I set my cell phone on the roof of Susan’s car while strapping Brady into his child seat a couple of weeks ago, making a mental note not to forget that I’d done so. Which I promptly forgot. Driving down the road a mile or two later I suddenly realized where my phone was and shouted for Susan to pull over. She thought something was wrong with Brady and pulled into a parking lot. I jumped out of the car and found my phone perched on the roof, right where I’d left it. That little bit of luck saved me ~$600!
Giving up smoking gave me diabetes?
I’ve been sitting on this link for like a year as my site lay fallow. Slowly working my way through the backlog of material. Check out this blurb on the BBC site about a study which demonstrated a high correlation between folks quitting smoking and then developing type 2 diabtese. The timeline and circumstances match my own experience. Pretty freaky (if ultimately fruitless) to ponder what might have been. Even if it’s true, I’m good with where I ended up. Rather try and manage diabetes than fight lung cancer or heart disease ultimately.
Brady’s 6th month
Brady’s 6th month birthday was Wednesday. It’s amazing how time flows by so quickly. The little tyke’s had a pretty good month all things considered. The only real negative was a bout of brown vomit which had him rushed off to the Dr for assessment. Their conclusion was acid reflux and a prescription for a cloudy white goop which we feed to him with an eyedropper. He’s done great otherwise, and even during that episode he was largely cheerful and unconcerned, giggling as he spouted like a casting reject from the exorcist.
In terms of eating, he continues to get new food types from us as we expand his palette. So far he’s much like me – willing to try and eat most anything and enjoying most of it. There were no home runs in terms of preferences this month, though he does seem to enjoy the mango the most of the new stuff. He also tried avocado again and liked it this time (we’ll chalk the initial rejection up to me not blending it well enough), and similarly now enjoys summer squash after we tried mixing a tiny bit of applesauce into it. He didn’t like the apricots Susan tried this week, at a guess because they were too sour. He also likes the sweet pea mash made from peas we grew in our garden. Brown rice gruel is also going over well. Susan’s been mixing it with a bit of fruit and he seems to love it. He continues to enjoy apples, pears, bananas, and sweet potatoes. So far Susan has been making all of his food from scratch, and as our vegetables in the garden mature an increasing portion of his diet will also come from food we’ve grown ourselves.
Behavior wise, he continues to experiment with vocalizations, moving from the quiet little chirps and coos to loud, explosive shouts, sometimes for prolonged periods. I can still get him into ‘conversation,’ though he’s less easily engaged with that now. Mostly this seems to be because he’s much more dexterous now – his head’s now on a swivel and he’s constantly twisting and turning, staring intently at everything and curious about anything new that is introduced into his field of view. His hand and arm dexterity is also much improved. He can reach for and grasp objects with a reasonable degree of success now, and anything he can draw to his mouth, he does, including appendages, hair, Soolin, anything he can get a hold of. He’s often more interested in checking out his environment and the new stuff than he is in chatting with me. Sometimes his curiosity extends to me though, and now that he can sort of use his hands, he will occasionally reach out to touch our faces – lips, cheeks and mouth especially.
I think he’s starting to connect words to things, mostly because I have occasionally noticed if I say Soolin or Nana, he’ll look at them. The same trick doesn’t yet work with Mom and Dad. I’ve been experimenting now with words to see how I can help. I’ve started with ‘Up’ which I repeat endlessly when he’s lying down or in his chair or stroller and I’m going to pick him up. I always try and end with a big exuberant smiling ‘UP!’ when I’m done as I drape him onto my shoulder. I think he’s already recognizing it because even when he is crying a smile sometimes crosses his lips the first time I say it. We’ll see where this gets us by the end of his 7th month.
He’s still not mobile. He can almost keep himself steady while sitting, but his arm strength isn’t to the point where he can keep his chest off the ground for long periods. He’s funny to watch though – his legs are strong, so he’ll squirm around trying to move, with his little butt poking high up in the air and his face and chest planted in his blankets. Mostly he can turn in circles and occasionally push himself slowly along, but he hasn’t yet figured out how to pull all these pieces together into concerted locomotion. He can also roll himself over, though not yet consistently, which occasionally leads to crying and frustration because he gives up and concludes he’s stuck, then starts wailing. He also doesn’t like to sit most of the time, and actually prefers standing in our laps with us providing the balance.
He’s pretty consistently slept through the night all month. He’s to bed by 7PM or so, and often wakes up around 4AM but can be coaxed back to sleep until 6AM. We’ve moved him out of his co-sleeper and into his own crib in his room, and so far that’s gone pretty well. We feel especially blessed in this department. We don’t get as much sleep as regular folks, but compared to what some of our friends have gone through we have it really easy.
Susan continues to post images to our gallery. The gallery of photos taken during Brady’s 6th month is here, and here’s a sample from one of his new experiences, swimming in the Lords awesome new swimming pool:
Susan and Brady as Brady tries a swimming pool for the first time
Saying goodbye to Norma
Susan’s Aunt Norma passed away last week after a short battle with cancer. Her death was not a surprise, though it came a bit sooner than most expected, but her funeral was still an emotionally draining experience for the Kimball clan. We gathered in Portland Thursday night for the visiting hours at the funeral home, then at a church in South Portland, ME for the funeral. Norma’s obituary is here on the Portland Press Herald’s site.
I didn’t know her well. I’d seen her over the last several years at the holidays and Kimball family gatherings. She was friendly, outgoing, and quick to laugh and share a joke. I liked her. My most poignant memory of her is the eulogy she delivered at her Mother’s funeral last year. Norma and Susan’s Mother Linda each delivered a eulogy at the ceremony. Linda’s was the more polished, thoughtful eulogy, which given her career as a minister should surprise no one, but I was more moved by Norma’s deeply personal outpouring of affection and loss.
