Kiesa's Mutterings

Downs

• I'm still feeling poorly from yesterday. I feel like I'm starving but the thought of food is repulsive. I also felt pretty achy so I took some Advil and managed to perk up after a bit.


• Not only did Calvin have a bad night but I woke up separately starving (or sick, it's hard to tell the difference). By 5am I gave in and fed Calvin and then held him while we both dozed till 7. I was exhausted and was grateful when he took his morning nap so I could follow.

Ups

• Daycare. I'm not sure I've mentioned this before but daycare is a life saver. After I took Calvin to daycare I worked for a couple of hours to catch up on email and then took the rest of the day off to relax.

Cute Calvin Moment

• During Calvin's bath tonight, I started singing "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." To my surprise, Calvin started clapping his hands when I was singing (before I clapped). I tried it several times during the bath and each time he clapped his hands so it wan't a fluke.

Simplification

• I managed to give away my dehydrator today to one of the Second Start Community Gardeners. It's a nice dehydrator that I got for $5 at the thrift store. I could have donated it back to the thrift store but I thought a gardener might have more use for it. You never know if someone is going to find it at the thrift store.

Food Diary

• Breakfast - Oatmeal with Raisins and Soymilk


• Lunch - Miso Soup and Peach Yogurt


• Supper - Cheese & Spinach Ravioli. I know I need to eat something else but inspiration hasn't struck me yet.

Downs

• Calvin started making noises around 3am and was bawling by 4:30. I got up and gave him a bottle and he went back to sleep. I'm wondering if maybe he's going through a growth spurt or something. For lunch, I fed him his normal 6 oz and he started fussing as soon as he finished. I've been trying to cut back on his formula and increase his solid food but I gave in and he drank another 4oz which is way more than he usually wants.
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• Calvin was cranky much of the day. We thought it might be teething but he didn't get noticeably happier after we gave him ibuprofen.


• A little after mid day I suddenly started feeling awful. Jaeger took Calvin and I took a much needed nap. I still don't feel 100% but I feel much better now. Jaeger leaves for San Diego tomorrow so I hope I'm not coming down with something.
  

Ups

• Jaeger got up with Calvin this morning which was great since I hadn't slept well due to Calvin's noises.


• Jaeger took Calvin so I could take an afternoon nap.


• I'm still really liking my Beco carrier. I took Calvin to the grocery store by myself and he was happy most of the trip (which considering how grouchy he's been today is amazing).

Cute Calvin Moment

• Calvin is working on standing up without any support. While we were videoconferencing with "Nana", Jaeger's mom, Calvin pushed himself up on Jaeger's leg and balanced precariously before tumbling down. He did this several times in a row.

Simplification

• Got completely rid of the contents of another folder. It's amazing the stuff I have sitting in that file cabinet.

Food Diary

• Breakfast - 3 Gingerbread Pancakes and 1 piece of French Toast


• Lunch - 1 Luna bar


• Supper - 1 Veggie Burger, 1 veggie burger with cheese minus bun, 1/2 cup canned grapefruit, and 2 kiwi


• End of day treat - 1/2 cup of Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• Calvin slept during church today which made it much more relaxing than normal. This meant he was awake for the ride back but he seemed content to babble in his car seat occasionally shaking a rattle.

Cute Calvin Moment

• We took Calvin to the park today. We swung him in the swing, whirled him around in a weird red bowl-like thing, and pushed him down the slides. He laughed delightedly with each new event. I think Calvin is going to be a daredevil when he gets older. He definitely preferred the taller slide and he loves anything that involves fast and sudden motion.

Simplification

• Tackled the "Weld" folder and threw away or shredded about 75% of the stuff in it.

