Yes, it has been over a month since I have posted. Luke has been very tiring, colicky and acid refluxy, just like Izzi was. She has mostly been lovely, but H. and I are averaging four hours of sleep a night, so we’re not as patient as usual. I’m teaching tonight, so H. is home with them from 3-9 PM and has already had Luke alone since 10:30 AM. I interrupted her napping with Luke twice, which was bad. I’m off to continue prepping for class…
The first pics of Luke are now uploaded and I have to get back to the hospital ASAP. Heather may be coming home tonight, which would be really quick! Yay!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7973051@N08/sets/72157621913190266/
Luke will be born at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM! No more sleep for the next few months! I wonder how Izzi is going to adapt to that and the strangeness of having a tiny baby brother….
Izzi and I separately woke up late this morning around 8 and 8:15 AM. She was eating cereal with H. at the table when I walked out into the morning bleariness and intense sunlight sneaking in past the blinds of our kitchen. After breakfast, we listened to old, live Aimee Mann on H.’s U2 iPod which I charged overnight. Izzi danced in her yellow Belle princess dress, swaying in lazy circles with her arms out. She also held a cat stuffed animal and shouted “meow!” while her mother held a huge stuffed bulldog and replied with “ruff!”
Mom got ready for church which started at 9 about 10 minutes from here. I’ve not been to church in this town and don’t really want to go. At one church are many people I work with and who freak me out. At the other, I know no one, but have heard it is conservative on the level of the local fundamentalist sects from which the Branch Davidians of Waco sprouted many years ago. Of course, this is also a town featured prominently in a cult film as being incredibly conservative and “normal.”
After an hour of this, her mother retired to the bedroom to shower and get dressed for the day. Izzi took that opportunity to set up a massive tea party on the TV stand, complete with food. When she was ready, I introduced an idea that seemed to throw her when I brought my real teacup filled with steaming green tea to the party. She seemed confused, but was very gracious, telling me she liked my tea and teacup, but had a look of consternation on her sweet, lightly tanned little face.
The tea party lasted until her mother returned in a red striped shirt which makes her look well and truly pregnant and due this coming Friday as opposed to darker colors that do not reveal such information until she turns to profile and the shadow of Luke’s bulge expands across the floor. This was about 35 minutes, which is very long time for her to focus on a single task.
Izzi is now out of the princess dress and eating Craisins while we listen to A Prairie Home Companion (a compilation). Mom just walked through the door, so I’m going to get shoes on to get ready to head to the grocery store. I get to work on a grant this afternoon. I wish I could get excited about it. I love the concept, but not one of the people I have to work with, so I’m feeling very resistant to spending time on it instead of with my family.
Izzi was very excited to go pick up Nanny from the airport today! I went in to comfort her about 12:30 AM and woke up in her bed at 6:30 with her grinning at me. She let me doze again for another hour. Before we could head out, H. gave her a bath while I mowed and edged the lawn, which was again getting out of control after less than two weeks. I took a hatched to some wild trees that were threatening both our front bushes and air conditioner. They’ll be back, but at the moment, they are at bay, screaming, exposed to the elements from the inside out, wondering why the 104 degree heat blared its golden bugle call on its interior veins. Where was its’ leafy crown that nourished it? Resting comfortably in the green trash receptacle in our 130 degree shady garage is where.
I had promised H. we would get Texas Toast panini egg sandwiches from a local coffee shop, so I showered rapidly and we headed over because mom was getting in at 10 AM at Love Field.
The sandwiches, which I had looked forward to with bated breath and had sold pretty hard to H. were disappointing. The egg was cold. Not lukewarm cold, but more like ice cold. H. didn’t eat more than a bite of the egg. I was starving, so I ate half a cold egg sandwich and pitched the other half. I have to stop selling these things when I haven’t actually had them. They just looked so good in the store two weeks ago. At least the coffee was excellent.
We sprinted over to the airport and arrived about 10 minutes late as I misjudged the distance and time a bit, since we were closer to 35W than 35E where the airport actually is. In reality, we were 20 minutes from the big DFW Airport and 45 minutes from Love Field at the coffee shop. I probably should have held off on the lawn or woken up at 6:30 when Izzi woke me up the first time.
We headed back to the house and Izzi played with Nanny in the car the entire way, making up nonsense words to add to mom’s versions of Little Bunny Foo Foo. Izzi has trouble with F’s…She did manage to tell Nanny that she was “pissing her off” a couple of times. We yelled at her and she sulked, which is both cute and breaks my chest cavity open and pours salt on my organs when she does it.
