Downs

• I still have a cold. Today my ears started really hurting so I made an appointment to see the doctor. I eventually decided that they were just annoyed due to the air pressure changes today and when I saw the doctor she concurred with my analysis but said one of my ears was looking a bit dubious and gave me a prescription just in case it got worst.

Ups

• Sunday we got plants for the planters on our back deck. Last year I was a little preoccupied so we didn’t do anything and I really missed the fresh herbs. This year I got 2 Thai Basil, Columnar Basil, Sweet Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Dill, Mint, Cilantro, a Patio tomato, and a Sun Sugar tomato. I haven’t had much luck with tomatoes in pots but I think it’s because I was trying to grow the wrong variety. Hopefully one of these will work better. Jaeger also got 3 peppers and plans to get one more pepper as well as flowers for the front porch.
• We had book club yesterday night which is always fun. We discussed Boneshaker which was about a women attempting to rescue her son from zombies after he braves a deserted city to attempt to vindicate his dead father’s memory. Next month we’re reading River of Gods which I’m less excited about. I believe Jaeger nominated it solely because it’s set in a future India (He’s a little obsessed about India these days. Note: the “India” bookshelf has grown substantially since this photo was taken.). My choice was Fever Crumb. I mean, how can you beat a book set in the future about the only girl in the Order of Engineers.
• After we got home last night, Jaeger and I discussed some long-term financial goals. We’ve decided to go ahead and pay off my graduate student loan in the next couple of months. We hadn’t been aggressively paying it down since I got an obscenely low interest rate but now it’s still several times greater than we can make with any liquid assets. From a pure numbers point of view, it would make more sense to pay off the mortgage first. However, in the short-term it works better to pay off the student loan first. That frees up a monthly payment we can use to save for a replacement car for when Yoda decides to die.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin is obsessed with being outdoors. This is actually more exasperating than cute as it’s incredibly boring to traipse around the outside of the house for hours. Normally, I would take him to the park but it’s not as sheltered as our subdivision and the wind was vicious today. However, in spite of my griping, I am pleased that he’s an outdoors kid. I’d much prefer him to spend his free time moving outside than glued to a screen. Plus, maybe this will offset the genetic disadvantage of having two myopic parents.

Simplification

• Emptied the shredder yet again and shredded more receipts.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal
• Lunch – Toasted cheese sandwich and a small Mango
• Snack – Waay too many chocolate chips.
• Supper – Spicy Green Bean & Tofu Stir-Fry over Brown Rice

Downs

• For the last couple of days I’ve had pretty bad back/neck pain. I suspect a combination of circumstances caused this but the proverbial straw that broke the camels back was my panic Tuesday night.

Ups

Today I got a massage. I wasn’t planning to but when I sat down to work for the morning I could barely concentrate because my back hurt so much. This was after taking a couple ibruprofen. So I looked at my schedule and decided I could probably squeeze in a massage if I tried.

Up till now, I’ve not been in the habit of getting massages, mainly because I don’t have enough extra in my expenditure allocation to cover it. However, I did get a couple the last month of my pregnancy (I highly recommend prenatal massages. They provide an hour of relief from all the achiness). Based on that experience, I thought a massage was worth a try.

I’m really glad I went and got a massage. It was worth every penny. My back still aches but now it’s down to a bearable level. Plus, my whole body feels much better. Not only did it physically relax my body but it gave me an hour to do nothing but relax which is too rare these days. I decided that I need to reevaluate my personal budget and see if I can allocate money for massages more often. After all, this indulgence much healthier for my body, though not my wallet, then indulging in chocolate

Calvin Moment

• Calvin is current is a very independent phase. I thought this wouldn’t happen till later but he’s started insisting on doing everything himself. Instead of being carried up the stairs, he wants to walk up the stairs. Instead of being fed, he wants to feed himself (and mommy too). He also really hates being strapped into anything: the car seat, the back pack carrier, even the swing (though once he’s in, he seems fine). I’ve decided it’s time I start queuing up my “strong-willed” or “spirited” parenting books.

Simplification

• Shredded more receipts.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal
• Lunch – A burrito, 1/2 banana, and 2 chocolate pieces
• Snack – A couple of crackers
• Supper – Split pea soup and 2 pieces of Applesauce Raisin Bread
• Evening Treat – 2 dark chocolate piece.

