The color of infinity inside an empty glass

Twas a good weekend. What with K working the $[Oil and Gas Company] job Friday night and Saturday (thus, me hanging out with boy Saturday) and just being exhausted after a VERY long month of March, I took the weekend off.

Saturday with the boy was fine. We played with his train set (He got a wooden train set for Christmas and dad got him add on parts. K and I are having as much fun building the tracks, I think, as R is having playing with the trains on them.) We went to unpluggits. It was good daddy/boy time. And K came home, exhausted and achy and took a long, long nap.

Sunday, we did some errands, a little cooking, and I played my new game: Kingdom of Amalur - Reckoning.

When we got our tax rebate back, the bulk majority of it went to debt, but a little went to fun money. I spent my fun money on the game, the first DLC (Legend of Dead Kel) and the strat guide.

I'd heard good things about the game and I have good things to report. The game is some cross between Dragon Age, Diablo and Skyrim. I don't have time to do the part where I explain how the game works, and such. Maybe later. I'll say this..

The visuals are.. cartoon-realistic. Not uberrealistic, but pretty nonetheless. Special attention has been drawn to making your fighting visuals pretty. You'll ooo and aaah as your Chakrams go flying all over the place destroying baddies left and right, you'll smirk as you sneak up behind that guard and assassinate him, as he crumples to the ground and you cover his mouth to keep his death screams quiet, you'll be amazed as your longsword cuts hither and dither destroying all in front of you.

The background music is decent. And the voice acting is superior. I don't know if everyone involved in the project lent their voice, but I don't think I've CLEARLY heard the same voice over and over again, and that's special. Many of the natives have plenty to say, when prompted, and none complains about an arrow to the knee in passing.

The actual gameplay.. I'm playing on normal and I'd say it's sufficiently challenging. The normal "yellow" baddies are relatively easy, unless I'm getting swarmed, and the bosses are definitely a fight.

I haven't gotten far enough along to really comment on the story. But there is a metric ton of quests: the main quest, quests for each of five guilds you can join (and no issue, so far, with joining all of them.) and some sort of overarching quests for each of the main area: a town under attack by a plague brought on by boggarts, a town at the mercy of an evil witch and her trained army of spiders (No, I am not kidding. And, yes, the witch is named "The Widow". And yes, she is a Dark Elf.) and, in the last mini area I was in, a lovelost fisherman taunted by a "water nymph")

The enemies are varied. Most of them are fae. What strikes me is they make a point of differentiating the summer court and the winter court, so why am I fighting brownies, pixies and boggarts which are typically considered summer court?

All in all, I like this game and I'd recommend it.

So... two weeks ago, we went to the GI who gave us a plan. By last week, we were supposed to start a milk challenge for small boy.
And we would have, had it not been for a tummy bug that hit Monday and kept his appetite depressed throughout the whole work week. We decided that we would wait on the challenge until he felt better.

By Saturday, his appetite had returned.. and then some! He SUDDENLY has the sign down for more food. He may think it's the sign for food, since we've only ever used it with food, but.. anyways, he's constantly demanding more! MORE MORE MORE!

By Saturday night, we agreed we were OK with starting the milk challenge. So it started Sunday.

Sunday his appetite is even stronger. I wonder if he's going through a growth spurt. He's eating (for him) huge solid food meals and still drinking a fair amount of formula too.

Anyways, he got his milk at 9:00 and, while it hasn't been 24 hours yet, if he had any sort of intolerance to milk, it would apparently have shown up sooner rather than later, so..

.. this is exciting! It really is! Him passing milk is a HUGE step towards us being able to maybe just feed him from our plate when we go out or have lunch or whatever (his getting more than two tiny teeth would help too.)

So.. I am excited! And happy that he's tolerating it well enough so far!

I know I haven't been good about posting things. My bad...

Anyways, my annoyed face, let me show you it.

