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IMPORTANT NOTICE ON OWCZAREK.COM

In my continuing effort to educate you all on my pathetic life here, I am upgrading my web site to an Interland account. DellHost was fun while it lasted, but I have a way cooler site in the works with Interland. It will include things like blogs with pictures, opt-in update mail, and eventually E-commerce (or buy the shit I don't want anymore).

So, in short, this site will be going down real, real soon now as I put the new one in place. Stay tuned -- it's going to be fun!

Taxonomy for a Toddler

I thought it might amuse you to gain an understanding of the special language that we employ now in the Owczarek household. Here are some common terms, and their definitions:

Lovie - A cute little orange giraffe doll that is Katherine's security blanket. Actually, we have about five of them, but only two are in rotation at this point. Katherine has basically worn these to threads, and she now only wants the worn ones, not the new ones.

Stinky Lovie - How Lovie smells after about 6 hours with Katherine. She likes to suck on the ears, see? And sometimes, she sucks on them right after eating, and she sleeps with her. And so on. Basically, it's a health hazzard. We have to put vaseline on her lips before bed so they don't get irritated. And we were so proud of taking the binky away early on. Thank god our washing machine has a "sanitize" cycle.

Stink Transfer - Katherine doesn't like to suck on a Lovie that doesn't smell. So sometimes, if she's really picky, we take the old and new Lovie's, and we put the heads back to back, and wrap an elastic band around the ears to transfer the warm, delicious stink of the old to the new.

Level 1 Bath - Wash the butt, woo-woo, hands and face, and the play in the water.

Modified Level 1 Bath - Same as above, but with some other body part washed, usually the hair.

Level 2 Bath - Wash everything (except sometimes the feet, which are hard to get at). Not usually performed without an aromatic rubdown.

Level 2 Bath with an Aromatic Rubdown - Level 2 bath as above, with a full body moisterizing treatment afterwards.

Crunchers - Any snack food that crunches.

Chewies - Any snack food that doesn't crunch.

Pollen, pollen everywhere

And the other Katherine news is that we believe she has seasonal allergies. When I was out of town this week, she was really having trouble - eyes watering, stuffiness, and so forth. It's hard to tell sometimes if it's teething or something else, but finally Kara called the doctor, and it turns out to be allergies. That's a real bummer, because I was kinda hoping she would inherit my genes in that regard (I don't have any that I'm aware of, and generally am impervious to pollens). So now we add baby-Benadryl to the list of approved meds we can give her, but it really knocks her out - and she's a super active little girl so that's kinda too bad.

Hey Dad, can I borrow the keys to the car?

The funniest thing happened this evening. Kara went out for some well needed social time, and I took care of KLO this evening. So after she ate, I got her all set with a Wiggles DVD, and then nuked my own dinner, and ate and read the paper. Time passes, food gets eaten, everything's cool, right? Next thing you know, Katherine comes strolling through the kitchen holding a big toy over her shoulder, casual as could be. She glances ever so slightly in my direction (I'm still looking at the paper), and says, "Bye!". Then she continues on over to the back door, and reaches up, grabs the doorknob, and attempts to leave.

Mind you, this girl is only 17 months old (today, actually. Happy 17 month birthday daughter!).

Then, frustrated that she can't get the door open, she looks over at me, and says, more insistantly now, "BYE!".

It was hilarious. She could have been 16 and going out to the mall. OK, so parents get off on this stuff. Give me a break.

Happy Mother's Day!

Or at least, I hope the remaining hour or so are happy. We had a wonderful mother's day here at the Owczarek household. My mother's day gift actually arrived early, like, mid-week. I ordered a really nice coffee machine for Kara, but they shipped it to the house instead of the office (which I had specified), so instead of wrapping it all up on the fly and stuff, I had to let the secret out when I got home from work. Then, Kara, who had had a bad day, was so excited by this big box that I just had to let her open it. Anyway, it makes really, really good hot coffee.

So today, I got up early (6:30 ish), and ran to the store for sausage and stuff, and made cornbread pancakes with sausage and maple syrup. OK, ok, I didn't actually make the maple syrup, but I did warm it up. Then, we ran off to Mahoney's Rocky Ledge to get plants and stuff for the backyard. Yesterday, we dug up the old railroad ties that set off a small planting area next to the garage, and placed a set of granite blocks in place, turned the soil over, and generally got it ready. Today, we went out and bought plants. You see, Kara has had an itchin to get to that particular project, and it makes her happy, and so I helped her out by taking care of Katherine and generally doing the super hard work, like removing the old railroad ties, spreading the new topsoil, etc., and then let her have the fun part by planting. But, in fact, the stuff we bought in the morning just didn't do it for her, so after Katherine woke up from her nap, I took her out shopping and Kara went out and got more plants.

Kara got to pick all her meals today, and she decided that it would be a good night for barbequed steak. So off I went, and picked up some really nice boneless rib-eye steaks for the grill. It was the first time we grilled this year, and they were beyond fantastic. That and a couple glasses of wine set the tone for the evening. Katherine was a pretty good girl all day, so that helped too. Then, after dinner, I gave Katherine her bath, we put her to bed, and then watched a little TV. Kara was exhausted, because she woke up at 5:20 this morning, and got so excited thinking about the gardening she was going to do that she couldn't fall back asleep. So by 9:30 or so, she headed up to bed.