Let me preface this story by saying that Calvin is perfectly fine. We had a very calm and relaxing day today which I desperately needed

Calvin is a very intense child. When he’s happy, he’s very happy and when he’s upset, he’s very upset. It’s not uncommon for him to get so upset that he is completely breathless with rage.

With Calvin’s new schedule, I feed him breakfast and then take him to daycare for the morning. Then I pick him up after work. When we get home, I usually make supper while feeding him a snack in the high chair and then go to the park to play for an hour. After that, we get home and I finish up supper preparations, feed him, give him a bath, and then feed him a night-time bottle right before bed. Yesterday, everything was progressing nicely on schedule until bath time.

Calvin currently loves “climbing” stairs. He can do this on his hands and knees but he much prefers goose-stepping up the stairs while holding our hands. Last night was no exception. Then, toddler-like, he wanted to climb the stairs again, and again instead of taking a bath. Well, I decided it was bath time so I put him in the crib while I got all the bath stuff together. Calvin was very unhappy and started screaming. However, as I mentioned before, Calvin is a pretty intense child so this wasn’t surprising. While in the bathroom, I heard him let out one of his bloodcurdling screams that almost always preface him being so upset he’s silent for a minute or two. I listened with one ear waiting for him to continue with the scream.

He didn’t.

Apprehensive about the silence, I went to investigate. I figured that Calvin had finally learned how to crawl out of his crib. Instead, I found my baby lying face down on the crib mattress completely motionless. I turned him over to discover that his face was bright purple and his lips were blue. He had stopped breathing.

I panicked. I grabbed Calvin from the crib and screamed for my husband. This got Jaeger’s attention but all he could tell from downstairs was that something was wrong. I think I also screamed something like “Calvin! Blue!” while frantically wondering what I should do. I had taken infant CPR and I theoretically knew that with infants you are suppose to start CPR immediately instead of getting help first. However, I was confused because I knew that he had stopped breathing because he was upset, not because he was choking. I wasn’t sure if normal CPR procedure applied or not. By the time all this flickered through my head Calvin had started to make little gasping sounds. By the time I got downstairs with him, a couple of seconds later, his color had returned to normal and he was awake and seemed perfectly fine.

I, on the other hand, was not fine. We all had a little family sit-down-on-the-floor-in-the-livingroom-moment because I couldn’t stand. After a couple of minutes I took Calvin out on our porch and let the cool evening air continue to calm me down. Eventually, Calvin and I headed back upstairs and continued our night time routine of bathing, taking a bottle and then going to sleep. That is, Calvin went to sleep. I tried sleeping but couldn’t so I got up and finished reading Boneshaker, our book club choice for the month. After I finished it, I went back upstairs and finally managed to fall asleep sometime past midnight.

This morning I called Calvin’s pediatrician’s office and talked to the pediatric nurse who was very blasé about the situation. She assured me that breath holding spells are actually quite common when children are upset or in pain and nothing to be concerned about. If I suspect Calvin is going to have another spell, I should lay him down on his back so he doesn’t hit his head if he loses consciousness. After losing consciousness, he should start breathing again within a couple of seconds.

When I took Calvin to daycare, I mentioned it to them so they wouldn’t be surprised if it happens again. Ms Amy told me that she had another kid do this and sometimes blowing a puff of air into their face would startle them enough they would start breathing again. After that, I continued reading a parenting book I had checked out, If your kid eats this book, everything will still be okay, and discovered just a couple of pages after where I had previously stopped, Zibners also discusses toddlers holding their breath. So, it appears this really is a fairly common thing for toddlers to go through.

I think I’ve mostly recovered from the experience but I hope this is a one-time thing and not the start of a trend!

Downs

• It appears that Jaeger is sick. Calvin and I both have cold-like symptoms for a while but I don’t know if it’s related to what Jaeger has or not.

Ups

• Got my work laptop back today and it hasn’t died yet.
• Calvin was in a pretty good mood today and the rain/wind died down so we could go to the park.

