Ruining the boy

We have fully brought Jacob into the fold of Geekdom.

We have taught the boy Dungeons and Dragons.

For those that don't know, many Saturday evenings in the Feesh household are dedicated to playing table top role-playing games. Other geeks gather, and we toss dice and mark of things on character sheets until the wee hours.

And eat Cheetos. One must never forget the Cheetos.

Jacob has grown up around these Saturday rituals, so he knows the base components: miniatures, game mat, markers, sheets, and dice. He didn't know, however, how they all fit together.

Last Saturday, he asked if he could play. We had to say no (let's just say my current adventure is a bit... earthy for seven year olds to get), but it got me to thinking. Why couldn't he learn the basics of the D20 system? I thought about my first experience with gaming, and remembered how I only ever seemed to look at a few stats and my weapons. As I grew more familiar with the system, I started using skills and worrying about what my willpower was, but in the beginning, I could have fit my relevant character sheet on an index card.

Monday, I drew up an outline for a youth-oriented character sheet. I only worried about bonuses for three stats, two weapons, some basic armor, and hit points. I had JT roll a D4 to see what his attribute bonuses were, worked out his AC, and we were off.

Of course, he demanded that IB play as well, so IB drew up a similar character sheet, and they were off exploring my impromptu dungeon.

JT. Loved. It. He was so sad at 8 pm when we had to stop, because we were out of rooms to explore. I promised him we'd do some more later in the week. This morning, he verbally mapped out his own dungeon to us, along with the villains we'd find ("five zombie ducks" was my favorite) and the treasure we'd get ("a fire sword! Like in City of Heros!").

He picked up the mechanics rapidly. Rolling high for him was good; the monsters rolling high was bad. I think he was picking up that his bow used his dex bonus and his sword used his strength bonus. Adding slowed us a bit, but I can sympathize. I have issues with adding when I'm in the middle of a fight.

I'm going to post his character sheet later. I'm thinking of writing something on gaming with children if this goes well. The gamer in me is delighted he likes another thing we enjoy, and the parent in me is already thinking of ways to sneak a bit of education into the games (A letter he finds and has to read? Some problem solving? Deduction?)

Not dead! Just busy!

So what have the feeshes been up to?

Well, HM has been rocking her first syllable. It was adorable, until she abandoned it for testing her lung development. She's taken to yelling. Not crying or squealing. Just full on, Amazonian war cry yelling.



JT finished out the first grade, and is now in the brain melting time of his summer vacation. They gave us a packet of materials to do over the summer, of which we've looked over once and never touched again. I predict a frantic review in August, but for now, I'm letting him have his summer.

He also got new glasses. Getting new glasses is always an adventure of making him happy, appeasing my mother (the one of us with sense when it comes to glasses and face shape), and getting the computer to okay kids glasses with transitions and bifocals. I thought our tech was going to have a nervous breakdown after the first forty-five minutes of wrangling with the green and black screen.

The glasses, by the way, are back on the front and yellow on the black. Like Bumblebee. They're also square. Like a hipster. So he's like a extraterrestrial emobot.

I've been on a kick with bake it yourself, lately. It all started with Papa Johns ticking me off by telling me that the 12 inch pizza in front of me was 14 inches, and that the dough shrank when they cooked it.

Yeast + Flour + Water != shrinkage.

So I decided I would never order from them again (the quality had gone way down, anyway), and I would learn to make my own pizza. After a few false starts, I finally got a pie that made not only me happy, but a few of the pizza snobs I know happy as well. Then, fearing our farmers market cinnabon lady had passed (she hadn't), I learned to make cinnabons. Then strawberry jam. Now I'm working on pasta.

Notes from a sick day

I had JT and HM at home for three days, due to winning the sick kid lottery. Ironically, JT was fine once he had meds. However, since the school sent him home with the flu, they could determine when he was fit to return.

Note to not-yet-parents: taking a day off in precaution is usually a good guard against being forced to take three off in punishment.

Anyway, JT and I had a good time, and he gave me some bon mots.

