The title really says it all. Check out the vlog, This Bailey Life, for more info.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
To The Victor...
Opening disclaimer: The following are, as always, my own personal thoughts and opinions on what is going on in my life at present. As such, there may be political and social content which some may find personally offensive. I trust that anyone reading this probably knows me well enough to know what to expect, and won't really be surprised about anything contained herein. If you don't want to know what I think, stop reading now - I'll let you know when I have more cute pictures of my kids.
Another election day has come and gone, and I must admit myself more than a little disappointed. And, if I am being perfectly honest, more than a little frightened. Disappointed because I thought enough of my fellow Americans had finally seen Obama for the hollow politician that he is. Frightened because I see a very real possibility that the American economy over the next four years could deteriorate to the point that it may never recover in my lifetime. This morning, I woke up to a very different view of my future from what I had 24 hours ago. Less than a day ago, I was confident that the economy was on a slow but steady road to recovery, that I stood a pretty good chance of getting a substantial raise upon my next review at the beginning of the year. Now, I'm worried that confidence in our industry may go back to what it was around 09, when we started losing overtime and our pay rates were frozen. I'm worried that I may not be able to sell our house in the next few year for enough to pay off the mortgage and move into a slightly larger house so my teen aged son and eight-year-old daughter don't have to share a room.
I do not get into lengthy political debates for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because I do not fit neatly into either of the bipartisan camps. I am a Constitutional Libertarian, and thus believe the federal government should be stripped down to only what the Constitution permits and all other authorities given to the state. I believe that government - at any level - should make laws to protect individual rights and stop there. I believe that abortion and homosexuality are morally wrong, but that that is according to my morality and should have no bearing on any one's right to engage in either. I did not vote for anyone based on their social policy, because I believe their social policy is irrelevant; all the social equality in the world won't matter if our economy collapses, unemployment rises to around 20%, and the "1%" that everyone so loves to demonize can no longer afford to pay the bills. Do I think that is what is going to happen? No, but I believe it is a very real possibility. What I think is going to happen is that we will have another term of an ineffectual and incompetent commander-in-chief, during which our economy will continue to stagnate. That businesses will continue to outsource work due to a native environment that is antagonistic toward them. That the national deficit will continue to increase to fund more unnecessary and ineffectual public assistance programs. That we will continue to have no one willing to make the hard choices necessary to right the sinking ship which is our nation. No, I don't think it will sink in the span of another 1460 days, but I think it will continue to take on more water and we will have to bail that much harder to stay afloat.
Government programs are not going to save America, Americans are. Don't fool yourself into thinking you are helping anyone by voting for the politician who supports social reform and then wiping your hands of the problem. If you want to help the poor and downtrodden, get out there and do it. If you want to improve education, then educate your children or volunteer to tutor if you don't have any. We, as a nation, need to get off our collective rear and stop waiting for the government to save us. The government did not make America a great nation, her people did.
On a side note: I've lately taken great umbrage to the people who profess that whoever may win the election was the person chosen to do so by the Lord, so we should all be confident that they are the right person for the job. I am sorry, but I have to believe that is nothing but a steaming pile of horse crap. I am well aware of the scriptures referencing the God-given authority of our worldly leaders, but saying that He gave them authority is not the same as that He chose them for the job. The Lord has a history of letting mankind choose our own leaders. He let the Israelites choose to be lead by a king rather than be lead by Himself. For that matter, he let mankind choose to be under Satan's authority in the garden, and allowed Satan control of the physical realm ever since. If we're going to say that any earthly leader is put in a position of authority by the Lord, then we have to accept that Herod, Hitler, and every other genocidal maniac in history was an instrument of God's will. I'm sorry, but I can't buy that. The other verse to this argument is that God's will works for the ultimate good of his people. The good of his people does not necessarily correlate to our comfort, happiness, or economic stability. Are we willing to accept that the destruction of America might be for the good of the kingdom? Again, do I believe that? No, but I believe it is a very real possibility.
