flea

Sneezy sneezy runny nose. Happily little post-nasal drip. Got it from Dillo, who is mostly unsnotty now. Casper has it too.

Goddamn frat boys next door were playing music loud from 1-3:30am. It's rush month. But, Wednesday? Dudes, usually it's Thursday nights I hate you. As I was lying in bed awake I was wishing I were a Deadwood watcher so I could curse them more excitingly. If they do it again tonight I am calling the cops.

Still on the rollercoaster of good sleep/bad sleep. Have I mentioned that Casper can wash her own hair (Santa brought her Big Girl Shampoo) and Dillo initiates peekaboo by pulling his blanket over his face and vibrating in excitement? We are feeding him oatmeal, applesauce, and squash now, pretty much every night and he likes them and anticipates dinner time. Hasn't pooped in a few days now though and I am starting to worry. Also got some interesting, very hard teething biscuits from Whole Foods, which he likes a lot.

Dear Frat Boys Next Door,

Singing along, drunkenly, to Forever Young at 2am is funny and ironic, especially since you were probably not born when the song came out. Singing along to "I will be your hero, baby" just makes you sound like someone's bitch.

Happily when mr. flea got dressed and went to ask them to shut up, they did very quickly and thoroughly.

In other news, how do you move an incredibly stubborn child's bedtime to at least one hour earlier? Besides waiting for daylight savings time, which believe me I am.

We have reached the state of the poison ivy where Flea. Must. Resist. Picking. Scabs. Because it's nassty, and yet soooo tempting. Face and neck healing rather well, but there are still some newish and itchy patches on arms and legs, and currently my right hand is known as The Evil Hand because there's some serious nast going on between fingers 2 and 3.

It's quite dark and today's amusing challenge is "can flea get home with Casper without both of them being soaked?" The bus has gone to irregular summer schedule, and our umbrella has gone walkabout, so much will depend on the kindness of the thunder gods.

Hard night. The drugs are working I think, and prednisone is having the reported side effect of making me peppy, but something seems to be having the side effect of massive headaches between 2 and 10 am. Casper cried out in her sleep regularly every half hour for a lot of the night, waking me each and every time (assuming I wasn't still awake from the last cry.) And the frat boys next door were up all night long last night - not especially noisy most of the time, but who puts sneakers in the dryer at 6am? Also, why could I hear the sneakers in the dryer from inside my house with the windows closed? [curses single-paned glass]

Against all odds, we have had an excellent afternoon, by which I mean that Casper fell asleep on me on the couch a little after 1, and is still sleeping (I wiggled out from under her at about 3:40). mr. flea is also doing his walrus impression in the bedroom, and I am preparing to make chicken and wild rice soup from the Whole Foods cookbook - it has mushrooms and sherry and a little cream and is excellent.

I think Casper came back wrong from her cold; at any rate, she came back 2, and it's driving me bananas. Lots of whining, lots of testing: paint on the wall, on a chair, marker on the table, all in front of me and with full knowledge that this is not how we behave; rmeote into the VCR twice immediately after I told her that was not allowed. Also the begging for TV or videos. And the not eating, plus whining. I think partly she's still in the recovery phase, and partly stir-crazy from being housebound with only Mommy and Daddy to play with for 5 days. I want my non-obstreperous kid back please! Did learn a useful new phrase: "on the tip of your nose" i.e. bugging me to no end, which mr. flea picked up from the Sri Lankan boys in his office.

Have acquired and am wearing drawstring waist corduroys from J. Jill (courtesy of gift card) and I love them. They are like corduroy sweatpants you can wear to work. Also useful for those of fluctuating waistline. We also exchanged our gift of a $50 popcorn popper (we like popcorn, but make it in a pan on the stovetop very happily) at Williams-Sonoma for a nice little 5-inch sankotu knife. Now we just need a big chef's knife (and to get all of our existing knives sharpened, since the new one makes them all magically dull). Were does one go to sharpen knives? We have a mix of stainless and old-fashioned.

Partly as a result of this week's cold, the weaning of Casper seems to be proceeding. Her regular nursing habits (usually 2 of these times: 4am, 4:30pm, 8:30pm) have not reappeared, and many times lately she has asked to nurse, tried very briefly, and said, "There's no nursie in there," and either pitched a fit or happily asked for juice. We still rely on the big guns for serious freakouts, though, like last night's 1am full-bodied screaming kicking freakout, which occurred spontaneously while we were all sleeping.

Since we found a piece of cheese on our driveway last night, presumably a gift from the Frat Boys Next Door (we have sanely concluded that they dropped a piece on the deck while making burgers, and tossed it like a frisbee, and it got lucky and made it through the hedge to our yard) I have been pondering the next step. I should buy a pack of Kraft singles and leave one every few days in some odd location about their property: on the front door mat, on a car hood, pressed to the window in the kitchen. (Since they seem not to lock their house - mr. flea went over at 2 to ask them to turn down the TV and found nobody was watching it and the door was unlocked - I could creep in and leave one on the DVD player!)