I have been working in the evenings to be sure to meet a deadline coming up in a couple of weeks. I felt like I was deep in the weeds until about Thursday of this week because the world of programming electronic components is new to me. This business of requiring a schematic and a multimeter to complete a project is a side of programming that I hadn’t seen before. On top of this, I haven’t programmed C++ since college, and certainly not on a project where the interesting part is over four million lines of code.

In any case, I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the long hours took their toll and I kicked over last night at about 8pm, only to wake up at 11pm. After brushing my teeth and changing out of my work clothes, I tried to go back to sleep, but was plagued by a good programming idea. Despite my best efforts to write the idea down and go back to bed, my brain kept working through it and I couldn’t go to sleep. I ended up working through the night until Anna woke up at 7am and am now feeling like a small elephant is standing on my forehead. At this point I’m just hoping to make it to 9pm in hopes that I don’t wake up early again.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that my work is compelling, at least for the moment.

Jennifer came back home on Thursday night, and was surprisingly less jetlagged that I would have expected. Still, there was some recovering to do yesterday and today by both of us. We both took a nap today while the kids were down, and I still can’t figure out if I slept for half an hour or an hour and a half. Jennifer is still asleep, an hour after I got up with Anna. We both slept almost nine hours last night. You’d think I’d be rested by now, but I swear I could go right back to sleep.

Tara’s cold, which she acquired shortly after conception, has waxed and waned over the last month or so. I believe we have made three separate doctor visits on just this one cold, and went through two rounds of antibiotics. I’m pretty sure this last the one they gave us was the same stuff that was being sold on eBay during the anthrax scare. In any case, it seems to have had good effect; Tara unexpectedly slept through the night–something like twelve hours. When both our kids sleep through the night, even though it’s a good thing, it’s still shocking–like a stranger suddenly running up to you on the street and handing you a danish. Nice, but unexpected.

Work is looking up for some reason or another. As much as I enjoy writing, the fact that I am writing a “white paper” is making me think that in some small way, the terrorists have won. Still, it’s refreshing for a change, especially if I get back to writing code soon.

I’ve been finishing up some of the baby portraits from last week, and I’m really happy with them. Another hour or so of retouching any they’ll be ready to go, then I can get started on my own kid.

There was a period of a few months where both of the kids were sleeping well, not much was going on at work, and we were getting a fair amount of sleep. Of course, good sleep makes for boring blogging, and we have thus returned to our roots–not sleeping.

Tara is now on her zillionth ear infection and has been sleeping badly for weeks. Anna is doing no better, having night terrors on a regular basis. I’ve pulled a few near all-nighters in the last couple weeks, between the kids and my job and my other job. I woke up at 4:50am this morning so that I could fly to Portland, spend the day in meetings, and fly home. Lately, I could fall asleep at any given time of day, if I had the chance, and considering the staggering, ever-growing to-do list in front of me, I won’t have the chance any time soon.

On the upside, I plan to order another monolight for my photography. Jennifer says that I seem excited about my day job for the first time in a long while, although there’s a fair amount of trepidation mixed in. I shot a set of photos for our friend M.’s new baby, and they look awesome; M. has a great creative talent, and had some great ideas for photos, and I think I did a good job of helping to realize them. Though I’ve done the shooting, there’s still a fair amount of postprocessing that still needs to happen, and I have to restrain myself from doing it now because there is so much other stuff that I need to be doing in the short term. Hopefully I’ll be done a week or so from now and I’ll post one or two of the pics if she’s ok with it. Also, I’m going to borrow the props and try to shoot Tara the same way. I’m stoked.

If I was less tired, I would have a hard time falling asleep because of all the stress in my life right now, but if there’s one good thing about being tired, it’s that you can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

On Saturday, Anna had a fever, which I attributed to the flu shot she had earlier in the week. Sunday morning she was pretty much back to normal other than a continued runny nose, but her temperature shot up again before bed. Today, she has been up and down between 101-104.5 degrees, but she has been feeling pretty well despite the temperature. Jen took her to the doctor, and the initial strep test was negative.

