In other news: The end of this vacation also means the end of my sabbatical. As much as I've enjoyed the time off, I really do miss the paycheck. On Tuesday, I go back to "work" - that is, I'll be at training for most of the next six months before we head to our new island home. Gigi will be at on-site daycare, so I can pop in on my lunch hour and get a snuggle fix.

Have I accomplished anything, or learned any valuable life lessons over the last fifteen months? Well, let's see:

I now have some idea of what people do from nine to five if they don't have offices to go to.
I now know that having all day to run the vacuum cleaner doesn't make me any more likely to do it.
I now know I'm better at this Mommy thing than I thought I would be.
I did acheive one goal: I submitted something for publication this afternoon (just under the wire!). Whoopie. It wasn't much, but I can say that I did it.

Happy New Year everyone!

Yeah, okay, I haven't posted in ages. Gigi went to day care the last time I posted. They called me at 1:30 and said, "She has a fever of 101, but we don't have a medical release from you to give her anything for it." (They never actually come out and say you're a negligent derelict.) When I picked her up, she was a little warm but otherwise seemed fine. The next morning, though, she had a full-blown case of preschool kennel cough. And the next day, naturally, I had it. And then her second tooth broke the surface. I was self-medicating (and not just the cough...) with some Polish honey herb liquor I bought on a dare at a conference in Warsaw many years ago. Damn if that stuff didn't work better than Robitussin.
But I didn't take it with me on the trip to the in-laws in New England, so I've spent most of the past week on cough syrup, bed rest, and the 900-page book about Henry VIII that my in-laws gave me. (Okay, last year it was Sylvia Plath; this year, they gave me a book about a guy who divorced, beheaded or outlived six spouses. Should I be nervous?)
The phlegm factory has finally shut down, Henry just married his fifth wife, and I'm not quite perfectly adhered to the sofa. It's been a lovely visit, but it's definitely winding down.

Hallelujah! A little white line has broken the surface. I believe we can honestly say there is a visible tooth.
Of course she's still caterwauling, off and on, 24/7. But I can at least be assured that she really does have teeth, and isn't just howling for no reason (or one that I can't guess).
This calls for a celebratory drink. Baileys and cocoa, that sounds good. Gentler than vodka, and suited to the snowy weather. It's all goooooood.

Pediatrician visit today. There is good news: she's now 18 lbs 14 oz, which puts her in the tenth percentile for weight. Doc is very pleased; I am jumping for joy. On the downside, no teeth yet, despite her best efforts and several sleepless early mornings over the past week. Ugh. I am looking more and more like a panda on quaaludes. The doc gave us the name of a pediatric dentist and told us to give them a call if those little nubs on her gums don't make any progress after a few weeks.
Then she got a TB test (my company requires it as part of the medical clearance before we transfer overseas again) and her booster flu shot. That was officially No Fun for either of us.
Tomorrow, while my husband and I get our pre-transfer physicals, Gigi gets to do a test run at her future day care center. They'll take her on a "drop-in" basis for fifty bucks a day in the weeks preceding her formal enrollment so she can get acclimated to the place. Nice of them, but dag, fifty bucks a day? It wouldn't hurt quite so much if I were not still on unpaid leave - and if our house payments didn't jump nearly a hundred bucks every time Alan Greenspan got a fart caught crooked.

Greetings from the house of pain. By the time this kid gets an actual tooth, she's going to be a vampire. Seriously, this is going to kill us both. Tonight she was crying so hard she puked. It took Orajel, Motrin, pacifier, and several verses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" before she would even think about stopping the crying, and she would not fall asleep unless I held her. After she was finally out for about ten minutes, and I felt reasonably certain that all systems were functioning on the autonomic level, I set her in the crib. There was a brief twitch when I clicked the rail into place. I wish I could find a way to muffle that sound, because when it wakes her up, it's back to the beginning for the settling-down routine.
Thirteen months. Yesterday was her thirteen-month mark. We have a weight check at the pediatrician next Wednesday. If she doesn't have a tooth by then, it's going to be mildly embarassing. I'll tell the doc it's karma: she didn't want to come out either; we finally had to go in and get her when she was two weeks past her due date. But there's no such thing as a C-section for stubborn baby teeth. Poor kiddo. At least I'm allowed to soothe myself with vodka.
Serendipitously, I was at the dentist today. I went two weeks ago for the first time in, oh, too long. Drilling was necessary. So when I got home with novocaine-face, I guess I figured I'd be the one spending the evening dealing with twinges in the gums.
She's still asleep. And now for that vodka...

No, still no teeth. Not a one.

Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. readers. Hope your holiday was enjoyable and peaceful. My family gathering was not entirely without incident, but to my chagrin, that's my fault. But let me set the record straight. For the last time: I did not stab my father with a fork.
It was just a poke, a mere prod. I did not break skin. I apologized, and my dad graciously accepted.
But you'd think he would know better, after more than a decade, than to call my alma mater "an all-girls school". I reflexively exclaimed, "Women's College!" and punctuated this correction with my fork, tines striking the back of his hand. Ooops. I am not proud of this incident. Mea maxima culpa, sorry Dad.
Now if he had been in between me and the mashed potatoes or the pumpkin pie, no doubt there would have been blood on the walls. "And I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers..."

Baby Gigi's vocabulary continues to expand. She absolutely melted my heart the first time she looked into my eyes as she made the babysigns gesture for "more" and said, "mah-MEE?" Before I had time to burst into tears, she started grabbing at my neckline. Okay, I get it, she's hungry. Now she uses "Mah-mee?" and the sign anytime she's peckish. I can live with having my title equated with "feed me," really.
In addition to variations on the theme of Mommy, she has "Daddy", "kee" for kitty, "kay" for her grandparents' dog Casey, and of course, "uh-oh" for "I dropped it, please pick it up so I can drop it again." As long as she holds off on "no" a little while longer, I'm happy.

I am pleased to report that we have heard from Queen Joolieoolie. Her lovely daughter was born healthy and happy and of course adorable. Baby girls rock. Welcome to the world, Princess K.

They really do absorb more than we give them credit for. We were driving out to the countryside last weekend for foliage-peeping and whatnot, and on the radio R.E.M. was performing "Man on the Moon". From the back seat, a tiny voice popped up, "Ya ya ya..."

Oh, and still no teeth.

Happy Thoughts and pixie dust and whatnot to the aforementioned Queen Joolieoolie, who is scheduled to have a C-section tomorrow. They did pretty good job with kid #1, who looks like somebody left his daddy in the dryer too long. Here's hoping that all goes well.

Great news! We finally know where we're going to live next year. The folks at HR decided, I guess, that if I couldn't get a promotion I could get a nice consolation prize.
So, remember that Tom Cruise movie where he's some kind of resort bartender? And that Beach Boys song from the soundtrack got stuck in everyone's head for the rest of the decade? You know, the one that sounds like a Caribbean travel agency's jingle?
Well, my next contract sends me to a place listed in that song. For three years.
SUPER SWEET!
The one downside to all of this is that I have six months to get myself ready for perpetual swimsuits...oh gaaaaaaaaawd. Considering my title as the reigning Lady Lardbottom of the Grand Duchy of Buttox, I have my work cut out for me.

