A Day In The Park

So, Alayna is getting bigger than ever. A whopping 11 pounds 2 ounces in her 3rd month of life. She is doing great at school, rolling over on her own now, and eating cereal. Not to mention laughing; although the giggles are few and far between. She likes to make us work hard for those.

Florida is finally cooling off now that we're into fall, so we decided to spend a day at the park over the weekend.

She loves the fresh air, as we all do. That same day we attempted her 3 month pictures only to have it turn into disaster. She decided to not be the happy baby we all know and love, but instead to cry the whole time and be uncooperative with the poses. We ended up getting some pictures anyway, which in a few weeks we'll be sending out to everyone.

No need for you guys to cough up your own money this time around. Then hopefully around the same time we'll be getting school pictures in. If those don't cost an arm and a leg (hopefully not since I get half off), then we'll be getting you some of those as well.

Which, if my coworkers are telling the truth, turned out really cute.

We also just had her follow-up appointment with the cardiologist. And, unfortunately she still has her heart murmur. Still small and no worries, but we'll be checking up with him again when she's around 1 year old. For those of you who didn't know about this, don't worry. It's very common and people who have them live perfectly normal lives. However, we are still crossing our fingers that it will close up on its soon within time.

Besides all of that, her new new obsession is sucking her middle two fingers.

Take care,

Kristina

Sniffles McGee and the Case of the In-Network Plus Plan, Pt. II

meanwhile, back at headquarters...

i cannot stand handling the paperwork that deals with all this insurance and/or finance crap. i don't have a head for any of this at all, and was really hoping to only have to deal with this said gut-wrenching once every few years. however, as i've said before, the state of florida hates its teachers (don't ask me why), and, also like i've said before, the budget for education was slashed to smithereens (this is somehow not as puzzling).

... and so, too, went my old health insurance. which was awesome.

now, dear readers, kris and i each are on our own insurance policies through our own places of employment. with the economy falling ever souther into the dumps, we had to suspend our nightly $100 burning and tighten our belts up a few dozen notches. the cannonball - if all goes according to plan - is going to be covered under something called kidcare, which i had never heard of before and haven't the slightest idea of what it all entails (kris handles this sort of thing for the most part, as i'm nearly useless when it comes to figuring all this crap out).

usually, i'm a pretty optimistic person. despite what these postings and others may have otherwise led you to believe, its true. but with regards to this sudden health insurance fiasco, and the economic fallout of the state's education budget, i'm starting to grow concerned. i mean, i have no intention about bringing up politics in this blog (as nearly half of the people reading this crap most likely vote for the 'other' party), but i think the nation's economy being in the shitter, by this point in time, is a bipartisan truth that both sides of the aisle can agree upon.

it definitely doesn't take a genius to realize florida's hurting in a bad way. but before, when florida was walking around with a black eye and a fat lip, it was more annoying that frightening.

now, with a leg missing, an eye ripped out of its socket, and its innards spilling out of its open belly, florida is no longer annoying. its flat-out disgusting.

Sniffles McGee and the Case of the In-Network Plus Plan, Pt. 1

i feel like crap, readers.

in fact, you know the way your crap smells when you're sick? that acidic-sulfur smell? as if it were somehow possible for your bowel movements themselves to vomit? you know what i'm talking about?

that kinda crap. that's how i feel right now.

i'm officially using my first day of sick leave tomorrow. coincidentally, this also happens to be 9/11... so i'm sure the sub holding down my room will have a blast with my students. anyway, i wouldn't have gone to work today, except that i had an ESOL overview workshop that i had to attend. that's right, kiddies - i get to take that class all over again.

remember that, folks? when i went to one way back in june, only to leave 40 minutes later when kris decided to up and have a baby on me? i could've hacked the class out in two, four-day weeks of super-compressed 6 hours days. instead, i get to prolong the misery by spreading out 60 hours of ESOL training over God knows how long... 3 hour classes each wednesday after school. i'm not a whiz with math or anything, but i think that adds up to something like 20 months.

not happy about this at all.

anyway, so i had to go to that today 'cause if i didn't then i wouldn't be able to take any additional days absent from the workshop without forfeiting my spot. and doing so, consequently, would cost me my job.

let's hope kris doesn't plan on popping out any more babies in the next three or four months.

(...if she does, i'm going to be really, really concerned.)

The Trouble with Pterodactyls

hi folks.

early this morning, when i went outside on my veranda to water my cacti, i discovered a horrible, horrible atrocity: a pterodactyl - or pterosaur (i easily confuse the two) - had shat on the top of my car. that's right: a pterodactyl shat on my car. this isn't the usual exaggeration from yours truly, either, folks. i do tend to stretch things a bit - i'll concede that much -but this pterodacytl business is nothing of the sort.

this is what i think happened:

a beast with at least a twenty four foot wing span flew over our parking lot, at some point in time over the course of the previous night, and shat on the top of my car. it saw that my humble, little clown-car of a ford focus had been recently washed and waxed, and, as we all well know, dinosaurs are instinctively drawn to prestine, shiny things. now, when i say "shat on the top of my car," i mean emptied about four or five gallons of white and brown bird down upon my vehicle. i'm not 100% sure why this paleolithic creature chose my car, of all cars, to defecate on: my assumption was that it was either a die-hard chevy dinosaur, or else a huge supporter of john mccain and the grand ole party.

...that, or else it really hated babies. which, as we all know, is absolutely ridiculous.