Halloween - Part 2: Our Anniversary

Whether it was brilliant at the time or not, our Halloween anniversary has gotten trampled by the holiday for the wee Cobras. Anniversary night dinner? Nope, must go trick or treating. That's fine, being with our kids on Halloween makes the day about a thousand times more fun anyway. We just have to celebrate it some other day. This year was a little more special since it was our 5th anniversary, so we have an overnight trip planned later in November to celebrate. In the meantime, Halloween is (of course) a company holiday.

We took the day off without the kids and just hung out. We had breakfast at Bugaloos which we hadn't done in a very long time. We have a very short list of restaurants we can go to that have gluten free / dairy free options for Mr. Cobra to eat. Going somewhere we used to frequent, but haven't been to for at least a year was a real treat.

After lunch we window shopped down Valencia for a couple of hours. This is the short amount of time we are used to having to ourselves. After hanging out together for 4-5 hours, we had no idea what else to do. We had shopped, we'd dined. We didn't want to go to a movie or a museum. What else could we do? How about… we go get matching tattoos?

So we went to Blackheart Tattoo and looked at books. We didn't see anything that struck our fancy, so we talked about an old sketch Mr. Cobra had done years ago that said CO13RA. Thirteen has always been our lucky number. We were married after being together for 13 years at thirteen o'clock. What better way to commemorate our anniversary than a tattoo of the combination of our names with our special number? So we asked the artist, Cody, to draw it up. He showed us a few sketches and then refined a direction we thought looked great. Mr. Cobra had the grand idea of adding 2 stars as well, one for Dexter and one for Brixton. It was a perfect mark.

 It was my first tattoo. I got it on the back of my neck (pic is of Mr. Cobra's). I went first because I figured I'd had 2 kids, so a tattoo will be nothing. It wasn't really. I kind of liked the pain. It wasn't that bad at all, but my lip did quiver a couple of times. I just know how to calmly breathe through it, so it didn't hurt that much. It took around 15 minutes to do. Then Mr. Cobra got his. We got matching scars together. Some people renew their vows; the Cobras get matching tattoos.

Halloween Part 1 - The Children of Cobra

Cobra-ella, the baby space girl and her steampunk Frankenbot brother.

We are makers of things. Usually we make things on computers, but this year we both stepped out of our digital confines and made real things - with our hands. Last year, Mr. Cobra pioneered this new Cobra tradition by creating a Deadmau5 helmet for 3yo Dexter. This year he made Dexter into a steampunk Frankenbot.  Brixton joined in this year as a 60's intergalactic mod martian baby girl with a dress I sewed (first one ever). It took many nap times and nights after they went to bed. We knew this, started early and spent most of October sporadically spending our free time building our kids little unique, homemade costumes. It was a challenge outside of our normal realm of command-Z. We both sewed, painted and went on many supply trips. The process was as enjoyable as the output.

This was Brixie's first year of trick-or-treating, so we opted to do a quiet neighborhood Trick-or-Treat Street instead of the huge Belvedere block party that is getting out of control. The neighborhood haunt was perfect. There were just enough houses spaced just far enough apart. While there were definitely a fair amount of kids, there weren't lines to get candy and it was easy enough and safe enough for an 18 month old to toddle down the sidewalk. She did pretty well, until halfway through. She then insisted on keeping all the candy she grabbed in her tight little fists instead of dropping the goods in the bag. Even if she grabbed more candy, she'd still try to hold it all in her hands, leaving a trail of dropped candy behind her as she went to the next door. I snuck behind her and picked it all up and put it in her bag without her knowing. The one time I tried hard to get her to let go of the candy, she ended up kneeling  on the sidewalk screaming at the top of her lungs. Needless to say, I stopped trying to get her to let go of her candy. The cutest thing she did, she couldn't yet say "Trick or Treat", so it came out sounding more like a mumbled oeeeeet!"

Dexter loved his costume. He was way more experienced in candy procurement and left me and Brixie in the dust. He did demonstrate the first few houses for Brixie, but soon took off with dad to hit as many houses as possible. He is currently afraid of the dark and wolf sounds which made a few of the scarily-decorated houses fun to take him too. Dad had to hold him a few times to get him to the candy dish. He seemed to love to be scared though. At one house, they had a 3' tall dancing ghost with glowing red eyes that moved back and forth. Apparently, that was the scariest thing he'd ever seen. He talked about it for days afterward. He was afraid of that ghost. It wasn't the house covered in cobwebs, with giant vampire bats hanging with flashing red eyes by a full graveyard with lots of skulls and a creepy old lady that was way too excited that a kid made it through her spooky decor. I was afraid of the latter.

