father's day 2010

finally posting this...

overheard in the whitney house: baby fight club

bryan's reaction to LP being upset: you're gonna have to suck it up, kid. this is your life, and it's fucking ending one second at a time.

squash fries

i owe LP, family and friends lots of updates, but we've been too busy hemorrhaging money finishing construction on our new office building, so this is just a tidbit.

LP's (and my husband's) new favorite recipe:

butternut squash fries

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cut into fry shapes

toss in olive oil

place on greased baking sheet

bake in 350 oven until golden brown

LP likes them pretty "smushy," but the adults have been eating them a bit crispier, and they are fantastic.

random photo monday: impromptu nap

bryan took this short video when i fell asleep on the couch yesterday. i had no idea the cat had decided to join me.

there is nothing sadder...

...than a baby with a cold. except, maybe, a mother with a nasty cold trying to take care of a baby with a cold. at least she's still able to smile and laugh at all my stupid tricks. hopefully posting will pick up after everybody in the house is feeling better.

overheard in the whitney house: injuries

me: the first time she falls or hits something and gets a little scar, i’m going to be so upset.

bryan: it’ll be just like the first time i dropped my iphone.

langley at three months: introducing special guest author papadog

Dear Pipes,

You were officially 3 months old yesterday and my how far you and I have come. Long gone are the baby burrito days, and you are now holding your head up, smiling and laughing, and you even recognize your mom and dad when you see us. It is so amazing to come into your room and have you look right at me and start to smile.

You and I have been spending quite a bit of time together. Mostly we see each other after 5 PM which unfortunately happens to be your fussy time. Lately we have started the 8 PM bath ritual which you absolutely love. After I have washed you all up, I put one hand behind your head and you just love to swim and float around the tub. The other great thing about this is that you come out pretty tired and ready for a little milk and then off to bed. We do not get to see each other again until between 2 and 3 AM. We hang out for your middle of the night feeding and watch movies off Netflix while you eat, or lately we watch CLE online so that your daddy can keep his law license. Recently we began watching Clockwork Orange, which I have never seen, and I immediately regretted watching it with you. I think the next movie will be a Pixar flick because we are rapidly approaching the time when everything is going to have to be Langley appropriate. This also causes me great concern considering that your daddy curses just about every other word. Please don’t hold it against me if your first word is fffff.....fudge......well, you know what I mean.

We are getting ready to transition your mom back to work full-time/part-time, and while I am really excited about having your mom back to take some of the load off me at work, I know she is not pleased to have to leave you. Luckily you have your Gran in town and she is going to take time off from work to take care of you on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Even with this handy arrangement it is likely that you will be at least partially raised in a criminal defense law office. I think you will have the opportunity to hear and see some pretty interesting things. I hope you will ask plenty of questions and that I will think of some way to explain things to you. I also picture you being a pretty talkative kid and can envision you giving repeat clients lectures about shoplifting, drinking and their continued drug use.

Oh, by the way - you had your first Red Sox jersey on the other day and then laid on the couch with me and watched your first Red Sox game. This was a very proud moment for me and you actually seemed to be pretty interested in the game. (Note from Mamadog: Puh-lease! She just likes the different colors on the giant TV screen. Once she realizes she's watching baseball, she'll be all "MOM!! Can I please hang out with YOU instead?!")

You must know that one of the best things about you is mornings when you are sleepy but not quite ready to go to sleep on your own, and you fall asleep on my chest. I lay in the bed with the covers wrapped around the two of us and Mommy and all the dogs are in the bed too and you just lay quietly and sleep.

You went on your first trip to Las Vegas and did really well on the drive and also loved staying in the hotel room. We are being pretty ambitious for your next outing and taking you to Flagstaff for a weekend of camping in an RV with all four dogs at Pickin’ in the Pines bluegrass festival. You are a pretty adventurous and portable little tike, and I think you are up to this challenge.

You have been the greatest little baby even when you drive me to the breaking point and the verge of insanity with your high pitched screams. I could not be happier to have you in our life and can’t wait to see what you will do next. I love you.