"Gigi" and I have been sick all week. She got a cold for her birthday, so no trick-or-treating. I got the cold from her the following day. So after All Snots Day, we've been keeping a low profile and hoping not to spread it to her daddy - who is pounding orange juice like the Anti-Anita Bryant. Thursday she went for her twelve-month checkup at the pediatrician, and the flu shot made her miserable all day Friday. Saturday morning she woke up in the wee small hours of the morning. Ooooogh.
A few weeks ago, after I wrote about my limited tolerance for "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round," my homegirl Queen Joolioolie wrote me about her son, who at one point could only be soothed in the car with TWOTBGRAR. She and her husband would be driving around with the boy, inventing more and more verses for the song. Ah, yes. I feel your pain, sister. This week has taught me that a sure-fire method for wooing a reluctant Gigi to sleep is "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
So there I was at 4:30 a.m. Saturday trying to invent new variations of "in the nursery, the baby's nursery, the baby goes to sleep" that didn't involve "the mommy goes insane..."
So my sleep schedule, such as it has been over the last year, is now pretty whacked. And the worst part about being sick? Coffee doesn't taste right. Maybe I can persuade my local Starbucks to whip me up a no-foam Robitussin soy latte.

Some folks really go nuts when celebrating their kids' milestones, but this is over the top. We just had the family over for dinner and cake. Sheesh!

Happy Halloween! I'm the scariest thing on the block right now. My little girl got a cold for her birthday, so she's up throughout the night. I look like a panda with a freebase problem. Now I'm starting to feel a bit of a tickle at the back of my throat. Excuse me, I have to wash down all that leftover candy with a gallon of vitamin C...

Still no teeth. Just in case you were wondering.

Outraged. Mind-blown, gobsmacked, rip$h!t, bug-eyed outraged am I.
Why? Because it's a week before Halloween, the detritus left in the stores is already on clearance - except for the candy, natch! - and it appears that there is no one left in a 25-mile radius with instant fake cobweb stuff. One store I went to last week didn't even have a Halloween display up anymore.
And what is out there? Christmas stuff. Slowly taking over the shelves in every store I've been to in the last two weeks, the "holiday" stuff is starting to rear its gaudy, fiber-optic fake-snow-encrusted head.
It's revolution time.
Honestly, people, Christmas Creep is officially out of control. It's no longer a random Santa lurking on the edges of the Back-to-School stuff (which barely tailgates on the 4th of July). It's garlands and pinecones and tacky little Dickensian villages (without the open sewers and industrial-revolutionary soot everywhere). And they're on the "seasonal" shelves in my local craft store, outgunning the jack-o-lanterns and witches by five shelves to one.
I mentioned this at one of the stores I was shopping in last week, and the guy said, "I am from Sicily. If you had a store that had one holiday decoration up before the previous holiday was over, nobody would ever shop there again."
Hear hear. Far be it from me to endorse a wholly Sicilian approach to the problem; retailers may keep their knees intact. But by God, people, if we all refused to buy anything with a holly branch or a candy cane on it until the fourth Friday in November, maybe, just maybe, the Powers That Be would show a little restraint.
Who's with me?

"Gigi" is 51 weeks old now. She's really getting the hang of this walking thing. Still no teeth, despite much wailing and gnashing of gums. Some garment-rending will no doubt be part of this process as well.
In the past few weeks, when I'm not chasing her down (or downing a chaser), I am looking at my options for returning to work. We're hoping to go back to Europe, just not quite so far east if we can swing it. My husband would like to continue telecommuting, and we need a compatible time zone for that.
But man oh man. Top three ways to pummel one's self-esteem into the mud: read too much Sylvia Plath while listening to early Tori Amos on a rainy day; stand in your undies before a three-way dressing room mirror; dust off and update your resume after two years in a $h!tty job and one year of extended diaper detail.
(Okay, in all fairness, the first year of that two-year Baltic stint was not so awful. Yes, it was the coldest winter on record since the second world war, but at least my boss had interpersonal skills and realistic, concrete goals I could fulfill.)
I have a strong sense of what I want out of this job hunt, but I just don't know how to get it. I mean, you can't really tell HR, at least not in writing, "I took one for the team, it got me nowhere and nearly destroyed my health; you [insert epithet of choice]s OWE ME BIGTIME. Anyone suggestions about how to phrase that diplomatically, kindly forward to purplescareblog@yahoo.com. In the meantime, I'm going to borrow some of my daughter's Baby Mozart for Big Brains CDs and try my hand at Word's Resume Wizard. Wish me luck!

Gigi's uncle has informed me that the song stuck in my head two posts ago is in fact by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I'd be even more appreciative if that knowledge would knock the damn song out. Argh.

Tequila Time! HR has informed me that I am not getting promoted. Naturally I am not happy about this at all. I will refrain from further blogging on the subject just now, since I don't want to get carpal tunnel flareup from typing the horrific stream of obscenities which would so richly describe my feelings. Try me again tomorrow.

I've had a song stuck in my head for most of the day. It's by one of those 70's Southern Rock bands that all sound the same so I don't know who it is. But the words are Oh won't you give me three steps, gimme three steps Mister, gimme three steps towards the door/Gimme three steps, gimme three steps Mister, and you'll never see me no more...
You see, she's done it. She took her first steps today. Tiny, mincing, little-bitty steps, just three of them. Thus begins her journey of a thousand miles. I am so proud I could burst.
I am toast.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. Okay, I do know wherefore, it's just a long story. Longtime PS readers will recall that part of my motivation for this little sabbatical, aside from the arrival of Gigi, was a need to take a break from my job for a little while. I was in desparate need of some perspective, and oh by the way I was stressed out of my mind.

I only have a few months left before I have to go back to work. Yes, have to. We went from DINK (dual income, no kids) to SITCOM (single income, tiny child, oppressive mortage) in a very short space of time. And it's not just the finances. Deep down, as much as I adore my daughter, I require conversation with real polysyllabic words on a daily basis.

So I see an office building on the horizon. The bad news is that I don't know where I'll be assigned. The good news is that I don't have to go back to work for the same person. The bad news is that my next assignment will be largely determined by whether or not I am awarded a promotion after my last assignment. Why is that bad news? Again, longtime PS readers will recall that administration and HR matters are not my prior boss's strong suit. In point of fact, my performance evaluation could have been written more accurately and to greater effect by a chimpanzee with cuneiform tablets and a crate of whisky.

So not only am I uncertain of the future, I am being haunted by the unpleasant past. Some time in the next two weeks I expect to hear from HR about whether I got promoted. I have a cautiously optimistic bottle of champagne in the fridge and a pessimistic bottle of tequila standing by. I just have to realize that there is nothing I can do about the situation; I just have to accept that it is in the hands of Higher Powers and I will know the result in due time.

And yes, this is one of those times where I find there are advantages to being married to a Red Sox fan. If you ever want to be with someone who understands wild mood swings, gnawing doubt, helplessness, and euphoria laced with the expectation of crushing defeat, but you can't afford their lithium prescriptions, just look around Red Sox Nation. Trust me on this.

Still no teeth. But she's standing up without assistance and taking tentative little not-quite steps before falling on her cute little keister.
Gigi's increasing mobility is not just wracking the nerves of the bipeds around her. No, the cat's re-evaluating her opinion of the little blond interloper. Before, the cat figured, "Well, it's getting my lap time, but it's leaving me alone and it's not going after my food. Eh, okay." Now Gigi is taking interest in her fellow quadriped. And we've caught her in the cat's dish more than once. (Well, I suppose if it's keeping the kitty fat, it can't be totally devoid of nutritional value for the baby, right?) So far, the cat can still move faster than the baby can crawl. That's not stopping Gigi's pursuit. On the bright side, the cat is declawed, so she can't damage the baby too badly.
And you have not seen eye-popping, toothache-inducing, belly-laughing cute until you've seen my baby try to give the cat her pacifier.

Happy New Year from all of us at Purple Scare to our Jewish readers.

Yeah, I switched templates. It was late, I was tired, and frankly I was bored with the old one. I'll clean it up later. Cheers.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT.
Those of you planning to see Serenity but haven't yet, you have been warned.

Okay, I really really really liked this movie. But that Whedon man has some gorram 'splaining to do.

You just *don't* do that to Shepherd Book and Steve the Pirate.