We were fortunate to have a chance to introduce Brady to her before her passing. I’ve posted a picture of that below.
Brady, Norma and Susan last month
Loss
Norma’s Funeral seen from afar
Recipe for anxiety
Ingredients:
one web geek paranoid about data privacy issues that shares a name with a famous photographer
Steps:
- Visit facebook.com for the first time in months to check privacy settings, after a weekend full of old college friend facebook messages leaves you wondering what’s happened.
- Note that profile is still configured to show info in public (google, etc) searches. Decide to investigate.
- Search on name.
- Note that David Hamilton the photographer is still consuming all the top results for your name.
- Idly click on one of the David Hamilton the photographer google links
- Find oneself on a page that looks a lot like child porno (the kids arent naked, they’re scantily clad, but it’s pretty scant, and the site name has lolita in the title), freak out, and close the browser tab.
- Realize you never logged out of facebook when the facebook tab is revealed.
- Curse and fret.
Fscking facebook man.
Debt free at last
You always hear about how when you buy a house you need a ton of cash on hand to take care of all the unexpected expenses. Susan and I had planned ahead, but nonetheless we ended up more than 10k in the hole after the sale, mostly via the purchase of a spendy yard tractor and $6k+ in new appliances. Both were mostly necessary expenses. We definitely could have gotten by with cheaper appliances, but we figured ehh, we’re likely only going to do this once so we might as well splurge, so we bought top of the line appliances. On the tractor end of things, we could have spent at least $1500 less, but I was adamant that we should get something good and mobile. Good because all you read about is how the medium to low end ride on mowers wear out after 3-5 seasons, and we have 3 acres to mow. Mobile because the property has a lot of trees on it. I’m convinced I save an hour a week with our 4 wheel steering model.
We were smart about things – we don’t normally carry debt outside of car loans and mortgage. We research purchases using consumer reports and my endless googling. We talked through everything in the months leading up to the move. In the end though, we lucked out in terms of timing and got 0% financing from Sears on the appliances, along with a bunch of savings tied to a state program that was in play during the week we purchased, and similarly got a 0% finance plus accoutrements deal on the tractor. The downside to the finance deal was, we had a year to pay it all off. We just finished.
So that’s the good news, right? This should mean tons of free capital in the family budget. A Big screen tv, a new ipad 2, and a replacement for my blown up xbox 360, all on the menu this summer? It’s a no brainer! Err, except for two nefariously expensive words which I’ll close with:
Infant daycare ;-(
Progress
It’s the little things
So how would you fence a goat?
We have around 3 acres of land now, most of it grass. I spend 5-6 hours a week mowing. We also have a barn with 4 stalls. Given these facts, Susan and I have been kicking around the idea of getting goats/sheep/alpaca that would help keep the grass trimmed, clear some of the land, and maybe produce hair for spinning and knitting. There’s also something of a principle at work here, which involves us working the land and trying to produce some of what we use locally ourselves. Mowing is a waste, but cleared land is an opportunity – for an acre of asparagus, or of sunflowers, or a bunch of goats, an acre of fruit or nut trees, or even just a field of wildflowers. We have several issues to deal with before we get there though, including getting water out to the barn (we’re thinking we’ll get a hand pump well drilled, since there’s a vernal pool nearby suggesting there’s ample groundwater close below) and how to contain the animals.
The well seems straightforward, but the fencing turns out to be complicated. There’s lots of ways to fence livestock. We could pay for or build permanent wooden, plastic or metal fencing. We could use horse panels, which are basically stiff steel wire fence panels with large rectangular holes, and move the animals around along with the fencing every couple of days. We could use corral panels, which are steel tube fencing panels which are sturdier than the horse panels but much more expensive. We could use movable plastic ribbon electric fence, which use plastic rods with foot pedals on them that you reposition periodically. Or we could do something we haven’t thought of yet. What would you do were you us? Permanent fencing doesn’t appeal much because of the cost and the lack of flexibility. Horse panels leave me nervous that I’m going to be chasing down escaped goats all the time. Corral panels seem pretty expensive (they run ~$8-10 a foot). The plastic ribbon fence is an eye sore and a lot of work to move around, plus even though they can use solar power, they do require the power. Basically, we’re not loving any of the options and debating what to do. Anyone else got an opinion they want to share, or other options?
The ectasy and the agony
So let me just get this out of the way – my golden retriever Soolin is the greatest dog ever. Today’s proof is here:
my dog Soolin leaping into the pool
this despite the fact that she’s got arthritic hips so creaky she sometimes has trouble making it up stairs, and a fat deposit under her front right armpit that causes her gait to be way out of whack*. So you get the full picture, here’s her sticking the landing:
spalasssh!
and paddling immediately on over to retrieve the tennis ball:
paddling over to her ball
so, that’s the good news. My dog is fricking cool and possessed of an indomitable will to enjoy herself. The bad news? She pays the price:
This is after it had healed a bit. It got her on both sides, her neck, and her back.
She got hotspots so badly on her cheeks that we had to pay the vet to shave her for us – she wouldn’t let us near them because they were so uncomfortable. She was diagnosed with a yeast infection in both ears at the same time. All told she’s on two oral medications, some goop that goes in her ears twice a day, and a topical spray that goes on the wounds 3 times a day.
My poor, fabulous, glorious Soolin. There’s no stopping her no matter the consequences.
*(she’s going in for surgery to have that removed sometime in the next month or so)
Dave's Place/Metamusing 