Love, Daddy

champagne thursday: toast #46

yesterday, bryan and i celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. and how did we celebrate? did we take my mom up on her offer to watch the baby while we went out to a nice, romantic dinner? oh no, no. we spent it with someone who decided to have an attack of the fusses during a business outing that made it impossible for me to want to drop her off at gran's house in such a state. but she looked like this when she was doing it, so how could we be mad?

random photo monday: sweet babydog

this photo just kills me.

langley at two months

dear little boognish,

last sunday you turned eight weeks old, and your grandparents were here to witness it. i swear, in just the one week they were visiting, you managed to become a completely different baby than the week before. you’re smiling on purpose more often, you’re cooing, and sweet jesus, are you gaining control of that bobble head of yours. we barely have to support it anymore - you just wobble it all around like a little champ. it’s incredible. we even started putting you in your bumbo, although we have to keep our hands at the ready in case you decide to try to whip your head around a bit too much.

a few days after your two-month milestone, we took you out on the lake on a pontoon boat. with malichai. and five adults who were drinking alcohol. i know! we are crazy. about five minutes in, we thought we’d made possibly the worst decision of our lives, but once we got out on the open water, you seemed pretty cool with the whole situation. there you were, just hanging out on a boat in your diaper, lounging in your bassinet and taking bottles from whoever wasn’t swimming with the dog at the moment. your dad took you into the lake with him, although thankfully he didn’t try to make you swim. but you seemed to enjoy getting your feet wet and having water dripped on you a bit. later, you even let us go to a restaurant and eat lunch without making a scene. you were truly a great little traveler, which stands to reason considering your mother’s childhood and the fact that you were forced onto several cramped planes, including some rather scary turboprop planes, while you were cooking in the womb just so your mama could go see a band play in virginia.

the past few weeks, you have grown increasingly interested in the ceiling in general and ceiling fans in particular. your grandpa decided this must be because you are an alien from a planet far away where ceiling fans are your gods. whenever you would start to fuss, grandpa would just carry you into the living room and point out the fan, and there the two of you would worship for a good half hour. i think maybe grandpa’s been hanging out with your dad and me a bit too long, making up ridiculous back stories like that. i can’t even imagine the things you will try to tell your classmates and teachers someday. i have a feeling we might spend a lot of time in parent-teacher conferences trying to explain why our daughter told susie that her barbie doll was once a taiwanese hooker with a major heroin addiction but later went on to teach blind lepers how to make lace doilies for aged carnies in retirement homes. i hope those teachers have a great sense of humor!

love,

mamadog

ps - you’re wearing some of your six-month clothes already. please stop growing up so fast!

champagne thursday: toast #45

ah, the grandparents. they've given bryan and me a nice little vacation by coming out for a visit and doing so much with the baby. things like tiring her out to the point that she sleeps for 7 1/2 hours straight, without so much as a peep.

overheard in the whitney house: commercials

so there is a ford ad running right now that starts out with a guy talking in a perfectly commercial-y and generally non-incendiary manner. my husband apparently took offense and thought the ad required a much nastier plot line.

commercial: people ask me, "mike, why ford? why now? and i say..."

bryan: "because I SHIT IN YOUR MOUTH."

for some reason, his response to this commercial cracked us up for at least a half hour. then it came up in a text conversation about the baby.

bryan: "she hates to poop."

me: "she is not poop's biggest fan."

bryan: "poop is not on her baby facebook friends list."

me: "people ask her 'why poop? why now? and she's all 'i'll shit in your mouth!'"

champagne thursday: toast #43

i highly doubt my husband has any idea why it's so important to me to breastfeed the baby as much as possible, particularly since i don't even know why i've become so obsessive about it, but i want to thank him sincerely for trying so hard to help me with it. i couldn't ask for a better partner in life, and he proves it more and more every day.

