank, make sure that when you call for customer service, you talk to a person AT YOUR LOCAL BRANCH. There's no telling where the outsourced phone help gets their info, but it isn't from the bank. I think they just make it up on the fly.

 

9/23:

Eilonwy:

Still has the same six teeth - four on top and two on bottom.

Now says several things: "mine", "yes" (actually "yeth"), "a-yup", "yeah", "uh-oh", "hi", "hello" (very rarely now - this was one of her first words, but she says "hi" instead), and "thank you" (again, very rarely). Point-and-squeal is stil a preferred mode of communication, but it's getting better. When you ask her to smile, she wrinkles up her nose, squints her eyes, and shows you all her teeth. She looks more fierce than happy, but it's very cute. She knows noses and belly buttons and takes great pleasure in finding them for you.

 

9/20:

Our application for the house went through.

Relief. Now, we just need to figure out how to unload the POD, given the very tight driveway space, only two adults to unload, and a 15-month-old to look after.

 

9/15:

Think allergies are bad in Austin? Try Virginia. And, believe it or not, on September 15th, it was actually long sleeve weather. Weird.

 

We made it through our First Week in VA, and now a second week too. Work is going well, and things are settling down just a smidge at home too. This weekend so far has been hard-core house-hunting. We expect to be done with that by the end of the week. Better be, since we have to move out at the end of September. Bryan has his first game day with the D.C. Conscripts on the 22nd, so he's excited to get back into ASL. He's bought a big 3-volume history of the civil war, so that he can tour battlefields intelligently while we're here. Eilonwy is settling in as well as can be expected, given that we keep hauling her all over the place looking for houses/groceries/entertainment/etc.

 

6/26:

Bryan again. Passed the stone today and turned it in for analysis. That was briefly severely painful, but no big deal. Now, apparently, they hack it up to find out what it was made of, and tell me what to never, ever eat again.

 

6/20:

Bryan again. Health update. Apparently, kidney stones can last several weeks, but the initial pain is not typically replicated. If it hasn't passed after six weeks, then they're apt to operate, which apparently has nasty but temporary side-effects. (They go up and get the damned thing. This does not strike me as a good idea.) The passage is apparently accompanied by discomfort to mild pain (that's my experience), but nothing that can't be handled. My doctor has me taking ibuprofen for pain and as an anti-inflammatory, and some targeted muscle relaxant. Unfortunately, a 3mm stone has only a 70% chance of passage without surgery: and me without my lucky percentile dice. Now waiting and seeing.

 

6/18:

Bryan here. Health update. Last Friday early morning, I couldn't find a comfortable pose to sleep in, because I had a lower-back pain. As the morning progressed, I got nauseated and had various intestinal upsets and events and the pain spread out from the base of my spine, through my lower left back. It was also growing more intense. I thought for a while that it was just a serious stomach upset, but stomach-upset-relieving things weren't helping. Luckily, Eilonwy hadn't woken up yet; unluckily, Sarah was in Florida and wouldn't get back until Friday night.

 

After a while, I realized that this wasn't going to stop and that I wasn't going to be able to handle Eilonwy. And I was afraid. This pain was really intense, and I was wondering whether something had burst. (Wikipedia told me that appendicitis pain would be on the right, though.) So I called 911 and had myself ambulanced to a hospital. Todd and Sherry recovered Eilonwy and followed us there, where Frank and Cheri relieved them on baby-sitting duties. I don't know what I would have done without friends and family to help. I keep thanking them and being told that it's no big deal. You're not getting it, guys: I don't care how little you gave up, I care what I got, which was relief from the worst fear I can recall.

 

Eilonwy's first experience: a stranger pulling her out of her crib. Second: seeing me screaming on a gurney in the front yard with a bunch of needles stuck in me by strangers. Third: being carried away from me. A delightful day for her, no doubt.

 

This is when I found out about the wonders of modern pain relief. The EMTs and everyone at the hospital were just as helpful, calm, friendly, efficient, and in general useful was they could possibly have been. I don't know who they were or where I went (that's another wonder of modern pain relief), but I can safely say that I can't imagine having gotten better treatment.

 

Pain crisis over — they say this is the closest a man can get to knowing what childbirth feels like — I was given a couple of tests and found that I was passing a 2.5mm kidney stone from my left kidney. That's not large enough to need or benefit from ultrasound treatment, and it isn't supposed to continue to hurt once the stone hits the bladder. They prescribed me something for pain and a muscle relexant to ease the way. I've taken the pain pills at a lower frequency than called for, and the pain has been well under control, not extending past discomfort. I've got some filters that I'm supposed to use to catch the stone when I pass it, but no luck so far; I haven't used the filters quite consistently, though, so I might have missed it either for that reason or just because it's small enough to miss and get rinsed out of the filter. I'm to see a urologist later on.