Tonight was the preschool holiday show; Anna didn’t go of course. Bummer. She had been practicing for weeks.f

Hopefully tonight doesn’t go too badly. We had a good sleep streak going.

We are especially so tired today because Tara had a really rough night. Between a cold that has her congested and some intestinal issues that have her even more congested, she was pretty miserable. Jen was up with her most of the night, and I was up with her from 3:30-4:30am, after which I couldn’t go back to sleep. During that time, Tara wouldn’t sleep in her bed, my arms, the couch, her swing, the sink¹, or the floor.

Nevertheless, she was a lot more chipper today than either Jennifer or I. Before dinner tonight she was standing while holding on to my fingers for support, then as she got herself steadied, she’d gradually let go of my fingers and stand for a half second or less before plopping down on her bottom or tipping over. Immediately, she would again reach for my hands so that I could help her to her feet again. She did this 15-20 times, and we even got some of it on video. As Jen got out the camcorder, Anna got out her digital camera to start snapping, but couldn’t get it to work, and at one point cocked her head to the side and said, “Hmm, my memory card isn’t right.” Girly yes, but geeky too.

Anna developed some sort of rash after her visit to the pumpkin patch on Sunday, and ended up coming home early from school (after today’s visit to the same pumpkin patch). We don’t really know what’s going on with it; could be new laundry detergent, a virus, itchy clothes, sun spots, sleeping in the sink²… who knows.

Between the poor sleep, a lousy day at work, sickness, and skin malady, I’m hoping for a quick return to normalcy; even going back to normal tiredness levels would be a relief.

¹ Actually I didn’t put her in the sink, but I may tonight if she does it again.

² Oh wait, that was Tara.

These last few weeks since going back to work, I have been absoluted staggered by the hectic pace of having two kids with two working parents.

Today was more busy than a typical day, but not by much, basically proceeding like this:

• 5:15am Wake up to Tara crying. Witness Jennifer zombified in bed after having been awakened several times during the night by Tara. Offer to take baby monitor downstairs, on the condition that I’m going to let Tara fuss unless she goes ballistic.

• 5:20am Log on to work and move some projects along while listening to Tara fussing on the baby monitor.

• 5:35am Jennifer comes down and says she’s going to feed Tara because she can still her her crying and therefore can’t sleep.

• 6:35am Stop working and go get Anna out of bed and attempt to quietly get her dressed and ready for school.

• 7:05am Jennifer gets up and takes over Anna while I get ready for work.

• 7:20am Leave for work.

• 7:40am Arrive at work and continue projects.

• 11:30am Meet friend R., who I haven’t seen in a couple months, for lunch.

• 12:30pm Return to work.

• 4:00pm Leave work.

• 4:05pm Arrive at daycare to pick up Tara; discuss eating, sleeping, pooping, and fussiness with M.

• 4:20pm Arrive at preschool to pick up Anna; discuss Anna and Tara with Mrs. T.

• 4:35pm Arrive home. Unpack car of daycare items, sorting out dirty clothes and bottles. Unpack car of preschool items, sorting out reports, artwork, leaves, and stones. Fetch and sort mail. Move Anna’s bicycle from garage to backyard per request, fasten helmet. Change Tara’s diaper.

• 4:45pm Assess contents of refrigerator and pantry. Begin making spanish rice with chicken. Simultaneously prepare Tara’s antibiotics and baby food, Anna’s fish sticks and fruit. Warn Anna to put away whiny voice.

• 5:00pm Put Anna’s dinner on table. Continue preparing adult dinner. Feed medicine and baby food to Tara. Threaten Anna with time-out due to excessive whining.

• 5:05pm Put Anna on time-out due to whining. Continue feeding Tara and preparing food, while also washing dishes.

• 5:07pm Parole Anna from time-out. Repack Tara’s bag for daycare tomorrow.

