Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Casa de Skim is Shutting its Doors

In a move that has been too long in coming, I have transferred Casa de Skim over to a new URL. The new address is NowPlayingAt.Blogspot.Com. Or http://nowplayingat.blogspot.com. All posts have already been moved and everything is good to go. The short of why I moved is on account of how this blog was set up, which gave me limited control. Also, the name I liked but was not conducive to anyone stumbling upon it if they were looking for movie reviews. Since this will affect all five of you who read this blog, please update your settings accordingly.

Don't worry Mom - I'll take care of yours while we're down there on Christmas day.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

No Need For An Alarm Clock

I have my stomach! I was sound asleep this morning. Dead quiet throughout the house. All of a sudden I hear this:

Brrrrrrrp. Mmmmmmrrrrppppp. Repeat.

I snap awake. Angry. I roll over. That only muffled it slightly. Whatever else, my stomach was running on empty and apparently felt it was its solemn duty to inform me of its displeasure.

At 5:50 a.m.

I get up and scarf down a piece of bread. Lay back down. My stomach growls less and less until finally it’s quiet again. Some people hate their bodies for various reasons. I hate mine when it wakes me up. Self preservation takes a back seat to a good night’s sleep in my book.

But I’m weird like that.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Ixnay on the Raspberry-ay

One thing I love about my office is the abundance of sweets that find their ways into our hands. Someone is always bringing cake or cookies up here and it rules on a number of levels. However, a co-worker offered me some cake recently and I had to decline.

“What’s in it?” I non-chalantly asked.

“Oh the good stuff. Vanilla, and raspberry, and…”

I cut her off with a stern head shake.

“Nope, can’t do it then. But thank you.”

Not sure if it’s a food allergy or just revulsion, but if I have a small taste of raspberry I get a migraine. More than a taste adds extreme nausea as a topper. Been that way my whole life but took me forever to figure out what the specifics were. My problem is an addiction to all things chocolate. Chefs the world over have the same problem: Thinking raspberry drizzled over chocolate is a good thing.

Now you understand my predicament.

I remain puzzled by people who love, love, love raspberry on chocolate. Everyone enjoys different flavors, but that one is just disgusting. Not to mention headache inducing.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Two Weeks Later...

Max 0.05 entered our world on 11/20/08 and our lives remain uprooted. But in a good way. Sorta. Right from the start, evidence surfaced of him one day evolving into a clone of Yours Truly. This is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is I feel I’m a pretty level headed individual who could have been better were I less shy and more self confident when I was younger.

The bad is I was a holy terror as a child who only mellowed out when I was overtaken by extreme shyness. At 12.

Infants traditionally have three tasks:

1. Eat
2. Sleep
3. Poop
Not necessarily in that order, either. Or sometimes they manage the trifecta and accomplish all three at once, which is something no one outside of new parents should ever bear witness to.

A fourth dictum is conveniently left unspoken, lest skittish folks decide children are not for them:

4. Scream/cry like crazy
This last one manifested itself quicker than we suspected and continued through the holiday week while the in-laws camped out at Casa de Skim. Every night starting at about 8 p.m. and going through midnight, Max 0.05 would scream holy hell with only a slight respite occurring upon feeding. He would exhaust himself, we’d stressfully rock him and work to comfort him and it was all for naught. Frustrating doesn’t begin to convey the anxiety a new parent feels anyway, so when you add screaming fits as a capper, you find yourself frazzled beyond belief. During the day he was a gem, an affable baby boy with the biggest and most alert eyes you’ve ever seen. At night, he’d morph into Holy Screaming Fury™.

When you come to dread the sun going down, you’re either in a horror film or living with a newborn.

We worried we were overfeeding him at first. A newborn’s stomach is about the size of a small marble and he was packing a mean amount of acid reflux. Turns out this is entirely normal and goes away on it’s own after two weeks. Again, this is information that might have been useful AHEAD OF TIME. So we tried over-feeding him to see if that calmed him down.

8 p.m. came and went with no screaming. Ditto 9 p.m. Ditto 10 p.m. Then 11 p.m. and he started fussing, so we fed him again.

It was like someone flipped a light switch off and he sacked out until his next feeding at 2 a.m. It was the first night in literally two weeks that My Fair Lady and I got a solid amount of sleep. We actually felt human the next day.

In short it’s been incredibly stressful but surprisingly enough we’ve enjoyed it. Max 0.05 is a gem when he’s not crying. He has the biggest eyes and is so alert it’s scary. He knows both of us by now, or at least enjoys listening to our voices. He’s already developing a personality quirk that’s hilarious. When he stretches out and yawns, he goes all out. He has his arms down at his sides, he stretches his legs out, then he stretches his neck out and yawns as wide as his mouth will allow. It’ll be wild to see if he still does that later in life.

When we threw our list of questions at our pediatrician, she offered some sage advice about the first month – survive it. Doesn’t matter what you do, just survive it. After that, it all gets better.

We’ll see what happens.

P.S. For the last two nights, he’s been up and at ‘em every 15 or 20 minutes. I took the first shift last night and rocked him in a pouch until 2 a.m.-ish. My Fair Lady took over at that point and is, I believe, close to collapse. She’s a trooper but believe me when I say that watching a newborn would exhaust Patton’s 3rd Army. We’re almost through the first month and we are watching that calendar like a pair of hawks.

Deadman Switch

A co-worker observed in the lunch room the other day that I got a haircut.

“No,” I replied, “I got a lot cut.”

“Well, it looks really good.”

“Thank you. I just wish they got the white ones too.”

I recently found three white hairs on my head. These were not gray, or pseudo-white. These were Anderson Cooper white.

“Why don’t you just pluck them?” my co-worker asked.

“Are you crazy? They plan for this. All white hairs come with a deadman switch attached. Pluck one, and it sends out a signal for reinforcements. I’ll be white haired by Christmas of next year. All I’ll need is 100 more pounds and a beard and I’ll have a line of kids demanding toys.”