What I'm not doing

Foot drag
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Well the pool was perfectly beautiful for exactly one day. Then we had a pretty fierce pop-up thunderstorm which blew a bunch of leaves into the pool.

El monito and I spent the weekend working on the outdoors - I went shopping early Saturday, first to the pool place to make sure the chemicals were balanced, then to Lowe's for assorted neccesities, then to Publix for groceries, then to the Verizon store to find out the phone Jon gave me can't be fixed, only replaced. I don't have a warranty so I'll have to buy a new one. Feh. Brenden did fairly well up until the verizon visit. I had to chase him down several times.

In all fairness he was just bushed by that time. Once I strapped him into the car seat he was asleep before we left the Verizon parking lot. I spent his nap time putting together a nifty kitchen table that folds down into almost nothing so now I can actually eat meals with Brenden in the kitchen. After lunch on our new table B and I went out to do some work in the yard. Bored yet? Me too.

Sunday we worked in the yard, played in the pool, then played in the sprinkler in the front yard as I tried to revitalize the dead grass. I found out that if Brenden tries to fight me when I'm removing him from a not-so-safe situation (like running out into the street - I can move pretty fast for an elderly mom!) he tucks quite easily under an arm. I can keep him from pulling my hair that way, too.

In other words, SSDD.

2-bath day

Neighborhood
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Yesterday was a 2-bath day at the Maynard household. Since I pretty much spend the entire weekend at home, and since Brenden loooooves the outdoors, I decided it would be a good time to do some work on our badly neglected landscaping. I decided to start by weeding and raking around the bushes in the front yart and spreading new mulch. I especially wanted to lay new mulch down because the previous owner used some sort of water permeable tarp around the bushes and a lot of it is uncovered because the last mulch is totally decomposed/washed away.

Brenden and I drove to Home Depot where I bought a few miscellaneous tools we didn't have and 3 bags of pretty red wood mulch. I figured I would need more but this is a long-term project because 1) it's too hot to stay outdoors for very long 2) I have to keep an eye on Brenden and 3) because I have to keep an eye on Brenden, I don't want to use any power tools so that I can hear him as well.

So yesterday I start raking around the weedy-looking and overgrown bushes to the right of our porch, and I finally discovered where all those freakin ants come from when they invade our house. There was so much leaf/compost buildup around the base of the plants they were living in there! Thank goodness these ants don't bite otherwise B and I would be in poor shape. So I didn't even get around spreading the wood chips - I cleaned up as best as I could and Jon should spray near the base and kill all those farging bastiches. I hope to get out there this evening and spread.

Brenden of course helped a lot, mainly by pulling clods of dirt up and tasting them. Oh, well - parasites can be removed. I grew up on a tropical island so I know all about parasites. Brenden of course helped rake and sweep; he spent a lot of time in the open garage where it was substantially cooler investigating everything in there (I spent Saturday cleaning up the garage so that Brenden wouldn't try to eat any spiders he found).

I'm making tentative plans to rip up the whole farging front landscaping this winter, and replacing the poorly-laid plastic border (ick) and the tarp (double-ick) and replacing it with a nicer brick border. I'll also do some initial prepping of the ground to get it ready for some new plants in the spring. I need to take photos so we can have a before-after comparison. As you can see from the above photo, we have a ginormous oak tree in our lawn with a very scraggly-looking area underneath. Poor watering and zero shade caused that. I'm still working out what I'm going to do about this area. The tree stays - it's huge, beautiful and in great shape. It definitely needs some pruning but that should be done when it's colder.

And then there's the landscaping around the pool - I'm going to wait for at least a year before I attempt to tackle it because I hope by then Brenden will have enough sense not to fall into the pool.

Brenden Loves Bananas!

hippie
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

My sinus problems seem to be improving, if only a tiny bit. Every once in a while, I can smell something fairly strongly. Most of the time it's something strong, like the garbage or the cat box or one of Brenden's diaper loads. Yesterday I realized I could smell and so I rushed into the refrigerator and opened a container full of some arroz con pollo I had cooked the day before and took a big whiff. Aaaaah, garlic!

I'm finally losing weight again, and the past month I have dropped to 140. I was pushing 143 when I found out I was pregant, so I have officially dropped all my pregnancy weight (yay!). I'm not happy though because that's still heavier than I'm comfortable with. The nice thing is I am still in a groove where I'm comfortable not eating and am having no cravings. And if I stay away from beer (which I am) they tend to stay away. My comfortable weight would be around 125.

I'm also walking a mile and a half Monday - Friday and I'm weightlifting again 3 times a week although I'm nowhere near the shape I was way back in '04.