 

The muscle relaxant, and/or pain medication, has me pretty loopy, but I seem to be retaining consciousness this afternoon. Yesterday, I slept almost the entire day, which was doubly weird since on Saturday I had been almost fine. Today I've done an adequate job of taking care of Eilonwy and managed some chores, but I'm about done with my abdomen for the time being.

 

5-28: Eilonwy has been practicing taking two or three steps at a time since that first time she took a step, but this weekend she really got going. She can usually go about five feet before she sits down, but she's getting farther all the time.

 

Her third tooth has been visibly working its way through for several weeks now. It was pushing so hard on the gums that the gums were white enough for me to keep thinking the tooth was through. This morning, I think I finally feel a corner of it. It's the right maxillary central incisor, or the right top front tooth. Looks like she might have all four top teeth before any bottom ones come in! Weird.

 

5-10: Eilonwy took three steps the other night. We went to play putt-putt golf, and she stood up at one end of the green, reached out to me, and took three steps before sitting down (hard). She's done about that much several times since - but no more than that. Still, it won't be long 'til she's walking! She has a third tooth working its way out now, too. So much happening in her little life right now.

 

(5-3): THE SEMESTER FROM HELL IS OVER.

 

5/3: Another TOOTH!

That's two in a week!

This on is the left maxillary central incisor, a.k.a left top front tooth.

 

4/30: A TOOTH!

They say that the most common order for babies to get their teeth is:

1) mandibular central incisors (bottom "front teeth")

2) maxillary central incisors (top "front teeth")

3) mandibular lateral incisors (bottom teeth to either side of the "front teeth")

4) maxillary lateral incisors (top teeth to either side of the "front teeth")

5) everything else, in some order not relevant at the moment

In keeping with the rebellious nature her father hopes she'll have, Eilonwy's first tooth is the left (or "G") maxillary lateral incisor. (That is, one of the last of the first eight she's supposed to get.)

 

It's not through enough to take a picture, but I will once it's really showing. It's also not out enough to hurt me when she's nursing - either that, or she's being gentle. We'll see. She was really clingy and a little fussy today, and when I got home from work I checked and found a tiny pin-prick of a tooth-corner sticking out. Now, three hours later, the whole bottom edge of the tooth is out! We went and brushed her tooth (and all her gums, for good measure), and she didn't even mind. Such a good girl.

 

4/17:

Eilonwy took her first plane trip on 4/6. We (Sarah Jo and Eilonwy) went up to Colorado to see Eilonwy's Grammy and Aunt Rachel for Easter weekend. Mom had decided to go up a while before that, but I just decided to go at the last minute. It was a great time. Eilonwy did really well on the airplane. We toured the New Belgium brewery on Saturday and then went shopping with several of Rachel's friends for bridesmaids' dresses. Sunday, we met Dylan's parents and had a good visit (Dylan is Eilonwy's uncle-to-be). Monday, we went shopping again! It snowed all weekend and then finally cleared up on Monday. We flew back Monday night.

 

Dylan has a 2 yr old yellow lab (who lives at Rachel's house for now), and Rachel has a black lab puppy. I don't have any pics, but the dog/baby interactions were pretty funny.

 

In other news, Eilonwy's really good at standing up now. She can just lift up right in the middle of the room without any help at all. She's also cruising along the furniture and crawls around like crazy, but she hasn't walked on her own yet. And still no teeth.

 

Eilonwy met her great-uncle Julius and great-aunt Tomi for the first time on 2/24 weekend - there's a new picture of E with Julius up on the Eilonwy and her Aunts and Uncles page.

 

Eilonwy had her 9-month well-check on March 7th, and it went well. She was 18lbs, 11oz (55th percentile) and 26.5 inches (25th percentile). Eilonwy's had a rash on her arms and legs for a goodly while. I tried changing baby-washes, lotions, and clothes-washing techniques, but nothing seemed to help. But it would go away and come back seemingly at random. I asked the doctor, and he said the rash was just eczema (sensitive skin). He said to use Dove bar soap and Cetaphil moisturizer. He gave us a prescription for hydrocortisone cream, to use when it flares up.

 

Eilonwy's also been rubbing her eyes a lot, and she gets dark circles around her eyes when she's outside for a long time. I figured it was allergies and was afraid she was allergic to the cats and/or our house. But since it got worse rather than better every time we left the house, I decided that probably wasn't it. It does seem to correlate with when my allergies flare up, too. The doctor confirmed that it's allergies, but didn't speculate what she's allergic to. He said babies often develop allergies around her age and outgrow them by the time they’re 4 years old. He also said allergy testing is pretty inaccurate until they’re 4 years old. He gave me samples of Zyrtec and an eye drop, along with prescriptions for both if they seem to help.

Other than that, he said everything was great! She’s eating the right things and meeting the right milestones, so he was happy.

