Meeeerrrrrry Christmas!

Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit like listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas album (or more accurately, The Vince Guaraldi Trio, "A Charlie Brown Christmas")! Seriously. I've been lamenting my complete lack of holiday enthusiasm lately, but I'm shuffling my iPod and "Christmas Time Is Here" came on. Poof! I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present! Come closer man, and know me better!



It seems harder and harder, year by year, to get into the holiday swing. Maybe it's due to the fact that we always seem to be going somewhere else for Christmas, so we don't have up any decorations, or a tree, or anything. Well, that's not completely true - Orionjob finally caved after much whining and moaning on my part and put up two fir boughs and one string of lights. Better than a poke in the eye, I guess, but not particularly overwhelming. Also, I do almost all of my shopping online these days. Used to be that I'd spend a day or two in downtown Seattle shopping. What with the lights, and the holiday bustle, and the eggnog lattes, you couldn't really help but succumb to the festive atmosphere.

Oh well, I've know the secret now! I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

Dancing, not deflicted

We just finished watching all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Linus LOVES the theme to Buffy. Well, he used to love it, anyway. He'd dance to it every time he heard it. That's a lot of theme-music dancing when you consider that the theme plays at the beginning and the end of every episode, and we've been watching something like 8 episodes a week since mid-May. In the last month or so, he stopped dancing to it, though his head still snaps around whenever he hears it. I don't know why he stopped, he still dances to other music. Of course, he's a toddler, so "dancing" consists of lots of bouncing up and down, foot-stomping, and fist-twisting.

When he was really little, like lay-on-the-floor-can't-sit-up-yet little, we were watching Alias from the beginning, and when that theme song came on, no matter what he was doing or what position he was in, he'd twist around so he could watch the spinning rectangles. Three months old and loving the techno. We're about to Netflix season 4 of Alias, so we'll see if he still loves that theme song.

So, we're sitting around the living room last night, and I look over at Or and he has a weird look on his face. I ask him, "Are you ok? You look a little dodgy.", and he replies, totally serious, "A good dodgy, or a bad dodgy?". Ha! He cracks me up!

Talking about talking

Linus has started talking. He's been using sign language since he was about 10 months old, but I'm talking actual spoken words now.

By the way, I highly recommend the teaching of baby signs. Don't misunderstand, I'm not one of those flash-card wielding,must-maximize-every-possible-developmental-moment parents. No bellyphones piping Mozart into his fetal ears. I'm actually pretty lazy about that sort of thing. If it's not making my life easier as a parentin the here-and-now, he can figure it out the old fashion way; by hanging around people going on about their daily lives. I think of it as an evolutionary approach to parenting. And the baby signs fit right in with that philosophy. A happy baby is way easier to deal with than a frustrated, pissed-off baby, and I know Linus is happier for being able to tell us what he wants. He doesn't have a huge repertoire of signs, maybe 30, but he can tell us when he wants to eat and what he wants to eat (well, as long as he wants to eat one of about five things) and that goes a long way toward keeping him from getting all worked up becausehe wants something and we can't figure out what it is. In fact, lately he's been wanting to eat things we don't have signs for, and if he can't point to it, frustration and boo-hooing ensues. I need to make up a sign for noodles, and pizza. That would help.

But, I digress...talking! He's been saying, "Da" or "Dada" for his Dad for awhile now (though lately it's developed into "Dadee"), and "no" has been common for about 2 months. "No" apparently means "no", as well as,"I acknowledge that you're speaking to me", given how often we hear it. Just in the last couple of days he's added "more" (or "mo") and "boo"for book. He has no words for me yet (though he does have a sign), NOT that I'm taking that personally or anything (*grumble*, he's lucky he's so cute).

In all its glory...

Well, Tina asked for it, and since she's one of maybe 2 regular readers, I can't deny her.

Here is the Annual Summary of Holiday Season Gift Rules Cheerful Holiday Poem, in its entirety:

"The holiday season -- a time for good cheer!
For egg nog, for parties, for friends to be near.
But I must be careful
Lest I accept free
A gift not permitted, no matter how wee.

Part two six three five of the 5 CFR
Explains in detail the relevant bar.
It defines the term gift
To mean all things worth money.
That's NBA tickets or jars full of honey.

