Hear This!

After being sick with a flu-type illness for the past couple of weeks, Mika now has an ear infection as well. The Dr. figures it came along with the flu or something. I was terrified this morning because Mika was puking. She got me up at around 8 and as soon as I picked her up, she just let loose. All over her floor, then all over the hallway and a couple of more times in the sink. I've never experienced a puking baby before..it's not fun. We had a bath (I was covered too...yum) and Mika seemed her usual self after. After about 45 mins or so, I fed Mika her breakfast. About 15 mins later, she brought that up too. After a quick clean up, we were off to the Dr. He found an ear infection that he suspects is the cause of the puking. The Dr. sent her home with antibiotics for the ear infection and electrolyte solution to keep her hydrated if she is unable to eat. My poor little girl. She's so good despite her illness. Plenty of smiles for the crowd at the Medicentre and everyone else that we encountered on our adventure today. Mika even surprised a woman by replying in kind when she said 'Hi'. After Mika had pulled on her coat to get noticed, of course.

Nov 27, 2005

Mika finally crawled in such a way that we can say "Yep...she can crawl." She's been taking a few strides here and there, but this morning she finally got some distance. Yay Mika! I think she prefers walking.

Bite

Oh yeah, Mika sprouted another tooth. The bottom left lateral incisor. Whee!!

Happy Belated 40 Week Birthday, Mika!

Little Nugget is still sick. She's taking it all very well, considering how snotty she is and how gross her cough sounds. Meh...I have to check in with the Dr. on Monday.
We had a grand Friday of play, strolling, and shopping. Mika and I haggled on the price of Daddy's xmas gift. Yes, I used my child and her charm to knock some bux off a gift. It kind of ruled.
Today we hauled all of the old, unused servers to the donation/recycle place by Westmount. Bet they'll be surprised to see an old Alpha in there! We got rid of the old alpha, an old proliant something or other, an old hp lj II, an epson c40, the ast adventure!, and an old 15" digital mtr. The mtr we took over and hooked up to that server that we've been working on downtown. They didn't have one for it, we didn't need it, and now we don't have to work on the server via VNC or haul a display of some sort over to it. Er, yeah we also spent most of the afternoon in an office downtown fighting with a tape drive and server2003. gah. we think its actually the onboard scsi ctrlr that's screwing things up. fun. gotta go back and play more. Mika behaved like gold as usual. We brought the playpen to the office, which helps considerably. She hates being jailed, but it still works. She fell asleep at 6PM and now we've terrified of the results. At what gawdawful time will she wake?
Tomorrow we're off to the office again, then to the clients house, then to G's, then who knows. We need to get over to Mika's Grandma's house and pick up some hand-me-downs from Alice and Jamie...maybe if we get through things early enough, we'll actually have time to jet down there.

Stickin' In My Eye

At around 10AM, I clipped Mika's toenails. A clipping shot right into my eye. I thought I had wiped it out, but at around 10:30PM, my eye felt funny. When I had a look, there was a huge chunk of eye snot in the middle of my bottom lid. Caught within the chunk was Mika's clipping. Nice. I carried Mika's toenail clipping in my friggin' eyelid all day.

Mika can drink from a straw now. When I give her juice in a cup, she still wants to chew or suckle or something as the liquid hits. She fills the pouch of the big plastic bibs with juice every time I 'help' her drink from a cup. I'm trying to avoid using the training cups as much as possible. (I hate the words "sippy cup". It irritates me for some reason, so I don't want to use them. Sippy? WTF kind of word is 'sippy'?) I have one that I use for Mika that doesn't have the valve. The liquid just flows from the drinking spout. She usually finds it more interesting to watch the flow rather than drink it if left to her own devices. Given that I have to be there and hold the cup anyway, it may as well be a regular one.

Cuts Like A Knife!

Gah! Mika's top right lateral incisor has broken through as well. 6 teeth!

Mika has yet to outgrow her love of washcloths. She's sitting beside me in her highchair putting the cloth over her head, pulling it off again, and smiling. Repeat until she flings the washcloth onto the floor.

