El coquí

El coqui
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I have copycatted my friend Nancy twice: she started a blog, I started a blog. She had a son; I had a son. She now maintains a blog in Arabic because she is studying that language. I said a while back I wanted to start studying Spanish again; I have been slacking off but I brushed off my Spanish CDs and am listening to them. And I am copycatting her once more: here is my Spanish blog, Yo Soy La Slacker. For those of you in my viewing audience (all 2 of you) who speak Spanish, feel free to peruse my new blog (only 1 entry so far) and let me know what I did wrong. I know like many English speakers trying to learn Spanish I don't have the hang of the difference between para and por, among many deficiencies.

Upon reviewing what I know, I think my biggest deficiencies in the language lie in word order and prepositions (like para and por). I simply don't know how to put together complex sentences. I may catch a few words here and there, but if I don't understand their context within the sentence I can easily confuse what is going on. I mean, something as simple as "te amo" can be easily misconstrued if you don't understand Spanish word order. We say "I love you" and a word-for-word translation in Spanish is (Yo) amo tú which of course is way wrong.

I also think the reason I have not been able to retain any Spanish I've learned is because I simply am reluctant to speak. Hell, I'm reluctant to speak English! But this is the internet world - I enjoy writing so why not write in Spanish? That way I can take my time and do some research on what I'm trying to say. I also have a great deal of resources on the internet for reading.

One nifty thing that I have discovered is closed captioning. We get the HBO latin channel, which will show movies dubbed in Spanish, and the closed captioning is in Spanish as well. I watched part of Revenge of the Sith the other day. Of course, Univisión is freely available as well with Spanish captions. I hope this time I can stick to it and really learn the language, for once.

Neighborhood

Neighborhood
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I spent most of the weekend working with my young fella on his vocabulary:
I'd say "Kitty!" he'd say "BUH!"
I'd say "Mama!" he'd say "Vava!" (he's just learned the V sound)
I'd say "Dada!" he'd say "Dada!" (dang)
I'd say "Chicken!" he'd say "BUH!"

So I got clever and say "Book!" and he'd say "BUH!" and I'd go "Yay! That's right!!"

And so on. He also tried to get a finger up one of my nostrils quite often. I guess he's curious.

Yesterday he didn't eat much of his dinner which was chicken nuggets and green beans. I found out why he didn't have much of an appetite when I fed him his last bottle at 7. He threw it up, along with what little of his dinner he ate, poor guy.

I bathed him and changed him, and we waited a bit to see how he felt. He seemed okay but naturally about 10 minutes later once I put him to bed he hurled his lunch. I'm serious - he had pineapple and cheese and it came up in whole undigested chunks. I'll pause for a minute so you can concentrate on the visual.

I got him cleaned up and the bed changed and rocked him until he got quiet again. He threw up once more, but it was only a little liquid so after a little cleanup he finally got to sleep around 9pm.

Oh, I also think I had a reaction to the new round of antibiotics: my arms have bumps all up and down them with little red welts in the center. They don't itch, it just looks bad. I'm waiting to hear from my doc to see what he recommends.

Here's the last two installments of the trip report with the nifty pictures:

Part 4

Part 5

Behold the Mighty Hunter

mighty hunter
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Nancy's comments from my last post reminded me of something:

I was tested twice for allergens - once when I was very young (4? 5?), and once recently, a few months after I gave birth. When I was very young I remembered the skin tests were all done with reusable syringes - it was that long ago - and my mom told me that I went into anaphylactic shock when I was tested against horses.

With this new round of testing, the nurse used these things that looked kind of like the things they use to poke you in the finger for just a little blood. Except in this case she was poking me in the arm, on a grid she drew with a ball-point pen. She was poking away when I finally got curious and actually looked at her little case with all the pokers and read the labels and saw one labelled "horse". Eep.

I asked her "have you poked me with the horse yet?"

"Just did".

"I guess I should tell you this: when I was tested as a kid I went into anaphylactic shock when I was tested for horses."

The nurse stared at me a second, then said "Now you tell me?!??"

I didn't go into shock, but. If you are allergic to something, your skin will develop a little weal, its size depending on how allergic you are. So I had a bunch of little bumps ranging from the size of a mosquito bite to the size of a dime. The horse test, however, was the size of a silver dollar. And man did it itch!!

Here's part 3 of that nifty travel report. I note with amusement that they were the last group cancelled out of the villa that is being blogged about here.

Paint your Wagon

wagon
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Today is random nattering day:

I do have new photos of Brenden on one of our daily neighborhood excursions - I've just been too lazy to post them.

Brenden's 12 month checkup went well. The doc was pleased with his development. The one thing I liked most was his physical development has been in the 98% since he was born - but on this visit his weight dropped to the 50% level. In other words, he's still growing like a weed but ever since he learned how to walk he's been burning up the calories. That's good because when he was in the hospital the doctor kept making comments "Wow, he certainly doesn't miss a meal!". It kind of upset me because I didn't see Brenden as obese. Now he's pretty skinny. I also don't force his food. Mealtime is over as soon as he starts showing disintrest with his food (usually signalled by using his sippy cup to mash whatever is on the tray).