JT: "I want to watch teenage robot."
Me: "It's not on."
JT: "When is it on?"
Me: "Four. I showed you that already."
JT: "It is not four."
Me: "Is that my fault?"
JT: "...Yes."

Me: "So, Jake, do you want to marry Jenny the Teenage Robot."
JT: (incredulous) "She's a robot and it's a cartoon!"
Note: JT has better grasp of reality than most anime freaks.

Avatar credits: "Long ago, when the four nations were yadda yadda yadda..."
JT: "Long ago? Like 1977?"

Sick Kid Lottery

I have two sick kids here today. It's been pretty calm, and I did have two moments of hilarity.

1. Jimmy Neutron had an invention get the Blue Screen of Death.

2. The same Jimmy Neutron episode was rather scary. I looked over, and JT was hiding under his blanket.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. But I think HM's scared of this show."

"Oh, really? Not you?"

"No. I'm not scared."

"Okay then. I'll keep an eye on HM for you."

At least he doesn't have to worry about exploding torsos anymore

I came back from the farmer's market on Sunday, and had barely gotten my bags sorted when the boy casually remarked:

"So, when do I get to marry you?"

Wow. I hadn't even bought him any cinnabons.

"You don't get to marry me."

"What?!" He set down his game. "Why not!?"

"There's a law that you can't marry your mother. You'd get arrested."

He looked shocked. "Nuh-uh."

"Also, I'm already married to Daddy."

"That's not fair. I should be married to you. He's had a turn." I love it when the same terms used for the 360 are applied to me.

"That's just the way it is, sweetie."

At that point, he burst into tears.

"But I want to be married!"

"You'll be married one day. Just not to me. And only once you're an adult."

"Life is not fair!"

I finally got him to calm down with a gift of an edition of Captain Underpants, but I did think it only fair to warn IB. And to let him know that he still has competition.

Still. I'm a bit pissed off every time Freud actually has a valid opinion about something.

Soon, he'll be borrowing our stuff

You know your kid is getting big when you grab a shirt out of your stack, and have it all the way on before realizing that it's actually your son's. I was pulling at the bottom edge, wondering why it wouldn't go past my belt line when I noticed the Transformers logo.

1. The diet must be working!
2. It won't be long before he's snagging our shirts and wearing them. I'm just glad I'm converting my section to girly strange tees.

Another one bites the dust

Another tooth bit the dust yesterday, and once again earned us "Worst Parents of the Year" nominations.

The tooth coming out surprised us, as it was only a little bit loose earlier in the day. Apparently monetary gains have made JT more stoic about a bit of mouth pain. It was rather late in the evening when it happened, so I think he might have been messing with it all day. Not long after making the appropriate fuss did we send him to bed, reminding him to put it under his pillow. We returned to folding laundry.

That morning, IB came downstairs.

"Um, do you have five bucks?"

"Wh-- CRAP."

See, one big difference between the generation before us and our generation: paper money. Our parents always carried cash, since so many places still didn't take plastic. It was still pretty common when I was a kid to walk into a store and find they didn't take credit cards. Now, I only know of one fast food place (not even a chain. A singular restaurant) that doesn't take debit or credit. Hell, at the farmer's market, you can use your plastic with the orchid lady. There's no reason for IB and I to carry cash.

This is proving to be a problem when it comes to playing the tooth fairy.

Happily, I remembered at the last minute that IB keeps a jug of change. He dug through that, found five dollars worth of quarters, and the boy was suitably delighted.

Still, going to the bank today and getting some fives. Because he's got a lot of teeth left.

Guess what day it is...

Guess what day it is.

Go ahead, guess.



Laundry day!

He doesn't grok geography either

JT: Is this gong from Japan?

Me: No, it's Chinese.

JT: Chinese people are from Japan.

Me: No, they're from China.

JT: Oh. What happens if an Englishman goes to China?

IB: He gets arrested.

Me: No, he doesn't get arrested.

JT: No, he gets sent back to Canada.

::facepalm::

She loves her weighted companion cube

A great starter for her eventual career at Aperture Science.