langley at one month

dear little boognish,

sunday you turned four weeks old. four weeks! that’s a whole month that your father and i managed to keep you alive, even with a rabid pit bull in the house! who’d have thunk it!? when we first brought you home, i don’t think there was a second that passed that we didn’t think, “holy shit. we can have all the degrees in the world, but we really should have been given a manual of some sort for this kind of thing. why were we allowed to just prance out of a hospital with nearly seven pounds of TERRIFYING RESPONSIBILITY??” the last time we walked out of anywhere with seven pounds of responsibility it was aiko, and she was in a freaking shopping cart. i don’t think the nurses would have looked kindly upon that kind of exit for you.

one of your first nights in the house, your dad asked if i had been setting the alarm clock to wake up and feed you. i said no, i woke up when i heard you on the monitor and got up to take care of you. he looked at me like i was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen and told me i was a great mom. granted, he was about 95% asleep at the time, but i take all the compliments i can get these days.

another night, i woke up to feed you and tapped your dad to ask him to get you and bring you to me. he stood up, leaned over and started moving his hands around the bed. i asked him what he was doing. “i’m looking for the baby!” i told him you were in your crib in your room. “i know!” okay, then what are you doing, i asked again. “i’m petting malichai!” i tell him i need him to go get you and bring you to me so i can feed you. “i know! i just wanted to pick malichai up and give him to you to hold for awhile!” i found it quite hilarious that your obviously still asleep father thought that i might like to hold a 65-pound dog while i waited for my baby to be brought into the room. i’m just glad i didn’t wake up one night to find him trying to attach a pit bull to my breast. that would have been awkward for all of us.

after a few days, you were getting yellower and yellower, and at your first doctor’s appointment the friday after you were born, we were told to take you to the hospital for a bilirubin test to see if you needed any kind of treatment. the doc said we should be worried about a number any higher than 15 and you came back at 27, which meant we needed to have you admitted to the hospital right that minute and get you hooked up to IV fluids and under some bili lights. this was not enjoyable for any of us. we took you upstairs and the nurses tried to insert an IV in your arm, and you were a little champ. you didn’t even cry except when the tourniquet was wrapped around your bicep. they tried a few times, but they couldn’t get it to work with your tiny little veins, so eventually they had to put the IV in your head. your head! i was doing pretty well until about the third time they tried to stick the IV in your arm, but by the time they were putting it in your head, i reached freak-out level and had to walk away to keep from beating up the nurses for something they couldn’t control.

once the IV was in, they put you in your little cart under the blue lights with these crazy goggles on your face, and i have to tell you, you were so stinkin’ cute under there that i could barely even cry about it.

i didn’t completely lose my cool until i was told that you would have to remain under the lights at all times until your levels came down, which meant i wouldn’t be able to breastfeed you as i had been doing exclusively to that point, and one of the nurses said it would be likely that we would be spending father’s day - that upcoming sunday - at the hospital. i felt horrible.

we were given a room to stay in so we could be with you whenever possible, and eventually we were allowed to help feed you by syringe, which is supposed to keep nipple confusion at bay for breastfed babies. your dad got to feed you for the first time, so that was nice for him, but i felt like a complete failure as a mother, and i just missed being able to hold you and look at your little face and feed you myself. i kept crying and crying, and your dad kept telling me you were going to be okay, but i really wasn’t worried about that. i knew you were going to be fine, even though the doc told us we might have to airlift you to phoenix for a transfusion. yes, it sounded scary, but i never thought it would be necessary...i don’t know why. i just knew you would be okay. in the meantime, though, i missed you so much i couldn’t be consoled. we were able to sit with you as much as we wanted, but looking at you through plastic wasn’t enough to make me feel better.

the next day, your level was coming down, and i was allowed to have you out of your light box for 30 minutes to feed you. i cried the whole time the first time i got to hold you again. we asked for your level to be checked again late that night, and we were told you would be able to come home sunday, so that night, your dad and i celebrated with a little illegal wine in the hospital room. the next day, we gave your dad his father’s day cards before we took you home. poor guy, spending his first father’s day morning in the hospital with his little yellow baby. you looked much better though, and when we took you home, for some reason we both felt like we were allowed to do more with you. that sounds weird, but up until that point, we were probably a little overly careful with you. i guess being released from the hospital a second time made us think we couldn’t possibly break you.

