Psychotomy

So on the 24th we went ahead and punched the button for the fitness membersip at lifetime. It’s a little more per month than we wanted, but we just liked it so much better than the other option that we were willing to go for it. We went back to look at the kids center and the guy we talked to initially was busy with another customer, so his manager (we think) took us and showed us around. And frankly we liked him WAAAY better. If he’d been our initial contact, we might have signed up the first time :o

But today we decided to take DK swimming. B/c he was throwing a fit over not being allowed to play with the TV and we felt that that was a sign he needed to do something else. We got there and got changed and headed out to the pool. We noticed that there weren’t any kids in the pool, really, but we didn’t see anything that suggested adult swim or anything so we figured maybe it’s coincidetal. We started with DK in the shallow end, and then kiir walked him out further and that was when the lifeguard told us that it was adult swim. So DK took my hand and walked me around the outside of the pool so I could ask the lifeguard how long adult swim was. Because if it was going to be another 20 minutes or something, we’d bail out and make a note that 6pm — not the time to go swimming. Turns out it’s 15minutes at 2 4 and 6, and by the time we got back to mommy it was free swim again yay!

DK swam back and forth (as in we passed him and he was generally unsupported for only a second or so) and he kicked his legs a bunch to move and such. Did that for about 30-40 minutes before we headed out. Couldn’t find any towels, even though everyone had them …. probably should have just asked someone else, because obviously they knew where to find them and we didn’t :o But we’d brought a towel from home in case and I found one unused towel sitting in the family locker room so we made it through.

DK swallowed plenty of chlorinated water though :/ oops. But he was having a grand ol’ time, and I’m good with that!

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So Kiir’s mom bought a play-kitchen from Costco (KidKraft Vintage Kitchen Playset) and I put it together Wednesday afternoon while he was napping. Took a few hours to do (seriously? OMFG!) but it actually seems to be made of high quality pressboard (almost feels like solid wood, but at a 140$ I SERIOUSLY doubt that).

It’s a little small, but it’s a great size for him right now. I think it’ll last until he’s 6 or 7 before it becomes awkwardly short or small. But with a sibling two years behind him, that’s basically 7 years before it runs out. By which time one of kiir’s three siblings will likely start having kids. So amortized over the 15-yr span it’s likely to serve, it’s a good price. It’ll probably start showing the wear by the time DK and his sister are done, but I think it’ll keep working OK. And we can always look at painting it.

I’ll try to get some pics to upload next week, he seems to enjoy it though

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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First day of the trip was travel. As in we left our place ~7:30 in the morning to go to my parents, shuttle to the airport, plane to jfk, flight to india, arriving ~4 the following afternoon. Short trip ;)

Flight from DCA to JFK was a small puddle-jumper commuter flight. TINY overheads, so we had to check the spare suitcase at the gate because it wouldn’t fit as carry-on. No problem, still had my duffle and kiir’s backpack, and it was only 45 minutes in the air.

Checking in for the Air India flight there was some confusion because they wanted to label EVERY bag as carry-on or checked. The car-seat is, technically, neither. That lady finally just threw up her hands, labelled it as carry on, and said we’d have to deal with it later. Which worked since it was now labelled the check-in counter had no issues with it.

But when we went to get on the flight, we four got separated by the process, so I’ve got DK and the carseat with my duffle sitting in the carseat. as we approach the causeway, they have people gate-checking items, since the plane is 100% booked they need the space. Kiir ended up checking the suitcase again, after we grabbed a few things out. In the meantime, however, I have some Air India guy telling me I have to check the bag.

It’s his carseat.
You have to check it.
But it’s his SEAT.
No, you have to check it, it’s too big.
But it isn’t a carry-on bag! FAA regulations say that an infant/toddler can have their carseat in their plane seat for protection.
No.

By now he’s getting pissed with me for not doing what he said, I’m losing my temper which I know isn’t going to help, so I yelled for kiir. Guy throws up his hands and I go to kiir to talk to the guy she was talking to, since he seemed more competent anyway. Kiir starts with him …

It’s his carseat
We have carseats
On the plane?
Yes, you have to check it

Well, hell, if the first guy had TOLD ME that they HAD carseats, THAT’s in the FAA docs as a possibility and that the airline can deny our carseat in that instance. Fine, great, happy now we handed it over to check and boarded.

