And now the bathroom smells like iron

Guess what happens when a prenatal vitamin gelcap gets dropped into the floor vent for the heater? Now instead of flowers, or shampoo, the bathroom smells like rust.

Milestones

1. Owen not only removed his diaper, but peed all over his bed. Huh. Keeping fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen again.
2. He can open all the interior doors in our house. He’s now tall enough to reach the doorknob, strong enough to turn it, and has watched us enough to know the motion to open a door. He’s been letting himself into the bathroom, the guest bedroom, and other places surprisingly quickly.
3. He went to his first swimming ‘lesson’ last weekend. He was a little suspicious at first, but once we were in the water, he loved the class. It’s a mommy&me class, so a parent swims too. He liked the kicking and getting pulled into the pool off the side best.

The Case of the Missing Diaper

When Owen woke up this morning, he had his usual talking to himself. I went in to get him and found that he had gotten his PJs unzipped and removed his diaper completely. He wears long-sleeved footie pajamas, so getting the diaper out is not easy task with his legs and arms still in the sleeves and legs. It took awhile to find where he had stashed the diaper, which is surprising since his morning diaper usually has half a pound of pee in it. I thought he had thrown it out of his crib, or stuffed it between the crib rail and the wall, but no luck. Turns out he had hidden it under his blanket and stuffed animals. Huh. Bathtime for everyone.

Commuter notes and punishments

We have a safe deposit box at a local bank. Specifically, it's at a bank branch located in a grocery store parking lot. We've been extremely happy users of online banking for years, so to go to this little building with limited hours, slow tellers and questions like, "Do you remember where your box is [located among the sequentially numbered boxes]?" is unusual and, frankly, unpleasant. It somehow seems bad in a way that going to the bank when we were small didn't. Now, being there feels like we've done something wrong.

So I had been feeling a little bad about sending Kerry to our safe deposit bank last weekend. Then I realized that she never has to visit the men's bathroom at Union Station in DC. It always smells of urine and loss. Just walking into the strangely cramped, perpetually broken facility is enough to bring your sins and misdeeds to the front of your thoughts, and you fear - or know - that you deserve no better than this. Yesterday, there was fresh blood on the hand dryer.

'Mommy Go Peepee'

Did this really have to be Owen’s first sentence? It’s been closely followed by ‘Daddy go work’ and ‘Mommy go work’. Otherwise, he says ‘bye bye (fill in inanimate object)’ any time we go up or down the stairs. Bye bye light, bye bye cat, bye bye fish. He still tries out new word combos when he wakes up in the morning and it’s cute to hear him talking to himself over the monitor.

My favorite is of course ‘love yoooo love yoooo’, which gets used in 3 instances – 1. Owen is trying to get Carla to let him misbehave 2. He’s trying to get his way by manipulating his parents/nanny Carla/the world 3. He loves us. I’ll just assume it’s mostly # 3 and less of #2 and #1, although it is cute to hear in any context.

Nemesis #2

AIG Valic. Do not ever, ever, do any kind of retirement planning with them. You will never be able to make changes to your account or transfer money out again. They will require someone to sign the paperwork who lives in Antarctica and only is available for 6 minutes a day once a month.

Nemesis #1

Windows Vista. My computer is new from last summer and Vista has already crapped out to the point that I think it needs to be reinstalled. My computer:
1. doesn't hibernate
2. doesn't turn on unless I push the 'on' button 4 or 5 times for 3-4 seconds each time
3. gets the BSOD several times a week (and no amount of online research has provided a solution)
4. logs off for unknown reasons (while using the computer)
There's no virus and no spyware that Travis or I can find.
Huh.

Shopping While Hungry (SWH)

Here’s what I bought while shopping hungry:
1. Hot pockets – the last time I bought and ate these I was preggers with Owen
2. Cottage cheese – ditto for the above (and I’ve eaten the whole container in 24 hrs)
3. Bacon – d2 craves meat
4. Eggo waffles – breakfast is the hardest meal of the day. Even now that I can eat
5. Turkey sausage – see #3
6. Tater tots - just because

By popular request: the Most Embarrassing Work Story

So I referred to my 2nd most embarrassing experience at work in a previous post and got a few requests for the most embarrassing work story.