She is eleven months old today. She pulls herself up to a standing position and lets go, holding herself up for almost a whole minute. She's working on getting up from a squatting position. She can hold her bottle with one hand. She says "Uh oh" anytime she drops or throws something. The other day I found her halfway up the staircase. Oh my word, I am doomed.
And still no teeth.

I don't know how many of you have tried the Blogger "Blog Search" function. In a rare fit of blog vanity, I typed the word "purple" into their little beta screen. Sheesh, you'd think that with fifty percent of my title being taken up with the word, I'd have made at least the top twenty hits. I'd say that at least half of the items returned dealt with LiveJournalers talking about their bitchen new hair color.
But since I'm not blog-vain, this doesn't bother me, right?

It's not just me, right? Gigi and I were at our weekly "swimming" class yesterday. Okay, it's not really "swimming" - it's more like 'getting baby used to the water' class. The instructor is this earnest young guy who seems genuinely good natured about spending his evenings in a county rec center pool surrounded by neurotic suburbanite moms and their squalling, waterlogged offspring. One of the tricks Earnest uses to get babies comfortable in the water is to have all the mommies sing happy familiar songs. He starts us off with a few rounds of "Row Row Row Your Boat" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" then asks each mom to pick a song in turn.
Today it was my turn and so help me God if I heard "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round" one more time I was going to puncture my eardrums with an icepick. So when Earnest asked me which song I wanted, I said, "How about some Elvis?" Thus I led my soaking sisters in a rousing chorus of "Wise men say/only fools rush in..." I'd like to think that the appalled ones were outnumbered by the relieved. Come on, even Mother Teresa would have packed it in after the 20th round of Variations on a Theme of 'When You're Happy and You Know It'.

Still no teeth. But believe me, it's not for lack of trying. With all the agony it was causing her the other night, you'd think that she's going to sprout five-inch fangs any moment now. But at least all this isn't affecting her energy level: she's still cruising and crawling and attempting stairs all over the place.
The effect it's having on my nerves is a totally different story. She's in a "Mommy is the best pacifier EVER!" stage, which means that in effect, I have a 17-pound band-aid attached to me wherever I go.

It seems that my last post had quite an effect. Gigi's uncle from the other coast e-mailed me the next day and wanted to come visit. Yep, my little girl is so cute, people will fly across the continent to spend a long weekend with her.
This is part of the reason why Daddy is getting a lifetime membership in the NRA for Christmas, by the way.

Put another dollar in the "Future Therapy Bills" kitty: Gigi has learned to climb up the step from the sunroom into the den, where she can crawl towards the kitchen (and thus out of our sight if we're watching TV). She thinks this is hilarious. Last night I didn't feel like chasing her down to ensure that she stayed out of the cat food. So how did I get her to come back?
"WAAAAH!" I shouted. "I can't see my baby! WAAAAAH! She's gone away! She doesn't exist anymore! WAAAAH! Where's the baby? WAAAAH!"
She crawled back and peered around the door. "OH YAY!" I shouted and clapped my hands. "She's back! She's back! YAAAAY BABY!" Gigi plunked her little tushie on the floor and giggled and clapped. Then she started crawling away again.
"WAH! My baby's gone! I can't see my baby! I can't see her! WAAAH!"
She giggled and headed back, to my cheering and clapping.
The irony was lost on her, I'm sure. But I was laughing my head off.

Happy Equinox to you, Happy Equinox to you, Happy Equinox Purple Scare Readers, Happy Equinox to you!

Not Quite What I Had in Mind: Last week I tried a new facial cleanser that promised "younger looking skin." It gave me pimples.

Happy Birthday from Gigi to Daddy and to Grandma. It just goes to show you what a load of bunkum astrology is: my husband and my mother have the same birthday. (Okay, a few decades apart, but still...)

Like many in her age group, Gigi is very fond of what we call The Gravity Game. She has a toy. She lets it fall to the floor. Nearest caregiver/entertainer picks up toy and gives it to Gigi. Gigi giggles, shakes toy, lets it fall to the floor. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. You get the idea.
Well, now she's added a twist to the game. Toy hits the ground; Gigi vocalizes, "uh-oh!"
Does that count as a first word?

Now don't y'all die of shock that I started posting again.
Break time is over, the blog is back. We just got back from a trip to the Pacific "Northwest" (you know, when you look at the continent as a whole...) where Gigi met her great-grandmother.
Major updates: I'm supposedly going back to work in January, but I don't know where yet. Oh, yeah, and I developed a bit of carpal tunnel or something like it, so I have to limit my computer time these days.
Gigi is knocking down milestones, which has me knocking back the gin and tonics. She's crawling, pulling herself up, experimenting with standing free, and cruising. She babbles in full sentences. Still no teeth - which is just as well, because she is still nursing part-time.
So those of you who had your money on the baby crawling before getting that first tooth, well done. We'll shift the goalposts a bit now: which will be first, walking or a tooth? I'm not in a big hurry for either one.

"I am very pleased."
This is always a good thing to hear from the pediatrician.
I took "Gigi" in for a weight check today, and she's gained 11 pounds since she was born. Not too shabby for ten months. She's also gained a few percentiles: our wee girl has been hovering between the third and fourth percentiles in weight since day one. Not catastrophic, but not something that puts my mind much at ease. So now she's in the eighth percentile for weight.
Her head circumference is in the 90th, by the way. I think we might start calling her Lollipop.

Flashback time! I was taking Gigi for a walk in the stroller this morning when I noticed that someone had left a beer can on the side of the road. "Swine," I thought, reaching over to pick it up, "blighting our neighborhood." I figured I'd just drop it in the recycling bin at home...but then I thought, how would it look, walking around with a beer can in my hand or the cup holder, before noon, out with the baby?

And for a moment, I was back in the Baltics, my friends. Oh yes, where there is no such thing as an "open container law," where gin and tonic is sold in cans as a soft drink. Really, I once saw a lady in my prior home city drinking a canned G&T (which in and of itself is an abomination) at eight in the morning...walking her kid to school. Jesus wept.

In the end, I decided that civic pride trumped personal dignity. I put the can in the stroller basket and headed for home.

I spent last weekend at Hogwarts, as you know from a prior post. I got all the way through Book Six in about a day - it helped that Gigi and her daddy went out to play on Saturday so I had the whole house to myself for a while. I am still recovering. All I can say is Wow. I will not spoil anything for anyone, but that Rowling woman has some 'splaining to do...

Milestones Update: Little Gigi just keeps getting less and less little. While her grandparents were visiting, she decided to show off and start pulling herself up to a standing position. Her "scooting" is now evolving into a proper crawl, so I've been battening down the hatches and putting little plastic whatsits in the sockets. She still has no teeth, but man is she ever trying. She feeds herself Cheerios, sleeps mostly through the night, and claps her hands when she's really happy.
We took her for her nine-month well baby visit a few weeks early because I was worried about her weight. She's still in the lower percentiles but progressing along her curve; the doc isn't too worried but will be more than happy to recheck her in about six weeks. She's now up to 15 pounds and one ounce, which means she hasn't quite tripled her birthweight - but finally she weighs more than the cat!

We're Back! The various relatives have dispersed, and Chez Purple Scare has returned to its usual, more managable size. (Wish I could say the same thing for my pregnancy-and-nursing-enlarged butt.)
However, we may continue to experience blogging service delays, as the new Harry Potter book comes out tonight!!!!! Yes, I will be at a midnight release party, because - to borrow from and paraphrase Gigi's Kindly Uncle - deep down, I am not a thirty-six-year-old woman; I am four nine-year-old girls. Or one 11-year-old, a twelve year-old, and a thirteen-year-old. Whatever. I'm spending the weekend at Hogwarts; y'all have a good one.

