Invasion

Our condo has problems. Last year, when we still liked our upstairs neighbors, :) I noticed there was water dripping down into our water heater closet. Not good. I ran upstairs and told Miriam, who got the property management company to send over a plumber. This guy was obviously not very smart--he insisted that the leak was not coming from the second floor, since there was no damage in their closet, but from the third, and then tried to distract us by cooing at Miriam's baby. Since I am not a plumber, and my landlords (my parents) live far away, nothing happened on it after that. However, the leak continued to get worse, and finally my dad decided something needed to be done. He called the property management company again, who sent the dippy plumber again, who gave the same report. Dad was not fooled--he grew up as a plumber, helping his dad--a plumber. He called in another company to take a look, who reported that not only was it coming from the second floor, but there was also mold growing in our closet. Joy. He estimated that it would take a week and lots and lots of money to fix it all.

The managers of the condo above us balked at his estimate, and wanted a second opinion. They invited a carpet cleaning company to come look. He estimated several hours and much less money; however, it sounded to me like he was a bozo and was planning on doing a lick-it-and-hope-it-sticks job. I am SOOOO not excited about this. I have a new baby, whose schedule is still not fixed, and they want to come over and spend lots of time doing construction in my small apartment, making noise, creating dust, and probably screwing stuff up. If they do a lousy job, Dad will just make them pay for someone else to do it right, which will mean more people tramping through my apartment, more dust and noise and irritation. I wish I would have gotten this taken care of earlier, but it was really out of my hands. I'm also irritated because of my lack of knowledge. I had the same problem when our car was broken--I have this vague idea that I'm being ridiculously overcharged and cheated, but since I know nothing about cars (and not very much about plumbing), I can't really do anything about it. I guess this is one of those cases where you're just supposed to trust the experts.

However, although I don't know much about plumbing, my dad does and my uncle does, and they both think this carpet guy is up in the night. My husband did construction for a year, and he agrees that there's no way he can replace the things he says he will for the price he quoted. So none of this bodes well. Can I go home now?

Nobody is Perfict

My poor baby has broken out in lots of zits. This does not bode well for her teenage years.

She definitely looks like Napoleon's side of the family, although I can't really explain why. I think it's something around her eyes and nose. I love her profile, even with her little pimples.

I really haven't been doing very well with Thank You cards, so Miriam, I hope you don't mind an online one. You're the only one who gets a picture with yours. :) Doesn't she look cute? We really do love the little outfit. And I would LOVE to come visit you, especially since it's starting to get cold up here. (Napoleon doesn't feel it, but he never does. I wear about six more layers than he does in the winter.) I'll have to find some free airline tickets somewhere, or suck it up and drive.

Bucket's belly button glop finally came off, so we can finally bathe her. She really likes being squirted with warm water, but she's not too fond of just being wet. I'm sure it's because it's getting cold (See, Napoleon? Bucket knows it too.). I'm so glad she hasn't lost her hair yet.

Sniff sniff

I smell like baby.

Naturally, I've been reading lots of stuff on kids recently. What do you think of piercing babies' ears?

I think it's sick. I understand that it's "cultural" in some places. So is infant genital mutilation. In fact, that kind of amounts to the same thing: you are inflicting pain and a permanent physical mark on a child because you think they should look a certain way. Makes sense? No.

I'm not opposed to pierced ears. Mine are pierced. I chose to have them pierced, when I was about 10. I'm opposed to hurting kids for stupid reasons.

Wow, a Whole Month

Today is Bucket's official one month birthday. I'm tempted to make cupcakes. Cute little pink ones. I decided last night that it was getting too cold to let her sleep nekkid, so I put her in little footie pajamas. They were huge on her, but man did she look sweet. (I didn't really let her sleep naked--we wrapped her up in blankets. But it is getting too cold for that, I think.) She still doesn't fit into any of her newborn onesies, but she is filling out a bit. It's funny to see her in the 0-3 month clothes. I bet she'll be wearing them until she's about 6 months old. I really like a lot of the clothes she's gotten as presents. She's going to be such a stylin' little girl.

Napoleon has started school again. I think this semester is going to be really stressful for him. Partly because he's working half the time, and partly because his classes are really stinkin' hard, and partly because I can't handle caring for Bucket all by myself. As it is, I don't eat until around noon. I was never a morning person in the first place, and it's even worse when I have to wake up every three hours or so. This is why I HATE 8:30 church. I don't think anything should start before 9 in the morning. It's indecent.

Not Good

Today was a bad day.
It didn't start out bad. Bucket woke up at around 6, which is when Napoleon gets up, so I got to see him off to work. I fed Bucket and had a hard time getting her back to sleep. She slept until 11, which is when I finally woke her up to eat. She was pretty cheerful after she ate, and smiled a lot. I may have even got her smile on camera. We went for a nice walk outside, looking at the sky and the trees and the grass and the funny men trying (and failing) to fit a huge couch through a doorway. Usually, Bucket's good for about an hour of happy awake time before she gets tired and falls asleep again. NOT today. This is where it gets bad. I brought her inside, thinking she'd want to sleep soon. She absolutely refused to sleep. Didn't want to be held, didn't want to be laid down. All she wanted to do was cry and cry. She likes to be bounced. I bounced her until my arms were about to fall off, but she was still unhappy. I tried feeding her off and on, but she really didn't seem hungry. She stayed awake until Napoleon got home for lunch, at about 2:30, at which point I burst into tears and handed him the baby.
She is such a daddy's girl. He said, "Calm down, Bucket." She stopped crying. "Go to sleep." She immediately looked sleepy. "Close your eyes . . . close 'em more . . . more . . . " And she was out.
Sometimes life really isn't fair.