Another election day has come and gone, and I must admit myself more than a little disappointed. And, if I am being perfectly honest, more than a little frightened. Disappointed because I thought enough of my fellow Americans had finally seen Obama for the hollow politician that he is. Frightened because I see a very real possibility that the American economy over the next four years could deteriorate to the point that it may never recover in my lifetime. This morning, I woke up to a very different view of my future from what I had 24 hours ago. Less than a day ago, I was confident that the economy was on a slow but steady road to recovery, that I stood a pretty good chance of getting a substantial raise upon my next review at the beginning of the year. Now, I'm worried that confidence in our industry may go back to what it was around 09, when we started losing overtime and our pay rates were frozen. I'm worried that I may not be able to sell our house in the next few year for enough to pay off the mortgage and move into a slightly larger house so my teen aged son and eight-year-old daughter don't have to share a room.
I do not get into lengthy political debates for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because I do not fit neatly into either of the bipartisan camps. I am a Constitutional Libertarian, and thus believe the federal government should be stripped down to only what the Constitution permits and all other authorities given to the state. I believe that government - at any level - should make laws to protect individual rights and stop there. I believe that abortion and homosexuality are morally wrong, but that that is according to my morality and should have no bearing on any one's right to engage in either. I did not vote for anyone based on their social policy, because I believe their social policy is irrelevant; all the social equality in the world won't matter if our economy collapses, unemployment rises to around 20%, and the "1%" that everyone so loves to demonize can no longer afford to pay the bills. Do I think that is what is going to happen? No, but I believe it is a very real possibility. What I think is going to happen is that we will have another term of an ineffectual and incompetent commander-in-chief, during which our economy will continue to stagnate. That businesses will continue to outsource work due to a native environment that is antagonistic toward them. That the national deficit will continue to increase to fund more unnecessary and ineffectual public assistance programs. That we will continue to have no one willing to make the hard choices necessary to right the sinking ship which is our nation. No, I don't think it will sink in the span of another 1460 days, but I think it will continue to take on more water and we will have to bail that much harder to stay afloat.
Government programs are not going to save America, Americans are. Don't fool yourself into thinking you are helping anyone by voting for the politician who supports social reform and then wiping your hands of the problem. If you want to help the poor and downtrodden, get out there and do it. If you want to improve education, then educate your children or volunteer to tutor if you don't have any. We, as a nation, need to get off our collective rear and stop waiting for the government to save us. The government did not make America a great nation, her people did.
On a side note: I've lately taken great umbrage to the people who profess that whoever may win the election was the person chosen to do so by the Lord, so we should all be confident that they are the right person for the job. I am sorry, but I have to believe that is nothing but a steaming pile of horse crap. I am well aware of the scriptures referencing the God-given authority of our worldly leaders, but saying that He gave them authority is not the same as that He chose them for the job. The Lord has a history of letting mankind choose our own leaders. He let the Israelites choose to be lead by a king rather than be lead by Himself. For that matter, he let mankind choose to be under Satan's authority in the garden, and allowed Satan control of the physical realm ever since. If we're going to say that any earthly leader is put in a position of authority by the Lord, then we have to accept that Herod, Hitler, and every other genocidal maniac in history was an instrument of God's will. I'm sorry, but I can't buy that. The other verse to this argument is that God's will works for the ultimate good of his people. The good of his people does not necessarily correlate to our comfort, happiness, or economic stability. Are we willing to accept that the destruction of America might be for the good of the kingdom? Again, do I believe that? No, but I believe it is a very real possibility.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
I'm Not Dead Yet!
You may have noticed that my last post to this blog was a few weeks before GG was born. It turns out that managing a toddler is infinitely more exhausting when one parent is almost entirely occupied with taking care of an infant. By the time I can sit down for long enough stretches of time to write a blog entry, I'm either too worn out work up the energy, or too in need of some down time to spend it blogging. So, here I sit with over five relatively eventful months of not blogging and no idea where exactly to start. I believe a bullet list is in order...
- GG's delivery went off relatively hitch-free, and much faster than Asher's. She had a little trouble transitioning (which seemed fairly major at the time, but turned out not to be) and we had to deal with a high bilirubin count like with Asher (which we were better prepared for this time around). I did a delivery journal again, which I may get around to posting at some point in the future.
- Summer came and went for the older kids without too much fanfare. It seemed to have been spent primarily in front of the TV and computer monitor. Actually, that's not true - their electronics time was restricted this summer, it just seems like that's all I ever heard about them doing. Not that I have much room to talk: the apples didn't fall too far from that tree.