This weekend I will catch up on some adult conversation, I hope. I'm taking a weekend "retreat" with a group of scrapbookers to catch up on old projects. I have several years' worth of photo albums to assemble, and if sequestering myself in the mountains for 48 hours is the only way to make progress on them, so be it.

The downside is that I'll be away from the baby for two nights. Whimper! I'm curious to see how we'll all cope.

And that's not all! The Radisson Purple Scare is opening its doors wide for the next few weeks. My brother is staying with us for a week starting Sunday. My mom returns Tuesday with my aunt, and they'll stay at least a week. That's five adults and one infant under one roof. My in-laws arrive on July 8 and overlap with my mom for a few days as well. If I live to see my birthday (mid-July) without going to jail, I'll be quite impressed.

On The Other Hand, Maybe Going Back to Work Wouldn't Be Such a Bad Thing: One of my husband's friends came over to watch a football -- sorry, soccer -- game last week. After the match, he came by the nursery to say his farewells. "Oh," I said, "are you going bye-bye?"

Okay, I had the baby in my arms at the time, so it was easy to cover up. "Say bye-bye, baby!" I said brightly, waving her arm at Uncle Jim. "Bye-bye!" No, I didn't just say "going bye-bye" to another ostensible adult, nope, not me.

She Woke Up Screaming: A friend of mine, whose son is a month older than Gigi, told me about being woken up in the middle of the night by his wife. She'd been dreaming, you see, about her performance in the Finals round of a game show. Her last question was, for one million dollars and the title "Mother of the Year": How many scoops of powder do you add to four ounces of water to make a batch of formula? "Oooh! I got it!" she shouted. "TWO!"
"WRONG!" the announcer boomed. "The correct answer is I DON'T KNOW, I WOULD NEVER FEED MY CHILD THAT POISON. You lose!"

I don't know about you, but I'd need at least five shots of tequila to get back to sleep after that one.

GREAT NEWS! The company has decided to allow me to stay out on maternity leave until January. That means I get to spend all the first year of my little girl's life at home with her, and then some. Of course, there's the risk that the longer I stay out, the less likely it is that I'll ever go back. Hmmm...I'll take that bet.

Happy Solstice from all of us at Purple Scare.

Long time, no blog. Sorry about that. The good news is that I'm not dead or hospitalized or anything like that. Really, I'm much better. I think it was the threat of Cipro that scared my anatomy into getting well. No, seriously, when I was on Day Six of a seven-day antibiotic course, I started having a new flareup. I called my doctor to get either more of the same drug or a new one, and he gave me a new one: Cipro.
Seriously, the last time I heard of anyone taking Cipro, there was anthrax in the mail. Sounds drastic to me. Then I read the packaging inserts and warnings with the stuff from the pharmacy, and what does it say? "Do not breastfeed while taking this product." HUH?!?!?!
Okay, I asked my OB for help with a breast infection while I'm nursing, and he gives me a drug I'm not supposed to take...I'm in the market for a new doctor.

Purple Scare is one year old today. I'd drink to that but I'm still on antibiotics. Thank you, one and all, for visiting.

Warning: The following post may include Too Much Information.
I've been more than a little cranky of late, due to the recurrence of the "plugged duct" problem (again, the more you have to ask, the less you want to know; feel free to stop reading now). The problem is that it developed into something nastier and more painful.
If you've ever wondered what mastitis might feel like, read on.
Imagine, if you will, that you have a breast implant. It's about the size of a half a baseball, or half of a nice juicy navel orange.
But instead of being filled with silicone, cork, or juice, it's filled with finely broken glass.
Now imagine that it's leaking.
Now imagine that a very small person who can not be reasoned with is grabbing on to your nipple and twisting, grinding the aforementioned finely broken glass and sending fragments shooting into your lymph nodes.
So you see why I haven't been real chatty and perky lately. The good news is that antibiotics seem to be doing the trick. I'll check in with you again after the level of ibuprofen in my bloodstream returns to socially acceptable norms.

Road Trip Vignettes:
We were zooming along the Turnpike when I started to wrinkle my nose. Sniff, sniff. Cough. Sniff.
"Um, Honey, I think we might need to stop and change her..."
Sniff. Sniff! "No, Dear, that's just Newark."

New Cute Thing! New Cute Thing! Gigi has spent the past few days mastering the art of the 'raspberry', making sputtery noises for anyone who will listen. She has been on the receiving end of tummy raspberries from Daddy and me since day one. Well, today on the changing table, I handed her a new toy from Grammy to keep her busy. She brought her Lamaze inchworm up to her mouth, grinned, and went "phfbbbbt!" on its chin.
Lest we think this is just a fluke, she did repeat performances tonight, giving her bathtub ducky and froggie giggly raspberries. My girl is a genius. The fun is just beginning.

Purple Scare is on the road again. Literally. Oh yes, it's baby Gigi's first major Road Trip! We are in New England for Uncle Mikey's university graduation. A trip that would ordinarily take 10 hours in a shot was broken down into two days, and we still hit rush hour in two urban centers. Still, Gigi has been a pretty good sport, and has been charming her relatives and acquaintances from start to finish.

As a new mom, I don't have copious amounts of idle time. Often I barely have the time and energy to accomplish what I'd like to. So when I hear about people like Madeline Albright, who did a PhD in Russian while raising twins, I don't know whether to scream or applaud. Some days I barely get my laundry done or scoop the kitty litter, how am I supposed to accomplish modern earth-shattering wonders at a time like this? Heck, regular PS readers (if there are any!) know that I can go for days at a time without even posting.
So there is an almost Aristotelian harmony to this project, which would allow me to do my part for science and take advantage of the fact that I don't always check my e-mail regularly. Really this would be brilliant, except that my computer is running Windows &*(#$@! 98 and crashes as often as an automotive safety test dummy.

I don't know whether it has any connection to her new culinary adventures, but my little girl is learning to "raspberry." I've seen her practicing several times today, adding this to the repertoire of noises she makes when she's playing with her voice. She's also figured out, I think, that it cracks Mommy up when she makes her sputtering little "fpppbt" sounds.

Introduction to Solids is not a course in math or physics. It is all about the transition from an infant's liquid diet to a child's messy diet. "Gigi" is expanding her palate almost daily. She eats rice cereal or oatmeal mixed with Mommy Juice, as well as sweet potatoes, carrots, and bananas. She did not like peas, and let us know without ambiguity. It was not pretty (except in a Jackson Pollock kind of way, I suppose, if you're into that).
Today, we took her to a Salvadoran place and offered her plantains and yucca. Neither was to her liking, but she wasn't nearly as demonstrative about it. Well, at least we tried.
In other developments: still no teeth, still no actual crawling. She is working hard at both. Place your bets on which will be first, or on which food will be the next one she rejects.

New Cute Thing! New Cute Thing! Today, Gigi and I were rolling around on the living room floor being goofy. I rolled over, reached out and mooped her on the nose. She laughed, of course, with that adorable laugh. She rolled away and tried a little more scooting. Then she rolled back over towards me, reached out, and grabbed my nose. "Moop," I said. She laughed. My girl is a genius.

Curse you, Windows 98. My Mothers Day post is lost, the system crashed yet again, blah blah blah.
I have also had a recurrence of the engorgement/plugged duct problem. The more you have to ask, the less you want to know. The good news is that it's almost cleared up.
The Good News: Wee Gigi has had her six month well-baby visit, and while she's still wee, she's well. She's in the third percentile for weight, the fiftieth for length, and eighty-fifth for head circumference. So yay for the big brains on our little girl.
Yeah, third percentile for weight. The pediatrician says that anything between three and ninety-seven is considered okay, and since she's progressing along her curve there is no reason for concern. I still have philosophical issues with having a six-month old who doesn't outweigh my cat, but the cat just turned 12 and can't be expected to spend a lot of time on the treadmill.
And hey, at least someone in this house is healthily slim. Gigi's Daddy wants to spend more time on the treadmill, and I'm walking around carrying the A$$ That Ate Montana. I just keep telling myself that the reason she's in the 50th percentile for length is all that good calcium she's getting in her Mommy Juice...which Mommy seems to be getting mostly from Ben and Jerry's.

