Swimming with Frances

Since I've been injured, I haven't been able to exercise. The one positive thing about that (other than the extra sleep) is that I was able to participate in Frances'' swim class.

The class is for babies and toddlers. It turns out that there isn't much you can actually do with young child in a pool.

You can:

1. Lay them on their back.
2. Lay them on their stomach.
3. Have them kick.
4. Have them splash.
5. Have them stoke their arms.
6. Have them blow bubbles (aka piss off your child by sticking her face in the water).
7. Have them "jump" in the water from the side (while you hold their arms so they don't drown).
   

Basically, everything we did was some combination of the above.

It was kinda fun though. Frances was really good at kicking and using her arms when I supported her stomach. Occasionally, I could even feel that she was providing propulsion forces.

When we started the class, they gave out toys. Frances of course wanted the big red ball. That made it difficult to have her splash with her hands but she kind of used it as a flotation device. She also seemed to like holding a kickboard. Even with the kickboard, I was still supporting some of her weight, but she looked just like she was supposed to look like while holding a kickboard.

She also seemed to enjoy "jumping" into the pool. That pretty much meant stepping into the pool while I held her arms. It was very controlled but she thought it was great fun.

All in all, I'm glad that I could to that with her.

mwz

Random

I was going through some old stuff (Arial wants me to get rid of some of it) and I came across an old camera of mine. My parents got it for me in high school. It wasn't top of the line but it took decent pictures. At the time, I thought it was sort of sleek. But now, it seems huge. It has about double the volume of my current digital camera (which isn't very small itself). I was amazed.

There is still film inside. I'm going to try to get the pictures developed and see if anything survived.

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We have a fireplace with a stone hearth in our living room. The hearth is about 2 inches high. Today, Frances had some fun with it.

She took the old keyboard that we let her play with and set it so half was on the hearth and half was off (orientation: the number pad was off and the caps lock was on the hearth). She proceeded to "surf" on the keyboard and tried to keep it balanced. It was interesting to watch.

Later in the evening, she took to jumping off the hearth. She was doing it in the same way that I used to jump down stairs. Since she's so little, the hearth is kinda like a small step. She seemed to find it great fun.

mwz

Hiccups

This evening,we were in the car after supper. I developed a pretty bad case of the hiccups. Hiccups every ten seconds, bad. After a bit, whenever I would hiccup, I would hear Frances making a hiccup sound from the back seat. She had a great time "hiccuping" with me. It almost made the hiccups worth it.

Oh, Frances said "up" today, meaning pick me up and let me touch the ceiling.

mwz

Subway and Project Runway

This is a two part post because neither thing is important enough to give individual posts to.

We went to Subway last week or so. They are doing this "instant win" game. They give you a card that you can scratch to reveal a code. You then have to go to their web site and register and then you can "instantly" win.

We got a couple cards. So tonight, I went there and actually entered my information like a good little customer and entered the first code. They have this really stupid (and computationally intensive) JavaScript thing where you virtually scratch off another card to reveal you fate.

I didn't win.

So I go to enter the next code and they tell me that I can only enter one a day. What's up with that? I'm not going to give them another email address for them to spam, so I'm going to have to wait till tomorrow. Arial pointed out that if they want you to eat lunch and supper there, then they should at least allow you to enter twice a day.

I like Subway and all but this promotion sucks.

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We have started watching Project Runway on Bravo. We liked last year's season and we are liking this year's too. I don't know why I like it, I just do.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting about this is because one of the designers, Santino, reminds me of J-Funk's husband. They sound pretty close to the same and have similar mannerisms. They could be long lost brothers except that don't look that much alike.

I think of that every time we watch the show.

mwz

Christmas Trip

Okay, I have to post on our Christmas trip to see the family. It's been kinda hanging over my head and I want to write about other stuff like how Frances learned to turn on and off a light switch.

The trip as a whole was good. Blah blah blah... But what I want to talk about Frances' interactions with the other children she met.

When we were staying at my parents house, Arial, Frances and I went out with my high school friends. Toward the end of the evening, we went to one of their houses. Another friend had brought his daughter (who is only a little bit younger than Frances). I was quite pleased because the two of them ran around and played together. I don't think that Frances had actually played with a child roughly her age before. They were both kinda tired and that seemed to make them best friends. That was really cool. Unfortunately, they live many hours apart by car.

When we were in Arial's home town, Frances got to play with her cousins on that side. They are older, like 8 and 5 (roughly). They were really great with her. They played with her a lot and she seemed to like them too. It got to the point where she would actually ask her older cousin to be pick her up. Occasionally, they seemed a little too much in her face but Frances didn't seem to mind all that much.

Oh, and I can't forget to mention that the older cousin gave Frances a stuffed bear that she had gotten from her other grandma (who I guess gives them lots of stuffed animals). I thought that was really sweat that she gave one of her own things to Frances.

