Post-Holiday Catchup
The Girl
V is doing well. She's weathered the season in good spirits and even managed to get through an entire holiday party without gakking her adorable red velvet dress. She's still as pretty as a picture with her peach fuzz head and dimples. And even teething hasn't been able to put much more than a ding in her sunny and easy-going mood. We found out that iresprite's scale is wildy inaccurate when we took her to the doctor's. She's in the 25th percentile, not the 50th like we thought. But the docs feel that given the size of her parents (5th and 20th percentiles) that's probably about as good as she could expect to get. She's getting good at grabbing, becoming interested in solid food and needing fewer and shorter feedings at night. We've set up the crib in the bedroom and are working on a plan to get her to sleep in it and for me to come back down from the attic and into bed with terrier_girl. We want to give the girl a sibling eventually. The girl has also started to move around on her own, rolling, rocking and scooting. We're dedicating this week to deconstructing the holiday shnaa and baby proofing the house.
Holidays
The holidays were as good as can be expected. I don't like them very much. I have all sorts of backlogged emotional shna from growing up and the holiday stress and the expectation of seeing the family makes for an un-fun season. But I did some good thinking and made some good changes this year that should take at least one layer of the fat holiday cake of ug. It would have been nice if my car hadn't broken down on the way to the Grandmother's Christmas morning. But thanks to flexible family and a very fast tow truck, it was barely a blip on my radar. I want the holidays to be fun for the girl, and that means having a happy and loving papa and not a sullen, cranky monster hiding in the next room. The best part of the holidays, they're almost over. I think for New Years we're going to maintain our many-years tradition and go to be as early as possible.
Dargo
Dargo about the same as always. I haven't paid him much mind over the holidays and it shows. He also got fed table scraps by some of my family and that's showing too. I need to re-engage with the puppy, both in terms of love and in terms of training. Training in the winter can be a pain though, outside, no gloves, fishing little rewardy bits out of my pockets when he's not looking. It's a recipe for painfully cold hands. But it must be done for love and family. We've also put up the kitchen gate as part of the baby proofing and that's causing him ajida. He has to decide between being near the family or being near the food.
Terrier
Terrier's having mixed feelings about stopping the breast-pumping. On one hand, it's giving her three hours a day she didn't have before. On the other hand, she's concerned that without the immune-boost from the breast milk, that V will get sick more often. But we both agree that it's time. Terrier needs more time to focus on her PhD work and V's got all her shots (including the seasonal and Swine flu vaccines) and isn't likely to get more than a bad cold. Now that she's getting more regular sleep and her body's mostly recovered from the pregnancy, Terrier is finding that she's making progress in the lab again. Originally we were going to try to get her done by May, but we've let go of that deadline in favor of a slightly gentler and more reasonable schedule. We've got our eye on the fall now. I would like her to finish up so we can start thinking about a second child. We don't know how hard it might be for us to have our second, so I want to start on the early side in case we need to make multiple tries.
Friends
With the holidays I haven't gotten to see my friends as much as I would like. I miss ezrarashkae and only get to see her when I have the girl. Similarly, oxma, gentlesamurai, and Mr. Smith have all moved back to the area recently and I barely get to see them. I'm hoping the girl will start sleeping though the night soon so I can have some evenings off. Until then it's visiting with a baby dandling on my knee. I did get to take Mr. Smith to his holiday surprise which was awesomely received.
Sex
It was a conversation with Mr. Smith that made me realize how changed my ideas on sex have become. We were talking about buttons and the joy of the slow and sensual buildup, and I realized that that's not part of my life anymore. Terrier and I manage to squeeze in some fun once and a while, but the idea of seduction, foreplay or sensuality is gone. We never know how long the girl will sleep when she goes down so it's something of a race to see if we can make each other happy before she comes up screaming. Buttons indeed. When did "The girl's asleep." become all the foreplay I needed?
Dreams
But while my actual sex life might be constrained, my dreaming life has opened up to grand new vistas. I used to have mundane, plodding, prime-time TV dreams. A thin, colorful trickle of images and meaning. Ad those I used to remember about once a week. For the past two weeks I've been having huge, operatic overwhelmingly detailed and plotted dreams. Dreams I wake up from breathless and exhausted from just trying to keep up with them. And these every night, several times a night. It's the sensory equivalent from moving from a still mid-western corn field to standing the the middle of the street during a New York rush hour. I can barely remember what I dreamed when I wake up and it fades just as quick as most of my dreams do, but I find myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and gripping the sheets for a few minutes just to get my sense of here and now back. Last night I returned to my normally scheduled programming. I missed the hyperbolic, multi-faceted performances of last week, but I do appreciate the peace and quiet for a change.
Game
I've got a few more days before the STs of Strange Boston get back together and figure out what to do about our crazy schedules. In the meantime I've got an even half dozen Fate games dancing through my head trying to find a way out. It seems my desire to game is slowly coming back online after a hiatus. Now I just have to get my desire and my schedule in line and see what happens next.
In brief, everyone is fine, all is right with my world, and nothing unexpected has bitten me on the ass. I have no time, I have too much to do, but I'm happy, so it's all good.