Boy's book about Old Dominion Speedway

JT was a part of "Young Authors Night" at school. What did he write about? Cars, naturally.

Scary dreams

To my memory, JT has never had a scary dream. He does not get this trait from me, as I am prone to rather horrible dreams.

Me:
Horrifying dream last night
Horrible
IB
orly
Me:
It was like a Psych episode, all silly mystery solving
Then a person got possessed with a ghost
And started killing everyone horrible.
horribly.
Blood and exploded torsos.
IB
haha nice
Me:
Was not nice
IB
sleeping with one eye open from now on
don't want you exploding my torso
Me:
All the dead people had ghosts, too, and they were really pissed to be dead
Because they'd hired us to make sure that didn't happen
IB
yay vengeful spirits
Me:
Not so much vengeful.
But, like, "Great. This sucks. You are SO not getting the rest of your payment."
Also, was on a cruise ship
IB
hahaha
Me:
So kind of awkward
Kept running into these pissed ghosts and exploded torsos on the way to the pool.
Like, "Oh... you again."
IB
hahaha
blase

I have such dainty children

HM's got a new noise.



This is going to take a lot of daintiness later on to balance out. Or maybe she'll just play lacross.

Also, a video taken while trying to get the above:



Lesson 1: When trying to get a video of something they do all the time, you're going to be taking a lot of g-d video. This is only one of, like, six clips I deleted.

Lesson 2: molded plastic crap is way more interesting than me or my camera.

If there's no rest for the wicked...

... why am I not having more fun?

One of the questions you get when you have a baby is "Are they sleeping through the night?" I don't know why we all ask this question, or why the news feeds don't have more stories about parents wigging out and killing people after being asked. Maybe sleep dep makes it harder for us to rage out effectively.

HM is not sleeping through the night. However, she's not up every 45 minutes like JT, so I'm still counting this as a win. I am getting a little tired of not sleeping in my own bed, however, so we've begun Operation BabySnore. The first skirmish, I think, was a loss.

I bought special baby bath, formulated to make wee ones want nothing more than to sleep. It has lavender in it, which usually only makes me want to sneeze. I drew HM a bath and doused the water with the magic purple smelly gunk.

What happened next was the opposite of 'getting sleepy.' She loved the stuff. She loved the bath. She kicked and squealed and laughed and did everything but look tired.

I thought maybe it might take some time to settle in, like when you take a Zantac versus taking the pink crap. I toweled her off and took her downstairs, and waited for the sleepiness to settle in.

That purple crap is laced with crack or caffeine or something, because she was wired. She wanted to play. She wanted one on one time. She wanted our unwavering attention.

She did finally conk out... and was up at two, but only took one ounce. So maybe the purple crap did work... just not enough to not inconvenience me. ;)

Movement

JT was late in getting around. He was fairly blase about the whole 'movement' thing. Give him a car, a rattle, a measuring cup, he was good. Some days, he lived in his high chair, happy to get his toy switched out every now and then and have me jabber at him.

HM is not blase. She is opinionated. I have spent more on her entertainment in three and a half months than I ever had to on JT in his first year. She wants to move so badly. She doesn't want to lay back. She wants to sit up. She wants to stand up. She wants to crawl. She's already managing to move around in this strange, amoeba-like fashion. It's a little strange to watch. You don't know what's she's using to move, as her appendages are still only good for kicking off blankets and clawing off our faces. Yet, she's still in one place one minute, then across the room the next.

We're not even at month four yet.

We may be in trouble.

On pictures and teeth

You would think taking a picture of teeth, or lack of them, would be a snap. Point, hold for a toothy smile, click, picture. There's lots of stock photos out there of checkerboard smiles. How hard can this be?

I don't know what mutant children these are, but I can't get a picture of the incoming and outgoing teeth to save my life. JT's tooth came out last night, and of all the pictures I took, only one had a hint of missing-toothiness.

We will not even discuss the trials of taking pictures of HM and her nubby teeth. Suffice to say, her new habit is rolling her tongue over these new things in her mouth. Until she develops a tongue I can photograph through, you'll just have to trust me that the teeth are there.

