-The cold has departed, yay hooray! I credit copious amounts of hot liquid, frequent salt water gargling and blowing my nose at every opportunity.
- BabyKitty… is probably teething. Yikes!! He’s not in pain, thank goodness, but he’s chewing on everything within reach and drooling copiously. I’ve told him in no uncertain terms that as soon as he gets his first tooth we’re done with the whole breastfeeding thing, but I’m not sure he believes me.
- MY CHILD IS A CHAMPION POOPER. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, DIAPER BLOWOUT HE ACHIEVED DEFIES ALL THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.
-It’s always hard firing someone from a small company, especially when the person is nice. Unfortunately, Blondie just wasn’t doing good work.
- Which means that, for the short term, I have twice as much work AND am cleaning up all her messes. Oy vey.
- Should I come up with a different moniker for my baby munchkin? If so, do you have suggestions?

Hope everyone is having a great week!

P.S. I sometimes reward comments with baby pictures. You just might get lucky

Oy. Everyone told me I’d get sick once he went to school, but I didn’t think it’d happen so quickly! Though the sleep deprivation that goes with my return probably didn’t help.

Yours, with tissues and cough drops,
Lissa

P.S. I’m so determined to avoid cold meds that I actually dug out this thing. It’s every bit as pleasant as I remembered.

Today is my first day back at Sunshine Financial. I’ve brought him to preschool for the last week to give us both practice with the transition. (He didn’t cry when I left him the first morning. I did.) I am phenomenally lucky that the preschool across the street from my office had an opening and is also a great facility; I have full confidence in their ability to take great care of him physically and also help him learn the social, emotional and cognitive skills he needs to succeed in life.

I’m nervous about returning to work. I know they’ve missed me and everyone is looking forward to my return; still, they’ve found ways to do without me, and we’ll all have to get used to my being back. I’m also nervous about my job performance. I take a lot of pride in being very good at what I do. I don’t know how much of my mind is going to be distracted with baby stuff, and how much it will affect my daily routine. I just don’t know. Oh, and trying to be discreet while pumping milk in one of our two bathrooms is going to be a joy.

So. Today is a day of transition. Commencement, perhaps? Whatever. The bottom line is that our son is beautiful, healthy, and ridiculously adorable, and he will be fine, and therefore I will be fine.

Right?

Thank you SO much, everyone, for your kind wishes and sincere congratulations. I read every one of your comments, of course, and some were so thoughtful they made me tear up. As you all predicted, my life has changed IMMENSELY since BabyKitty made his appearance; one of these days I’ll put together a post describing some of the differences. In the meantime, I can at least give you my thanks. In the form of Halloween pictures.

As the caterpillar turns to beautiful butterfly, so Rajah turns into . . . a really silly looking butterfly.

As cute as our kitty is . . . he’s got nothing on our Human Kitty!

I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween!

And then I spent the rest of the evening having contractions and trying not to freak out.

I mean, I’m not due until Tuesday, I’m not having weird nesting urges or bursts or energy or backaches, and the doctor had JUST examined me and nothing was imminent. So it was definitely false labor and Braxton-Hicks contractions.

Right?

The only thing is, I *kept* having contractions. As in every five minutes or so, sometimes less. They weren’t PAINFUL contractions . . . and they weren’t increasing in strength . . . so I reminded myself that it wasn’t real labor and went on tidying the kitchen.

That pretty much continued all evening. And my sleep is very interrupted nowadays anyway, but I do recall waking up for a few more of them.

But this morning they seem to have calmed down, and I didn’t wake up to a soaked bed or anything. So I think I’m good for another few days.

I really do have to make the guest room ready, though, because for a while I thought last night might be It.

Give me a few more days, BabyKitty, and then everything will be prepared!

*yawn*

We already did this, don’t you remember? Last election he received contributions from Adolf Hitler, John Galt, Nodda Realperson, and I think perhaps the leader of Iran.

I’m not real pleased about it, but neither do I see any differences in this go-round compared to four years ago. If no one cared then, why do we expect anyone to care now?

On the other hand, Benghazi just keeps looking worse and worse.

First up: Meet the Florida softshell turtle!

This fine specimen of Apalone ferox was stranded crossing the main road in our neighborhood. We pulled over, I yanked on some latex gloves and we attempted to rescue him.

I’ve rescued a few box turtles in the neighborhood but this dude was in a different family. When I tried to pick him up (with my hands grabbing the shell towards the back – I know enough to avoid the bitey parts in front), it was soft and flexible and he SKITTERED away. I think at one point he practically ran over Mike’s foot. The damn thing scuttled under my car and out. Happily, I’ve had a bag for Goodwill rattling about in my car for a while … which included an iron skillet. Using that – which absorbed a few bites in the process – we chivvied him back up over the curb into the pond.

Next up: an exemplar of the rare species Panthera tigris raveneous:

Have I posted that one before? I’m not sure. After a while all his adorably fuzzy sleepy pix begin to look the same!

Which leads us to something that is not at all adorable or fuzzy:

I was away at a doctor’s appointment the morning that this little dude showed up. I can’t say I’m very sorry about that, although I feel bad for Mike. He doesn’t like snakes.

I do generally like snakes – I think they’re cool and pretty and useful – but NOT INSIDE MY HOUSE!!!!!!

We cannot for the life of us figure out how the HELL it got into our bathroom. It was on the floor in front of Mike’s sink, where he’d stood not ten minutes before shaving. I’m completely baffled.

Oh, and our dummy cat was completely worthless and didn’t notice AT ALL that there was a reptilian intruder. Nice going there, Mr. Rajah.

Have a happy, and snakeless, Friday!