Yeah, I know it’s Friday, but last weekend was such a crazy few days it’s taken me this long to recover. It goes something like this…

The trouble really began Thursday night when we discovered water in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. After some testing, we discovered that there was a leak somewhere in the faucet, but only when the water was actually running. So, turn off the water feeds up to the faucet (thank goodness the dishwasher was on its own feed and didn’t appear to be having a problem), and clean out and dry up the water under the sink. But this means no sink until we can fix the problem (and, of course, we have to figure out what the problem is in the first place), which we probably won’t have time to do until, well, maybe Sunday.

Friday: Mark is working from home; I take the toddler over to Little Gym; stop at the grocery store on the way home. No big deal.

Then Saturday started off promising enough, aside from all of us having these nagging colds that haven’t gone away in almost three weeks. The hubby, the toddler and I all headed down to the mall so that Mommy and Daddy could get haircuts. No problem. When Daddy was taking Sammy down to the play area, he apparently became crazy baby and kept trying to escape. But whatever. Once we were both done it was onto the next errand.

Which was Container Store. That went well enough too. We were going to grab some lunch to bring home after that, but it was still pretty early so we walked over to Buy Buy Baby just to look at some toddler beds and maybe get a kid’s bookcase (you know the kind, sort of like this). While we were there, we found some Thomas & Friends bedding. As mentioned in an earlier post, my son is Thomas obsessed. He has the books, he has the toys, and pretty soon, it appeared, he was going to have the bed linens. Well, despite not actually having a toddler bed yet (and not really needing it), we got the sheet set because they were in stock and who knows if they would be later. We also got a blanket for use in his crib. We passed on the big Thomas cushion because such a device might be used to aid in a possible escape from the crib. We didn’t realize at the time that this needn’t be a very big concern.

All’s fine when we get home. After lunch, Daddy goes to put Sammy down for his nap, and here begins the adventure. Sammy, my sweet little innocent lamb (yeah, right), has now figured out how to get out of his crib. With a swing of his foot he can push himself over, likely hit his chin on the crib’s moulding on the way down, stick the landing and run out of the room. Mark calls me up to witness this and sure enough, after a mere three attempts at this the crib doesn’t slow him down at all. Up comes foot, over goes baby, and baby runs out of the room (oh yeah, and closing the door behind him to leave a befuddled Mommy and Daddy). This changes everything. Naptime (when it happens) is going to be much more difficult. Bedtime is going to be a much more long and drawn out process, and probably happen later in the evening. The days of putting him in his crib and leaving him to fuss for a few minutes before going to sleep is now over.

And for Mommy and Daddy, it’s panic time. I run back to Buy Buy Baby, get the only toddler bed they have in stock that is boy-appropriate, as well as some more sheets, a pillow, and oh yeah, that Thomas cushion. I come home to find that there was no nap (no surprise) and Daddy has given up in exhaustion, allowing Sammy to watch his favorite TV show.

No time to really worry about that, we have to clean the house. My friend Beth promised to come over to our house with her husband and toddler for a playoff playdate (that’s a playdate during an NFL divisional playoff game, since her husband and I are big football fans). Now, when I had last seen Beth on Wednesday, I told her the game to watch was going to be the Colts/Ravens game, Saturday at 4:30. So it’s now Saturday at 4:25, and my husband and I are waiting patiently for them to arrive. And we’re waiting at 4:30. At 4:45, I start calling. By 4:50, I finally get through to Brian, Beth’s husband.

“Uh, are you coming over?” I ask.

“Beth said it was Sunday,” Brian replies.

“I told her Saturday. Colts/Ravens.”

“Hold on, talk to Beth.”

So I talk to Beth who, as a non-football person, didn’t realize that playoff games could also be on Saturday, and they have plans for that evening. Perhaps tomorrow? (Mental note: when arranging anything that has anything to do with football with Beth, clear it directly through Brian.)

“No problem,” I say, and we make arrangements to watch Pats/Chargers on Sunday.

Well, we have a nice, tidied house and nothing for dinner. We order, and I pick up, Chinese.

Then the moment of truth comes: how will we put down our now over-tired Squid boy for bed? At first, he’s quite pissy at the fact that he’s being put in his crib again (the toddler bed, although purchased, has not been assembled yet). But after one thwarted attempt at escape, he collapses from sheer exhaustion.

Sunday.