Calvin Moment

• Recently, I’ve been having trouble figuring out how to read to Calvin. He never seems to want to stay still long enough to read an entire book. However, today, I tried reading to him story-time style. That is, instead of sitting him on my lap to read, I just angled the book so he could see it from where he was playing and read to him that way. This method seemed to work a lot better. He paid attention to the book and didn’t get too restless.

Simplification

• The church is having a “Sabbath reading” book swap. I had been holding on to a fair number of Christian Romances in case we had a girl that might enjoy reading them later. However, now that I’ve decided Calvin is going to be an only-child, I don’t think there is much point in keeping them. True, there is the off chance that he’d enjoy reading Christian Romance but it seems pretty unlikely.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal
• Lunch – A Larabar and a Luna bar
• Snack – 1 cookie and 2 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – Lentil soup with 3 1/2 Banana muffins – yeah, I know that’s excessive but they were so good.
• Evening Treat – 1 dark chocolate piece.

Downs

• N/A

Ups

• Went to a Mommy group yesterday which was nice. Calvin seemed to have a lot of fun exploring a new house and I enjoyed talking to other women.
• My new kitchen computer arrived yesterday which has consumed most of my spare time recently. I stayed up way too late working on customizing it. However, I’m already in love with having a dedicated kitchen computer. I’ve got all the major customization done and now I’m working on figuring out the little things that will make my kitchen experience better.

Calvin Moment

• The weather today wasn’t conducive to a park visit. However, we did venture outside briefly between the rain. I pulled out an old green recycling bin we had because I thought Calvin would enjoy climbing into it. However, he decided to use it as a walking prop and pushed it for several houses until we hit another street. It made a horrible scraping sound the entire time but Calvin didn’t seem to mind.

Simplification

• Shredded some old receipts I found from 2008.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal
• Snack – 1 1/2 graham crackers
• Lunch – Toasted Cheese Sandwhich
• Snack – 1 cookie and 3 dark chocolate pieces
• Supper – Spicy Mung beans with Wild Rice topped with greek yogurt
• Evening Treat – 1 dark chocolate piece.

Downs

• Calvin started waking up around 5am this morning. Around 6 he decided he was completely awake and started screaming nonstop. Jaeger reluctantly got out of bed and started his morning. This was my day to sleep in so I got up around 8 and relieved Jaeger at which point he went back to bed. I really wish Calvin would get up at a consistent 6:30 or so each morning. That would make everything much easier.

Ups

• Jaeger got up with Calvin this morning.
• I went clothes shopping at the thrift store while Calvin took his mid-day nap. I didn’t get as much stuff as I need (I have almost no short sleeve shirts that fit) but it was still good to get out of the house. Amazingly, I made it back to the house before Calvin woke up.
• Jaeger, Calvin and I went and got ice cream and then Calvin played in a nearby park. This park had bigger slides than our normal park so I think it’ll be a better fit later on.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin’s supper consists of three phases: 1) I feed him food which makes sure he gets some calories down. 2) Calvin practices eating chunky finger food and 3) Calvin practices eating applesauce with a spoon. Not surprisingly, #3 is the messiest part. Usually, we conclude supper with stripping off the clothing and going straight into a bath. Today during phase 3 I wasn’t paying as much attention as usual to Calvin. He started out eating with his spoon and then, per his normal custom, he got frustrated with the spoon and started trying to grab handfuls of applesauce and stick it in his mouth. Today, he concluded his meal with grabbing my finger, stirring it around in the applesauce and then sticking it in his mouth. I wasn’t paying too much attention to him so he did this several times before Jaeger pointed it out to me.

Simplification

• Didn’t do anything today. I really need to start this up again but I never seem to have enough time.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Whole Wheat Waffle with Peanut Butter and Cherries
• Lunch Snack – A medium sized bowl of Chocolate Mousse Gelato
• Supper – Grillers Stroganoff with mashed potatoes and garlic green beans
• Evening Treat – After Jaeger finishes washing the dishes, I’m making cookies for Jaeger to pack in his lunch. I love cookie dough so probably will snitch way too much of it.

Downs

• My new nameless work laptop hates me. Today, it refused to open attachments and then crashed two times when I exited a VNC session.