V is doing well. She's weathered the season in good spirits and even managed to get through an entire holiday party without gakking her adorable red velvet dress. She's still as pretty as a picture with her peach fuzz head and dimples. And even teething hasn't been able to put much more than a ding in her sunny and easy-going mood. We found out that iresprite's scale is wildy inaccurate when we took her to the doctor's. She's in the 25th percentile, not the 50th like we thought. But the docs feel that given the size of her parents (5th and 20th percentiles) that's probably about as good as she could expect to get. She's getting good at grabbing, becoming interested in solid food and needing fewer and shorter feedings at night. We've set up the crib in the bedroom and are working on a plan to get her to sleep in it and for me to come back down from the attic and into bed with terrier_girl. We want to give the girl a sibling eventually. The girl has also started to move around on her own, rolling, rocking and scooting. We're dedicating this week to deconstructing the holiday shnaa and baby proofing the house.
Holidays
The holidays were as good as can be expected. I don't like them very much. I have all sorts of backlogged emotional shna from growing up and the holiday stress and the expectation of seeing the family makes for an un-fun season. But I did some good thinking and made some good changes this year that should take at least one layer of the fat holiday cake of ug. It would have been nice if my car hadn't broken down on the way to the Grandmother's Christmas morning. But thanks to flexible family and a very fast tow truck, it was barely a blip on my radar. I want the holidays to be fun for the girl, and that means having a happy and loving papa and not a sullen, cranky monster hiding in the next room. The best part of the holidays, they're almost over. I think for New Years we're going to maintain our many-years tradition and go to be as early as possible.
Dargo
Dargo about the same as always. I haven't paid him much mind over the holidays and it shows. He also got fed table scraps by some of my family and that's showing too. I need to re-engage with the puppy, both in terms of love and in terms of training. Training in the winter can be a pain though, outside, no gloves, fishing little rewardy bits out of my pockets when he's not looking. It's a recipe for painfully cold hands. But it must be done for love and family. We've also put up the kitchen gate as part of the baby proofing and that's causing him ajida. He has to decide between being near the family or being near the food.
Terrier
Terrier's having mixed feelings about stopping the breast-pumping. On one hand, it's giving her three hours a day she didn't have before. On the other hand, she's concerned that without the immune-boost from the breast milk, that V will get sick more often. But we both agree that it's time. Terrier needs more time to focus on her PhD work and V's got all her shots (including the seasonal and Swine flu vaccines) and isn't likely to get more than a bad cold. Now that she's getting more regular sleep and her body's mostly recovered from the pregnancy, Terrier is finding that she's making progress in the lab again. Originally we were going to try to get her done by May, but we've let go of that deadline in favor of a slightly gentler and more reasonable schedule. We've got our eye on the fall now. I would like her to finish up so we can start thinking about a second child. We don't know how hard it might be for us to have our second, so I want to start on the early side in case we need to make multiple tries.
Friends
With the holidays I haven't gotten to see my friends as much as I would like. I miss ezrarashkae and only get to see her when I have the girl. Similarly, oxma, gentlesamurai, and Mr. Smith have all moved back to the area recently and I barely get to see them. I'm hoping the girl will start sleeping though the night soon so I can have some evenings off. Until then it's visiting with a baby dandling on my knee. I did get to take Mr. Smith to his holiday surprise which was awesomely received.
Sex
It was a conversation with Mr. Smith that made me realize how changed my ideas on sex have become. We were talking about buttons and the joy of the slow and sensual buildup, and I realized that that's not part of my life anymore. Terrier and I manage to squeeze in some fun once and a while, but the idea of seduction, foreplay or sensuality is gone. We never know how long the girl will sleep when she goes down so it's something of a race to see if we can make each other happy before she comes up screaming. Buttons indeed. When did "The girl's asleep." become all the foreplay I needed?
Dreams
But while my actual sex life might be constrained, my dreaming life has opened up to grand new vistas. I used to have mundane, plodding, prime-time TV dreams. A thin, colorful trickle of images and meaning. Ad those I used to remember about once a week. For the past two weeks I've been having huge, operatic overwhelmingly detailed and plotted dreams. Dreams I wake up from breathless and exhausted from just trying to keep up with them. And these every night, several times a night. It's the sensory equivalent from moving from a still mid-western corn field to standing the the middle of the street during a New York rush hour. I can barely remember what I dreamed when I wake up and it fades just as quick as most of my dreams do, but I find myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and gripping the sheets for a few minutes just to get my sense of here and now back. Last night I returned to my normally scheduled programming. I missed the hyperbolic, multi-faceted performances of last week, but I do appreciate the peace and quiet for a change.
Game
I've got a few more days before the STs of Strange Boston get back together and figure out what to do about our crazy schedules. In the meantime I've got an even half dozen Fate games dancing through my head trying to find a way out. It seems my desire to game is slowly coming back online after a hiatus. Now I just have to get my desire and my schedule in line and see what happens next.
In brief, everyone is fine, all is right with my world, and nothing unexpected has bitten me on the ass. I have no time, I have too much to do, but I'm happy, so it's all good.