Mark and I, now paranoid that Sammy will take a header out of his crib upon awakening, get up early and make sure we’re showered and dressed before Sammy’s fully awake. During our morning routine, Mark has an epiphany: the kitchen sink (which mind you, hasn’t been operational since Thursday night), is attached at the spout to a hose that one can pull out to use as a spray (instead of traditional sinks where the spray hose is to the side of the actual tap). Perhaps that’s what’s loose. A little experiment and voila! That is, indeed, what was wrong with the faucet the entire time. A five minute fix we could’ve done when we had noticed the problem on Thursday, and we didn’t even have to crawl under the sink to fix it. We come away from the experience relieved that we have our kitchen sink back and feeling like idiots.

Much of the rest of the morning is spent on baby patrol. We hope we can tire him out to the point where he’ll voluntarily take a nap, but I’m not counting on it. Mark thinks that Sammy won’t be able to climb out of his pack n’ play, but I have my doubts. He leaves that as a fallback option if we can’t get him to nap in his crib.

After lunch, I try to put Sammy down for his nap. To encourage the nap, I lie down on the floor next to the crib and prepare to take a nap myself, you know, as an example. Doesn’t work. At one point, he gets so pissy that he bounces on his mattress and gets enough air to hurl himself, head first, out of the crib towards the floor. I swing around and break his fall just before his head makes contact. No nap today.

So we head back downstairs. Sunday is going to go about as well as Saturday, it seems. Then I hear it.

chirp

Oh, shit.

About a minute later… chirp

A smoke detector’s battery is running low. I listen closely. Shit. It’s coming from upstairs.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. We should’ve changed the batteries when we changed the clocks. And you’d think that I, as a former firefighter, would know this. Well, I do, but when I tell you what it takes to actually change the batteries on our top floor, you’ll understand why we let that little detail slip (besides, the batteries are just a backup; the smoke detectors are actually powered by the AC).

Time to put Mark’s theory about the pack n’ play to the test. And it appears that he may be correct: we put Sammy in (along with his favorite Thomas story book) and he sits happily paging through said book. Meanwhile, Mark and I go downstairs to schlep the 12′ ladder (Mark thinks it’s 16′, but there’s no way it’s twice as long as our 8′ ladder) up two flights of stairs to our third story where the smoke detectors are installed on vaulted ceilings. Personally, I hate vaulted ceilings, and this is a big reason why. We go from room to room replacing ALL of the batteries in ALL of the smoke detectors on the floor, just so we don’t have to do this again until April (or maybe July). And then we schlep the 12′ ladder back down two flights of stairs (now, mind you, this is not an easy process in a townhouse with narrow staircases and tight turns which is why it takes two of us; that and the ladder is damn heavy) back to the garage. (Did I mention that we were sick?)

Sammy’s still comfortable in his pack n’ play, so we go to the kitchen to clean ourselves up. I’ll get Sammy out of his pack n’ play once I wash my hands… oops, no matter! Here comes Sammy toddling into the kitchen now. Yes, he can get out of his pack n’ play at will. There goes that theory.

At this point, after all this activity, Mark and I each need showers before Beth and crew arrive. I go first. Then Mark. He comes downstairs with news. Let’s just say that our cats have given us another chore to do that involves cleaning our comforter (and that’s ALL I’m going to say!). At least it’s been warm out. We can do without the comforter for a day or so.

It is now 4:30, and Beth and company come by for the game, which works out well enough, but I’m so busy being referee to the toddlers that I’m barely aware of the game, let alone actually following what is going on. The best part was watching the toddlers eat pizza at Sammy’s kid-sized table and chairs. I spend much of the time picking pizza up off of the floor, but at least they’re entertaining each other and not wreaking too much havoc.

After half-time, Beth, Ben and Brian head home as it’s becoming clear that our nap-deprived son is getting quite over-tired. Again it’s exhaustion that keeps him in his crib, and he goes to sleep without incident.

Now it’s Monday, and first on the agenda is that little thing with the cats vs. comforter. I take it over to the laundromat (since our washing machine isn’t big enough to handle it) and actually enjoy sitting and reading, undisturbed, for a little more than an hour. Once I come home, I put together the toddler bed (still hoping we don’t have to actually transition Sammy to it during the weekend) just so it’s available. We all come downstairs for lunch, and oh shit! I forgot I was going to take Sammy to Little Gym since I start a new job on Tuesday and can’t take him to his last class on our normal Friday! I look at the schedule and hope that maybe my mom can take him on Wednesday when she’s watching him (which she does, thank goodness).

