Sigh...

So a guy at work made a comment to me on Monday about our fantasy football league and how all "Y chromosome" people were losing so it must mean they aren't good at drafting a team (keep in mind it's an auto draft - i.e. no skill involved).  WTF.  I am so sick of dealing with the little sexist quips that seem to come up too often.  Keep in mind that I went to college for Computer Science so I was in the minority(10%) and then went to work for a computer company in R&D and was again in the minority (12%).  So I've dealt with little comments here and there for all of my adult life.  I know how lucky I am to have been born in the US and that we have it SOOO good here compared to so many other places on the planet but seriously, when is the ignorance of what is and is not sexist going to be lost in our culture.  Sigh.  I ended up asking for a meeting with this man and our HR person to explain that it was inappropriate.  I know in the scheme of things this was a small comment but at my work no one ever confronts anyone and I didn't want him thinking I thought his "jokes" were ok and even worse funny.  All he said was "I'll try to be more sensitive in the future"...no "I'm sorry".  Whatever.  Prick.  Now today I'm getting the silent treatment...totally hurts...not!  Idiot.  Once again the feminist B...

Love 3 day weekends =)

Seriously, why can't they all be three days?!?!  We didn't do much but it was such a needed three days of recovery and time together =) 

Thanks for all your warm thoughts for Paco.  We took him everywhere with us this weekend - to the park, to my parents for dinner on Sunday, and on walks around the hood.  He seems to be perking up a bit, thankfully.  I think his sister was his courage...he hasn't been willing to jump up on the couch on his own and won't go near the chair they always laid in together.  It's just so sad not to be able to explain to him what's going on. I'm not sure we're going to get another dog...I'm not against it but it will take us some time before we're ready.  If Paco doesn't snap to it might hurry us along though.

Kylie still has a bit of her cold but has recovered from the shots.  They said she may get a rash from the MMR shot about 7-10 days after so we're on the lookout for that this weekend.  Apparently 20% of kids develop the rash.  I had no idea it was that high.  The rest of her weekend was good.  She's really starting to demand (and I do mean demand) to be outside.  Monday we spent at least 6 hours outside.  She loves to play with leaves, rocks, randomly walk around, play in the sprinkler, throw sand from her sand/water table all over herself and the patio, etc.  It's so fun to watch =)  A little nervous about what happens when the bad weather comes.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.  Here are some pics from the weekend.  Hope you and yours had a fab one too!!!

Bashful look

Playing with her new keyboard - the sensors on top make noise when you run your hand by them 

Riding on her new rocking pony at Oma and Opa's - the pony is a hand-me-down from her cousins

With M - headed out to play in the rocks - it was about 55 degrees so the tigger hat came out

Playing with my wet shirt from playing in the sprinkler earlier in the day

This is a book she has us read over and over again!



Official 15 Month Stats & Recovery

Kylie had her 15 month appointment yesterday.  She is 30.5" long (51st %), 23.5 lbs (60th %) and has a head circumference of 18.1" (52nd %). So it looks like she is perfectly average and growing right on track =) She got three shots and on top of the cold (her 20th) that she got on Tuesday and the two falls she took at daycare this week (just scuffs on her forehead and nose) she's not feeling so good.  Actually she's napping right now and has been asleep for 1.5 hrs when she usually doesn't sleep at all in the morning.  We'll see what the rest of the day and weekend has in store...

Our little dog Paco is officially depressed about losing his sister and it's so sad.  Any tips on how to help a little dog recover from a loss?  M and I are hanging in there but the house is quiet and we miss our little friend. 

We're all looking forward to a long weekend to recover from a traumatic week.  On a happy note I'll end with a cute pic of the little miss.  She's walking on the treadmill...such an over achiever ;-)

Goodbye my friend

Today we put down one of our dogs =(  Her name was Chai (prounouced like the drink) and she was one of the sweetest animals I've ever known.  She was my confidant in a tough period of my life when I was insecure about where I wanted my life to go professionaly and wasn't sure if I would ever meet someone worth making a family with.  She also has lived the greatest years with me too...through meeting M, marrying, struggling to have Kylie and now having Kylie.  She was always keeping an eye on us and was eager to join in on whatever fun we were up for having.   She was so interested in Kylie and I regret that they won't be fast friends exploring the yard together.  She also leaves behind her little Chihuahua brother, Paco, and while he's the spoiled youngest dog of the family he will miss his daily face lickings that she provided.  She came into my life around Christmas time in 2002 and congestive heart failure took her away much too early at eight years old despite our best efforts at medicating her condition.  I hope she has reunited with her dear buddy Duncan, my boarder collie and her big brother, that we lost in 2005.  Here is a little slide show of her life that M put together. 