When we asked the stewardess, she gave us a blank look. Danger, Will Robinson! After some more discussion, during which my dad joined us, it was established that (a) “carseat”, in india, is a basket. Basically a bassinet for laying the baby down. Uh. Not what we had. This is why we were trying to SHOW people what was in the case! Oh, and (b) we’re not in a seat that can have that carseat, even if it WAS acceptable to us.

I rushed back to try to get the carseat from the checking area, but the guard at the door of the plane told me that it was not permitted that I leave the plane after boarding it. Even though I still had my boarding pass (and my passport for ID). I wasn’t sure which way she was leaning with the stilted explanation. Either I wouldn’t be allowed to re-board, or I’d be arrested. I decided that neither was conducive to this exercise and tromped back to our seats

My dad then spent twenty minutes working his way up the chain of importance, with me tagging along uselessly but feeling like I should be there since it’s my son and my carseat :o In the end we had to get approval from the CAPTAIN to use it, after ASSURING multiple copilots and such that it was SECURE. Actually, the only reason we got that far was because my dad raised a stink about the fact that he paid for a FULL seat, FULL PRICE, not a discounted infant seat or anything, and if he’d wanted to hold the baby on our laps the entire flight he wouldn’t have bought a WHOLE SEAT for him.

Eventually they sent someone down to the tarmac to grab it for us since it hadn’t gone into the plane yet, and we got to set it up. Oi.

Apparently if anyone had asked me I could have also reassured them that the seat secures down using the airline’s seat belt. That made them feel even better when we showed them :o

We established that on the return flight we needed to make sure to mention that it was a full seat at full price, and that we probably shouldn’t call it a “car seat” but a “child safety restraint system” or something similiar. Which was in the FAA brochure, but I hadn’t really read it figuring that Kiir was there and had these answers, and it’s not like it was going to be that much of a shock to them to see a carseat. Americans have to use them semi-often, right?

Or, you know, NOT. AFAICT we were the only people to ever think of using a carseat on an Air India flight :o

OTOH, on the flight back two weeks later, we never heard a peep about it. I swear, that is a LOT of high-intensity training :o

Posted in: DK, India by attriel /
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In India, we were having to wash clothes by hand. Either Kiir or I would take a few items into our “bath” with us and wash them, hanging them up when we finished. The soap was sometimes hard to clear from the clothes, and since the water is from a reservoir my uncle filled every morning when city water pressure was enough to be able to pump it, we tried not to use too much.

So some things didn’t get quite 100% clean. We threw everything from the trip through the laundry when we got home. And DK isn’t the cleanliest of chaps, even at home with carpets and hardwood flooring and cleanly rural life. On hard stone flooring, open doors, and smoggy dusty dirty cities? His clothes got horrible. So they needed a couple cycles through the laundry :o

But some clothes? Needed it more. For instance, here’s his shirt from the flight home. Delhi to NYC, 15 hours, and not a damned thing to do on the flight. So he watched iPod with his Tigger & Pooh episodes, and he ate lollipops. Lots of lollipops.

The flight home was not kind

That’s how the shirt looked when we got to JFK, so once we had time to sit down with our bags etc and take him off my back (he was in the carrier for wandering through baggage and check in and security and such), we popped off hte shirt and gave him a fresh one.

Without the Flash, it's worse

When I didn’t use the flash, the color is flawed, but the effect is a little more pronounced. That entire neckline and parts of the sleeves? They’re actually ENCASED in sugar from all those lollipops.

But that was from the flight, and was generally expected. I mean, 15 hours on a plane? Lollipops? Of course he’s gonna get messy. The one that kindof threw us was this one:

The original 'Great White Shirt'

This shirt was from the first week. We visited a couple relatives on the way to another where we were gonna spend a night or two. There wasn’t a lot of running around in fields or climbing through ruins or anything. It was just general daily usage!

When we left in the morning, we were talking about his Great White Shark shirt. By the time we peeled it off him in the evening we had re-dubbed it the Great White Shirt. As the trip progressed, the term generalized to reference any previously white shirt. Because none of them made it back to “white” while we were there. But the Great White Shirt we never even bothered trying to clean while we were there. Because we figured the amount of work it needed required someone who did the hand-washing regularly and knew how to get dirt and stains out. We didn’t really.