On the nap front, I again try to do the lie next to the crib thing. I let him bring his hardbound Thomas story book into his crib, which he occasionally “drops” and I retrieve and hand back to him. Getting bored with this game, he flings it towards me where the corner nails me in the ankle. No nap today, and he is now Daddy’s problem!

The day passes and at last, the long, LONG weekend starts to wind down. It was now time to focus on all the issues that would be facing us during the coming week: me starting a full-time job, informing Sammy’s daycare of his new ability to escape the dreaded crib, and relatives coming to visit. But you know, I’ll take all that chaos compared to the weekend where everything that could go wrong seemingly did!

At least my day wasn’t as bad as Mark, who has been sick as a dog in bed since noon.

The day started out great. We zipped down to Sammy’s daycare in no time flat. After that, I dropped Mark off, and I was at work less than an hour after we started.

Then things went downhill.

At first, I kept getting interrupted by a guy who wanted to talk to my boss, but since he wasn’t there, kept pestering me about what he wanted with his website. After awhile, he finally left me alone and I got to work on my new project. Then Mark started IM’ing me that he wasn’t feeling well and by 11, he wanted to go home.

This is where the fun begins. See, Thursday is one of my two work days per week. I just started this new project that’s pretty big and pretty involved, and it doesn’t help matters that we don’t have any access to the client’s database. So, just as I’m starting to figure out a way around this problem (in ASP, no less), is when Mark wants to go home. Now I’m having nightmare visions of Sammy not napping and me having to entertain him when I really needed to get work done.

It’s late, so let me cut to the chase. Instead of working through lunch, I end up chauffeuring Mark home, stopping to pick up Sammy along the way. Then I have to feed Sammy lunch. Then I tried to put Sammy down for a nap, and surprise surprise, he didn’t. So I work for a little while in his room while he’s bouncing around his crib like crazy baby. At three, I bring him downstairs and let him watch Thomas (a.k.a. toddler crack) while I get a little more work done.

When I try to feed him a snack, he makes a royal mess of himself, not to mention knocking the cats’ water dish all over the floor with his Thomas toy. After his snack (and a quick clothes change), it’s back into the living room for more playtime and some story reading.

Then I had to field said toddler while I made dinner. Not fun. He started pushing his new table and chair set around the kitchen while I was trying to cook. Since he’s now overtired, he’s a brat at dinner, trying to wiggle out of his chair and throwing his fork to the floor. At least he eats his green beans, and is happy to take a bath. After a few books, he goes in his crib, but cries when I leave the room.

No time to worry about him, I’m off to the grocery store to get ginger ale and saltines for Mark. (Mark later reported that Sammy fell asleep 10 minutes after I left.) I get myself to the store and realize that (again!) I left my wallet at home. Come home, grab wallet, go back to store, get soda and saltines, come home again.

Whew. Oh yeah, did I mention we were suppose to go up to New Jersey tonight? Guess that didn’t happen.

At least I’m not sick (yet!). And heaven help us all if Sammy gets whatever Mark has!

Seriously. We showed Sammy an episode of Thomas a few weeks ago, and he was instantly addicted. He started bouncing to the “Thomas and Friends” theme song and gets excited whenever Daddy turns on the On-Demand menu of the cable box. When I took Sammy to a toy store the other day and went past the “Thomas” display and he reached out for all the tank engine toys. At Grandma’s house over Thanksgiving, Sammy got to watch a bit too much TV for my taste, so now we’re on a “Thomas” moratorium.

Beth kept promising to send me this link, but I actually got it off Brenda’s LiveJournal page.

There’s this strange yellow thing in the sky. It’s kinda warm and it glows. It scares me.

Sammy’s having his mid-nap fuss a little early today, it’s only 1:45.

Anyhoo, you may recall that a couple of weeks ago I blogged about something called Pzizz. It was for a MacZot blogzot, which is where the more people blog about a product, the cheaper it becomes until (hopefully) it’s free for everyone.

Well, it didn’t quite make the free for everyone level, but since I blogged about it I got serial numbers for the nap and sleep modules.

Okay, the premise for something like pzizz may seem a little hokey to someone like me who knows nothing about the science behind it, but I tell you, I love it! It’s basically gentle, sleep inducing sounds accompanied by a calm voice sending you relaxing vibes. You can either play it through the computer (although with my MacBook Pro’s slightly tinny speakers, this is not an ideal method), or export it to iTunes for loading into your music player of choice. The nice thing about it is every time you run the program (or export the files), you get a newly-generated program. When I try to fall asleep to my own music, I begin to “anticipate” the music because I’ve heard it so many times. With pzizz, you don’t have that problem.

