It’s been over two weeks since I last blogged. Both kids had ear infections and Lily ended up with a stomach virus. She projectile vomited all over my mother’s legs and shoes while at the pediatrician’s office. It was lovely. Both girls seem to be doing better now.

Lily had her first official haircut today. We were affectionately referring to her as “Wal-Mart Baby” because she always looked like she should be living there. Hair everywhere, in the eyes, standing on end . . . you get the picture. She still looks slightly weird because it’s not the same length, but at least it’s neat now and she can see. So much for me trying to grow out her bangs. Even the teachers at school laughed about her hair. It was time. I took some pictures so I will post them as soon as I develop the film. I still refuse to get a digital camera.

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to lunch with a friend and a potential client. It was on a Friday, a day when I don’t normally work, so Lily stayed with mom and dad while I ran up and head lunch with them. I told her I was having lunch with a man and a woman. While I was gone, she told my mother that I was having lunch with a man and that I was “cuddling him”. Apparently that’s what we do with men!!! Thankfully she didn’t tell that to her daddy, and I can tell you most definitely that I was NOT cuddling with “the man”.

Arden is getting big - she’s almost 12 pounds and her most recent nickname is “Piglet”. The child never stops eating. I’m over the “every three hours” thing - and might stop nursing sooner this time than I did with Lily. I’m trying to get to 6 months. After that, we’ll see what happens. She’s very sweet natured, however, and easy to please, so aside from the fact that she still doesn’t sleep through the night and eats constantly, she’s a joy to have around. She’ll be an international traveler soon when we go to Mexico for Dan and Ana’s wedding. Good lord, I still don’t have a dress . . .

January 13, 2005

My friend Phil Hertzler is a web designer/developer, and has a blog on his company website at http://www.topdeadcenterdesign.com. There is a recent post that hit so close to home, I just had to replay it here. The column is entitled “How To Neglect A Blog” and goes like this:

My offering for the perfect recipe on how to neglect your blog for weeks at a time:
Base ingredients
1 New iMac
1 Catastrophic hard drive failure
1 Dead cat
1 Contract assignment for a local corporation
3 New client projects

Optional, but recommended for extra seasoning add:
Not wanting to rant about losing the election on the company blog (just a pinch)
Assorted holiday obligations
1 New season of the Simpsons
1 case of Sierra Nevada Celebration (thanks Dave)

————————————————————————

So true, so true. Except I don’t take contract assignments from local corporations because so far I’ve been lucky enough to survive on the measly pittance Jennifer and I pay ourselves. However if any of you out there in Blog Land are interested in learning how a company can help itself by blogging, I highly recommend you check out Phil’s site. He’s quite the maverick.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to combat my sleep deprivation by drinking Starbucks and faking myself into believing it’s not really decaf and keeping ridiculously busy. It sort of helps, but right now it’s 9.18 pm and I just finished working, so I am barely functional. Repeat after me: we can have it all. We CAN have it all.

Yesterday, Lily paused dramatically while Mike was putting on her pajamas, grabbed her chest and announced: “I HAVE to PUMP!” Apparently I’ve been hooking myself up to the milking machine too much in front of her, as she is now emulating my phrases like a pro. Mike was cracking up over that comment. I’ve also found, speaking of the pump, that I have to really check it out first before attaching myself to it. It has two settings on it - one for speed and one for the amount of suction. One is a twist knob and the other is a slide lever. Lily LOVES to play with those two settings. Today I was at work and began to pump only scream out in pain - it felt like my eyes were being sucked out through my nipples. Turns out the setting for suction had been turned to “MAX” which would be enough to milk an elephant, and the speed had been set to 10 when it’s normally at 4. The pump sounded like a freight train about to derail and take my poor dairy farm with it.

Everyone keeps asking me how long I’m going to nurse. I don’t know. I try not to think about it. Nursing is keeping me from getting a breast reduction - and when I am asked in my networking group what my burning passion is, I always get the urge to tell them my burning passion is to be a 32A. So far I have resisted. The sooner I am done nursing, the sooner I can begin the long petitioning process with the insurance company. However, I managed nearly 10 months with Lily and I can see the benefits of it . . . not to mention nursing can burn up to 500 calories a day and we all know I need all the caloric burns I can get. So the answer still is, I don’t know. In the meantime I continue to pump on the days Arden is in day care (after checking the pump for Lily alterations) and dream of the day when I can go jogging without pain.

Lily’s doing really well in day care - it’s made my work much easier because I’m not spending the entire day thinking about her crying her eyes out in a corner. The guilt that first week was truly overwhelming. I’m glad we are on the upswing. We are still not sleeping much - Arden wakes up every 3 hours for some reason at night these days. I keep hoping tomorrow will be different. I know this is only temporary and at some point in our lives, we will sleep through the night again.

Today I had a totally non-productive day at work. My computer was infected with 5 (count ‘em, 5) different Trojan Horse viruses that took literally 6 hours to fix, clean and eradicate. It screwed up everything on my computer. I felt like suing Norton Antivirus. I am fanatical about virus and worm protection and I still got hit. Just goes to show you we’re not safe at all. I can’t believe idiots spend time programming these things just to make the rest of us spend our days fixing them. Get a job, you dumb hackers!!!

Seeing Lily in her Flyers cheerleader uniform is hilarious.  It’s even funnier when we can get Lily to jump around and do her “Wiggles” dance in the outfit. Her dance is a sort of frantic hopping/flapping/kicking combo. Very interesting. She needs to practice a bit more before she’s ready to join the Dallas Cowboys. Don’t quit your day job, Lily.

Mike and I got an evening out Saturday and had dinner with two other adults who were also sans children. Amazing! No crayons, coloring, kid’s menus or screaming fits about chicken! It was heavenly and we took our time - 3.5 hours of blissful, uninterrupted dining and chatting. Ahhhh. I got a manicure and pedicure Saturday morning - a gift from Mikey - so by the time the evening rolled around I was feeling positively pampered.

Looks like we’ll be going to Pinehurst in the next couple of weeks to visit Mike’s parents. I’m hopeful Mike can get his dad out of the house and onto the golf course. They both need a break.

Teacher’s Pet . . .

Today I went to Tuckaway to pick up Lily and they were in the middle of music class. I was peering around the corner, trying to get a glimpse of her, and there she was - perched on Ms. Stella’s lap, having her hair stroked and her hands held and clapped in time to the music. All the other kids were on the floor or dancing around - Lily was the only one seated on the human throne. I’m glad they love her, but I should have known she would be the one demanding to be held. She actually went to the potty at Tuckaway which was amazing. I guess the potty training is coming along nicely. They are supposed to go roller skating next week outside, but they recommended Lily not participate since she’s the smallest one in the school and they think she might be smushed. This is coming from the teachers, not the over-protective mama, I swear it.

I’ve been training until just recently, so I’m tired out and fried from looking at the computer screen. Hey, at least I’m working and billing. . . tomorrow is going to be mostly non-billable day, unfortunately.

I’ll post some new pictures of Arden and Lily in the next week or so when dad has time to figure out his digital camera. I might even be able to print some on their new photo printer, which would be exciting - some of the best pictures I have of my monsters are on the digital camera, and I hate not being able to print them out and put into their albums or scrapbooks. That’s the only bummer with digitals . . .