TOOTHousand and 8

i demand a recount

the last post was not #300 after all, it was actually #289. blogger told me it was #300, but it also counts the draft posts that haven't been published in the total. so since we have a bunch of started but never finished posts (like the weekly preggo ones from babycenter.com - never got to use 37 weeks, 39 weeks, 39 weeks, or 40 weeks because of roo the early bird) we have got a few more to go before we hit the big 3-0-0. now to come up with something truly spectacular...

solid poop (a 300th post spectacular)

after an extended moment of silence in honor of abby, i'm back with a big ol' update. it also happens to be our 300th post. woo hoo! yesterday, for the first time in 13 days, quentin had a solid poop! it's sad when you get excited about something like poop, but after nearly 2 weeks of diarrhea, real poop is a happy thing. we don't think that he was sick, we think it had to do with teething because... poor little guy is currently cutting 5 new teeth, bringing him to a grand total of 8 teeth. so glad i'm not nursing :) and now that his digestive system is back to normal, we're pushing solids again. he has devoured his rice cereal the past couple of days. i have also purchased a food processor and a couple of make-your-own baby food books. seems like it will be fun. i might have to add quentin's meals to our 2-week meal plan... which by the way we are still rockin' - it makes life so darn easy. we love it. i have also started a list of other potential things to add to the rotation, potentially expanding to a 3 or 4-week plan. playing a big role in the 3-4-week expansion will be the chest freezer we plan to buy with part of our tax refund... speaking of... taxes freaking suck. i have gotten them basically done, but i need to double/triple check them. probably should have paid a professional this time around but i'm cheap. with the move (2 houses worth of mortgage interest, 2 states to file + the moving expenses deduction) our filing got way complicated. stupid richmond / virginia... no major updates on the real estate front this week. we had 2 more showings last week and nothing else exciting. still can't believe the peeps who made an offer last week did not expect us to come back with a kick-out clause. crazy. i hope their condo sits on the market for a year see they can so how it feels! we have decided that in the spring we will build the "abby bagel memorial veggie garden". we thought about planting a tree or a shrub in her honor, but there was almost nothing in the world she loved more than veggies from the garden. she plucked every last tomato from the plants we had in the yard in richmond and also helped herself to a box of freshly picked maters from my parents' garden last summer. we'll get a plaque or something to go with it. vacation coming up soon. very excited. quentin will go on his first long car ride - all the way down to richmond. and it will be only the second time he's left the state of massachusetts (though the first time was hardly exciting - he and i went for a ride to connecticut to find the nearest wachovia in order to get a cashiers check for buying the house - tons of fun!) did you know... on my daily home-daycare-work commute i pass 7 dunkin donuts but not a single mcdonald's? i'm not talking about ones off of highway exits, just ones immediately on the road i'm on. not that i have the cash to allow frequent visits to either dd or mcd's, i just find it interesting (and counting the dd's gave me something to do on the brutally long trek!) happy leap day! oh as a result of the extra day, quentin's 1st birthday will be on a saturday this year. while i haven't settled on a theme just yet, we will be doing some sort of big ol' party. any and all are welcome!

We'll Miss You Abby

Today we lost our friend Abby. She fought very hard against an angry tumor, but in the end the cancer won. She was a horrible disobedient dog and that's why we loved her. We'll never forgot you, and we'll never stop loving you.

got home at...

1:30! less than two hours total, with a longer than normal stop off at day care. not too bad! friday is the busiest day at day care so when i got there things were in full swing. there was so much action that quentin didn't want to leave. can't really blame him - i am sure mommy is a ton more boring than watching all his friends!

it's 11:30...

and we've all been told to go home due to the snow. anyone want to make a guess as to when i will actually get home? my trip home normally takes 1.5 hours including the stop off at daycare. i'm guessing 4 hours minimum.

you knew it was too good to be true

the peeps have withdrawn their offer on the house. we knew when we didn't hear back last night and not even first thing this morning that this would probably be what was going to happen. apparently they didn't like the kick-out clause. guess they thought we would be happy to just sit around and wait for their condo to sell. guess they thought after 10+ months on the market that we had gotten oh so good at waiting. whatever people. your condo could take 10 months to sell and we're not waiting for that without the ability to continue to show our house and accept other offers. damn it.