My Girl is the Sweetest

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind. I was unable to capture the details of my daughter's babyhood as I had done with my son. I feel guilty about that. I don't have posts dedicated to her clapping or walking. I hardly have anything about the messy eating or the wonderful sleeper she turned out to be. I don't even have a post about her First Birthday party which her grandma and grandpa drove from Kansas to attend. Life has happened. A whole little life has started to unfold. The second child is every bit as special as the first, but there isn't as much time to relish in the delight. This post is completely for my sweet baby girl.

She has always been a good sleeper. She started sleeping through the night at just a couple weeks and maintained that through the first year. Not only did she sleep all night long, she also went to sleep without anything other than a pacifier, being tucked in and the light turned off. She's only recently started protesting, and that's because we converted the crib to a toddler bed. It took nearly a month for her to even realize she didn't have to stay in bed when we turned out the light. We started reading to her before bed, because we felt guilty that she was so easy to put to sleep. She had a period of about 3 months that she woke up once every night, but all it required was finding her pacifier and she'd go back to sleep.

She crawled at around 7 months old and she liked crawling so much that she didn't walk until around 13 months. She stood a lot and cruised a lot more than Dexter ever did. Now she runs with her brother, so it didn't matter that she waited so long to take those steps. She also barely fell, so I think she needed to know she could do it before trying it out. She wasn't much of a risk taker then, but she is quite the climber. Her favorite thing to do is to climb on the bench behind the couch, climb over the back of the couch, plop down onto the cushion, slide off the front of the couch onto the floor and then hightail it back to the bench to repeat. I wonder how many hours of her little life has been spent thus far doing this. It definitely must be pushing a whole 24 hour day by now.

She doesn't say much yet. She started with "hey", "hi", "bye". She still says "daddy" mostly and only says "mama" when she's upset. She tells everyone "night-night" before going to bed which is the cutest thing. The occasional word pops out here and there, but there isn't a whole lot that she will repeat. "Please" and "cheese" are recent fun ones that she will repeat as well as our nanny's husbands name, "Dave" (go figure). She's pretty quiet for the most part. She will sometimes make loud "aaa aaa" noises, but I'm pretty sure that's just a way to get her brother to join in.

She likes to dance and she has a lot of moves, not just the pogo like her big brother. She likes rock-n-roll, especially hard rock, and will bounce and bang her head and stomp her little feet. She will hum simple, catchy melodies too. She LOVEs shoes. She always has loved them. I think she was born with an innate shoe fetish. She likes clothes and dressing up in costumes. She can never pass up sunglasses. She will try on every pair handed to her. She also, like her brother, loves helmets and will scream and point to her bike helmet to wear. She will wear it for hours too.

Brixie is a cuddler. She is so much like a kitten because she like to be on our laps or laying next to her brother. The only bad habit she has is biting. She bites anything around her when she gets frustrated. Luckily, it isn't usually too hard, for she's bit me a few times as well as Dexter. She will even bite her own foot if she's mad enough, but usually it's whatever thing is nearest to her teeth at the moment - like her crib or a toy. She's just so easygoing and easy to take care of. Even at her most demanding, she is more funny than intimidating. She already is a bit bossy and will get our coats when she wants to go outside. She is just an awesome little baby. Now I can see why some people have a lot of kids. If they were as easy as Brixie, I'd have a million of them!

OMFG It's Pre-School!

So we went to a small seminar on Kindergarten hosted by a couple of ladies that help place children in kindergarten. Yes this is totally absurd. Kindergarten shouldn't be complicated, but this is San Francisco. Nothing is simple or easy here. We were all for getting him into kindergarten next year, and we were hoping we would get a leg up on where to begin by attending this seminar. We can figure things out, just give us a starting point.

Instead of getting that starting point, we left thinking we'd failed our son by not putting him into preschool. I had resolved myself to think that preschool was optional; an overpriced playdate. Thanks to this seminar, I found out I'm dead wrong. If I want even a glimmer of hope to get him into a decent school, he'd better be in a good preschool right now. Kindergarten for a fresh 5 year old? Better forget that too. Most have a birthday cutoff of September 1. It would be advantageous to wait until he's 6 to be one of the oldest in the class rather than the youngest.