Baby Gigi's babbling is getting more expressive. She really likes to say "gee!" If I didn't know better, I'd think she knew her on-screen name. My mother, of course, believes that "gee!" is just working her way up to "Grandma!"

Grandma returns to her coast of habitual residence tomorrow. We hope to see her again in two months, when she heads this way again for her high school reunion. (Keep in mind that she hasn't been to *any* of her prior reunions, as far as I know. Now, of course, she has photos of adorable grandchildren to show off, so she has to go.)

Gigi will not be totally bereft of grandparental attention. She has her semimonthly lunch date with Grandpa next week, and the week after that we're heading to New England for Uncle Mikey's university graduation. Our girl is very lucky indeed.

I had a lovely thought the other day. I was asked about my plans for returning to work. I replied, "you know, the company seems to be getting along just fine without me." And it's true.

My dilemma is this: I've worked for the same employer for several years now, and I have a few years left before I'm completely vested (i.e., I qualify for full retirement benefits). It seems obvious that I should go back, put in the time, and get the pension. But this sabbatical has given me some much-needed perspective. I still want to work, to have a job, but I am less concerned with getting promoted and running the world than I was before. I don't want to be someone who works her butt off in order to have a nice home in a nice neighborhood and not have time to enjoy it.

But the business I'm in isn't something that neatly wraps up at 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Travelers aid is a 24-7 operation: people don't break their legs or lose their passports during normal business hours. Tourists get mugged late at night and need new travelers' checks and airline tickets the following morning. It can be demanding, messy work, and oh yeah, it occasionally means that my family and I pack up and move a few time zones and a continent away.

So is it worth sticking around for a pension, or do I start over someplace else that is less stressful? Or do I just give up the paychecks altogether and spend my days making raspberry sounds on my daughter's cute little tummy?

It is the cause, oh my soul, the cause. Forget all that 2004 nonsense, this is the vote that matters. You don't have to be married to a New Englander to appreciate the magnitude of this debate.

Yet another very good reason to blog anonymously or pseudonymically.

Again, I maintain my online persona not because I get a kick out of being coy, but because it reassures my family. I seriously doubt that I am at risk of my employer's discovery and wrath, but on the other hand, what are they gonna complain about? In the early days of PS, I did a certain amount of bitching about my job, but I would never be so stupid as to identify myself, my company or my co-workers by name. I work(ed) in the travel industry, and now I'm writing about adventures in suburbia. There's not a huge conflict of interest here.

Rall's theme is too creepy: getting hassled or canned for exercising your rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom of association outside the workplace? Where are these people, North Korea? Sheesh.

This week on Crap Science: Someone has to explain to me how they objectively quantified "ugly".

The ultrasound came out just fine. (Wow, there's something I haven't said in a while.) But seriously, everything is okay. So it's just one more day of antibiotics and we're back to business as usual.
We're starting Gigi on solid foods now, if you can call a thin porridge of mommy juice and rice cereal "solid". So far she's adapting quite well: she appears to be getting more into her mouth than on her face, and she thinks spoons are dandy little playthings. The adventure is just beginning.

Medical Updates: Gigi gets an ultrasound tomorrow, to ensure that there is no anatomical issue contributing to her urinary tract infection. She's on antibiotics for a few more days. Her daddy finished his antibiotics today, and we hope he won't need a refill. The cat is getting daily eyedrops for at least another week, after which she may or may not need to have something aspirated and drained.
As for me, I have one bottle of tonic water left and no limes. I'd better get a refill on those. Drinking straight gin would be just unseemly.

I'm doomed.

Okay, longtime PS readers know that I've said that before. But this time I mean it.

Gigi's starting to figure out that when she lies on her tummy and kicks her feet out, sometimes her feet get caught on the floor, and the kicking propels her forwardish.

She is still mastering the whole rollover process. If she really starts crawling this quickly, I'm toast. Does this mean I have to start vacuuming and stuff?

Oh my heavens, has it been half a year already? My daughter is six months old today.

"Gigi" can roll 360 degrees, sit up with minimal assistance, feed herself a bottle, play peek-a-boo, laugh, babble, and charm the socks off of passersby.

At this stage, she has also begun to notice when Mommy or Daddy is not in the room. Today, Grandma carried the baby around behind me to show her that Mommy still exists when she goes into the next room to fix herself breakfast. "See," she would narrate, "there's Mommy making coffee...and now she goes to the refrigerator and Ooo! She got the butter out...and what's she doing now? Ooo! She got a cup...see, you have to keep an eye on that Mommy, you never know what she'll do next!" Funny, I thought I was the one who was never supposed to leave her unattended.

The good news, I suppose, is that I will have a respite from this stalking in the interim between Grandma's departure and Gigi's learning how to crawl. I expect I'll spend much of that time in the bathroom, enjoying blessed solitude for the last time, at least for the next five years.

I'm getting word that some readers may be having difficulty accessing this page. Sorry about that, blame it on Blogger.

Well aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Oh boy. I could never be an outright atheist, because I see constant evidence of the Ineffable One's existence, manifest in a perverse sense of humor.
Remember how I was going to spend my "vacation" down south resting, recuperating from my cold, and letting the gaggle of relatives spoil the baby?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
What was the highlight of our trip? Gigi's first trip to the emergency room! Yep, the crud that Mommy and Daddy have been fighting off is probably viral pneumonia. Oh, and Gigi also has a urinary tract infection. The 104-degree fever kinda tipped us off that there was a problem over the weekend. The good news is that she is on the road to a full recovery, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. I will spare you the gory details of the medical intricacies; let it suffice to say that catheters were involved.

We're off! the captain shouted. (Sorry, inside gag, my grandmother used to say it all the time...)
Okay, the Purple Scare household is heading to another Undisclosed Location for a few days. I expect I'll be off-line for the duration. See you next Wednesday.

Well that was fun. Despite my ongoing reign as Queen Lungbunny of Planet Hork, we had a great time with our British visitors this past weekend. We took them out to a game and translated cricket into baseball, which is a lot easier than vice versa. (As much as I enjoy baseball, I can't imagine sitting through a five-day game.) But the outing did little for the recovery of my scratchy throat. Day Seven and I still sound like Lauren Bacall on a respirator.

Geek Milestone: Gigi visited her first national park today. She slept through most of it, however.

A Big Shout-Out From The House of Flying Boogers. Yep, it's family cold time here at Undisclosed Location. Baby Gigi doesn't seem to have it too bad, but it floored Daddy for a few days, and yesterday I woke up sounding like Lauren Bacall. The timing gods are, of course, laughing their blessed keisters off: tomorrow night is Kindly Uncle's birthday party, after which we go to the airport to meet our visitors, who are with us through Tuesday. Wednesday is Daddy's bridge night and Mommy's movie night; Thursday is a baseball game; and Friday we're hopping a plane south so Gigi can meet some great-grandparents. We're back the following Tuesday night for a two-week visit from Grandma.
The good thing about this schedule is that it is very grandparent-intensive: this lets me sleep off my cold for more than one hour at a time while Gigi gets lots of attention.

Gigi's getting very good at rolling over. We're taking her to meet her great-grandfather down south in another week and a half. Woo Hoo!

Deep down, my brain is still in Baltic mode. It's April. I've been driving around with the sunroof cracked for a week now. We took the baby downtown to see the trees in bloom, against a perfect azure sky. Temperatures are in the 60s and 70s.
But I still have trouble putting the snow shovel away.

