Airline Approved Carseats! HUH?

Our flight home was much smoother than the flight getting to Florida. We made it to the airport without much distress. The flight was half empty so I asked if it would be okay to bring the carseat on the plane for Anthony. Sure no problem. When we got on the plane the flight attendant stopped us to look for a red sticker on the carseat that states it is an FAA approved carseat. She couldn't find it so we were not allowed to use it on the plane. You have got to be kidding me! It is a Peg Perego carseat that cost $200, your telling me it's not airline approved? I didn't really care that much, I figured I'd be holding him on my lap anyway, but I was just annoyed by the airlines lack of consistency (we were allowed to use it on the flight to FL). Then this morning I did a little online searching for any information on it and I found THIS.
Now I'm thinking I should have insisted on using the car seat. Something should be better than nothing right? Apparently not according to AirTran.
Then I decided to call Peg Perego and ask them if the carseat I had was FAA approved and if so, why didn't it have the red sticker on it. They claim all USA authorized distributors will have the sticker on it and the online store I bought my carseat from apparently is not an authorized distributor and my carseat may not have been made for USA resale but for another country. Hmmm, I wonder if that's why I got such a good deal on it? So I decided to call the online store I bought the carseat from and see what they say about it.
They say someone will call me monday. I guess I'll wait and see.

We told Anthony he had to sit in the seat like a big boy and wear his seat belt.

Sun, Snow, Treadmills, and Pad Thai

SUN(SET)

The sunset on our last night in Naples

SNOWOur house the day we left for Florida, I suspect it will look the same when we get home.

TREADMILL

The hotel we are at has the coolest treadmills ever, I promise if I had one of these at home I would use it everyday.* It has a built in TV on the monitor and you can plug your headphones into it to listen to the TV or you can connect your ipod to it. It also has three buttons below the TV screen that say walk/jog/run and you can set them to whatever speed you like then during your workout you can switch back and forth between speeds with the touch of a button. Perfect for the c25k interval training. It has some other very cool features, but those are the two that make me want to buy one. So yes, this means I got all 3 runs in for the week.

*I am safe making this promise because I know I will never convince Todd to buy me one. The home version cost $7,999.

PAD THAI

We are having Thai food for the 3rd time on this trip, I think it is my favorite food. There isn't a Thai restaraunt anywhere near where we live, so I am getting as much of it on this trip as I can talk Todd into. Plus it makes good take out which we seem to be doing a lot of on this trip.

A day at the beach

We went to the beach for the better part of the day today. Anthony tolerated it pretty well for the morning and then Todd and I took turns sitting in the room with him while he napped the rest of the day. It hit 82 degrees here today, but the breeze off the ocean made it quite comfortable, I think we may actually come home with a tan. There was another family here that had a new baby (born 2 days before Anthony) and they just happen to plop their beach chairs next to ours and the mom was a talker. So she and I talked a lot about our babies, and I have to admit, I am a bit jealous of her. Her baby was so good, (Anthony was good too, but her baby was really good) they had her outside from 10am till 3:30pm and she never fussed once that I saw, and actually slept a lot too. She then told me that she has her baby on a 4 hour eating schedule. 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm and then to bed for the night. I don't even know how many times a day Anthony eats, but it's way more than that. His daily routine doesn't qualify as a schedule since it is always changing. I never know when he will want to eat, sometimes its in 2 hours, sometimes 3 1/2 hours, he is very unpredictable. He is also very intolerable to being hungry, when he wants to eat he wants to eat NOW! (I think he gets that from me) and don't even think about trying to put him off. Yesterday on the way to Naples (a 2 hour drive) he decided it was time to eat about 10 minutes before we got to our hotel, so we had to stop and I fed him in the car in the parking lot of a grocery store. (Right after I changed his diaper in the car on my lap and he peed all over me and him.) And speaking of dirty diapers, he poops even more than he eats. When we left for this vacation I packed 40 diapers, we ran out rather quickly and had to buy another 40 pack and now it is gone too. So in 6 days he went through 80 diapers. I feel like he's gone back to peeing and pooping like he did at weeks 2 and 3. I'm starting to wonder if that Rotavirus vaccine he got at his 2 month check up has anything to do with it.

