i love it. someone spoils the surprise for my christmas present, and i’m the one who gets yelled at.

what a fucking awful week. i got accepted for health insurance, which is a surprising plus, but i’m waiting to have some problem arise with that, too.

first, my three month old phone – with all ben’s pics and video, along with my concert pics and video – dies. just up and dies, for no goddamn reason. they sent me a replacement yesterday, which i’m having to wait to use until i can take my phone over to the store to try to get the data off the old phone and onto the new. i could have done that today, but i still don’t have a fucking car. i’m hoping that if i actually get the phone to the store tomorrow evening, they can transfer all my stuff. with the week i’m having, i’m betting no.

then little bear started feeling feverish. according to the useless thermometers i have, he hasn’t hit 100 degrees yet, but has been pretty consistently warm to the touch all week, and hovering in the 99s. he didn’t sleep at all yesterday, which isn’t terribly unusual for him, but he didn’t sleep well last night, either. and he hasn’t really slept today. he just keeps randomly fussing and screeching. he’s asymptomatic, but i think there’s something wrong. maybe he has an ear infection or uti or something. sohei keeps telling me i’m crazy, but i think i’m going to have to put my foot down and insist on taking little bear to the doctor. he is not acting normal, and even if he doesn’t have an outright fever, he’s warm. (i never, ever get fevers, either, and didn’t much as a child. maybe he’s the same?) hopefully we’ll go and the doctor will also say i’m crazy, but i’d rather be safe than sorry.

and all these little annoying things keep happening. i had to take my lip ring out because little bear kept reaching for it, so i put it on my nightstand. sohei set a bottle of ketchup down on it for some reason, and the little ball part got lost, apparently never to be seen again. so now i have to try to get new lip jewelry before it closes up. (not bloody likely, as i’ve also needed to go to the mall for pants that actually fit, and a watch battery, but as i don’t have a goddamn car… ) and because little bear has been even more sleepless and clingy than usual, i haven’t got any work done this week. the kitchen is disgusting and the laundry has been piling up. i feel like crap and i’m tired from being kicked all night and screamed at for two days. then today i tried to spend my survey money on ebay, and i can’t pay for my item for some reason. the site won’t let me log into my paypal account. it just sits there. so i emailed the seller to ask if i could pay them directly through paypal, but they’ll probably report me for fraud or something.

the baby is screaming and kicking me again, so i guess i’d better pointlessly try to comfort him while he shreiks in my ear some more.

my little guy seems to be doing something new every day. this month, he started really laughing. before, he would try, but it came out all weird. this past saturday, 12/5, was his first genuine laugh. he squeals a lot now, too. he doesn’t cry as often (still screams, unfortunately), and chooses to babble or squeal instead. he’s also generally been sleeping more.

he’s been strengthening his abs, too, apparently. when we help him to sit now, we don’t have to pull much. we get him started and he goes the rest of the way on his own. he can sit, propped up with a pillow, for quite a while. his head almost never flops anymore. he can also stand for longer and longer periods, with help, of course. when placed on his stomach, he can change directions and inch forward a bit.

his vision seems to be getting better, as he can now follow objects pretty much all the time. his hearing still worries me a bit, as he only responds to sounds occasionally. when i call him by name, he doesn’t regularly turn to look at me. apparently, some babies don’t respond to their names until ten months, so i won’t worry. also, when he does look at our faces, he still smiles and can focus on us for a little while. he still babbles and coos, and can mimic us sometimes. when i say, “i love you” he replies, “aah-oo-uuu.” and when i say, “hello” he replies, “eeh-oo.” it’s pretty freaking cute. so he seems to be doing okay, though if he isn’t a bit better at responding to our voices by four months, i’ll have to ask the doctor about it.