All of our plans for kindergarten were shot down and so we scrambled. We immediately consulted with them to find a preschool for our son. They suggested several and they sounded fantastic. Mandarin Immersion? French Immersion? Emilio Regalia? Waldorf? We researched them all and one by one they dropped off our list of possibilities because they were over $20,000 a year. While I value education, I am not, and can not afford the equivalent of a new car just to let my son play with other kids and review what he already knows. The hours often didn't include lunchtime, were just 3 hours a day, or only 9 months out of the year. So we regrouped and looked harder. We started to contact schools that were in our price range and requirements to see if they had openings.

Let's just say that preschool is a competitive sport here. Many are full of themselves and are either rude for even asking such a thing because their waitlist is a mile long or they just fail to respond at all. They don't need you or your kid and they are doing you a favor by talking to you. It's foul and disgusting. I haven't been so frustrated in quite a while. Both Mr. Cobra and I called and contacted several (like 15) preschools. We visited a few that had openings because he is luckily just at the right age when I think most people give up and move away.

We finally found a decent preschool that is close by and while expensive, the hours are perfect for working parents. It is year-round and is progressive without being trendy. I rely heavily on what parents say about their school and was actually surprised to find that the more expensive "hot list" preschools often had very poor ratings from parents. So… drum roll… we have Dexter enrolled in preschool!! He starts in just over 2 weeks. It's taken a month and we are very lucky to have found an opening. I never would've thought this would be so challenging or time-consuming.

Next up, kindergarten. I'm not even gonna go there in this post about how fanatical kindergarten placement is. I'm applying both this year and next year in hopes of getting what I want. That's exactly how crazy it is. I'm getting prepared for battle.

Change & Circumstance

Life has given our most treasured assets - Dexter and Brixton, but it has also been traumatic the past few years. Sickness, deaths, stress and betrayal has filled the calendar days. We needed to take time for ourselves and our family. We decided that we needed to make huge change in order to heal from all of the distress in our lives. To take a moment to catch our breath and enjoy life again. The stress of running a business was affecting our health and happiness, so we decided at the beginning of this year that we needed to get back to why we started the whole journey — the two of us working together on cool shit.

We've employed some very talented people over the years, but the industry changed, the economy shifted away from what we were previously known best for. Our skills have evolved, but the team required to do the work is much smaller. As the talent we employed left for other endeavors, we didn't replace them. We never laid anyone off. We have just gradually shrunk until we closed our office in June. We took the time to find a new place to live last Spring that would give us the space and the boundaries needed to work at home. 

It has been working well. We started our business doing the what we loved and then we hired other people to do what we loved, but we weren't happy working that way. Now we are back doing the work that we love to do. It's funny how it has come full circle. It hasn't been easy to get to this place. There is nothing more ironic than to work so hard to get what we wanted, only to realize it doesn't make us happy at all. It's a harsh lesson in life.

So now when we go to work in the mornings, there's no commute. We get an extra hour a day to clean and hang out with our kids. We frequently eat lunch with our kids. We see our kids whenever we want during the day. We can do laundry and work in our pajamas. We can take a walk in the afternoon to talk about our business and projects. We can cook meals again which means healthier eating. We are happier with the quality of our work and our lives. This was the choice we made. This is the life we wanted. 

4 months later…

I took a bit of a break from blogging for a while. Things have been hectic at work and at home, so I haven't felt inspired to write. Good habits die hard when they aren't nurtured. I am going to try and re-establish this habit since it is fun to go back and revisit old posts about how Dexter grew from infant to toddler and now preschooler. Brixton, being the second child, suffers from the second child syndrome. I'm too busy or too tired to painstakingly document all of her milestones. It makes me feel a little bit guilty, but with 2 kids and running a business with my husband, I can't tell which way is up some days. I'll try to review what happened over the last few months.

January

The holidays were great in Kansas until everyone got sick just before we were to head back to San Francisco. We got a hotel room in Wichita to break up the trip between two days since 2.5 hours in a car and 5.5 by plane with one layover is a little much for the kids. When we woke up though everyone was so sick that we decided we should all just rest for the day and fly out the next day. We rested, but Brixton started getting worse, not better. She started throwing up everything we gave her and had horrible diarrhea that leaked right through everything every time she went. I stayed on top of it with pedialyte to make sure she didn't get dehydrated. I don't ever want to have to go through my baby getting IV fluids again like when Dexter did. She was starting to get more an more lethargic which was worrisome enough that we took her to a local Urgent Care clinic. The doctor checked her over and gave me a list of stuff to buy in order to get her on a plane the next day. We got everything and went back to the hotel expecting to fly out the next day.

