jonathanhickman.com

Enter not, those bearing a/c adapters

I think most of the a/c adapters in this house are broken.

In the last week, both of the cell phone charges went toes up (grr), and one of the laptop a/c adapters - the second one already for that particular laptop.

I am not amused.

Changes in babysleep

I love how babies start their lives sleeping only on their backs, but by a year they sleep like “big” kids.

I just snuck a peak at my baby girl, and she was flipping over and rearranging herself, deeply asleep but clearly trying to get more comfortable.

Super cute.

Well, that didn’t go so well, either

After only a week or so with my new car, it is in the shop.

The check engine light kept going off. The first time it went off, I took it back to the dealership, and they decided the gas cap wasn’t on tight enough. I wasn’t sure I believed them, but I sure wanted to.

But yesterday morning on my way to work, the light went off again. I stopped by the dealership when I passed a few minutes later.

And that’s where it still sits.

It turns out that there’s a super small hole in the gas tank. The light was going off because the gas tank wasn’t pressurized quite right. But the hole was so small that the sensor didn’t pick it up all of the time.

I’m trying to remain positive. On the upside, I thought I could smell gasoline a few times near the new car. It’s better to get this problem now instead of a few months from now. And of course it should be easily fixable soon, right?

But I can’t get over how I’ve just had the car for a week, and I’m already not getting to drive it. Grr. And thanks to Labor Day, it’s going to be at least Tuesday before I can get behind the wheel of my new car again.

Bummer.

Babies are silly

For the last fifteen or twenty minutes, the Bug has been wandering around, chatting, and generally being as happy as a Bug could be.

What is making her so happy? A metal bandaid box. She’s been walking around from room to room with a metal metal bandaid box up to her ear, as if it’s a phone.

Babies are silly.

Well, that couldn’t've gone much worse

My first night alone with the Bug did not go well.

I got her to bed by 9 o’clock, and I was thinking I had success. Things were off to a good start. And I followed her to bed within thirty minutes, knowing that even the best case scenario had me getting less sleep than usual.

Well, I didn’t see the clock the first time she woke up, but I think it was around twelve. Again, things were looking good. C fussed and I bolted out of bed. I patted her on the back for a minute, and she was back in the land of wink, blink, and nod.

Within an hour, though, she was fussing again. This time she was already standing up in her bed when I got to it, so I pulled her in bed beside me and gave her a bottle.

That’s when things completely ceased to go well. C clearly understood that her mother wasn’t there, and it was equally clear that she wasn’t happy about it, either. By four o’clock, I, too, was unhappy that Katie wasn’t there. I think I even started to imagine that she was there. I could almost see her, and I wanted to say, like she occasionally has said to me, “Katie … you’ve got to take a turn.”

But she did get back to sleep, albeit fitfully. For the last hour and a half of potential sleep, C slept very fitfully. If I moved, she fussed, or she would sit up and the flop back down. It wasn’t pretty, and I feel every bit of it.

Lucky for me, Katie will be back tonight, and I can’t wait to see the look on the Bug’s face when she sees her mama for the first time in nearly two days.

And she’s asleep

Katie left for Texas this morning at 4, and I am minutes away from starting my first ever night alone with the Bug.

Yes, Katie does the lion’s share of the overnight duties. C generally wakes up 3ish times overnight, and Katie gets up, gets her out of her bed, and soothes her back to sleep … or occasionally gets up with her and rocks her back to sleep when she’s not feeling well.

For the past year, I have helped here and there with overnight stuff, such as this morning when Katie left while it was still “night” to me. But I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to tonight’s festivities.

Katie tends to notice the Bug’s needs before I get a clue that anything’s amiss. Last night I distinctly remember thinking - at about two in the morning - “wow, how did Katie hear C fussing? Did she really fuss, or did Katie maybe dream it?” No, Katie didn’t dream it.

Did I mention how much I am looking forward to this night?

I love the sound of rain on a metal roof

We just had a new metal roof installed on our office, and a part of it is just outside my window, covering the porch below.

It’s finally raining here - the second time since the roof was installed a few months ago - and I have discovered that I simply adore the sound of rain on a metal roof.

I’d say it reminds me of my childhood, but it most certainly doesn’t remind me of our old house with its asphalt shingles. No, it’s a good sound just because it is.

She’s officially a toddler now

The Bug went running down the hall a second ago. I walked over and swooped her up - she’s so cute couldn’t resist.

Lifted a few inches off the ground, she kicked her legs as if she was still trying to walk.

She’s a toddler. And she can’t be stopped.

Thank goodness for audacity

Thank goodness for audacity.

I downloaded a really cool moonbabies (dumb name, cool sound) album over the weekend, and almost every track on it has 20-30 seconds of dead air at the end of it. Very annoying. I find I can’t listen to the album unless I have a finger on the fast forward button.

Enter audacity (and about 15 minutes of my time), and the album plays like it should … or at least like I think it should.

And what counts is what I think, right?

An interesting thing I learned today

As I was driving my new car to work this morning, the check engine light came on. Needless to say, that was a thrill (turns out it was just something to do with the gas cap, I think).

Less than a week after I bought my car, I took it back to the dealership to see if they could fix it. While I was there, I noticed my old car on the rack.

Here’s where the story gets fun. When I took the old car over there for appraisal, I told them that it needed serious front-end work. It was my understanding that the right front axle needed replacing, and there was something wrong with the left front wheel, too, although I didn’t think it was as big a deal as the right front wheel.

Incidentally, I did know that either issue could eventually lead to serious calamity, and that was one reason I hoped to trade the car in soon. But I had the impression that “eventually” was an accurate descriptor.

It turns out that I have been living on borrowed time. The repair guy, who I know and trust, said they were fixing the right front axle and the left front something-or-another. He said the left front wheel was the greater danger of the two; it was seconds away from either seizing up or falling off!!

Yes, you read that right. Every time I drove that car for the last six months I was putting myself at extreme risk of a very, very serious accident. Either of my front wheels could have fallen off at any moment.

It’s my understanding that’s a bad thing.

I still can’t believe I got a new car

I still can’t believe I got a new car this week.

A year from now I’ll probably look back at the Subaru as a distant memory, as in “oh yeah, I used to have one of those.”

Wow.

The new car makes my long commute 10x better.