- We survived the annual Late Summer Birthday Blitz for another year. It's really not all that bad now that Jamie doesn't want to have parties, just a few friends over to spend the night, and I've convinced Denine not to burn herself out planning an intricate party for Ren, who is pretty easy to please. The biggest challenge was spending a few hours opening all of the Zoobles and Squinkies that Ren got for her birthday. Packaging manufacturers must be on Satan's payroll.
- In relation to the above, Jamie is officially a teenager now, complete with Facebook and an iPod. And a YouTube account. Which has opened his mind to the wonders of Ryan Higa. Whose videos, I believe, he must have seen every one of by now. Twice. At least. Seriously, somebody please, make the bad man stop... *sobs*
- Jamie's first report card of the year came in a couple weeks ago, and it was not good news: two Cs, which is below the acceptable grade threshold of a B for regular classes (we let him get away with a C in AP math, since it is expected to be a harder class). The frustrating thing is that the Cs were in reading and english, two classes that are generally a breeze for him. I believe the problem stems from his opinion that the homework in said classes is stupid. Judging from his grades since then, however, my argument of "yes, it's stupid, but if you don't want me to make your life miserable, do it anyway" seems to have convinced him. In the meantime, he is grounded from using any electronics until his next report card comes in with better grades. So, I guess I did get my wish for Ryan Higa to stop...
- Ren's first grading period of the year ended last week (the elementaries switch to four grading periods this year, but the secondary schools stayed with six periods), so fingers crossed for a better performance from her.
- In some weird, brilliant, synergistic confluence of happenstance, I have almost simultaneously discovered Wil Wheaton's Table Top and the wealth of indie game companies on Kickstarter. These two things have caused A) a renewed interest in games I can play with my family that don't suck (I'm looking at you, Monopoly) and B) a distinct addiction to Kickstarter. I'm like every housewife I've friended on Facebook with Pinterest: I just can't freaking stop finding awesome things on Kickstarter! (On a side note: thank the Maker that Denine has deliberately stayed away from Pinterest.) There's about a half-dozen games I've backed that have funded and I'm really itching to play - now I just have to wait for the fulfilments to start trickling in. Of course, there are Kickstarter campaigns for new games that I'm keeping an eye on all the time, and or the first time we've made a family Christmas list, and it is entirely composed of table top games. So, hopefully, in a few months we should be up to your eyeballs in quality gaming goodness. In the meantime, I'm looking for stuff to pick up retail for either Jamie and I or the whole family (excepting the babies) to play - so far we've gotten Pandemic for everyone, and the Mage Knight Board Game for Jamie and I - and I've found a gaming group that meets on Saturdays in Katy that I plan to check out at the earliest opportunity.
- We've had our first official family pet fatality (I say it is officially the first because we've lost fish before, but I don't really count that). Corbin, one of the kids' gerbils, was discovered lifeless in their tank when Jamie went to feed them yesterday afternoon. Denine said the body looked like it had been mauled - I haven't check myself, the deceased having already been removed to his coffin (box) and placed in the morgue (utility room) before I arrived home - so we're not sure if he lost a fight with the other gerbil, or if he died of natural causes and Colton was simply trying to wake him up. I've heard a wide range of life expectancies for gerbils, and to be honest they are/were kind of neglected, so I'm not terribly shocked. It's safe to say that this particularly experiment in responsibility has not been a roaring success, and there will be no more small pets in the house for a while. Hopefully I can get out of this without having to have a full-blown gerbil funeral. We'll see.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Ennui +New BB Pic (34 Weeks)
Let me be blatantly honest for a moment: I'm having a hard time staying motivated to keep up with this blog. It's not that I don't enjoy writing it when I actually sit down and put my mind to it, because I really do. The problem is that I'm either too busy to sit down and write anything, or things are too quiet to have anything to write about - by which point I've lost to impetus to write about what was going on when I was busy! I had promised myself that I would buckle down and post an update before this past weekend was over, but the Blizzard had to go and announce an open beta for Diablo III during that time, so that was shot. Coincidentally, Diablo III is pretty sweet, assuming you like to play games centered around the wholesale slaughter of the undead and/or demonic forces. But I digress...