I don't think he's grogging history yet

Actual conversation with the boy, as we drove into DC one day.

"That's the Capitol building! That's where the president lives!"

"No, the president lives in the White House. He works in the Capitol."

"Oh. Hey, do you know who the president is? I do."

"Really? Who?"

"George Washington."

"Ummm.... Honey, George Washington's dead. He died a long time ago."

"Oh, that's alright. He can still be president."

Zombie prez FTW.

Incoming and outgoing

All in the same week, I have one child getting her first tooth, and one losing his first tooth.

A baby's first tooth is a drama laden affair. It can feel like an eternity from when the slobber first appears and the first tooth finally cuts through. With JT, he started needing a daily shot of Vitamin T (Baby Tylenol) around four months, but those first teeth didn't push through until month seven or so. We only realized they were there when one day, he was gnawing on IB's thumb and nearly drew blood. He was a year old before he could sleep without a bit of help from some blessed otc drugs.

HM is being no more stoic. Ah, well. IB and I aren't known for our ability to suck it up, either.

Jake is surprisingly blase about his loose tooth. I don't think he yet understands how it could come 'out'. He's fussing with it constantly, though, so I'm sure he'll find out soon. Some things, you just can't prepare the kiddo for.

He didn't have nearly enough self-inflicted injuries

So my parents got him a bike.

This was fully sanctioned by us, and we would have gotten it for him, but we'd already gotten his birthday present. They still needed something to augment a weekend away to meet the driver of Gravedigger, so they got him his own wee bike. My mother's thoughts on it were optimistic.

"You can pop HM in her stroller and walk behind him."

The first time out, sure.

Second time out, I was at a good jog to keep up.

I'm thinking by summer's end, training wheels will be off, and I'll need my own bike to keep up. Or better shoes.

Seven years

Today, the boy turned seven. Seven is a surreal kind of birthday. He's no longer a cute little moppet with baby fat around the edges toting around floppy stuffed dog. Overnight, it's like I see how lean he is now. He's tackling bigger things at school, moving beyond the things that kids pick up without effort (like the ABC's) and on to things he has to take a pause to work out.

He's also becoming more independent, so we decided this would be a good year to celebrate that: my parents got him a bike. He rode it with me tailing him around the block three times before he wanted to put it away.

At first, he didn't want to get one... then he saw stunt bikes on TV. Bikes going through hoops of fire, jumping helicopters, evading raging tigers, etc. After that, he definitely wanted a bike.

Did I mention the self-destructive tendencies have gone up, too?

New Blog

This one is still going to be updated now and then, but I've started one for work and personal things:

http://elephantangelchild.blogspot.com

I'll do another kiddo update later, but for now, here's a picture:


She rolls!

Back at work!

Did you know how hard it is to blog with one hand? Well, it's not easy. Hence, lots of half entries that were deleted due to lack of time. The irony, huh? At home, no other thing to do than tend to a smallish humanoid, and nothing can ever get done.

I'm back in the land of adult talk now, but I have not come empty handed. A video!

Smile!

And yes, we have pictures

Here she is, one month, with her blanket buddy.
And yes, still kicking our rears.

A month as 1 + 1, rather than 2

One of the things you noticed first on being two separate entities? When you go out alone, people don't hold doors for you anymore. Or smile for no reason. Or strike up conversations as you compare expiration dates on the milk. It doesn't bother me, so much, as I've always been one that likes the ability to go invisible at will. But I caught myself smiling at an guy in passing, and realized I probably look unbalanced. I had just gotten used to random smiling.

We've adjusted fairly well, and faster than we did with JT. People have been asking how JT's been reacting, and he's been taking it all in stride. Being almost seven is a world away from being three or four, which was when people were saying I should have my second.

If I had listened, and had them three years apart, one or both would have ended up on eBay.

JT reacts as most boys do to babies. "Oh. It's a baby." The contrast between him and his girl cousins is sharp. We have to swat them away anytime HM is within their reach, and keep them from climbing up our pants when she's not. JT is generally fond of her, but has a strict 'hands off' policy. The one time he held her, he told us she made him nervous, and was glad to have us take her back.

