T-Giving at Civano

[ty] 24 Nov 07

For t-giving this year we headed over to Jeff and David's house for a small gathering. Just the 4.2 of us. Here are some pics detailing our warm and mellow day.

We found two chickens deep in a philosophical discussion so we grabbed them real quick
and stuffed them into the the grill. They were delicious.

Just to get some perspective on how much JP hasn't grown. Organic baby in organic cotton on an organic cork floor.


Who knew that with a little adjustment his new carrier can double as a highchair? Now we do.


Never let it be said that JP and David do not set an aesthetically pleasing, if a bit sparse, table.


Yummy yummy in our tummy.


He continues to get cuter as time goes on.

Bonus Nubby Shots!!

On laundry day he gets to wear whatever is clean and will be warm enough for the surprisingly chilly November mornings.

Who needs parents when you have a box of hand-me-down toys?


Nubby and Gaspar celebrate another Pats victory.

Dedication

[jd] 21 November 2007

About a month ago we ran out of corn-based bags for our countertop composter. This is a brilliant invention that keeps the compost collection in your kitchen from being smelly and producing flies, which means that with this brilliant invention my husband actually lets me compost (his fly tolerance is lower than mine because I work in a building with fly researchers and am fairly innured to the little buggers). Since then we have only been composting when there is a project that produces a lot of food waste, which goes in a bowl on the counter and I empty it out before it causes havoc. At least I intend to empty it out. Saturday night Ruben and Anna taught us how to make chille rellenos, which produced an entire bowl of hot pepper skins, hot pepper seeds and egg shells. Despite my best intentions, I completely forgot to empty the bowl and Tyson put it outside on the porch two nights ago. Can you see where this is going? That's right, Roland is so dedicated in his quest for extra food that he ate the compost: all the skins, all the seeds and about half of the egg shells. WTF?

Time to Child-Proof

This morning Nubby squirmed over to the battery charger that was plugged into the wall, reached up, popped a battery out and put it in his mouth.

Whiskey Tango in the Desert

[ty] 17 Nov 07

We figured as long as we're stuck in the desert we might as well enjoy some of the fringe of society benefits. So today we drove out North of the city to some BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property to shoot some guns.

We went with a couple of our good friends who have so many dogs that they should probably have a kennel license. One of the nice things about hanging out with a bunch of scientists is that as an occupational hazard they have to drive deep into the hinterland for fieldwork. So we ended up way out in the desert having some fun.

A little instruction goes a long way

Nothin' but desert

That's my new (and by new I mean used) Mossberg 500. Pretty much the simplest, pump action, 12 gauge shotgun you can buy. Clearly it has an aftermarket pistol grip and adjustable stock for a slightly more tactical feel. I haven't named it yet.

Overall we had a great time and all 4 of us left feeling like we had pitched 8 1/2 innings at Fenway.

The myth of solid-food poo

[jd] 16 November 2007

Everybody who I knew prior to having a baby told me how awful poo was after the baby started solid food. Every book harps on this point. How innocuous breastmilk poo is, and how horrifically stinky the solid-food poo is. How nast diaper duty will be. Now that Cayden is chowing down on a regular basis (he has doubled his consumption of food), his poop is a whole new ball game. A super, fantastic, life-is-so-much-easier ball game. All those people telling you that solid-food poo is bad? Those people use disposable diapers, and their diaper pails stink. For cloth diapering folks, this is the best advance ever! Everything sticks together, stays on the diaper liner and peels right into the toilet. For all you folks fearing the cloth diapering step... it is really and truely the secret to a non-stinky house (plus it will safe you 2k over a couple years). Not to mention the easy distinction between farting and pooping now. If you didn't hear anything and his face is dark red, it's not gas.

This time it's not my fault

[jd] 13 November 2007

Back when I was a naive, irresponsible mother of a 6 week old baby, I ate a bagel while nursing my son. This may seem innocent, but it was not a plain bagel. It was a poppy-seed bagel. And what happens when you eat poppy-seed bagels? A fine dusting of poppy seeds coats the immediate vicinity. If your fragile 6 week old baby is in that vicinity, there is a decent chance they will get a poppy seed in their eye. This is gauranteed to make you feel like a GOOD MOM, and you and your spouse will spend the next twenty minutes looking over your shoulder for CPS agents while playing with q-tips, saline, and a screaming child during the seed extraction. Needless to say I started covering the kid up with a napkin while I ate.

