Our little monkey June 13, 2007 ~ 1:01 pm
Posted by Julie in : Urban Family , comments closed
Samang Redirile, 4 days old. Samang is Thabiso’s father’s name and means “to comfort” in Setswana, and Redirile means “we did it together.” (This picture makes her look huge, but she was 7 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 1/2″ at birth.)
And no, I don’t have the camera back, but Jordana sent out an email today with pictures in it. I’ll take what I can get. 
Baby tree frog June 12, 2007 ~ 9:44 am
Posted by Julie in : Urban Family , comments closedUntil the past two days, my experience with newborn babies has been practically nil. I have plenty of hands-on experience with older babies, say three months and above, but newborns? Not so much. But since Samang was a home birth, we’ve all been gathering at Jordana and Thabiso’s place all weekend. Rick and I spent about an hour there on Sunday fighting over who got to hold her, and then I went back yesterday and ended up staying all evening. (Rick, as one would guess because he’s had two kids, is very good with newborns. Me, not so much.)
I have already promised Samang that I will be “Cool Aunt Julie” and take her out for her first tattoo, body piercing, and alcoholic beverage once she reaches legal age, if she so desires. In return she has slept on me, cuddled up to me, and one one occasion, pooped on me. Fortunately that stayed in her diaper.
What I have learned about newborns in general, and our Little Sass in particular, is that they aren’t as fragile as people would have you believe. Their little necks will not snap like flower stems if you don’t support them for one second, they just don’t have a tremendous amount of muscle control. However, they’ve got enough muscle control that just when you think the child is curled up and doing fine, they will roll their head quickly and almost conk it off the dining room table. She did that to me countless times yesterday, the little game-player.
Samang also doesn’t like getting cleaned up by anyone other than her father. If Jordana or grandma or I try to change her diaper and clean her up, she screams and squawks and makes sounds like a cat being scalded alive (she made the neighborhood dogs start barking with her noises on Sunday). But if Thabs does it, not a sound. I got a wonderful picture last night of her just looking up at him like he was a god. They already have the Daddy’s little girl thing going. We knew Thabs was the cat whisperer because all little animals love him, but now it seems that he is the baby whisperer as well.
There are many many many pictures that have been taken, but for now the camera is staying at their house so I can’t post any. Soon. And now I’m back to work.
Welcome to the world June 11, 2007 ~ 8:56 am
Posted by Julie in : Urban Family , comments closedOn the way up to Woodstock Friday, I got a phone call from Jordana’s cell. I thought it was her calling to tell me she’d gone into labor, since that was what she told me she was going to do. Instead, it was Thabiso. “Is this Julie?” he asked. I said yes. He said “Hey, you are an aunt!”
My goddaughter Samang Redirile was born at 2:50 PM Friday, June 8, after four hours of labor. Obviously Jordana has some good genes as far as the labor is concerned. Rick and I went to see her yesterday after we got home from Woodstock, and she is perfect. Pictures as soon as I get my camera back from the proud parents, who are borrowing it this first week.
I’ve got today off from work, too, so guess who I’ll be visiting this afternoon?
Evil plan #1,672,358 June 7, 2007 ~ 9:57 am
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey , comments closedWe’re having SomeCollege Day here today, which means I will spend the afternoon over on the athletic field eating hot dogs and hamburgers and listening to a DJ and participating in a raffle, among other things. It’s like a company picnic for the college, and the college president has decreed that all offices can be closed from 12-3. Suits me fine, because hey! I’ve got tomorrow and Monday off! And the Friday and Monday after that! And the Friday after that! And then Fridays off the rest of the summer! Life is good!
I don’t know if I told you guys about my evil plan for this summer. The college where I work goes to four-day work weeks during the summer (a lot of New York City businesses do this, I’m not sure why, but I enjoy the hell out of it). I generally take a week’s vacation in early June, before the four-day work week kicks in (the week of June 29th this year). But I always come back disgruntled - I don’t want to be back in the office after a week off. I want to stay home. And when I see the pile of crap that inevitably awaits my return…well, that doesn’t improve my mood either.
