Aaaaack!

Mother-in-law coming here less than two weeks' notice must clean house. (Breathe. Breathe.) Also, must think of things to do besides sitting around staring at baby, running errands, and similar. Nothing strenuous. Must unearth and display various gifts from same. This blog will probably suffer in between now and then, for obvious reasons, as one cannot dust and write simultaneously, or take boxes of stuff to Goodwill and post photos. Goodbye, sweet computer. I will miss you for awhile.

Here's some pictures, in the meantime.

Sometimes, when the baby is napping, I try to spend quality time with the dog and tell her I still love her. I don't think she buys it though. And yes, I seem to take all photos lately on the same unmade bed.

Random Observations

On the bottom of my sugar bowl is a sticker that says, "dishwasher safe, microwave safe". Since I have neither appliance, it is of no matter to me, but I do want to know WHO is microwaving their sugar bowl, and why. Is one supposed to remove the sugar first?

Looking at my stove, I realized that it would make much more sense for the pot to call the kettle "stainless", since they're both steel. I don't have a black pot. I don't have a black kettle. All I have is one black cast-iron frying pan, and it doesn't communicate much with the rest of the cookware.

Because Don can still eat only soft, mushy things, we've been on a pretty weird diet lately. Pea soup. Mashed potatoes, as entre. Canned soup. Pudding. Pea soup again. The invalid diet is making him grumpy; he craves steak or a pork chop. I'm rounding mine out with salads and such, but I can't wait until chicken is back on the menu. Tonight, I'm baking some winter squash.

Eating My Cake

When Robert was younger, it was easy for me to read while he slept or dozed. At three months, he's a bit more awake and interactive, and it's harder to justify ignoring him to read a book. So, I've been reading whatever I'm reading, out loud to him. He seems to enjoy it: he seems to like just watching my face make words. It's good for me, too; reading aloud forces me to slow down a little and pay attention to words rather than paragraphs. So far we've read quite a bit of the Earth's Children series (skipping the smutty parts), and a lot of Dorothy Parker, although I can only read her in small doses without getting depressed. I know that in not too much time, we'll be reading children's books, Sandra Boynton, Dr. Seuss. I'm making time with adult literature while I still can...

Tooth

For three weeks, he thought it was a sinus infection. Don gets those fairly frequently, and deals with them in the time-tested way: wait it out and maybe it will just go away on its own.

For the last two weeks or so, I've been telling him-- gently, at first, then less gently-- that his breath was bad, that something was wrong with his mouth, and that he might need to see a dentist. It was that sickly sort of halitosis that lingers even after brushing.

For about the last week, he noticed what felt like an earache, but contributed it to the sinus issue.

Tuesday evening, he came home with his face all puffy, and said that it seemed to be a tooth, after all. I agreed and called him Ed for the rest of the night, because with his chubby cheek he looked a bit like Ed Norton. He decided that he would try to get to a dentist Friday morning and asked me to find one for him the next morning. Preferably one of those that specialize in anesthesiology* and are willing to put patients under for any and all procedures. See, Don, who is afraid of basically nothing, has a fear of the dentist. Although details are scarce, this seems to stem back to his service days and the removal of his wisdom teeth by an unkind army dentist. I think it's safe to say that he hasn't been to a dentist since, and that was twenty years ago.

Yesterday, Robert, Alice and I took our usual morning walk and when we returned, I started my search for a dentist for Don. I had only gotten as far as bringing up the Google page when his truck turned into the drive: he had been sent home from work with instructions to go to the doctor that day. His cheek had morphed from cutely chubby to scarily swollen, and the pain had become unbearable**. I found a dental surgery place, loaded the baby into the car, and we spent the rest of the morning driving and waiting, breastfeeding and waiting, walking about the waiting room, and waiting, while they did who-knows-what to Don's mouth.

Needless to say, after being neglected for so long, the tooth was not salvageable and had to be 'extracted'. There is also quite a bit of other work that needs to be done ASAP in order to keep this from happening again soon. So let this be a lesson to you procrastinators and those fearful of various doctors and dentists. Go. Just go. Otherwise, you will eventually be forced to go while in tremendous pain, and it will be much worse.

Don insisted that I drop him back off at work after the procedure, instead of taking him home. I'm not sure if this was sheer stupidity, badass-ness, or some combination. I reminded him not to lift anything heavy, climb ladders, or operate machinery, and to call me when he was ready to come home. He's actually in a very good mood... I'm not sure if this is because he finally did what he'd been dreading and got through it, or because for the first time in almost a month he didn't have a bad headache, toothache, or earache, or simply because of the hydrocodone he's on.

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*I spelled that right on the first try. Am so proud.
**Don bears pain incredibly well, so that is saying something. Unbearable for him means "anyone else would have passed out by now".