Cayden, however, did not seem to take home any life lessons from this experience. This morning while I was nursing him, I noticed a globby white piece of rice in his eye and an image flashed through my head. An image of Cayden at dinner last night. After getting a handful of peas and rice & quinoa cereal, he realized he was tired and rubbed his eyes. Many many times. Because, once they have green eyebrows you are laughing too hard to try and stop them from doing it again.

Almost!

[jd] 31 October 2007

I swear we are really going to update the photo website with a wealth of pictoral goodness, but in the meantime here are some teazers from Seattle, Vavo's visit, and the latest movies of our beloved son.

Guess which one is the groom?

The drunk cuddly one!

48 hours later, he had recovered admirably well

Sir and Rachel attend the Pelojoquin barbeque. Words can't describe how much we miss training with them...

Jen and Cayden try and figure out what the heck the other one is saying

Vavo loves Nubby

tasty tasty baby

102nd Round of Manuscript Revisions

[jd] 29 October 2007 (holy crap it's almost november)

Some of you may have heard me mention The Manuscript That Won't Die. And by 'die' I mean 'get published', and by 'mention' I mean 'rant and rave'. If you haven't heard about it, you should consider yourself blessed. Anyway, I am wading through another round of reviews at a coffee shop that I went to in an attempt to flee the distractions of the internet. Turns out Bentley's has free wifi. In my short study break I discovered yet again that Mathew Baldwin is much funnier than we are, as evidenced by his expose on Seattle's windstorms.

Pun of the Day

"Beckett is becoming Rockies' horror pitcher show"

Thems is some clever newspapers we have in Tucson.

Cravings

[jd] 22 October 2007

I can tell I am getting excessively sleep deprived and stressed because I started craving a cigarette this morning. I am known to smoke cloves from time to time, but I haven't had a cigarette in 6 or 7 years. Deep down my brain apparently still remembers them as divine. Mind you, last time I succumbed to a craving like this I almost puked because the physical addiction is long gone. Someday Nubby will stop growing like a maniac and I will sleep again. Ahh..... sleep.

Nubby is in love...

Ready, Set, Sit!

[jd] 15 October 2007

We are woefully behind on blogging and pictures, but will be making web pages of our Seattle trip and Vavo's visit this week. I just thought I would let you all know that Cayden learned how to sit! He had been toppling and playing with his feet for weeks, and decided about 5 days ago that actual sitting was not that hard. The upside is he is much better at playing with toys on his own. The down side is it is not safe to leave him ANYWHERE unless he is strapped in with a seatbelt because with sitting comes sudden lunging onto his belly in an attempt to grab whatever object caught his fancy (like Stumpy, or the gears of the lazyboy).

Playing the role of bratty sibling will be...

[jd] 2 October 2007

This weekend marked a rite of parental passage for us: total and complete loss of sleep due to a sick baby. Cayden was cranky starting Friday night, but his unhappiness ramped up and was joined by a fever on Saturday night. I talked to a physician on call, but his statement that we should take him to urgent care if the fever didn't drop in an hour was preceded by, "I can't diagnose your baby over the phone". That made his advice sound very anti-litigious to us. Since Cayden seemed sick and cranky but not inconsolable or suffering, Tyson was very reluctant to expose him to the germs associated with urgent care and emergency clinics. I can agree with that, so Saturday was spent with him sleeping between us (for whopping 1 1/2 hour stretches), constant brief nursings and maniacal diaper checking to make sure he wasn't dehydrated. He was less cranky Sunday morning, and we took him for a walk with Roland since the weather was actually bearable. He screamed his way own for a nap at noon, and we thought, "This is it. He will sleep for 2-3 hours and wake up feeling better". Well, he only slept an hour but he did wake up with no fever and acting like a normal cheerful baby. Sadly this only lasted a couple hours. When his fever and crankiness spiked up again we went to the doctor, where poor Nubsies was diagnosed with a bilateral ear infection. Thus begins his first round of antibiotics at 5 months old. We aren't crazy about it, but it is better than leaving his ears untreated. Tyson stayed home with him yesterday, and I took over in the evening so Ty could attend our planned Patriots vs. Bengals party at Cincinatti-native friend's house without me (Pats won! I didn't watch the game, I am not so far gone as to watch football on my own). After two and a half hours of a baby who was only happy if he was physically attached to me, I finally got him to go to sleep. I had him nestled on the couch next to my chair, and Alia came over to check us out. She was being a cute, sniffy, investigative kitty, so I didn't stop her from checking Cayden out. She gently touched his cheek, then put her mouth right next to his ear and let out a piercing meow JUST to wake him up, and it WORKED. She looked completely satisfied when she calmly jumped off the counch after Cayden started crying. It has never been so hard for me to not stuff my cat in the oven for safe keeping.