On Tuesday, I got word from Boy's daycare that the State had been through and they'd screwed some things up. And could we please get some paperwork resigned immediately, because the doctor signed her name in the "print name" part and also, make sure she fixes the how long he can take the drugs for part of the form, because it should only say up to six months after the form was signed, not "Until Further Notice" as the doctor wrote. Sure, we'll do our best, but both K and I work all day.

Please note.. we didn't actually get new forms to sign, just the old forms, with highlighter showing where the doctor had screwed up.

On Wednesday, we were asked if we could get the form signed by Friday. I said we'd do our best, but both K and I work all day and don't get home until long after the doctors close.

On Thursday, they threatened that if we didn't have the paperwork signed by today, they wouldn't give him his medicine Monday. THAT.. is a major problem. K calls the Daycare immediately to find out specifically what we need, since we were never given any clean forms to sign, only the last forms with marks about what was wrong, and they tell her that she a doctor's note, signed by the doctor, should do.

And Today, K drops the boy off and they say that if they don't have the form by.. I dunno what time, they're going to call us to pick him up. K pointed out we both work, they told us to send someone else. WHO? Our family is in Buffalo, you stupid bitch!

If I have to go and pick the boy up, he is never ever stepping another foot in that place. Truth be told, I think it's high time we reexamine our options, because while I don't want to go back to not being able to make ends meet, budgetwise.. they have not given Robert the quality of care we'd like, we've had to argue with them about his medicine and pointedly ask how come he's not getting Tummy Time anymore. And I can't say I feel happy about the way we've been treated either.

I half wonder if they're trying to shove Robert out the door, if they're trying to make us upset enough we'll pull him out. There was an incident while we were on vacation and there's been a shakeup and we haven't been very happy with the way Robert has been treated and have had to get.. picky.. with the staff (Hi, is Robert still getting Tummy Time? You guys haven't written anything down for a couple days.)
Either that, or the bitch in charge has absolutely no idea how to KEEP customers. I certainly as hell wouldn't recommend this place to anyone.

So, the boy's been to daycare enough that a thought's really begun to filter, through. We got lucky. We're blessed.

This little boy.. who's gone through everything the little boy's gone through, dealing with his GERD, is happy and sociable. He loves his daddy and he loves his mommy. He loves smiling and giggling (not hurt by the fact that mommy and daddy love his smiling and giggling too. Positive Reinforcement, I'm sure.) He loves smiling and flirting with anyone who gives him attention.

He's getting some real muscle. His size and weight is progressing normally (even though he is a little small for his age, which will likely change, I'm told, as he gets older.) He's where he should be, developmentally.

In other words, despite everything, he's not just normal.. he's HAPPY, he's CHIPPER. He's "NORMAL".

He's an attention-seeking little dork who thrives on the spotlight (sounds like another dork I know. ;D )

It boggles the mind. I'm glad to say it, but it just.. boggles the mind how a little boy could go through what he's gone through with the gas pains and the spit ups and the not getting enough food and still be growing up to be so normal, relatively speaking (He DOES have me for a dad. He's never gonna be NORMAL.)

We weren't sure how he'd do with Daycare, but he's thriving there, as he's thriving everyplace else in his life and that's a truly gratifying thing.

But I'm not really sure what.

Squirm's doing.. pretty much significantly better, with one little issue. He's spitting up, about once a day, white.. with purple or brown streaks. We have no idea what it is, where it's coming from or if it's a problem. He's acting alot better, though. He's our happy and rather Chatty little boy.

Him acting OK has helped us both cope alot better and things have quieted down alot at home. Not quiet, per se. There's still the hustle and bustle of daily life with two of us at work and a little boy at daycare (albeit daycare is K's mom for another week), but.. this is expected, and thus easier to cope with.

Not much else really on our radar. Boy's got another appointment next Wednesday. We need to start planning out trip to Buffalo in late July and make sure we're OK to visit Matt and Amy for July 4th.

That's pretty much it!

Just got back from Baltimore. K's parents come to Baltimore every year for Preakness. K's dad grew up very near Pimoco and got into Horse Racing when he was young.

