My blog n'at

It’s gonna be a boy! Asked Teaspoon if he was ready for a little brother, he said “NO!” and walked away.

I never gave much thought about weekends until we bought the house. As a renter we never had a “to do” list since the landlords would always take care of repairs (I actually laughed while typing that) and we would never make an investment into the outside appearance since we knew our stay would be brief. In fact I never really looked forward to the weekends.

That has changed. I know that I can’t get everything done in one weekend and as my brother said “pace yourself or you’ll go nuts.” Every night we seem to have something new to do but I expect that to be normal since we need to get settled. The basement needs a lot of work still since Capt. Obvious left half of his crap down there when he moved out and that will be the big project this week. After that comes sorting everything that we did put down there and finally getting the workbench in some kind of order.

We’ve already started yard work and I can now understand “working for the weekend”. I’ve always had myself on-call 24×7 and would do career related work all of the time. Now I’m finding that balance where once my workday ends, it ends. I don’t come home and log in to keep on going. Some of you might be thinking “well no kidding, dumbass” but honestly I never shut down before. I never knew how to relax.

When I get home at night I have time for dinner, play with the kid for a little bit and then spend 2-3 hours on homework for school. Mix in all of Should I Drink That/craft beer duties and that makes for one full schedule. I already say no to a lot of functions and I may need to start doing that even more.

I’m making it a point to have my Saturdays for work around the house and Sundays to kick back and spend time with my family. Teaspoon and daddy really like sharing nap time and I need to make sure this place is ready for a special arrival in January.

We’ll see how long this works. I absolutely love my job and with the fall coming I know there will be a lot of extra hours to put in so I need to sit down and figure out a schedule.

If you need me shoot me a DM on Twitter

@FunkyDung posted this on Twitter and I haven’t stopped struttin since.

(if you  cant see the video click Teaspoon marks his territory)

Watch out where the Teaspoon goes, don’t you eat that yellow snow…

Saturday while in 85F heat we thought “Hey, this would be a great day to take Teaspoon to the Arts Festival!” OK I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds for him, he was under shade with a constant breeze and sunscreen while I was the dumbass walking around in shorts, sneakers, wait for it… and 2 shirts. Whenever I wear a polo I always have a t-shirt on underneath it. As luck, and my wardrobe would have it a black tshirt. Fluffy guys don’t like the heat so no matter what I’m screwed for the next 3 months.

The Arts Festival is very cool event to check out if you’re in Pittsburgh the first 2 weeks of June each year but make sure you pack an umbrella because it ALWAYS rains at some point. (Not simple shower rain but monsoon downpour and on this day though, it was just freaking hot). You can walk around Point State Park and the area surrounding Gateway Center to find incredible pieces of work from artists all over the country. That maybe why you go. Me, I’m there for one thing, festival food!

We gave Teaspoon his first taste of a staple in Pittsburgh cuisine with a small piece of Funnel Cake. He did 3 chews, looked confused and promptly spit it out to go back to his crackers. Don’t worry bud, I’m not a big fan either. Lushie settled on her go-to of fresh lemonade and I hit the sausage tent with fresh peppers. I don’t know why but that is my go-to when I see things like seafood being served by a guy that hasn’t washed in a couple days. I just can’t justify eating seafood that’s been sitting out all day in the heat and then gets cooked in front of you. I’d have an alien coming out of me.

The festival season for me has started and we’ll make our way to a few key parish festivals so I can humiliate old people with my crazy bingo skills. I grew up on church festivals and work a couple carnivals (Harborfest woooo)  so I appreciate any events like the arts fest or any outdoor event.

I enjoy walking around with my wife and son to public fairs which is odd because even 5 years ago i scoffed at the idea.

Maybe I’m at that point in my life now where I find joy in simple family outings like this.

Maybe I just really want to find the ultimate festival food

Maybe I’m becoming my dad…

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small and often very sick. I’m walking for my son, Teaspoon, who was born 8 weeks early. He did not have an easy start in life but thanks to all the great nurses and physicians in the NICU he is happy and healthy today. Not all families are as lucky as us, some children have life long health problems and some never make it home. The March of Dimes wants to change that, they want all preemies to be like Teaspoon, healthy and happy.

