plus also

Gary may be English but he has, in fact, heard of the First Ammendment.

I remember kids on the elementary school playground telling each other, "I'll call the cops on you!"  It was a statement made for dramatic effect, and always an empty threat.

Gary and I got a letter last week basically telling Gary, "If you don't take down your blog, I'll call the cops on you!"  It was a cease and desist letter from an attorney, but it had all the bluster, drama and false accusations of a petulant child who wants another kid kicked off the playground.  It was the kind of letter that barely dignified a response except to point out the ridiculousness of it.

If the police happened to show up on our doorstep, we would be more than happy to invite them in and offer them a nice cup of tea (made by the Englishman--I'm better at the iced variety) and discuss the whole situation.  Hey, one of them may even be our neighbor--we live close to the police department and know of a couple of officers who live on our street.  We could get to know them a little. 

Thankfully, there is no legal recourse for writing the truth on the Internet.  Even the loudest kid on the playground couldn't supercede the teachers.  And even hiring an attorney to harrass someone doesn't take away their First Ammendment rights.   

Show-off

I officially no longer care where or even IF she naps during the day.

Yesterday morning Allie fell asleep in her swing so I moved her to her crib.  I keep trying this even though it never, ever works.  Allie feels that the crib is the place for nighttime sleeping but NOT napping.  She will nap in her swing thankyouverymuch and nowhere else.  So I wasn't surpirsed yesterday when she was crying 15 minutes after I put her down.  I WAS surprised when I walked into her room and saw that she had rolled over onto her belly. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a developmental milestone!

So this was pretty big stuff but then--BUT THEN--an even bigger, more wonderful milestone took us by surprise.  Last night I fed Allie at about 11:15 and put her down in her crib after changing her sleeper since she managed to spit up OVER the burp cloth and onto her foot.  Then I went to bed and when I woke up it was 5:30 and she still hadn't cried!  I went to check on her and she was just sleeping away with her arms up over her head.  (She had scooted around sideways.  We have her mattress propped up on one end to help with her reflux but she ALWAYS gets herself sideways so she's level again.)  I went back to bed and when I woke up again almost an hour later she was still just making little sleepy noises.  I went ahead and got her up and fed her because....um, just because.

So all at once we have a baby who can roll over and sleep through the night.  I predict that she will be walking today, potty trained this weekend, and running up my cell phone bill texting her friends by July.        

 

Daddy's Girl

Other people coax smiles out of Allie.  Daddy gets them for free...

Things I never did before becoming a mother (non-horror edition)

Worry about falling down (whereas before I just accepted it as an inevitability).

Use the words "adorable" and "feet" in the same sentence.

Hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a continuous loop in my head.

Make up songs with someone's name for entertainment (I used to do this with the cat's name but that was to irritate him).

Wash one million clothes, sheets, and blankets that still only add up to a small load.

Open my eyes ALL THE WAY at 4:00 am.

Consider a shirt ok to wear out of the house if it only has a little bit of vomit on it.

Feel self-conscious about buying alcohol at the grocery store (I swear I'm not one of those mothers who drinks all day that Oprah was talking about, Miss Grocery Store Cashier!).

Work so hard to make someone smile.

Appreciate a smile quite so much.

I'm not sure MY breathing has returned to normal yet.

I have been planning on posting another list of things I never did before becoming a mother.  I had some things in mind, even.  But the whole tone changed after last night.  Here is a list of things I never did before becoming a mother and things I hope to never do again:

See my child stop breathing and spit up blood.

Call 911.

Watch a paramedic strap an infant seat to a gurney.

Ride in an ambulance.

Hold my baby still for chest x-rays.

Mainly I hope to never again feel as helpless and absolutely terrified as I did last night. 

Allie is ok.  She started breathing normally again in the ambulance and her belly returned to normal size while we were at the hospital.  Thankfully when she turned red and stopped breathing, Gary and I were both right there looking at her and Gary reacted incredibly quickly.  The ambulance came in about 5 minutes and took us to a pediatric ER.  The two x-rays showed that her intestines were full of air and the doctor's official diagnosis was reflux, which, combined with her congestion, caused her to stop breathing mometarily.  He gave us a prescription for Xantac and sent us on our way.

We got home early this morning and after a bottle and a dose of medicine, Allie slept next to our bed, inclined at a 45-degree angle as ordered.  Today she has been back to herself, just a little more sleepy.

Obviously the worst part of the ordeal was the span of time between Allie turning red and the paramedics arriving.  But our experience at the hospital was pretty terrible too.  As soon as the paramedics placed her on the bed, the nurse announced her diagnosis of "just some gas" and treated us like idiots.  I understand that she probably deals with plenty of overreactive parents, but she should still understand that THIS IS OUR BABY.  She told us that we were wrong and Allie must not have stopped breathing because if she had then she would have turned blue.  She also made comments about how very dry Allie's skin was and suggested to us that we need to burp Allie well because obviously we had never thought of that.

I really shouldn't complain.  The important thing (the most important thing in the world) is that Allie is here with us and currently screaming away which means her breathing is just fine.  She will see her pediatrician tomorrow who will not only be thorough but patient and caring, both with Allie and with me. 

One thing I never did before I became a mother and I DO hope to do again and again:  Hold my child close and remind myself how very fortunate I am. 

I wrote a longer post about this but even I found it boring.

I saw something on the news the other day that made me proud to work in the public schools.  It certainly had nothing to do with the scores coming out for the state accountability testing, although that tends to be the only aspect of education that the media seems interested in covering (unless of course they can drum up some kind of fear, ie. "Is your child's school really safe???  Details at 10:00!"). 

The news anchor was reporting that San Antonio Independent School District will be serving free breakfast and lunch to all their students this summer, whether they are enrolled in a summer program or not. 

I strongly believe that we in the public schools provide a high-quality education to our students.  But that's only part of what we provide.  We also give students a safe place, people who care about them, and stability in the midst of what may be otherwise chaotic lives.  And yes, we even provide basic needs for a lot of students.  Too many students dread, rather than count down to the summer break.  While it's sad that it's necessary, I'm glad that kids in SAISD at least aren't looking at a long, hungry summer.  

She'd hold up two fingers to show how old she is, but they're currently in her mouth.

Allie is two months old today!  Although she still doesn't weigh as much as her daddy did at birth (thankfully for me), she has changed quite a bit from the tiny, little creature she was two months ago. 

In chronological order:

"The time has come", the walrus said, "to talk of many things..."

Some friends have asked me what the story was on the reader I asked to stop visiting this site.  At the time that I wrote that I didn't feel free to share the story, because it wasn't mine to tell.  It is Gary's story and it is quite personal and painful.  It's something that he has mainly kept to himself for years.   But now he feels it's time to share it, in the hopes that it may help others and that it may help him to tell it.  And that it might one day make a long-cherished dream come true--a dream of being reunited with someone he never should have lost.

There is a line in my favorite song that says, "I am folded and unfolded and unfolding."  Gary is unfolding his story here. 

How can you tell someone just came off maternity leave?

She has blisters from wearing the flats she used to ALWAYS wear to work. Just because they aren't flip flops.  Turns out it only takes a few weeks for feet to adapt to stay-at-home motherhood.