I sense a great disturbance in the force. They have taken Nature's Perfect Food, i.e., peanut M&Ms, to a place I was not prepared for. Usually I don't have much truck with blockbuster movie promo gimmicks. But this? Peanut M&Ms and dark chocolate are such marvelous things, yet I never dared to contemplate combining the two.
And somebody has to explain to me why Mexico gets its own country site, the U.S. gets its own country side, but the other third of NAFTA doesn't. Fercryinoutloud, Belgium has a site, with a choice of French or Flemish. Don't tell me they can't write Javascript in Quebecois. And if you think Darth Vader as a yellow peanut M&M is the most disturbing thing you've seen this week, you haven't seen the synchronized swimming M&Ms on the Italian site.

On this date five years ago he asked me to marry him. It was a very public proposal, an entirely unexpected one, and one that involved a conspiracy of several seemingly reputable individuals. In the middle of a museum, with high school tour groups surrounding us, I watched him get down on one knee to invite me on this journey of a thousand miles that started with a single "yes".

I had been living with my cat in a one bedroom apartment in the middle of the city, working my keister off at a job that gave me neverending jet lag; I was dating this man for over a year and thinking this was the happiest I had been in a very very long time. I could not have imagined the bewildered awe I would feel today, owning a several-bedroom house in suburbia with a yard bigger than my old downtown apartment, forgetting the feel of a desk beneath my hands and the ubiquitous sound of telephones ringing, and looking down at the pale creature peacefully drinking from my breast, calling her my daughter.

In the words of John Lennon (Peace Be Upon Him), "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." Just because I never expected to be here doesn't mean I'm not glad I made the trip.

A wise man once said, "Illinois Nazis. I hate Illinois Nazis."

This is not a post males will want to read. You have been warned.
I've been a little cranky of late, and it boils down to three little words: Plugged Milk Duct. (Guys, I told you, you were warned. If you have to ask, you don't want to know.)
This is not my first bump in the road of breastfeeding. Early on, we had "latch-on" problems because I supposedly had "flat nipples". That's hilarious. Nothing about my chest has been flat since I was 11 years old.
So this PMD got me to spend money on specially designed soothing gel packs for achy breasts. Thus, at age 36, for the first time in my life I'm stuffing my bra. Gad-effing-zooks. I am hopeful that this problem will clear up quickly. These things have a way of developing into infections if not treated promptly. I can only begin to imagine how much fun that is.
Fortunately, we're coming up to the six-month mark, at which I had figured I could consider a transition away from nursing. So maybe this whole achy mess is just karma. We'll see.

Today's Excitement: No Plumbing! Yeah, the utility company decided that a sewer refit was in order, so our whole block spent the day (8 a.m. - 8p.m.) with no drinking, no washing, no flushing. But hey, no water, no problem, right? We have vodka!
Okay, I spent waaaay too long in Eastern Europe.
Nah, f'real: I spent the day at a girlfriend's house, and she watched the baby while I went diaper shopping. Whoo hoo, another wild and crazy weekday in suburbia.

MILESTONE! Baby Gigi made her first full 360-degree rollover today. She celebrated by laughing and putting her toes in her mouth. I tell you, this kid is ready for university life: she can sleep till noon, hold her own bottle, belch like a foghorn, barf like Niagra Falls, and babble incoherently. Once we teach her to type, there's no stopping her.

Notes From The Changing Table: My observations of the last five months lead me to several conclusions.
First, that the degree of cooperation from the diaper changee is inversely proportional to the urgency of the diaper change, i.e., when having a slightly damp diaper change, the baby will wriggle and twist and into all sorts of contortions, but when up to its shoulders in diaper gravy, baby will be as docile as tuckered-out puppy.
Second, perhaps in a Darwinian self-preservation strategy, the volume and complexity of cute noises, coos and gurgles emitted by the diaper changee is directly proportional to the volume and complexity of the diaper contents.
Third, new mothers who have inhaled a few too many diaper fumes are wont to use terms like "inversely proportionate" in unusual contexts to remind themselves, when up to their shoulders in their offspring's poop, that they have Bachelors degrees.

You Know You're a New Mom When:
a) you find a muffin and a foil-wrapped pat of butter in the bottom of your purse; and
b) they've been there for several days; and
c) you eat them anyway.

Baby Gigi's New Accomplishment: She got her toes in her mouth. Look out, world.

Here is Purple Scare's obligatory post on the fracas going on in Florida. If you too are sick of hearing about it, I won't be offended if you scroll past this. There is something funny in the next post down, I promise.

Ahem: Amid all the sturm und drang, everyone seems to forget that 99.9% of the persons bloviating on the subject don't even know the person they're talking about.

Her legal next-of-kin is asking to fulfill what he says (and a court has adjudicated accordingly, based on the testimony of several people) were her wishes. Nobody else has a right to get involved, so leave the woman and her family alone; let them have a fragment of peace.

So where do I get off weighing in on the subject? Personal experience: fourteen years ago I watched my grandfather, whom I loved more than life itself, rage against the dying of the light. If you've ever seen someone fight liver cancer, you know it isn't pretty. Grandpa was a doctor; he knew what he was up against and he knew that suffering would be a big part of it. He could have asked to pull the plug, but he wanted nature to run its course. He wanted to die at home in his own bed when the Powers That Be saw fit to take him. It was absolute hell to watch this, but we honored his wishes because we loved and respected him.

Ten years later, I watched my grandmother, whom I also loved more than life itself, linger in the throes of Alzheimer's. Her last months were not particularly pleasant ones, but as a devout Catholic she believed that it was proper for her to wait it out. Similar to my grandfather, Grandma was a nurse who understood what she was up against and could have asked for plugs to be pulled. She too wanted no heroic measures, she wanted to be kept comfortable, but she wanted nature to run its full course. Is it what I would have chosen? No. But those were her wishes, her choice, based on her beliefs and her conscience. We are her family, and we would honor her decisions, as painful as they were to us, because we loved and respected her.

And anybody who thinks they deserve to butt in at a time like this can go straight to Hell. Do not pass "Go", do not collect $200.

Here endeth the lesson.

Just when I think I have this whole HausFrau thing down: Yesterday was the Big Weekly Shop. Every week I go through the grocery store circulars and figure out who's got the best deals on what, then map out my tri- or quadripartite shopping list accordingly. I hit three supermarkets on Thursday and was feeling quite pleased with myself, especially since I got all that crap into the fridge and freezer, right? So imagine my surprise when I was pulling out some cold cuts for lunch today, and discovered some unexpected articles in the meats drawer. Like my checkbook.

Honestly. Good thing I wasn't even looking for it, cause God knows I'd never have come up with that one. I suppose next time I need the ketchup I should check my sock drawer.

And yesterday was a good day, too. Sheesh!

Been having technical difficulties lately, sorry! My brother handed down a computer to me, which means that I don't have to sneak in computer time when my telecommuting husband is on a bathroom break. The catch is that the machine runs on Windows 98, which as we all know is buggier than the Amazon basin. If I weren't married to an engineer I'd have to blog using smoke signals and morse code.

Did I mention that my baby laughs? Not just little random cooing giggles, but real laughter when something is funny. And she laughs more when someone laughs with her. I absolutely live for this sound.

MILESTONE! Baby "Gigi" has doubled her birthweight. I am one step closer to breathing a deep sigh of relief. I will only feel totally out of the woods on her weight gain when she officially outweighs the cat. (The cat's excuse for looking like Elvis in furs is that she was born 100 klicks downstream from Chernobyl.)

There goes the neighborhood.

Okay, in case anyone's nose is out of joint because of Monday's post about the Mel Gibson movie...I admit it, I haven't seen it. My husband said it best: I don't really need to see it; I read the book, I know how it ends.