Please support my walk. Support the March of Dimes. Support babies like Teaspoon who just want a chance to make a difference in this world. Making a secure donation is easy: just click the ‘donate now’ button on this page. Thank you for helping me give all babies a healthy start!

The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

You can donate and/or sign up to walk on the website below.

http://www.marchforbabies.org/personal_page.asp?pp=3100581&ct=4&w=4405758&u=dderda&bt=11

Here is the info on the event:
Date: May 23, 2010
Address: 115 Federal Street, Pittsburgh, PA  15212
Walk Distance: 3 miles
Registration Time: 8:00 AM
Start Time: 9:00 AM

For those of you already walking with other groups let us know and maybe we can meetup!

I hope to see you there while having a good time walking for a great cause!

Thanks!
Spoon, Lushie & Teaspoon

If you have any questions please let us know!

It has been close to 8 months since our last visit to Childrens Hospital ER so I think Teaspoon was missing it.

Last night around 5pm Teaspoon started crying. Not a “hey I wanna eat” or temper tantrum but pretty close to a regular teething breakdown. (Have I mentioned he has like 10-12 teeth already? he’s a NOM NOM machine!) This went on for awhile so we gave him Tylenol. That didn’t work so we tried Ora-gel.  No luck. We called our Ped’s office and the nurse said that crying for teething can last up to 4 hours (think about that next time you wanna get your groove on single people!). It was pushing 9 so along with being tired he was still cranky. The nurse could hear him and said that sounds more like something else was wrong. She then said the words we didn’t want to hear… “Send him to Children’s. I’m calling the ER to tell them you’re coming now!”

We get everything loaded up and not 2 minutes into the trip he stopped crying. Do we turn around? Do we just drive around? We continue on what would be an hour drive. Not only does night time construction suck but when Lawrenceville is single lane all hell breaks loose. The drive from Cranberry was not a pleasant one.

We get to the ER and it’s about 1/2 full. We get irritated when we find out most of the people are there because they use the ER as a personal doctor’s office and not for emergencies. We get checked in and wait…

An hour later we’re taken back and Teaspoon’s blood pressure is taken. Male nurse says that it should be any minute and to wait in the waiting room again.

Another hour later we’re brought back to a room and told “a nurse will be right over to see why he’s crying”

60 minutes pass and in that time we don’t see one nurse, tech or in fact anyone besides cleaning people. Lushie went to the nurses’ station and there is a guy in the window hard at work shopping for things online. “Oh yeah I’ll send someone over”. 30 more minutes without even a cleaning person and we’re past the point of pissed. Teaspoon has been sleeping and seems to be fine now so we debate leaving. That’s when the nurse shows up and says “well his belly isn’t hard and he’s just sleeping so why don’t we get an x-ray and get you moving.

An hour later (it’s now 3:30am) the doc shows up, gets Teaspoon confused with 2 other kids and then says “He’s a little  his constipated and that’s pushing on his belly. Go home and if hurts him again bring him back.” That’s it. “Go home and come back.”

Now to be fair I understand that someone called off and there were some kids that really needed attention. I’m perfectly cool with that and appreciate these kids can get care but to put us in a closed room for 90 minutes with NO communication was bullshit. The fact that we couldn’t find anyone to talk to besides a cleaning person and the one medical person there was busy shopping online was pushing all levels of irritation and finally the doc seeming stunned that Teaspoon was irritable at 3:30am and constantly confusing us for other patients, well yeah we were steamed and ready to leave. The staff we did interact with was very nice and knowledgeable; the process though was severely broken last night.

Final arrival time home: 4:30am. Seven hours after everything started

Overheard in the waiting room “I can only imagine what the wait will be like when everyone has health care.”

I hope we don’t have to find out for a long time!

I’ll get more this weekend in the daylight but for his first full time of moving around I couldn’t pass it up.

If you can’t see the video go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfvDwVh2JnM

There you have teaspoon from 2009 and today. hard to believe a year ago he was still in the NICU and all wired up and coming in around 4.5 pounds and now he’s a 22lb teething slobbering bundle of baby awesome.

Next year, he finds out what a parade is… heaven help us.

We’ll call this one a draw…