The next day she was so sick, all she could do is lay there, somewhere between awake and drifting off to sleep. We took her to the Urgent Care again where a different doctor took a look at her. He listened to her lungs and had us go immediately to have a chest x-ray. An infant chest x-ray is miserable to watch. Brixton didn't feel good, but she managed to scream as they sat her on a re-purposed bicycle seat with a transparent PVC tube that went around her body and her hands were buckled high above her head. It looked torturous and she managed to let everyone know how mad she was event though she was very weak.

The x-ray confirmed what the doctor suspected - pneumonia. I'm not sure why the doctor from the previous visit didn't catch the pneumonia. She listened to her lungs and said they were clear, but less than 16 hours later she has pneumonia. The second doctor was more concerned about Brixton. She obviously had a stomach virus, but she desperately needed antibiotics to work on the pneumonia. He prescribed anti-nausea medicine with the caveat that if it didn't work, she'd have to be hospitalized. That was scary. I knew she was very sick, but not that sick.

So day three dawns and we've just cancelled our flights altogether. We aren't sure when or if we will be able to go home anytime soon. Brixton continues to throw up, just not as much as before. We aren't taking any chances and take her back to the Urgent Care again. The doctor from the first time is on call and is surprised to see us. I tell her that Brixton has pneumonia and she scoffs at that until I told her she had an x-ray the day prior. She goes and looks at the x-ray and comes back and confirms that she does have pneumonia. She recommends a steroid breathing treatment and a shot of a large dose of antibiotics. Brixton hated the breathing treatment. I had to hold the mask partially away form her face and hold her hands down so she couldn't get to it. It was 20 minutes of her struggling until she didn't have any more strength to struggle. She then got the shot and more liquid antibiotics to take. The shot did the trick and she started to come around a few hours later.

I am so glad we were in a hotel, because of how much bodily fluid came out of that little girl. I will never stay in a hotel again without thinking about that. Everyday we had to have all the sheets changed and an extra set on the side. I used towels to try to minimize the amount of laundry, but inevitably she'd either puke all over it or her diaper would leak all over it. We had to do laundry and buy more clothes because she puked and pooped on all of her clothes. We changed her 4-6 times a day. Stomach viruses are horrible.

Dexter was feeling better, so his aunts took him to a 3yo's dream place for the very first time - Chuck E. Cheese. Mike and I got a little down time which was exactly what we needed. They were in town because Mike's brother had a blood clot in his foot and was in the hospital facing possible amputation. It was just a very messed up time.

We got on a plane 5 days later than we'd planned. Brixton was still very sick and I cut holes in a plastic bag as an outside diaper barrier to catch anything seeping from her diaper. She only needed one change, but that was because she managed to puke all over our table at lunch and have diarrhea as I took her to the bathroom to clean the puke off. We made it home.

I nearly cried when we walked in because the house was perfectly clean. It had been so rough, but we have monthly house cleaning service that had come the day before so walking into a clean house was so just the best thing ever at that moment. We had one day, Sunday, to recuperate before heading back in to hell week to make up for the previous week's work.

We were stressed out, tired and everyone was recovering from being sick still. Deadlines were blown from the previous week that needed to be made up along with the deadlines that were already set. We made it to Thursday, then on Friday our nanny gets very sick. She thinks she has the stomach virus from Brixton. No worries, she'll recover over the weekend, right? Nope.

Monday, Tuesday, finally I get a back up for Wednesday because I can't miss anymore work. She goes to the doctor to discover it wasn't a virus at all, but food poisoning! She finally feels well enough to come in on Thursday, but she was so sick.

January was just nuts. It was not a very good start to 2011. January was filled with illness and stress. It is a month I'd rather forget, but we managed to get through. We have awesome clients that understood that sometimes life happens. It's not always flowers and sunshine.

Traveling with Children to NYC

We lucked out on cheap airfare that made it possible to go to NYC Thanksgiving week. There is truly something magical about New York around the holidays. It could be because it is so romanticized by old Hollywood movies, picturesque Rockefellar Center or the fanfare of the Macy's Day Parade. Whatever it is, New York City was a dream to visit this year.

We did a couple of things that might be considered odd. We took very 2 very young kids and we relied soley on public transportation. New York is less kid friendly than San Francisco in some respects. Our biggest challenge seemed to be that hardly any restaurant we visited had highchairs. We made due by skipping solids a lot. Bottles were interesting. I brought 6 bottles and had to wash them out every night in the bathroom sink. I got a system down for half day trips by packing 2 bottles and a food kit which consisted of a jar of food, a spoon, and a disposable bib in a ziploc.

