How I was able to finish getting ready this morning

Thank you

Frankie’s latest most consistent word (phrase?) is “thank you”. I say word because I’m pretty sure she thinks it’s just one word, and that the word is actually a verb defined “take whatever I’m holding, I’m done with it”.

The first time we noticed it was a few weeks ago. I was holding her, and Heather offered her a pear bite. She said “Thank you”, and we were stunned. That one did seem an appropriate time to use it.

Since then, one of her favorite games has been to give you an object she’s holding, and then usually hold her hand out to ask for it back (although not always!). She repeats “thank you” during this exchange in an adorable sing-song way, usually when she’s handing the object to you.

She’s most recently started to say “thank you” in her high chair, which I’m coming to realize means “all done”. As in “thank you, but I’ve had enough”. I do much prefer this to the most recent methods of telling me all done which involved dropping food over the edge of the highchair with a nonchalant flick of her wrist that implied no regard or awareness of my disappointed “no-no baby”s. Or the frenetic waving or her hands across the tray that sent food a-flying. Don’t worry, I think these are still the preferred methods, but maybe we can work on this verbal communication thing. The signing never worked for us, she just never got it. Blank stares all around.

Thank you, Momma, take this shoe

Shoe bandit

This is another common event these days - she points to an object and wants to know the name of it.

American Idol, South Carolina Auditions

Since I finished my class, and especially while I've been sick, I've been doing a lot of sitting on the couch channel surfing in the evening. I turned on American Idol last week, which happened to be the South Carolina auditions episode. I finally found a clip to share with y'all of my favorite contestant, DeAnna Prevatte, from Ablemarle, NC, a waitress at Sonic. It's not so much that her singing is that bad, but I just found her to be hilarious. I could watch a whole documentary on her. My favorite part is when Simon asks her about her angry song, and if it was "All those people eating all that lunch". This other clip would be worth checking out too if you're interested, the 16-year-old girl from TN who gave Simon a speech on abstinence. She actually says "Whatevs" during her audition.

DeAnna Prevatte


The abstinence talk

Afrin Addiction and other updates

The McFadden girls are still under the weather, but hoping that this will be the week that we rally. I’ve been sick for going on two weeks now, and am concerned about developing an Afrin addiction. Supposedly this stuff can be really addicting (my co-worker’s brother was addicted to it for 2 years). I’m allowed to use it 2x/day, and it’s the only thing that will keep my nose clear for more than about 45 minutes.

I’m finding that when I first used it, it kept my nose clear for about 10 hours. I’m now down to about 4 hours of relief, at which point I have to suffer through with saline spray until bedtime, when I’m allowed another dose. Is this how the addiction develops, I wonder? Because non-pregnant people are allowed to take it pretty much when they want (there’s no posted limit). I’m totally feelin’ the need to get my Afrin fix sooner and sooner after my last hit.

When I consider the alternatives, I’m not left with many options. Afrin addiction or harming my unborn baby with decongestants (which I was doing, sparingly, and got reprimanded for by my PCP – I know, people, I know! I’ve just been really, really miserable). Afrin addiction it is. My mom will be here in two weeks, maybe she can help me detox, check me in to a clinic, whatever.

Frankie is still sick too, poor baby. Her fever comes and goes, and hasn’t risen above 102 since last Thursday as far as I can tell. She’s been sleeping a lot, which Heather pointed out today is a good thing, and drinking fairly well. She hasn’t been interested in much food, and despite my efforts to buy her off with fancy “Danimals” yogurt drinks, she’s iffy on those too.

She’s been fussy, but doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain, so I’ve been hoping that we’re avoiding the ear infection at this point. She’s so lethargic; it’s really sad to see a baby this slow-moving. She just likes to sit there for a while in my lap, reading books, or just staring. This morning she sat in her high chair with food on her tray just staring off into space for a while. She’s wanted to be held a lot, which means I have been doing a lot of just holding my baby and reading to her lately.

Chris tore down the bedroom wall with Jeff Murry’s help this weekend, while Frankie and I took refuge from the dust and pounding at Sarah and Hannah’s. There was such a big mess. Chris worked really hard Saturday night to clean much of it up, and then we both worked most of Sunday to get the house really clean. He has promised me that that was the messiest part of the renovations, and that we’ll have smaller messes from here on out, but nothing like horse-hair plaster all over the house.

He’s currently on his way to Fargo, ND, where I think the temperatures are hovering around -14 right now. Oh the wonderful places you’ll go, Chris McFadden, Manufacturing Engineer, Supply Chain Manager, Esq.

Jeff Murry, who did not saw his own leg off during this project.

Exposing the chimney (far right) did not prove to be the "hidden gem" we were hoping for. We'll be covering it back up, like the previous owners.

Room for two new closets!

103.5

This was the peak of Frankie's temperature spike yesterday, at around 5:30pm. I promptly put her in a luke warm bath and watched with pain in my momma heart as she shivered and fussed until I felt she felt a little cooler. She slept on and off all yesterday afternoon, and I finally put her to bed around 6:00 last night.