Here is a few pictures from our vacation thus far.

Renter Update

In case your wondering, our renter is going out of town this morning. What a shock!
I guess we could still drive down there and check the construction progress out, but with a trusty next door neighbor who can take a few pictures for us, we have decided to not waste a vacation day driving down there.

C25K Check In

This afternoon I was Reading Rachaels C25K progress report, and I suddenly felt really guilty. I had sort of forgotten about the whole C25K plan. Week one went down smoothly, I even got an extra day in of running in addition to the mandatory 3 days. Week 2, well, not so good, I only got one day of running in, and I skipped the 5 minute warm up because I was late meeting Rachael at the Y. Somehow the week got away from me and I never logged another run that week. But I promised myself that week 3 would be better, I was hardly working and it should be rather easy. Then I unexpectedly got a few shifts at work and then my friend came to visit me from WA, and week 3 passed me by without a single run. I promised that week 4 would be better because I would be on vacation in FL, and it's warm, and I can run outside if need be. With all good intentions I packed my running shoes and exactly enough clothes to workout 3 times. Then I got here, and, well, I'm on vacation, so I considered skipping the whole week, since I was behind anyway and just get back on track when I get home. And then I read Rachael's blog today and realized that I am very good at making excuses when it comes to exercise, so before I even finished reading her post, I put on my running clothes and gathered up Anthony and the bouncer seat (Todd was at the pool) and up to the hotel gym I went. First I took a quick peek at the week 4 schedule and WOW, you miss 2 weeks you miss a lot. Week 1 had 90 second intervals of running, and week 4 has me running 5 minute intervals. I refuse to start over, so I pushed myself to keep up with the schedule and no I think it is safe to say, I am back on track. Just need to fit 2 more runs in this week before I go home. Easy Right?
Now I am going to go check in on a few other C25K participants and see if I am the only slacker.

Renter trouble

The lease is just about up on our condo in Ft. Lauderdale and our tenant has agreed to resign for another year, but only if we lower the rent significantly. She wanted it dropped $500 per month, we agreed to drop it $300 a month. They are doing some construction and remodeling to the building so there is some inconveniences she is and has been living with for the past 6 months. She told me the construction could go on for another 6 months or more. I agreed that it would only be fair to lower the rent temporarily. Then we get a call from the neighbors of the FL condo who tell us the construction is almost done, maybe only another 4 weeks. So then I have to wonder, is our tenant trying to deceive us?

Lucky for her, or maybe not, we are in Florida and only a 2 hour drive from the condo. So guess what? We are going to take a little drive and check things out for ourselves before we agree to sign a new lease with her for $300 less per month. I called her yesterday to see if she would be around, that we were in town and would like to come by and see the construction progress and then she could sign the new lease agreement. She said she was leaving town on Tuesday so we said we would come on Monday. She then tells me, maybe she will leave on Monday. She will have to check and get back with me. Sure sounds to me like she doesn't want us to come by and see that the construction really is almost done.



By the way, we figured out a way to get some sun with a baby. The hotel has these handy little half tents you can rent for the day and it blocks the sun and wind. It worked really well for about an hour and a half. Normally I would say it was a waste of $15, but an hour and a half in the sun was definitely worth it. The rest of the day it rained so we stayed inside.

Questions and Answers

Question: How many bouncer seats does one baby need?
Answer: 4 - one for upstairs, one for downstairs, one for grandmas and one for vacation in Florida.
(We tried to pack the one from home but ran out of room in our suitcase so decided to try and survive a week without it. After one day without it we decided we really needed one.)