way behind... again

no matter what i do i cannot stay on top of the blog these days. i need to come up with a better strategy now that my time is completely eaten up by commuting, work, and general mom-ness. i'll think of something. there's too much going on to NOT post here :) so here's the crazy world of us: quentin's christening it went very well. he was not thrilled about sitting quiet and still in church following the actual baptism so mommy and daddy had to pace around the church to keep him quiet. by the end i had to take him outside because he wasn't even pacified by the pacing. he screamed through amazing grace, the final hymn. even though we weren't in there, everyone could here him. oops. he looked so cute in his special gown and almost everyone commented on how neat it was. i now want to take it to have his name and christening date embroidered on the inside slip, hopefully a starting a tradition for every baby who wears it going forward. sick sick sick we got our first daycare bug. quentin has had (a lot of) runny poop since saturday morning. fortunately he is acting totally fine otherwise. we thought it may have been a reaction because we tried barley cereal for the first time last thursday. then, unfortunately, jeremy was up all saturday night before the baptism throwing up every 45 minutes. he continued to be sick all day on sunday and even had to ensure he had planned an emergency route out of the church should it be necessary. at first we thought he might have had food poisoning from some fish he had eaten on saturday night, but when we got home late sunday night from the baptism i too was sick, so we knew it was a bug. since then everyone we were in contact with on sunday seems to have gotten it. fortunately it's a pretty quick moving bug. cancer hound abby went to the vet on tuesday for her 5th chemo treatment (out of 8 in the protocol.) unfortunately, she was very sick on tuesday (rejected her dinner, reluctantly ate it, and then threw it right back up) so they didn't do the chemo. the really bad news is that she has another tumor. they biopsied it and it's definitely another mast cell tumor which means the chemo is not working and the cancer has definitively spread. we could have this tumor surgically removed and then start an even more intense and painful chemo protocol, but we think we're done. she's not looking so good and we feel like another surgery and more chemo would just be torture. it's time to let our big bear go. :( job yesterday i got confirmation that my job is for real, and is not just a temporary role. woo hoo. another step towards financial stability. and no power suit shopping!!! extremely delayed monday real estate update we had 3 showings last week. still rocking the showings! and the absolute best news... we got an offer on the house!!!!!!!!!!!!! they low-balled us and also asked us to pay their closing costs and points. and buy them a home warranty. oh and it is contingent on them selling their house. not a great offer but it's something. at this point we aren't going to get a good offer. hell, any offer is a good offer at this point. we prepared a counter offer last night and we're just waiting to hear back. we added a clause into the counter offer that allows us to keep the house on the market while we wait for them to sell theirs. if we get another offer from someone else, these people would have 72 hours to secure financing no matter what is going on with their house, or their contract is null and we can accept the 2nd offer. fingers crossed!!!!

supermodel

we finally got off our lazy butts and took quentin for his first real photos. we've had plans to go in the past, but he invariably scratches the heck out of his face rendering himself un-photographable.

i know i'm his mom and a little bit biased, but i think he might just be the cutest kid in the world.

and here's a sneak peak at the christening fashion he will be sporting tomorrow for the big day.

best in show!

UNO!!!!

go uno!

uno the beagle won best of the hounds last night and will be in best in show tonight at the westminster kennel club dog show. it was the first time since 1939 that a beagle won the group and no beagle has ever won best in show. go uno - beagle power!

monday real estate update

2 more showings last week. the guy who looked at it as a lease-to-own last week really wants a garage, so he's still looking. who knows, maybe he'll be back if he can't find anything. sadly our listing expires this week so we will now be listing it for a 3rd time. but, maybe we'll get some renewed attention when it shows up again as a new listing. it's eventually gotta sell, right? unrelated... we learned this summer that ken's salad dressing actually started at a steakhouse here in framingham. tomorrow i get to go to a lunch there for work. very excited. yummy salad dressing, hopefully yummy steak! quentin's christening gown came today. it is absolutely beautiful. she did a really good job transforming my wedding gown. she also made a little girl's gown in case we ever have a need for that. matching bonnets for each too! i will try to take pics tomorrow - i am just afraid to take them out of the box because they will get covered in dog and cat fur.

