We interrupt this blissful life...

To report the most annoying, rhythmic chirping coming from the swampy woods behind our house. I don't know what creature is creating this noise, but it has been going on for 2 days now. Katy thinks it is a bird. But I've never heard of birds up all night, sounding a piercing, chirping alarm.

I've heard crickets and frogs and locusts and this sound is nothing like those. Imagine your smoke detector battery is dying and the thing starts to chirp in warning. But LOUDER... You are NOT IMAGINING IT LOUD ENOUGH! And you are imagining the noise IN your house, but you should be imagining it THROUGH the WINDOWS... somewhere out in the woods.

Also, it goes on and on and there is no option to get up and just change the EFFING battery!

Does anyone know what this is?!?
I need to identify it so that my fantasies of killing it can be more realistic and detailed.


To get away from the noise, I've joined my lovely wife on the couch in front of the woman's NCAA National Basketball championship game. If you know me, you understand this is a measure of last resort. Generally (excepting baseball, golf, and major playoff games) televised sports make me irritable, this is Katy's department. Since my Alma Mater is on the court, and since it actually is a championship game (which qualifies as a "major playoff game") I'm happy to be involved in the spectator-ship. Amazingly, it is a close game- Uconn is undefeated this season and no final score was within double digits.

Katy (and I) like a close game... but she is NOT happy that the scores are so low: with 11:24 left to play, Stanford 25 Uconn 29. They are missing a lot of shots and while there is a case to be made that a low-scoring game means excellent defense; the broadcast seems to be revealing a poor shooting percentage.

I'm gonna go Google "Chirping bird noises at night" now...

UPDATE: 10:30pm:
Still no word on the "bird"
And Uconn won the game 53 to 47
With two consecutive perfect seasons, it is easy to become cynical and say "they have it easy... someone should be able to take them out/down". I'm not accustomed to routing for the top dog- I'm an underdog kind of girl... But these are young women 17-22 years old, and they work their asses off year round. They have sought and worked hard for this perfection... as easy as they made it look, it wasn't handed to them. So good for you BIG BLUE.
Here's a toast to the University of Connecticut, where men are men and women are champions.

missing my blogging life

So, sadly, I still do not have the 6th month newsletter completed.

It is effecting me emotionally, b/c it is symbolic of all of the things I am "not on top of" right now. Also, the newletter is like a monkey on my back and I can't seem to blog about all the "little things" because that bigger thing is in the way...

(I'm so weird.)

Our house (though filled brimming to the top with love, laughter, sweetness, and general contentment) is by all rational standards filthy in need of some scrubbing.

The baby is sleeping thru the night (sort of) ... Well, waking up once or twice, but going back to sleep without being fed in the middle of the night.

Work for me is heartbreaking. (Surprisingly) It's not because I wish I wasn't working at all. I actually like getting out of the house, and I think that he gets more love and appreciation from me when I see him now (How that's possible, I don't know, as I was loving and appreciating the living crap out of him during my maternity leave.) But because my work seems insurmountable in the "catch up" and because the wave of demands that was kept at bay for a few weeks has crashed over on top of me. I am so disorganized that I want to throw up at several points during the day. Plus, well there's a lot more that I just can't go into...

Due to this work "crisis," the difficulty I am having finding time to pump, and (possibly) the few doses of pseudephed I took earlier in the week my milk production has decreased to 1/2 of the amount I was producing a week ago... We have gone thru our extra/frozen supply and I am back to squeezing out a few ounces in the AM to give the boy what he will need to get through work camp day care. It is fine. But a tiny bit stressful.

Though I should be working all weekend long to try and do some of the billions of things I didn't get to work on this week, I can not wait for the 2 days with my boy and my girl, and I doubt that I will come into the office at all.

On the bright side, katy's women's bball brackets are in good shape. She created 5 versions on line and in one of them, she is ranked 206 out of over 100,000 people... The only problem is, she bet against Uconn in the final game where she surmised LSU would win the championship... WTF.

Her defense is logical: "I couldn't have Uconn winning in every one of my brackets..."
but can you imagine the shit storm if I had bet against Smith?!?

jeebus.

