Happy Easter! (one day late)

Good Grief

We had a little adventure tonight. When we got home, Roxanne was in a great mood so I thought we could all enjoy the weather and walk the dog as a family. It was a little chillier than we thought, so after our walk, I was relieved to get home. Then we realized that we were locked out.

We have 3 locks on our door. One deadbolt that works, one deadbolt that is old and doesn't do anything, and then the knob lock. We had locked the knob lock, which is why we didn't notice that we didn't have our keys. Our landlord lives one door over, so we really didn't panic at first. Then he didn't answer our phone calls. After a half hour or so, we called a locksmith (thank goodness we had a phone with us). Eventually, a locksmith came. He had a heavy accent, and was wearing this odd Eurotrash outfit. His jeans were really tight and hip, but he had a slight pot belly, and for 97% of the time he was working on the door, his rear end was halfway out of his pants. He took a phone call while he was working, and Justin and I have been trying to figure out where he was from. We think either Israel or Iran. He was really nice, but between the cold, the frustration of not being able to get a hold of our landlord, and the $175 bill, it was sort of a moot point.

Roxanne behaved herself very well. I hadn't brought her out in a carrier or anything, since we thought it would be a quick trip. I ended up putting her inside the front of my dress, since I was wearing a thin (and short sleeved) vintage dress. Thank goodness people liked stretchy cotton in the 80's. I also had to nurse her in front of our apartment, with no blanket or sling to hide behind. At one point, one of our neighbors (there are only 4 units in our complex) cracked his blinds and looked out. I saw him do it, and wondered what he thought about us. Our little family, complete with our beagle, Katie, huddled on our front stoop. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't feeling hospitable.

Roughly four minutes before the locksmith was able to finally get the door open, Roxanne pooped audibly and with several loud grunts. I'm pretty sure even the locksmith heard it. When Justin and I moved into this apartment, we noticed that the locks were installed upside down. We thought it was weird. According to the locksmith, this makes it harder to break in. It apparently also makes it much harder for the locksmith. I was starting to think that I'd have to hold a poopy baby huddled on the front stoop for the rest of the night.

Ten minutes after our door finally opened, the landlord came home.

Baby Quirks

Roxanne is extremely displeased by nasal noises. She could be totally and completely asleep, like that baby sleep where you can cut their finger nails without them waking up, and if my husband blows his nose in the downstairs living room, she instantly wakes up with a start. If I'm nursing her and I sniffle, she stiffens and cuts her stare sideways to give me the stink eye. The really strange thing is that my husband and I can be carrying on a normal conversation at a normal volume, and she can easily sleep through it, but if Justin does that icky hock back a lugey (how do you even spell that?) thing, she starts fussing. It's like she's got some kind of nasal alarm.

Perhaps she's destined to be an Ear, Nose, Throat Doctor and cure the stuffy noses of the world. I sure hope so. I haven't signed up for a 401K plan yet.

This is what my daughter looks like when she's sick

When I'm sick, it's kind of reminiscent of the mug shot of Nick Nolte.

The view from the trenches

Our family spent Saturday night through Wednesday in the throws of rotavirus. It was a blur of vomiting, fever, diarrhea, body aches, and general ickiness. Yesterday we all finally went back to work and day care respectively, but this morning Roxanne threw up in the car again. So now the two of us are back home again and I'm just hoping against hope that it is just a big spit-up. I'm currently waiting for the pediatrician's office to open so I can call and try to get her in. Of course, since they open at 9, the phone line has a busy signal for the first half hour or so.

That brings me to another point. We had to get in for an emergency appointment on Monday there and our appointment was for 11:15. Of course Roxanne had a blow out when were walking out the door, and we ended up being fifteen minutes late (I did call and warn them we were late). When we got there, the waiting room was packed with sniffly babies and toddlers. Our pediatrician does not have a sick and well waiting room. We ended up being in the waiting room for about 45 minutes, and the whole time I kept wondering whether or not Roxanne was infecting all these kids with her virus, and also what viruses we might be picking up. By the time we got called back, I was crying, and Roxanne had pooped through her outfit. Five minutes after being in the exam room, I had to go throw up. I love the staff at our pediatrician so I hate to complain, but it just seems terrible to have one tiny waiting room packed full of sick and well kids. I guess that's another part of living intown.

Later on Monday we went to Scottish Rite to get an ultrasound on Roxanne's belly because the pediatrician wanted to make sure that everything looked OK with her insides. The ultrasound was fortunately normal, but the trip was awful, too. I was still throwing up constantly, and Roxanne was really hungry, but we had to make her wait 3 hours to eat for the ultrasound. She was inconsolable in the waiting room of radiology until two of the hospital clowns came in and sang just for her. She was totally mesmerized.

I'm just so exhausted with this. It's so hard to see your baby sick. Especially when you feel like they are getting most of it from being in day care. We love her day care, and there are very few other babies in with her, but still. I wish I could work from home. Maybe if the entire "work from home" job market weren't primarily populated with scams...

Baby at a bar

Well, I've done it. On Friday evening, I picked Roxanne up from day care and brought her back to Midtown to the Spotted Dog Tavern. It was one of my co-workers birthdays, and two of my co-workers who have been out of town for quite a while were back visiting, so I decided to go. I was a little worried about bringing her in there for several reasons. I did know that it was a non-smoking bar since all Atlanta restaurants and bars are now non-smoking, and since it was only 5:30, I knew there wouldn't be too many obnoxiously drunk people. It's definitely a place where people who work in the Bank of America Tower go after work to have a drink. They also have food, so it's sort of a restaurant, too (can you tell I'm justifying?).

I was worried mostly about noise. It is always really loud in the Spotted Dog, and although they usually play a nice selection of music, they were playing awful stuff like Ace of Base on Friday night. Justin took MARTA up to us from his job, and he agreed that it was a little loud for baby. However, all of my co-workers (who are definitely also friends) were enamored with Roxanne. She got passed around a little bit, and got her picture taken about fifty times (don't we all love camera phones?). I was only a little bit uncomfortable because I worried about what the other patrons were thinking. One man in particular was sitting at a table with some friends and kept turning around on his stool to stare at us. I thought he looked sort of irritated, and it was making me feel guilty. After about half an hour, we decided to leave. I was shocked when the man who had been staring at us tried to get my attention on the way out, and with a big goofy grin asked "how old is the baby?"