Yeah, I'm Still Here

I know, I know, all you hundreds of readers out there are clamoring for the return of Parentheticals. Without my wry, witty insights (and parenthetical asides), your lives seem empty, sad, lacking in juice and joie de vivre. I feel your pain, and thus I am taking my precious two-handed time (which would most likely be better spent sleeping or doing house chores) to zip out a blog entry. For da peeps.

Ahem.

So yeah, whoo, how did those couple of weeks slip by? It's all the fault of those rearranged priorities you get when a baby comes along. (I'm not sure when they'll rearrange themselves again, so for now Parentheticals will just have to remain the ugly stepchild.) Things are actually going ok over here in babyland, overall. The baby is still a super piglet (he's just a few ounces short of 13 lbs as of today's weigh-in at the BSG) and I'm still not getting very much sleep (which is starting to get harder and harder). I'm still struggling with keeping a good attitude, but manage to do so about 80% of the time. Eli continues to love "his baby". I'm slowly transitioning back into my "super-mama" mode, able to coordinate and execute complicated maneuvers in a single bound. (So to speak.) My brain is still stuttering from time to time but I still blame that on the sleep deprivation. Time is still stripped of its traditional anchors and thus, feels really different than it used to.

Other details dredged up from the depths of the mama-brain:

Isaac has been sleeping in his crib at night for the last few nights, which is great. I was worried how we were going to make that transition, but like so many other parenting things that I've worried about ahead of time, it was easier than I thought. We just kind of did it, and it worked. Go figure.

I've been more and more able to go out and about with Isaac--we've been to a wedding shower, a baby shower, a restaurant (sushi! FINALLY!!!), and more. I'm getting used to the schlepping tons of gear (diaper bag, stroller, boppy, water, baby in car seat) thing again.

I've updated Isaac's webpage, so if it's pictures you want, go look there (and feel free to leave comments). That, at least, I can do with one hand, so it beats out blogging in the priority totem pole.

For those of you who didn't know, we've been on a grand campaign to get Eli (the King of Picky Eating) to eat some vegetables (any vegetables). He finally reached his goal of 20 stickers, for which he received his chosen reward: a Peter Pan costume. Cute picture below. (I just love cute dressup pictures, don't you?)

I'm still reading lots of books. Latest reads have been:
-The Deed of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon (a big 1000+ page fantasy trilogy, which was good but not great. Gave me lots of good ideas for my own writing though.)
-The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin (I liked Shopgirls, but this one felt disjointed and somewhat lacking to me. I give it an "ehhhh".)
-Blood of Ten Chiefs vol 5: Dark Hours (yeah it's an Elfquest short story collection, mock all you want. Frankly, it pretty much sucked, I'm sorry to say.)

I sent off a chapter of my novel to be critiqued on Critters, and ended up with only two critiques, which was sort of disappointing. I did get a couple additional people to agree to read the whole thing though, so we'll see how helpful their critiques wind up being. I feel like if I could only get a good night's sleep and have a cup of coffee, I might be ready to start writing again. Oh yeah and if I actually could count on having an hour or two without baby in order to actually concentrate. So it seems unlikely that I'll be starting up again soon. But a girl can dream (and maybe make a few plot notes or something).

I tried on my favorite pair of pre-pregnancy jeans this morning, just for laughs. I was able to button them, but they did not look (or feel) good. 10 more pounds before that happy day, I guess. In the meantime I'll have to decide whether to be stubborn (and cheap) and not buy any new clothes to tide me over, or whether to be extravagant and make myself feel better by buying a few new things. Maybe I'll just compromise and get some new spring sandals.

Ok I think I hear the baby waking up so I'll just end with some pictures (and apologies to those of you whose browsers crash with this many pictures...I figure since I haven't posted for a couple weeks, it won't be so bad). And really, I will try to at least do super brief blog entries more often than every two weeks. No really.

^ Eli in the aforementioned Peter Pan costume (while Tomo looks on bemusedly in the background). Yay for carrot sticks!

^ A cute post-bath picture of Isaac.

^ Even yet more chub. Look at that double (triple?) chin!