Brenden's official 1st word is "Bow!" as in "Bow wow wow". It might be that he's practicing to be King of the Universe but I don't know. He loves pointing to things and saying "bow" so I think that he finally understands that the sounds we make have a distinct purpose. Well he actually has 2 phrases then. He says "Uh-uh-uh-uh" which means "hurry up and feed me/give me that/come with me/pick me up!"

He also has two other molars coming in. No wonder he likes ice in his drinks!

Before the haircut

Before the haircut
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Ahg. If it's Thursday, it must mean a visit to the allergy doctor. Why do I always get sinus headaches when I go see him? Is that some kind of joke? So anyway, since I had a reaction to the last antibiotic (Avalox) he prescribed me amoxcillin or some sort of -cillin but it didn't have any effect. I've got something new and unpronouncable to take plus at the beginning of August I get to have a CT scan of my sinuses.

Next week my husband gets a whole week with el monito. That should be fun for both of them! Really! I hope. I love watching Jon interact with Brenden. Like last night he gave monkey-boy his bath and it's so neat to watch them together. I never thought having a family would mean so much to me.

I'm doing pretty good on the Spanish front. Since I had a 4-day weekend I managed to do a rather intensive review (in between being led around by the finger by B), and after a while I was able to listen to something and pick up the meaning, not just small phrases. My favorite channel on XM now is CNN en español. I also listen to los deportes, but I have a harder time with that because I don't really have the specialized vocabulary to follow sports talk, plus the announcers get all excited when they're giving the play-by-play so I don't know what's going on. I wish I could find the TV remote so I could use the SAP button for Braves games. Yeah, I don't care if they are sucking wind this year. Been there, done that, and yes, I still have the t-shirt.

I also love love looove the HBO Latino channel. I watched "Titanic" and "Shrek 2" en español over the weekend. The familiarity with the movies help me decode what they're saying by the context. I also tried to watch "Elektra" but it was plenty boring even in Spanish so I wandered off. Both MSN and Yahoo have Spanish versions of their news pages available so I'm reading noticias when I can.

First Haircut

New cut
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Letter to Brenden Month 13:

Hey buddy; I thought you were going to slow down a little. Was I wrong! During your first month in your second year, you decided to work on communication. You don't exactly speak yet, but I knew something had clicked in your head when you sat down next to me a few weeks ago with your favorite book in your hands. You grabbed my finger and placed it on the book!

When I read to you I put my finger under the words as I say them, so I didn't have to be Einstein to guess what you wanted. You wanted me to read you "Moo Baa La La La" (again and again and again). What's really nifty is when I get to the part where some dogs go "BOW WOW WOW" you smile and go "WOWOWOWOWOW!"

That communication method took another leap as you learned that you could grab a finger and lead me around. Most of the time you simply wanted out to the back yard. I'd slather you with sunblock and we'd go, but not enough for you. Little dude, I did not want sunstroke! As it was I'm surprised neither of us are sunburnt despite the goop.

You have also learned to ask to be picked up - like all little kids, you hold both arms up to me. You take it a step further if I'm slow to respond. You took my hands and placed both of them under your armpits. Pretty cool, hon.

You are also sorting pretty well and are sorting all shapes not just circles any more. You can also stack a bit, but if you don't get something on a few tries you will throw the object impatiently across the room. Shades of your dad there, buddy.

I bit the bullet this weekend and I gave you your first haircut. I had to buy dad a new pair of hair clippers anyway, so I bought a nice set and used the clippers on you. You didn't seem afraid of the noise, just curious. I think it looks pretty good!

So you keep advancing. It looks like you finally have found the time to develop your noggin some now that you have conquered all of the first stage of physical development (walking, climbing the furniture, pulling kitty's tail, negotiating steps, emptying drawers, etc). I hope this time next month I can report your first real word, but I'm also dreading when you use that Boeing 747 brain of yours to start climbing by stacking things, and opening doors.

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.

Fuzzy B

FuzzyB
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden and I spent Memorial Day (and most of the weekend) with ourselves. We went shopping Saturday morning because I had to make chicken gumbo for a party at the DZ Saturday night. I have no idea if it tasted good because my sinus infection was raging again and the only thing that tasted good to me were those cheap icy-pops that Wal-Mart sells by the gross for $1.99. Plus, while I was making the roux, I didn't let it get dark enough because Brenden was standing at the kitchen gate wailing for my attention so instead of a nice chocolate brown the gumbo was an ocean-scum color. People told me afterwards that it tasted good but I think they were being polite.