Mom watched Izzi while H. and I napped for an hour and then again while we headed out to a movie. We saw Public Enemies, which was better than we had been lead to believe by several reviewers. Once woman who writes for Salon.com tends to hate anything mainstream and gush over indies.
We picked up a pizza for dinner and Izzi ate a bit. She was completely exhausted and bleary after taking no nap today. An hour and a half later she was in bed and asleep without incident and H. was back out with us to watch Wonder Boys by 9ish, which we are still watching. It is a great movie…
Five more days until Luke comes!
This time of year always annoys me, though it is usually my fault as a result of some poor planning. AERA (aera.net) propsals used to be due August 1, but are now due earlier. I always submit four. The last two nights, I wasn’t home for Izzi’s bedtime as I was out either grading or editing proposals. At least they are in now.
We took a run yesterday, then Izzi played at the local park with a bunch of neighbor kids. She had fun. I’m typing with one hand as Izzi is resting on my left arm….
After we headed out yesterday, Izzi and I dropped off her movies at the video store, which required a lot of deception, so she didn’t realize that I was giving back the rented Bratz movie. Afterwards, we headed to NTB to get a new battery installed, which took about an hour and we now have an 85 month battery for a car that will probably only last about 36-40 more months. However, with the heat here, 85 months is only really about 50 months on a battery.
While we waited, Izzi sprinted around the tires, putting her miniature blue, pink, and yellow ponies on tires and rims, leaving her Yasmin Bratz doll in assorted places while pretending to read literature about Yokohama tires. The guy behind the counter has a 3 year old daughter and thought it was cute. She wouldn’t let me look at what she was doing, so I had to look in another direction at my Blackberry much of the time.
She has scattered a bunch of kitchen towels, napkins, and anything else she could find across the kitchen floor. She told me that she is making me dinner and is jumping around the nearly covered floor, hopping from gap to gap. She has also been playing with my 25-30 year old Hot Wheels, zipping them across the floor.
She didn’t sleep well, which means I didn’t sleep well. At 10 PM, she was tired enough to go into bed. She kept kicking H., so I went in there at 10:30. She squirmed and didn’t sleep until about 12 AM. She woke up again at 1 AM and I went in again until 3 AM. After returning to bed, I didn’t fall asleep again until almost 5. H. was lovely and let me sleep in until 7:15 AM.
The house is now a mess again from everything she pulled out, but she has agreed to put everything away so we can go get a new battery put in the white car.
We’re off to run errands and get daddy some coffee….
H. let me sleep in this morning after a rough night. I woke up in the blue chair at 3 AM and went into bed. I awoke to Isabelle ranting that she didn’t want to take a bath and damn the consequences for her wearing her princess dress. As I was walking out to find my glasses fifteen minutes later, she gave shouted her full consent to the bath and I carried her in to the tub, sightless.
The wind chimes are lightly ringing outside and I was disappointed to see that yesterday’s forecast of 88 degrees for today has been rescinded and replaced with 93. However, it’s still a lot better than 103, so I’ll enjoy it. They are now claiming 85 for Wednesday, which makes me want to drive to Canada where it will be downright chilly.
Izzi put on her yellow Belle princess dress and we headed out to the Ft. Worth Arboretum, a favorite place of ours. First, we stopped at a local coffee place, which was great and has banana nut muffins and amazing breakfast sandwiches made on Texas toast then grilled on a panini press. There is a an old Phillips 66 gas station nearby that has kind of a country store feel to it where we fueled up. It is old enough that you have to go inside to pay, which I never thought would mean “old” to me.
Once we got to the arboretum, it was a lovely walk (Izzi consented to remove said dress in the interests of comfort), though Izzi kept running ahead of us, so I had to carry her several times. However, this is pretty normal with her and she has been cooped up at home between the heat and my illness the last few weeks.
We had a nice lunch a La Familia an excellent restaurant with amazing service and spectacular food. Izzi ate a ton of chicken nuggets, chips and salsa, and fries. She tends to cycle through eating a lot one day and almost nothing the next. She picked a great day to have an appetite. A while back when my folks were in town, we ate there and the owner shared his recipe for the salsa there, which I still have in my email. Izzi and everyone else love it.
Afterwards, we stopped in an outdoors outfitters called Backwoods, which was pretty cool. However, Izzi made it a challenge by grabbing everything that came near her. We then walked around Sundance Square for a bit, stopping in Leddy’s, a great Western wear store that fells like an older place than it is with warped wooden floors and animal heads everywhere. Izzi shouts, “Look at the cow up there!” and “Look, a buffalo!” every time we go in. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to recognize the deer.