Question: How does Anthony like the warm weather?
Answer: Were not really sure, but we think it makes him a bit grouchy.

Question: How did Anthony do on the plane?
Answer: Surprisingly well.

Sleeping on Todd's lap on the plane.

Question: Why am I blogging on vacation?

Answer: Because taking a 10 week old baby on vacation isn't much different than staying at home. Luckily we have a great hotel room with a great view of the ocean, because I am afraid we will be spending most of our time in the room with him and will likely come home as pale as we were when we left.

A long day of traveling

Yesterday Todd and I were not so lucky, first we left the house at 7:30 in the morning for our 11:36 departure to give ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport (hoping to avoid the stress of cutting it close) but the weather was very bad, with icy, snowy roads and bad driving conditions. Lots of car accidents along the way requiring multiple detours. The freeway actually shut down due to a 6 mile 27 car pile up. It was a long and slow go getting to the airport, I was relieved when I called to check flight status and the flight was delayed 20 minutes. We finally arrived with 1.25 hours before our flight departed. By the time we got to the front of the baggage check-in line, we were told our flight just closed 1 minute ago. I didn’t understand, we still had 1 hour before it left. They explained you must check bags 45 minutes before departure! I retaliated with but the flight doesn’t leave for another hour! We went back and forth with that for a few minutes before I gave up. Had I known how the day would have played out I would have been more persistent, but they said there was another flight they could put us on that left 10 minutes later, however was not a direct flight but would layover in Atlanta and get us to FL only 2 hours later than originally planned. Didn't sound all that bad so I just went along with it. They sort of mentioned that we couldn't get seat assignments on the second leg of our flight because it was full, but don't worry, Atlanta has lots of delays and surely someone will miss their flight and we'll get a seat. I asked if they could put us on a flight to Tampa but they said NO, they would have to charge us a rebooking fee plus the difference in fare. So we got booked on the flight through Atlanta.
When we got to Atlanta and went to our gate to check in they informed us that we were on stand-by and would have to wait and see if we would get seats. So we waited, and then didn't get seats. We then went to get booked on the next flight to Serasota only to find out it didn't leave till 9pm, (it was currently 3pm). The lady was kind enough to offer to fly us into another airport such as Tampa if we wanted, I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T DO THAT! sure, fly us to Tampa, just get us there, a quick call to our travel agent and the rental car issue was taken care of. So we get to Tampa at 6pm only to discover that our luggage has not made it with us. I suspected this might happen, and soon discovered that it was waiting for us at Serasota airport, an hour in the opposite direction of where we were staying that night. (but they told us only 30 minutes) so we drove to Serasota and then back to New Port Richie (our final destination for the night) and arrived at 11:30pm!
A very long day, and the last time we will ever fly TranAir. I thought having a cute baby in tow would get us some sympathy, but I was very wrong! Oh and the flight to Tampa - they didn't mention that we wouldn't get to sit together and had been assigned 2 middle seats. How I'm supposed to nurse a baby so his ears wont hurt on take off and landing in a middle seat I don't know. I just got on the plane and sat next to Todd and when the person who's seat I was in showed up I kindly asked her to take my middle seat which thankfully she did! Finally, one nice person.
Okay, so were here, and have had a good nights sleep and it's 75 degrees outside, so I'm already getting over it, but I kind of want to write a letter and complain! We'll see how I feel about it when I get home.

Fun travels

After a cold weekend in Chicago (they don't call it the windy city for nothing) Todd, Anthony and I are heading back into Chicago, but this time to catch a plane to the Sunshine state, and lets hope they don't call it that for nothing! It is currently 15 degrees and snowing, we have been on the road less than 20 minutes and already seen 3 cars in a ditch. (yes I'm blogging in the car, but I'm not driving so it's okay.)

