Kid Amnesiac

I just came back from the hospital’s visiting hours, and Tristan is doing well. He purred quite a bit and even ate a little of his prescription food for me.

Today his creatine and BUN levels are both normal, so his kidney function was clearly only temporarily and mildly affected by the blockage. Today they will continue to run fluids to flush him out and to keep his glucose and potassium levels normal. Tomorrow they will search for more stones and/or crystals with the ultrasound, and that’s when we will learn more about his case and long-term prognosis.

From what I can gather, he’s doing very well now–In fact, he was eager to jump around (a no-no with the catheter) and managed to shake loose his IV line while I was there. The acid test will be taking him home and seeing if he immediately re-blocks.

We’ll keep you posted.

Hello Everyone,

Please keep my favorite kitten Tristan in your thoughts. (Percival is my favorite cat in case you were wondering…) He’s at the veterinary hospital right now, and he’s likely to be there for 2-3 days, as he has a urinary blockage that requires catheterization, IV fluids, and close monitoring. Thankfully, we caught things early enough that his kidney function is only slightly off (his BUN was 44; normal is 36), and the kidneys themselves are the correct size and shape. We’re hoping that once the crisis is over we can maintain his health with a prescription diet.

Our first signs that something was wrong came today after lunch. I heard and odd sound—an odd mix of squeak, groan, and growl, and I thought it was my terribly noisy and old dishwasher, which was mid-cycle at the time. Two hours later, Matt told me that the strange noise I heard was not my dishwasher, but rather was coming from Tristan. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, so decided to keep a close eye on him. For the rest of the late afternoon and early evening, I heard nothing. But right after Simon went to bed at 8:00, the growling began again, his posture was slightly hunched, and Percival was clearly agitated around him.

I had a gut feeling he was blocked, sensed that time was of the essence, and had my brother come over at 8:30 so that Matt and I could take him to the emergency vet together. He’s now in the extremely capable hands—I hope!—of Dr. McCoy and the rest of the staff at Jefferson Animal Clinic. They ran a very professional operation, and the hospital has visiting hours every day so I can go visit my little buddy. Tristan is a welcome bit of sunshine every day—a happy-go-lucky butterball of a cat—and my house won’t seem right until he’s back with us all.

As most of you already know, the okcomputer.org server suffered a catastrophic disk failure back in October and my back-up scheme was, er, less than optimal. I’ve spent the last three months trying to put the pieces of the old server back together, while Jessica just started a new blog from scratch over at wordpress.com.

The holidays gave me the first real downtime since the crash, so last week I built a new server with RAID 1 disk-mirroring, installed Ubuntu Server on it and lugged it over to IgLou for colocation. Today I dug out an old laptop disk that had a blog database dump from April and managed to get it installed into an upgraded version of WordPress on the new server. A few minutes later, I had exported Jessica’s new blog and imported it into the rebuilt one. Apart from a six-month gap, some clean-up and a lot of missing pictures, we’re back in business.

In the next week or so, I’ll start rebuilding May-October 2007 from blog entries I pulled out of Google’s cache the night of the crash.

Thanks for sticking with us through the mess. The new URL should be here to stay no matter what, so be sure to bookmark it.

Not to worry, I’m not getting political on you. Inappropriate, likely, but not political.

A month ago, I was pretty sure that Matt’s “ghost baby” scenarios were as inappropriate an example of humor as you were going to get around here. Then I began joking about ghost baby myself and had to dial down my mock offense and horror. Sensing the fun was over, Matt came up with a new one: “waterboarding”.

“Waterboarding,” in the happy baby context, is wiping off a baby’s hands and face after a meal. Simon would get so worked up over it, that we joked it sounded like he was being tortured after every meal. I suppose it was a small enough leap for Matt to home in on the specific torture most befitting that simile, and thus “waterboarding” was born in my house.