Ups

I finally ordered my kitchen computer. I’ve been thinking about buying a computer for the kitchen for years. Currently, I use my laptop which works ok but takes up counter space. In December, I noticed that my expenditure allocation was ridiculously healthy due to me not being able to get away from Calvin long enough to spend any money (well, except on Calvin things). I decided to use the accrued money to buy a kitchen computer. However, it took me a long time to figure out exactly what I wanted. I had several requirements:

• Not too expensive. This computer will be used primarily for online recipes, online TV, movies and possibly my nutrition software. For such limited types of use, I didn’t think it made sense to spend too much money on it. While I would likely get a better tv/movie viewing experience with better equipment, this is only for entertainment while I’m working in the kitchen so my attention will be distracted anyway.
• Because I might use it with my nutrition software, it needs to be Windows based.
• An all-in-one style. I don’t have room in my kitchen to attach even a mini-size computer. Plus, I didn’t want there to be cords hanging out everywhere. This intrigued me but I was worried about problems viewing it from various angles.
• A wireless keyboard with integrated trackball to minimize clutter. I love touch pads but they don’t work well with damp hands. I did briefly consider a touch screen computer but decided it would probably have similar problems to what I currently have with my touch pad.
• Somehow to keep it out of the way. Originally, I wanted to flip it under the cabinet when it wasn’t in use. However, after measuring my cabinets, I realized that would make for a very small computer. So, I decided I would try a wall mount where the computer could hug the wall when not in use and could swivel enough for me to see from any area in the kitchen.

Eventually, I decided on the most basic version of the Dell Vostro All-in-One (and I ended up getting a refurbished one) with a keyboard designed for a media center and a wall mount. One of the main reasons I settled on the Dell all-in-one is it is one of the few computers I found that claimed to be VESA mountable. I almost went with a MSI Wind Top instead because I like the flexibility of being able to use it as a monitor later on. However, I couldn’t really justify the price difference.

One of my current concerns is how to protect the monitor when I’m cooking. There are various screen protectors available but they all seem to get really bad reviews. Plus, some of them double as privacy filters which wouldn’t work for my situation. For now, I’m going to try saran wrap on the monitor itself (obviously not blocking any vents). I’m not convinced this is a good idea but I think it’s worth a try to see what happens. If nothing else, I can always buy something later. I also suspect that if I actually want to use the computer for video/sound, I’ll need to get external speakers. However, I’m going to wait and double check the sound first before evaluating what type of speakers I need.

Calvin Moment

• A couple of days ago Calvin decided he needed to feed me. He was attempting to eat cheerios for breakfast and I leaned forward to say something to him. He looked at me and then picked up a cheerio and put it in my mouth. He was delighted with this and so did it a couple of more times. Then, in the evening when he was practicing eating applesauce with a spoon, he fed me applesauce with his spoon. Ironically, I think he feeds me better than he can feed himself.

Simplification

• Didn’t do anything today.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – 1 packs of Instant Flavored Oatmeal (I discovered a stash in our basement that needs to be eating ASAP
• Morning Snack – 3 mini Scones
• Lunch – 1 toasted cheese sandwich
• Snack – Kiwi and 2 Triscuits
• Supper – Creamy Dal over Brown Rice, Spinach, and Garlic Bread
• Evening Treat – 2 dark chocolate pieces

Downs

• My nameless work laptop died. It worked fine on Friday but when I turned it on Sunday to do some work, it wouldn’t boot. I thought I had managed to kill another power cable. However, I drove to the Carbon Valley library to try another power cable and it still stubbornly refused to boot. So, I had to put it in the courier for Greeley so IT can order me a new one. I do sporadically back up my files onto the shared drives. However, they’ve been a little flaky recently so I haven’t been as good. IT did retrieve the hard drive so they can transfer files over to the new laptop when it arrives but until then I’m going to be limping along on Adara, my home laptop, which only reluctantly runs Windows. (IT did offer me a spare but I decided it wasn’t worth the bother of setting up another the computer the way I want it.)