you should know that the whole time you were back in the hospital, the dogs were lost without you. your dad and i took turns running home to take care of them and take showers and whatnot, and every time, the dogs ran around the house looking for you. when we would leave, they would run to your crib and peek through the bars, wondering if maybe you were in there and they were supposed to keep an eye on you while we were gone. when we brought you back home, i swear we could almost hear them breathe a collective sigh of relief.

since our little jaundice scare, we’ve had to start supplementing your diet with formula, which makes me feel a bit like a failure again, but you’re gaining so much weight and looking so much healthier that i just don’t care. at your one-month checkup wednesday, you weighed in at eight pounds and you were already 21 ¾ inches long! you’ve been able to lift your head up quite a bit almost since the day you were born, and you’ve got a grip on you that is absolutely incredible. we’re constantly amazed at how strong you are. your little eyes are focusing better, and i think you might start getting confused as to why your parents don’t look more like all your brothers and sisters, who try to be in your line of vision as much as possible. one day you’ll be told by someone that those things are just your dogs, but you’ll know better - they’re your protectors and your biggest fans, and they’ll beat the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.

you’re about to start fussing in the other room, and i have to figure out how to deal with that and get dressed to go to court, even though all i want to do is hang out around the house with you all day, maybe do a little tummy time, maybe take part in a little spit-up marathon. it’s a rough life we’ve got, eh?

love,

mamadog

the boognish chronicles: part 9

june 29-30, 2009 (yes, it takes two days to write to you now)

dear little boognish,

well, i guess i did you a bit of a disservice by not writing when i meant to a couple of weeks ago, because somebody got a little impatient and decided to be born four weeks early. you turned two weeks old on sunday, and you’re already so different from the day you were born that i think the next thing we know, you’ll be heading off to college in the car that we bought you to try to make you like us again after you decided we were horrible people because we wouldn’t let you date a 42-year-old tattoo artist fresh out of san quentin. in the meantime, i’ll tell you the story of how you came into the world to two very surprised parents who now spend every day wondering what life was like before you were in it.

tuesday, june 9, i had a “lady exam” with our doctor, and he told me i was already dilating and that you were “really far down there,” which all sounded to me like you were dangerously close to being born. he assured me that no, it was highly unlikely that i would deliver you much earlier than your due date of july 11. sweet, i thought. i’m going shopping. and i did - saturday, june 13, which, by the way, meant a 4-hour round trip to vegas. (as i typed that last sentence, you let out a noise of what i call mount vesuvius erupting from your bassinet in the kitchen. yeah, that’s right - i just let the whole internet know about the things you do in your diaper. tell that to your therapist.)

anyway, i drove to the vegas area to exchange some car seat bases and shop around a bit, and i was gone from about noon till about 7 pm. when i got home, i made myself a huge bowl of pasta and settled in for the night in front of the tv with my computer and your papa. at about 9 pm, i reached across the room to show your dad a picture on the computer, and i thought i had peed my pants. embarrassed, i practically threw the laptop at him and ran to the bathroom, thinking i had reached the point in the pregnancy of being completely incontinent, and i was not pleased. once in the bathroom, i realized that the fluid flowing out of me was bloody, and i started bawling. i had just been assured that you were not coming early, so my thought was the only other option was that i was losing you. your dad rushed in and tried to calm me down, and then he ran off to find the doctor’s pager number, which i had only just received during our last appointment. a lightbulb went off in my head, and i just started yelling across the house, “bloody show! bloody show! i don’t remember what it is or when it’s supposed to happen, but this could be bloody show!” yeah, papa didn’t really understand what the hell i was talking about, and i was pretty sure i was a terrible person for not more fully reading all the books that were so readily at hand in our house.

