Not doing my job
I feel like I am letting down people here at work, especially my co-worker. I hate the feeling of letting people down. This week was crazy as I was home for 2 days with Tyler and then was gone 1.5 hours each day because we were transitioning Tyler back to daycare. I am hoping next week that I can get in here, stay on task, and acutually do my job well. It is just the crappiest feeling – I don’t want to be one of those people who appears to just be punching the clock.

Tyler waved to his Daddy last night and was cracking up. He thought is was too funny!

OK – is was a babble sentence – but it wasn’t just the “dat”, “bwah”, “eh” or voice modulations. It was a string of new consonants that I have never heard before – it was so cool!! I was sitting here and just heard him go. He is growing more and more everyday – I can’t wait to be home with him!

Just watched Oprah’s show on location in New Orleans. Thank God for that woman. Her show showed the real human tradgedy. I was in tears so many times.

Just heard on the news that President Bush will lead an investigation into what went wrong? I say lack of leadership starting with him. Any politician could have done SOMETHING. I think they are all so afraid of doing something that might get them in trouble politically. I mean look what Oprah accomplished in a matter of days. I think they are ALL to blame. They all have some level of connection. No wonder the mayor was so pissed off. I think when he was talking about “move you asses” he was talking to the people with the power to make things happen that weren’t.

Anyway – I feel the need to act. Certainly a monetary donation to the Red Cross, but I want to take more action. I have started to collect things around the house like clothing and bottles never open or used for Tyler. Wish I could do even more. My Mom is making baby blankets for the babies…go Mom!

It is just so sad. It really is a sad week for our country to see the way this tragedy unfolded. It really breaks my heart.

Talking up a storm
Tyler is playing with words. He is loving to say “dad” or “dat”. We are working on Dad, Dog, Ball, and Book. He loves to try to repeat what we say. I am also trying “bye-bye”. He did something that sounded like “i i”. He also thinks he is Canadian as he does “eh” all the time. He babbles and works on spitting out the words. Much fun!

Curious Boy
He isn’t crawling yet, but who needs crawling when you can reach, roll, scooch and stretch? He was playing on the floor of our bedroom and got over to the stereo on the floor. He was playing with the volume control turning it up and down. He didn’t get that he was controlling the sound, but Chris and I were cracking up – it was pretty funny…

Drop and Release
He has figured out drop and release and this game really has us laughing. In his high chair he loves to get a toy, hold our his hand, drop it to the floor and then lean way over in his high chair to see where it went. It is too funny. You can even tell what toys interest him that day by how quickly they get chunked. It is so funny…

Sick again
I am home with Tyler today. Seems like he has picked up a cold and to add insult to injury also has pink eye. He slept awful last night crying every time we laid him down – suspect maybe it was the congestion. Have to check Dr. Sears site and all the homeopathing things you can do for a cold – it has been so long that I am out of practice!!

Anyway, have lots to do while the boy is napping so need to go. Take care.

Well, after 4 months of sleeping in his crib, we are bringing Tyler back upstairs. We are going to move his crib upstairs, take the side railing off and move it to my side of the bed. Why? Several reasons:

• He was waking up several times a night to where I only get 2 to 3 stretches at a time. That kills me – I do so much better if I can just get 1 4 to 5 hour strech.
  
• Sometimes even though he only wakes up twice, he will roll over on his back and cry the second he goes into his crib and we go through the whole dance again.
  
• I sleep so much better when he is upstairs. I am not having to listen for a baby – he is right there.
  
• I like having him upstairs.
  

If we have him upstairs, Chris will sleep much better if we have more room. Right now we are cramped in the full bed. Tyler will touch Chris and that wakes Chris up. I am much more used to a squirmy baby; although, somedays I can’t get comfy either. The co-sleeper worked so great, so we will do the same kind of arrangement. Tyler is to big for the cosleeper – it doesn’t have the railings like a crib does.

So yeah we are doing the family bed thing and yeah, Tyler may be up there for a while. Honestly, I don’t care – I want him there. At some point he will want a big boy bed – I am not worried that he will be 15 years old wanting to snuggle with Mommy and Daddy. As long as we have enough space so that we can all sleep comfy (Tyler included – he is such a bed hog), it will be fine. Going to move the crib tonight and I am looking forward to it.

As far as how positive I am in a few months, we will just see how it goes. This whole parenting thing is about being flexible and going with the flow. Tyler is not the same baby he was 4 months ago. Some of the things that worked back then still work today and others don’t. Some of the things that made him mad many months ago, don’t bother him at all today. The vacuum cleaner scares him now – to think the sound that now scares him used to lull him to sleep?!?!?!

This will allow me to get the best sleep – and that is what is most important to me right now. I am a much happier person, better wife, Mom, friend, etc when I have my rest.

First of all, pardon the stream of consciousness, but I am a little buzzed right now. Get a little alcohol in a nursing mother, and I am quickly three sheets to the wind. I have been wanting to post this blog all day and with Tyler with his grandparents, I have some time to do that.

What the hell is going on?
I am so outraged at what I see on TV about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. There are people dying, starving and suffering in the richest country in the world. How is that possible? Well, Alyssa..communications are down. Yes they are – so why aren’t the companies with satellite phones giving them to every rescue group they can find? Why isn’t every helicopter available down there? If you can’t get to the people, at least drop off some food. This catastrophe was predicted. Prior to the hurricane hitting, everywhere you saw the worst case scenariom was publicized. Wasn’t FEMA at least planning for its possibility and the chaos that would ensue? The FEMA director had the audacity to criticize the people who stayed behind. Yes, the mostly poor, ederly, and sick who had not the means or those who were stuck because the train, bus and airlines all shut down on Saturday – two days before the storm hit. 9/11 was completely unpredictable and the response was immediate.

I heard today that Bush had left from Washington in the middle of the night to sign a bill for that Terry Shiavo situation (heard off a liberal radio program, so this is not confirmed), but it took him 2 days to get off his ass? Then I heard in a press conference how he shared that Trent Lott has lost his house and he can’t wait to rebuilt it and sit on his porch?!?!?! Yeah, we all feel for Trent Lott. How about the people who have to watch a dead family member consumed by rats? Give me a break.

I understand that it is a complex situation down there and a very worst case scenario, but for a superpower with so much money, resources, and technology in our hand it is disheartening to see that this is the best we can do. I will even go so far as to say that in terms of affecting people, this is way worse than 9/11. In 9/11, 3,000 people lost their lives and that in itself it horrific. We have lost a city – people’s homes, livelihoods, posessions, way of life, culture was destroyed. It so pisses me off.

And I have some goodies for you. My friend Charles sent over a link to a blog that has a list of like 10+ things that President Bush could have done on TUESDAY to help these people.

Larry James Urban Daily

Or our PRESS CORE is FINALLY getting back to the way it used to be. Instead of relaying sound bites, they are pushing back on the politicians and those in charge relaying the anger of the people. They are asking the hard questions, not allowing them to get away with their political spin… about damn time. Check out this article about the press from NPR which also contains links to some of these hard-hitting interviews:

Reporters Give Voice to Post-Katrina Desperation

Finally, I know that hindsight is 20/20. Maybe I am mad because the reaction scares me and makes me wonder just how well this country could handle some kind of attack on our soil? How well it could mobolize and organize under constrained conditions? It makes me feel like I need to get with my family and come up with our own disaster plan because the government may not have one. So many people died and it is sad to see that every day people keep dying and in some cases it just seems unnecessary.