Long days, tired nights

March madness is underway.

Normally this time of year I received a handwritten note from my wife with a listing of times and dates that she will "be unavailable" due to basketball viewing.

This year, there's a lot of bball on my TV, but no list- we're just not back to that level of organization.

JB is recovering well. He's on day 8 of amox. Kt's got him trained like a pet seal... We hold the syringe of pink syrup in front of him and wait for him to bring it to his own mouth. It takes us about 4 to 5 mini-squirts, but he swallows it all without a fuss, mess, or any drama. It is amazing really. He is back to drinking his full amount to breast milk, though he still is rejecting our attempts to re-introduce cereal and smooshed up veggies.

He has been waking up either at 2 or 3 and then again at 5 or 6. He has been so tired from work camp day care that he starts to do his "tired" fussing at 7 and not 8pm. We are going to bed around 10 or 11 (a good 3 hours after him), and so our asses are dragging. But even though I am sleep deprived, I am truly happy. This kid, our life... it's everything I hoped for and more. He giggles. He likes to play. He's all ready developing a sense of humor. He reflects the sweetness in kt's smiles and gives me a mischievous laugh when i come at him to "nibble" roughly on his neck or belly.

As I write this, I am thoroughly exhausted, but I just wanted to take a few minutes to document the paradox: tired, achy, sore, not exercising enough, eating too much, stressed by work, only sleeping 3-5 hrs at a time= happy=blessed

Sunday sports

Triumphant again! Liberty win 41-12.

We still haven't really been tested, an easy "non-conference" schedule. Next week we'll see some real competition.

Girls basketball #1

That's right, it's 7th and 8th grade girls basketball time folks! GO LIBERTY!

The season started auspiciously this past Sunday when we won our first game. It's early in the season, yes, but I have 3 players over 5'8" and that means a lot when you're 12 and 13.

box score: Liberty 24, Comets 10. (no other info available at press time)

I'll take that as a compliment!

I've heard this many many many times: "I know you from somewhere....", followed by a consternating look for a few minutes. Then the person usually yells out "Nancy Kerrigan!", or "Nurse Hathaway!", or "that girl from Much Ado About Nothing!" as if they had just found the solution to world peace and were yelling "Eureka!".

This week at work I got a new version of "Eureka!" and I liked it far better than any of the others. One of my dear sweet geriatric patients said to me (as I was attempting to determine the extent of the cellulitis on his leg), "You know, ever since you came in that first day I was here, I've been trying to figure out who you look like.... And I finally figured it out." Oh god, I thought, who am I today? "SUE BIRD!", he yelled, as I looked up and realized that his T-shirt was from the Connecticut Sun. (The elderly in this state are truly fanatic women's basketball fans)

I think it had more to do with my curly ponytail than actual looks, and I'm pretty sure my patient is unaware of my Sue Bird-esque basketball skills*, but I think I'll take it as my favorite comparison to date. I mean, I have always wanted to be Sue Bird!


*When I say I have "Sue Bird-esque basketball skills", what I mean is, I could probably keep up with her while running down the court. If I didn't have the ball. And neither did she. I guess what I really mean is that when I'm playing basketball I like to pretend that I could be Sue Bird. If Sue Bird were in high school still. Ok, junior high. Or maybe even 4th grade.

Show over...

My girls basketball team fought hard today but we were outmatched, and they lost. I was more bummed than I thought I would be. It was a great season and I'm already putting together all the practices and drills for next year.

Now it's on to non-stop ESPN watching for women's NCAA March Madness... hooray!

You asked for it...

Well, this one's kind of grainy, but I couldn't get that close to her with all the media attention.



I don't know how I'm going to get a picture of her losing her voice next Sunday, though.

Championship basketball

While the world (including me) prepares for March Madness, my junior high basketball team is creating its own madness. My girls won today 39-15 in their final regular season game to take sole posession of 2nd place. Saturday are the semis and, if we win, we will likely play a seemingly unstoppable team on Sunday.

Something tells me I may lose my voice sometime on Sunday.