Saturday wasn't all about cooking - I cleaned as well namely the pool. The pool store sold me a 50 pound bag of baking soda because the water was becoming acidic. I also bought Brenden yet another kiddie pool because he could easily collapse the walls on the one I bought for him previously. We went swimming in the big pool too, which is a quite enjoyable 86 degrees now. Brenden hates me when I take him back into the house but I'm on antibiotics and they all have vociferous warnings about sunlight overexposure. Both B and I were glopped with Sunblock 6000, but that crap washes off. Neither of us is burned, which is good because I tend to let Brenden skinny dip and I'd hate for him to have a burned willy.

Despite the relatively late hour, Brenden and I went to the DZ with the vomitous looking gumbo around 6pm and Brenden walked around the tarmac in front of the hangar and I followed until I got tired. I took him home a couple of hours later and we fought about him going to sleep. Fighting over sleep isn't as bad as it sounds, it consists of me putting him in his crib and walking away. He protests for about a minute then he finally concedes that he is indeed tired and falls asleep, on his belly but his knees pulled up so his butt is in the air. Mom told me I used to sleep like that.

We also encountered Miranda and Jason's daughter, Emma Cate, who was born 5 weeks after Brenden. She is as tall, but with super long legs whereas Brenden has these cute little legs with a long torso. She's standing up pretty well but not walking. It's tough judging Brenden's demeanor until I see him with other kids. Brenden seems to be more introverted (uh-oh). I have never seen him try to take anything from another kid (though he'll wrestle with me for the remote all the time). Emma tried to take a toy away from him (her mom stopped and admonished her). What interested me most was when Emma pushed him aside (he was sitting and toppled over) to get at a toy (it wasn't a deliberate push - he was just in the way). Brenden started crying, which I found odd - the cat could push him over incedentally, he could bonk his head off the ground, and he will laugh about it (and tackle the cat). I can't fathom his reaction to Emma. Did she scare him?

Sunday and Mondays were mirrors of Saturday with no Gumbo: playing, a little walking outside, a lot of pool time, and some dancing. Yeah, he's dancing! Well, he likes to play a song on one of his toys, then he'll look at me - if I smile and start clapping, he'll laugh, stand up, and clap and bend his knees up and down. It's awful cute.

The Happy Couple

The Happy Couple
Originally uploaded by nheiges.

This past weekend I made it to my friend Alan's wedding. I'm so glad I made it but I totally hosed up by not taking a day off on Monday. I hosed that up because I simply don't have any vacation time left. Piss poor planning on my part. I also messed up by leaving my camera at mom's so I will have to rip off other people's photos for any blog entries (thanks, Nancy!).

I did snap some photos of my mom's place, which I shall post as soon as I find the time. Mom was happy to see Brenden and B did remarkably well there even though he tried to dig up some plants and bust open a bottle of wine. He only ate a few rocks and woodchips as well as a little dirt. Mom fed him cheese so he decided she was cool.

As for the wedding - it was pretty spiffy. I was nervous as I always am in a social situation where I don't really know anyone (everyone I did know was in the wedding party). Alan's mom remembered me even though we hadn't seen each other since Alan and I were in college together. The first time I got to see Helly she was walking down the aisle and I must say she chose a very beautiful and elegant wedding dress. She walked down the aisle to a cover of "Kashmir" which was different. She also chose elegant looking dresses for her 2 bridesmaids - the dresses had sleeves and no butt bows which I think is a first in recorded history (not true I kid! - the dresses Nancy had for her wedding were nice, too). The gents wore tuxes, but the sharpest dressed there was Lachelle, who was one of Alan's groomspersons. Somebody better post pics!

I was amused by how many people greeted me with "oh, yeah! The skydiver!" when I introduced myself as Alan's friend. I was totally flattered, however, by the people who knew me from reading my blog (hi, Mikey!).

The food was tasty and the Guinness was cold and I got to exchange maybe 4 words with Helly. I feel really bad I didn't stay longer, but then again I'm happy I made the effort to go. It would have been easy to make an "I'm too busy" excuse. As Alan pointed out, Alan, Mark (and Nancy), and I made it to each other's weddings. "The circle is complete".

Congratulations many times over, Alan and Helly. I will do my best to get back over there soon so I can spend some real time with my old (and new) friends.

Letter to Brenden Month 11

GoofyB
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

You are almost a year old and you have done more leaping development in the last month. You walk just fine now - you rarely fall down unless you come across an uneven surface. When we were at your grandparents' place we really enjoyed watching you navigate over the threshold of a door (very carefully). Ilu is highly impressed that you don't want to hold someone's hand while you walk.

