the best soy latte that you ever had and me

when i was pregnant with aislinn, i got a grande decaf nonfat cinnamon dolce latte from starbucks every morning. i justified the expense because i was pregnant, and i thought i deserved it. apparently i thought i deserved a lot of things because by the time she was born i looked like a damn watermelon. actually, most of that was water, and it was august and ten trillion degrees, but i digress.

after she was born i stopped drinking them, because i wasn't working downtown anymore and the starbucks drive through was no longer en route to my office - which frankly is a blessing, because now i have to drive across the river to the 101st and riverside location, park my car, and actually walk into the building for the privilege of paying $0.29 for coffee and sugar and $4.00 for a disposable cup with a starbucks logo.  

when i worked at brewster & de angelis, several afternoons a week we would drive down to DoubleShot at 18th and boston, which interestingly is in a location that used to be an art gallery where i worked in college (thought: why didn't i stick with that? can you imagine how much lower my blood pressure would be if i still sold warhols to the wives of orthopedic surgeons for a living, instead of trying to get them alimony?). my boss always got an americano, which is insane and i would never order one because it's as black as tar and might as well be a cup full of liquid methamphetamine. i always ordered a nonfat latte, and the owner/barista (who is a terrible snob) mocked me because he didn't serve anything nonfat, so he'd make it with regular cream and just not tell me. okay, fine, whatever, i didn't drink them often enough to make a difference. i was reading his blog archives the other day, and apparently he refuses to serve decaf, too.  

really? is coffee that serious?

i really love coffee art, though. jake and i were at a hotel in dublin and he ordered an irish coffee, and the bartender made a shamrock on the top out of the foam. coolest thing ever? yes. coolest thing ever.

i feel like i can't blog unless i have a picture to post

so here's a random one from christmas:

i love reading other people's blogs. but i love them more when they post pictures. and i don't want to have a boring, text-only blog. so i feel like i need to have a picture to accompany each post.  which is probably why i'm not posting more often.  i've been too busy to spend much time in photoshop lately. so random pictures it is.  and short, choppy sentences.

aislinn is feeling better. she still has a mean cough, but she's not feverish anymore. it's so hard to watch how a little cold wracks all 12lbs of her. it's so much more traumatic to her little body. but she's weathering the storm and will be back at daycare tomorrow.

this weekend i decided that i was going to clean the house and take pictures and post them for you guys, because we've been in the house for two months and i still haven't shown you guys the Wallpaper O Horror.*  this weekend i honestly got closer than i ever have before, but clearly it wasn't close enough. i got up on saturday morning and cleaned and swept, vacuumed and dusted, and did about 5 loads of laundry. but by then it was afternoon, and autumn wanted lunch. and then there was a parachute project involving bread bags and string and old GI Joes. and then it was time to take autumn back to her mom's, and aislinn needed a nap, and then some friends came over, and they had wine, and the next thing i know it's sunday and there's a sinkful of dishes and baby toys all over the floor.

i have been unusually manic about cleaning lately. i've always been compulsively tidy, but lately it's gotten really bad. i think part of it is because i watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8" (which jake LOATHES, by the way, so i have to DVR it and watch it in secret when he's not around), but that show makes me think, "oh my god, that woman has eight children and she mops her kitchen floor three times a day? that means i am a TERRIBLE HOUSEKEEPER!" and then i find myself standing in my kitchen at 9:00 p.m. with Jon and Kate Plus 8 playing in the background, scrubbing every. last. spot. off my ceramic cooktop.

the inauguration is tomorrow. what are you guys doing? we haven't made any plans yet, but i want to do something festive. on election night we broke out a bottle of special edition bourbon:

i can't think of anything inaugurally appropriate to cook tomorrow night.  i mean, it has to involve chicken, because i think that's the only thing i have in my freezer.  except for some venison, which i am totally intimidated by and haven't thawed yet because it just looks so ... bloody.  and bambi!  but seriously the only political food i can think of is senate bean soup, and i'm not in the mood for that.  

ideas?

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*it is virtually certain that i'm going to post pictures of my wallpaper and one of my readers is going to comment, "hey! i hung that wallpaper in my house! intentionally!" and then i'm going to feel terrible and next time we see each other it's going to be awkward, so i'd just like to apologize in advance for that.

as cold as january

so far 2009 has not been a good year for me in the blogosphere, but i've been UBER busy.  and in the last week, aislinn's caught her first cold.  

we both woke up with a runny nose and cough on saturday morning, so i upped my efforts to nurse her and pump so that she could get lots of good antibodies, but she's slowly gotten worse.  yesterday i took her to the pediatrician to get it checked.  in fact, right after i made the appointment with her doctor, i found out that one of the other infants in her room at daycare had tested positive for RSV.