I think part of my apathy lately stems from not knowing my audience. Part of this blog is about catharsis, just getting my thoughts down for my own sake from time to time. In that regard, if I don't particularly feel like writing anything down then I won't write anything. No harm, no foul if it's just about me venting and thinking "out loud." However, I also know from the site stats that other people are looking at the blog as well - I just don't know who. So I have a request: If you are reading this blog on any kind of regular basis, or even if you just check on it sporadically, let me know. Leave a comment here, post a comment or send a message on Facebook, drop me or Denine an email.....carrier pigeon will even work, provided he knows his way back home, I'm not feeding any more pets. No smoke signals please, we're still a little dry from this past summer.
Okay, on to catching up!
We survived another LTC, which was in ways both more and less crazy than in the past. Denine's focus this year was to just keep up with Ren and Asher and not worrying too much about getting to events and wearing herself out. She ended up missing most of Jamie's events because they ended up being when either Asher or herself needed a nap, but I've got them on video - not the same, I know, but you have to make compromises sometimes. Jamie did good, ended up getting four gold awards (chorus, drama, puppets, and Bible bowl team score) and one bronze award (Bible bowl individual score). He's added an event every year thus far, but he's up to doing all the team events now so I'm not sure if he'll try and cram anything else in next year. We're already trying to think about the logistics of how things will work next year with Ren competing as well. Hopefully it will work out were we each take one kid and one baby to events, but that may depend on how much overlap we have; Denine may just end up getting stuck with both babies while I take both kids to their events. Not sure which arrangement would be worse for her...
I think part of my apathy lately stems from not knowing my audience. Part of this blog is about catharsis, just getting my thoughts down for my own sake from time to time. In that regard, if I don't particularly feel like writing anything down then I won't write anything. No harm, no foul if it's just about me venting and thinking "out loud." However, I also know from the site stats that other people are looking at the blog as well - I just don't know who. So I have a request: If you are reading this blog on any kind of regular basis, or even if you just check on it sporadically, let me know. Leave a comment here, post a comment or send a message on Facebook, drop me or Denine an email.....carrier pigeon will even work, provided he knows his way back home, I'm not feeding any more pets. No smoke signals please, we're still a little dry from this past summer.
Okay, on to catching up!
We survived another LTC, which was in ways both more and less crazy than in the past. Denine's focus this year was to just keep up with Ren and Asher and not worrying too much about getting to events and wearing herself out. She ended up missing most of Jamie's events because they ended up being when either Asher or herself needed a nap, but I've got them on video - not the same, I know, but you have to make compromises sometimes. Jamie did good, ended up getting four gold awards (chorus, drama, puppets, and Bible bowl team score) and one bronze award (Bible bowl individual score). He's added an event every year thus far, but he's up to doing all the team events now so I'm not sure if he'll try and cram anything else in next year. We're already trying to think about the logistics of how things will work next year with Ren competing as well. Hopefully it will work out were we each take one kid and one baby to events, but that may depend on how much overlap we have; Denine may just end up getting stuck with both babies while I take both kids to their events. Not sure which arrangement would be worse for her...
(I only shot one pic at LTC, and it's really bad; I need to start using YouTube or something so I can link videos on here.)
Still working on getting Jamie's seizure medication right. He is still not completely of off the old stuff, but his doc is now raising the new one. It seems to be working for the most part, but he actually had a pretty bad seizure Saturday night while we were at LTC. He and I were eating in a room down the hall from where our congregation had the food set up, and he had gone to get more food. I went to throw away my trash and looked down the hall to see him lying in the floor. By the time I got to him, a handful of other people from our life group who had heard something that tipped them off that he was having a seizure were right there with me, asking what they could do. When it was over, one of the couples whose room was in that hallway told us to bring him to their room until he was okay to move. It was really touching to have so many people caring for us in that time; a couple of Jamie's friends even heard something was going on and went from room to room looking for him to make sure he was alright. (As an aside: Ren also got sick while we were in the Millers' room waiting for Jamie to recover. That evening gets a gold star for bonding moments!) Jamie was groggy through the award ceremony and ice cream social that night, and at one point I found him lying in the floor of the bathroom, so we're pretty sure he had another seizure at some point. Then he fell out of the shower when he tried to adjust the water temperature while avoiding the water- after telling me he was okay to be in the bathroom by himself! Note to self: In the future, insist on staying with him for the rest of the evening whenever he has a gran mal, no matter how embarrassing it may be. Needless to say, it was a pretty rough night. He was fine the next day, however, and hadn't had any seizures again until this Thursday night. We determined after the fact in both cases that he forgot his medication that morning. That, coupled with being really stressed at LTC (tired, rushed, over stimulated), is pretty much a guaranteed seizure for him at this point. Once he is up to the correct dosage missing one dose shouldn't be as big a deal, but for the time being we will have to be more diligent.