She didn’t even cry when she got her polio shot.

 

We've been chasing Eilonwy (or being chased by) around the house. A lot. She's very busy. Very. We've moved a lot of things out of the living room - books mostly - and replaced them with Eilonwy's things - books mostly. Her latest trick is to pull up to standing next to a piece of furniture, sit down (gently), crawl a while, pull up to standing on another piece of furniture, etc.

 

We also have been trying to take her to the park or out for a walk almost every day - the weather has been gorgeous.

 

1/23: Eilonwy plays so hard. Her manual dexterity has gotten really good since she started feeding herself rice puffs. At least, it seems like that's what did it. She used to have trouble picking them up and getting them into her mouth, and now she's quite good at it. It's cute - she primly picks each one up and carefully places it in her mouth... except for the occasional fistful when she gets really ambitious. The fistfuls mostly end up on, rather than in, her tummy. The first time she played with one of her new puzzles (last weekend), she just picked up the whole thing and dumped out the pieces or slapped the puzzle with her hands. Now she carefully pries out the pieces one by one, thoroughly chewing (and thus soaking) each piece before moving on to the next.

 

She's also gotten very chatty. She squeals, says "ma ma ma", "ba ba ba", "duh duh duh", "blah blah blah", etc., and blows raspberries. And then she also sits quietly playing for long stretches, too. She's awfully fascinating right now - you can just see her learning new things almost on a moment-to-moment basis.

 

12/20: Eilonwy is sick again. Ran a fever this morning, so we took her back to the doctor. Just another viral head-cold. She's pretty uncomfortable - having trouble breathing - but she still acts like she's mostly in a good mood. She weighed 17 lb 2 oz at the doctor's office today. That's 11 oz in five days!

 

12/15:

Eilonwy went for her 6-month well-check today. This was her first time to see her new doctor... he was much more businesslike and to-the-point, but we liked him well enough.

When Eilonwy makes a quick intake of air, she always gives this really squeaky noise. The doctor said that's called "strider", and it's related to how soft the cartilage is in her windpipe. She'll outgrow it. It's been really pronounced since she caught her cold, but she's always done it. And I think she's learned that making a sharp intake of air makes that noise, so she's been playing with it lately. When he noticed her doing it, the doctor made a point of explaining it and drawing pictures. He made sure to reassure us that it's nothing to worry about, which is good because we weren't particularly worried.

Even though she's been sick, the doctor said her ears and throat look fine, and her lungs and heart sound good.

She weighed in at 16 lbs 7 oz (55th percentile) and was 25 1/4 in long (30th percentile), so he said she's doing really well nutritionally (yay!). He also said we can "go wild" with the foods if we so desire. Basically, he said we could introduce stage 2 foods, meats, veggies, fruits, whatever we want except eggs, corn, citrus, and honey.

She got her next round of vaccines, including her first flu shot, and didn't even cry that much. All-in-all, it was a pretty good trip, although it's totally worn Bryan and me out.

And she's been sitting here next to me by her self the whole time I've been writing this - she's doing so well! Now if Bryan and I could just get well, and if the tooth that's bothering Eilonwy would come through, we'd be just about perfect! More new pics on the Eilonwy Unmodified page. And an interesting contrast on the Eilonwy and her Mommy page.

 

12/14: No such luck... Ah-choo, cough, cough.

 

12/13: So everybody is basically on the mend, although I'm (Sarah) feeling worse. I think it's the sleep deprivation getting to me, although I'm also having some cold-ish symptoms. I hope I just have a much milder case of what Bryan and Eilonwy had; so far, I'm just pretending I feel fine. If you ignore viruses, do they get their feelings hurt and slink off? Well, it's worth a try.

In other news, Eilonwy tried peas today and liked them. She's now tried bananas, applesauce, pears, peaches, sweet potatoes, peas, and squash (not to mention cereal, teething toast, and biter biscuits). So far, the only thing she didn't like was squash, but we haven't tried that in a while. She's doing really well with her pushups, and she pushes up onto her knees briefly pretty often when she's on her tummy. And she can sit up on her own for a really long time now. We've transitioned to tub baths because the sink and the Tubby are too small for her, and she loves her rubber duckies! I also took out her Fisher-Price phone, and she loves it too.

 

12/10: BEWARE! If you have a particularly weak immune system, you may not want to read this. Eilonwy ran up a fever of 101.5 Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. We took her to the doctor, which was a nightmare of needlessly enormous proportions. She had a cold, about which there's not much they can do. She had a fever most of that day & night, but it went away Thursday morning. HOWEVER, the cold moved into her chest, so she's got this really rattly cough. She's only slept every other night for the past week. Because she naps a lot during the day, only I (Sarah) appear to be feeling the effects of sleep deprivation - she's in a perfectly good mood. Fortunately (knock on a Redwood forest), I haven't caught what she has. Unfortunately, Bryan has. And when he gets a cold, he's completely zapped for at least several days. He already produces way more snot than most people, and that's when he's not sick. On the up side, Eilonwy did some really impressive pushups this afternoon, and she even pushed up onto her knees (briefly) once!