DETOUR ALERT: Apparently they closed the highway due to a 22 car accident, so we are going an alternate route, which right now doesn't look any better. I guess I better hope for a delayed flight, cause it is slow goings. Oh and Anthony is hungry. So far this trip is not starting out so good.

Oh and the 3 cars I saw in the ditch in the first 20 minutes of travel, well it only got worse, I have now seen many cars in the ditch or side of the road.

Be careful what you ask for

For those of you that have blogs, do you ever get the feeling that someone (in his case my work) is reading your blog because you write about something and then you see a direct effect on what you wrote? Okay, so maybe your not following me, let me explain. Yesterday I complained about not getting any hours at work, and I even mentioned that I had gone back to hospital ER #2 after a year and a half, but only to work on med/surg which I didn't like*, but did it anyway just to get some hours. That was Monday. Then Tuesday I got called to go back again to work on med/surge, I turned them down, because it was only for 4 hours and it was snowing like crazy and it's a half hour drive without snowy icy roads, and well, lets just say, I'm not that desperate for work. Then today, I got called again to see if I wanted to work tonight in the same hospital, but this time I get to work ER. (I had to say yes, after all that complaining)
Well, I guess I can't complain about going to work, since I just complained about not getting to work, but you know how when you don't do something for a while, it's hard to get back into the habit of doing it again. That's kind of how I feel about work right now.
Friday my friend D'Arcy from WA is coming to visit for a few days, and then we leave for Florida, and so basically I wont work again until March 3rd, so really I need to go to work today. Why can't I just get a paycheck and stay home??

*The reason I don't like med/surg is because there is way too much paper work, last Monday when I worked there, I spent probably 2 hours providing patient care and the other 6 hours charting about it. Care plans, patient teaching, problem charting, narrative charting, assessment charting, 24 hour chart checks, vital signs, I/O's, % of meals eaten, hygiene care provided, meds given, and probably more, but seriously it's way too much!
There are other reasons I don't like med/surg but the paperwork is a major one.

I just want to complain

I don't know if I've mentioned this in my blog yet, but since I have started back to work, I really haven't worked all that much. Apparently while I was off on maternity leave the ER I was primarily working at hired a few nurses and a new agency nurse (who works for the same company I do) moved in on my territory* and snatched up what was left of the available shifts. So in the past 4 weeks that I have been back to work I have only worked a total of 88 hours. I really haven't minded that much because I love being home with Anthony. I do however miss the paychecks. But I realize that is the risk I take by being an agency nurse. Sometimes it's easy to get plenty of hours, and sometimes it's not. When I first started working agency 3 years ago I decided not to quit my full time job but just change my status to per diem which only requires me to work 2 shifts per month. That way, if agency work is slow, I have a back up place to work (which is now turning out to be a smart move on my part).
I need to give a little background info before I continue with my venting:
As an agency nurse I mostly worked at 2 different hospitals, the first year and a half at ER #1 and then the past year and a half at ER #2. Well tonight I worked at hospital #1 for the first time in over a year, but I didn't get to work in the ER, they had me work on the medical floor, which I don't particularly care for, but since as I mentioned above, I haven't been getting many hours, I decided to suck it up and do it. Anyway, on my way out I stopped by the ER to say hi to my old coworkers and show them pictures of Anthony. Then we got to talking, and turns out the above mentioned agency nurse that moved in on my territory in ER #2, has also been working at ER #1 too. I was telling them how I am having to go back to my per diem job to pick up hours next month because agency work is slow, and they told me that this other agency nurse told all of them that I was fired from that job, and I didn't want to work as agency anymore after I had the baby! Hmmm, that's interesting because I have only met this girl once, and it was just briefly at shift change and I certainly didn't tell her all that, since none of it is true. Oh I am so annoyed, and this probably isn't making much sense but I am just so mad I had to vent to someone, and since it's 3am, no one is awake in my house to vent to, not even Anthony, because as of last night, he is sleeping 7 1/2 hours now, so here I am blogging about it.
Anyway, now I am just wondering what to do about this new found information, I already didn't care for the girl too much since I now have to compete with her to get any shifts, but now that I know she is talking about me to people I knew before she did and telling them lies of all things, I really don't like her. So should I just forget about it? Or should I take her aside next time I see her and say, "hey by the way, I wasn't fired from ****** and maybe you should check your facts before you start talking about people you don't even know. And another thing, those people that you talked to about me - they didn't believe you, and even if it was true, they didn't care, they still like me!" I would of course say this in a nice way, not in a mean confrontational way.
Okay, enough venting, I'm going to bed, I have a BLS class in the morning and I probably should get some sleep.