press me

quentin likes buttons. anything with buttons or keys to press is a worthy toy... remote controls, telephones, the computer keyboard. he loves them all. fortunately he received a "cell phone" for christmas so he has something he is actually allowed to play with. he is sitting on my lap right now, and itching to type (monkey see, monkey do.) and i now give you a quentin original: 8l,u.nmj, b 5 not sure what that means, probably "feed me" or something similar. you will notice that he has a particular affinity for the space bar. last night while IMing with grandma he even used the "shift" key to make question marks! bnbbbbbbbbv kmj A N (translation: put me down. i want to jumperoo.)

so far behind

it was a crazy week so as a result i am very behind with updates. i will attempt to get caught up now :) last weekend was awesome. quentin got to meet his uncle monkey and aunt bunny, who flew up from DC for a visit. we did lots of fun things and ate good food. we went candlepin bowling on saturday and quentin slept right through it. not only was there the loud sound of bowling, there were three simultaneous birthday parties of screaming kids. out like a light the whole time. he is his mommy's boy :) monday was sad because we had to let monkey and bunny go. and the whole state was in mourning from the super bowl. stupid eli manning. we also all started coming down with something - fun! on tuesday, we brought abby in for her weekly chemo. we really like this vet. last week he wrote us a prescription for the chemo meds that we could fill at CVS for much cheaper than the vet's office would charge. He also let us know that we could save $20 a visit if we came in at night instead of doing the morning drop-off. the chemo drug was only $44 at CVS and it's enough to finish abby's course. this week's visit cost $100 less than previous visits - awesome. my mom was coming down here to help with baby care for wednesday (more in a sec) but unfortunately she didn't get here before abby's appointment which meant quentin had to come with me. no big deal as i assumed it would be the same process as the previous week - drop her off for the blood test and pick her up in an hour or so when the chemo is done. i poured a bottle just in case. well, it was NOT like the previous week - we ended up staying the whole time, AND i am a huge dummy and left the freshly-poured bottle on the kitchen counter. quentin got very very hungry at the vet and nothing i could do would keep him quiet - rocking, singing, bouncing, nothing. finally one of the desk ladies came in and offered to hold him. he shut right up. loves other people! he was quiet for the remainder of the appointment, though very happy to see grandma waiting with a bottle when we got home! abby is still doing very well with the chemo. she's only got a few doses left! wednesday i had a "fun" day at work. we were meeting in the city at the museum of science for a quick meeting, then going to an IMAX movie, exploring the museum, and going to a yummy lunch at CPK. the issue was we had to be there by 9. i investigated a bunch of options but i couldn't find anything that would work with dropping quentin off in mansfield at 7:30 and getting into the city by 9. so mom had to come be our day care. it was a good thing too, because wednesday morning i woke up to the unmistakable smell of dog poop. i heard jackson get up but he usually just hops back in to bed and patiently waits for me to get up. this morning, he kept pacing so i knew something was up. sure enough, bloody diarrhea all over the bedroom. including the pile of my clothes on the floor (still working on getting the closet organized - it's a lot smaller than the old house!!) this is not jack's 1st experience with bloody poop - you may remember he had this last may and needed to spend a night in the hospital with an IV. and of course quentin woke up and started crying. i got my mom up to take care of Q while i cleaned up the room. not sure i would have been able to catch the train on time if i didn't have her help! jack is just fine. given our current financial situation, we decided to keep an eye on him before bringing him to the vet. last time they had us feed him rice and hamburger / chicken so i fired up the rice cooker and defrosted the ground chicken. he got better throughout the day so we did not need to go to the vet. phew! we spend too much time there as is with abby! quentin also went to the pediatrician on wednesday. he continues to be a big boy coming in at 26 and 3/4 inches, 19 pounds and 6 ounces, and 45 cm for head circumference (61st, 81st, and 82nd percentiles, respectively.) i think he is actually taller than she measured - her method is grossly inaccurate, but no big deal. he's doing very well. she wants us to start putting him to bed at 8 and seeing if he will sleep all the way to 5:30. i have my doubts but it would be nice to have a couple of hours at night to get things done while he sleeps! i think quentin must have missed his day care buddies that day because he made friends with everyone in the waiting room. before people left they were sure to say bye to their new friend quentin :) he is a very smiley baby, quite the little people person :) we have all spent the week trying to feel better. at this point the body aches are gone which is awesome. just the congestion and runny noses remain. quentin's christening is in one week. his gown was mailed out on friday and should be here monday or tuesday. unfortunately she sent it where a signature is required so hopefully we will figure out a way to get it before sunday! all week i have been trying to figure out what quentin is supposed to wear under his gown. at this point we have decided to go with a plain white onesie, socks, and white shoes. i also didn't realize that you need a special christening blanket and bib - who knew? jeremy's mom is bringing up the blanket that jer was baptized with, so that will be nice. Q will be wearing some of mommy and some of daddy :) i just hope he doesn't scream through the whole thing!!! and i have saved the biggest news for last... we declared last night as quentin's first official crawl. he's been so close for weeks and has become quite adept at scootching and pivoting. he also can get where he's going by barrel rolling. but last night he got up on his hands and knees and made forward progress. a couple of times he even tried to put his foot flat on the floor and stand. he'll be unstoppable soon enough. gotta buy those baby gates and get baby proofing!