His male classmates reacted similarly as well. They boys? Hands behind their backs, looking politely interested. The girls? A mob scene. And surprisingly sophisticated. Some questions I got (from six year old girls!):

* How big is she?
* Does she eat a lot?
* How's she sleeping?
* Did it hurt when she came out?
* Did you yell out?

The last two floored me. I mean, JT just put together the fact that I didn't have a belly anymore, and Hannah's being born, and that there must have been some sort of process involved.

Oh, and to anyone who thinks maternity leave is a big vacation? This blog post took me three hours to write.

It's all about the little victories

Several small accomplishments:

* Went to class last night. Got there on time, though I found out after I was there that I had baby spit on my sweater, and had forgotten my book and paper. D'oh.
* Survived the first day with no back-up.
* I am wearing non-maternity jeans today. I didn't even have to lie down to get them on!
* Had my first outing with both feeshes. Managed to keep them both wrangled and happy, and get home without any minor disasters.

Another baby!

We just got it put together.

More later, as typing with one hand.

Yesterday, I wore something other than pyjamas

You have to celebrate the small victories.

Honestly, I feel a lot better after HM than I -ever- did after JT. I hobbled around like a little old lady for three weeks after having him. With HM, I could have walked out of the delivery room, had they let me.

Still, there's moments when my body reminds me that, hi, yes, I gave birth last week. Aches and pains, little twinges, etc. That, and we're not yet in a rhythm with the nighttime chores, so I'm tired during the day. So it's tempting just to lay around in my jammies.

We realized we needed a baby bath, though, and some things at the grocery store, so, leaving IB home with the wee one, my mother and I went shopping. He offered to go, but I felt ready. It didn't go too badly, though I'm beginning to wonder when anyone will ever let me pick up something ever again.

Home again!

We are indeed home again, home again. It'll take a few days to calm down. There's essence of three stooges, now and then, especially since we don't have everything right at hand.

Note: what seems to be 'right at hand' in the weeks before delivery is suddenly miles away when the baby is actually here.

Baby Hiccups!

As IB says, baby hiccups are the best hiccups.

Baby Hiccups

The vitals

Oh, yes. Before I forget.

Weight: 7lbs 11 oz
Length: 19 1/4 inches
Time of birth: 5:23 am
DOB: 1.9.2007

The Birth Story

I am now a war story for some unfortunate nurses.

Technically, I went into labor on the 8th, though I sure never felt anything. Around 6pm, I thought I might be leaking fluid, so IB and I went to the hospital to get me checked out. They hooked me up, swabbed me, and assured me I wasn't leaking. During the check, the nurse looked at my readout.

"Hmm... Having contractions five minutes apart, I see."
"... Pardon?"
"See? Right here. You're in the middle of one."
"I beg to differ..." I was feeling nothing. Nada. Not even a tightening.

Well, I hadn't dilated any more, so they figured I was in very, very early labor, with a good chance that whatever was going on internally would die down on its own. They sent me home, since I was due to be induced the next morning, and there was no need to keep me overnight. "See you at seven!"

We left, had dinner at Carraba's, then went home. After collecting a few things, we went to bed.

Around 2:30, a pain woke me up. Now, this had been happening over the past month or so. One pain would come, maybe another. My record was five. Then they'd go away. I got up and decided that if they weren't gone by the time I was done watching an episode of CSI from OnDemand, I'd call the hospital. They remained five minutes apart for the duration of the 45 minute episode, but not really all that painful. I called the hospital, and thier reaction was 'Eh, might as well come in. We have a bed reserved for your induction, anyway." Woke IB, called my mother, and took a shower.

My mother showed up, and the pains were still 5 minutes apart, but nothing spectacular. I could talk thorugh them, and we chatted as we rode to the hospital. We arrived around 4:20.

