Things I Do During Meetings

1) Blog (like right now)

2) Put the baby to sleep and take video of him (***WARNING*** this is so cute that you may turn into something with an innocent look and big eyes ***/WARNING*** and yes, Valentina's Buddy - in the background you hear our friend K E-R)

3) Change the baby's diaper (don't worry, this isn't the actual change operation, this is the fun time post-change - usually AJ's happiest and most talkative time. This actual video isn't from during a meeting, which is evident by VNB off-screen making faces at AJ and distracting him (but eliciting some awesome smiles and giggles))

4) Fix lunch/snack/tea for myself

5) Do the dishes

6) Clean the house

7) Feed the baby (aka "Carrot Face")

8) Do laundry (well, until the phone cut out in the laundry room)

9) Perform my morning toilet (sans shower - i.e., brush hair/teeth, put on deodorant/clean clothes, etc.)

10) Play with the baby

11) Web surf

12) Play games on the computer

13) (*gasp*) Work



Things I Have NOT Done (But HAVE Contemplated)

1) Showered

2) Taken out the trash/recycling

3) Vacuumed

4) Bathed the baby

5) Watched TV

6) Slept

Poor Parenting Moments, Part I (I'm sure of many)

So AJ's on the floor right now, crawling around, while I'm (you guessed it) in a meeting. So I looked down a few minutes ago to find him gnawing on the end of a USB cable. Thinking that it was ok for him to chew on a cable as long as it was the plug end (meaning that, while it's not really a good habit to get into, at least if he's chewing on the plug itself, then it's not plugged in), I just let him continue. Then a note popped up on my desktop:

"USB device not identified"

Yes, the cable that was being gnawed on by my infant son was plugged into the computer (which means that it was getting power, albeit a small amount).

And apparently he's not an identifiable USB device.

Dude...if this kid survives, it'll be a miracle.

Google Video

So I've got my "What I Do During Meetings" post almost ready to go (I started during the meeting yesterday and was continuing on it during this morning's meeting).

Unfortunately, Google Video (formerly You Tube) is in the process of upgrading or something...and since this particular post is not nearly as funny/cute without the video, I'm not gonna post it until I can upload stuff.

So for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting the next post...well...sorry...it's coming soon, I promise!

Bloggy Giveaways

****WARNING****
Following this link could be an infinite time sink.
****/WARNING****

Ok, so I've got Rocks in my Dryer on my blogroll because I read her stuff frequently. Well, today she's hosting a carnival in which people give away free stuff. As of the last time I reloaded her website, there were 192 people who were giving things away...things ranging from a purse that was used once to a $50.01 Amazon gift card, with oodles of things in between. Granted, most of these items are being given away by "mommy bloggers," so the content is mostly geared towards people in that category, but then again, who couldn't use $50 to spend at Amazon?

I'm not giving anything away myself because that is _way_ too much hassle in the middle of deadlines, an increasingly messy house, and a teething baby...but I certainly wouldn't mind _getting_ free stuff.

And just so you know, I'm working my way through the links while I try to pay attention to the meeting that never ends (seriously...this thing has been going pretty much daily and for a good part of each day for like the past month and a half...but the light at the end of the tunnel is only two days away!!!! Yay, Wednesday COB!!!!).....I'll post again later today with video of what else I do during meetings.

My Childhood Home

This is another of those things where someone's running a carnival. And since this was something that is currently on my heart a lot, I thought I'd share.

When I was six, my family moved to the town of Laurel, MD so that my dad could become the Minister of Music and Youth at First Baptist Church of Laurel. We started out living in an apartment, but moved into our house about three months later. And while I have many, many very fond memories of that little yellow and green house in North Laurel, that's not the place I think of as "home" during the time we lived there. The place I think of is the church building. We were there so often (my mom taught school there for a while too) and spent so much time there that that building is really what I would consider to be my "childhood home."

I really just have pictures in my head of things:
- seeing how far we could roll a bouncy ball under the pews during adult choir practice
- sliding under the pews during adult choir practice
- rolling bouncy balls and sliding along pews during adult choir practice (do you see a theme here?)
- painting a rock for an Easter program (during adult choir practice) with a 102° fever
- Boogy "Hart Fall" (the PC name for "Boogy Fart Hall" where the "Boogy Fart" lived....long story...which, incidently, begins during adult choir practice)
- the 8" of cross that hung down into the baptistry
- the corner of the ledge by the elevator that was always broken off

It's where I got baptised, it's where I was commissioned to go overseas, it's where I met and married my husband...

It's where I grew up (heh...as much as I ever will).