toys, toys, toys

oh boy does he love his toys. i think he loves his play mat as much as he loves the jumperoo. we can lay him on it and surround his with various rattles and chew toys and he keeps himself entertained for a long time. and it's so cute when he discovers a new toy. the look of fascination on his face... it's like you can see the little wheels in his head turning trying to figure it out.

monday real estate update

two more showings over the weekend which continues to be positive. plus he will be showing it to someone this week who is interested in doing a lease-to-own arrangement. traffic continues to be good, considering it's been on the market for over 10 months and we haven't dropped the price in ages. the neighbors 3 doors down dropped their price again, but only by a few thousand dollars this time. judging by the small drop after weeks of holding steady, i think they must be in the same place we were a few months ago - pretty much as low as they can go but trying anything to move it.

6 months old!

quentin turned 6 months old today. he celebrated by sleeping through some candlepin bowling and then eating his first-ever meal in his new high chair. he really seems to dig the high chair!

oh. boy.

quentin has been quite a pain in the butt for the past 24 hours. i think his teeth are really hurting him so he is exceptionally crabby and screamy. he got up at 3 this morning. and i had hardly even gotten to sleep by then. i went to bed around 11 last night but couldn't fall asleep right away. then abby was panting like crazy and moving around the bedroom - keeping me awake. quentin started crying at 3 and i hoped he'd fall right back asleep but it became apparent that was not his plan. i got up to make sure he wasn't stuck on something in his crib and didn't have a fever or anything. he was fine, but he was wet so i changed him. he was gnawing on his hands like crazy so i put him back down in the crib while i went downstairs to get the tylenol and a bottle just in case. he was quiet when i got back upstairs so i crawled back to bed. but he started crying again just a few minutes later. so i gave him some tylenol and the bottle. after that he was happy, but wide awake. he wanted to jump and play but i didn't want him to get the idea that 4 a.m. is time for jumperoo so i just rocked him in the glider until he finally fell asleep again around 5. of course, i usually get up around 5:15. i managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep before it was time to get up and start the day for real. i was sooooo tired all day at work. now tonight he has screamed non-stop until just a few minutes ago when he fell asleep again. i have the worst headache ever. he is lucky he is so damn cute. can't wait until these teeth just come in already.

another cousin!

quentin is excited to introduce his newest cousin, born yesterday! welcome to the world baby jake!

