Austin woman saves Prince William!

I've had these two goldfish, William and Harry ever since I bought my first house. Named, of course, after the princes. Harry is Harry II because the first Harry died of Ick very early on, but William is the original.
Yesterday I came downstairs to feed the princes when I noticed William floating on his side on the surface. I held my breath for a moment thinking he was dead when he swam back down to the bottom. He seemed to struggle to get down and when he did he was exhausted and just floated back to the top. This continued for several hours. Periodically, William would go into his rock house and rest so that the ceiling would keep him under the water, and one time I found him wedged down the side of the rock house with one fin on it holding on upside down. I thought for sure he was a goner. But I couldn't just let him die. He's Prince William!
I called Mike, who used to work in an aquarium store, and the fish guy at PetSmart. Did some googling, and found that poor William had what seems like Swim Bladder problems. A condition that would kill him if I didn't act quickly. So I picked up some Quick Cure at PetSmart, not sure if this helped but it couldn't hurt, I hooked up an air pum and aerated the water, did a partial water change, and fed William some frozen peas. Yea, peas. Apparently that helps release whatever is causing him to retain oxygen in his swim bladder.
After a couple of hours, William started to look better. He struggled less to get to the bottom and spent less time on the surface, although he did still end up there if he stopped flapping his little fins. I crossed my fingers and left him alone for the night. When I woke up this morning, William greeted me in his usual manner. He swam to the side of the tank where I usually feed him, and wagged his tail and opened his mouth for food.
It's probably too early to celebrate at this point, I suppose he could still take a turn for the worst, but as of right now he's acting normally and I do not have a fish funeral in my immediate future.
Way to fight, Prince William! You at least live to see another day.
What's kind of cute is that the whole time while he was sick, Harry II kept hanging out very close to William, as though showing concern for his buddy. I'm probably just projecting human emotions and mannerisms onto my fish, but it sure did look that way to me.

Giving thanks

It's the holiday season. I'm usually grumpy during this time of year because I can't spend it with my family. In the past 15 years I have spent only one xmas with my family. But this year I have an unusual amount of holiday spirit. Why? because for the first time since I moved away from England, my parents are coming to visit me for xmas! I'm I'm even feeling festive enough to contemplate xmas lights. Yea, you heard right.
This past week was American Thanksgiving and as is the tradition, Brian and I packed up the car and headed to Houston. Only this year we had an extra person to pack for who takes up an entire trunk. Talk about high maintenance! This thanksgiving was particularly special because Kev and Darice came in from Indiana and spent the night with us in Austin. We hit the outlet malls the next day before making our trip to Houston. Trent was an absolute angel on the trip there, and despite some bad weather, we made it there safely and in one piece.
Thanksgiving dinner was awesome as usual. Joan went really gourmet this time and made the most awesome stuffing. It had Italian sausage in it. We did a Guinness Turkey with Rosemary and Garlic pesto under the skin that turned out amazingly well. Although we did manage to set the oven on fire. Thankfully it was contained and we did not end up a holiday statistic or go to the ER. It makes for a good story, though.
Thanksgiving day, my father in law thought he'd be a smart ass and tell me to go ahead and spit my olive pips into the fire. I figured since he was so serious I'd call him out on it. The moral of that story: Don't tell Amanda to do something unless you mean it. ;-) It was pretty funny because when I did it he was mid-sip on his beer and didn't have time to stop me. HEHEHE. That also makes for a good story.
On Friday we went to the mall to brave the holiday shopping crowds and later, as the boys watch football, Darice and I snook away for some girl time and got a pedicure. That was a really nice break. We took some Bauman family holiday pictures by the tree and that evening we went out for a nice Italian dinner. Trent, again, behaving like a perfect angel. It was really cute to watch grandpa taking him to the bar and showing him off to people. You can tell he's really proud of him.
Sadly, Kev and Darice left on Saturday but Brian and I stuck around for another day to maximize the Grandma and Grandpa time with Trent.
The drive back to Austin was much less hairy than the drive to Houston and Trent was once again a really great traveller. We're really proud of the little guy.

The new era of romantic

In my old life it used to be that a romantic evening consisted of dinner at some swanky restaurant with wine and expensive cuts of meat. When you have a kid it's really easy to let the romantic stuff slip out of the picture. You're both so focused on raising your new human that you forget to take the time for each other. But not my husband. Our alone time has become more precious and he makes every effort to spend quality time with me. Just a small example of this was Sunday evening's activities. I cooked dinner while Brian rocked Trent to sleep. We put him down for a nap and ate dinner at our new kitchen table by candle light, listening to the country music station. After our meal we just hung out and talked. I drank a glass of very cheap, but satisfying wine, and Brian danced with me around the house, which is a very common occurrence in our house these days. Having Trent, while very challenging at times, has brought us even closer together. We realize how much we truly depend on each other, and when the other is not around, how awful life would be without them.
Sometimes I miss my old life. Times like yesterday when I was so stressed out I actually had a sobbing melt down. But today all's right with the world again, and my sweet, sweet husband, knowing I had a rough day yesterday, bought me flowers to cheer me up.