My mother decided to have a faux Easter the following Sunday since we were out of town for Easter (as always, LTC is on Easter weekend). It was actually pretty sedate as far as Easter celebrations go - Sunday dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the kids. We were pressed for time on the Easter egg hunt because a storm was rolling in, so Asher unfortunately did not get to hunt this year since it was during his nap. We are 0 for 2 in that regard, he couldn't hunt last year because he was less than a month old at the time. It occurred to me - and I pointed out to Mom - that Asher and GG will never have a "normal" Easter seeing as we will most likely be in Dallas for Easter from now until they graduate from high school, unless both of them forsake LTC when they get to be that age. Mom said she will have to be more deliberate about having an alternative observance in the coming years; I get the distinct impression that this year was sort of a throw down because my sister-in-law's parents were in town the following weekend rather than on Easter, so Mom decided we should get together on the spur of the moment.
Still working on getting Jamie's seizure medication right. He is still not completely of off the old stuff, but his doc is now raising the new one. It seems to be working for the most part, but he actually had a pretty bad seizure Saturday night while we were at LTC. He and I were eating in a room down the hall from where our congregation had the food set up, and he had gone to get more food. I went to throw away my trash and looked down the hall to see him lying in the floor. By the time I got to him, a handful of other people from our life group who had heard something that tipped them off that he was having a seizure were right there with me, asking what they could do. When it was over, one of the couples whose room was in that hallway told us to bring him to their room until he was okay to move. It was really touching to have so many people caring for us in that time; a couple of Jamie's friends even heard something was going on and went from room to room looking for him to make sure he was alright. (As an aside: Ren also got sick while we were in the Millers' room waiting for Jamie to recover. That evening gets a gold star for bonding moments!) Jamie was groggy through the award ceremony and ice cream social that night, and at one point I found him lying in the floor of the bathroom, so we're pretty sure he had another seizure at some point. Then he fell out of the shower when he tried to adjust the water temperature while avoiding the water- after telling me he was okay to be in the bathroom by himself! Note to self: In the future, insist on staying with him for the rest of the evening whenever he has a gran mal, no matter how embarrassing it may be. Needless to say, it was a pretty rough night. He was fine the next day, however, and hadn't had any seizures again until this Thursday night. We determined after the fact in both cases that he forgot his medication that morning. That, coupled with being really stressed at LTC (tired, rushed, over stimulated), is pretty much a guaranteed seizure for him at this point. Once he is up to the correct dosage missing one dose shouldn't be as big a deal, but for the time being we will have to be more diligent.
My mother decided to have a faux Easter the following Sunday since we were out of town for Easter (as always, LTC is on Easter weekend). It was actually pretty sedate as far as Easter celebrations go - Sunday dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the kids. We were pressed for time on the Easter egg hunt because a storm was rolling in, so Asher unfortunately did not get to hunt this year since it was during his nap. We are 0 for 2 in that regard, he couldn't hunt last year because he was less than a month old at the time. It occurred to me - and I pointed out to Mom - that Asher and GG will never have a "normal" Easter seeing as we will most likely be in Dallas for Easter from now until they graduate from high school, unless both of them forsake LTC when they get to be that age. Mom said she will have to be more deliberate about having an alternative observance in the coming years; I get the distinct impression that this year was sort of a throw down because my sister-in-law's parents were in town the following weekend rather than on Easter, so Mom decided we should get together on the spur of the moment.
Sadly, this was the best of the group shots. It's so hard to get them all to cooperate at the same time...