At first, I was appalled, and would screech “MATT!!” after every utterance. Soon enough I quit chastising Matt and adopted the term myself. Then something funny happened. Simon quit hating being waterboarded, a happy circumstance for which I can thank my mother.

There was no way Rita Goldstein was going to let a little fit of temper get in the way of a clean face. So while I was all tentative gestures and quiet apologies, Mom just went for it. Sometimes even with a wet sponge. Yuck. Then one day she decided to make joke out of it and began making funny faces while wiping him off. And it worked! Instead of shrieking, I heard giggling as Mom cleaned Simon up.

Matt decided this was worth trying to emulate, and it worked for him, too. For the last week or so it’s been so effective that Simon actually anticipates being cleaned up and begins to squint and giggle ahead of the fact. It figures, just as I begin to embrace our tacky little joke, it no longer fits. Just one more way Simon is nearly always one step ahead of us!

P.S. Happy 81st Birthday to Simon’s great-uncle Sam.

I wasn’t actually planning to celebrate Boxing Day, of course, but I did plan to have some fun. My Wednesday sitter called to cancel Tuesday night, which meant that after many busy days preparing for or celebrating holidays, today I was going to cancel my attic-cleaning project, sit back, and enjoy some down-time with Simon. Ah bliss, a lazy day with nothing to do but hang out with my little guy.

If only. My day ended up being so annoying that I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy much of it, even as Simon launched a 13-hour charm assault. All the while I dread Simon’s developing toddler frustrations and fits of temper, I had a day-long fit of temper befitting a toddler myself. It all revolved around some petty family drama that frankly is too stupid and tedious to rehash. Suffice it to say that all will be fine, but there were some hurt feelings and stoked ire. Mine, to be specific.

While I stewed, Simon managed to play in his bath and throw a full cup of water out of the tub. Messy but funny. And he managed to empty the contents of our recycling bin all over the kitchen. And empty the waste basket in the downstairs bathroom. And throw all his blocks under the couch. And dump over the cat dishes. (And taste-test some cat food.) And reach for dishes in the dishwasher. And empty the contents of our recycling bin all over the kitchen again. All messy but funny.

He also helped me finish the goat-cheese from Christmas Eve, helped Matt eat a home-made punch icicle, petted the kitties nicely, giggled like mad for most of the day, yanked off my glasses a hundred and one times, took off his socks and hat during our walk, played in a pile of cleaning rags, played peek-a-boo with me from behind the couch, and bounced up and down and shook his head back and forth when his favorite songs played. In other words, he pulled out every adorable weapon in his adorable baby arsenal. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but at least I was able to reflect on it and end my day on a sweet note.

Yesterday was a similarly splendid day over at the Whitworths, as once again Simon fully participated in the activities and had a grand time. He loved all of his grandparents’ lights, the Christmas punch and cookies, “walking” with my mom, scooting around the house, and reading “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. He babbled up a storm used some real words, too, and even perfected his “gimme five” technique. He trotted out the pseudo-sentence “where go?” at one point, but I’m chalking that up to mimicry and a fluke.

We couldn’t have had a better Christmas, and—thankfully—I’m far more likely to remember that than my Boxing Day snit.

It’s a bit after 11:00 p.m.., and I just wrapped my second Christmas Eve. Simon is asleep after having a very busy day, Matt is downstairs watching Monty Python videos (my present to him) after a sort-of busy day, and the cats are napping after having a not very busy at all day. It’s good to be a cat!

Last year I decided to begin hosting Christmas Eve, or erev Christmas as I think of it, on a regular basis. As I was tied down with a nine-week-old, colicky infant, the inaugural affair featured store bought desserts and not much else. This year, I was able to put on a full dinner; we dined on baked salmon, colcannon, green beans, poached pears, chocolate pound cake, coffee, tea, and a nice pinot noir. I even had my mom bring over my Bubbie and Zadie’s silver tea set for the occasion.