The other thing that was challenging was diapers. I've changed diapers on enough restroom floors in SF that the lack of changing tables didn't bother me as much, but restrooms were often too small. When I say too small, there was one that I had to sit on the toilet sideways to fit. Thankfully, Dexter never had an accident and was 100% potty perfect.

Naptime divided the days because we always had to go back to the hotel for a few hours while the kids napped. Sometimes that was awesome and we all napped together, or Mike and I huddled over the laptop and watched movies while the kids slept. A couple times Brixie took an early nap and I'd have to take her somewhere else to play. It wasn't ideal, but it worked. One great thing was that we were all on California time, so we took the kids out late. We got a lot of weird looks hauling around a baby and a 3 year old at 11pm!

Getting around was really easy. The subway in NYC put SF Muni to shame. We were a block and a half from the subway and used it nearly everyday. We never had to wait long for a train. A car would've been a major pain. I'm so glad we didn't go that route. For the airport, we got a car service that had car seats installed. We also walked a ton. I mostly wore Brixie in the Ergo which is about a million times more comfy than a Bjorn. If we took the stroller, Dex rode in it a lot because we didn't want to wear him out with all the walking. It wasn't the most relaxing trip, but we saw an awful lot in 4 days. I mean, who goes to New York to relax?

So what did we see? The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Top of the Rock, Central Park, FAO Schwartz, Apple Store, Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, the first pizzeria in the US, Times Square, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, SOHO, and a whole lot more that I'm forgetting. That is a whole other post…

Going Viral

Mr. Cobra made a video for the making of Dexter's deadmau5 Halloween costume. He filmed about 90% of the making of it with a time lapse app on his iPhone, setting up the shot every time he had the time to sit down and work on it. The mau5head took about 2 weeks to do - an hour here and an hour there. It was just a fun project for him since he'd just finished the music video for his friends', My First Earthquake, and he wanted to do some more video. It was an oppotunity to make something tangible and make Dex happy with an über cool costume.

It was all for fun… and here we are a week later, just under 200,000 people have watched the video Mike made. The response has been overwhelming and incredible. Mike's name is now synonymous with "rad dad". Dex is one of the coolest 3 year olds on the internet at the moment because he wanted to be a cool, iconic DJ who he likes his music and had just saw in concert.

Mini-Deadmau5 from Michael Cobra on Vimeo.

Dexter gets some credit too. He has always been into music. He has super hip taste and knows Miike Snow, LCD Soundsystem, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, MGMT, Peter Bjorn and John to just to name a few of his recent faves. What little boy wouldn't want to be Deadmau5 for Halloween? Especially after just seeing him in concert? Okay, so we're oddball parents that take a 3yo to concerts. We encourage him to listen to and play music on a regular basis. He LOVES to dance and he dances to just about any genre of music. We often listen to music instead of watching TV, so I'm sure that helps a little. I don't know how we created such a cool little kid.

He was so happy to be Deadmau5 and was even a little insulted that hardly anyone knew who he was. While we were trick-or-treating, only one couple knew. After 8pm, while we were headed home, A LOT more people knew who he was and were shouting out of their car windows as they drove by or excitedly saying "Deadmau5!" as they walked by. Of course, his ears and eyes were glowing green by then so it was a lot easier to see. It was really cool and Dex had such a great time. He's a ham and loves the attention.

One of the best things about this experience is that the artist, Deadmau5, tracked Mike down through our company website and called him personally. They talked for a bit about the costume, the other video stuff Mike has done and if he could send Dex some stuff to our work address. What a great guy for taking the time to do that. He didn't have to, but he did and was so cool about it. We haven't received anything yet for Dex, but it's only been a week. All the recognition is awesome enough for just doing what any dad would like to be able to for their kid. Mike is a rad dad.

My Little Deadmau5

We went to the Treasure Island Music Festival this year and took everyone from the office and Dexter. Brixton stayed home with the sitter since it's loud, outdoors, and just not a good place for an almost 6 month old for hours on end. We bought VIP tickets that came with parking on the island as well as a special area to watch the concert, nicer toilets, and convenient food and drink. I don't think it would work well otherwise and Dexter got in free. This was a dream show for him because his 2 favorite bands were playing, Miike Snow and LCD Soundsystem. He also got to see a newer fave, Deadmau5.