So this year, I decided “Hmmm. Five days off would be my normal week off. But what if, instead of taking a week, I took three long weekends before the four day work week starts? Then I could have long weekends all summer!” Genius. So that’s what I’m doing. This weekend I’m going to Woodstock with Rick and the girls, next weekend I don’t know what I’m doing, and the weekend after that I’m flying home for my mom’s birthday and to see my uncle. This is going to be awesome.
Now I just need to do some work before long weekend number one starts.
Helium head June 6, 2007 ~ 10:56 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Academic Office Monkey , comments closedI’m on Mucinex and Cefr…Cefr..oh, I don’t know what the hell it is, just that it’s an antibiotic, it’s blue, it tastes like crap, and it’s the size of my apartment. The combination seems to be routing my sinus infection, though, which is great. I was really tired of the smell of mildew in my nose. And the collection of boogers that I’ve acquired in my left nostril. And blowing chunks of crap out my nose every morning. All of that has ceased, mostly. I’m definitely on the mend.
Except that this little drug combo I’ve got going on has left me feeling like my head is packed full of cotton. I don’t mind it, really. It’s made my work days much more relaxed as frankly I don’t give a crap what my co-workers are up to. I can even tune out their squabbling with little effort. And time seems to stretch out like you wouldn’t believe. Last evening was the longest evening ever - I made dinner, watched an episode of Hex, two episodes of Little People, Big World, talked to my mom, Rick, and Jordana on the phone, played around on the computer, and had a glass of wine, and was still in bed by 11:30. I have either been mismanaging my time my entire life (quite possible) or I entered a time warp last night. Either way, it was awesome.
I know, some people hate the floaty feeling brought on by colds and sinus infections. I kinda like them. It’s like being high, but in a legal and legit sense. While I could get fired for coming to my job stoned by any other substance, hey, prescription drugs are just fine! Woohoo! Bring on the audits!
Uh, yeah. I’ll go now.
You are jealous. June 5, 2007 ~ 10:10 am
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness , comments closedAt least you are if you’re a fiberista. I got my invite to Ravelry yesterday. And have spent way too much time since then logging my stash, putting projects in my queue, and checking out who is knitting what. If you haven’t signed up to be on the waiting list yet, what the hell are you doing? Sign up! Sign up NOW! (For reference, I signed up a decent amount of time ago, when I first heard about it on Lime and Violet and Cast On. They only just now added me. They are adding slowly but surely, so just be patient - you’ll get in. It’s just like GMail in the early days.)
Floaty float float June 4, 2007 ~ 11:43 am
Posted by Julie in : Urban Family , comments closedI’ve been working on a sinus infection for a while now, not wanting to take antibiotics until I was sure it was in fact a sinus infection and not just the allergy season from hell. I did a little internet research last night and discovered that hey! Sinus infections can start out as the allergy season from hell! Who knew? So yesterday when I definitely had that sinus infection smell in my nose and it wasn’t going away, I started the antibiotics. And I don’t know whether it was letting the sinus infection percolate for a long time or if it’s the drugs, but today I am just floating along. I feel like Jack Sparrow in Davy Jones’s locker, people, and if you’ve seen At World’s End you know exactly what I’m talking about and if you haven’t…go see it, I’m not going to ruin it for you.
But hey, floating and “Why is the rum gone” aside, I owed you a tale of my Memorial Day vacation, didn’t I? Two months ago, I got an email from the mother of my best friend from high school, Colleen. Leenie’s 30th birthday was coming up and her mom wanted to give her a huge surprise. Could I take the Friday before Memorial Day weekend off from work? Yes, I could. Great, then she would fly me home the Thursday night before Memorial Day, and I would just “happen” to bump into Leenie in the baggage claim at the airport, our flights arriving within minutes of each other. And then we would have a fun and exciting vacation weekend, only I wasn’t to know any more of the details so it could be a surprise for me, too. (more…)
