Toothless Grins

It’s little things like Emma’s smile that seem to cheer me up now. I’ve been battling blue moods for awhile, so I appreciate it more when she smiles at me. Lately I’ve been doing this thing where I hold her up over my head with both hands like she is flying. I say “Woo hoo!” over and over again. It never fails to get the biggest grins out of her.

God it doesn’t get more perfect than that.

I’ve been pushing myself hard lately, and as a result my body is rebelling. I have been suffering from headaches quite often. I haven’t been eating well either which only exacerbates things. The headaches I am not too worried about as they appear to be stress related. I’ve taken steps to ease my workload (which is mostly self-imposed) and to relax more.

Tonight is a good example. I was supposed to be in my statistics class, but given that we are leaving for Canada tomorrow morning and there were a thousand other things that needed to be done, I decided to play a little hooky. As a result, I find myself here typing this entry.

This weekend will be a nice getaway for all of us. Bill has managed to snag us some tickets for a hockey game which will give me ample opportunity to blow off some steam. I love OHL hockey. It’s raw and real and not all sleek and streamlined like the NHL. It’s rough and tumble. It’s bench clearing brawls that leave more than one red spot on the ice. The people that go there are working class, not executives with $300 ice level seats. People like you and me. Heck, most people go just to pick up dates and don’t even watch the game.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my life is just one big routine that is focused around just getting things done. Moving letters from the inbox to the outbox so to speak. I literally do the same things over and over and over again. As a result, I am moving out of the mindset of being a worker bee to where I am consciously directing my behavior. I’m actually thinking again instead of merely reacting.

I’m reevaluating why I do things and what my goals really are. Three years ago when I started back to school it was to get a degree before we had a baby. Now that Emma is here, my goals are back up in the air. I find myself wondering if I even still want to be a systems administrator or not. This also leads into the same thought pattern as moving back to Canada to be closer to Cheryl’s family.

Things are in flux. And probably for the first time in my life, I am glad. Nothing is certain anymore and that idea excites me. I used to thrive with well-laid plans and structure. Now I find myself improvising more and more.

I feel like I am growing again, not just stagnating. This is good.

I don’t want to live on the moon.

Written by Jeff Moss
1978 Festival Attractions, Inc. (ASCAP)

Well, I’d like to visit the moon
On a rocket ship high in the air
Yes, I’d like to visit the moon
But I don’t think I’d like to live there
Though I’d like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I might like it for one afternoon
I don’t want to live on the moon

I’d like to travel under the sea
I could meet all the fish everywhere
Yes, I’d travel under the sea
But I don’t think I’d like to live there
I might stay for a day there if I had my wish
But there’s not much to do when your friends are all fish
And an oyster and clam aren’t real family
So I don’t want to live in the sea

I’d like to visit the jungle, hear the lions roar
Go back in time and meet a dinosaur
There’s so many strange places I’d like to be
But none of them permanently

So if I should visit the moon
Well, I’ll dance on a moonbeam and then
I will make a wish on a star
And I’ll wish I was home once again
Though I’d like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I may go I’ll be coming home soon
‘Cause I don’t want to live on the moon
No, I don’t want to live on the moon

Where’s Daddy’s Girl?

Today Cheryl went back to work. As such, we dropped Emma off at the sitters house.

After three months of Cheryl being off, it’s weird carpooling with her again. I had grown accustomed to making the trips to work, school and back alone.

It’s a strange feeling leaving your child with someone else. It seems so… unnatural.

Cheryl is kind of subdued today, and that is to be expected. So am I for that matter. I find myself wanting to call them every hour or so to check on Emma.

So far, I’ve successfully held off. Well, I did send them an e-mail. But does that really count?

I think that it is a crime that two parents have to work to make ends meet and subjugate their children to rearing by a third party.

Before having a child I had the opinion of “Oh, we’ll just get a sitter or put her in day care.”

After having a child I have the opinion that not being able to raise her ourselves and care for her ourselves is a crime against nature itself.

Well, maybe the language is a bit strong, but the emotions are definitely there.

Last night Cheryl and I lay in bed awake listening to Emma sleep and discussed moving back to Canada. At least there Emma could stay with Nana or Auntie Kathy or Auntie Bonnie. People that would love and care and nurture her in a way that we know would be good.

Family.

But for now, that is not an option.

Cheryl was crying last night saying “She’s missing out on so much.”

Yeah, she is

The only family I really have is my father. I’d hate to move away and leave him here without us.

I guess that’s the give and take of the situation. Dad has told us that we should make our own decisions and not consider him, but that’s easier said than done.