They checked me in and started hooking me up to machines. My mother opted to stay until she was sure we were settled, at which point she'd go back home and start getting the boy ready for school (he had spent the night with them). It took them a while to get my IV going, due to my veins shrinking from no eating (mandatory if you're being induced). We were all still just chatting, and pains weren't so bad. My doctor had been called, and I had three nurses buzzing around the room. At this point, it was around 5am.

Then a bad pain came.

For some reason, all the nurses were gone, and I had IB or my mom (can't remember who bolted) get a nurse. One came back and checked me. I had been at 2, maybe 3 cm the night before. I was now at six. "Oh... a rapid progresser." She called the other nurses back in.

Another bad pain. "Um, I really want an epidural."
"We can't give you anything until you've taken a bag of fluid, honey."
I looked up at the bag. It was almost full. I considered offering to drink a damn bag of fluid, but another pain came. The nurse checked me again, even though it had only been about five minutes.

"She's at... eight?"
"Where is my doctor?!"
"He's only ten minutes away, honey."
"Where's the inhouse doctor?"
"We're finding him. Don't worry, he'll be right here." Then, after a pause. "And it wouldn't be the first time a nurse has had to deliver a baby."

Another pain came, and this one was... different. It was like every nerve in my body was screaming to PUSH PUSH NOW. "I want to push!"
"Honey, you can't, you're only at eight--" she checked me. "... She's at ten." The nurses tried to get me to pant, which kept me from pushing through one pain. The next, however, my water burst. I tried to pant, but it was like something else was controlling my body.

Odd thing about pushing. Labor pains suck. They hurt a lot. The only thing that makes them feel better is pushing. Not that pushing doesn't hurt, but it's like itching a scratch. Scratching feels a lot better than the pushing.

So, I pushed.

I will spare others the description of what it feels like to give birth sans drugs. Needless to say, it's an odd experience. The feeling of no pain, however, is like a drug unto itself. I sort of remember Hannah crying out, but I was still caught up in the whole, "What the hell just happened?" thing. They proceeded to clean her up and tell me what a trooper I was. The in-house doctor got there about ten minutes after I had Hannah was born. He'd had an eptopic pregnancy in the OR he was dealing with, and couldn't leave in the middle.

As he took care of the placenta and got me stitched up, he shook his head. "Next time, the magic words are 'My previous delivery was precipitous.' You get one twinge, you check in. They won't let you leave until you've had a baby."

My official doctor showed up a little while later, though it was more of a hi-bye kind of visit.

My mother, during the delivery, had been pacing outside, and got to see the nurses without their game face on. While in the LDR, they had been assured, outside, the scene resembled a hi-jinx prime time sitcom. "Where the HELL is the doctor?! Where the hell is HER doctor?! She can't be ready already!"

My mother came back in, after they were able to cover me up again, and we did the math. In about fifteen minutes, I had gone from chatting to birthing.

Hannah was checked out, and seems no worse for wear from the fast birth. Me, either, really. While I would never -choose- to have a natural birth, having to go through one that was fast wasn't the end of the world. Scary, because you really do feel like you've lost control of your body, and painful, but I've been through worse.

Other amusing notes:

* The staff that was on at 7pm on Tuesday was the same staff on duty at 4:30am Wednesday. The guy who checked us in was very jovial, and asked us if it was the great service that had us coming back.
* We're still the talk of Labor and Delivery. Every nurse that's come in has prefaced the visit with "Hey, you were the fast birth yesterday!"
* We followed the saga of another pregnant lady who we saw for the first time on Tuesday night. Outside the LDR entrance. Obviously in labor. Smoking. "Did you just see what I just saw?" IB asked me as we went in. "I was totally about to ask you the same thing." The next day, she was still in and out, smoking and looking like a woman that's been in labor way too long.

The boy is doing well with the whole thing, so far. He was delighted to discover that he didn't have to go to school, and was more interested in the fact that our room had its own TV than any attention the baby got. He was rather miffed that we wouldn't take him on a tour of the hospital (we promised him he'd get a walk around LDR today, though. Yesterday, we were all too bushed).

So, that's the birth story. We're keeping pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/katie.fulton/HannahMarie/ Expect more as the first week goes on.