I decided to put a photolog up again. Not much there yet, but it’s a start.

Oh, right – I have a weblog, perhaps I should write in it! Breanna had her 2-month checkup on Thursday (and turned 2 months for real on Friday).

The Good: She’s doing very well as far asgrowth is concerned. My doctor refers to her as The Bionic Baby because she’s firmly nestled in the 75th percentile for everything. Her weight was 12 lbs (and half an ounce), her height was 60 cm (almost 24 inches), and her head circumference was 40 cm (almost 16 inches). He also listened to her heart and lungs and checked her out and everything was just fantastic. She also continued to prove that she’s highly tolerant of most things by being the only baby there who didn’t cry when she was laid down on the scale.

The Bad: She made up for not crying by wailing and screaming with rage when poked by two needles for her vaccinations. The doctor got a nurse to come and help so they could do both at once and we also did it while I was feeding her, but it just didn’t help. I can now say that while many things are easier with a second baby, seeing them get their shots is not. She slept all the way home (thankfully, because it was rush hour traffic time and she hates whenn the car stops for more than 3.2 seconds) and for another 45 min in her carrier at home, snowsuit and all. I guess it all wore her out.

The Ugly: I stupidly thought we had dodged a bullet and that maybe she wouldn’t react at all because she smiled and cooed after waking up, had some milk, and then sat happily in the bouncy seat, staring at dots and Hayley while I washed the dishes. Then at 7:30 the shit hit the fan and she starting freaking out. She screamed on and off for hours, passing out on my shoulder in between. Tempra finally kicked in and settled her down by 12:30 and she was asleep 15 minutes later, waking up at 6 for some milk (she was starving because she had been too upset to nurse much) and then sleeping until 9 or 9:30. Poor baby. I can’t WAIT to do that again at four months.

Unfortunately, our doctor works out of the hospital and we were in the waiting room for over an hour because he was over-booked; since there are all kinds of people waiting to see doctors and nurses for all kinds of reasons, you never know what’s floating in the air and Breanna is sick now. She has a cold and has a sniffly nose with a little cough. I think the cough is mostly because of stuff running down her throat because she coughs mostly when her nose is extra stuffy. Kids with colds suck becauses they sound so pitiful but a baby with a cold is just wrong.

Tagged by Shari (I didn’t even know you had a weblog!):

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Technical support assistant manager for an ISP
2. Video store clerk
3. Barista at Second Cup
4. PR person at the studio

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. Heathers
2. The Last Supper
3. Bring It On (embarrassing yet true)
4. Harry Potter, all of them

Four places you have lived:
1. Toronto
2. A boring suburb of Montreal
3. A cool and trendy suburb of Montreal
4. A really french suburb of Montreal

Four t.v. shows you love to watch: (just four?!
1. CSI & CSI Miami
2. Lost
3. The O.C.
4. Grey’s Anatomy

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Halifax, Nova Scotia
2. Quebec City
3. Alberg, Vermont
4. Cancun, Mexico

Four websites you visit daily:
1. Many of my blogroll
2. LJ
3. Some forums
4. The Weather Network

Four of your favourite foods:
1. Chips
2. Chocolate
3. Breakfast foods
4. Mexican

Four places you’d rather be right now:
1. Mexico
2. Prague
3. Living in Halifax
4. In bed, sound asleep (got that Miss BumbleBree?)

Four bloggers you are tagging:
I suck with tagging. You want it, you got it – just leave me a comment so I know you did it!

There’s a new journal entry up, detailing the surgery a bit and some new pictures too.

In the entry I mention that Breanna and I have an appointment tomorrow with the doctor for her 2-month checkup, her first vaccinations, and my postpartum checkup. I’d really like to go because my doctor is crazy busy and I know if I re-schedule I’ll get a resident instead of him; it’s mostly okay because I don’t care who weighs Bree and gives her the shots, but I would prefer to see him for my checkup. However, we had a bit of an ice storm here today with freezing rain turning the streets and sidewalks into skating rinks (my mom didn’t even go to work because she couldn’t cross the street let alone walk two blocks to the bus and the news reported tons of people going to the hospital with broken bones from either falling down or getting hit by out of control cars!). The ice has melted but it’s currently snowing like crazy and the wind is so hard all our windows are rattling loudly and if it all freezes up again, tomorrow will be another awful day. I’d rather not risk the drive in, plus we’d be coming home in rush hour traffic which would result in a nightmare drive back. I’ll see what it’s like in the morning.

Ah, good old Canadian bipolar weather.

Earlier, I took a break from my own supper to feed Breanna. Sometimes she closes her eyes, but other times she looks around at the same time, all serene. Tonight was the latter and a few times she would look up at me.

Stroking her hair, I said, “Breanna, I hope you’ll always love me. Can you do that for me? Can you always love me?”

Without ever unlatching, she turned her head just a little and looked up at me. She stared straight into my eyes with her pensive blue ones, taking in what I had said.

Then she grunted and loudly crapped herself.

She smiled at me and resumed nursing.

I’m just going to take that as a yes.

