*muttering under breath* stupid computer

Last night as I was dinking around on my computer I hit the "next blog" tab at the top of the page, just curious about other blogs. Well, I happened to get a really bad one. DON'T HIT THAT BUTTON!!!!!!

My computer has crashed big time, full of some kind of virus or spyware or parasite, and until it's cleared off, it's just a pile of crap taking up space on my desk. So, you'll have to wait for more past-halloween pictures, because I can't get them off.

Happily, Brent's old Mac Book is just sitting around so I'm on that right now. It's not all peaches and cream, however, because the hard drive is failing. Gah! Okay, so tomorrow with Brent's latest paycheck, we're going to purchase a new hard drive and all the software needed to get the Mac working and it's going to be mine permanently. Then on Saturday we're going to spend some quality time with a very generous friend of mine. She volunteered her husband, who is a Dell laptop support guy, to fix my computer. He's already done it once. I'll have to think of something really nice to do for them because this is a big deal. If we can get all my pictures and personal files off, then I'll call it a wash.

Sheesh. Computers are stinky sometimes, but I really really really hate people who create viruses just to mess with people. I'd love to unleash the full fury of Chuck Norris or Jackie Chan on their butts for being so dang inconsiderate.

Anyway, I hope to upload pictures soon. Really. I got some cute ones of Felix tonight covered in cereal. I don't know why it's so cute for babies to be so messy. But it is!

another old Halloween costume

I actually found a bunch of old costume pictures, so I thought it would be fun to post them. One a day... or something like that. :)

I'm sure you can tell which one was me. This was a group from work about 8 years ago.

Halloween already?!

Disclaimer - this was me for a halloween party while I was a missionary in Italy. It was in 1995, when I was very thin (for me) and had really long hair. Can you tell I was being Pippi Longstocking? Italians don't know anything about Halloween, so it was a trip walking to the church for our party. Everyone stared at the girl with her hair sticking straight out! Good times...

Can anyone tell me where the past couple months have gone? I feel like I've been in a haze for a good long time, most likely because I'm seriously sleep deprived. I know that other women do it and it amazes me how many mothers there are out there who don't go insane with the lack of sleep that comes with motherhood.

Yesterday a good friend of ours hosted a halloween party. So true to form, on Friday I went and bought the supplies for our costumes. Actually, it was really just about Brent's costume because I got all sorts of lazy (and I was TIRED!!!) and decided to do something simple for mine. I found a really cute tiger costume for Felix a couple weeks ago, so we decided to be a lion, tiger, and bear. I was trying to figure out what would be easiest for me and Brent, and I spent some quality time at Wal-Mart.

While I was wandering around Wal-Mart, I found some fun slippers, and since Brent and I are due for new slippers, I thought that might be a fun way to enhance our costumes. They had lion slippers (you put your foot into the mouth), and big black fuzzy slippers with claws that I thought would make good bear feet.

Well, the slippers didn't work out (sizes), but I found some cheap gold flannel that I figured would make a good lion costume. I also found some cheap gold yarn that I thought could make a good mane.

Saturday morning I woke up nice and late and started working on the costume. I figured I could dress in all black and make a tail and some ears and be a bear. I grabbed a pair of Brent's pj pants and used them as a rough pattern for lion pants. And I used an old t-shirt as a pattern for the top. The mane gave me no end to trouble, so I didn't finish it. It was quite unfinished and I still have work on it before it looks like a lion's mane. I hot glued some cut-out ears to a headband and safety-pinned a tail on my bum for my costume. But as suspected, Felix was the star of the show.

It's gratifying to have people like him because he totally thrives on attention. We got back late and even had to stop on the way to change Felix's diaper because he was in pain. His poor diaper rash is finally making progress, but he's still spitting up a lot. At church today he tagged both me and Brent. Small price to pay for having such a cute kidlet.

This evening we talked my parents into watching Felix so we could take a nap. I woke up about an hour later, gave him a bottle and he fell asleep. He woke up about 15 minutes ago after about 2 hours asleep and I'm guessing he'll be awake and fussy for the next 3 or 4 hours. Fun.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that things are progressing. I'll put up a picture of us when it really is halloween. Hopefully I'll have our costumes finished by then.

On the mend

Over the past couple of weeks I have decided a couple of things:

1. I adore having a husband that is willing to take care of the baby when I'm too tired.
2. Plastic dinnerware is lifesaving.
3. I miss fresh veggies when I'm sick.
4. I get sad when I can't comfort my baby.
5. I feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside when my baby sleeps on my husband's shoulder.
6. I am thankful almost every day for modern medicine that provides antibiotics and knowledge.
7. I love good pillows.
8. Showers feel awesome even when I don't feel like standing long enough to take one.
9. I like cheesy movies that I can recommend because there is nothing objectionable in them (Sydney White is really cute - a retelling of Snow White, it's Sydney White and the 7 Dorks).
10. Even though I don't enjoy texting, sometimes it's still easier to text when I don't feel like talking to someone.

