Category: E.

E. at 4 Months

E. had his 4-month checkup yesterday. He looks so bleary eyed in the photo because he fell asleep in his carseat and only woke up when I had to undress him for his exam. I was right about his size – he weighed just under 17 pounds at 16 lbs 14 oz. and he was 25 and 3/4 inches long. The doctor said that he’s developing nicely and that I should start him on baby cereal sometime in the next 2 months. E. got another round of shots. I took him home and he continued the nap he had started in the car for a couple of hours. His reaction to the shots seemed to be okay, but last night he was crying and waking up every couple of hours and running a low grade fever. I was so tired of getting up out of bed to soothe him back to sleep every other hour or so that around 5am I gave him and put him to sleep in his swing and I crashed on the couch. It worked – he didn’t wake up again until 9:30am.

The odd sleep I got last night left me both tired from waking up so often and also a little oogey from sleeping in so long–the worst of both worlds. It might be the rough night, but I feel really overwhelmed by things today. I’m behind on some things I need to do for work, the house is a mess, I need to go grocery shopping, and there’s a long list of home improvement projects that I need to get started on. But all I want to do is veg on the couch and was Jeeves and Wooster on DVD. Here’s hoping the weekend’s both productive AND relaxing. A tall order, I know, but a girl can dream.

Have a good weekend!

Mr. Grabby Hands

This last week or so, E. has discovered he has hands and that they are under his control. To some extent, anyway. He loves grabbing at things and trying to put them in his mouth. He’s more successful with some things than others. He loves clutching his burp cloth in both hands and cramming it against his face and kind of growling into it. Pretty cute stuff.

On a different note, yesterday I ordered my first print from Tiny Showcase. I’ve been on their mailing list for a while and would check out the prints from time to time. Anyway, this week I finally took the plunge and ordered this print.

It’s by Amy Ruppel, whose work I’ve admired ever since I saw an exhibit of hers at the Smith Family Bookstore in Eugene a couple of years ago. Even though you miss out on some of the depth of Amy’s work with a print, I’m still really excited about it. And the print even comes with two cute enamel pins!

It was a bit of an ordeal to order it, though. Because Tiny Showcase only does very limited runs of the prints, they can sell out very quickly. I logged on to the site right at 5:30pm MST when they release the prints, but the site kept crashing on me because of the high traffic. By the time I got my order placed, they were on print #188 of 200, so I barely squeaked in under the wire. The entire run sold out in less than 30 minutes!

100 Days Old!


E. turned 100 days old this last week. Via Wikipedia, “In Korea it’s common to celebrate the bek-il or the 100th day of life. This tradition was born from a time of high infant mortality when many babies would die before three months of age. As a result the 100th day is a celebration of life as the baby has survived the difficult first 100 days of life.”

E. is a quarter Korean and while we weren’t going to have a traditional ceremony I wanted to go out for Korean food last week to celebrate his bek-il. However, a blizzard blew in last week and we weren’t able to make it out. N. had the day off today and so for lunch we went out for Korean food.

We drove down to a little place in Provo called Sam Hawk. Because their kitchen is so tiny, N. and I usually call in our order ahead of time. Otherwise, the wait can be up to an hour and a half, especially if you get stuck behind a large group. The first time we ate there, it literally took us two hours to get our food. The waitress felt badly for us and brought us rice crackers to snack on and Korean fashion magazines to flip through while we waited. It was funny at the time, but not that funny since we were crazy hungry. And the rice crackers sadly didn’t cut it.

So yeah, we learned our lesson: calling ahead definitely pays off. When we were there today we received our food, ate, and paid the check before some families who had been there when we arrived even got their food. We definitely got a few dirty looks as we were leaving. I felt a little smug for being in the know, but also a tiny bit guilty. But the food was really good.

We started with some dukboki, one of my favorites. It’s sort of like street food and so not every Korean restaurant serves it. I loved eating it at the street carts in when I was in Korea. It cracked me up how the vendors would wrap the plate in a clean plastic bag, put the dukboki on the plate, and then peel off the plastic bag and throw it away when you finished. This is one of the few Korean dishes I can make at home.

The banchan included seasoned black beans, potatoes, kimchi, and mung bean spouts.

N. and I both had dolsot bibimbap. E. started fussing while we were eating so I ended up holding him on my lap, but I had to be careful to keep him away from the bowl so he wouldn’t be burned.

The food was super good. After lunch we ran some errands and then got some frozen custard before coming home (lemon chiffon–yum!) So all and all, it was a lovely Presidents’ Day.

Happy Valentine’s Day

E.’s still a little under the weather, but I think he’s on the mend. I don’t know if it’s because he’s sick or if it’s just a stage, but he’s been drooling like crazy these last few days. His little chin is getting pretty chapped. He’s also started focusing on his hands a lot and often puts them in his mouth along with anything he can grab–so his drool gets on everything within his reach. Lovely!
Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day from E. and me!





The working part of “working from home”

I have to admit to it; sometimes I can be a little bit grumpy if E. starts burbling away in his crib before 6:30 am or so. However, when I walk in there and see his cheerful little face poking out above his little swaddled body, I can’t help but crack up. E.’s usually super cheerful and chatty and making his favorite noise, “A-goo!”

I can’t believe the weekend’s already over! Along with E., N. has also been sick, so it was a pretty low key weekend with lots of lying about and watching the Food Network. E. is still really congested and a little wheezy, but he doesn’t seem noticeably worse, for which I’m really grateful.

However, now I have to make up for lost time on some reports I have to do for work this week. I’d also like to get some things done around the house, mainly tackle the huge pile of mail and paperwork that I’ve been doing my best to ignore for the last couple of weeks. Our two insurances have finally finished duking it out over who would pay for what with E.’s birth, so now we have to pay the hospital and all of the doctors the remaining balance. For the record, having two sets of insurance does not save you as much money as I thought it would.

Over the weekend I sorted through E.’s clothes – he’s now in 3-to-6 month sized things. Crazy! I’ll have to take some pictures of him in his new duds.

Hanging In There


I took E. to the doctor again yesterday (5 visits in 2 weeks, a new personal best! Hopefully this record will stand for a long time.) Anyway, it turns out that the poor little guy has RSV. He has a cough and is a little wheezy, but the oxygen levels in his blood tested okay, so for right now it’s not super serious. I’m still kind of freaked out though because I know his condition can turn pretty quickly. So I’m watching him like a hawk to see if his breathing becomes more labored. The next week or so might be a little rough.

Oh yeah, and he has a double ear infection that he started antibiotics for. And he hates taking the antibiotic and squirms around and gets it everywhere.

Sigh. The good times just keep on coming.