But once we got home, we threw all his clothes in the laundry with some detergent and some Oxy and let them soak overnight. Then ran them in the morning. Then ran them again because all the white shirts were still stain-y.

Germs without germs

The germ shirt came out OK at that point, but a couple others were a little worse off still. But I pulled them out and sprayed them with oxy pre-treater and set them aside while I threw the rest of DK’s clothes into the dryer. Then I spent the day washing diapers (another story)

After spraying occasionally through the day I finally tossed the last of the great white shirts, including The Great White Shirt in during the last cycle of pre-wash and left them in for diapernight. This morning I checked them after drying, and LO AND BEHOLD!

The Great White Shirt Is White

And OMG. thats a LOT of washing! :o

Posted in: DK, India by attriel /
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So, when we went out on errands wednesday, DK fell asleep in the car on the way to costco at like 3. And slept until nearly 5, THEN we went for errands, and kept waking him back up. Because he didn’t really get up at 5, we just decided it was time for him to be done with nap. He went to bed around 8 still. Tired.

Last night, kiir took him up for nap around 3. He got up and played in his room and she went to sleep … oops. So I watched him for the afternoon, and made us dinner. He was NOT happy about having to wait while the macaroni & cheese was made (come on, I have to boil water and then boil the pasta kid, seriously, it’s only like 10 minutes or something!!!) He ate the first half bowl that I set for him, so I got the rest of his serving now that it’d've cooled off. As I was eating my dinner I looked over and he was asleep in his chair. He’d turned his head, like he was watching K, and then layed it down on the top and went to sleep.

Because I’m the good guy, and mommy was still asleep, there are no pictures. I took him up and put him in the bed. Then I endeavored to stay up until 9 or 10 (ended up 11, actually, because I was playing Civ Revolution).

Ungrateful lout woke up when I came to bed because I had the AUDACITY to move his leg a little so I could fit on the bed. Then the little bugger got up at 3am.

And, no, I don’t mean he woke up because he was wet and then went back to sleep. He was wet (and poopsy, so I can’t really blame him for waking up), but he was also DONE. In fact, he hasn’t gone back to sleep YET. I wish I’d've gotten more than about 4 hours of sleep last night (got a partial 5th around 5 when he called for ‘mom’ and i dropped him off on kiir … bad attriel, I know, but dammit! TIRED!)

Posted in: DK, India by attriel /
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So, DK’s still having sleep issues. Basically I have to hold him down screaming and kicking until he sighs and gives up struggling for long enough to say “ooh, tired, zonk”

Unfortunately, he kicks and flails a lot, and if I hold him tight enough to keep him from escaping, I’m not sure he CAN fall asleep reasonably. And he’s figured out how to stop struggling for a few moments, go limp so I’ll loosen up a little to let him snuggle down to sleep and .. BOOM! he explodes out and squirms away. Fun fun fun :/

This has been going for two weeks now … My ribs hurt :o

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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Today was DK’s 18mo appt (Wow, kiir posted the stats while I took K and DK for a walk !)

We got there right at his appointment time b/c I forgot how long it’d take to get there (oops). But that’s OK. It’s a doctor’s office. They are NEVER on time, eh?

So we checked in at the desk, and I put DK down to run around and play with whatever they have out. He kept trying to play on other visits but was never quite solid enough to maneuver the blocks-on-rails jungle-gym thingie. But now? Yeah, he’ll LOVE that and be in control an’ … uh … wait …

Where IS the thingie? OK, toy cars, they have a basket of toy cars and such on the other side … wait , where’d they go? Uh …

In the end the only things I could find for him to ‘play with’ were the magazines they had out (which they don’t want the kids tearing up and destroying, even if it IS the May ’08 issue), and the venetian blinds. And actually I was putting away the magazine when he started with the blinds but I didn’t think much of it. Then one of the receptionist/nurse/etc folks was all “DON’T LET HIM PLAY WITH THAT!”