 

12/3: Bridget & Andy came over from Clear Lake this weekend. It was a fun, if brief, visit. Pictures are up on the Eilonwy and her Grandparents page.

 

11/28: Thanksgiving was awesome, so there are TONS of new pictures!! See Eilonwy and her Aunts and Uncles, bath, Eilonwy and her Mommy, and Eilonwy and her Grandparents.

Eilonwy likes carrots. She's sitting up pretty well now, although she tends to topple when she reaches for things. Over Thanksgiving week, she also started "walking." That is, you can hold her hands and she puts one foot in front of the other. She's really good at it. She still doesn't particularly like to be on her tummy, though, so she doesn't often do those "pre crawling" things... my guess is that she'll walk before she crawls. She's definitely teething, but she's happy the vast majority of the time anyway. And she sleeps up to 10 hours a night. Such a good baby...

 

11/17:

 

Eilonwy blows raspberries now. She's practicing making the sound with and without her tongue stuck out. It makes her laugh if you copy her.

She's getting very good at doing pushups and seems to like tummy time more than she used to.

She's an expert at grabbing her feet.

She's discovered that the cats are fun to play with - she grabs Apollo's fur, whiskers, and ears and talks to him in a very serious voice. He seems not to mind, unless she pulls his fur too hard... we try to keep that to a minimum.

 

11/12:

 

Lots of firsts this weekend. Eilonwy tried squash. Definitely didn't like it - either time we tried. Ah, well, applesauce and bananas are indeed yummier. We'll try carrots next and see how that goes. Today, she rode in the shopping cart at the grocery store for the first time. She has a seat-cover that's nice and cushy, and it has a little shoulder/waist harness that helps her balance. She's able to sit up for very brief periods of time now - I think the Bumbo seat has helped strengthen the relevant muscles and sense of balance. I didn't feel like my back would be very happy with me carrying her in her Baby Bjorn, so we just gave the cart a try. She was pretty ok with it, although she was listing to the side by the end of the shopping trip.

 

11/6:

 

• I've taken out Eilonwy's 6-9 month size clothes. She hadn't even grown into most of her 3-6 month size clothes a month ago. She's been eating like a horse and growing like a weed this month.
• Last Friday, Eilonwy discovered her toes. She was wearing little pink socks, and she got this face like, "wow, what's this new toy?" She grabbed her foot and shoved it in her mouth. Her socks were sopping wet by the time she was done playing.
• She's getting more clever with her hands every day - grabbing toys, my lips/ears/nose, her feet, and anything else she suddenly finds interesting. Especially amusing (and discouraging at the same time), she's learned how to carefully pull her pacifier out of her mouth with one hand and pop her other thumb in her mouth. She's so determined to have her thumb instead of a pacifier at those times that I can't help but laugh. Unlike lots of kids, she doesn't seem to want something in her mouth all the time... just when she's sleepy or upset... so I very well might give up the fight and let her have her thumbs. Haven't decided yet.

 

10/31: Eilonwy weighed 14lbs 3oz when they weighed her this morning. She's a big girl! Over the weekend, I finally put away all her 0-3 month size clothes.

 

10/30: Eilonwy tried bananas today. Somtimes she stops nursing to look around and give me a grin. But while I was feeding her bananas, she was totally focused on the path of the spoon to and from her mouth. She could've been a baby-food commercial, with all her Hmm.. Ymm... Mmm... noises.

 

10/27: Eilonwy is growing up fast.

Today, she's been reaching out for everything nearby. Her new favorite thing to do is reach out and touch your face/mouth while you're talking to her.

This afternoon, she was on her tummy and did a really nice push-up, reaching her arms out really straight and picking up her head. And she didn't even to seem to mind that she was on her tummy - at least for a while.

She got cereal for the first time on Sunday. She didn't like it much, but she was cranky that night and there was a lot going on. Ever since then, she's really seemed to enjoy it. The second time we tried cereal, she grabbed the spoon out of my hand and put it in her mouth. I don't think she approved of the slowness with which I was feeding her.

Babies are amazing. And it's interesting how they can change your point of view on everything. Suddenly, everything else just seems to pale in significance to those little grins, laughs, and milestones. And I have to wonder - if anybody else were to wake me up three times in the night just to make sure I was still there, would I be happy to see them the next morning? Don't think so - I think babies are magic.

 

10/11: Eilonwy had her 4-month Dr. appointment this morning. The doctor says she's doing well with her developmental milestones and is growing well. Eilonwy weighs 12lb 13oz and is 23in long. So her weight is still at the 25th percentile, and her height is at the 20th percentile.