aside from the occasional fussy period, he’s been great. he enjoys playing more now, and will spend more time on his tummy. he also likes grabbing his rattle (as well as fingers and anything else he can get his hands on) and sticking it in his mouth. it’s so funny to watch him taste things. he looks so interested in the world. he’s been pretty familiar with his hands, but he recently discovered his feet. they seem to perturb him for some reason. he frowns at them and grabs them now and then. i don’t know why he’s so consternated about his feet…

nursing has mostly become easy. he still flattens my right nip more than i’d like, causing painful vasospasm, but i feel more certain he’s getting enough milk now. i love how, when he’s done, he beams up at me with milk trickling out of the corner of his mouth. he never did that when i bottle fed him, so maybe there is something to the whole breastfeeding = bonding thing.

i love his smile. he smiles a lot these days. he seems like a very happy baby, which is a nice change from colicky.

and, now that he’s three months old, he’s supposed to be sleeping in his crib or bassinet. (i think i’ll be doing the in-room bassinet until he’s around six months.) that hasn’t happened yet. i like co-sleeping, especially as i’m nursing and all i have to do is roll him onto his side and commence to feedin’. sohei wants his bed back, though, so i’m going to have to bite the bullet and start getting little bear used to sleeping on his own. honestly, i probably won’t want him to still be co-sleeping at five, so everyone says it’s best to get him used to crib sleeping now. but waaahhh i don’t wanna!

sohei’s dad came by on saturday, in a professional capacity, and we all sat down and discussed what to do about the houses. we came to the conclusion that we should try to short sell both of them, but if that didn’t work, we’d have to let them foreclose. i stopped paying the mortgage on the tallahassee place last month, out of necessity, and will stop paying on the pinellas park house this month. we could afford to keep this house and stay in it, but it’s too much of a commute for sohei. i’m really sad to be losing this house. i know it’s impractical, but i love it. and i love this neighborhood. there’s a big park and recreation center across the street, and a lot of really good non-chain restaurants nearby. i’ll miss la teresita and the sub shop, that’s for sure.

i’ve lived in a lot of houses in my lifetime, and this is my favorite. it’s small, but i like that. i love the layout, and how there are walls of sliding glass doors instead of windows. today, i have the doors open upstairs and down, and there is this wonderful breeze coming through. i’ll miss living so close to the ocean, and the weather it brings. (not that brandon is hours inland, but pinellas county is surrounded by sea on three sides.) i like hearing seagulls outside, and seeing trees, however brushy. there was so much i wanted to do with this place. as much as i like the way it looks now, it could have been even cooler. this house has great bones. little bear’s nursery is perfect, too. there’s just one small window at the top of one wall, so the room never got too hot. (also, no one could break in and steal him, but that probably won’t happen no matter what his next bedroom is like.) and there’s a big closet for his stuff, and a shelf with all his stuffed animals on it. i’ll take some pictures and post them one of these days. and i always liked how, despite being built in the 80s, there isn’t one fluorescent light in this house. not the tube kind i hate, anyway. and it’s so open and bright and there are skylights in the sunken living room. and a cute screened porch out back. for being such a small house, it feels like there’s a lot of space. it manages to be open yet cozy. and it was our first house, and the house we brought our baby home to.

i’ve long since stopped caring about bankruptcy and foreclosure as far as credit scores and stuff go. i know that if sohei has his way, i’ll probably never own another house anyway. (though his dad says you can still get a mortgage, and that a lot of his former clients go on to buy another house, which made me feel better. maybe someday when i’m working again, i can find another house i love and buy it and sohei can just deal with it.) we’ll have about another year here before the bank kicks us out, i guess. then sohei’s dad is supposed to be renting out his house to us. which is very nice of him, and it’s a good house, don’t get me wrong. it’s just that there are no trees, and it was built during the florida housing boom so the plumbing is all cruddy and stuff. (i tend to prefer the architecture/look of 80s houses, as well as the established trees and stuff.) and i never really wanted to live in the suburbs. or, as it’s brandon, exurbs. i guess i’ll just keep making sacrifices for his career and hope that he’ll remember it when i want to stay home with little bear an extra year, or when i want to buy a house in the future… [i would have put my laughing emoticon here, but they're not working again. there seems to be something wrong with my wordpress install lately.]