her doctor didn't test her for RSV, but his rationale made sense.  since there's no RSV-specific treatment, doctors just treat the symptoms, and each baby has the symptoms to a varying degree.  for some, it's no more than a mild cold, and for others it becomes much worse, so we're just kind of waiting to see how far her symptoms progress.  if her symptoms warrant further treatment, then we'll reevaluate.  specifically, the risk with RSV is breathing problems, so i'm on the lookout for wheezing and difficulty breathing.  

yesterday the doctor said that aislinn's symptoms would peak at their worst in about 24-48 hours.  we're 36 hours in, and she's definitely not improving, but i still haven't seen anything to be truly alarmed about.  her nose is runny, she's got a fever, she's sleeping a lot and eating not a lot, she's coughing and her chest is rattling.  but on the other hand, she's eating some and not spitting up, she's bright-eyed and plays when she's awake, and she's not wheezing.  so i figure the best medicine is breast milk, staying home, plenty of quiet rest, and some occasional baby tylenol to keep the fever from getting TOO too high.

it was so convenient to have her in daycare every day - for all of a week and a half!  and now she's been home since tuesday.  so much for getting caught up at work.  but at least her first illness is a relatively mild one (so far).  i should really focus less on how hard it is to have a sick child, and focus more on being thankful for having a healthy child with a healthy, developing immune system.

and being thankful for having a nice, roaring fireplace!  baby it's COLD outside!

patriotism

this weekend i read an article about campaigning.  specifically, the article mentioned how the obama campaigners in that neighborhood were intentionally skipping over all the houses with american flags out front to save time.

if i were an obama campaigner, i would have done the same thing.  correct me if i'm wrong here, but 90% of the time, an american flag displayed on a front porch or a bumper or a t-shirt is a clear message that says, "i'm a republican, and proud of it.  democrats dare not tread here."

when did the american flag become a symbol of the republican party?  it's clear that it's happened, and it makes me angry because it reinforces the same conservative contention that was repeated so many times this election season that democrats are "unamerican" and "unpatriotic."  it's faulty logic along the same lines as the whole, "if you don't support the war in iraq, then you must support terrorists" idea.  it's all b.s., but that doesn't make it any less effective.

i'm just as american as my republican counterparts, and i was just as invested in this election, and i have just as many hopes for my country.  so when did it come about that the republicans absorbed the flag of this country as their unofficial mascot?

and if the american flag is a symbol of the republican party, what is the symbol of the democratic party?

just a thought.

i have a new addiction.

first it was big love.  then weeds.

now, TWIN PEAKS.  this show is awesomesauce.  i can't get enough!  it's just as good as it was in 1990 when my parents were watching it.  or better, because i get the benefit of all the early 90s kitsch.

love it.

life updates

okay, so what's going on with us?  aislinn started daycare this monday, which was awful.  jake went with me to drop her off the first morning, and i started crying before i could even hand her over to the teacher.  the second day was not as bad, i managed to get to the car before the tears started.  day three i managed to suppress it as a lump in my throat, and the last two days have been even better.

i think it's a pretty good facility.  i like her teachers a lot.  there are a couple of things i'm not wild about (for instance, they wear shoes in the infants room, and i prefer a no-shoes policy since babies are all over the floor learning to crawl), but overall i still think it's the right place for her.

she's started having bigger problems with spitting up, so we're changing her formula over this weekend and hopefully that will help.  she doesn't spit up breastmilk at ALL, so it would be ideal to have her on that all day, but i am simply not pumping enough for that to happen.  btw, i'm still dutifully pumping every day, but aislinn has simply decided that she's too old for nursing and has weaned herself.  every once in a while i can get her to nurse, if she's not too hungry or too upset, but she quickly figured out that the bottle yields a MUCH faster result when she's hungry, and thus refuses to nurse because it's slower.  in fact, if i try to get her to nurse when she's hungry, she gets downright mad and makes this angry, demanding squeal that would probably make me laugh if i weren't so frustrated with her for refusing to nurse.

but many a baby has been formula-fed from birth and turned out just fine.  she's still getting some breastmilk every day, and she's weaned on her own terms.  it's something i will just have to live with, even though i'm very sad that it hasn't turned out the way i wanted.  life goes on, and you just do the best you can and then let it go.

a week or two ago mom and joe were watching my stepsister's daughter for the evening, so they stopped by the house so i could take a picture of them with all three grandkids.  here are the results.  

that's all for now.  i'm off to bristow to celebrate erin, who - with her eminently sophisticated palate - has chosen from all of the restaurants in tulsa to have The Golden Wu in bristow for her birthday dinner, along with white cake and white icing.  actually i think now they've changed their name to "Lin Cuisine," which just doesn't have the same hokey ring as "The Golden Wu," so in our minds, it will be forever "the wu."  and who doesn't want sweet and sour chicken from a chinese restaurant in a rural cattle town for their birthday? i sure do!

just kidding.  love you, erin.  you're my favorite.  happy twenty-seventh.  tomorrow, that is.

and now we find ourselves on january 9...

...and i have not blogged all year.

i will remedy this soon, i promise.