I distracted myself with my camera while waiting for Hayley to be ready to come home. This was taken from the tenth floor of the Montreal Children’s Hospital, while I paced the family room outside the recovery room. Her surgery was supposed to start at 9:45 but began about 20 minutes late because they really took their time in explaining the procedure to Hayley before leading her to the operating room. It took roughly an hour and a half, finishing at almost 12:30. It then took another hour and a half or so for her to be ready to leave.

She was obviously disoriented and upset when she woke up but overall she handled it well. The eyes look straighter now and we go in next week for a follow up appointment to see how things went for sure. I’m glad it was done but I’m mostly glad it’s over and hopefully this will be the last time.

I know it’s just an operation on her eyes and nothing life-threatening, but it doesn’t change how nerve-wracking it is to sit around waiting while your child is put to sleep and operated on. I had a nice long conversation with a really nice girl around my age who was waiting for her seven-month old son to wake up; his condition was far worse than Hayley’s. His liver had perforated his diaphragm, causing daily vomiting, and his intestines were S-shaped rather than a tube shape so he had to have both those things taken care of. Clearly that is worst than just having your eyes fixed. However, we both agreed that knowing others are far worse off doesn’t offer any comfort when it’s YOUR child who is in surgery, whether it’s for a broken bone, broken eyes, broken intestines, or a (literal) broken heart. Surgery is surgery, and it’s scary. I’m glad Hayley’s okay now and I hope her son is fine too.

Today she was slow to start and slept in, but by afternoon she was back to playing and being herself, so recovery is going very well. Recovery is a good thing.

Hayley insists that George must put her up on the counter every day, either to sit or to look in the cupboards. This time, Breanna got in on the game.

There are so many things I love about this picture, from Hayley’s crazy expression to both Breanna’s Alfalfa hair and her “what the heck is going on here?” face, not to mention the fact that Hayley’s sippy cup is sitting in front of a bottle of Barbados rum. Silly girls. Some days I dread the thought of what Hayley is going to “teach” her sister in the future… “Psst, Breanna! Come try this, it gives Mommy a heart attack!”

You know what happens when you’re tired enough that you’re mildly delirious but you’re still up because every time you’ve put your baby down her eyes have popped open? You do silly things like make a new 404 page while holding her.

(That picture was an attempt to photograph how cute she looks in her hats after her bath, but she was just really ticked off about the whole thing.)

Dear Breanna,

Mommy’s going to put you to bed AGAIN. Please stay asleep this time since I know you’re tired too. It’s very cute and endearing when you smile up at me but it will be even moreso in the daytime!

Love, Mommy
xoxoxo

There’s a new entry up in the journal. And now I’m getting a glass of water and going to bed.

No, not standards relating to web design and browsers. Standards in clothing. In other words, I’m wondering what crackheads determine sizing on baby clothing and why it is that there can’t just be ONE size no matter who designed it.

Breanna is almost eight weeks. She’ll be two months old in eight more days. She got some nice fuzzy pajamas for Christmas that I washed the other day. They’re all size 0-3 months. I put the first pair on tonight and then had to remove them because I couldn’t snap them all the way up and Breanna couldn’t even completely straighten her legs and looked like she had been horseback riding all day when I held her up.

My favorite clothes for babies are the ones that indicate weight instead of months since not all babies will grow the same. Still, even those don’t always scream accuracy. More than once I had to toss aside something that I tried to put on Hayley as a baby that should have theoretically fit based on her weight but really didn’t even come close.

This goes beyond actual clothes too, because I’ve found that diaper weight guidelines are nothing more than a very generous guess. I found Hayley would outgrow her diapers when she was as much as two pounds below the suggested weight limit, as evidenced by frequent leaking, and though Breanna is still in size one diapers she did outgrow the newborns before hitting the limit too.

And since I’ve gone off on a diaper tangent anyway, I would like to mention that I hate Huggies diapers SO VERY MUCH that I am very tempted to write them a nasty letter just to tell them how VERY MUCH I hate them. All the leaks from other diaper brands combined couldn’t add up to the Huggies blowouts, all of which seem to happen straight up the back so that you have to remove all clothing and pretty much offer up a sponge bath to do what should have been a simple diaper change. This was true with Hayley and also with Breanna and I was so happy when we ran out of Huggies. If anyone brings me Huggies from here on out, I’m taking the package into the bathroom and setting it on fire. I’ll stick with the store brand diapers which have not caused any problems with either kid.

I have diaper rage. And I’m still disappointed that the pajamas Breanna never wore didn’t fit even once since they were nice bright colors. Alas.

By the way, don’t forget about de-lurking

I’ve really enjoyed the comments, especially from those of you who don’t usually comment at all. Honestly, if I didn’t want people to speak up, I wouldn’t have comments on this weblog to begin with, so by all means, feel free to say something.

(I was asked to answer my own questions. Favorite joke: How do you catch a unique bird? Unique up on it! Honorable mention: What do you call cheese that doesn’t belong to you? Nacho cheese! Where I would love to travel: Prague and Moscow. The color of my favorite underwear: Black, but I’ll settle for anything that fits these days. Celebrity I have a crush on: Not actually a celebrity, just the character he plays, but I’m pretty keen on Horatio Caine these days, and with that confession Amanda just disowned me as her sister.)