And at first I thought the voice that tells you things like “Thoughts are just thoughts; you don’t have to think them” would be a little annoying, but really it works. And if you really don’t like the voice, you can limit it to the beginning & end, or eliminate it entirely.

One thing you have to do is make sure that you have the file in a playlist all by itself, or else your iPod is going to move onto the next pzizz file when it finishes the one you played. You usually don’t want that.

As for the sounds themselves, they’re kind of new-agey, like Enya slowed down even more, mixed in with other gentle sound effects like ocean sounds, etc.

The only thing pzizz doesn’t do is actually find you 20 minutes to use it. But now that Sammy is taking a regular nap in the afternoon, I’ve been able to squeeze in a 20 or 30 minute “energizer” nap before running around and doing the zillion chores I have to do every afternoon while he sleeps. I’ve also used the “sleep” module when going to bed at night. Now, it’s kind of weird to go to sleep with earbuds on, but until I put an iPod speaker setup back in my bedroom (really I just need to grab a pair of powered computer speakers I’m not using), it’s the only way I can use it in it’s sleep mode. At some point during the night, I vaguely realize that I have earbuds on and nothing is playing on the iPod, and I manage to plop the whole thing on my bedside chest.

All in all, I give pzizz a big thumbs up.

Sam officially has two words in his “active” vocabulary.

“Kitty” is used to describe any creature, real or simulated, that’s fuzzy or furry. Thus, the cat is “kitty,” as is his teddy bear, pictures of any animals in his books, or any furry mammal he sees outside.

His other word is “daddy.” It’s clear, and unmistakable. He points to his definition of the word “daddy” and says it for all the world to hear. The problem is that in his world, I am “daddy.” sigh

The kid is a tornado in a ~31 in, ~24 lb package. I can easily describe him in one word: kinetic. Literally, he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “stop.” And after a day spent trying to keep up with him, I need a full hour to undo the damage to my living room and kitchen. Then the morning comes and we’re right back at it. I’ve really got to find somewhere to go tomorrow where he can wreak havoc and I won’t have to clean up the mess.

And after about a year and a half of not working and not really looking for a job (Sammy keeps me quite busy, thank you), I’m on the verge of having TWO. First, this company in Columbia (Maryland) interviews me for a third time (counting the initial phone interview) and it goes really well. I answer all their tech questions, I detail all my PHP coding philosophies, and I get really good vibes that they might be hiring me for their team lead position. But as of yet I haven’t heard anything from them.

Then Jay from California emails me, saying the project he’d been telling me about weeks ago will probably be coming through soon. He’s got to meet with the client again, but it looks good. The pay is a little low, but it’s telecommuting. It’s 120 hours of work due no later than 6 weeks. Can I do this without having to put Sammy in day care? I don’t know, but it’s not worth my time to get day care for him for a short duration project like this.

I just know Murphy’s out to get me, though. I’ve told Jay yes, I’ll do it, but I know that as soon as that becomes official, I’ll get an offer from the place in Columbia. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. After all, I have no guarantee that I’m going to get the job, but man I aced that interview.

I’m exhausted just thinking about all this.

You ever have one of those days? I did, and Brenda isn’t going to like this story about life with a one-year-old…

Sammy rarely sleeps past 5:30AM anymore. This morning I hear him babbling over the monitor, but I’m too tired to get up yet. Ah, he’s not crying and besides, he brought a book to bed with him so he can look at the pictures until I’m ready to get up. At 6 my alarm goes off, and I drag my sleepy butt into his room.

As I put him on the changing table, I notice that his back feels wet. Hmm, I think. I take a look, and see the great big mustardy brown spot in the middle of his back. I yell for Mark.

He comes in and we peel Sammy’s footie pajamas off of him. When I take off his diaper, there’s poop everywhere. Everywhere. Mark suggested something, I forget what it was, and instead we plopped him into the bathtub. I had to fill the tub, drain all the poopy water out, and fill it back up again to rinse him off. In the meantime, he splashes the poopy water all over my nightgown. And it’s not even 6:30 yet.