Food Diary

• Breakfast - 2 pieces of Peanut Butter Applesauce Toast


• Lunch - Couscous, and apple dipped in peanut butter


• Supper - Pasta Alfredo, roasted green beans, and cherry tomatoes


• End of day treat - 2 piece Dark Dove Chocolate

Downs

• Last night I decided not to give Calvin ibuprofen. This was a mistake. For the last couple of nights he's been sleeping silently until it's time to wake up. This means I get to sleep more. However, last night he started making noises around 3am. Around 4:30am I got up and gave him ibuprofen and he went back to sleep for a bit only to wake up bright and early at 6am.

Ups

• I received season one of Castle from the library the end of last week. Our library use to check out each disc of a tv series separately for one week. The main disadvantage of this is our catalog system is not capable of realizing that people would want to watch disc 1 before disc 2 so they have to be really careful or the holds get mixed up. As a result, the librarians recently decided to check out the entire season together for a two week period. I received Castle at the end of last week so I have one more week to watch the episodes before having to return it. I think I preferred the earlier scheme as I don't think I'm going to make it through the series in time. However, I'm still enjoying the series quite a bit.

Cute Calvin Moment

• As I mentioned yesterday, Calvin doesn't usually cuddle. However, he does have this cute habit of padding up to me and trying to rest his forehead against mine. He starts moving again the instant I try to hold him but it's still kind of charming.

Simplification

• The next folder in line for trimming is "Weld." However, that's such a huge folder I didn't feel like tackling it tonight so I took the easy way out and shredded everything in the "Boulder Music" folder.

Food Diary

• Breakfast - Oatmeal with raisins and soy milk


• Lunch - Leftover Samosa Pie, Kiwi, and 1 piece of Dark Dove Chocolate


• Snack - Cheddar cheese and a banana


• Supper - Red Lentil Dal over brown rice, spinach, and cherry tomatoes


• End of day treat - 2 piece Dark Dove Chocolate

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• The house is clean!


• I had a really good conversation with another sys admin from Douglas County. Sounds like there are several projects we're both going to be working on this year so maybe we can join forces.

Cute Calvin Moment

• We've decided Calvin is a High Needs Uncuddly baby. Thus, when he woke up from his morning nap today and seemed content to snuggle a bit, I was shocked. I picked him up and when he laid his head on my shoulder I decided to sit in the rocking chair and rock him a little bit. He stayed snuggled up to me for almost 10 minutes before converting back to the very active baby I'm use to.

Simplification

• Today I completely emptied my "Weld Medical" folder. I haven't been on the HPLD health insurance plan for over a year now. However, for some reason, I had kept all the handouts from previous benefits meetings. Not sure why. In any case, they're gone now.

Food Diary

• Breakfast - Oatmeal with raisins and soy milk


• Lunch - Cliff Mojo Bar, a banana, and 1 piece of dark Dove chocolate (I was running late)


• Supper - Leftover Fettuccine with Harvest Vegetables


• End of day treat - 2 Chocolate Chip Cookies

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• I was pretty productive at work today and got several things done that I had been avoiding.


• Calvin went down for his morning nap fairly easy. To avoid a repeat of yesterday, I pushed his nap later by 15 minutes and that seemed to do the trick. During his nap, I had time to exercise, shower, and get a little extra work done before he woke up.

Cute Calvin Moment

• Calvin has almost figured out how to crawl out of the bathtub. Calvin isn't a huge fan of baths. This is probably because he doesn't take an afternoon nap so is exhausted by the time we give him a bath at night. He wants us to hold him instead of spending the time splashing around in the water. Usually, he stands up at the edge of the bath tub and holds up his arms trying to convince me to pick him up. However, today, he decided to take matters into his own hands and put his knee on the edge of the bathtub and tried to heave himself over. He isn't quite strong enough to make this work yet but he's very close.

Simplification

• I spent 45 minutes filing financial papers today, many of them tax related, and only got through 2/3 of the pile. While filing, I realized that our file cabinets were running out of space. When it comes to financial documents, I'm an obsessive pack rat. However, I decided the file cabinet was getting out of control so I looked up the official recommendations on how to long to keep various documents. I'm planning to deal with one category at a time. Today, I shredded our old Xcel energy statements. It turns out that I had statements dating back to our first apartment in Colorado.