A Dream Come True

[ty] 30 Sept '07

Saturday night my friends Zak and Brian came over and we played through the first 3 levels of the new Halo 3 videogame together. Mind you, Zak lives in Seattle and Brian lives in Portland. We played cooperatively through the campaign over microsoft's X-Box Live service. This may not sound like a big deal but it truly is the realization of a life-long gamer's dream. I have spent no small amount of time chauffeuring electronic equipment both near and far in order to play cooperatively with my friends. NO LONGER.

Not only does the new Halo have some beautiful graphics but it also allows you to go back later and watch your exploits in a specially designed "theater" mode. From said theater mode I downloaded a couple of screenshots of our madness.

Sor driving, B-Bri on turret, Zip on shotgun.

A classic case of hit and shoot and run. Note the blood spatter :)

His wingman long gone, his driver dead under the vehicle, Bri
stays with the sinking ship. Which happened, like, 2 seconds later.

You never leave your wingman!

Tyson's Mitch Hedberg Imitation

"Stumpies, how many strikes until you're out in baseball? Three! That's right!"

"Stumpies, how many periods in a wrestling match? Three! Right again!"

A little piece of me will always live there...

[jd] 26 September 2007

We just got back Monday from a fantastic trip to Seattle, other wise known as 'the city of bearable temperatures'. Cayden and I went last Sunday so I could spend a couple days working in my old lab. Kendra watched him in the mornings and he came to lab with me in the afternoons. As the cutest baby on the planet, he was a hit. And naturally he chose those three and a half days to learn how to shriek. By the time Daddy showed up on Thursday he had perfected his Teradactyl mating cry.

Seattle was good to us in our seven years there and we have missed it desperately since moving to the land where you can fry eggs on your hood. Being back was wonderful. As my plane descended into the mist, the pilot came on the intercom and said Seattle was 55 and rainy. And I thought, "of course it is". Nubby and I picked up Tyson on Thursday afternoon, and we drove straight to Pike Place Market for two Seattle essentials: fresh donuts and a trip to spice guy. Thursday night was George's co-ed bachelor party, which ended for me with Nubby getting thrown out of his very first bar. Daddy was so proud. For George the night ended in a gin-haze. Tyson and Zak were driven home by our friend Kevin and as they were waiting to pull out of the parking lot, a trio of girls at the end of an equally entertaining evening trounced by. My husband, being a gregarious guy, stuck his hand out the window to high five them. The first two slapped his hand, but the third grabbed it and started tugging on his wedding band while shouting, "It's a marraige ring! It's married". Tyson hurriedly made a fist and pulled his hand in the car, trying to imagine how to tell me he lost his wedding ring to a drunk bimbo downtown.

Compared to Thursdays excitement Friday was rather tame, and we were in bed by 10. I, however, was up two hours later with cramps. I got a hot water bottle and tried to go back to sleep. The rest of the night passed in a blur of new hot water bottles, puking in a bucket, and making Tyson get out of bed to pick up Nubby and place him on my boob to nurse. I finally asked Tyson what time it was. He said 6:15 am. I asked him which side your appendix is on. He said the right. I told him it was time to go to the hospital. I later found out he thought I was being a hypochondriac, but he imediately got up and got Nubby dressed and put us both in the car. Eight hours later I was in surgery and Tyson was off to perform George and Beth's wedding ceremony. The procedure went pretty well. They were able to do it laparoscopically, which means a much less complicated recovery. I wasn't able to nurse Nubs for 24 hours, so he was on formula briefly. Like the little champ he is, he ate readily and didn't give Daddy too many problems. Ty brought him by to visit me Saturday night after the wedding. Nubs did well until he realized he was sitting next to my boobs and collapsed onto my chest, grabbing at my gown and crying. Once we turned him around and he couldn't see the boobs, he stopped crying. That's because he has the attention span of a peanut.