Afterwards, we hit the choo choo office briefly to discover they don’t carry CDs and Starbucks to refuel a bit. The weather was pretty nice, though the incredibly direct sun here makes it fell about 10 degrees warmer than it is. Some clouds, trees, other forms of shade would make the North Texas region a lot more bearable for the 4-5 months a year when the heat is brutal. Can’t do much about the clouds, but planting a lot more trees would make things a lot nicer here. Then, Izzi could be a princess a lot more often….
Izzi fell asleep on the way home and is now snoring away in her bed as is H. I’m going to try to take a quick nap myself if at all possible. Perhaps, the glorious A’s vs. Angels game will nuzzle me sweetly and put me out for an hour or two.
This morning it was actually nice here for the first time in weeks. It never got above 100 degrees, which is just fantastic. Izzi and I were able to go to the park today for the first time since I got back from D.C. Before that, I used some of H.s conditioner on Izzi’s hair, because she has been having lots of tangles with her hair as it, unfortunately, takes after my own. We put it up in a flowery hair bow and she looked like she was ready to go to church.
Once we got to the park, she loved being on the swings in the reasonable breeze and 78 degree morning temperatures. Another two year old (about 7 months younger) was there and Izzi talked non-stop to the girl’s grandmother for about 20 minutes. Izzi inspired the other girl to demand that she swing higher, which was neat to see.
After a while, we wandered over the the other places to play. Izzi had brought her purse filled with toys (fake credit card, cell phone, mini-dogs, hair brushes, etc.) and insisted on taking them all out on the playground equipment, then ran off to use the slide and sprint all over the place.
A bunch of city workers showed up to do maintenance on the park, so we retreated homeward, avoiding the awful American bulldog at the end of the block who has now knocked out another board, so it was sticking it’s head out and barking violently. We moved by slowly, not that it seems to matter how we move to get by it. That dog is poorly trained and the owners need to get it trained or put up a metal fence 15 feet high.
We immediately got in the blue car and headed to a place called Boomerang’s that has inflatable bounce houses where Izzi could climb, jump, bounce, and otherwise have fun. Over the course of the 3 hours we were there, she spent about two not doing the bouncing stuff. Instead, she played on a fake pirate ship with a little blond boy (with hair longer than Izzi’s). They kept picking up soft blocks and putting them in the ship and standing with them surrounding them. After that, they tossed them back out. This went on for a long time. When the boy first arrived, they hit and slapped each other several times as they acclimated and one tried to climb onto the ship or slide down the slide. By the time they left, Izzi and he were close friends. She’ll probably never see him again. That is the sad part about going to these places.
The last hour, she finally discovered that she liked the bounce houses and then it was tough to get her to leave. Since, I’m too big to get in them, if she refuses to come out, there’s not much I can do. She jumped and bounced and climbed with joyous abandon.
At about 12:15, we went to Rockfish so she could have mac and cheese. We are now recognized by the staff there as some form of regular. She was good and ate well.
Afterwards, we went to the book store. She read for a while. I looked for the new Theodosia book, which they didn’t have. I smelled a bad smell and asked Izzi if she needed to go to the bathroom. She said no. Four times. 10 seconds after the last time I asked, she got “the Look” on her face and had a massive poop in the middle of the store. It was rough. We went home and cleaned her up, but I had to keep her awake the whole ride home so I could clean her up before she napped. She stayed awake, but never napped and fell asleep early tonight.
What I didn't want...
When we got home, I was feeling really beat up and H. let me sleep until our sitter arrived. I’m not really over my illnesses at the moment. Next week, I should learn more about my sinus problems (severely deviated septum, nasal spur, polyps, etc.) and what has to be done to fix it. Hopefully, I won’t get sick as often after that.
We went out and saw the Harry Potter movie, which was very good and ate movie theater food for dinner (not a good idea). H. was very uncomfortable with Luke kicking and causing her a lot of back pain. We got back home at about 9:15 PM and I carried Izzi into bed and she opened her eyes long enough to register awareness that I was carrying her then went right back to sleep in bed. I live in fear that she’ll wake back up and not go back to sleep for several hours based on her past performances.
We watched Warehouse 13. H. passed out about 40 minutes ago and went into bed. Despite my nap this afternoon, I’m about to pass out myself. So I will.