• 5:15pm Clean up glue Anna has deposited on floor. Place Anna on chair in front of her dinner. Clean up glue Anna has deposited on table. Clean up Tara and place in exersaucer.

• 5:30pm Complete adult dinner prep. Continue washing dishes.

• 5:50pm Greet Jen who has come home from work. Continue cleaning kitchen, packing for day care tomorrow. Make tomorrow’s lunch for Anna. Jen takes Anna upstairs for shower.

• 6:20pm Eat PB&J sandwich for dinner.

• 6:30pm Spend short time with Tara. Get her cleaned up and changed into PJs.

• 6:40pm Get dressed for volleyball.

• 6:45pm Leave for volleyball.

• 7:05pm Warm up and play volleyball.

• 9:30pm Drink lots of water and drive home.

• 9:55pm Arrive home and take shower. Jen has been asleep for over an hour.

• 10:30pm Write blog post, realize I still have to prepare to-do list for tomorrow, bring in Anna’s bike from the backyard. Listen to Tara wake up crying.

• 10:4opm Discuss strategy with Jen for dealing with Tara. Change Tara, listen to more crying.

• 11:00pm Go to sleep.

Note that in all that time I did not actually spend any significant quantity of time with my wife or children. How is this supposed to work?

• 5:30am Wake. Repeat.

If I’ve written about anything recently, I must have written about the irony that even though I am not currently working, I have less free time than ever. How does that work?

Since everyone but Jennifer has had a cold recently, there have been some sleep issues. Tara is for the first time in her life being a fussy baby, and she seems to have been most affected by the cold. For a couple months, Tara has been going to sleep peacefully awake 80-90% of the time. Lately it’s more like 50%. We have had to let her cry her way to sleep more than a few times, as rocking her to sleep quickly forms a habit that we don’t want her to have. I’m hoping her alternately stuffy and runny nose doesn’t last more than another day or two.

Saturday and Sunday we had two different groups of people over for dinner. When I got up on Saturday I started cleaning up here and there and before I knew it, I was cleaning off surfaces (like the breakfast bar and dining room table) that have not seen the light of day in months. Over the course of hours I worked my way through the dining room and living room while Jen and Anna sorted all the baby-unsafe toys out of the disaster that is the family room. By the time people were arriving on Saturday, the house looked fantastic (and by fantastic, I mean “no longer inhabited by monkeys”). Sunday was another hectic day with another cleaning frenzy necessary to get the house back to the shape it was in on the previous day. I’m hoping we can keep this thing going; when the house is mostly clean the little things that need picking up make themselves obvious. When the place is a disaster, you don’t know where to start, and rarely do.

It was really nice to see our friends over the weekend. Anna had a blast playing in the pool, running around the yard, and menacing otherwise dry adults. The only down side was that both groups of friends brought over terrific desserts which I ate way too much of. I’m afraid to look in the freezer right now because there may be some turtle pie left in there. I really have to work out some kind of more frequent exercise solution that I can do around the house during Tara’s naps, particularly some kind of “core” strengthening regimen.

Recently, some people have asked for more photos of Tara (and by “some people” I mean Grandma D.). It’s true I have not been taking a lot of pictures lately, mostly because of the increased level of busyness, but also, Anna has needed some extra attention lately, so most of my picture-worthy outings have been with her. Tara should be starting on rice cereal fairly soon, so there will definitely be some images forthcoming.

Since I picked up Anna early from school today, she has had some really good behavior (and also some more typical behavior as well). Since she as lately taken an interest in money, I have been rewarding her with some coins for doing tasks like setting the table and cleaning up the family room.

At one point, she asked me to help her count her money; I asked her to sort out all the change into piles of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, which she did. I then counted all the change up out loud and arrived $2.28. She responded by saying “No, not like that!” then added up the total number of coins and saying “I have seventeen jingly pieces.” So we’re still at the stage of preferring ten pennies to five quarters. Hmmmm… I wonder how many cents it will cost me to have her finish cleaning the garage.