This week marked the beginning of the weekly check-ups with the OB to check Denine's progress. She was further along then she was at this point with Asher, so she's pretty excited about that. I thought I had those numbers in my old posts and was going to put them up for comparison, but apparently I don't. Seeing as I spared everyone the gory details in the past, I supposed I will continue with that. Thinking back, I think she's actually more progressed right now than she was when she was admitted at 39 weeks with Asher, so that may bode well for her chances of going into labor on her own. We discussed inducing some with the doctor today, just to get a feel for her opinion on the matter since we don't have an impending trip like last time. Her comment on waiting to see if Denine goes into labor naturally rather than inducing: "Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be." So that said, the plan at this point is to induce at 39 or 40 weeks depending on when we can get people to take care of our other children so I can stay at the hospital with her. (note to self #2: Having a baby when you already have a baby is complicated!) This means we should have between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half weeks until we have another baby in the house.
Believe it or not, she's even bigger now. Click here for comparison to last time.
Updated baby-centric to-do list:
-
- refinish chest
-
-
- assemble quilt
- rearrange/redecorate nursery
We have made a little bit of progress on the list - we have the bassinet and all the quilt fabric - but now I'm no closer to starting on the chest, and getting all the quilt fabric only spawned more items on the list. Albeit items that were really there before, just not lined out. On the up side, GG won't even be in the nursery for at least six weeks, and probably closer to three-to-six months, so it's not necessarily pressing to have all that done beforehand. Although we really do need the extra space that the dresser will create to make room for GG's clothes. The last item on this list came about a little while back when Mom asked me if I had assembled the other crib and rearranged the nursery yet. When I told her "no" she asked when I planned to do it because she couldn't come hang anything on the walls until it was done. When I told her it wouldn't be done until she came and helped me do it, she started to look at Denine with a questioning look. And then said, "Oh, yeah, I guess you can't help him move furniture, huh?" I swear, she worries me sometimes now...
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Monday, March 12, 2012
Calling It In... + New BB Pic (28 Weeks)
Well, it's been a relatively quiet couple of months as far as first quarters go in the Bailey household. Which is not to say that we haven't been busy, just that it hasn't been particularly noteworthy. The busyness has been largely due to the fact that our Sunday afternoons are completely consumed with LTC practice. On a typical Sunday we all leave the house to go to church at 9:00 in the morning, and Jamie and I do not come back until about 9:00 that evening (Denine gets to go home with the other two briefly between lunch and when she picks me up for lifegroup). We have had our niece's birthday (ice cream themed) one weekend, which is always fun-yet-hectic. We had my birthday dinner at Olive Garden with my 'rents a couple Fridays ago, although my birthday actually landed on a Sunday this year, so I got to spend it sitting at the church. We are now in the brief two-month period during which Denine gets to tease me about being an old man before her birthday hits and we're the same age again. Other than, our weekends have been mostly eaten up by yard work and errands and other "ho-humeries" of life.
The biggest news lately - at least if you were to ask the kids - is that I decided to buy them (and myself) the Skylanders video game with tax return money this year. For anyone unaware, this is a video game with the brilliantly evil marketing scheme of selling the characters you can play as in the game as separate figures, excluding the three that come with the starter set. To play them, you place them on a "portal" that hooks up to your game console and they show up in the game. Which is pretty cool because the characters' levels and abilities are saved on the actual figure, so you can theoretically take them into anyone's game and it's still your character, exactly how you last played them. The hook is that, as you play the game, you'll encounter areas that require a certain element to unlock, and you only get three of the eight elements in the starter. You also collect "Soul Gems" that unlock a special move for a specific character throughout the game, and are then shown a trailer for that character. At the outset my plan was to buy the starter set and enough characters that we'd have at least one of each element between us, so we could access everything. There were two things I failed to factor into this plan. The first, which I was unaware of at the time, was the fact that each of the thirty-two characters in the game actually plays differently, so it's a lot of fun to play the different characters; I was expecting something more like, say, a Lego game where there are a handful of character types, but each character of that type plays almost identically (i.e. all the Jedi play the same, all the shooters play the same, etc). The second thing I overlooked at the time is my tendency toward being an OCD-fueled completionist; unfortunately, these things are selling like hotcakes and are almost impossible to find in brick-and-mortar stores without a large degree of planning or luck. So, several hours of ebay later, we now possess all of the characters that are currently out (excluding the exclusive that comes with the 3DS bundle, which Jamie plans on buying). Now I just have to keep my eyes open for the last two sets of characters that are supposed to come out later this year. Oh, and then it'll start all over again when they release the next game in the fall...