Food Diary
In an attempt to keep my eating under control, I'm adding another section to my daily entry. Like the simplification section, it's at the end so it can be easily skipped by everyone but me Before I had Calvin, I used software from Nutribase to keep track of the calories I consumed. I love the program and tracking every calorie definitely appealed to my obsessive detail-oriented personality. However, now I just don't have the time for that level of precision. Instead, I'm just going to do a basic list of what I ate during the day. At the very least, it hopefully will keep me accountable when I considering sneaking into the freezer for my 3rd cookie of the day

• Breakfast - Granola with Blueberries


• Lunch - Toasted Peanut Butter & Jam Sandwhich, Kiwi, 1 piece of dark Dove chocolate


• Supper - Including the snacking before supper, 2 servings of Fettuccine with Harvest Vegetables


• End of day treat - 2 pieces of dark Dove chocolate

Downs

• I've gained a couple of pounds which isn't good since I haven't made it back to my pre-pregnancy weight yet. It's because my sugar craving got out of control the last couple of weeks and when Calvin was sick I didn't exercise as much. Fortunately, the sugar craving has subsided somewhat so I'm hoping to get back on track.

Ups

• I started reading Mine till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas yesterday and am gobbling it up. I stayed up more than an hour past my bedtime last night reading it.


• I had trouble putting Calvin down for a nap this morning but I still had time to finish most of my money tasks.

Cute Calvin Moment

• Calvin has started pointing at pictures as I read to him. He's been interacting with the books for quite a while. He loves turning book pages and often will pat the pictures with his hand. However, I hadn't seen him point before.

Simplification

• I finally got around to removing the cat poetry magnates from our fridge. They were well within Calvin's reach and he has reached the point where he has started to put random things in his mouth.

Downs

• Calvin got up before 5:30 again but luckily I felt fairly rested.


• Daycare reports that Calvin has two teeth coming in on the bottom. Most likely, this means that Calvin will be very restless at night for the next couple of weeks and neither Calvin nor I will get much sleep.

Ups

• Calvin took a longer nap than usual this morning so I got a lot of stuff done.


• We had book club tonight. Turned out that only Jaeger and I were able to make it but we had a good discussion with each other. We've decided to read The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick for next month.

Cute Calvin Moment

• I always assumed that Calvin would be a back sleeper since he was religiously put on his back to sleep as a newborn. In fact, at one point he could roll onto his stomach but not his back and he would wake me up screaming furiously at the indignity of being on his stomach. However, ever since he was capable of rolling both directions, he has chosen to sleep on his stomach. He looks really funny sleeping on his stomach. Calvin doesn't turn his head or anything. He sleeps ramrod straight with his nose pressed into the mattress. I suppose that might be one reason parents are recommended to buy very firm mattresses for babies.

Simplification

• I cleaned underneath the bathroom sink on our main level. I was startled to discover I still had breast milk storage bags under there.

Downs

• Jaeger tried to take Calvin on a hike and it didn't go well. I suspect that the hiking backpack carrier is still a little large for Calvin to comfortably fit in it. You might wonder why I list this as a down for me since Jaeger is the one that had to deal with the bawling. However, it'd be nice if Calvin learned to like the hiking backpack since we would then have more recreational options on the weekend.

Ups

• Today was Jaeger's day to get up with Calvin. Unfortunately for Jaeger, Calvin woke up at 5:30 and refused to go back to sleep. I burrowed into the covers and was grateful I wasn't the one that had to get up.


• Left Calvin with Jaeger and went to a baby shower by myself. It felt a little weird to be someplace without Calvin.

Cute Calvin Moment

• When I got back from the shower, I decided to try taking Calvin grocery store shopping by myself in order to give Jaeger a chance to recover from the failed hike. I used the Beco carrier to carry him around while I shopped and it worked out well. Calvin curled up against my back and flirted with everyone passing by. I was particularly bemused when random men commented on how cute Calvin was. I was also stopped by an older couple who have a 6 month grandson. They thought Calvin looked a lot like him so they chatted with me for a couple of minutes comparing developmental milestones.