She slept until 6:30 this morning, a record for Frankie - 12.5 hours. Her temperature was much lower this morning - 100 degrees, so I'm hoping we're past the worst of it. She still seems out of it - she laid her head down this morning on my chest for about 10 minutes, after having done all that sleeping, and keeps moaning and babbling to herself. She's coughing and has a runny nose, but other than that doesn't seem to have any symptoms. I was able to get her to eat a little breakfast and she drank most of her milk and some juice this morning.

I have been battling a nasty cold myself for about 10 days now, and am ready to start feeling better. I did a lot of resting with Frankie yesterday, and feel a little better today, but it's so hard not being able to take anything while you're pregnant. I have found the saline nasal spray to actually be really helpful - if you've never tried it, you should give it a go. It clears my sinuses without giving me that over-dried feeling of Afrin or a decongestant. I am allowed to take Afrin, and have resorted to that for the last few days, which does last longer than the saline spray.

With all that in mind, I turned 29 yesterday in a bit of a fog. Thank you to all for your birthday wishes and many happy returns of the day. Chris and I are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate, and tomorrow we are going shopping for a new sewing machine, my big birthday/Christmas present. I've got my eye on a computerized machine - maybe the Janome Memory Craft 3500. I'll let you know what I get!

And so the demolition begins

We have been scheming for a while now about opening up the closet that currently opens up into our living room to the other side, our bedroom. This would make much more sense - two closets in the master bedroom, none in the living room. We're expanding the other closet opening to give us 6' wide closets (times two) along the back wall of our bedroom.

We bought 4 doors that are 96"x36" since we have 108" to work with height-wise in our house, we figured the more we could open up vertically the more space we could use. These doors are huge. And since they're real wood, they're heavy. Chris estimated they're about 100 lbs each. We got a great deal on them at the Building Materials Resource center in Roxbury. It's a Coop where people drop off unwanted building materials (we have lots of these in our basement, for example), and other people can buy them for pennies. We spent $160 total on the 4 doors, which if you've looked into purchasing wood doors, is ridiculously cheap. They're already painted white, and I have plans to repaint them and possibly wallpaper them to give them a little more pizzazz.

We're going to attach them using a barn door track, which attaches to the outside of the wall frame on the top and can hold a lot of weight. It also allows us to use the full depth of the closet space, which is valuable for a house as old as ours. Most people who have lived in Cambridge can attest to the fact that you can't take it for granted that a modern-day regulation hangar will fit in many closets you come across in these old houses. Fortunately, ours have, but we'd like to get a full 22" of depth so we can use standard closet organizers from Home Depot or Ikea, and not have to do something custom.

On the living room side we're going to cut out the door frame and put up new dry wall to cover the hole. We're then going to fill that wall with bookshelves. Ah, bliss, a wall of books. If we have enough money left over, we may try to install a gas fireplace where the existing non-working fireplace resides. Don't worry, we'll get professional help to install the fireplace.

Chris bought a new saw, and has started ripping off the drywall in our bedroom, which turns out is old-fashioned horse-hair plaster over lath boards. The wall is also two layers think - it has a 3" gap in the middle, which explains why our apartment is so sound-proof (I literally have to yell at the top of my lungs to get Chris to hear me if I'm in the bedroom and he's in the living room, even if the door is open). I know this stuff is supposed to be valuable, and historic, and that we're supposed to preserve it and all that, but it's also really gross. There are clumps of horse hair mixed in with the plaster, and it is rather unsavory.

The bedroom is also developing a nice layer of dust, despite Chris' wall of plastic tarp he hung carefully. That I think is the worst part about this, but I know it's a part of home repair that I just have to deal with. It's temporary, and in the end, we'll have nice closets that actually work for us!

Christmas

Finally! Give the people what they want! Christmas photos!



We had a wonderful Christmas in Ohio with my family. It was great to see Becky, Rick, cousin Howie, Sarah, Jason (and meet Karl, their Boston terrier, who I unfortunately do not have a picture of, because he's hilarious), Nonnie and Pawpaw.

So the best part of the visit for my dad had to be the fact that Frankie LOVES him. I mean LOVES. I would be holding her, and my dad would walk in the room and she would start to whine and hold her hands out to be held by her Pawpaw instead of Momma. This all started after one day when Pawpaw graciously offered to babysit while Chris, Mom, and I went to do some sewing machine shopping. I'm not sure exactly what happened during that visit - chocolate dough nuts for breakfast, letting her chose what to watch on TV, turning a blind eye while she played happily in the dishwasher perhaps? They'll never tell, but whatever charm he placed on her, it was a powerful one. I was perfectly pleased with this turn of events, however, because it bought Momma all kinds of free time to do things like shower, eat breakfast, and visit with others.

Frankie has been enjoying all her new presents for the past month, including the shopping cart we bought for her at the garage sale last August for $1. That's right, folks, since our kid doesn't know the difference yet, we spent a whopping $6 on her for Christmas. A scary-looking squid from Ikea that she wasn't about to leave the store with and a $1 used shopping cart. Now that's love. This plan worked out well for us, since our family and friends were generous with their gifts of toys, books, and clothes for her. (but it was not too much! Thank you, family, for all your thoughtful presents - Chris has not e-bayed a single one)!