I kept him up later than usual the week preceding and he took a nap on the drive over to Treasure Island. I thought it was going to work perfectly, but he had less than half of his nap because he woke up in the car shortly after I parked. We planned a lot to take him and so he had special ear protection, his pajamas and night diaper in the car, and I had an emergency change of clothes in case any accidents happened, potty or otherwise. I had my trusty water bottle that I refilled after entering that we both could drink from and a bunch of snacks.

He did really well though. He used the potty without any accidents, ate the crappy food and didn't get too overwhelmed. He LOVED it. He danced, he sang along, he entertained drunk people, and got to see some of his favorite bands play his favorite songs. He was awesome. At one point someone asked if he was a kid or a midget. Hilarious!

The next day, we asked Dexter what he wanted to be for Halloween. His answer sparked a 2 week long project for Mr. Cobra to build a pretty awesome helmet that looked like Deadmau5. It took a day of supply hunting to just get started and the next two weeks to get it cut, glued, and fitted for Dexter. The end result was a fantastically bad ass disco ball Deadmau5 helmet that had green glowing eyes and glowing green trim. We are lucky that Dex doesn't mind having things on his head or offer his eyes. The helmet made his head about 10 times as wide as normal. He ran into a ton of stuff, but he and the helmet made it through.

We went to our usual Halloween spot with thousands of trick or treaters called Belvedere. It is Hollywood-esque in the sheer numbers of little kids in costume. It runs the gamut of pushy parents with bratty kids; to adults pushing around preschoolers in strollers up to houses to say trick or treat and then be rolled away; to sweet babies just along for the ride; to good kids waiting their turn patiently. Thankfully the latter has been drilled into Dex through his Acroport classes. We had to have him yell "Trick or Treat" to be heard. He was very good and we took a couple "candy breaks" to take the helmet off and eat some of his well-earned loot. Only a handful of people knew who he was, but that's ok. People loved his costume even if they didn't know the musician.

Milestones

I'm tossing out half the diapers in the diaper bag because I am very proud to say that Dexter is finally pottytrained! He still has some accidents here and there, but he's only wore a diaper at night for the last 10 days. He goes in the regular potty, and he's starting to messily test his aim rather than "peeing like a girl". I can't believe it! His rewards has been to play on the computer for going in the potty. If he has an accident, then he has to go in the potty again before he earns more time on the computer. He loves playing on the computer, so it worked like a charm.

His favorite website is PBS kids, which has a ton of games. He's gotten very good with the mouse and now knows how to open the internet browser and click on the bookmark for PBS Kids. He plays all the games by himself and asks for help when he needs it. He even recently discovered how to print. That's been a bit annoying, but easy enough to shut off the printer. Luckily, he doesn't know where that on/off switch is.

He's incredibly good at computers. He also loves to use the iPad and he's very good at it as well. He has a ton of apps we've purchased. I'm pretty sure he's on the cusp of learning how to read. He's starting to get the letter sounds and how those sounds make the words. There are several apps that read to him and highlight each word as it is read. There are also a bunch of word games.

He's so fluidly interacting with the iPad that it's hard to remember that he's only 3. He knows his favorite songs in iTunes because of the album cover and will tell you the number of the song he likes. Last night he was playing a word game and somehow also had a favorite song from the iPod playing at the same time. He trips me out with how wicked smart he is. I hope I can continue to nurture that by challenging him.

Brixton is still an awesome little gal. She is sitting on her own more and more and busted out a "ma ma ma ma" while we were out shopping a week or so ago. She also started solids and eats them at every meal with us. She sleeps 9-10 hours a night and it takes 2 minutes to put her down to sleep at night or even for a nap. She is so low maintenance. I can't believe she's related to Daxter. He's so high maintenance. He's fun and vibrant, but needs a lot of attention to keep him happy.

I had to wean her to formula because I went back to work. I hate pumping and it's just not very effective at producing as much as I need to. I also started back on the pill because what I thought was a magic bullet (Mirena) wasn't so great. In fact, after having it removed, it made me realize that it was also creating issues with my milk supply. I spent months nursing Brix and she would cry for more no matter how long I nursed her. Her weight had dropped by more than 10% at her last checkup. After less than 2 weeks on formula, she's noticeably chubbier and healthier looking. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wish I'd never tried that IUD. It was nothing but a pain for everyone.

Work is awesome. We're a little slow at the moment, so I'm taking the time to get caught up on the little things I set aside. It's so quiet at the office that I get a ton more work done. When I do go home, it feels like everything is on 11 with Dexter screaming, Brixton fussing and Squee barking. Today when I came home and that happened, I wanted to put earplugs in. It doesn't take long for the tolerance of loudness to wear off.