Emma misses out on Cheryl’s family but has us and Dad. Or, we move up there and she has all of us but Dad.

Truth be told, I love Windsor. It’s a really nice town. It’s just large enough to have what you need and it’s positioned right on the river with a beautiful view of Detroit by night.

I’d love to move up there, but there would be so many things to do in order for that to happen.

Plus I feel like I’m just not where I need to be right now.

I like living in our little village but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. It hasn’t for quite awhile.

I guess it took me awhile to come to this realization.

I’ve been with my current employer for five years now and I’m not really getting where I want to go with my career. I’m ambitious almost to a fault and I am chomping at the bit to move on and expand myself further.

Maybe I can do that in Canada?

*shrug*

I don’t know.

I guess I want to make sure that Emma and Cheryl are happy. The part I am struggling with now is “Would I be happy living and working in Canada?”

It’s a nice place to visit, but would I want to live there?

Time will tell.

Acid Reflux?

We have found that our daughter is not teething. Not yet anyway. She supposedly is suffering from acid reflux disease which is a common ailment among infants these days apparently.

So, we have changed formulas (formulae?) again, this time to Alimentum. We were advised to use that and mix it with just a wee bit of rice cereal to knock the little thing out for another two hours a night. So far it seems to have been working.

It’s been a rough couple of days though. Emma has been pretty cranky and Cheryl is getting discouraged because it’s hard to spend 12 to 14 hours a day with a cranky baby, even if that cranky baby is one as cute and snuggly as our little girl.

I had a few precious moments with Emma last night when she was smiling and happy. I had her propped up on my pillow and singing her the Elmo Song from Sesame Street fame. The laughs and smiles that she was giving me were priceless.

The downside to the past few days is I have been getting really discouraged lately with all the fussing and crying that Emma has been doing. I get so aggravated and frustrated because she won’t stop. I can’t do anything to help her or make it better, and she just keeps getting louder and louder.

Then I get ashamed because she is only 11 weeks old, and she just doesn’t know any better.

Sometimes I think that I have some faulty wiring for getting as aggravated as I do.

She’s just a baby.

I feel like I’ve been going nuts these past few days. I took Monday off in order to have a long weekend and so Cheryl and I could take Emma out to show her off to our coworkers, but in all honesty it was anything but relaxing.

The weekend was a stress-filled pressure cooker for me which has left me with headaches I am still suffering from. Emma’s crankiness has left both of us sleep deprived and irritable.

I guess I’m just longing for the days when she only cried when she was hungry.

She slept a lot too.

I know I go on about sleep an awful lot, but in all honesty I just don’t function or think well if I don’t get at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep at night.

I’m not looking for sympathy or understanding here. Far from it.

I’m just trying to get some of my frustrations out so I don’t go home and unleash it in an unhealthy way by snapping at my wife or getting bent out of shape with Emma.

Better here than anywhere else.

Teething?

Emma has been a bit… inconsolable… lately.

She has this tendency to fuss a lot and suck on her fingers constantly. All the signs are there that she is teething, but the Doctor was reluctant to say so since she is only ten weeks old.

According to what I’ve read when I’ve glanced over information on Google or Web MD, they say that teething normally does not begin until a baby is around three months old. The nurse line told us that it could happen as early as two months, but that it was highly unusual.

So, we gathered up all the baby gear and trundled off to the Pediatrician this morning. After waiting patiently to see the good Doctor, he informed us that he didn’t know what was wrong with our little girl. He hesitated to assign it to teething as so many things could be filed under that generic header.

He did make the comment that “If you had come in and told me nothing about your child, I would have said she looked marvelous.”

*sigh*

So, we have a marvelous baby that tends to get weapons-grade cranky in the evenings.

I vote for teething.

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I have been in a Statistics class for the past six weeks, and it is going pretty well. I’m surprising myself because I have little to no track record when it comes to mathematics. Maybe it’s because I get to use Excel for a lot of things and when you have all the formulae right there in front of you it’s not as bad.

I find it pretty interesting actually. A real switch from my usual math classes.

I find myself dreading the programming class I have to eventually take. I tried taking a C++ class here at work, but got lost about two days into it. That’s the downside of a five-day workshop type environment. There isn’t a lot of time to ask questions and get answers as they have to move on to the next topic.

I don’t know if I have a mental block that is preventing me from learning this, or if I just can’t get my brain to re-route the neurons and pathways that I need in order to think in computer-speak. I’ve often said that you don’t learn programming as much as you get used to it.

Oh well.