I did a few other things today. I dropped off some roses at my mother's grave. I really felt sad about it, because I still miss her so very much. It's been about four years. My dad is dating, and just turned 65. The school system in Medford is changing dramatically (she was a school teacher), and it was mother's day, and I could so use her motherly advice with Katherine.

I also called my Grandmother (my mom's mom) in Florida to say happy mother's day. She's doing well. Aunt Lorna, Uncle Ken, and Gram, if you are reading this (and a little birdie told me that someone down there does), I'm sending you a stack of pictures, including one of Katherine and Kara that Gram asked for, and I'll do it behind Kara's back so she doesn't know it's happening. Unless she reads this, of course, but she doesn't have a whole lot of time for reading my blogs.

Happy mothers day to all you moms out there. It was a nice one here.

Hot 'Lanta

Many of you know I travel to Atlanta frequently. Well, I just got two rolls of film back from the developers, and there are some fantastic shots of Atlanta by night in there. I have to get prints made, which will take a few days, then I'll be posting them both on my site and on PhotoSig. I tell you, digital cameras are really, really good these days, but they cannot come close to the photos you can take with ISO50 slide film in low, natural light conditions with very long exposures. Try taking a 15 minute exposure with a very small aperture, and you'll see what I mean. Hell, I can't even get my digital camera to take a picture longer than 15 seconds, let alone 15 minutes, and the noise in dark areas is very obvious, even at ISO50. Film cameras will be around for awhile, I think.

Hi Daddy!

That's what I was greeted with when I got out of the car after driving home from work today. It probably doesn't sound like much, but it is a huge step forward for little Katherine. She has never before put two words together to express herself. Even expressing herself with one word is hit or miss. Sometimes she'll say 'no' when she means yes, or 'hot' when somethings really cold. So it's a bit spotty, see? But when I stepped out of the car, she was walking up the driveway with Kara in tow, and she looked over and said, "Hi Daddy!", and there was no doubt at all about what she meant. Man, it is so amazing watching her develop.

Sun, Sand, and Suffering

It was a nice sunny weekend. The perfect weekend to build a sandbox. At least, that's what my wife told me. I had other ideas, like getting a haircut. But you know, I build the damn sandbox, I did. With the help of Bob Villa (you can find anything on the Internet, including complete plans with board dimensions and everything). Thanks to Bob, I ran off to the 'Depot, and had them cut up the appropriate lumber, piled 10 bags of play sand in the trunk, and viola! 2 hours later I had a sandbox in my backyard. Of course, it took me the entire next day to build the sandbox cover, including another trip to the 'Depot to buy T50 staples. You'd think that all staple guns would take the same staples, but no, they don't. Anyway, Katherine seems to really enjoy it. Especially the part where she throws all the sand out of the sandbox, and all the mulch in it. Or when she dumps the sand down her shirt, or when she eats it. You get the idea. Two baths in the same day later, she is finally asleep. So that's sun and sand. The suffering came this afternoon, when she took her worst fall yet. She fell off her high chair - Kara was right there, but her body twisted in a funny way, and she slipped through Kara's hands, and hit the floor, then her head went back and she bumped the back of her head and her eye on the foot of the table. She had a ridiculously huge bump on the back of her head. I mean, it was an inch and a half to two inches long, and it stuck out at least a half an inch. It was monterous. And she scratched a little circle under her left eye. Oh man, did she cry. Cry, cry, cry, she did. She just wasn't the same for the rest of the afternoon. I mean mood wise, you know? She was really sensitive, and she had a lot of melt-downs. We finally gave her some Motrin, because I was sure she had a splitting headache. That seemed to help quite a bit, although she was still sensitive. And that was the weekend, or most of it.

That's One Sick Little Girl

Katherine came down with something bad, and it really whacked her today. Her temperature was up over 103°. Infant Tylenol wasn't really cutting it, so we switched to infant Motrin, and that seemed to be able to control it better. She was also off her eating and drinking for much of the day. We spent a lot of time sitting in front of the Wiggles on TV, because she was lethargic, and clearly felt like hell. Her eyes were all red and running, and when the meds wore off she would whine and moan. It was really sad. Anyway, we finally called the doctor, because we were an hour away from the next dose of Motrin, and she was miserable. The doctor told us to go ahead and give it early, and then, that we could alternate Tylenol and Motrin. So give each every six hours but offset by three, if you follow me. Tricky. We'll see if that's necessary.

The first hint of this that I saw (although Kara picked up on it yesterday), was that she had a bad night last night, and by 5AM, she was in bed with us. She hasn't been in our bed for probably 9 months, so this was a pretty big surprise for me when I woke up - to have a squirmy, now not so little, sick girl in bed. Anyway, I hope her night tonight is better, because today was miserable. If Kara sees the Wiggles one more time I think she's going to lose it.