I'm finally feeling mostly human again, but Felix is taking longer. Poor little bug. We haven't given him any acidopholus yet and I think he's having some stomach problems because of it. Little frustrations in the grand scheme of things, but I wish I were better equipped to comfort him and make him feel better. I hate seeing an infant suffer...

Strep 2

Today I broke down and took Felix to the after-hours clinic. I wondered if the nasty-looking diaper rash and the rash around his face might be connected somehow and causing him enough discomfort to make him especially fussy lately.

It was worse than I thought. The diaper rash is a yeast infection so I got a prescription for nystantin. The doc checked Felix and he has no temperature and no big snot (dead giveaway for strep in infants), but he did have sores at the back of his throat. She recommended some 1% cortisone cream for the rash around his face (said it was probably the change of weather and his slobber) and said the nurse would let me know if the strep test was positive. It was.

The doc came back and prescribed amoxocillan for the strep and said to get some acidopholus for the yeast because apparently antibiotics are like a yeast magnet.

While I was at the pharmacy I asked the pharmacist about my giant headache that won't go away and about my cough, and he recommended some good cough suppressant and alternating between ibuprofen and Tylenol for the headache.

Felix fell asleep in the car and is sleeping now. I'm hoping he'll sleep for a while since he's been too uncomfortable to sleep for any significant time today. And Brent will pick up some drugs for us tonight. Hopefully that means that by tomorrow both Felix and I will finally feel some relief...

Strep Week

Last Friday (of last week) I suddenly felt all sorts of dizzy and weak so I went to lay down. I immediately started shivering uncontrollably and spent the next few hours under a bunch of blankets trying to sleep through the cold. Going back and forth between hot and cold flashes, my throat started hurting, and by Sunday morning I was certain it was strep. On Monday I went to the doctor and had it confirmed and got some antibiotics. And I started coughing.

I've been coughing madly for almost a week now and it's awful. I don't think I'm contagious for anything, but I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. Apparently stuff is going around. I spoke to my sister-in-law who told me that one of her kids had strep and three others were acting suspicious. And I haven't seen them in about a month.

Last night Brent and I felt like we had to get out of the house, so we dropped the kidlet off at my sister's house and ran to catch a movie. I doubt if anyone has heard of it, but we saw Sydney White on the recommendation of Orson Scott Card. It was a modern retelling of the Snow White story and it was really cute. Very entertaining and it's clean. There was a scene at the end that I thought was kind of forced, but otherwise I really liked it.

Felix seems to get really bored with bottles lately. We've tried giving him a faster-flow nipple but he just chokes on the milk that comes out too fast. But he gets all sorts of frustrated with the slow-flow nipples we have. We've decided we need to find some medium-flow nipples. So we have started giving him things to chew on. We're not very careful and occasionally he does get things caught in his throat. He does especially well with carrot sticks (although he often sticks them down his throat too far and makes himself gag) and these teether biscuits we found at Macy's.

Just for the heck of it I gave him a cinnamon bear the other day. He liked that a lot and didn't seem to mind the spiciness of it. He just gummed it till it was slimy and he had red goo all over his tray and all over his face. He'd put the red thing back in his mouth for a bit and gum it and then spit it out (probably because it was hot) and start over. I also gave him some crackers and a green mint chip. By the time he was done everything was covered with red goo. I guess it's a good thing he likes baths.

He continues to entertain. He is fussy here ane there, but we're always hoping that he'll calm down and get back to his normal happiness, because normally he is just really happy. He smiles at everyone who smiles at him, and he's cheerful most of the time. Especially when he's getting attention. Of course, I'm a little like that myself so I can't begrudge him that reaction to people. :)

Truth and Honesty in the Voucher Debate.

Tonight, KSL (channel 5) did a
piece on the truthfulness of the spate of ads for and against Utah's Referendum 1. They essentially looked at two ads for either side of the issue. With some caveats, the two that were pro-voucher (one with oreos, and one featuring Representative Rob Bishop) were factual, telling the truth as far as they went. One might take issue with what they did not say, but what they did say was true. Vouchers would increase funding per student in public schools.

On the other hand, the two that were anti-voucher were untrue on nearly every count. Everything that they said was either a distortion of the truth or completely untrue. That is, at least, according to this report by KSL's Eyewitness news.

If I didn't already know which way I'll be voting, this might have made up my mind for me.