Here she was this morning...



She will be dearly missed...goodbye my sweet Chai *tears*

15 months!

Stats:

According to our very scientific wall measurement it looks like Kylie has reached the 30" mark (37th %) and is about 23.25lb (57th %). Her official 15 month appointment is Friday so these will probably be a little off.

Food:

She's still nursing 3 times a day (7am, noon 5:30pm) and getting one bottle of pumped milk at 7:45pm. We've started putting some cow milk in her bottle and so far so good with the introduction of milk. As you can probably tell by her weight she is a very good eater =) She loves meats and carbs the most...just like her mama.

Favorite Toys:

Right now she's all about playing outside. She loves the sand and water table we got her and she loves when we blow bubbles for her. Mostly she loves when the reach the ground and don't pop and she can come along and poke them.

Skills:

This month she went from cruising to walking. She now walks most of the time. So crazy how fast she went from not being confident enough to walk on her own to walking most of the time.   She is also getting more words every day. I'd say she has about 30 words at this point. Really only M and I understand them but I think that's probably pretty normal.  Her favorite new words are "bubbles" and "purple" so it looks like she's working on more two syllable words.

Sleep:

She's sleeping from 8:30pm to 7am at night and 1-3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. For the most part she is a champion sleeper and we only see interruptions when teething or sick.

Pictures:

Videos

We finally got Kylie walking on camera =) The audio is kind of quiet on this (and the 3rd video) since they were taken with M's phone. The 2nd one was taken with our camera and has much more sound...just a warning.

She's practicing a lot at home walking from mommy to daddy and back again. She walks so much in the evenings and on weekends and is up to 10-12 steps at a time. At daycare she's still more cautious and is only taking a step or two at a time and mostly crawls places.

The dog in the picture is our Chihuahua that's suffering from congestive heart failure ...she's hanging in but is starting to refuse to eat about 1/2 the time =(

Here's another video of her working on her fine motor skills. It's a little long so you may only want to watch the first 15-30 seconds. There's nothing new that happens after that.

She's known for many months how to get the blocks off but this was the first day she learned how to put them back on.

And last but not least Kylie putting her toys away in the bath. She loves the bath and started this on her own. We find it amazingly adorable!!!

Vacation?

We are now back and mostly recovered from our Portland trip.  It was wonderful to see my cousin, his wife and their two kids.  We did some really fun things, but my-oh-my is traveling with a toddler a whole different experience, and honestly I'm not sure can be classified as vacation =)  It didn't help that my cousins kids are on a much later schedule that we are at home and the time difference exaggerated that.  

The flight out was a nightmare.  Kylie's ear infection created ~45 minutes of screaming both on departure and arrival.  Most of the people around us were understanding but one major a-hole announced "a little home eq lesson for you parents...teach your kids to be quiet!" at the end of the flight.  Nice.  The rest of that day was touch and go since she didn't have more than 30 minutes of sleep on the plane and didn't nap at all after that.

Luckily she slept 12 hours that night and we were off and running the next day.  We went to the Zoo and the park and she loved both.  The following day we played around the house in the morning and went to another park in the afternoon where Kylie played in the sand with her cousins.  So cute.  The last full day we were there was my cousin's son's 4th b-day at Chuck-E-Cheese.  Kylie had a full on fascination with the mouse and actually wanted the mouse to hold her (he didn't).  It was pretty funny.  

In the evenings after all the kids were down we spent adult time in the pub my cousin has built in his house.  It comes complete with a shuffle board table, dart board and local micro brew on tap...nice!  All in all a great trip.  We are happy to be home and on our schedule again though.  

Here are a few pictures, this is Kylie with her cousins Jack (4) and Laney (7).

Playing in the sand

 View of Portland from Washington Park