Of This and Other Worlds

In my experience there has been only one drawback to giving birth at home, and it's that two years later, the placenta is still sitting at the bottom of your freezer, easily mistaken* for something you might actually want to thaw.**

--
* Though not fatally so, in this case. The midwife had been smart enough to write a label on the bag.
** And the first person who suggests I raid the spice cabinet and get out the soda crackers gets smacked.

Baby Paul, who just celebrated his first birthday two days ago, is exceedingly active these days. Here he is doing one of his favorite things, ( hanging around my desk and trying to bash the computer keyboard )

I have discovered to my chagrin that having two other children has apparently taught me nothing useful as far as the care and feeding of toddlers is concerned. What works with the first, or the second, turns out to be completely useless with the third. At this point, in spite of all my efforts to introduce him to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables early on, Paul refuses to eat anything other than the following:

- crackers
- yogurt
- toast
- bananas
- cake
- guinea pig poop

The latter is most regrettable, I agree, but try as I might to keep the cage clean, he always seems to find them. Here he is ( on the hunt for more tasty goodness )

Why he should chow down with enthusiasm on pre-digested cavy leavings and yet refuse to eat peaches or scrambled eggs is beyond me. And any kind of protein -- even cheese, or lunch meat -- is just hopeless.

My mother-in-law says that my husband refused to eat anything but bananas and oatmeal until he was four. I never quite understood how that could be, especially as he was her sixth child. Now I know.

Cross-posted from rjanderson_blog, because yahtzee63 said she wanted to see some baby pics. What's a mother to do?

I am tired. My house needs cleaning but I don't feel like doing anything beyond the bare minimum. My kids are coming down with a cold (again). I have pink eye (again again). None of the three shows I watch have had new episodes within the last week. The meal I made last night for dinner was horrible (my fault, not the recipes -- I wasn't paying close enough attention and my timing was off). The baby just woke up (again again AGAIN).

On the other hand, I have renewed my paid LJ account and upgraded to 100 icons.

It's something, I guess.

Thanks to lizbee for making me the scan for this icon at my request. I love me some vintage Bill Sienkiewicz.

H. and I are finally getting around to watching last season's episodes, and it's interesting (and occasionally quite amusing) looking at these early eps in the light of later ones.

Seeing "Hunting" before "Occam's Razor", for instance -- I couldn't help thinking as I watched the latter that the way Cameron ( spoiler ). I also noted in that scene, though I've noticed it before, that Jesse Spencer is a really fine face actor -- you could see every one of his thoughts and feelings as Cameron was delivering her "sex is ugly" speech, even though he didn't have a single line.

But tonight we watched "Maternity", and all I can say is ( spoiler ) ENDED. MY. LIFE. That has to be one of the saddest moments on the show ever. I should know better than to watch stuff about babies right now. Or possibly ever.

And speaking of babies, GIP. Paul turned four months yesterday.

And baby Paul is now thirteen weeks old: ( Picture! )

Tonight I'm going to try and get a couple more shots of him, nicely dressed up this time, and see if I can print them as 8x10s in time to give to my mother and my MIL for Christmas.

Only substitute a baby Draco nursing for the toddler Draco reading, and make Narcissa look a lot less happy about the whole being-waked-up thing (as well as sporting a prodigious amount of baby barf on the left shoulder), and you get some idea of what our family looked like at about 3:45 a.m. last night.

(Note to self: Do not eat broccoli again, like, ever.)

But anyway, buttfacemakani is a genius. See?

There are some hilarious sketches on her journal, too.

Also, the House staff as chibis, courtesy of the same avatar maker I was playing with earlier in the week. Hee!

First, happy birthday to avarill, an all-around splendid person and one of my oldest net.friends. Hope your day's been a good one, and that if you haven't had a chance to celebrate properly yet, you're able to do so soon!

And second, ( as promised, Liz )

Finally, I hope to get the chance to watch the Lost season premiere tonight, and so far I have remained unspoiled therefor, so it should be rather exciting and all that. Not to mention a much-needed break from present reality...

Stupid baseball.

On a happier note, I actually got some honest-to-goodness rest last night, if you don't count the hour after each feeding where Paul yelled his head off for no discernible reason. I know babies have to fuss sometime, but could they at least do it during the day when nobody is trying to sleep?

*having dutifully eaten something and taken horrible antibiotic pills, goes off to try to sleep again*

I think I'm in labour, guys. Those who want more details (what, are you nuts?) can check out my latest post at pregnant. Well-wishes and prayers appreciated.

Carried over from my most recent blog entry:

[Poll #530318]ETA: "Nathan" seems to be definitely in the lead, but I just looked it up and it's #20 on the Baby Naming Hit Parade as of 2004. In other words, it's trendy, and I'm already peevish that Nicholas's name has become so common, so that tends to put me off the idea. "Nathaniel" isn't as common according to the wizard, but we already know two young Nathaniels -- wait, no, three -- so that's not really a viable alternative. Bah.