Some gifts may be taken but some are verboten.
The source is the key -- it's the rule that I'm quotin'.
When from me or others
The source seeks some act,
I must find an exception or I could be sacked.

Even others who give can cause problems for me.
If my job prompts the giving -- my position, you see.
But lucky for me,
Some exceptions exist.
They're in subpart B and they should not be missed.

I can pay market value if the gift I do like,
Or I can at my option say "go take a hike."
I can always say no,
But I need not decline.
If worth twenty or less then the gift can be mine.

This exception has prompted some very loud hollers.
It says gifts are okay if worth twenty dollars.
But surely the public
Is certain to see,
I could never be bought for a sandwich and tea.

Restrictions apply so it does not suffice
To pay twenty bucks for a gift twice the price.
And in any one year
I can't use it, of course,
To go over the limit -- fifty dollars per source.

For gifts that a friend or my sister might send,
The rules recognize I don't want to offend.
Regardless of value,
It only must be
That their motive to give wasn't business, but me.

The rule's much the same in the case of my spouse
Who happens to work as she can't stand our house.
Although her employer
Is one of those sources,
I can go to their fete and avoid more divorces.

In the case of most parties, the rule's not so clear
As the agency must have an interest, I fear.
If worth more than twenty
And it's no friend true,
Then I'd better seek guidance or I could be blue.

What of those in the office with whom I share much?
Are all treats a taboo -- must we always go dutch?
The rules here are different,
They're in subpart C.
They okay some gifts even to and from me.

I can give to my boss to a limit of ten --
A baseball, a cap, or a blue ballpoint pen.
If not to my boss
Or my chain of command,
To a friend I can give more without being canned.

I always look forward to my office party.
We're all in good moods and the food is so hearty.
If no arm is twisted,
Collecting's okay
To make sure that everyone has a good day.

So go forth with good cheer and know there's no reason
To think that the gifts rules will ruin your season!"

Hahahahaha!

I just want to make it clear, I can totally be bought for a sandwich and tea.

Working for The Man

Ok, I know I said just yesterday that I wasn't too interested in writing about my work, but I can't let this go by without mentioning it:

You know you're a federal employee when you get an email with the subject, "The Annual Summary of Holiday Season Gift Rules". Seriously, a hilarious, five page memo of what I can and can't give and/or receive in the way of gifts (hilarious for a variety of unintended reasons). No gifts to bosses, no gifts over $10 to coworkers, blah, blah, blah. That's fine. I get that there are ethics rules, and why we need to follow them. Doesn't mean I'm not going to make fun of it. Fortunately, it's ok to receive donuts! Oh, and "other modest items of food and refreshment". I love the "modest" part. And the idea of items of refreshment. The best part, though, is that the people who wrote the memo decided to attach, "a cheerful holiday poem that succinctly summarizes these important rules". I'm not kidding! I will post the first two stanzas for you,

"The holiday season -- a time for good cheer!
For egg nog, for parties, for friends to be near.
But I must be careful
Lest I accept free
A gift not permitted, no matter how wee.

Part two six three five of the 5 CFR
Explains in detail the relevant bar.
It defines the term gift
To mean all things worth money.
That's NBA tickets or jars full of honey."

Hahahahaha! It goes on for 11 more stanzas. I'm not making this up!

Introductory material

It seems like there may be one or two people reading this journal on occassion who don't know me. So, I thought I'd kind of fill in some background information.

We (me, my husband, my son, our dog) just moved out to Oregon from Kansas. We moved so I could start a new job with a certain federal bureau charged with, um, guarding the, um, milieu. Let's call it the Milieu Guarding Bureau (MGB). I conduct research for this bureau. Scientific research. Not rocket science, mind you, biological science. Anyway, blah de blah, love my job. Love it! But, while I find it completely enthralling, most people don't. Not from lack of interest, really, more a lack of common ground. So, I don't/won't write about it much here. That's not a hard-and-fast rule or anything, I just find my family, especially Linus, to be much more amusing and journal-worthy.