You can do some limited sorting - you can put a round toy into a round hole - you can't handle anything with corners yet. I get thrilled though when I demonstrate something to you and you try to do it - this mostly concerns putting something into something else. You also like to play with my hairbrush and try to brush my hair, or yours, or the cat's. Sometimes you like to try to put the hairbrush in my mouth or in the cat's butt. Fortunately you haven't succeeded on either count.

Your love of water amuses us all. I can let you play in the bathtub forever and you would stay. I wish the pool were warmer. I am going to get you a kiddie pool for your birthday.

You like to clap your hands and shake your head. When you first shook your head, your dad and I were a little freaked until I read that kids just like to do that because it feels neat. I would write about something else you do that feels neat when I change your diaper but I don't want to duly embarrass you when you finally get old enough to read this. You clap your hands because of that freakin' Baby Tad sing-along doll that sings "when you're happy and you know it clap your hands..."

You don't really say anything resembling english yet, although sometimes you will repeat 'mama' or 'dada' if we say it first.

Oh, yeah. You are ticklish. You poor child! Don't tell anybody.

My Family

family
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday Bill Paxton,
Happy birthday to you!

Waiting for Breakfast

Waiting for Breakfast
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We're back from Oklahoma, where I had no internet access and watched far less TV than I normally do. We were going to take the Cessna, but bad weather forced us to drive. It's a ten-hour trip and Brenden was surprisingly good. He fussed some but he had no breakdowns.

Dad and Ilu's place is pretty much finished except some work in the kitchen. It is gorgeous, and the best part of the trip for me was sitting on the porch in the back yard and listening to the birds twitter. It was cold, which was a surprise.

Brenden had a great time when he discovered the dog's water bowl. He loved splashing it all over the place. When he got wet, I would strip him down to nothing and keep filling the bowl for him to splash. He actually tried to sit in it which promted us to buy him a little kiddie pool. The kid is part polar bear, I swear! He sat in that damn thing until he shivered but he loved being in the water. I'm thinking of buying him a little pool here for when I don't want to get wet.

Jon and I took dad's 4-wheelers up the side of a mountain (what passes for a mountain in Oklahoma that is). Scary but fun! I have to thank Dad and Ileana both for putting up with us, as well as Brenden's 2am crying sessions.

I owe a letter to Brenden, which I shall get to soon. I have a busy catch-up week.

Best Friends

Best Friends
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Just a quick note - B, Jon and I are heading to Oklahoma for vacation for the next week. I'll be sure to take lots of bad photos!

Hello!

Hello!
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Monkey-boy smells pretty good. When his diaper isn't loaded, that is.

Random Non-sequitur Photo

Old Junk
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

The Revenge of the Sinus Infection

I wrote a few months back about having a bad sinus infection. It has not cleared up all the way, and I wonder how long I have actually had it. I'm beginning to think I have had sinus problems since before Brenden was born.

Why? Because I finally talked to a doctor about it yesterday, when I went in about my sinuses again. Apparently a symptom for a chronic infection is a loss of a sense of smell. I told my doctor that my ability to smell has become completely null, and I know this because I can put my nose in close proximity to one of Brenden's messier diapers and can't get even a faint whiff. In the meantime my husband, who is in the other room, is making gagging noises from the odor.

If I had to lose one of my five senses, smell would be my choice but I sure do miss it. Is there anything better than the smell of fresh garlic and onions being sauteed in olive oil? And many women have come up to Brenden and just stuck their noses in his hair, breathed deeply, and sighed: "I just love the way babies smell!"

I wouldn't know, I have never smelled him.

I can't smell cut grass, the cat's fur, or a burning candle. I can't smell anything I'm cooking, and that means I can't really taste it either. Of all things it makes me feel lonely.

So self-pity aside, I honestly thought I was losing my ability to smell because of my age. Now it looks like it is the infection, which means there's a cure (hooray!). The doctor prescribed me a more aggressive antibiotic treatment, along with a gentle decongestand, an orally ingested steroid (Prednisone, natch) and Rhiniocort, a corticosteroid. The latter I'm already taking (in the form of Nasonex). He said if it doesn't clear up this time he's going to refer me to a specialist.

The good news is this morning, I got into my car and realized it smelled like cold Burger King onion rings (Why? I don't eat those). I got to work, made a cup of coffee, and remembered how atrocious the coffee is at work because it smells like burnt ass. I put some Tropical Coconut lotion on my hands and I can smell it!

I'm already planning to cook something for dinner that requires me to saute garlic and onions, and I'm really looking forward to smelling Brenden. Even if his diaper is dirty.