But in less than a month, we'll turn the keys over to the local police department for their new headquarters as our church family moves into a much-needed larger facility a few blocks away. I know that we need it (heck...VNB and I are the ones who took over the pastor's office for a Sunday School class for a while), and I'm really glad that we have a set of pastors who _aren't_ as tied to our current space as people like me are....but I don't know that it'll ever feel quite _right_ to be in the new building. It won't be "home" as much as our current location is. There will be new bells and whistles that will be nice, there will be plenty of classroom space for everyone with room to spare, and we won't need as many services because we'll all actually be able to fit in one room at the same time...but it won't be home. At least not for a while anyway.

I know, I know, a church is a group of people, not a building...but home is where the heart is, and my heart loves that place because it represents so much of my childhood (and life!) to me. And I'll be sad when it's gutted and it quits being part of the heavenly justice system to become part of the earthly justice system.

But, at least for now, the outsides will stay and I can still drive by and remember climbing the tree on the corner, and running through the snow and birdseed on the way to the car on my wedding day, and playing "escapee baby" on the fire truck jungle gym in the playground, and slicing open my knee on that same playground, and playing three different parts (at least two of which were male) in one Christmas cantata, and, and, and...

Busy

I haven't posted in a while (again, some more), and this time I've got a valid excuse which is going to continue for at least the next two weeks, so I figured I'd post a "quickie" update.

First off, work is crazy for me right now with our first major deadline for this project coming up in the next two weeks. AJ and I will actually be going in to the office semi-regularly (AJ at our division director's explicit invitation which was questioned multiple times by me). He's the team mascot, I think. We'll see how quickly that invitation gets rescinded the first time he screams while the company president has visitors in his office (our "War Room" is apparently right across the hall).

And on the little man that life revolves around: As of this past Sunday morning, he's been outside of the womb for 6 months! Hard to believe! We went to his 6-mo check-up on Tuesday. He's dropped a little more in weight percentile (14 lbs 1 oz, down to 5th percentile - that was easily blamed on last week's plague), but he gained a little in height (up to 30th percentile). By far his biggest gain, however was in his head size. He'd been around the 50th percentile the last time. This time he was in the 70th percentile! That's right. My baby has a big brain! :) When I was expounding on all the various ways in which AJ is the most advanced 6-mo-old in the world, the pediatrician kept saying "well that's very ambitious." I think she was just making me feel better. Although I'm sure she knew that he _is_ the most advanced 6-mo-old in the world.

We all seem to be over the plague (although AJ apparently passed it on to some friends of ours on Saturday...oops!). AJ's appetite hasn't quite returned to normal though. Or let me be more precise - his appetite for solid food hasn't quite returned. Before the plague, he was eating about six containers a day of baby food in three different sittings. Now, if we really work at it all day, we might make it most of the way through two. He's still _eating_ plenty, it's just not from a spoon as much anymore. A little regression due to teething/the plague.

No teeth yet, but we have had a small amount of forward motion. He hasn't quite really figured it all out, but he's discovered that we cheer when he "comes to Mama" in his walker, so he _REALLY_ wants to be able to do the same on his belly. Plus, just "over there" is something he's sure he's not supposed to have, so if he can just get over there, he can chew on it (this morning it was the remote control, Wednesday it was the cables on the floor in one of the conference rooms at work). Every so often, he gets his butt up in the air and manages to wiggle a little closer. Definitely hasn't mastered it yet though.

OK...gotta get back to work. I'm glad to hear from all you folks who have emailed lately saying that you're still reading! With this counter thing (which could easily become an obsession of mine - it's very addictive), I've been amazed at how many different places people read this from. And I've only had two different (non-directed) web searches which resulted in people clicking in - one for a "urine catheter" (heh...it's amazing what you talk about during a birth story), and one for a "12 week sonogram does the baby move around "a lot."" Heh.

Ok...but enough stalling...back to work for me.

The Silver Lining

You know, there is definitely a silver lining to having an infant son barfing all night one night (which kept you awake all night), followed by another day and night of him not feeling well, fussing, and only nursing (which kept you up a second night), followed by a day of yourself barfing and well, not keeping anything in the other end either, while having a teething and still not quite back to normal infant son continue to pretty much only nurse, followed by another semi-sleepless night of your own aches and a husband who's tossing and turning as he begins his own day of barfing, etc.

Anyway...so the silver lining of all of that is that instead of being between 10 and 15 pounds away from my max "normal" weight, I'm now less than five pounds away from it! Of course, once my appetite returns and I get back to eating normally, that'll probably go back to the 10-15 lb range, but it feels kinda nice right now.

Now if only my thighs would stop their massive jiggling and touching of each other, and my pants would go back to actually covering all of my backside when I sit down, I'd be almost back to "normal." It only took six months and having my entire family get the plague to get this far.

Of course, the mega "nursing implements" are here to stay for a while yet and the stretch marks will never go away...but still...at least my gut's almost gone...you know...until I start eating again.