Montana

Mika's fifth tooth has broken. It's the bottom lateral incisor on the right side.
Mika has been feeling under the weather since about Thursday. By Sunday night, her fever hit 39.1C..almost high enough to warrant a visit to emergency, but not quite. She didn't go to sleep until about 1Am on Monday morning and was up almost every hour. I ended up crashing on her floor for most of the night because she was getting up so often. Mika's fever was more or less gone by yesterday afternoon and today she is nice and cool. Grumpy, but not fevered. She has a cough and sniffles, but they don't seem to be too bad. Mika didn't get to sleep last night until after 9PM. This from a baby who is in bed asleep by 7:30PM 99.9% of the time.
Mika's Nana came over yesterday to watch her as I had to go into work. As always, Mika had a grand time with Nana. Nana brought Mika her first advent calendar and a homemade Santa pull toy. Those wooden ones where you pull a string to make the legs and arms move...very cool!
Seeing as it is so nice out today, Mika and I are going to venture out and over to the mall. I have some prints to pickup from the drugstore and am actually going to check out Sears' portrait studio. We've tried our best to avoid any cheesy baby stuff, such as the Sears portraits, but am now thinking it would be nice to have said cheesy portraits for Christmas. We'll see how expensive they are and whether there are even any time slots to book given what I assume is a busy time of year for the old Sears photo studio. Had we hella cash, I would just book a sitting with Carmen Miller as I have heard nothing but wonderful things about her and her photography. Someday!

Happy 39 Week and 9 Month Birthday, Mika!

Blow me down...the kidlet has almost spent as much time on the outside as she did on the inside! She spent 41 weeks and 2 days (yes, I kept count) on the inside. I'll always wonder exactly how long she would have lived inside of me had the doc not decided that it was time that she came out. I'll also always wonder what would have happened if I had refused the c-section that the doc felt was necessary to go ahead with. Meh..it matters not. All that matters is that my screaming healthy baby arrived.
Mika and I were going to go out looking for a new bathrobe for her today, but the winds are CRAZY. So crazy that when I let the cat out this morning, I noticed that our BBQ cover was gone. I secured the kidlet and had a look around the back lanes and such, but it was nowhere to be seen. Poor BBQ is probably freezing its grease can off. I'm sure the wind will take that too in due time.
Mika passed her swimming lessons! She received her first ever report card. The only box that wasn't checked on the report was the blowing bubbles one. Mika prefers to just take huge gulps of water instead. Though, she is more than happy to blow bubbles when she is out of the water. Ah well. We're going to try and coordinate the next round of lessons with Candace and crew so that Mika and Kaylee will be in the same class again. The Nov-Jan classes are already full, so we will have to wait and see.
We dropped in on G after lessons last night, but seeing as both G and Mika were asleep, we didn't stay to visit. I just dropped off the clean laundry and toothpaste for G and we'll hopefully get over there a little earlier tonight.
We're supposed to go to Arran's first bday party tomorrow, but I also have to go into work for awhile, so we're not sure if we'll make it. I hope so though as we're trying to arrange a marriage between the two kids and it helps if we attend family events! :P
Sunday is yet another workday. We're finishing up that contract once and for all (knock on wood). Sunday will be a hella driving day as we have to head to riverbend to get the keys to the office. Daddy will drop Mika and I off at said office and head back to the clients house in riverbend so that we can ensure that the VPN connection works. Daddy also will be setting up a wireless router at the clients house. Whee! Goddess of Backups, please hear my pleas and help me get those bloody automated backups working once and for all without hanging the server! Please Goddess of Backups!
And Monday is a work day again for me. Hopefully, the last one until I am back to work For Real. Nana is going to pick up Mika in the morning and they will spend the day together at Nana's. Lucky girls!

Hectic

We worked all weekend. It wasn't too bad though. Ant was called away to tend to a medical emergency (send healing vibes to B.C.!), so we were on our own on Sunday and will be again this weekend. I hate tbu's. And windows 2003.
We hung out with Auntie Amber on Monday. Did some shopping, had some coffee, food, and good company. Much needed, as always. Mika seemed to love meeting her newest Auntie Trina. Instant beaming smiles at the pretty lady. No fussing on being picked up and whisked away...well, no fussing for the first little while anyway. Mika was spoiled, again, by her Auntie Amber. Pants, winter boots, bat shirts..and plenty of other things that Mama couldn't resist either. Er, so I guess I spoil her too. Crap. I'm creating a monster much like myself. Must. Stop. That!
Tuesday was swimming lessons and something else that completely escapes me now. Did some over-the-phone troubleshooting with our latest client...as for the rest, I am drawing a blank.
Mika had her 9month checkup yesterday. It went well, but very short. An emergency patient came into the office, so the Doc had to run. I did manage to see that Mika is up to 17lbs, 6oz., but didn't catch her height. Tall...the kid is tall, that's all I know. We also had lunch with Daddy, visited Grandma at work, and went to try and see what's wrong with the backups at the clients office. We were going to visit G last night, but I had to run into work and get some stuff done..Mika and I are off to G's today and then it's her final swimming lesson!! The January sessions are full, so no swimming lessons again until the spring. Daddy and I will be taking her to the family and public swims, though, to keep her in practice.