*I don't really think it's my territory, it's just that I was there first, so I am sort of bitter about the fact that they just replaced me while I was on maternity leave. I told them I'd be back!

Updates: Anthony & C25K

Anthony's 2 month update:

Today Anthony had his 2 month check up. This morning as Todd and I were packing up to head out the door, my sister Rachael called, I told her I couldn't talk because we were heading out the door with Anthony to the doctors office, she found it rather humorous that both Todd and I were taking him. I hadn't even thought about it until she said something, but then couldn't help but be a bit embarrassed when both of us walked into the doctors office. I decided to tell the doctor what my sister had said and ask if it was really that unusual for both of us to be there. She assured me that with first time parents it is very common for both to come to the appointments, with the second child it is usually only one parent, and by the third child, the parents just drop them at the door and say they'll be back in an hour. (Okay, good.)

Anthony gained 2 pounds in the past month, and now weighs 12lbs 2oz. They say he only grew 1/4 of an inch in length, but they didn't measure him right, I'm sure he grew more than that. He also got his first set of immunizations (3 shots), poor baby, I wanted to give him Tylenol before we went, but I didn't have any (bad, unprepared mom) but I figured they could just give him some at the doctors office. Surprisingly they don't have any there. I can't imagine why a pediatrician's office wouldn't have Tylenol, what if they see a sick kid with a high fever and a bad mom who didn't give any Tylenol at home? That just seems weird to me, any one else's pediatrician not carry Tylenol in the office?

Last night at work some coworkers were asking me how Anthony is sleeping through the night. I told them that he usually sleeps from 10pm till around 3 or 4am (on a good night 5am), then up again at 7 and then again at 9. They assured me that my baby is starving and needs cereal added to his milk, if I would do that he would for sure sleep through the night. Not wanting to cause conflict I just sort of let it go, even though I knew they were wrong. Then at the doctor today, when we were discussing his sleeping/eating habits, I told her his night routine and she said that he doesn't need to eat anymore at night and I should just comfort him and try to get him to go back to sleep when he wakes up without feeding him. I'm not really sure she is right either, I think I will just keep doing what I'm doing for now. If he is still waking up in the night in another month then maybe I will reconsider what she said, but he is only 2 months old, 10 hours is a long time to go without eating.

A few 2 month pictures:

He is definitely getting bigger.

If I put the rattle in his hand, he can hold on to it, and even shake it.

Getting closer to being able to roll over, look how his leg is pushing off the floor.

My C25K progress report:

I have successfully completed week one! Yeah for me. 8 more weeks and I'll be ready to run a 5k. I'd be even more proud of myself if I hadn't rewarded/negated all my hard work with chocolate. These are my daily temptations.

Sometimes I can go weeks without eating any of this, and some days (like today) I eat candy all day, (so far today, 3 mini almond joys). I really should get rid of these, but the cup is a hand painted gift from my sister Natalie, and the red candy dish I bought in Mirano, Italy and I don't want to put them away, and you can't have empty candy dishes laying around. The candy drawer is something Todd insists on having, and if it wasn't a candy drawer it would be a junk drawer, and I hate junk drawers even more than candy drawers. So you see my dilema here? I guess I still made progress, because I exercised 3 times this week, which is 2 times more than last week.