So here it is:
Long ago, when I was a medicine intern, I passed out on rounds while making a presentation to the rest of the team. Morning rounds is where the team of doctors and nurses discuss what happened with individual patients overnight, generally in the hall outside the patient’s room. So there was an audience of 6 or so people there to watch me drop to the floor like a stone. Definitely embarrassing, since generally one wants to make a good impression on one's work colleagus, and not look like a sickly ghost.
Why did I pass out, you might wonder? I’d been awake for way too many hours, hadn’t eaten or drunk any liquids in a really long time, and had a stressful night in the hospital (an overwhelming number of sick patients). I was fine after the whole passing out thing, mainly just embarrassed, and work continued as usual until I left the hospital that night.
This is part of the reason there are now strict work hour regulations for people training to be doctors. Things are very different now.

Haggis

We celebrated Robert Burns’s (the poet) 250th birthday last night with friends from Scotland. My favorite Burns factoid of the evening – he stayed busy, as he had 32 known children at the time of his death at age 32. We ate some traditional Scottish food - neeps, tatties, and haggis = turnips, potatoes, and haggis. Haggis is a Scottish ‘sausage’ traditionally made out of sheep stomach and filled with grains and unpleasant meats (think tripe). The newer version uses ground beef and is in a less-repulsive casing. It gets cooked by being steamed for 3 hours. Since you can’t bring meat into the US from the UK, they had to find a more local source of haggis. Local turned out to be Texas and they got a mail-order haggis. It was actually pretty good, although not the most attractive of foods. Earlier in the first trimester, I don’t think I could be in the same room as a haggis without having to excuse myself.

Cravings

So far they include M&Ms and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. Although apparently I haven’t been eating enough of either, since I lost 2 pounds during the first trimester. So I got lectured to eat more at my appointment. 3 meals and 3 snacks a day here I come!

What’s different this time

Some things are the same, some are different (so far).

1. Different: Morning sickness. Last time I was sick in the evenings if I didn’t eat dinner soon enough. This time, I’ve had more problems in the morning, which involved throwing up in the ICU when I was seeing a patient. It was the second most mortifying thing that ever happened to me at work. Fortunately it seems to be completely gone, and not to have lasted as long or occurred as frequently as before. I didn’t need to carry crackers with me, so this is in the direction of goodness.
2. Different: Less achy. So far, but I’ve heard this changes. The shower doesn’t hurt my boobs this time around, which is a victory.
3. Different: Less worry. I have a better idea what to expect, so it makes me a touch less paranoid. I am still afraid to eat peanut butter (what if they expand the recall?) and have been avoiding cold cuts after reading about a Listeria outbreak (it was Canadian lunchmeat, but you never know… we’re not that far from Canada, right?). But otherwise, things are more mellow (so far).
4. Same: The sleepiness. Growing a baby from 2.5 cm to 6.5 cm = 2 naps on a Sunday. Or maybe I’m just turning into my father’s daughter, as he is a champion napper.
5. Same: The urge to blog.
6. Same : The urge to nest. We’ve already cleaned the office and cathouse. We got some pictures framed for the walls. Next I need to move the rest of my medical books to work, so the guestroom books can come live in the office.

Introducing D2

Estimated arrival date August 13, 2009!

What Owen's Reading

OK, actually having them read to him. But he’s getting picky, so some books have fallen out of favor (goodbye Brown Bear, Brown Bear)

1. Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, by Al Perkins. Still very popular with Owen. Cool 1970’s monkeys complete with sideburns, playing the drums. Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum.
2. Gingerbread Baby, by Jan Brett. A cute story about a gingerbread baby that escapes the oven. It’s set somewhere that looks Scandinavian and the art is fantastic. It’s the longest book he’ll sit through right now.
3. Things that Go. No author, but published by Tucker Slingsby Limited. Full of photos of tractors, trucks, airplanes, balloons, boats, and fire engines. We read this every day, so now Owen will be able to identify a snowblower if he ever sees one.
4. Clarence Goes Out West and Meets a Purple Horse, by Jean Ekman Adams. Clarence the pig goes on vacation to Arizona, to a dude ranch, and makes friends with a purple horse. Very cute book. All part of Angus and Julie’s master plan to convince us to move to Arizona.
5. Busy People, by Joe Kaufman. This was my book, back long ago when I was Owen’s age. Mom and dad read it to me a lot.It has a separate section for Zeke Zookeeper, Peter Policeman, Trudy Teacher, Fred Fireman, and Doris Doctor. That’s right people, an early 70’s childrens book with a female doctor! The book shows what each person does at work and all their gear/clothes (ie Fred fireman’s helmet, ladders, etc). Owen wants to read this book every night.