Happy 38 Week Birthday, Mika!

The family spent the day working on a contract in a very warm office downtown. Mika behaved wonderfully! There was even a box of toys for her to play with in addition to what we brought. Classic office toy box: an empty office paper box filled with mostly corporate shwag, like magic 8 balls and squishy stress relief things. We have to go back for another round tomorrow and hopefully get it all done so that Sunday is free and clear to do *whatever*.

Running To Stand Still

Mika still can't stand on her own, but she now wants to run everywhere, not just walk. My back is taking a serious beating as she insists on holding on to my fingers and running with all of her might. All of the time. Of course, she wants to stop periodically to rip books from the shelves and fling them about. Weird thing is that she always goes for Douglas Coupland's Microserfs. Daddy figures it's because of the pretty colours on the spine. In any case, it's time for her to learn balance, so I think I'll start standing her up and letting her go and see how that works. Yes, yes, of course I'll catch her. I'm hoping that her knowledge of the havoc that she can wreak once she figures out this balance thing will serve as motivation. As always, she will probably find a way to foil my attempts...
We've taken a few chilly strolls as of late just so that I can stand upright and have her somehow contained and relatively content. Getting her into the winter strolling gear went from bad to OK back to bad as I upgraded her to warmer clothing. Mika hates the cold. She wants nothing to do with the snow. The cats are totally with her on these too. Spart has been quite whiney and needy since the cold and snow came. Scooter is, well, Scooter.

Happy 37 Week Birthday, Mika!

Trouble on the homefront...Mika pulled herself up on me today. A first...a frightening first! Previously she just demanded to be set upright, not get there on her own.

Day spent walking Mika around and around and around. Or standing by to catch as she stands at the table, baby command centre, on the back of the couch, clutching me, etc. Mika refused to try and crawl today. She insisted on being upright at almost all times. Diaper changes are a nightmare battle of wills. She will sit still for the duration of the Ninja Kitty animation. Must mount LCD panel above change table.

Mika won't eat broccoli on it's own. It has to be mixed with either carrots or pears. Pears.

Halloween II

A great Halloween had by all in this home. Mika and I did get downtown on Monday. We visited Grandma and her co-workers at the office. Mika scored a stuffed fish instead of candy from Kathy at the office! Thanks Kathy! Mika behaved quite well..because she knows Grandma gets a little anxious when Mika screams her fool head off at Grandma's office. After that we went to visit Daddy at work too. We crashed a party on the 12th floor of his building. We were going to wait around downtown for Daddy to finish work, but Mika decided that we should go home and not wait around the extra 45 mins. She communicated this to me in a series of screams and tantrums at the save-on on 109 street and Jasper. We handed out a couple of bowls full of candy here and then headed out to St. Albert so that Mika could trick-or-treat over at the Shermans. Mom Sherman is the biggest turtle/tortoise fan that we know and she was sure delighted to see Mika in her turtle suit. Mika seemed to love it over there...all smiles and giggles. She flirted big-time with Shawndee's fiance..enough so that we had to roll our eyes and tell her to cut it out already. The Fiance is bigger than Daddy, so Daddy couldn't very well knock his block off or anything. We didn't get around to making our gingersnap bats until yesterday...they're too snappy. Gonna break my teeth trying to eat them.
Today was an adventure at the bank getting some things taken care of there. Mika was very happy to discuss how to invest her resp money with the banker that we saw. In fact, Mika wouldn't shutup. Even after placating her with MumMum's, she continued to discuss her investment options with biscuit bits falling from her mouth.
We haven't seen G yet this week, so as soon as Daddy is home and fed, we're off to see the G-ster.