Say it isn't so

Today Todd and I went to the YMCA and took Anthony to the nursery. He's been there 3 or 4 times already, and the same lady is always there and she seems to enjoy holding him, so I was glad to see she was there again today. I let her know there was a bottle in the diaper bag just in case he got hungry. Then Todd and I were off to work out. We started on the treadmill, (since I am doing the whole c25k plan), and I was about 3 minutes into my warm-up when I realized I forgot to put my running shoes on. I had on my work shoes that are sort of like clogs, (but not the ugly plastic ones that every nurse but me seems to love) they're Merrills and they are slip-ons with no back. Definitely not a running shoe, but I refused to let that mess up my work out, so I ran in them, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. They are really comfortable shoes, I wonder if Merrill makes a running shoe. If they do I would buy it. But this isn't the point of my post, I just figured I'd mention it since I'm talking about the Y.
After our workout I went to the nursery to pick up Anthony and the lady was holding him with the bottle next to her on the couch. There was also another bottle, one that wasn't Anthony's but it was the same brand, only it was a 6 oz bottle instead of the 4 oz bottle I had. Anthony's bottle had the cap on it and didn't look like any milk was missing (but I can't be entirely sure, because I can't remember exactly how much milk was in it) and the other bottle had the cap off and was half empty. So I calmly asked the lady, "Oh, he wasn't hungry?" She said, "he ate a little bit". So then I started thinking in my mind, surely she didn't give him milk from another baby's bottle. So as I'm putting him in his car seat right next to her, I was curious which bottle she would hand to me. And then I see her pick up both bottles and look at them and move them to the other side of her, probably hoping I hadn't noticed. Then she asks me, "how old is he again?" and I of course think she is only asking to help her figure out which bottle is his. Luckily she handed me the right bottle, but I will always wonder which one she really fed him out of. I wonder if they use a nanny cam at the nursery? If it was formula it wouldn't be as bad, but the thought of my baby drinking some other woman's breastmilk is just very unsettling. I know I will never really know, so I didn't feel the need to make an issue of it, but you can bet I will have his bottles labeled in some unforgettable way next time I leave him at the Y.

Who wants a blog makeover?

I've had a few people ask me how I get such cool blog headers and backgrounds. Well I have to admit and give credit to my sister Rachael who does all my blog makeovers. I also keep telling these people that as soon as she teaches me I will teach them. Well she also has been getting inquiries about her own blog design, so she has written a little tutorial on her blog with step by step instructions on how to do it. So for those of you that have been asking me how, go HERE to find out. She only has a few little stipulations in exchange for her secrets which I'm sure you'll be happy to oblige. One of them is that you leave her a comment so that she can go to your blog and see how it turned out. Make sure you leave me a comment too, so I know to go look too.
Now if only I could figure out how to make my myspace page look as cool as my friends' do.

Email Fw's

I frequently get email Fw's from a few of my friends, and (I hate to admit) I usually delete them without reading because I don't have time/energy/desire to read them. Unfortunately this has become more of a habit to automatically delete them rather than the fact that I don't have the time to read them. For some reason (maybe the fact that I am barely working these days and seem to have more free time) I have started reading them, and they are surprisingly quite funny. I much prefer the short ones with fewer words and more pictures. Every once in a while I even get an informative Fw that gives me helpful information. Like the little known fact that your computer screen can and does get dirty from the inside, so to speak, which in turn, blurs images. This is the result of pixels breaking down from heat and the constant altering and rearranging of the pixel. This cool and simple product refreshes your computer screens picture quality to astonishing hi-def brilliance.
Maybe I'm just too gullible, but I really thought that my screen could get clearer. Now I think I really need to get my eyes checked.

So if you send me email fw's and read this, I'm sorry I've deleted such entertaining emails, but don't be offended and stop now that I'm just starting to enjoy them. But only send the really good ones my way.