Jamie is officially on his new seizure medication and things seem to be going pretty well. We're still stepping him down off the old stuff but so far, so good. I think. It had gotten to a point that he was having one or two seizures a week, but they were usually in the morning before school. They were causing a minimum of disruption, thus I wasn't finding out about them until much later. They seem to have stopped now that he's on his new meds, though, excluding one staring spell at church last week. So hopefully this will work out better for us.
Apparently, the difference in posting on a second pregnancy blog in comparison to your first pregnancy blog is similar to the typical disparity between the number of pictures taken of the first and second child (of course, we had a digital camera with our second and not with our first, so that didn't really apply to us, but I digress). This pregnancy has been much more low-key than the last, owing primarily to the fact that most of the stuff that we had to get done before the baby got here has already been done already. Unfortunately, this has caused us to be a little lax in getting the few things that did need to be done, done. Now here we are at twenty-nine weeks, having barely even thought about crib bedding or nursery decor for Gracey - we know we're doing another rag quilt for which we have bought about a third of the required fabric, and focusing on doll-themed Americana to coordinate with what's already there, but that's about it. Our procrastination has actually paid off to an extent, though: we've managed to get a hand-me-down crib and small chest-of-drawers from some friends that were phasing out their nursery furniture, and to get a used double stroller that would have cost us $150 new for $60 from someone at work. Now, however, it is time to kick things into high gear. The baby-centric to-do list is as follows:
- buy a bassinet
- refinish chest (painting it blue, to contrast the red dresser)
- finish selecting quilt fabric
Okay, that doesn't looks so bad after all. I must be leaving something (or several things) out....
The biggest news lately - at least if you were to ask the kids - is that I decided to buy them (and myself) the Skylanders video game with tax return money this year. For anyone unaware, this is a video game with the brilliantly evil marketing scheme of selling the characters you can play as in the game as separate figures, excluding the three that come with the starter set. To play them, you place them on a "portal" that hooks up to your game console and they show up in the game. Which is pretty cool because the characters' levels and abilities are saved on the actual figure, so you can theoretically take them into anyone's game and it's still your character, exactly how you last played them. The hook is that, as you play the game, you'll encounter areas that require a certain element to unlock, and you only get three of the eight elements in the starter. You also collect "Soul Gems" that unlock a special move for a specific character throughout the game, and are then shown a trailer for that character. At the outset my plan was to buy the starter set and enough characters that we'd have at least one of each element between us, so we could access everything. There were two things I failed to factor into this plan. The first, which I was unaware of at the time, was the fact that each of the thirty-two characters in the game actually plays differently, so it's a lot of fun to play the different characters; I was expecting something more like, say, a Lego game where there are a handful of character types, but each character of that type plays almost identically (i.e. all the Jedi play the same, all the shooters play the same, etc). The second thing I overlooked at the time is my tendency toward being an OCD-fueled completionist; unfortunately, these things are selling like hotcakes and are almost impossible to find in brick-and-mortar stores without a large degree of planning or luck. So, several hours of ebay later, we now possess all of the characters that are currently out (excluding the exclusive that comes with the 3DS bundle, which Jamie plans on buying). Now I just have to keep my eyes open for the last two sets of characters that are supposed to come out later this year. Oh, and then it'll start all over again when they release the next game in the fall...
Jamie is officially on his new seizure medication and things seem to be going pretty well. We're still stepping him down off the old stuff but so far, so good. I think. It had gotten to a point that he was having one or two seizures a week, but they were usually in the morning before school. They were causing a minimum of disruption, thus I wasn't finding out about them until much later. They seem to have stopped now that he's on his new meds, though, excluding one staring spell at church last week. So hopefully this will work out better for us.
Denine still thinks she's bigger this time around; again, for comparison see 26 weeks & 29 weeks. It's hard to tell with that particular top, though...
- buy a bassinet
- refinish chest (painting it blue, to contrast the red dresser)
- finish selecting quilt fabric
Okay, that doesn't looks so bad after all. I must be leaving something (or several things) out....
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