I’m trying a new strategy to help her get to sleep earlier, which is to sit next to her bed with my laptop (which I’m doing right now) while she goes to sleep, or at least lies down without saying anything. I’m hoping to head off the hour of getting up, running around, using the potty, flipping lights on and off, etc. which generally happens while Jen and I are downstairs cleaning up at night. It really worries me that though bedtime is 11.5 hours long, in the last couple months she has started giving up two hours of it to wandering about the halls at night. At one point, I was coming downstairs at 5:30 am only to catch her coming up–she said she had been checking to make sure that Tara was ok.

I’m willing to spend a little time in her room as long as I don’t end up sleeping there, and I can surf or blog which I would have been doing anyway; perhaps tomorrow I’ll sit for a while, as it would be a good example for her to see me doing that, and it’s a nice quiet time to do so. In the last few days I have managed to squeeze in a sit or two, and it really makes me aware of how out of practice I am–my head is just buzzing with all sorts of things clamoring for resolution, and days like today illustrate clearly that I need to focus if I’m going to ever get anything finished.

We’ve completed two of our four birthday parties this weekend. Last night everyone was pretty much exhausted, but hopefully today will be a little better; the first party looks to be a little bit shorter, so there will probably be time for nap in between, and the second is nearby, so we won’t have much traveling to do.

Yesterday’s first party was a total madhouse, but lots of fun. There was a pool, and I swear there must have been 40 kids in there, many of them armed with squirt guns. Nevertheless, Anna, who is not terribly comfortable in water (but getting better) had a blast. We put a new floatation vest on her, and she took right to the water, even venturing away from me for short periods of time. We stayed in the water long enough that by the time she got out she was hungry enough to eat two entire slices of pizza, and only once requested some alternate food that was not present at the party.

The second party was more low-key, but still complicated by the presence of their family dog. Anna doesn’t like dogs; she’s quite scared of them. She has had very little exposure to them, and to the best of my knowledge has not had a bad experience. In the last couple weeks, she’s had a little bit more exposure, and has even gone so far as to reach out and try to touch some of the tamer specimens we’ve seen.

Ick

We are still in the throes of some really bad sleep. Anna has a very difficult time going to bed; she is very anxious. In the course of her bedtime routine she will ask, either out of genuine anxiety or just stalling:

• Will the power go off tonight?
• Will her light bulb burn out tonight?
• If the fire alarm goes on, will we be able to hear it?
• If she does not wipe properly after using the potty, will she get sick or die?
• If she does not use the potty at all, will she get sick or die?
• Will we come check on her later?
• Do we promise?
• Do we promise to keep our promise?

Various permutations of these questions bring the total question count up into the tens. We have always had a consistent bedtime routine, but it seems to suffer in cycles of “bedtime build-up” in which Anna adds new little variations which accumulate and make the routine progressively longer and bordering on obsessive. During the listing of the “Happy Things,” we absolutely must include M. and K. on the list, after which she will say “I know lots of people,” so that when I list “going to the pumpkin patch” she can say “I know lots of hay.” This was a joke from so long ago that I’ve forgotten why it was funny in the first place.

Double Ick

In other news, I’ve discovered that my Passat has likely fallen victim to the famed Volkswagen sludge problem, even at only 37,000 miles. Most people with this problem end up with repair bills in the $5,000+ range, and Volkswagen will probably require me to produce all the oil change receipts for the life of the car to get it fixed. I’m not so good at keeping records, but hopefully I can piece things together from the oil change shops; I’ve always used blended or full synthetic oil, and I have changed the oil more often than required, so I hope this can be resolved.

Woohoo

On a more positive note, I got a repeat customer for a product shoot, so I’m going to buy the spiffy new Canon Speedlite 580EX, as an upgrade of my venerable 420EX. This will not only give me a more capable flash unit (it has a jog dial, for heaven’s sake), but I can use the 580 and the 420 together for a portable wireless two-light setup, and with my more powerful monolight for a complete three-light portrait setup. Rock on. I should have the unit by Wednesday, which might even be in time to use it for the client.