One more cup of coffee

Still alive

We’re all still alive, but it’s been a hectic few weeks.

Work has been crazy, but is starting to calm back down. Monday I worked at home to get a new feature implemented (sometimes it’s good to go back and actually write code), I just finished getting all the reviews done, and that’s on top of all the other normal insanity at work.

Meredith got sick starting Monday night. I thought I might be able to stay healthy, as I’ve sometimes done in the past, but hadn’t counted on what would happen once Nathan got sick. I might have been able to keep from getting germs from her, but Nathan wiping his runny nose off on my face probably doomed me. By Friday night, I had it too, and I’m still sick now. Blah.

Nathan turned nine months yesterday. His latest trick is that he’s trying to stand up on his own. He’s been pulling himself up for a while now, but now he’s trying to stand without holding onto anything. He hasn’t succeeded yet, but he’s sure making the attempt.

Nine months

It’s hard to believe that Nathan turned nine months old the other day. But here he is, crawling all over the place like he owns it, looking bigger and older every day. There are times that I look into his face when he’s playing and I swear I can see Calvin in there. Right now, he’s chasing the cats, something he’s gotten much better at lately.

Proving that parenting works better when you’re awake, this morning, shortly after getting up with him, I couldn’t figure out why he was upset. He had been crawling around in the kitchen while I sat in the living room, started crying, and was acting hungry, so I made him a bottle. No – kept shoving it away. Fine, sit him back on the floor. More crying, more mad, reaching for the bottle, then shoving it back away. It took me about two minutes to suddenly connect the facts that he (a) hadn’t opened his mouth the entire time, and (b) was drooling up a storm to realize what the problem was. Once I managed to get his mouth pried open (no small feat), I found the problem – he had found a small, one inch square, piece of onion skin and had gotten it stuck on his tongue. Ick. That removed, he was much happier.

Tomorrow morning is his nine month checkup at the doctor. He’s mostly over his cold, although he’s still got a bit of a runny nose.

OK – time to get ready to go to work.

Saturday

Today was a good day because I got to sleep in. Any day where I get to sleep ten hours is a good day.

Nathan’s doing great. Eating has been something of a challenge with him lately. He was going great eating solid foods until about a month and a half ago when he suddenly discovered that he could feed himself. This reduced his interest in being fed to zero. Which would be fine except that, of course, he basically sucks at feeding himself.

Over time, that’s gotten better, and he’s now more willing to be fed with a spoon, although still not at the levels he was at. We’ve also been trying to get him to drink more from a cup, which he also sucks at. He understands that there’s something in there that he might want, but has no idea which part of the cup to wrap his mouth around to get at it. He’s such a baby.

As Rick commented in my last post, Nathan has indeed become something of a playground bully. I haven’t seen it myself, but Meredith reports that Nathan has realized that he’s bigger than most babies, even those a few months older than him, so if they have toys that he wants, he can just take them away. Clearly we need to work on this with him.

And yes, I know that I need to post pictures. I’ve actually been slowly getting them sorted out again after a long period of just letting them pile up on my hard drive, and I’ll post a bunch soon.

No good can come of this

When Pippin is driving us crazy (say, trying to eat our dinner off our plates, or leaping, claws extended, onto my back for no reason), we sometimes lock him up in the pantry.

Pippin has learned how to open the pantry door from the inside. He did it three times today.

This can’t be good.

Nathan pictures

Some pictures are uploaded. I’m trying putting them on MSN Spaces for now to see if that’s easier for me to deal with.

Court rules that MGD is not actually beer

From News of the Weird:

Judge Jeffrey K. Sprecher of Berks County, Pa., dismissed charges against a man in August for buying beer for his underage neighbor, ruling that the prosecutor hadn't proved all of the elements of the crime. Specifically, said Sprecher, there was no evidence offered that Miller Genuine Draft is "beer." (Prosecutors usually submit a government-created listing of beers as proof but failed to do that.)

I knew it.

Finalization hearing this Wednesday

We just got our court date scheduled for Nathan's adoption finalization hearing — and it's this Wednesday morning!

Anyone want to come join us for the big event? Email me and I'll send you the details.

The adoption is final!

It’s done!