Simplification

• I sorted through my shoe collection. I didn't get rid of as many shoes as I was hoping but I did managed to throw one pair away and designate several others as thrift store contributions.

Downs

• Calvin seems to have finally reached the separation anxiety phase. Ok, I know I was worried he hadn't gotten there sooner. However, now it is more difficult to pass him off to random strangers when I do things at church.

Ups

• Went to the library after church and picked up Mine Till Midnight and Seduce me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas. Previously, I had read Tempt Me at Twilight not realizing at first that it was the third in the series. I enjoyed it so I'm hoping I'll like the first two also. It's always nice to have a good stockpile of historical romances in my "to be read" pile since they do the best job of relaxing me enough to sleep at night.

Cute Calvin Moment

• Today was my first day back doing slides at church since I went into the hospital a year ago. I've been putting off getting back on the schedule because I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to juggle it and Calvin at the same time. However, by now I have a reasonable number of people I know who will watch Calvin while I do other stuff. While I had arranged for someone to take care of Calvin during church, I hadn't thought to get someone for Sabbath School time which is when the praise songs are practiced. I decided to take my Beco carrier to church and see how long I could keep Calvin happy while carrying him on my back. It worked beautifully. Calvin clung to my back the entire time like a little monkey just as happy as could be. Having him on my back meant that I didn't have to worry about him tumbling down the stairs or getting in my way while I worked on the computer. Plus, it was kind of nice to have him cuddled so close. The only problem I ran into was I couldn't feed him his bottle while he was on my back. Maybe they need a camelbak apparatus for babies.

Simplification

• I didn't have the energy to put up much Christmas stuff this year. All I put up was a couple of Christmas stockings and our Christmas wreath. The Christmas wreath is decorated with ornaments and is my Christmas tree substitute as we don't have the room for even a small tree. In spite of the sparseness of the decorations, I didn't get around to packing them up until tonight. You think I would have learned my lesson since I procrastinated last year and ended up in the hospital the day before I was planning to take down the decorations. In any case, our house has finally moved out of the Christmas season.

Downs

• I had trouble getting Calvin to take his morning nap. Normally, he's ready for a nap about 2 1/2 hrs after he gets up. However, today I couldn't convince him to take a nap till an hour after that. This put me behind schedule for starting work on time. However, we have a new project I've been working on that's been requiring night work so I think I'm still okay regarding hours for the week.

Ups

• I made pretty good pie crust today. I can bake most things ok but pie crust is still a challenge for me. Today I made a savory Samosa pie and used the "Flakey Butter Crust in a Mixer" from BakeWise (though I needed to add an additional 2 tbs of water, probably because of Colorado). It turned out better than most pie crusts I've made, very flakey. I think I need to tweak the technique a bit but other than that it worked well.


• I decided to pick up some ice cream for a supper treat on the way home from picking up Calvin at daycare. At King Soopers, I carefully examined my ice cream choices. I'm pretty picky when it comes to desserts; I want them to be worth the calories. I thought that a coconut flavored ice cream might pair well with our supper. While scanning for coconut ice cream, I saw Coconut Crunch by Boulder Ice Cream. I casually scanned the ingredients and then did a double take and started carefully reading the ingredients. When I finished, I started over again because I couldn't figure out what I was missing. As far as I can tell, the "Coconut Crunch" ice cream doesn't actually contain coconut. Please, go to their website, take a look at the ingredients and tell me I'm wrong. It doesn't make sense. Anyway, I ended up picking a pint of Haagen Daazs Pineapple Coconut which was very good. Haagen Daazs is one of my favorite grocery store ice cream brands. They are high calorie compared to other brands but the ingredients are great and the taste is usually fantastic. If one is going to eat empty calories, you should make sure they are good empty calories

Cute Calvin Moment

• This morning Calvin decided he wanted to hold the bottle himself. Normally, I hold the bottle but he seemed pretty insistent so I let him. He sucked on it enthusiastically for a bit listening while I talked to him. At one point, I opened my mouth to say something and he looked at me and then shoved the bottle nipple into my mouth. I was startled so I laughed as I moved it out of my mouth. I guess laughing reinforced the idea to him because the rest of the morning feeding he kept trying to share with me.