Ups

• I met another mother on the playground who sounds like she has an 8-month version of Calvin. We were both suckered into thinking we could work from home without daycare because of other babies we knew who were much more placid than our children. Fortunately for me, I was able to find a good daycare willing to take Calvin. She wasn’t so lucky so had to quit her job. Also, her son doesn’t like naps so she’d have to take him on car rides to get him to sleep. He hated BOB, they have one too, so unlike Calvin, she couldn’t get any exercise while trying to get him to sleep. I think the moral of the story is that it can always be worse

Calvin Moment

• For his birthday Calvin received a wooden alligator pull-toy. It’s very clever and makes lost of noise even when you aren’t pulling it. I’ve been using this as a car toy. When I picked Calvin up from daycare today, I handed Calvin the alligator and he made the most extraordinary chortle because he was so excited to get to play with it.

Simplification

• Didn’t do anything today.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Oatmeal with cherries and milk
• Lunch – 1 Larabar and 1 Luna Bar
• Snack – 1 Graham Cracker
• Supper – Paneer and Peas (though Paneer is almost impossible to get so I used Queso Fresco instead) and grapes
• Evening Treat – 3 dark chocolate pieces

Downs

• Calvin woke up at 3:30am screaming. Nothing was obviously wrong and he fell back asleep within 5-10 min. However, he woke up again 15 min later and repeated the whole process several more times. Finally, I got up and gave him some ibuprofen on the off-chance he was teething or in some other sort of pain. I also prepared a bottle because if I interfere, he normally won’t go back to sleep unless I feed him. This time all it took was me holding him in my arms for a couple of minutes. However, every time I would try to put him back in his crib, he’d start screaming again. Finally, I gave up and just held him in the rocker. At first, he would jerk awake every 5 min or so, see me and then peacefully go back to sleep. Eventually, he settled into a deeper sleep and I leaned back in the rocker and snoozed until 6:30. At that point, I handed him off to Jaeger and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I’m still not sure what was wrong but our best guess at the moment is that it might have been a nightmare. I didn’t think kids usually had them this young but I’m not sure what else it would have been.

Ups

• Calvin, Jaeger, and I went out for brunch this morning. I forgot to feed Calvin his mid-morning bottle before we left so the first part of the meal he was occupied drinking his bottle and the second half I fed him tiny bits of Jaeger’s scrambled egg. After brunch, we went on a couple of errands before heading back home. I barely managed to keep Calvin from falling asleep on the way home. As soon as I put him in his crib, he was out for over a 2 hr nap.

Calvin Moment

• For some reason, Calvin adores cavorting on the sofa. During a video conference with mom, he rapidly crawled from one end of the sofa to the other, stood up, banged on the sofa a bit and repeated the process, cackling the entire time.

Simplification

• I packed up more of Calvin’s old clothes.

Food Diary

• Breakfast – Hashbrowns and 1/2 a large cinnamon roll
• Snack – Triscuits and Cheese
• Supper – 2 1/2 slices of pizza
• Evening Treat – Grapes

Downs

• Calvin only took a 1/2 hr nap today but actually seemed in a pretty good mood in spite of that.

Ups

• I went to bed last night around 8:30 which means I got a solid 8 hrs of sleep! I rarely go to bed late but Calvin often starts making noises around 3:30 and I usually doze after that instead of getting quality sleep time.
• Since Calvin is now taking his nap later, I took him to the early service at church. The “early service” is a fairly new thing for Boulder aimed at families with small children. It seems to be fitting the demographic fairly well as almost the entire Cradle Roll class was there. After church, we went to Sabbath School and then I fed Calvin lunch before driving back home. I was hoping he’d continue napping in his car seat after I stopped the car but he only slept for a couple of minutes more. I think it was easier to sleep in the infant car seat as it reclined more.

Calvin Moment

• When visited the park today, I pushed Calvin on the swing. I’ve noticed that most mothers gently push their toddlers to encourage a sedate swing experience. However, Calvin likes going fast and high. In fact, he adores it when I push him up so he’s parallel to the ground (with me holding him, obviously). He dissolves into delighted giggles whenever I do this.

Simplification

• Jaeger and I talked about giving stuff away. Does that count?

Food Diary

• Breakfast – French Toast with Peanut Butter and Maple Syrup
• Lunch – A toasted cheese sandwich
• Snack – Homemade chocolate mint ice cream
• Supper – Asparagus Ravioli, Broccoli, and Bread
• Evening Treat – 3 Dark Chocolate Pieces