So we get a clean diaper on him, and I put on new pajamas. I take Sam downstairs and give him his bottle while I mix up his breakfast. While I’m doing that, he’s getting milk from his bottle on his mat and slips on it. Every time he tries to stand up, he slips again and starts crying. I get him off the mat and chuck it outside. Mark comes down, gets his breakfast and I get mine.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. He gets cereal all over his hair, his arm, his chest and of course his face. So after breakfast we all head upstairs for a shower. I take Sammy into the bathroom and take off his diaper. While I’m waiting for the water in the shower to heat up, he pees on the floor next to it. And of course, slips on it. Since he’s already getting his pee-covered hands on my pajama-pants legs, I pick him up until Mark comes and helps me. After I get my now-dirty pajamas off, I take Sammy into the shower and give him a good rinse while I get washed myself. Then I wrap us both in towels and take him back to his room to get yet another diaper on him and put on his pants. Then I finally get dressed myself. It’s been a long day already, and it’s not even 7:30.

I spend the next hour running around the house getting stuff together for the rest of our day. We go over to get the car’s oil changed and while we’re waiting, I take Sammy to a toddler playground in King Farm. He’s obsessed with steps, and so he climbs to the top of steps for a slide. Then he uses the bars on the rails to help himself down, stumbling a little bit and not quite knowing where to put his feet. Of course I’m there the whole time, keeping him from falling and killing himself. At one point he discovers some bird poop and starts playing with it. He tries to hand me some which I just bat away. This, he finds hilarious. I cringe, but thank G-d he doesn’t try to put any in his mouth. When we’re ready to leave I douse his hands in hand sanitizer.

After that, we head over to the mall for Sammy’s first hair cut. The cut itself goes fine, until Sam gets a little fussy. I suggest to the woman cutting his hair that she let him hold a blue comb (because Sammy has this obsession with anything blue; heaven help me if he ever finds a set of blue steps, I’d never get him off!). He handles getting his hair cut just fine, but of course he started screaming and crying when we tried to take the blue comb away. sigh

Finally, we had lunch, and on the way home from the mall he alternated between falling asleep and throwing a tantrum. I sure hope this afternoon goes better.

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because ‘According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.’ – link to full article

So my husband and I order a new computer from Dell a month or so ago intending this to be our new webserver that we have colocated in Virginia. Life being what it is with a 1 year old in the house, we haven’t had the time to finish getting it ship shape that we’d like. One of the things we need to do is outfit it with a second hard drive so that we can mirror the drives.

Unlike our Dells of old, this new machine has a proprietary case in which one must use a proprietary drive bracket to mount the hard drive. Despite the fact that the manual hints that a second, spare bracket should be included in the case, apparently it’s a separate part that one must order. $10 for a piece of blue plastic. Well, seems a bit much but fine. $8 shipping and handling. That’s highway robbery. an 80% markup to drop something into an envelope and mail it off is just absurd. But what can you do? Dell is the only place you can get this plastic and you need it to mount the hard drive. Fine. Grumble, grumble.

A couple weeks later, my package from Dell arrives and enclosed is a nice, shiny metal bracket. Not at all what I had very carefully ordered. This piece does not fit the case I have and will not work to mount the hard drive. Well, I’m going off to Arkansas for a week and have no time to deal with it until I get back.

Once I do, I have to deal (again) with Dell’s call center people in India. This in itself is not fun. I am informed that since the part number on the invoice matches what I received, I’ll have to do a return and reorder the part. This is where I get very nervous. What if whoever takes my order screws up again? I am dubious but again have no other options. I make a stink about this and am informed I’ll get the refund but don’t have to return the bracket I received. “I don’t want to keep the bracket I received,” I inform them. “I just want the one I need.” But at this point the person on the other end has pretty much tuned me out.

After dealing with the return folks, I’m transferred to the spare part order folks (again, located in India). I explain to them I need a blue plastic hard drive bracket. Not pink, not green, not magenta. Not metal, wood, not glass. The person takes my order and then puts me on hold to check something. The part I want is not available, which is why I was sent the metal bracket (which, as mentioned before, doesn’t fit). I am informed that had I ordered the hard drive from Dell, I would have received instructions on how to mount it (there’s probably a secret handshake or something). Well hard drives are not proprietary to Dell, and I wasn’t going to pay the extra $20 they wanted for a drive. So I cancel the order.

The next day, on a whim, I call Dell spare parts again. I order the blue plastic hard drive bracket. The nice Indian woman puts me on hold to check. Turns out, it’s available!! (Or so they claim.) I place the order.

That was last Tuesday. I haven’t received it yet, but I’m hopeful. But after all this drama, I will not be ordering any more computers from Dell. I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with all this hassle.