Simplification

• I cleaned out our snack shelf today. I threw some away, moved less commonly used stuff to the basement and organized the remaining snacks into three sections: nuts, processed snacks, and dried fruit.

Downs

• I woke up with a sore throat and now I have a headache. I have a bad feeling I'm getting sick.


• I've been stuck in a sugar craving cycle for the last week or so. It seems like I'm thinking of sugar all the time. We're now out of candy so tonight for supper I had corn flakes with honey on top :S I know I should resist, especially since I'm working on getting sick, but I don't. Fortunately, Calvin is too young to be affected by my horrible supper.

Ups

• I got all my assigned housecleaning done today before heading to work.


• I closed 10 of my 22 work orders at work today. I feel very productive but also very tired.


• Calvin managed to feed himself little chunks of sweet potato today. We're slowly making progress on the solid food front.

Cute Calvin Moment

• For those of you that watched Ever After, do you remember the scene at the end where the Spanish princess is blubbering in Spanish trying to explain why she doesn't want to marry the prince? Sometimes that's what Calvin's crying reminds me of. Often when I put him down to get a bottle or something else, he'll start crawling towards me blubbering and speaking very emphatically in baby talk. I haven't a clue what he's saying but he's very earnest as he says it. While I don't like seeing him upset, his earnestness is very endearing.

Simplification

• I packed away some more maternity clothes that were lingering in my closet.

Downs

• Calvin woke up at 1:30am last night and cried for a while but he did eventually go back to sleep so it could have been much worse.

Ups

• Calvin went to daycare today! It was so nice to be able to concentrate on my work instead of juggling Calvin on one hip while I tried to talk on the phone and answer email.


• I got my Beco baby carrier today. I'm flabbergasted by how much more comfortable it is than the Bjorn. Originally, I bought the Bjorn because it was the best carrier that Babies 'R Us carried. I specifically went to Babies 'R Us because I wanted to be able to try baby carriers on in-person but they had a fairly inferior selection available.


• Since I was trying to work yesterday while taking care of Calvin, I sacrificed my weekly money time to work during Calvin's nap. Today, I tried to play catch-up and successfully got all my receipts entered and a modest bit of exercise (not at the same time).

Cute Calvin Moment

• Calvin refused to take a nap in his crib today. He didn't cry but muttered for about 40 minutes while I worked on receipts. Finally, I gave up and took him out for a walk during which he fell asleep. In a way this was good as I got more exercise than I would have otherwise. Anyway, as I was bundling him up in the stroller, he had this really cute expression of happiness on his face, presumably because I was finally paying attention to him.

Simplification

• I cleaned out one of my kitchen shelves and relegated a lot of stuff, such as my yogurt maker, to basement storage. I'm not entirely convinced I should keep my yogurt maker but I have a suspicion that once Calvin is school-age I might start doing more kitchen stuff again.

Downs

Today I attempted to get tickets for Calvin and I to visit mom in March while Jaeger is in India. As recommended, I always buy a seat for Calvin when we fly so he can be secured in his car seat. However, since parents are allowed to hold children under 2 years of age on their lap for free, most just use a car seat if there's an extra seat available. As a result, Frontier's reservation page has 3 options: adult, child (2-17), and infant (lap only, no seat). Because I did want a seat for Calvin, I chose 1 adult and 1 child. Everything was fine until they asked for our birth dates. At that point, they told me that Calvin's birth date was invalid for the fare specified. Looking back, I should have tried to book 2 adult tickets but that didn't occur to me at the time.