Christmas is certainly a very different affair now that Simon is with us. Whereas two years ago I wouldn’t have thought about hosting anything at all and last year I kept it short and simple, this year I had the feeling I was establishing a tradition that would make for important, happy memories when he’s grown. With this in mind, I happily bought planters for my porch and festooned them with giant red bows, I decorated my sideboard and table in a Christmas theme, and I bought more presents than usual. I had a better time than usual, too.

Simon participated in the festivities more than I expected him to. I’ve always heard that one-year-old babies don’t much care about their presents, but love the boxes they come in. Not my boy. He didn’t care a whit about the boxes, but he sure was excited about his zoo train toy from Aunt Barb and his books from Uncle Dan! He also enjoyed some of the salmon and colcannon, loved the goat cheese I had out for an appetizer, and was mad for the chocolate pound cake. His slightly sour, over-tired mood reversed itself completely once everyone arrived and started socializing, and he even pulled to a stand a few times after presents were opened. To be honest, he was in an even better mood earlier today as I was preparing dinner and he was kissing his own reflection in the dishwasher, but I’m sure in ten years I’ll forget that part.

Pictures from today are loaded on Gallery (check out the new link on the right), which we are slowly rebuilding after the crash. Merry Christmas, all.

We got the exciting word that friends Kelley and Kaya welcomed their first child, a son named Thaylo William, in the wee hours of the morning of the twenty-second. Later today, we got more of the scoop.

The short version is that Kelley was 42 weeks and 3 days pregnant, kiddo had no intention of budging, and science had to intervene. One day she will be able to use the story of his late and laborious arrival to guilt him into good behavior or at least get a really good mother’s day present from it. Work it Kelley!

In the meantime, we’re pleased to see that Thaylo is cute as a button, and we sincerely hope mom and dad are making use of the hospital staff and getting some sleep. Welcome to the world, Thayo. It’s about time you joined us!!

In his tender fourteen months, Simon has thus far had only one true love. Her name was Stephanie, she was a flight attendant on our flight to San Francisco last May, and despite his many, many crushes since then, no one has quite lived up to her or received the same intensity of affection before now.

But last night we went to Jockamo’s for dinner, got a pretty waitress we also had a couple of weeks ago, and Simon fell deeply and hilariously in love with her. It wasn’t just that he cooed and laughed and clapped and screamed at her. It was that he also would look at her, smile the biggest smile possible, giggle almost nervously, and then turn his head away when the smile or giggle reached its zenith.

At first I thought he was playing peek-a-boo with her, but then Matt noted that Simon almost seemed to be blushing and turning away from embarrassment. He repeated the cycle a few times, and I think Matt was on to something. I’m not sure if he was playing shy to flirt or was truly turning away when the feelings got too intense to deal with, but I’m certain that if he were a paler child, he would have been blushing.

I thought this was the most adorable thing ever, and as always when Simon does something terribly cute or funny, I swelled with maternal pride and love. Simon took his playful good mood home with him, and during an especially wide smile later on I noticed something new: two new teeth flanking his lower central incisors. He’s had six teeth for months now and we’ve been awaiting the arrival of these new ones since early fall. Still, these somehow managed to sneak up on us because they were not accompanied by any fussiness, feeding issues, or sleep disturbances. Lovely for us all.

We’ll try to take Simon back to Jockamo’s to show off his teeth soon. Simon might stand a better chance with the waitress now that he looks more mature.

In the nicest of all ways, I’m being replaced as Simon’s favorite person. It is very clear to me—to be more specific, Simon is making it extremely clear to me—that his heart belongs to Grandma and Bubbie.

I know this because on Sunday, when my mom dropped by with mandel bread for us all, Simon ceased his bad mood the minute he laid eyes on her. So long as he had his Bubbie to hold him, talk to him, and play with him, all was well. And the minute she left the room, the waterworks started.