Speaking of doctors, I have previously mentioned my sinus infection. What I haven't talked about is the doctors I have been seeing. I've been going to my general practicioner for these infections since my first one this past November. Stupid me, I didn't equate sinus problems to my allergy problems. At my last visit my doc threw his hands in the air and said go see a specialist. I asked what kind, he said "an allergist". Oh.

So I went to see my way cool allergist Dr. Krishna, who has made some recommendations and prescribed some meds. I should have gone to see him in the first place.

Dr. Krishna took a personal interest in my problems when I first went to see him during the 2nd trimester when I was having such horrible problems with athsma. He really seemed to care about me. It's so common for doctors not to show compassion these days, and considering how busy they tend to be it's no wonder they can't remember you from visit to visit. I really like my doc.

I don't think everything is cleared up, however; I still can't smell anything. Once the prednisone prescription was finished I slowly sank back into an odorless world. I have another appointment in a week; in the meantime I'm working with a 'home' remedy which consists of me snorting salt water. Actually I use a dropper to put salt water up my nose. What I need to do is spend 2 weeks at the beach and go swimming every day. That will burn the infection out!

Speaking of beaches, even though I haven't been to one since I got pregnant, I dream about it a lot. We're hoping to go somewhere next summer, maybe with my brother Ed and his wife Jen (they both Scuba dive). So I poke around alot on the web and I found this amusing site about building a villa on St. John. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Unless I won the Powerball and didn't have to worry about money at all. But anyway, the blog starts out so optimistic and slides into slow panic and despair as deadlines are missed and budgets are blown sky high.

But like I said, it's a nice place to visit. Here is a relatively short trip report with some great pictures that someone posted:

Part 1

Part 2

At least look at the pics if you want to blah through the travelogue.

What now?

What now
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

My brain has finally stopped melting, and I think I have recovered enough to compose a coherent post. I owe the letter to Brenden Month 12.

One whole year old. Your physical development is above average, but your communication skills aren't. You don't say anything intelligible yet, but you can point at what you want - usually your sippy cup during dinner. I won't leave it on your tray because you will use it to mash your peas or green beans or drop it on the cat's head (who is hanging around waiting for you to drop something). Speaking of your sippy cup, I have you almost completely off of bottles. I have one left with which I feed you your only bottle of formula just before you go to bed, and that will end as soon as this can of formula is gone. Considering that I mix up 4 oz. of formula and top that with 4 oz. of milk, that can will be finished by November 2008.

I could just give you a sippy cup of milk and you'd be happy, but I'm being a mommy-head and am reluctant to give up the time before bed where I get to hold and rock you and feed you a bottle. Indulge me just a little bit longer.

You have developed a taste for Vienna Sausages, or what the Gerber folks package under the name 'meat sticks'. Real Vienna Sausages are about 90% fat, and have enough salt to shrivel a slug per sausage. The Gerber 'meat sticks' at least actually do have meat in them plus far less sodium. You also like chicken nuggets and catfish - anything you can pick up and shove in your mouth. You are getting cross with me if I try to give you anything by spoon.

I am reading to you more - your favority book is "Moo Baa La La La" by Sandra Boynton. I think you like all the animal sounds I make ("Rhinoceroses snort and snuff, and little dogs go 'ruff ruff ruff!'"). Speaking of animal sounds, I have a ritual we go through every night: I line up your little Fisher Price Little People on the table, and we go through each one of them and the sounds they make ("This is a chicken. Chicken! Chicken says 'Bock bock bock!' This is a cow. Cow! Cow says 'Moooooo! Mooooo!' This is a farmer. Farmer! Farmer says 'Howdy! Howdy howdy howdy!'"). After that I ask you to pick up a specific animal. You have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. You do seem to like trying to grab the sheep and sticking him in my mouth. I do like lamb chops dear, but not plastic ones.

You like being cooped up in the house less and less, so I make it a point to go on a walk with you every evening. It's like taking a cat for a walk because you don't listen to me very well plus you have so many interesting things to investigate and try to put in your mouth, like rocks, leaves, bugs, small stray pieces of trash, and flowers. I only pick you up and move you if we get close to a car parked on the street and you try to lick the bumper. I also pick you up if a car comes - most of the people who live on the street are very nice and thoughtful (most of them have young children too). There's one jerk who drives like a maniac and I hate it when I see his car. It's the one with the blue flashy lights on top. I guess he thinks he can get away with driving like an idiot teen-ager because he's a cop.

So anyway: we have your 1 year Well-baby checkup today which means more shots! Hooray!

Very Tasty

Very Tasty
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Here's Brenden enjoying his birthday cake. We enjoyed it too. Still not inspired. My brain resembles overcooked tapioca because I'm trying to fire an event from an MFC application where the interface container is derived from CCmdTarget and not COleControl like any sane rational human being would have coded.

In the desperate attempt not to get Dooced, I shall stop here.

1 Year Old

AtMoms
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Happy Birthday, Brenden! One year ago today your mother was goofed up on Demerol and doesn't remember much except the look on your little newborn face when she first met you. You looked a little confused.

12 Months later you are a healthy, massively rambunctious little toddler. Please don't be too rough on your Grandma today, OK? I'll write more when I feel a little more inspired.