Garden of Words

Singing to Thea Cracks Her Up

Fortunately for me, Thea apparently loves it when I sing nonsense jingles to her. Fortunately, because it's a bit of a compulsive habit for me around the house.

Video: Rilo Turns to the Cats for Love

As I continue to muddle my way through iMovie, the cats, dog and baby continue to be my unwitting victims. In this almost two minute short, Rilo turns to one of the cats for love and affection. (Safe for work.)

The Baby Factory: Snookered

Who has snookered whom, you might ask. Boy, I look tired!

The Baby Factory: The Return of the Camera!

We were without a camera for about a week, which was fine since that gave me too much time to fiddle with our new Flip video camera -- and our family was descending into a chasm of low-grade sickness that made photography a low priority.

The weekend started with more sickness. Everyone had kicked the chest congestion by mid-week -- thanks to a cool mist humidifier that seemed to really help Thea's nighttime wheezing -- but Nikole had a bit of a stomach bug at the end of the week. I came home Friday at lunch to try to give her a break.

The break started with a mango smoothie from Panera Bread to settle Nikole's stomach. It continued with me strapping Thea into the Baby Bjorn and taking her for an hour walk through Bellevue so that Nikole could take a nap. The rest of the evening was uneventful -- a family trip to Blockbuster video and Ellwood-Thompson, putting Thea down, having dinner and watching "Rendition."

Since Nikole slept terribly -- mostly due to an overly alert and bright-eyed nocturnal infant -- I took Thea to the South of the James market with me early Saturday morning. Strapped in all of her perky cuteness to my chest, she scored on the produce front with a bag of corn, butterbeans, green beans, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers and a massive bouquet of basil. She also generated conversations with total strangers taken by her too hip for school Jennifer Beale leg warmers -- plus we saw our good friends the Hands and the Mangums.

The rest of Saturday was mainly errands -- the library, the grocery store, cutting the grass and inflaming my allergies.

Nikole's brother, sister and little nephew -- 7 weeks Thea's senior -- dropped by as they traveled from DC to Charlotte. Baker has really grown into himself; he seems to have stopped changing and just settled into who he plans to be. Of course, the first thing he did was grab his cousin's thighs -- okay in North Carolina, but we have laws about cousins in Virginia. I think. Then he went for the throat. Pretty soon, they just resorted to hanging out making faces at one another.

This morning, Nikole and Thea took a two hour nap (another bumpy night for mom). That gave me tons of time to read, read and read. And watch bad political news shows.

Our afternoon outing consisted of an ART 180 Change for a Ten party at my mom's house. Nikole is on the board of ART 180. The crowd of about a dozen women were churning out some awesome art, and snacking away at the chips, crudites and dip. After about 30 minutes around art, Thea started to lose her cool so we headed home for naptime.

Apparently, that's what you do when you're four months old. Nap.

When she woke, I gave Rilo a bath and the four of us took a walk. Thea was grumpy.

This evening, I slipped out to see Governor Tim Kaine get introduced as "Governor Tom McCain." Honest. The introducer even apologized. She'll never live that down.

Kaine was speaking at an Obama rally at Henrico High School to more than 200 enthusiastic supporters of the Democratic nominee. He's definitely improved as a public speaker, that Tim Kaine. He might even pass muster as a Vice Presidential nominee.

The Baby Factory: Cutenessistastic

Nikole has put some adorable photos of Thea up on the Internet as a way to help erase her memories of two intensely difficult days of dealing with a cute, uncooperative baby.

The Baby Factory: Loving Some Mom

The weekend has been notoriously uneventful, except for the three hour block last night when Nikole and I were both unable to sleep -- initially, because Thea's chest congestion sounded so dreadful, and then, once we moved her sleeping, rasping, well-wrapped body onto my chest for sleep, because we could barely hear her breath. The curse of the overly concerned parents.

I don't even remember when Thea slept this weekend, even though Nikole has a gorgeous and meticulous chart penciled in blue, green and purple that spells it all out -- when she slept, when she was awake and when she was ferociously asserting her independence by refusing to go to sleep.

Nikole bears the brunt of it these days. Thea's face usually lights up when she sees me. She gets a goofy little grin on her face that you couldn't wipe off with a five-pound bag of sugar. But put her in my arms to rock her to sleep? Pfah. She squirms and screams and turns beet red. Which means that most of our sleep cycles revolve around Nikole, who has the patience of Job and some phenerome that lulls babies to sleep.

And so I spend all of that spare time doing what I do best -- cooking, cleaning the kitchen, cutting up fruit or making salads so Nikole has food during her breaks or while I'm at work.

Friday night was a rough one. Nikole was up well before dawn with Thea, and I woke at 7:00. I put Thea in the Baby Bjorn, put Rilo on a leash and headed out for an early morning stroll through Bellevue. Nikole headed straight back to bed. Thea was asleep when we returned home after an hour, and I was soaked with early morning sweat; I wore her in the house for another 20 minutes before she woke ready to eat.

Nikole went back to bed with Thea from 9:00 until around 11:00 so I cleaned, ran to the Lakeside Farmer's Market and tried to figure out iMovie. I also made a fritata with potatoes, spinach, onion, red pepper and chicken sausage.

The market -- small and uninspiring as it is what with the concrete and chain link fencing -- produced some exceptional fruits and vegetables. I came home with corn, green beans, blueberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, red potatoes, the best cantaloupe ever and a red pepper.