Funny thing. OUR doctor (Kiir and I) has a bunch of toys and a section of the waiting room for kids. And it’s a much smaller office. She does kids, too, so it makes some sense. The glasses shop? Well, the one guy gets all tetchy when DK plays with the sample frames that are under my waist level (seriously, there’s no logic for them to be that low EXCEPT to provoke kids), but the exam area has a toy kitchen, two crates of toys and books, a house-front of some sort. The Psych’s office? The old one had a corner with a table and toys on a bookshelf. the new one has the same setup, but fewer toys. Maybe a dozen or so. Hell. I think my gastroenterologist (say that fast) had toys in the waiting area. Either for the kids so that mom or dad could come in for a talk, or possibly they have do look at kids sometimes. Either way.

And these are all places that “also take” kids. But the pediatricians office? Nothing. Nothing in the waiting room. Nothing in the exam room. W. T. F.

Oi.

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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DK hasn’t been getting to bed until nearly 11pm lately, at which point I tend to check email and then go to bed.

Today I’m letting him watch some word world vids, since if I try to play on the console or even with the legos, he walks off and starts climbing on kiir, so I’m trying to let her have something of a break. Especially since I forgot to tell her I was coming home a bit late tonight :/

But between the late bedtime and the india prep … kindof busy and not getting around to posting much lately :/

Posted in: DK, general by attriel /
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From the Unexpected but not Unfortunate news department:

DK has decided he wants to sleep in his bed now.

When I went to put him to bed last night, he tossed and turned, the climbed out of bed, took my hand and led me from our room to his room. Climbed into his bed and was out in 10 minutes or something.

Tonight (on the 4th attempt) he led me straight to his room. Then he spent 10-15 minutes more rolling and tossing and sitting on my face before suddenly being asleep. I swear, I thought he was just deciding which way to roll next and suddenly *snore* … go figure.

Mind, this could be … interesting? come india. Because it’s possible that (a) he wants to sleep separately. or, more problematic, (b) he wants to sleep in HIS bed …

(a) can be theoretically dealt with, I’ve been told in the past when we decided we weren’t going to try transitioning him until after the trip due to lack of separate beds in india. but (b)? yeah, that one … not taking his bed to india with us, uh-uh, no-way

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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No, seriously

My neck (and back) are screwed up from years of abuse. High school we had those big heavy bags, but i have never been particularly fond of wearing a backpack across both shoulders, and doing so when it weighs 30-40lbs was always more nuisance than I was interested in. So I had a duffel with all my books laid out in it, and I slung it over my right shoulder. Actually, on occasion, HUNG it on my shoulderblade.

All in all, high school was probably not good for my back.

Then I have crap for posture. I slouch. I actually slide so far down my chair at the office that my ass is on the edge and my shoulder blades are hung on the top edge, and i’m more just sorta wedged between my body parts. I need to tweak my desk some i think and figure out a better position … but I’ve never had great posture, so I’m not expecting miracles there.

And now with DK, I’ve got my head turned 75% of the time. Keeping an eye on him at the table. Watching him as we walk. I’m fairly confident that that’s what has been slaughtering my neck the last few months. And then sitting on the floor to play xbox or watch a vid with him, since my chair broke in the spring and I never did find a good replacement (and I’m not entirely convinced he’d let me sit in one anyway), that’s kindof abusing my lower back for me. Wheeee

Bath time is starting to be a nuisance. I’m sitting on the floor, parallel to the bath So my torso is turned (back), and my head is turned (neck). Then I’m leaning on the tub so I can keep one hand in the water to splash with him and what not. So my ribs are pressing into the tub wall (mmmm). All this is sitting in front of the air vent, which means it’s almost constant cold air (I swear, even when the air isn’t running, i get cold air on my back during bath time). THEN he uses me to climb in and out and in and out. So he’s applying new random and uncontrollable pressures to my body, in case something wasn’t pulling wrong. (incidentally, I go through 2-3 shirts a bath ; when they get wet enough, I change. see: air vent)

Lately he’s been sleeping such that I end up flat on my back. And I don’t have the right pillows for that to be good for my neck, either. I either need to get new pillows or try side sleeping ; I’ve never been a fan of back-sleeping anyway :/

oi. My neck hurts :o

Posted in: DK, fitness by attriel /
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