we got the doctor on the phone, and your dad talked to him for what seemed like forever, while i sat on the toilet crying and trying to stop leaking long enough to figure out what the hell we were doing. the doctor said, “yeah, she could be in labor. you should go to the hospital and they’ll do a test.” realizing that you were quite likely making an appearance soon, i did my best to pull myself together and told your dad i had to brush my teeth before we went anywhere. (you’ll eventually learn that i have an abnormal love of brushing my teeth, so this was a completely appropriate response to “hey lady, you’re about to give birth and should get your fat ass to the hospital immediately.”) during this entire process, your dad and i kept looking at each other going, “no, this isn’t happening right now. we have four weeks! we’re not ready for this!” apparently, you didn’t care about our needs though...

we worked our way out of the house and made it over to the hospital by about 9:15 - one of the perks of living only a mile from the place. i stood in the emergency room trying to keep people from noticing the rivers of fluid running down my legs while we waited for someone from the OB ward to collect me in a wheelchair and take us upstairs. they put me in a hospital gown and into a bed surrounded by scary looking equipment, and they did some kind of bizarre litmus test to determine that i, in fact, was in labor. again, your dad and i just stared at each other with these completely terrified eyes, saying “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” i told the nurse i didn’t think things actually happened this way - the whole dramatic water-breaking-unexpectedly thing. i didn’t even feel any contractions or have any other indications that this was about to happen. inside though, i figured it was probably a good thing that everything went so fast and furious because, i gotta tell you kid, i was totally terrified of the delivery process, and this course of events made it so i didn’t really have the time to think about anything.

the nurse also checked to see how dilated i was, and she told me i was at 2 cm, which was what the doc had written during my exam as well apparently. i had no idea i could feel absolutely nothing different about my body when this process would start. i was hooked up to machines that showed me when i was having contractions, but i didn’t feel those either, which was just crazy to me. in fact, i didn’t feel them at all until after midnight, and they didn’t become at all uncomfortable until around 5 or 6 am sunday.

so there we were, just your dad and me, hanging out in a delivery room, watching tv and dealing with the arduous process of taking a bunch of medical instruments with me into the bathroom every half hour because, oh yes, you were still making me pee constantly, only now i had to do it with an IV uncomfortably inserted into my arm. every time i moved to try to get comfortable on that god-forsakenly-unforgiving bed, the monitors would lose your heartbeat and set off an alarm that would beep continuously until the nurse came in to reset it and find you again. finally she had to insert a monitor directly inside me and attach it to your head, which i have to tell you was neither a pleasant nor entirely clear process. at least that made it so our alarm wouldn’t go off, but it didn’t keep the alarms from other women in labor from going off on the screen, so we had to listen to those well into the morning. i was able to drift in and out of sleep sometimes, but with my ass constantly falling asleep, none of my rest was very fitful.

my progress was checked around 6 am, and we were told that i was far enough along that i could get the heavenly epidural around 8 am when the anesthesiologist would be in. i think the part i was looking forward to the most was the fact that i would need a catheter once i had the epidural, which meant i would no longer have to drag IV equipment to the bathroom. the doctor came in around 8:15 and proceeded to torture me for a good 15 or 20 minutes. he had to stick me four times because he kept getting bloody taps when trying to thread the epidural catheter into my spine, and after the third try, mama started cussing. this did not please the nurse or the doctor, and i didn’t care. i was bawling and my feet looked like sausages from hanging over the edge of the bed for so long. the process itself wasn’t really painful, just a bit uncomfortable, but the doctor kept saying things like “uh oh” and “that’s not good,” and your dad and i were both about to shove a chair up his ass to get across the point that these are not phrases one should utter when dealing with soon-to-be parents. i finally told the guy he needed to stop dicking around with the damn thing and either make it work or start talking to me about other pain management options. apparently that did it, because the guy finally got everything to work properly. instantly, i felt no more contractions, and i was much happier, although if i see that doctor on the street, he should probably stay as far away from me as possible.