update grab bag

monday real estate update only one showing last week. but we're not complaining. even 1 a week is better than we were doing towards the end of the time with the 1st agent. then it was more like 1 a month. abby update she goes for her 3rd dose of chemo tomorrow and she seems to be doing really well. her tumors are much smaller and she acting perfectly "normal" (and by normal we mean freaking bonkers.) lemon jetta update all seems well. for now. snow update last night we got about 3 inches on the ground. and an inch on our screened in porch due to the crazy wind. work update i'm starting to understand what is going on. i actually completed my first bit of work today after a couple week of meeting and greeting co-workers. quentin update he's cute. took lots of photos this weekend. maybe i'll get them onto the computer tomorrow. public service announcement if you are in the market for baby goods, i recommend you steer clear of babyage.com. we ordered quentin's high chair from there because it was $50 cheaper than any other place we saw it. unfortunately, when it arrived it was cracked. no big deal, just call them and they'll be happy to remedy the situation, right? wrong. after several weeks of calling and emailing them daily i have given up. they do not call you back. they do not email you back. if you google them, there are hundreds of similar stories. we finally just went straight to the manufacturer, even though we had to pay the shipping to return (just some parts, fortunately) of the broken one. writing a strongly worded letter to babyage and cc-ing the BBB is on my list of to-do items once i have a fully functional chair within my possession.

a lesson

snow + wind = cold that is all.

will i ever get used to early mornings?

2 weeks of this crazy commute and getting up at 5 and i am beat. will i ever adjust???

still lovin the jumperoo

so serious

and so cute :)

the lemon strikes again

so my jetta and i have had a long and storied history of issues. i named her jaime when i bought her and since then we learned that the jetta is manufactured in mexico and have thus amended her name to be jaime (pronounced in spanish - hi-may) limon due to her utter lemonocity. at this point i think i've spent more on repairs than i paid for the car brand new between the engine-transplant, the window falling into the door, and other assorted problems. don't buy a mexican jetta. my anti-freeze light came on on the way to day care this morning and the car was smoking violently when i arrived. i refilled the coolant reservoir and went on my merry way. it seemed to be fine until the light came back on halfway to work. when i left work this afternoon i went to a gas station and bought another jug of antifreeze and poured it in. that's when i noticed that it was flowing straight through into a puddle under the car. yeah, a leak! so i had to call AAA and get towed to our VW dealership 56 miles away (thank god for AAA premium and their 200 mile free towing!) unfortunately the service department was already closed for the night as was every car rental place not at the airport, so jeremy picked me up. tomorrow i will have to get up with him at 4 a.m. and drive him to the train station. he will pick up the rental at the airport tomorrow night when he gets off work. and who knows how long my car will take to fix since we don't even know what's wrong. sigh. but at least we had 4 showings at the richmond house last week. and abby had her 2nd dose of chemo today and seems to be doing well with it. little victories.

no wonder this state's population is dwindling

it costs too darn much to live here. our local newspaper is doing a series on the obscene state of affairs in the day care system. not surprisingly, massachusetts is THE most expensive state in the nation when it comes to day care. for monday through friday 9-5 care the local average is $15,821 annually for an infant, with the lowest they found being $11,700 and the highest $18,929. i feel so lucky that we found our day care. quentin loves it and it's a much more reasonable price!!

soquid!

we gave quentin "solid food" for the first time today - some rice cereal mixed with formula - more of a soquid, really. he didn't really get it at first but he seemed to like it. he really enjoyed playing with and chewing on the spoon. and of course he made a giant cute mess of himself. we've also captured it on video, we just haven't figured out how to upload the vids from the camera to the computer just yet. baby steps.

a new tooth has been spotted!

quentin has been exceedingly crabby today but we've seen the culprit. even though the two top teeth are supposed to be the next ones in, he appears to have his 3rd tooth coming in to the right of the two teeth he already has. to make it even more enjoyable, he has a touch of diaper rash - which he always gets when a new tooth is coming. i hope he screams all day tomorrow too! (sarcasm should be obvious!)

another vet visit

abby went back to the vet today for another round of chemo, however she did not actually get it because her white blood cell count was too low to sustain another treatment. low white cell count is an effect of the chemo and makes her vulnerable to infection. but the really good news is that the chemo seems to be working. her tumors are noticeably smaller. plus her lymph nodes are no longer swollen and her liver and spleen seem a more normal size. she'll go back to the vet - probably on wednesday - for the next round, giving her body a little more time to recover from the last dose, but still keep fighting the good fight. but over all, she seems to be doing very well. she's spunky and happy and the tail is still wagging!

quentin and "aunt" jodi

i love the look on quentin's face!

death by frozen piddle puddle?

