mamacat

Little Swimmer

My sister-in-law took this great picture of Sebastian being just plain cute after taking a little swim in our pool. 

butterflies

Today we took my neice and two nephews to the Butterfly Center at the Houston Science Museum.  It was an awesome place to take kids as there were just 1000s of butterflies flying around in a three story atrium.  A couple of butterflies landed on my sister-in-laws shirt which was really cool.

Got to be the WORST Job

I imagine that being a  Time Warner Cable customer service rep has got to be just about the worst job ever.  Really, people must just yell at them all of the time.

We are waiting on our second service call to repair our home internet service.  Earlier this week they came out to investigate and told us that we needed to have our cable wiring replaced from the junction box to the house.  So they scheduled the all day appt for today which means I sat around ALL DAY waiting for them to come.  Now the bright side is that I did get a lot done in the apartment but still, maybe I would have liked to run out for a coffee beverage or to take a walk before the rain came.

At 4pm I called to confirm that they were still coming today and I was assured that they were.

At 5:45 I was called back and told that they need to reschedule because of the weather.  Well, from what I can tell, it storms everyday in the last afternoon so this should be no surprise, and they storms blow through pretty quickly.  Of course, I put up a big stink because it has been broken for over a week, and I waited all day for them to come but the best they would do is give me a 8-10am window on Monday.  Well, I'll take that because I really don't get out of the house much before then anyway.

If this were the only scheduling snafu I had heard of I would, of course, chalk it up to the weather.  However, friend Jen had a similar experience because they were also backed up and they had to reschedule her earlier this week.

Giggles

Every day after feeding Sebastian his lunch (carrots today), I essentially have to strip him down, clean all the baby food off of him and get him dressed in fresh clothing.  He giggles whenever I try to clean the crease in his neck.  Below is the link to the quicktime movie of his giggles (about 30 seconds of footage).

My Boys in the Morning

After Sebastian has had his bowl of rice cereal, and morning bottle, he usually spend some time playing in his little chair trying to pull on the toys on the bar.  Recently he started pullingon the cow's tail which plays "Old McDonald Had a Farm".  He won't quite smile for the camera yet, but he is getting closer.

Leo on the other hand, hops up on the sofa and snuggles in between the cushions after finishing his breakfast of kibble and baby drool.

Getting Help!

Imagine yourself, with an infant, in a new city, with no family and one friend.

Imagine your spouse works 12+ hours a day.

Feel like you would loose your sanity?  Me too!

So, I set about to find some help.  Originally I tried to find day care facilities that offered mom's day out but all the programs I found were for children 2 or older...not 4 months.  So I took to the streets, literally.  I met some other moms in my neighborhood and asked them what they do.  And it turns out several have hired a woman that comes, cleans, and watches the kids! Score.

After some initial scheduling difficulties we were finally able to meet and she was very nice.  For her interview she brought her 19 year old daughter and 3 year old grandson so her daughter could translate if there were questions she didn't understand. As it turns out her English is very good, and my Spanish is non-existent although she is going to teach me a few words here and there.

So we agreed to Wednesdays when she will come for 6 hours and essentially do what I need her to do.  Yesterday was the first day and it was great.  In her 6 hours she was able to do a first pass at cleaning the entire house (and if you had seen the bathrooms you would have been impressed).  And while Sebastian took an excellent morning nap, I was able to run errands as she was home with him.  In addition, I tackled organizing my laundry room which had become a pile of baskets, clothes, and cleaning supplies.  Now there is an organizer hanging on the wall for all the mops and brooms, laundry is done and put away, and I can see more floor than I have since we moved in.

After realizing that papacat's schedule may be a little more aggressive than we had originally thought, he offered to let me have her come two days a week for the next 6-8 weeks.  This really helps her out as she had one day still available on her schedule to fill, and it helps me out as I stand a chance at actually finishing my unpacking and may even have a chance to get a coffee beverage.  It has been heavenly.

Sometimes I get asked if I feel weird about having someone come in and clean and such for me and my answer is NO WAY!  We've actually had a cleaning service for just about as long as I can remember (way back to Seattle days) and it turns out that is just not a good use of my time.  Add to that the fact that I don't have any family here to help out, and you'll quickly see that it makes a whole lot of sense to just pay for some relief.

So, I'm looking forward to regaining some of my sanity.  In the meantime, I have plenty to do to keep me busy!

Our Little Cookie Monster

Download SebastianCookie.avi Sebastian loves his cookies, and Leo likes to try to help him eat them!

Sweet Napping

The nice thing about the rain is it works well to keep Sebastian sleeping for his nap.  His naps yesterday were a little disjointed and I had to wake him this morning to take Jay to pick up the car at the shop so I'm sure he is thrilled to take a nice long morning nap!  What a sweet boy!

Raining for Days

Houston may have had the driest June on record, but July is shaping up to make up for it.  The 5.5 inches that fell yesterday in only a few hours caused some major flooding and even make it as a Today show morning story.  It continued to storm overnight and is raining again now.  I'm worried that our pool might come over the edges.

cool phone service

Now that we are in Houston, we are using SBC for our phone service...and boy do they have cool service.  You can get fax messages which are like voicemail but faxes.  You log into the web interface to view and print your faxes out.  It is VERY cool.  You can also listen to your voicemail through the website.  This made cleaning out my voicemail box (where I had saved a bunch of messages) a breeze.