This scenario repeated itself today when Evie arrived to pick Simon up for Camp Whitworth. Simon was in a happy mood before she arrived and an even happier one once he saw her. When Evie walked out the front door to put his diaper bag and food in the car, Simon didn’t understand that she’d back for him in just a minute. He thought she had gone, and this prospect devastated him. The waterworks started in earnest, and only stopped when Evie walked back inside.

As she carried him out to the car, Matt and I both tried to get his attention to say goodbye, wave at him, and give him a little kiss. We both failed. He only had eyes for Grandma. Clearly, someone forgot to tell him that at this age, his separation anxiety is supposed to be peaking.

When I was little, I loved my mom and dad to be sure, but my grandparents were magic. It looks like Simon will have a heaping helping of the same fairy dust in his own life, and I couldn’t be more delighted for him.

This past fall I promised myself that for Simon’s first birthday, I’d go through our careful Gallery photos, order up my favorites, and make a physical album. Before I had a chance, our server suffered a fatal disc error and wiped out our album. Turns out, Matt hadn’t gotten around to backing up Gallery since before our move. And he didn’t have a month-by-month directory of files as they came off the camera until February. And—on top of all of that—our older digital camera stopped recording the date pictures were taken in November of 2006, and we didn’t get our new camera until late February 2007.

So where once I had a careful selection of pictures of Simon, carefully sorted by month and cleverly captioned, I am now left with two imperfect records: the first being the image files straight from the camera; the second, the JPEGs recovered from the server’s lost and found directory.

The problem with the files from the lost and found directory is that it leaves me with thousands of images to sort and doesn’t record dates. The camera files leave me with dated images for late February through the present, but they are undated and organized for the early months and include all the pictures we’ve ever taken—the good, the bad, and the shiny and badly focused alike. Neither approach gives me back my captions, either.

This is all rather sad. This past weekend, I determined it was time to stop lamenting what could have been if we had backed up (or even had a good archiving strategy or a fully functioning camera), and time to start digging through the mess. I first ran through all the camera files, sorting into folders by month. For the ones without dates, I used my blog, an album my mom put together, snaps I resized for my IM icon, and memory to help. That got me to a livable level of completeness.

Having spent a good 15 hours or so on this over the weekend, Monday I began looking over the lost and found files to recover some pics I didn’t find from Matt’s stash. These are organized by camera type, and I had all the ones from our two major cameras. But what about the photos others took? The hunt began.

Well holy moley. We have/had far more pictures on okcomputer than I remembered. And many of us have far more cameras than I could imagine! As tedius as the searching was, after a time it became a game to see how quickly I could identify the photographer. Frequently, I could get it when the first picture from a given directory was 25-50% loaded. Belly dance costume or underwater shot? Diana. Bicycle race? Ian. Top of Kalyna’s head?—and yes, I can recognize the hair on top of her head—Shawn and Yun. Vaguely Eastern block looking city? Mike. Artsy shot of a metal door? Susan or Jim. Headshot? Susan. Close-up of food? Jim. Many close-ups of historical document? I’m guessing Harriette. Cute blond boy at family picnic? I have no idea! I recognized no one in a shocking number of photos, a situation that made me feel like a voyeur.

The second revelation is that my perception of Simon is forever changing, and that perhaps obsessive photo preserving has its downsides. I thought Simon was lovely at birth. In hindsight, he kind of looked like a skinny alien. Then I though he was super adorable at the two week mark. In hindsight, he looked like a slightly fatter alien. He doesn’t really begin to look like himself until later in the winter, and he doesn’t start to look as cute as I remember him February at the earliest, and more likely April or May.

The same shifting of perspective happened when I looked at my own baby book not too long ago. The baby portrait my mother has of me in her back bedroom features a terribly adorable baby. My baby book, however, tells a more complete and less flattering story. I sure hope that years from now I don’t look back at Simon’s album—the one I’m killing myself to put together—and have similar thoughts!

Posted for your viewing pleasure, two pics from way back when.