ANYWAYS.. we usually go up to Baltimore to see them. And this year, we felt especially indebted to do so, since they'd been so wonderful over the last three months.

Well, we got there and K's mom is totally coo'ing over Robert. "Oh my god! Look how big you are! You have fat! You have baby fat! You're such a handsome little boy! Oh, a smile, was that a smile?" and K's dad is sitting there watching his handsome grandson and smiling widely and they present us with... a new present.

While in Buffalo, I think K's mom was amused to see that we've already started reading to Robert. But Robert LOVES his Boyden Board Books (he's trying to "Ooooo" along to Snuggle Puppy now. It's awesome as hell.) and they give us.. a new book! "Stories and Rhymes for Every Bedtime" and, honestly, I'm just kinda floored they did this. K's mom goes nuts for clothes shopping and has an obsession with bibs, but this is the first time they've broken out of the mold.

It's a collection of 365 poems, stories and rhymes. There's some short, short rhymes, some longer rhymes and a handful of actual stories. Alot of the more well-known childhood rhymes are in here: The Grand Duke of York, This Little Piggy, If Wishes Were Horses.. and some shorter, smaller rhymes and it's just.. an awesome present.

As I said, I'm kinda floored here!

I bet if I told people that by Friday evening, we were just beat, that.. none of you would be shocked.

This weekend was Kid Gloves weekend. We tried to relax a bit, take it easy on ourselves and get some well-earned relaxation. That is.. we didn't do much. I played my game for a bit. We watched some Farscape. We took care of the boy (who was readjusting to the formula. I guess three different food sources in one week was hard on the boy.. he spent a good part of the weekend gassy and unhappy, but it seems to have passed some, thank goodness.)

We never had huge plans for Mother's Day anyways, which is just as well. We went out for breakfast at a local Waffle King we like. The boy slept in his carrier so we enjoyed.. well, the screaming of other kids, including the one behind me having a fit.. but, it was a family-friendly establishment, so what can you expect?

And K got a gift from Mr. Robert. Another Willow Tree statuette, which brings us up to three: one with a husband and wife together, one with a woman holding a baby bump and now one with a husband, wife and a blanket-wrapped baby.

And.. that's pretty much everything worth reporting. I'm still.. pretty exhausted, mentally. Especially because the boy spent so much of the weekend bawling due to gas and exhaustion, Really hope that's over and done with. I know he was awake and doing the Squirmy Dance (Eyes open, making happy noises and moving his entire body already.) as I was leaving.

He's still in the hospital.

They're suspecting that something in K's breastmilk irritated him enough that he started bleeding. I'm not sure how this works.

They don't want to scope him unless they have to, so they're operating on the hunch that it was the breastmilk. Assuming he does well on the elemental formula he was on when he was doing well for.. potentially 24 hours, we might all go home tonight. If he starts spitting up blood, however, he'll need to be scoped and he's staying there a while.

We're alot happier with the care unit he's in. They seem alot friendlier (not all the nurses in the NICU were very friendly) and accommodating. I took K down for dinner last night and the nurse happily took Robert out into the nurse's area for a bit. Robert flirted with everyone (which apparently was just the kind of thing that the nurses could use after a long shift) and K got a break.

Ended up taking K home last night. She was exhausted and needed the sleep badly. Nurses promised us that they'd call if anything happened. So far no calls, so I'm guessing it's been a quiet night for Squirm.

We'll get back to the hospital once traffic has cleared a bit.

More good news. The GI Specialist says he put on 28 oz and 2 inches of height in 3 weeks, which is fantastic news for SuperSquirm.

So happy is the GI Specialist, that K can start breastfeeding again immediately. The GI specialist feels positive about it and that it's likely that he'll still do well on her breastmilk. We're hoping so.

The BAD news is that K is still on the Elimination Diet of Doom for a couple more months. But.. we'll deal with it a little while longer. If it's for the squirm's benefit.

So..

That's the news. Still pretty good news, all told.