Finally, we stopped at my brothers to watch the Iowa bowl game (which didn't turn out so well). He doesn't get ESPN so we had to go to a bowling alley (they were the only thing open that early in the morning). My sister in law was kind enough to watch Frances for us while we were away. They have two children near Frances' age (both a little older). I hear that she got along famously with the younger of the two. Apparently, he was hilarious to Frances. He had her laughing a lot. They played peekaboo together (which Frances loves) and lots of other fun things. She had a really good time (and we did to other than the outcome of the game).

Well, that's that. Frances road in the car very well. She occasionally got a little fussy but that's to be expected for the amount of time she had to sit in her car seat. Even with run-around breaks every two hours, it's a lot of sitting.

mwz

Sick Zoey

We have been worrying about our youngest cat, Zoey. She's only like 2 or 3 years old (I can never remember, it changes every year). We think she stopped eating on Saturday but it's hard to tell because we don't pay that close attention to her eating habits. We noticed her throwing up a lot on Sunday. Generally speaking, Zoey spits up a lot but she was pretty much just throwing up stomach acid at that point and she was acting like I act when I'm sick (all mopey and tired).

On Monday, she still wasn't eating (although she was still drinking some) and she was gingerly slinking around so we made an appointment with the vet for Tuesday morning.

This isn't a very pleasant thing to deal with. You think about all of the possibilities. Did she swallow something? Does she just have the flu? Is it some kind of kitty cancer? Will she need surgery?

Then, you start doing cost analysis, which makes you feel horrible. We discussed how much we were willing to spend for various levels for certainty of survival (we'd spend more if there was a better chance that she would be okay but we can't afford to fight a losing battle against kitty cancer). But you start thinking things like, what if a simple surgery could fix it but that surgery cost $5,000. How do you look at your cat and say, "we can't spare the money to save you"? Not to mention that we go to a snooty vet where the costs could shoot past our maximum very quickly.

I took her to the vet (because Arial didn't want to, plus I'm closer to Zoey anyways). The vet listened to the symptoms and said that she seemed dehydrated. She said they would keep her for a while, rehydrate her (with an IV), give her something to stop the vomiting and take some X-rays to look for something stuck in her.

They wound up doing two sets of X-rays, one before hydration and one after because the first didn't show anything definitive. The second didn't really change anything. Basically, Zoey's small intestines are kind of bunched up in front instead of loose. The vet said that this can be a sign that there is a string in there, or it could just be how her intestines are.

So basically, they rehydrated her, gave her something to suppress the vomiting, gave her something to induce an appetite and fed her some barium in case she didn't get better and needed another X-ray the next day (I told you that we go to a snooty vet). Then, all we could do was wait a couple hours, feed her and watch to see if she vomits again.

We fed her a half an hour before we were supposed to (because she looked hungry). I gave her a little more than a tablespoon of the canned food that she likes and she ate it all. Then we waited a while to let that settle and I gave her another helping.

As far as we know, Zoey hasn't thrown up since. She is starting to act more like herself, a little more lovey but herself.

I hope that this episode is over. The vet bill was $316 and I don't know if we can afford surgery for her. But she does seem to be getting better and if so, the $316 was well worth it.

mwz

Odd Things About Spin Instructors

Lately, I've been going to spin classes as a part of my triathlon training. They are kinda fun but I've noticed some strange things about the instructors.

1. They don't realize that most hills crest. It's a common thing to start at a low resistance and work up to a high resistance. They usually say something to the effect of "we're going up a hill". The strange part of that whole thing is that when you are at the highest resistance, they say something like "we're almost at the top" when normally the highest incline would be somewhere in the middle of the hill and then it would slowly become less steep until your at the top. And now that I think about it, most of the hills that I know have the same grade for the majority of it. It doesn't look like the graph of x^2 at all.

2. The majority belong to the cult of "Not Stretching Legs Before Spin Class (Only Arms)" but only a few believe that it's dangerous to stretch your legs while on the bike at all.

3. They don't understand that I pace myself based on how long the class is. If I'm expecting a 45 minute class and it's 40 minutes in, I will give it the rest of what I've got because I want to be spent when I'm done. If the class then goes on for an hour I'm going to be fighting nausea the rest of the time.

4. Similarly, my last instructor didn't understand that by saying "We're almost done" all the time actually makes things go longer. To her, "We're almost done with this hill/sprint" meant 2-3 more minutes. Plus she started saying "We're almost done" at the 35 minute mark (of a 45 minute class that she took for an hour).

5. When I was just getting started, the instructor described a "jump" by saying, "remember when you were a kid and you jumped curbs? It's just like that." But when I said, "You actually jump the spin bike?" (because that sounded wrong), she laughed at me. Apparently, she meant "jumped off curbs". I wonder if she had to wait for a driveway to get back up on the side walk.

mwz