My husband, Orionjob, a carpenter by trade, is currently a stay-at-home Dad. We probably can't afford for him to stay home long-term, but for now it's working, and it gives us a chance to figure out the local daycare scene. We may put Linus in part-time daycare after the first of the year. We'll see what we can find. I'm thrilled that Or and Linus get to spend so much time together. I imagine lots of napping and farting. Oh, don't get worked up! I know that staying at home with a toddler isn't all napping and farting and soap operas and bon-bons. I was home full time before we moved. I'm just saying...

We love Oregon. We're originally from Seattle, so it's nice to be back on the West Coast. Yeah, we liked living in Lawrence, Kansas well enough while we were there, but frankly, I'm just not cut out for that climate. And the bugs. There are a number of things I'm going to miss about Lawrence (Wheatfields, Sylas & Maddy's (Oh, Maddy's Mudd, how I will miss you. Come on! Coffee ice cream with Oreos, brownie pieces and a fudge swirl?! Shut up!). We left some good friends there (Hi, Brad!), and Linus will always be a Kansas native, but there's not much about physically being in Kansas that I'm going to miss. In fact, I checked the weather this weekend and saw they were expecting a high of 11. And, I'm sure there was a 20 mph wind to go with it. Nope, not for me.

Enough background, for now. I'll try to fill in more gaps in coming posts.

Linus has recently started making car noises. You know, "brrmm, brrmm"? He pushes around his little truck brrmm brrmm-ing all the way. I'm sure he must have seen some other kids doing this, because neither Or or I recall showing him. It's like he reach the Age of Car Knowledge and spontaneously started making the appropriate noises. Or, mostly appropriate. He'll also pulls his Keith Haring dog around and around, brrmm brrmm-ing as he goes. That's worth a good 20 minutes of non-stop, brrmm brrmm, circumambulation.

Good baby lovin'

Linus loves to walk around with one foot in things. Boxes, big-people shoes, whatever. He likes to get an Altoid tin stuck on the bottom of his foot and clomp around with it. Weird, but funny. Not something I was expecting.

Before you have a toddler, it sounds like it's something you have to brace yourself for. Tantrums, the terrible-twos, and all that. There's some of that, but it turns out, toddlers are awesome! Really. Here's the thing - your toddler loves you more than anything, and isn't shy about showing it. This means that about every half hour or so, Linus comes over to me and gives me a big, baby hug, then goes on about his business. Best. Thing. Ever. Just, "Hmm, hmm, hmm, playing with my blocks. Oh! Better go make sure Mom still loves me and knows that I love her! Fhew. Hmm, hmm, hmm."

I don't know how long this stage is going to last, but I'm eatin' it up while I can.

As promised...

Five Foos of Boring Work

I did a lot of boring crap today. How do I measure "a lot", you're probably not asking? When I get ready to leave work in the evening, I clear the files off my desktop left from the various program streams I've been listening to all day. Lately I've been listening to back episodes of Le Show. I can only listen to talking-type shows when I'm doing really mindless, boring crap, usually involving database management. Bleh. If what I'm doing requires a little more thought on my part, I can listen to music, even more, nothing. Anyway, the audio files from Le Show show up on my computer as "foo", "foo-1", "foo-infinity". You get the picture. I had five foos on my desktop today - that's 5 hours of Le Show. That's on top of the 4 or so hours of podcasts I have waiting for me daily. That's a lot of boring crap for one day.

"How was work today, honey?" "It was a five foo-er." "Ew. Have a drink"

I can't tell if this post is amusing me, or boring me. I promise I'll post a cute Linus picture when I get home.

Epiphanies and Rainbow Pride

So, I'm listening to Elvis Mitchel and Harold Ramis on The Treatment talk about how the movie Groundhog's Day is really about the Buddhist principle of destruction of self and how the way to find real meaning is through service to others rather than servicing your ego, when it occurs to me how much parenting is really a Buddhist process. You spend so much time taking care of your kids (serving them, if you'd like) that there's very little time left for focusing on your own self-construct. Or, maybe not, since I've seen a number of parents whose parenting is all about serving their own egos. Do I have to be specific? I doubt it.

