Every year I can't wait until Christmas is here and every year I am so happy when it's over and I can get back to my normal ho-hum days! Since Christmas Eve and Christmas Day fell on Monday and Tuesday I took off of work Wednesday through Friday. I couldn't wait to spend the days hanging out with the baby and not doing much else. Well, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I thought the baby was acting kind of funny and the cough he's had for weeks seemed a little worse, but hey, there was a lot of excitement for him.

Then Wednesday he slept all day.

And had a fever.

Of 101.8 degrees.

So Thursday we went to the doctor and it turns out Baby Lug had a respiratory infection. They gave us a nebulizer and a prescription for albuterol and sent us on our way. The albuterol really helped Baby Lug breathe better and his fever broke. He seems to be on the mend. With one exception.

This s*** is like baby crack!

The medicine has turned my normally-sweet baby into Tyrone Biggums. He's practically knocking over convenience stores after he has his treatment. He has wicked mood swings from happy and laughing to all-out-Exorcist-type tantrums. The medicine even comes in vials folks! And the nebulizer - a baby crack pipe! No kidding!

I'm titrating down his dose so that my sweet baby will return and Tyrone Biggums will go home...

Posted by jen at 09:14 PM |Comments (3)

Baby Lug Uncontrollable Laughter .

I'm not the internet savviest, but here's my Christmas gift to you dear readers (all 5 of you) - the best sound in the whole world to me...

Happy Holidays!

Posted by jen at 11:07 PM |Comments (6)

Christmastime means a few different things to me: ornaments, food, and action movies. It doesn't have much to do with the presents anymore, or sadly, putting the Christ back in Christmas. It pretty much stopped being about the presents the year I turned 11 or 12 and didn't get a single toy. And Santa, well I was never really about Santa - I think I new at 5 that it was a farce and I couldn't sit on his lap because the mall Santa scared me. Plus the mall Santa was a lady, and that just didn't seem right to me.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is on right now.

Die Hard.

I think the fact that Professor Snape was in Die Hard is part of why I like the Snape character so much. That and I find his slick evil persona appealing, but that is neither here nor there. John Maclane is very Christmas-y to me. The only thing I can say in German is "schieß auf das fenster!" Does anyone else find Professor Snape oddly appealing or is it just me? Maybe it's the grown up manifestation of my teenage obsession with the Cure?

My dad is a big fan of action movies and every year we usually watch a new one after Christmas Eve dinner. Sometimes we diversify and watch something like Pirates of the Carribean, but usually there is some sort of car chase, gun fight, or perhaps sword play involved. We'll miss it this year as we'll probably be driving down to the in-law's during prime action movie viewing time.

Anyway - Die Hard is a good movie. Really. And Snape - Yeah I dig him.

Posted by jen at 08:28 PM |Comments (5)

Is that bunny organic?

Let me tell you, there's plenty to worry about when you become a parent. Don't I know it. Will he fall down and split his lip on his bottom teeth? (Yes) Will he try to eat the newspaper? (Yes) WIll he poop today? (Hopefully) Will he like metal, or emo, or alt country? (Who knows) There are so many things to worry about, it boggles the mind.

Not to mention the fact that I'm a worrier - it's part of my genetic code. Combine that with seeing An Inconvenient Truth, Catholic guilt, and a need to be hip and you're bound to come up with "Green Parenting."

I try hard to balance my desire to help save the Earth with living in reality. It's not as easy as you'd think. I remember when I first heard about conservation and Earth Day in elementary school. It seemed simple then - don't throw your styrofoam container out of your car window. Don't buy Aqua Net. Recycle. It's so much more complicated now. Carbon offsets? Compact fluorescents? SOLAR PANELS!

So, I'm more like a seafoam green parent. I didn't do cloth diapers, or buy glass baby bottles, but I do try to do a little bit where I can. I have some Earth's Best baby food in the cabinet. I bought a pack of Seventh Generation diapers. And we try to get as many things second had as possible. As you can imagine, my first step in trying to get green with Baby Lug was trying to find a good organic or green website.

Remember when Geocities first started? Well that's what most organic or green parenting websites remind me of - as if there should be a repeated pattern of unicorns in the background and yellow Times New Roman text. They mostly seem to be crappy online stores disguised as informational websites. The one website I found that had helpful tips was Treehugger's How to Green Your Baby Page. If anyone has any other great sites, please let me know! Meanwhile I'll be trying to find out if baby bottle liners are recyclable and looking for a sale on Gerber Organic Baby Food!

Posted by jen at 09:05 AM |Comments (2)