The Past Week

It seems I am under a bad star or something this week. I know it could always be worse, but I have been having the craziest accidents. First, our upstairs hallway is pretty crowded-I have our loveseat there right now that used to be in B's room. When we got him a ball pit for his first birthday, there was no room for both, so out it went! GH warned me that it was too crowded, and in fact we've been "meaning to" move it, along with our 101 other things we've been "meaning to" do forever... :)


Well, I was going too fast out into the hallway from our room and I hit my right two little toes incredibly hard against its base. I thought for a minute they were just going to fall off! I made it through the rest of the day, but oh my, if I moved them even slightly the shooting pain was terrible! That night, GH looked at them when he got home and he didn't think they were broken, so I just kept "resting" them as much as possible. A few days after it happened I was brave enough to try to bend them, and found that I couldn't...scary. Also, the color around them, like going down my foot towards my ankle had changed to a dark bluish/purplish color. GH looked at them again and said that if they didn't improve soon, I should probably have them looked at. Well, thank God, they finally started improving some yesterday. The color is still bad, but at least I can bend them a little. And really the pain is almost gone as well.

Then, last night, I was going to broil some steaks at 500 degrees in the oven, and the recipe recommended preheating the pan you were going to use as well. Sounded sensible to me, speed up the cooking time etc. So I stuck it in while my steaks finished marinating. Meanwhile, GH got home from work, and we were talking, discussing our day and stuff. I took the pan out to start cooking the steak, while we were still talking, and I placed it on the stove top. Then, I went to retrieve the steaks from the fridge, still talking to GH, and I went back to the stove and PICKED UP the 500 degree pan with my bare hand!! AARRGHHH!!! Wow this pain was incredible...terrible terrible terrible. I immediately put my hand under the cold faucet, while GH went upstairs to get ointment and to look up the best treatment for minor burns. So I left my hand under the cold water for at least 10 minutes, as recommended, periodically taking it out to "test" and the pain was still terrible. It was largely concentrated in two spots, my left index finger and my palm. After the water treatment when I felt it was slightly lessened, I put some ointment on it. It seemed to be okay more or less, but then a few minutes later, started burning like hell again. So I got an ice pack out and kept it on for literally an hour. That really did the trick I think. I put a lot of ointment on it last night before going to bed and this morning I really hardly feel it at all. I know I am very lucky and last night when it had first happened, all I could think of was that guy on Survivor Australia (the only season I watched) when he fell into the coals. He ran into the water to put his poor hands in, then when he took them out of the water, all of his skin was just like dripping off. It was so gross! And I was sure for a moment that that was going to be me too. The pain I felt was so intense, and this is coming from a woman who had a completely natural labor and birth- no epidural, no pills, no IV meds, nothing. I really feel for real burn victims. God, if what I suffered last night was so terrible to me, then just think what they go through.

Finally, this morning, I was trying to carry B and 3 glasses downstairs with me and guess what? I moved (erm, trying to avoid said loveseat again) and banged one glass right into the wooden balcony; glass flew everywhere! Thank God, neither of us were injured. I put B into his playpen and had to vacuum the entire hallway and stairs, one by one. Not my favorite thing at any time, much less, to do on the way down to breakfast; haven't had my morning coffee etc.

So hopefully from here on out, this star will move on and I will have fewer or at least less dramatic accidents!

Funny News

So we were just watching the late local news and the reporter made a comment that just cracked me up.

There have been gang problems for years in a town of about 150,000 near here. For whatever reason, these problems tend to spike every year at the beginning of the year.

Anyway, there were a couple of shootings earlier this week in a certain shopping area of this town I'm talking about and then another today in broad daylight. 3 people dead. So obviously that's not the funny part.

But, the reporter was doing a piece about what could be behind the string of recurring violence in this particular shopping center. She said she interviewed local police and they advised her that "no one should be concerned about [...] shopping center because ***there is no more violence there than anywhere else in [city]..."***
OKAY, does anyone else see the bitter irony in his statement??!? I was practically rolling on the floor. Umm, no fewer than THREE people have been shot and killed there in the past few few days, but hey, don't worry! It's no more dangerous than the rest of our beautiful city!

Needless to say, we moved far out of that city WAY before B was born.
Terrible.

Sleep Update

Just wanted to update on the last week or so of sleep.

What a transformation.
A typical night now looks like this:
8-8:30 pm B goes to sleep
2-3 am B wakes and falls asleep within 5 minutes-we don't take him out of his crib, we just go in and say comforting words- "shhh, night night, shhh"
4:30-5:30 am B wakes and we bring him to our bed; I nurse him 5-10 minutes and then we all sleep
7 am, one of us makes him a bottle.
Then we all snooze a little more until around 7:30 or 8 am.

This is just so much better than how things were going for us before "The No-Cry Sleep Solution." I just can't stress enough how much it has helped us and changed B's sleep habits for the better- WITHOUT having to implement the cry it out method that GH and I were so reluctant to try. If you read "The No-Cry Sleep Solution," check out the passages describing what a psychologist suggests crying it out may be like for an infant. If you're a fan of that method, I can bet this will turn your mind toward a less harsh method like "The No-Cry Sleep Solution." It certainly turned my stomach anyway.

Also, a couple of times he has skipped the 2-3 am waking, and slept all the way through to 4:30-5 am. This will happen more and more often as he adjusts I'm sure.

We are much happier, just wanted to update on how it has continued to work for us.

Aquarium Saturday

So, we went to the local aquarium last weekend (and again yesterday, as a matter of fact).
B had an awesome time.
The admission fee however is outrageous! They wanted $60 for my husband and I for 1 visit!! Crazy.
The membership fee for one whole year for our family was only $120, so it wasn't a difficult decision to go ahead and do this. Thus the second visit yesterday- B and I went; what a great way to spend the day! Now I have another fun option to spend time with him.
The aquarium we visit is world renowned, thus eternally packed on the weekends. The trick to going during the week as I discovered by accident yesterday is to get there around 2-2:30pm (or around 1ish if you're planning to eat lunch there like we did). That way, the school kids on field trips are all headed out already. It seemed as crowded as on the weekends when we first arrived around 1pm, but by the time we finished our lunch, we had the place to ourselves!! We spent time at several exhibits completely alone; we absorbed all the fishy goodness at our leisure.
It also helps if you find a "miraculous" parking place like we discovered last Saturday. We happened upon a 12 hour meter only blocks from the aquarium (and hey I don't mind walking a little-nice bonus exercise!) that is apparently broken and is forever "green"!! Wow. And yes, it still worked yesterday. We paid not a cent for parking.
All in all, we have been thoroughly enjoying our watery outings, and highly recommend you go check out your local aquarium as well!