I know that the most out-of-my-own-head (in a good way, not a crazy way) I've ever been was during the first couple of months of Linus' life. There's just so much to do and focus on that there wasn't any time left for all the me-crap that usually fills my head. This is another thing I'm grateful to Linus for, giving me the opportunity to, maybe, become a little enlightened. I just hope I can always keep that feeling. I want him to know how great I think it is taking care of him, and that it's not some kind of burden that I bear. That seems to be one of those messages that you get from our culture, like men are complete incompetents when it comes to anything domestic. Kids, while ya love 'em, are really just burdens that parents bear. I hope Linus grows up knowing that raising him is a joy and delight. Sure, not every minute, but mostly.

So, enough about epiphanies. My dog came out of the closet. Apparently, Lucky is gay. We took him to the groomer to get his nails clipped and he came back sporting a rainbow pride bandana (I'll post a picture once I get home). He's a 14 year old miniature dachshund who's been neutered, but it's never too late, I guess.

Shut your pie hole!

Want to know what's peeving me today? People who make noises with their mouths other than vocal. Mostly I'm talking about gum chomping, but also drink slurping. I just came out of a staff meeting. What was it about? Yeah, I don't know, 'cause the guy next to me was making so much friggin' noise I couldn't hear or concentrate on what was being said! This is how it went,

"The research foc*chomp*chomp*squish*chomp*sluuurp*what we want*swish*sluuuuurp*chomp*squish*chomp* best methods *snarg*chomp*!!"

Eeeeew! Naaaasty! Seriously, for an hour and a half! How do you make that much noise with just one piece of gum and a cup of tea?! Two days ago I took Linus to the library and ran into a similar problem. We're sitting there at one of the toddler tables scribbling away on a squirrel picture when another kid, Zeke, and his mom join us. Zeke's mom is working over a piece of gum so loudly, vigorously, and publicly, that I had to get up and leave. That's right - two toddler boys with their runny noses, drooly faces, god-knows-what-encrusted hands, and poopy britches, and it's the grown lady icking me out.

What's the deal?! Don't get me wrong, I like gum. No, I LOVE gum. I chew gum all day long, every day. If it wasn't for gum, I'd probably smoke a pipe, or gnaw on pencils. I appreciate the desire, Nay! the NEED, to chew gum. But I know how to keep my mouth shut. I bet no one around me is aware I'm even chewing gum, let alone annoyed by it. And, I have manners. Mostly.

So, quit it! Quit grossing me out and quit giving gum chewers a bad name!

Gravity, dig it!

Apparently, Linus is going through a Newtonian phase. He’s all about watching things drop. Well that, and carrying around garbage. He’ll push everything off the coffee table, one item at a time, and watch it fall to the floor. Sometimes he’ll even pick things up, put them back on the table, and push them off again. Push, drop. Push, drop. Pick up, push, drop. All with a very intent look on his face, like he doesn’t quite get why the stuff ends up on the floor each and every time. He’ll even crouch down and peer at the floor where everything is landing, trying to discern its mystical properties. Inertia: Nature’s Babysitter.

As for the garbage carrying, I don’t know. I’d like to fancy it up and say he’s developing theories on the nature of decay or something, but really, he just loves garbage. Bathroom garbage, kitchen garbage, all of it. Throwing it away, looking at it, rifling through it, carrying it around. Hmmm, come to think of it, this gives me another reason to try and get Orion to stop reading him “Oscar-the-Grouch’s Alphabet of Trash”, besides the fact that the middle of the book, and therefore the middle of the alphabet, is missing. I don’t want Linus singing his ABCs, “a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, and z”. Completely messes up the song!

Let's never do that again, k?

The stitches are out. There was lots of boohoo-ery, but I think it wasn’t as bad as putting them in. The Peeps was obviously not pleased to see the doctors and nurses. And I don't blame him a bit. No drugs this time, but that meant wrapping him up to hold him still. He absolutely hated it and cried and hollered. It sucked to watch, but only lasted a couple of minutes. I think the crying was more about not liking the situation rather than it hurting, though I think the last stitch did hurt a little. It was tied pretty tight and the nurse had to pull it a little to clip the knot. He got himself pretty worked up, but calmed down as soon as I could pick him up. There’s nothing sweeter than his little arms around my neck and his head nestled on my shoulder. Makes us both feel better.