Another item for the "skills and experience" portion of my resume: Chew Toy.
Yeah, the teething thing is a real treat. We have several soothing rattles and teethers sitting in the fridge, but Gigi isn't interested. What does she like? Fingers. Mommy and Daddy's, to be specific. She really like Daddy's because of all his interestingly broken knuckles; unfortunately, Daddy has a new injury sustained in a card game (yes, Daddy plays full-contact bridge, don't ask) so he gets to beg off gnawing detail.
So I am not doing as much typing as I would like. The good news is that Gigi seems to be settling into a pattern for when the teething activity spikes, so at least there's some predictability to the daily FussFests. Now that I've written about it, no doubt I've screwed that up.

Monday was a really good day. Baby and I slept late, then drove into town for our semimonthly lunch date with Grandpa. I managed to get a parking space across the street from Dad's office, with time left on the meter (score!); Dad and I had sandwiches and Gigi showed off her ability to hold her own bottle. Grandpa was quite impressed.
After lunch, Gigi and I went for a sunny stroll. I got a hot chocolate and we sat in the park; she napped while I read the paper. We listened to k.d. lang's Hymns of the 49th Parallel on the drive home along the parkway.
Nothing spectacular, just a really pleasant day.

Why? Because calling it "Re-flogged" would just be wrong wrong wrong.

Oh Merciful God, my brother just wet himself.

Oh Merciful God, I think I just wet myself.

"Where has she been and what has she been up to?" you wonder. Let's recap: the baby has started sleeping in her own room. Sleep patterns have been disrupted: sometimes she goes all the way through the night; other times she'll wake up once or even twice. She has also started teething. That is a topic for another post entirely. I also decided to go decaf to see if it had an effect on Baby "Gigi". Withdrawal was not pretty for either of us. Our backyard raccoons were telling me I looked like hell.
But there's good news, too. Gigi had her four-month well-baby visit, and she is progressing very nicely along her curve. She's still a small baby, but she is a healthy one. She has not yet doubled her birth weight, but she has doubled her lowest weight ever from her hospital days. So she's nearly two feet long and weighed just under ten and a half pounds at her appointment. She is also Mommy's Super Brave Little Girl for getting her immunization shots, four at a pop, poor sweetie.
Her little blond curls are filling out nicely, her eyes are still blue (let's hear it for recessive genes!), and she continues to vocalize with enthusiasm. And right now you could not drag me back to work with whips, chains, wild horses, and cattle prods.

Um, hey. Yeah. Sorry guys. I switched to decaf last week.

The hazards of late-night blogging: I forget what I really wanted to write about, and end up spouting tripe about "celebrity" skanks.
What the Midnight Editor forgot yesterday is the joys of learning to sleep through the night; me, that is, re-learning this important skill. You see, we finally have the baby sleeping in her crib in her own room. She spent most of the first three and a half months with us, for ease of nighttime feedings and so on. There are equal factions who would tell me that I'm some sort of socialist pathological weirdo for having the baby in our room, inhibiting her sense of independence and blah blah blah OR that I'm banishing my tender impressionable child to a cell down the hall, inhibiting attachment and bonding and thus condemning her to a future as a socialist pathological weirdo blah blah blah. I don't care who's right; I care that my husband gets enough sleep to function at work, especially as he is the lone paycheck right now.
But I'm having a hard time sleeping without the baby close by. There's something to be said for the attachment parenting/shared sleep philosophy. Mainly, though, I'm taking twice as long to fall asleep (who'd have thought that would be a problem?) because I'm in a constant state of hyperalert vigilance. Every time I wake up -- at the slightest twitch -- it takes me half an hour to reassure my deepest primordial brain that my daughter isn't about to get stomped on by a mammoth.
On the plus side, I have an added incentive to keep both our bedrooms free of clutter, so I don't break my neck on the way to a midnight snack. And now that the baby is actually using the crib, I feel more justified in having spent the money on the cutesy John Lennon design linens.

Just what I need, an anti-role-model for my daughter. If ever there were a person in need of a lifetime subscription to Sit Down and Shut The #@*& Up, it's Paris Hilton. I will not dignify her latest headline with a link; indeed, I will never mention her again if I can possibly help it. She has done one useful thing in her life: inspired a truly vicious episode of South Park. At this point she could cure cancer and I'd still want her to retreat to a cave somewhere next door to Osama bin Laden for the rest of her unnatural life.

Days like this I'm sure my brother kicks himself for retiring his blog. In his honor, I note the passing of Hunter S. Thompson. Ave atque vale, and may your Valhalla be free of hypocrisy and full of quality chemical recreation.

My Lucy Ricardo moment du jour: Gigi woke up from her nap, fussy and cranky but unwilling to go back to sleep. A fresh diaper usually perks her up, so I took her to the changing table and started to unsnap her onesie. I noticed that she felt a little more "well padded" than usual, but didn't figure out why until I started plucking at the tape tabs... when I redressed her at her last change, I hadn't gotten the old diaper out of the way. I'd snapped her outfit shut with the clean, dry diaper on top of the folded wet one. No wonder she took longer than usual to go down for that nap. I'd be cranky too, if someone made me sleep with an extra pair of damp undies crammed into my pajamas.
My karmic payback? Her last wakeful cycle consisted of a major gas attack (mid-nursing, too, what fun) and a spell of teething. Oh yes, we're getting warmed up for the teething.
I still can't believe I gave up drinking for Lent.

Ten Pounds! Baby "Gigi" is over ten pounds now, by my unscientific method. I made the appointment for her four-month (!!!!!) well baby visit today. March 1 she will go in for a checkup and the next round of vaccinations.
Oh, and we're trying to get her to sleep through the night in her own room now. I shouldn't have given up drinking for Lent.

Well, this answers one of my earlier questions: I was wondering why Alanis felt compelled to stick her nose into the U.S. elections last fall.
Speaking of contentious cross-border issues, word is that Canadian MPs are getting irate phone calls from U.S. Bible-Belters about proposed "gay marriage" legislation. I always thought it was the purview of tinpot dictators and foreign aid recipients to squeal about the Americans "meddling in internal affairs" (diplo-speak for "of course we know we're doing awful things; mind your own damn business"). Bewildered Ottawa denizens can now add their voices to the chorus.
Seriously you guys, Canada is a foreign country. It is not the "51st state". You want to oppress ten percent of your population, get cracking on your own constitutional amendment. Everyone on the northern side of the border will be busy playing hockey, drinking beer, and committing unspeakable crimes against nature, and you'll just have to get over it, eh?

I went to visit another new mom earlier this week: bless her heart, she's nursing twins. I don't know if I'd be able to keep up with multiples; sometimes I feel lucky to be able to make it through the day without dropping Gigi on her head or accidentally burning the house down. And I'm not even going to work.
Not going to work still hasn't fully sunk in; I can't get past the feeling that I'm playing hooky or something. I used to feel a certain guilty pleasure sitting in a coffee joint in the middle of the day. The pleasure is still there, and the guilt is dissipating. However, I have to pick my coffee joints carefully.
A few days ago I was at this place I used to haunt with girlfriends. It took me a while to realize I was one of the only customers without a notebook computer, and I was the only one with a stroller. If they were checking credentials, I could have shown them a cellphone, I guess. But seriously, I think I was the only one there who wasn't in the throes of left-leaning academia and/or artistic angst. I didn't want to breathe too deeply, for fear of choking on a lungful of earnestness. It's not that I felt unwelcome in my old stomping grounds, I just felt like I didn't belong there anymore. It's like putting on a pair of old shoes, well-worn and lovingly broken in, and finding out that they're giving you blisters.
I finished my coffee, put my baby in the Volvo station wagon with its radio stations preset to public radio channels, and drove back to my single-family dwelling in the suburbs. I'm starting to feel that demographic shift sinking in.

Hi, remember me? Yeah, been feeling a little under the weather the past few days. Nothing major, I will spare you the gory details, let it suffice to say that I'd rather be sitting in a warm bath than in a computer chair for long periods of time. (But then, who wouldn't?)