Ty spung me from the hospital on Sunday morning and brought me back to Zal and Kendra's, who had a potluck for us that afternoon. Much like our going away party we found ourselves looking around and thinking, "What did we do to deserve this?". It was amazing to be back and surrounded by people we loved. Seattle will always be a home to us.

Nubby Represents

[ty] 17 Sept '07

Despite the monsoon of allegations and press surrounding Bill B. and the Pats my son knows what's up and happily represents in the name of New England.





We also had a wonderful visit from Grandpa Spray II who lives in Vegas and hence enjoys the ability to fly down after work on Friday and head home Sunday afternoon.





Bathtime brought to you by the number 2 and the letter O.


So thats a quick pictorial update of the last week or so at Casa de Sprayberry. Right now Jordanna and the Nub are in Seattle wearing denim and sweatshirts while I swelter in the chill autumn upper 90's of Tucson. I head out Thursday to attend/officiate the celebrated Wang Clan Thang as our good friends George and Beth make their union official in the eyes of the state.

JD called me to let me know that she had safely arrived and the first thing she said to me was "I'm where you want to be." Beeatch.

More pics later. Check out the video of Shark-Baby attack...

To eat or not to eat

[jd] 13 Sept 2007

So all recommendations say not to feed your baby until 6 months. Most doctors will say 4 months is fine. The research on the topic is disjointed and inconclusive, suggesting that babies are ready somewhere between 4 and 6 months. Cayden has been showing some signs of being ready since early August, so I just wanted an answer! Eventually Ty and I decided that we would put him in a high chair while we were eating, and start feeding him if he showed interest in food. He has been watching us eat, and last week we decided to put a couple of chunks of banana on his tray while we were having dinner. Mind you, this child has put EVERY OBJECT HE TOUCHES in his mouth since mid-July. He threw the banana on the floor, rubbed it on his shirt, rubbed it on me, and stashed it behind him in his chair. In short, he put it anywhere but his mouth. Because that banana? Clearly not edible.

This is the hunger that never ends

[jd] 10 Sept 2007

While Cayden is not off the charts, he is a very big boy. The other day at target, another mother asked how old he was. I replied that Cayden was 4 1/2 months old, and how old was her little boy? 8 months? No, that boy was 14 months. Next to Cayden, most babies look 2-4 months younger than they are. And where does all this healthy chub come from? My boobs! The consequence of our robust child is that I am already below my pre-pregnancy weight. Of course, my pre-pregnancy weight was 3-5 lbs less than I like to weigh. We set a hard and fast line last night. If I drop below a certain weight (one that has in the past had negative effects on my health) I am going to wean the little bugger. I don't really want him on formula, so I am eating constantly in an attempt to keep up. This is my incredibly verbose and obtuse way of saying I'M HUNGRY.

Update

[jd] 6 Sept 2007

Yes, I am still having depression/ anxiety issues. This past weekend SUCKED (from an anxiety perspective, from a family perspective we actually had an awesome weekend. Pictures of the succesful outcome of our goodwill trip forthcoming. I love goodwill). Yes, I am getting help. I found a great counselor, we are totally on the same page, and my insurance gives me unlimited visits for a year. I have been getting emails and notes from many of you and I love it and it helps, even if I don't write back right away : ). I don't want people to worry, or to be embarassed. I'm not ashamed of it. I wasn't embarassed when I had gastro, I can't see why I should be about this. Anyway, I know some people have been curious about how it was going, so I thought I would let you know. My bad days now are much better than my bad days in July, so I think the intensity is decreasing. Whenever I go a week or so without any bad days I get really excited, because I think it is all over. Then when one bad day comes, it turns into 5 because I am depressed about having another attack. Such is life. I can't complain too much. I have a fantastic husband, a good life, Jeff and David are great, and our new friends Kristin and Jamie have been another welcome source of support. Plus, when I bring Cayden over to see them he and Ian interacting are always good for a laugh. Yesterday they got involved in the slowest, lowest power tug of war match I have ever seen ('dude, that hat is totally mine once I figure out how to get two hands on it').