Claudia’s Chapter

Laments about Lamont/Lieberman October 28, 2006

OK I’m confused. Why is it that after the Democrats of CT gave Lieberman the boot, he’s now running as an independant? I supposed initially that it was an ego thing. Surely, no one could do a better job than I…etc., etc.. But ego doesn’t explain the Republican backing of him. If he wasn’t deeply aligned with them, why on earth would they hope to see him back on Capitol Hill? It’s not as if they don’t know him…Perhaps that’s exactly why they are backing him.

Cover of the Times today says even Bloomberg is backing him. And I keep seeing Stick with Joe everywhere…..

Will the people of CT really stick with their ousted incumbant? If so..All I can say is Why? What is going on? All I know is I’m not sticking with anyone who votes to dismantle habeas corpus for the first time since what 1200AD?

LittleChapters is Live!!! October 23, 2006

Well, there was obviously no way to induce a website. And believe me, if there was an epidural we would have taken it.  Instead it was several months of working and tweaking, but now it is live and we are so excited to revolutionize the way new parents track and share baby’s first year.

Alex and I are totally open to feedback and look forward to tweaking things to make our products the best. But for now………we’ve launched…..hooray. (of course I’m whispering “hooray…yippee…etc” because I also have 2 toddlers sleeping upstairs.  

There’s a reason I haven’t written a cookbook yet. October 18, 2006

My sister and niece are visiting this week, so in an attempt to create a warm family environment I decided to make some lasagna from scratch for dinner. (Of course, this includes the Rotini oven-ready pasta layers) (Scratch is relative)

Anyway, after prepping, I had it in the oven baking, when to my delight Thomas squealed “Oooh, that smells good. What are you cooking Mom?”

Before I could even muster the second syllable in lasagna, Christopher said “I go see what cookin’”. With that, he marched to the cabinet for the microwave(!) and proclaimed “Not a thing”.

This I suppose means that Christopher believes I only know how to cook microwaved meals.

Ah well. (The lasagna was actually really good, but neither of the kids ate it anyway—too many colors: too much stuff: I don’t want that: waaaaaahhhhhh) And anyone wonders why I like my microwave?

So Big October 15, 2006

After a weekend of weatherproofing, birthday parties and explaining why I’m still blind in one eye to various friends and family, we decided to take the kids to Burger King for dinner. Burger King has a toddler-friendly indoor playscape so we assuaged our nutritional guilt by thinking of all the exercise the boys would get.

The steps up to the “Huge’ slide are too hard for Christopher to do just yet. They involve a lot of upper-body strength he just hasn’t developed yet.

So after a few runs of Alex and I helping him up, we decided to get creative (read lazy) and asked Thomas to help him instead.

Thomas stood behind Christopher on each landing, lifting and pushing Christopher up to the next landing, all the while, huffing ” This baby…Soo BIG!…Almost, almost. almost…so BIG”

He managed to do it, and we got a glimpse of much easier parenting.

updates on infectious diseases and other childhood ailments October 11, 2006

ok: the update

1. Still blind in one eye.  Apparently Unilateral Acute Idiopathic Maculopathy clears up spontaneously.  However, spontaneously doesn’t indicate the time frame in which this occurs, just how it occurs. Ah well, at least my other eye is working.

2.  Christopher did NOT have poison ivy.  It was actually, according to the doctor, dermatitis, the treatment for which was a precription cream.  Though she did say the dermatitis could be caused by poison ivy: so another idiopathic syndrome I suppose!

3. Alex is off the antibiotics and seemingly cured of Lyme’s: Hooray for medicine!

4.  Thomas is completely virus-free. Hooray!

As I write, Thomas and Christopher are converting our sofa into a fort/collapsed house, so all is well in the land of children.

Whammy Week. October 6, 2006

Ok, I am a part of a very fortunate family, in that we are usually in good health.

Well, this week was different.

1. Alex noticed a bull’s eye on his chest: No tests needed by the doctor’s. It was Lyme’s disease.

2. By that Monday, Thomas was doubled over in pain saying he had a stomache ache. I rushed him to the doctor’s. They did a strep culture, and told me it was negative: so it was just a virus.

3. Then I got the same symptoms. I rested a bit over the weekend. Then out of nowhere, i lost my central vision in my left eye. (it’s still gone)

Two specialists later and it seems that it’s just a temporary side-effect of the virus.

unilateral acute idiopathic maculapathy,

Well, needless to say, I’ve never been more thankful for our general good health, and hope to not take it for granted anymore.

Oh I forgot to mention that Christopher got poison ivy!!