Roll with it... (work related rant)

Lately I've been extremely stressed out about my job. It's Mainly because I HATE it. I used to love my job, but lately I've been feeling a lot of resentment toward my management chain because they're pushing these initiatives that don't make sense to me, and impact our customers adversely, in my opinion. I'm repeatedly told that I don't have to agree with the decisions, but I have to get the pom-poms out and get behind it with enthusiasm. WTF?

I've been assigned to multiple teams where I have to analyze, strategize, recommend, and publish information for others in my organization to use as best practices. I'm being encouraged to "think outside the box", but when I do, I get slapped down by budget constraints and resource issues.

I've been looking at other jobs, but nothing is floating my boat, and I just can't take on anything new at this point in my life. With having a major change in my home life, I just can't handle a career change as well. So today I made a decision. It's not life altering, it's not an earth-shattering revelation or anything, but I think it's going to make the difference in my stress level, so I'm going to try it out.

Starting January 1st, I'm going to just roll with whatever (seemingly stupid) initiative my management chain pushes down to me. I'll alert the stakeholders of any decisions that impact them, sit back, and let them fight it out between themselves and not get in the middle. When they come to a decision, I'll roll with it. It sounds like I'm being apathetic. And I guess I am. But so what? I've said many times, and I'll say it again, my goal in life is to be happy. That's it. It's perfectly simple. So when I'm in a situation that doesn't make me happy I need to take steps to get back to my happy place. My happy place at this point in time is to do my job to the very best of my ability, and at the end of the day forget about it, go home, and spend some quality time with my boys.

Today, as I was getting all worked up over some new policy that I don't agree with being pushed on me, it occurred to me that getting pissed off and all heated up about it isn't going to change anything at all. So why bother? Why not just do what they tell me? Why not just roll with it? Would that make my life easier? you bet your arse it would!

The truth of the matter is that I do love working for this company on many levels. I love the flexibility, I love the environment, I love my immediate team and the development team, I love the pay, I love the location, I love that I can work from home, I love the perks like discounts all over the city, I love the benefits... there are so many great reasons to work here. So I'll continue to monitor the available jobs here, and until the ideal one for me shows up, I'm going to shut up, smile, and focus on the great things about my job instead of getting worked up about the small amount of negative shit.

I am going to ROLL WITH IT!

And as I was writing this, I realized that I don't need to wait until January 1st to implement my "Get Happy" plan. I can start NOW!

Wee Man and Me

The weekend was interesting for both Brian and Me. Brian spent two days in College Station racing his car around the Texas World Speedway. This is the second time he's done it and he came home very excited at his improvement over the last time. His instructor drove the exact same car as him, and was very impressed with Brian's skills.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.... Trent and I spent the weekend together, just the two of us, peppered with appearances from Aunt Barbie and Uncle Scotty. On Saturday morning he got up around 6am and didn't want to sleep anymore, so we went and played in his room for an hour. We got through all the flash cards that Aunt Renee has given him. They're really cool. Each one has a letter of the alphabet, and on the flip side an animal that begins with that letter. On each one I gave Trent a little bit of information on the animal, such as whether it's a mammal, reptile, amphibian, insect, or bird, and where that animal comes from, and any other relevant bits of trivia I could remember. It turns out I know quite a lot about animals :-). Next we had story time. A pop-up book of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. I love Beatrix Potter stories. Then we tossed the plush soccer ball around for a bit.
On Saturday afternoon we went to Kohl's and met Aunt Barbie. I bought Trent two cute outfits for school, then we went to Costco to pick up some necessities. After Costco, Trent and I took a 2 hour nap in front of the telly, then when we woke up we went over to Aunt Barbie's house where she made us a delicious pork roast and mashed potato dinner, and Uncle Scotty hung out with Trent.
On Sunday Trent woke up around 7am and we played in his room again. We did flash cards again. There are a couple of animals I need to look up so that I can give him accurate information. Narwahl and Quetzel. We watched some Sunday morning TV, and later on did some shopping. Then we hung out until Brian got home around 8 that evening. While I enjoyed spending quality time with Trent, it was nice to have Brian home.

Fluke

Whatever it was that caused Trent to sleep for 10 hours on Monday was obviously NOT the solid food. Now I'm beginning to think he was a bit under the weather from the immunizations. The reason I think this is because for the past 2 nights he's been waking up every few hours and has been inconsolable. I try not to feed him at night if I can get away with it because I want him to sleep through the night, and he seems to eat out of habit rather than need at this point. But the last 2 nights I had to. That is if I wanted to get any sleep for myself.

To make matters worse, I've come down with some awful cold/flu. It's completely knocked me on my arse. I haven't worked out at all this week. Usually I just power through it and go for my usual runs. I've always felt that running helps flush out all the crap, but this past week I've been all week and achey to even try. Wednesday seemed to be the worst day. I feel marginally better today. It seems whatever I have might have passed on to Brian. He's been complaining of a sore throat today, which is how mine started. Speaking of which, when this thing started, it wasn't a traditional kind of sore throat, you know the one where it's kind of scratchy and sore... it felt more like someone was trying to strangle me. What an awful feeling. I kept putting my hands to my throat to try and loosen something that wasn't there.