Since buying tickets online had been thwarted, I grudgingly called their phone reservation system and talked to a nice lady. After more than 10 minutes of discussion, it appeared we finally had everything straightened out. However, I never received my confirmation email after we got off the phone. Several hours later, I called again and was informed that my email address had never been entered. The 1st lady had to start over a couple of times due to system glitches so that didn't surprise me. I gave my email address and the 2nd reservation lady then asked for my name. I assume she wanted to double check that it was entered correctly so I told her it was "Gem, G-E-M, like a gemstone" (my real name). She then said, "no, not the name of the passenger, your name." I assured her that was my name, she seemed a little abashed but told me everything was in order so I hung up. My email confirmation still didn't arrive. It belatedly occurred to me that they probably had my first name misspelled (which often happens when I have to call people). I called back a 3rd time and told them I thought my first name and email address were entered incorrectly and this time spelled it out with the NATO phonetic alphabet. Sure enough, they had spelled it with a J instead of a G. This annoys me because every time I say my name to someone over the phone, I always say very distinctly, "Gem, G-E-M, like a gemstone." People just don't listen. Jaeger is completely correct when he tells me I should always spell it with the NATO phonetic alphabet. It's just a hard habit to get into. Anyway, on the 3rd attempt I did get my email reservation.

Ups

• I didn't get as much work done today because Calvin was crankier than yesterday and refused to take an afternoon nap. However, in spite of that, it was a pretty relaxing day. I took Calvin outside and he had fun crawling around on our driveway and staring as the cars went by.

Cute Calvin Moment

• Willow, our white cat, is Calvin's first unattainable love. As soon as he catches site of her, he enthusiastically paddles toward her. She lets him get within a couple of feet and then bounds away at which point Calvin starts the whole process again. Calvin doesn't seem nearly as interested in 5 who lets him grab handfuls of her hair when he tries to pet her. Today, Calvin seemed to spend more time than normal watching Willow. At one point, Willow was batting at the blind cords and Calvin, safely across the room, was laughing delightedly at her antics. I wonder at what point Willow will allow Calvin to touch her and if Calvin will still want to by then.

Simplification

• I didn't end up doing anything today.

Downs

• Calvin was a little cranky part of the day but it could have been much worse.

Ups

• Calvin started making noises around 5:30am but he didn't wake up till 7:00am!!! Unfortunately, I kept expecting him to wake up so I didn't get as much extra sleep as I could have.


• In spite of having Calvin home today, I did manage to get 4 hrs of work in. I did this mainly by working during his naps which ended up being about 3 hrs total and then checking email and doing piecemeal work. This meant that I didn't get my exercise in during the normal time. However, when Jaeger came home, he gave Calvin his bath and nighttime bottle and I went for a brief walk. It wasn't as intense as my normal workout but still helped clear my head.


• Oh Eve, I've missed you. On my evening walk, I started listening to Witness in Death, the 10th Eve Dallas book, by J.D. Robb. I'm always amazed how I can't stand Nora Roberts' books but like J.D. Robb (a pseudonym for Nora Roberts). I also vastly prefer listening to this series over reading it. I took a little break for a while but now I'm ready to continue the series. BTW, you can always see my current reading list by visiting my LibraryThing profile. Jaeger and I technically share the account but I don't think he uses the "currently reading" collection.

Cute Calvin Moment

• Today Calvin was crawling all over the floor in his typical tireless fashion. At one point he crawled over me and I grabbed his foot and started massaging it. Much to my astonishment, Calvin just lay his head on the floor and let me rub his feet and legs for quite a while. I wouldn't be surprised if his newfound ability to walk (while holding on to things) makes his legs a little sore and the rubbing feels good. Maybe I should pull out the infant massage book I was given. I gave up on it pretty quickly because he rarely stays still long enough to try it out.

Simplification

• More organization in Calvin's room. I packed up his 6-9 month clothing and sorted his 12 month clothing. I have a distressing variety of summer clothes in the 12 month size but fortunately some longer sleeve items also.