News from "Gigi": she is now over nine and a half pounds. Word of this gets out too far and professional athletes will be offering serious money for my milk, in lieu of steroids.

Baby celebrated her grandpa's birthday today with another milestone: she held her bottle all by herself!!! Okay, I was spotting her the whole time, but she had a grip on that bottle like G.I. Joe's kung fu. On Saturday she will have dinner with Grandpa and show off for him. Can't wait.

My baby is three months old. Life is beautiful and so is she.

Apres le deluge, the vultures descend.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Little "Gigi" has passed the nine-pound mark.

Here's how my day started out yesterday: After breakfast, my daughter let loose a weapon of mass destruction. I was going to just clean and change her, but the mess was just everywhere. The best solution was a mommy-and-me bath, where I get in the tub with her baby bathtub in front of me and we both get a good soaping. So afterwards, I had the baby on my lap, nice and clean and cooing contendedly as I dried her hair, when that familiar warm feeling spread across my belly. Yep, she peed on me, the towels, my bathrobe, the works. I stood over the changing table, collecting wet stuff and hoping to get the diaper in place before she could strike again, and I thought, "Yeah, this is still better than most days I had at work last year."

Male readers might want to skip this one: Yep, it's breastfeeding rant time. Now that baby "Gigi" has discovered what her hands are capable of, she is not content to just sit back and suckle, oh no. Every other feeding is just a feather boa and a folding chair upside the head short of a Wrestling Smackfest. What's a mother to do? Carter's doesn't make straightjackets; I've checked. There is such a thing as "nursing beads" that moms can wear to keep babies' hands occupied benignly at mealtimes: just one more way that we can turn a perfectly natural biological function into a huge academic and commercial exercise.
Gigi hits her three-month mark this weekend. I had hoped to feed her Mommy Juice for at least six months. I really don't want to give it up; I like it (when she's not turning my anatomy into hamburger), and it's good for both of us. I just want to get through this phase without either one of us suffering permanent damage.
I wonder if I could qualify for a small business startup loan. I'll bet there's a huge market for custom homemade straightjackets.

I may not know how to be a good parent, but I can give you some pretty good hints about how NOT to.

I hoped I would eventually overcome the urge to watch my daughter sleep. I no longer do so out of fear that she can't really breathe on her own; I have accustomed myself to the idea that she no longer relies on me for oxygen. Now I watch her sleep for the sheer joy and tacky-poetry-inspiring pleasure of it. I spent a long time curled up with her on my bed today. Now that's the way to sleep in on a snowy day.
I'm not in any hurry to overcome the urge after all.

I am in mourning. My brother and blogging mentor has decided to retire his on-line magnum opus after many years. Ave atque vale, as the Romans used to say. It was Enormous Fun while it lasted. Respect.

Yesterday I wore all black. Today I drank no coffee. Tomorrow, life will go on.

Corollary to The Heisenberg Principle as applied to infants: Sitting down to blog about a sleeping infant is almost certain to wake her up.

I swear I am not making this up: I know, I always say "I don't usually put political commentary in the blog." However, the U.S. inaugural seems to bring it out of us all. To wit: as we lay in bed this morning, listening to the proceedings in Washington DC, my ingenue daughter screwed up her face and cooked up a steaming batch of amazingly potent diaper chili.
I do not wish to imply that this is a predictor of her political leanings. But I am hard-pressed to find a more subtle editorial comment on the day's events.

The Heisenberg Principle, as applied to infants: I am ridiculously enamored of the coos and burbles that emerge from my daughter's mouth. Sadly, she will not make these sounds forever. So I dusted off an ancient camcorder to record my little girl's "cute noises" for posterity. Armed with my device, I stalked our subject in her common habitat (a playmat with lots of colorful dangling toys), where she frequently vocalizes while batting at Monkey or Giraffe. I switched on the camera and --
Silence.
I circled the mat, finger poised above the "record" switch, until the battery light started its countdown to shutoff. No luck. I shut off the camera and put the battery back in the charger. As it clicked into place, a different sound came from over my shoulder: "Goooo...ga! Ahoo..."

The local schools opened two hours late this morning, as they do when there is extreme weather. The definition of "extreme" has broadened to include temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit). Where I lived for the last two years, temperatures in the teens constituted a heat wave. Seriously, people.

This is what I get for marrying a New England Yank and moving to Baltic Europe for two years. Now I figure it's not really winter unless you're up to your hips in snow and "daytime" consists of a maximum five hours of grey sky.
Want to cure your Seasonal Affective Disorder? Spend October through April in subarctic Finland; you will never whine again. You will also never understand why anyone would delay or cancel school, barring Yeti attacks.

Every time I wonder about my competence as a mother, I remind myself that wee Gigi really lucked out, on the grand scale of things.

I'm not saying the woman doesn't love her child. I'm just saying that fame and riches mean jack squat if your kid has to visit you in rehab and daddy in the boneyard.

For someone who is on leave, I spend a lot of time at the office. I went to HQ Thursday for the second time in as many months. Sounds crazy, but there is a reason: they want to know what to do with me when my maternity leave is up, and this takes some planning ahead. There were a few proposals out there to send me to Western Europe in the fall, but all of them would have brought me back to work sooner than I wanted, in order to get language training.
The goofy thing is that my mother is relieved that I'm not going to Western Europe. Mind you, an earthquake and tsunami just wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in Asia. But no, modern Europe would be a dangerous place. What doom awaits us there? Terrorism? Volcanic eruptions? White slavers carrying off my cherubic infant daughter? No, none of that. Mom was anxious about us going back to Europe because of an earthquake that happened over 200 years ago.
Good thing my company doesn't have an office in Atlantis.
The only thing that keeps me from being more sarky about this - aside from the fact that Mom is a regular reader - is the knowledge that as a mother, I could turn out to be just as much of a worrywart. But hey, I look forward to being anxious about the first time my daughter pilots a space shuttle beyond Mars.

I'm still not sure whether to thank my brother on the other coast for sending me this picture.

HANDS! Genius! Woo HOO!
Sorry, I'm just a little excited. Today "Gigi" picked up a toy all by herself for the first time. She's figured out what her hands are capable of. I'm feeling sort of like Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller at the pump shouting "wa-wa!"
Don't tell me about the dread I must now live with, that everything she picks up for the next twelve months will go straight for her mouth. She's still working on that level of coordination. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy my girl genius.

The DSL guy came on Thursday to see what was wrong with our connection. I mention this because I have been accused of blogslacking. So now there's supposedly no problem with me getting on line - except for the whole bit about finding the time. Note to self: as much as my husband enjoys it, it is not a good idea to get him a Sid Meier computer game for Christmas if I want to read my e-mail anytime this century.

Happy New Year!!! Yeah, I know, I see the date too. Don't get me started about the reliability of our DSL and the fact that Internet Explorer seems to exist for the sole purpose of cheesing me off.
The big development of the week is that I am officially off the payroll now. Yep, for the first time in over thirteen years, I am not earning a paycheck. During the months between my return to this side of the Atlantic and now, I was burning up paid leave. I went into HQ two weeks ago to do the paperwork, and here I am, sabbatical commencing. I wanted this more than anything in the world a year ago. Now I'm scared to death. No income? We're paying this mortgage on my husband's salary alone? And oh yeah, there's a baby to feed?
At the same time, it's very exciting. Beholden to no one, no performance reviews, no micromanagement, no bureaucracy, no alarm clocks. (But then, who needs alarm clocks when you have a hungry infant at 4 a.m.?)
Okay, I have one boss. She is unpredictable, demanding, can not be reasoned with, and I am constantly cleaning up after her messes. And I love her more than life itself.
Happy New Year, indeed.