When the girls woke, I ran by Barnes and Noble, Target, the library and Ukrop's.

Mid-day we zipped over to the ART 180/Johnny Z/Bizarre Market event in the Fan. We chatted briefly with Ward from Chop Suey, Erica from Bee's Knees Studio and Amie from ART 180.

Thea also got to experience the joys of the nebulizer as it shot steam into her lungs. Several times.

Nikole and I took a stroll with Thea and Rilo in the early evening. Too hot. We bought beer and wine at Once Upon A Vine, and ran into Joe from the city's planning department -- he had a six pack, his young daughter clutched a small container of Ben & Jerry's.

This morning, another walk with Thea and Rilo. She was fussy. It was hot.

We went to Circuit City to buy a battery charger for the camera. The 16-year-old sales associate was all like, "Cameras have batteries?" Stopped by my mom's for a few moments for grandmother/granddaughter love.

Made lunch. Cut up a melon. Made macaroni salad with celery, onions and red peppers. Posted videos.

We wrapped up the day with sorbet at Deluca Gelato.

Thea is asleep. We're crossing our fingers.

Thea Meets the Nebulizer (A Star Wars Joint)

Thea's been spending the weekend under the influence of the dreaded nebulizer. She's been surprisingly placid as she inhales doped-up steam. As if she's worn a mask and respirator in some previous life in a galaxy far, far away...

Rilo and Her Carrot Meet Sparklehorse

The perfect combination of a tired dog, her carrot and the music of Sparklehorse.

The Baby Factory: Thea Is A Singular Girl

Thea got her first moments of live action, video glory this week -- courtesy of our new Flip video camera. I spent some time poking around iMovie and threw together three minutes of cute baby magic accompanied by The Old 97's ditty "Singular Girl."

In other news, there are some breaking developments in the Sarvay household as we enter Night 3 of magic. Thea has actually slept for 12 hours the past two nights, and has been asleep tonight for about two hours. We're praying for a three-peat.

But she's also sick. Whatever I had last week and passed to Nikole has migrated to Thea. She's pretty congested, and we took her to the doctor this afternoon. The awesome Dr. Smith did some blood work (white cells good, antibody levels good) which made Thea extremely fussy and unhappy. But it was nothing compared to having a plastic mask held over your face as you inhale a steam bath of water vapors and albuterol. It looks like we'll be doing a repeat performance with the evil nebulizer (mask and steam) several times this weekend.

The good news is that I made Nikole sick first, so she's actually passing antibodies to Thea through her milk. More good news -- a weigh gain of 15 ounces in 11 days. She's now 13 pounds, 5 ounces.

The Baby Factory: Exit Sandman

Last week, I was suffering from a severe sinus/chest contagion with fever. Today, Nikole is in a similar boat. Our status as walking dead has been compounded by three facts:

• Thea's sleep schedule is erratic;
• we're working diligently to make it less eratic; and
• Nikole is the only one who actually seems capable of lulling Thea back to sleep.

We knew that moving Thea's sleep schedule up several hours was a necessity, and we knew it would be difficult. First, it represents a big shift in her schedule -- but one that would give her some much-needed sleep (11 hours a night versus 8-9 hour) and get her on a more normalized schedule. Unfortunately, it also requires a big change in her sleeping habit -- from falling asleep on my chest to falling asleep in her Pack 'n' Play (which seems to work for her better than her crib).

We just didn't realize how difficult it would be. And we're just one week into the change.

As fate would have it, everything started pretty well. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights were chockful of good baby sleep. And since I had to wake up at 4:00 Tuesday morning and drive four hours to facilitate a group for 8 hours, we should have known the game would change on Monday.

It did.

Long story short, I probably got four hours of sleep before I had to hit the road. Nikole probably got three.

Needless to say, all three of us were exhausted when I got home at 5:00 Tuesday evening.

Thea was already drowsy, so we fed her and Nikole rocked her to sleep while I ran to Ukrop's. While I was gone -- and just as Thea had entered some good, deep baby sleep -- the UPS driver stared past the bright yellow sign (reading "Don't ring the bell! Sleeping baby.") and rang the bell. Rilo went nuts. Thea woke screaming. I came home to the beginnings of a meltdown.

By 9:00, we managed to get Thea back to sleep on my chest. It was decided that Thea and I would go to bed, and we did. For 15 minutes. And then we had another hour of relentless wailing.

At 10:00, we eased her into the Baby Bjorn and took her for a walk. Wide-eyed and a bit stunned, she settled down and stared deeply into the passing street lights. She did not fall asleep.

At 10:30 or so, we all crawled into bed. Nikole sat up and rocked Thea to sleep. I collapsed. Rilo chewed her own leg.

It's 7:25 on Wednesday evening, and Nikole is getting ready to put a sleeping Thea into her Pack 'n' Play while I fix our dinner.

Holy crap -- it's 7:35 and our dog just lost her mind because a neighbor quietly slipped a thank you note and some mail between our door. Dog with lost mind = Suddenly awake and unhappy baby.

"Ash Wednesday" by T.S. Eliot echoes in my head as a poem that I should repeat again and again until we transition to some new place:

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss

[Update: It's 4:38 on Thursday morning and she's been asleep since 7:45 in the Pack 'n' Play, waking once to nurse. She's setting us up for something...]