Father's Day and The First Cold

Howie's FIRST Father's Day went well. I woke up at 6:45 am to go to the grocery store to buy him balloons and cake. I also looked for hash browns for his breakfast but they didn't have any in the store for some reason. I decided that I'd head over to McDonalds and get ghetto hash browns. Ghetto or not, they're good! After my early morning shopping spree I came home, put things away, and crawled back into bed. When Aislinn woke up I got her dressed in the cute little Ralph Lauren dress someone gave us that we haven't had an excuse for her to wear until now. Howie was awake so he came downstairs to open his gifts.


Aislinn with Howie's stack of Father's Day gifts.


Howie with his new XBox HD DVD player.


A new camera bag that will hold all of the extra lenses he apparently needs for the camera.


Mets tickets for the last game of the season, which is also Howie's birthday. It'll be Aislinn's first baseball game. Woohoo!


A book that I made for Howie on Shutterfly.com.

I then made him scrambled cheese eggs, bacon, and heated up the hash browns. YUM! The rest of the day was pretty laid back. We took a walk in Westport, had some bitchin' pizza, then we came home. Aislinn slept, ate, played. For dinner we ordered Chinese food and for dessert we had chocolate cake.





So what else has been going on while I should have been blogging about Father's Day? We cleaned the house, searched for jobs, I worked, and Aislinn came down with her first cold. I feel so bad because her cute little nose is stuffy and running and she's all congested. I wish I could just make her better. I hate seeing her sick like that. We took her to the doctor in the beginning when the cold wasn't that bad. She told us that if it were worse she'd have us give her something, but it usually just makes babies more fussy or something. So instead she told us to steam up the bathroom and bring her in for a few minutes. I turned the hot water on full blast and closed the door before her bath. I was going to go in there and change the temperature to fill up her actual bath once the room was all steamed up and then I was going to use the baby vapor bath soap to wash her. While I was getting her ready for her bath I asked Howie to go in and fill up her tub. He went in the bathroom and there was so much steam that his glasses fogged up and he said it was so hot he could barely breathe. He left the door open to let out some steam before I went in. He couldn't fill up the bath because he couldn't see so I went in to do it. It was pretty warm in there and it was very wet. My hair started to curl up and I started to sweat. I filled up her tub and left the door open for a few more minutes. I think the steam and the vapor bath helped. We used the snot sucker to get the snot out of her nose but she only allowed that about 10% of the time. A bunch of people told us to put a pillow under her mattress but when we did it looked like bad news to me. I pictured her turning the wrong way in her sleep and rolling down the "hill" in her crib. We decided that it was probably best for her to sleep in her swing since she likes that and she can sit up while sleeping without rolling away. Howie brought the humidifier downstairs and placed it near her swing. That seemed to work well. This cold started on Monday and it seems to be much better now. It isn't over but it's better.

She has been all about me lately. Daddy makes her feel better too. Howie's parents were over on Thursday and she just wanted me to hold her the whole time. It made me feel bad and I figured they were just thinking that she was favoring me because I breast feed her and they think that is keeping her from bonding with Howie or anyone else. Whatever. I was surprised when they said it was probably because she was sick and just wanted her Mommy. I really expected them to attack the breastfeeding like they usually do. It is sweet that she wants to be with me and that I make everything all better for her, but I do feel bad when she cries when other people are holding her. Oh well, someday she'll be 16 and she won't want me around at all so I am going to just love this time I have with her right now.

As far as unemployment goes things are the same. I'm working just enough to keep our health insurance. My former boss told me that if Howie and I move back to VA that I'd have a full-time job. I was tempted to go back because I miss living there and I really miss my friends, Bren, Les & my brother's gf, "J". Of course I miss my boss "D" and the rest of my co-workers. For the past month I think it has seemed like we were on vacation and the whole unemployment thing wasn't real. Howie is growing a beard and I only shave once a week. Howie's becoming an online poker champion and getting really good at cleaning the house. I have been doing busy work for my company just to keep our insurance and have started expanding my TV viewing with shows like Engineering the Impossible, Design Rivals, Flip This House, Flip That House, Hey Paula, and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the d-list. I figured I need to keep things balanced between learning and garbage TV. It's going well. If the housing market was better I could easily flip a house, and I'm amazed that it took 3 times as long to build Chartres Church than it did to build the Great Pyramid of Giza. WTF? Are you serious? I also enjoy watching Paula Abdul act like a stupid spoiled crack head when crying about how her two assistants didn't pack her a pair of sweat pants for her to wear on her flight. Anyway, I think the vacation will soon come to an end and the panic will truly set in. I still have faith that everything will be ok and work out. It has to.

Before I go I just want to send all y'all over to Les over at In Search of a Baby Ug to send all of your good vibes and wishes to her and her little embryos. Good luck Les! I love you!!