that's got to be a new one, right? i know i am the girl who once sprained her ankle while pumping gas, but this has got to be even worse! i was carrying quentin in from the car this evening and nearly wiped out when i slipped on what i believe is a frozen piddle puddle in our driveway. fortunately a tv stand we had ordered was delivered today and the huge box was in just the right place to prevent me from falling, and to save quentin from flying through the air in his car seat. good job dogs / freezing cold temps! but thank god for delivery people who leave packages in the middle of our driveway instead of putting them on the porch! also, i think i now understand how sanjaya lasted so long on american idol last year. if there's a baby in the room screaming at the top of his lungs, one cannot easily discern who is actually a good singer and who is woefully lacking in the vocal department. i heart teething.

a return to normalcy

i took another good step towards life as i once knew it today by starting back to work in the actual office. i think i am really going to like my new job, though it is daunting since it's completely different than my previous roles. once i learn a little more about the business up here i should be good to go! i sure do miss my old commute, where i could get up at 8:15, shower, take the dogs out, and still get to work by 9. i got to the office right at 9 today, but i had to get up at 5:15 to do it. at least i'm not getting up at 4 like jeremy! and if anyone has any ideas for entertaining myself in the car for 3-4 hours a day, they are appreciated!! the news radio station is good to listen to, but they repeat the same few stories over and over and over. that's gonna get old quick! :)

monday real estate update

another couple of showings last week which continues to be promising. the house 2 doors down is also still on the market - they seem to be suffering from the same fate as us - no one seems to want to buy a nice, newer house in our area. two houses in the area have sold recently but they are both the classic historic houses that have the "charm" that everyone seems to be looking for. screw charm. we have walk-in closets and a huge attic, and a brand new freaking air conditioner. :) at least consistent showings are a good sign.

my driveway was a giant slurpee

more snow today. but not the light, fluffy pretty snow. nope. instead it's the yucky, heavy, wet, back-breaking snow. our neighbor came over with his snow blower but this stuff is just too heavy so it didn't really help. this is shovelling snow. we've gotten about 4-5 inches of this stuff so shovelling was like trying to remove a massive slurpee spill. it was so heavy. but at least i got the driveway done in time to go get quentin. hopefully the roads will be better than they were this morning when i brought him to day care. i was slipping and sliding everywhere!

much better today

abby is doing much better today. she's actually acting like herself, well more of a muted version of herself, which is kinda good since she is usually such a freak! she was very ready for dinner tonight and finished every last morsel. and the best part no accidents or vomiting today!

abby update

abby's chemo went well yesterday, but today she is not feeling very well. she's been vomiting a ton today which i am pretty sure is a side effect of the chemo. she didn't want to eat dinner tonight either. i managed to get about half of her normal dinner into her before she went back to the couch to rest some more. it's so hard to know if we're doing the right thing with the chemo. the chances of full remission are super low but there's always that chance. poor big bear.

the cancer strikes back

abby went back to the vet last night for a check-up, but we already knew it would be bad news. she's already got a handful of new tumors growing where the other one was removed which means it had already spread. plus, for the first time in the history of earth, abby turned her nose up at dinner. keep in mind that this is the hound who broke into the food closet and helped herself to like 10 pounds of dog food last summer. she's also been shivering and moaning a lot more than usual. the vet also said her liver and spleen were enlarged. so we had the chemo talk again. we're past the place where radiation is an option since they would have to zap her whole body. jeremy and i had said last time that we wouldn't spend a ton of money just delaying the inevitable, but somehow when faced with the actual decision we had to go with our hearts and give it a shot. abby started vinblastine chemo this morning. thankfully it is a lot less expensive than radiation, though still more than we probably should spend. we think we're doing it more for us, than her. we need to feel like we at least tried. but chances are, she won't be around long :( as hard as it will be, we'll put her down as soon as it's obvious that she's suffering. she's still at the vet now, so they could monitor her after her first dose. they are supposed to call me with an update by 2 or 3.

another dose of cuteness

linda set up her doorway jumper for quentin yesterday given his love of bouncing. she tried to get some pics yesterday, but they all came out blurry since quentin was jumping like crazy. she finally got a clear one today. the other picture is q's friend mikey. the other little guys at day care love quentin, and he loves it when they are there! loves the action!

naptime... in the jumparoo

tired after all that jumping? just take a little nap!