Immediately after, I realized that I should’ve tried nursing him while they removed the stitches, instead of wrapping him. It probably would have worked better that way. Less stressful for him. Well, for all of us really. Fat lot of good it does to think of it after. It annoys me that I didn’t think more clearly about it at the time, and also that the nurses didn’t suggest it. I’m such a rookie.

V is for vim

So, here is a picture of the most impressive wound. It’s not horribly graphic, but I didn’t want to confront the unprepared with grossness. (Yes, he's pretending to talk on the tv remote. I wish I could say he's woozy from the Incident, or something, but no, he does it all the time. *sigh*)

Unfortunately, I suspect that this won’t be our last trip to the emergency room with this one. He is Danger Baby. No fear. He goes headlong into everything. When he was learning to walk up and down stairs, for example, he refused to go backward downstairs. He always wanted to walk forward. I’ve seen plenty of babies on stairs and they all seem to do that backward crawl thing down the stairs. Not DB. Face first. Trouble! Fortunately, the house we just moved into doesn’t have any stairs. Much better than our old house with a big ol’ flight of stairs, with odd rise sizes no less! I fell down those stairs myself more than once.

I sincerely hope that our future isn’t full of more stitches and broken bones and whatnot, but I fear it may be. Of course, all parents of toddlers are constantly on guard - toddlers aren’t about Safety First.

So, we have to go back to the doc in a couple of days to have the stitches removed. Not looking forward to that, though on the bright side, no ketamine! That’s something anyway. They assure us that removing the stitches won’t hurt at all. Really?? I’m dubious.

Fun with Dissociative Anaesthetics

We had our first trip to the emergency room last night. My baby cut his head. Orion and Linus were monkeying around on the floor. Alas, an evil wine glass lay in wait nearby. Most unfortunate. A bad roll, a crash, and much crying and bleeding ensued. Lots of bleeding. That's the way with head lacerations, I'm told. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at keeping my cool in these sorts of situations. Not one for panic, generally. So, we bundled into the car with a dishtowel pressed to his forehead and headed for the emergency room.

Really, no big deal. It was just a cut on his head that was in need of some stitches. Ok, a big cut, and nobody wants to be in the emergency room ever, especially not with their child. But just a cut. Totally fine. That is, until the ketamine.

Apparently, ketamine is what they give toddlers these days when they need them sedated (Linus is 16 months). According to the ER doc, in young kids it works by "disconnecting" the regions of the brain that perceive pain. It puts them in a sort of dissociated state - not asleep, but not aware of what's going on. That way, the doc can stitch without general anesthesia or physical restraint. All good, right? Sure, ketamine's a derivative of PCP, but let's not let that stop us.

So, I'm sitting with Linus, comforting him after they put in the IV. Singing softly in his ear, stroking the side of his face. He's practically asleep at this point, a combination of the late hour, exhaustion, and shock. Then, they push the ketamine. His eyes open wide with this vacant stare and he lets out the most ungodly scream. A sound unlike anything I've ever heard him make before, and I've heard him make a lot of sounds. This is apparently completely expected, because the doctor and nurse don't bat an eye and start stitching him up. I then watch my baby make a series of the most disturbing expressions and cries, all with the vacant eyes. This is the point where I almost panic. This close. The cut, the blood, the crying - all of that I can deal with. But, this. This is wrong, on a deep, primal level. I don't know what monsters were released in his head, but it's wrong, and scared the bejeezes out of me.

It was horrifyingly reminiscent of my experience with versed - The Ketamine For Adults! The complete story is for another post, but the short version goes like this: I was told by the doctor that I would remain awake during the procedure I was undergoing, but I wouldn't feel any pain and I wouldn't remember anything about it. Liar! Sure, the exact timeline's a little fuzzy, but I remember every painful part of what happened to me. I was, in fact, traumatized by the experience.

I don't want anything like that happening to my sweetpea. It's the next day, and Linus seems fine. No emotional scars, except on me, that is. He's going to have an awesome scar on his forehead, though!

Look, I know that we got off easy. Stitches are pretty minor when you considering the possibilities. Still, I don't want to go through anything like that again. I say use all the analgesic, pain killers, locals, and spinal blocks you want, but keep the stuff that messes with your brain away from me and mine!

Except caffeine. And alcohol. 'Cause, you know.