at 11:15 am, i was told i was at about 6 cm and that i would probably deliver you around 3 pm. i sent this message on to all my friends, and your gran came by the hospital to see us for a bit. i started to feel pressure in my lower back and butt, and since i had been told to let the nurse know if i felt like i needed to “go to the bathroom” (and you know what i mean when i put it in quotes), i called her in to let her know i thought i would need to get up. she didn’t seem to think that was the issue, and within a few minutes, she explained to us that we would be having our baby very, very soon. this bewildered me for two reasons: 1) i thought we had hours yet. it was only about noon, and i had just been told you would probably be arriving around 3 pm; and 2) i really thought i probably needed to poop, and i just didn’t want to be one of the many women who poops while giving birth. i really did not. the nurse did not seem to care.

the doctor came into our room at about 12:15 and quickly met your gran before we ushered her into the waiting area, and i was told that i was about to start pushing. this is when we all learned that your mama probably should have taken just one birthing class, because apparently i don’t listen to a long list of instructions very well. i was told to hold the bed handles in a certain way, to breathe a certain way, to start pushing at a certain time during a contraction, to hold it for so long, to take a breath and push again, and on and on. i just looked at the nurse like, “um, yeah, i’m gonna need the remedial version of that.” i made the first push, and the doctor walked away afterward, saying “yeah, it’s gonna be a bit yet.” the next thing i knew, though, he was being called back in, and i was pushing, and independence day was on the television, and i was noticing that jeff goldblum was on the screen above the head of my doctor who greatly resembles jeff goldblum, and i thought that was pretty funny, and then you were born at 12:33 pm. i kid you not, it happened that fast and that…surreal.

there you were, all purple and instantly crying, which was a huge relief, and your dad helped to cut the cord, and then you were on a table next to me being cleaned up, and i just looked at you like you were this alien lifeform that had suddenly materialized in the room because surely you couldn’t have been born yet. it was too fast! it was too...easy. yes, i said it. it was too easy. and i don’t mean that it wasn’t difficult at all, that it wasn’t uncomfortable. i certainly don’t recommend childbirth as a suitable alternative activity to listening to jazz in the park on a saturday afternoon. but you were just ready to be born, and you did an amazing job of it. i was mostly along for the ride. minutes after not understanding what the hell i was supposed to be doing, you were lying in my arms, all red-lipped and shivering and swollen-eyed. you were perfect and amazing and beautiful, and mama and papa could not be happier or more proud of you...and of us for bringing you into the world.

love,

mamadog

p.s. yes, i pooped. i am not ashamed. you're worth it.

things i love wednesday: little surprises

langley piper whitney decided to arrive way ahead of schedule. the story will be told later, but she was born sunday, june 14 at 12:33 pm, weighing in at 6 lbs, 14 oz, and she's 19 inches long. she's in perfect health, and we all came home monday afternoon. the dogs are thrilled, and really, isn't that all that matters?

random photo monday: papadog's so proud

look at how happy this poor guy is that for ONCE, just ONCE, something wasn't incredibly difficult to put together.

things i love wednesday: my husband

just because.

champagne thursday: toast #31

since we're telling everyone else now, i guess it's time to announce to the internet that the husband and i are expecting...and no, it's not a dog, a cat, or even a goat, although i'm sure my husband will continue to campaign for that one. so, there will be no real champagne for me until sometime after july 16. what's worse - no guinness for me until then either. it's like a real life episode of survivor in my house.

and ps, that is the meaning behind the fruit-based masthead this month. every week, i get an update on what kind of seed or bean or fruit my growing child has just become, and it is a little creepy, don't you think?

oy vey

every day, i wake up thinking, hey, i should post something today. and then i fall back asleep. then, when i wake up again, something shiny grabs my attention, and i...wait a second, where was i? right. posting will continue to be light for the next couple of weeks probably, as the whiticism family undertakes many, many home projects that i am sure will grace these pages soon. stay tuned.