Here she is in action:


In case you haven't had enough, here's one of her opening a gift:

Doggie

Frankie's first word is doggie. Here's the proof:



She loves to stand at the sliding glass door and watch Maisy and her best friend, Zoe (our neighbor Meredith's dog) wrestle in the back yard. She will get excited, bounce up and down, wave her arms, and pound the glass squealing "Doggie! Doggie!".

She can say daddy, but it seems to be a general term she uses right now to refer to a person. It's a general greeting, regardless if it's me, Chris, or someone else walking in the room.

The words are so fun though, it's neat to hear her inner monologue on the outside.

Done

I am done. After weeks of work and a few bleary nights of late-night work (last night until 1:30 am), I am done.

I will now take a moment to geek out and brag about the fact that my application ended up being over 3500 lines of code (for all you non-geeks out there, this is something coders LOVE to brag about). Usually LOC brags do not impress me, but it's the only metric I have to make folks like Jeff smile with pride at my accomplishment.

I need to go to bed and pray that this sore throat I've been feeling for the last few hours does not turn into a full-fledged cold, but before that I need to explain the revelation I had working on this project about how humbling writing code is.

Many times over the last few days I would have this conversation in my head after get angry at the compiler for throwing errors that really weren't there.

"I mean really, there's nothing wrong with this code! I've gone over it three times. All those variables are spelled right. All my statements are properly closed. Maybe it's not refreshing my file. Maybe my FTP app isn't connected. Surely this compiler is broken.

"Oh wait. What about that extra open parenthesis on line 160? Sigh. Human Error. Again."

It's not the fact that I make so many mistakes that's been humbling, I knew I'm apt to do that already, it's been eye-opening to see how prideful I get about wanting to insist that I didn't make a mistake and wanting to blame something else. It's just that there isn't room for interpretation when you're up against a machine.

Anyway, I'm ready to re-join the world of people who have free time so I can work on my other hobbies like sewing, reading for pleasure, and blogging pictures of my little girl.

ps. Katie do you still think we could be friends?

First Steps!

Frankie just took her first steps! 3 steps in a row, towards Momma sitting on the floor. She's repeated the feat quite a few times since, and is very proud of herself every time she does it. Does this officially make her a toddler now?

She has also in the last two weeks clearly been stating her first word - "Doggie". This is a logical first word for her since she sees Maisy and Zoe every day, and loves to watch them play in the backyard. I'm going to have to get help filming her at the window when she's watching them play. She shrieks and bounces up and down and says "Doggie! Doggie! Doggie!". I've tried to capture this on film, but she just wants to grab the camera every time I aim it her way these days.

She's also got two front teeth in the last few weeks, and just dumped the tupperware box all over the floor (which is how I'm getting away with this blog posting).

I'm home today, enjoying this day of first steps thanks to the N'or Easter that has snowed us in. Heather and I decided it would be safer not to drive today, and just work Wednesday and Thursday this week. Here's the view from our back porch:


We're having red beans and sausage in the crockpot tonight for supper and it smells so good. Click the link to get to the recipe if you want to try it. I added 2 tsp of chili powder as well, and an extra 1/2 tsp of salt.

1:00 AM

1:00 AM was the time the smoke detectors starting beeping to let me know they had low batteries. When Chris was out of town. Two at once. It was like a conspiracy to rob me of my sanity and sleep.

I first tried to ignore the beeping every 15 seconds. Foolish. Trying to ignore something like that is torture. I just ended up waiting for the next beep.

Then I had to hunt down the offending smoke alarms. Which took me 10 minutes. We have 4 smoke detectors in our 877-square foot apartment (over kill?), and two in the main hallway, none of which I can reach without the step ladder that I had to retrieve from the basement. One of the offending alarms was in Frankie's room (who, a la Melanie Rampey, slept through the entire ordeal).

We have particularly pernicious smoke alarms that I swear have the ability to beep after they have been disassembled with batteries removed. It was a very real terror that I had in the middle of the night that if I did not have enough new batteries to feed them, they would continue to beep at me all night long. I really considered having a hammer ready to smash them quiet if I could not through replacing batteries or disassembly.

I had one battery and two hungry smoke alarms. In a triage situation such as this, I decided to install it in the one in the hallway, because that was the one we had the most trouble quieting in the past. It accepted the new battery with minimal whining, and I was able to successfully remove the other battery and quiet the monster from Frankie's room. Ah, peace at last.

I know you all are anxious to hear about our Christmas adventures, and I am ready to have the time to sift through my pictures and find the best blog-worthy ones. I have so much to catch y'all up on. I'm finishing a final project for my class that is due January 16th. I'm looking forward to a life with some more regularity and predictability, one where I don't have to spend my free time writing code, and can spend it blogging about my family instead.

McFadden Look-alike Meter

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