The good news is that Trent doesn't seem to be sick. No fever and no evidence of a sore throat, though he does have a snuffly nose. And speaking of snuffly noses, because babies breathe through their noses, and because they can't blow their noses, you have to do it for them. It's gross! I have such a huge problem with snot and bogies. To the point where I almost throw up at the mere mention. Imagine my horror when I had to use a bulb syringe to suck snot out of my kid's nose! Oh. My. God! seriously. Worst thing ever.

4 month checkup and adventures with solid foods

Yesterday Trent went to the doctor for his 4 month checkup and immunizations. He's hitting all the developmental milestones as appropriate and is in the 25th percentile for height and weight. It's funny because people ask me all the time how old he is, and I say 4 months, and they say what a big boy he is... apparently he's not that big. It must be just something people say, like an automatic response. Kind of like how people always tell you your baby is cute, even if it's not ;-).
Trent was such a brave boy when he had his shots. He only cried for about 20 seconds and then cuddled into my hair and was fine. It's really hard to see your kid cry because of pain. I'm glad it was so brief.
The doctor advised us to start Trent on solid foods now. While there is evidence that waiting to introduce solids will help ensure he doesn't get food allergies, there are no food allergies in either my or Brian's family so the chances are very slim that Trent will be allergic to anything. We're starting with single grain Rice Cereal to minimize any risk of allergies.
The first feeding went surprisingly well. We waited until the last meal of the day, which was right after his bath when he was nice and relaxed. He took to it right away. Never spit it back out and seemed very eager to eat more. After he finished the tiny portion we made for him, we gave him his usual late night feeding and put him to bed.
Trent woke up at 7:30 this morning. That's 10 straight hours of sleeping for him! Imagine my surprise when I woke up and it was light outside and I hadn't gotten up in the night to feed him! This was my first full 8 hours of sleep in many, many months.
A side observation: Trent's colic seems to have subsided quite a bit. He's much easier to handle these days and a week or so ago Brian and I celebrated making it through the rough early months. We feel like we've survived and learned a lot, and can now see the light at the end of what was sometimes a very dark and scary tunnel, dotted with brilliant rays of sunshine along the way.

Trent's 1st BBQ

This weekend, Trent threw his very own Barbecue for all those people who hadn't yet met him, and of course the regulars in his life. For the first time ever, we opened up our house to children and dogs as well. It turned out to be a very fun evening. The dogs were all very well behaved and played so nicely together in the back yard, as did the kids, who spent most of their time running around outside and jumping on the trampoline.
Trent seemed to have a great evening. He hung out with all his favourite aunts and several new people throughout the evening, only briefly hanging out with his mummy while he fussed a little. And at 8:30, right on schedule, he got his bath, boobie, and put to bed. The girls all hung out upstairs with me while I fed him, then Aunt Jen rocked him to sleep.
After most of our guests left we hung out with those who stayed behind and I played superheroes on the trampoline with Ethan and Brian (Lee) while everyone chilled in the back yard and chatted. Eventually we wore Ethan out and he passed out on my lap and cuddled with me, which we haven't done in ages.
Sadly, I didn't take many pictures. I guess cause I was too busy having fun.

BFF

As is the tradition, Barbie and I left the men at home in order to have a cultural evening at the Theatre. Our play of choice: "Tuna does Las Vegas". It was pretty good, but not as funny as previous ones, though the two guys who play all the characters are really good actors. When we arrived at the theatre and found our seats, we were amused to find that we were in a section all by ourselves. We looked over to our right and the section next to us was pretty full. It kind of looked like it was on purpose. Like we've been black-listed at the theatre. Like they knew that we'd spend the entire play belching and farting. And of course, not ones to disappoint, that's exactly what we did ;-) It's funny how juvenile we still are, even in our 30's. It's also funny that Barbie and I found each other, because nobody else thinks our bodily functions are amusing, but we get so much mileage out of it. If I believed in a higher power, I'd say we were thrown together as best friends purely so that we could have someone else in our lives that made each of us not seem so damn weird, gross, and plain childish. But of course, I don't believe in a higher power, so a more sensible explanation is that we became best friends because of these things.
This year, Barbie and I are celebrating our 15 year anniversary. Over the past 15 years we've fought and bickered on occasion, and disagreed, but we always know that no matter what, we'll always be friends, we'll always get over it, move on, laugh about it in a few hours. You can't put a price on that kind of friendship. I don't even have that kind of relationship with my own sisters, as evidenced by the fact that we haven't spoken in over a year.

So the point of this post is to let the world know how much I appreciate my BFF, Biker Barb. My partner in crime, my confidant, my enabler of childish behavior, the one who laughs at all of my jokes, the one who truly knows the real me, not just the persona that I let the rest of the world see. How truly lucky I am to have her as a permanent fixture in my life.