My Basement's Back!

Hey peeps. Since no one else is saying it, I am: Sarah ANNIHILATED Joe Biden in the debate. I loved the contrast in their mannerisms. He never looked directly at the camera. She, on the other hand, seemed to be staring down the cameramen with the same look I'm sure she uses with an impudent child. You know, the one that says, "you look me in the face when I'm talking to you!"

But thanks to the geniuses in Congress, by Friday morning the debate was long since forgotten. That atrocity of a bill has now passed both houses. We all may as well just sign over all our possessions to Big Brother now; no sense postponing the inevitable. I am so sick and so thoroughly disgusted by this that it makes my blood boil. But while the government is systematically obliterating every principle upon which our nation was founded, I still have a lovely baby daughter to take care of and the most magnanimous and selfless husband in the world to walk through all this with. While my fellow ultra-conservatives (those of us who lean somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan) insist each day that tomorrow is the apocalypse, I'm gonna live. Moving right along.

When Sean and I bought this house three and a half years ago, we were both working full time and he was in his final semester at UMUC, taking an eighteen credit hour load. We both about broke our necks getting this place painted top to bottom, scrubbed and sanitized, pulling up carpet and replacing fixtures. But I ended up doing the majority of our packing. Many of the things we had in our apartment just didn't translate into the house, and I threw out what I could, but things like old furniture were too bulky. Thus, they all ended up in the basement. We are fortunate that our house came with a gigantic (albeit poorly) finished basement. When we first moved in and it was just Sean and I, we never imagined we'd be able to fill up all that space.

Well, the state of the economy being what it is, and our plans to expand our family being what they are, and our beliefs about excess being what they are, we see no reason to move out of this house any time in the foreseeable future. But once we add one more kid to the mix (and it probably won't be terribly long before we do), we're out of bedrooms. We believe that it's good for siblings to have to share rooms, but at some point we see ourselves turning the basement into part playroom, part guestroom, since ours will disappear. But that means we can't store junk that we're not going to use anymore, at least not here. Our attic hatch is 18 inches square and there's no floor up there anyhow, so that's out. The solution: 1-800-GOT-JUNK. They came Saturday afternoon and in half an hour, the crap that's been plaguing us for three years was GONE! Now all that's down there is the stuff we actually need to store, like baby clothes and gear and Christmas decorations. They were professional, friendly, NEAT (BIG points with me!!), and their services are very reasonably priced. If you have excess junk laying around, I highly recommend you give them a call!

My mom (Caitrin's Nanny) is coming to visit this week. We had all hoped it would work out for September, since our three birthdays are right in a row...Mom's is two days before mine and Caitrin's is eleven days after, but it'll actually be better that it's happening now because the weather here is starting to hint at fall. Caitrin's diaper rash is finally clearing up. It had gotten really bad. We were slathering Desitin on at every change but it wasn't doing a thing. It must have been very painful for Caitrin because her legs were actually trembling when I would change her. Thankfully, her pediatrician's office called in a prescription for nystatin cream. We have been using it with every diaper change for two days and man, what a difference. Thing is, I had no idea how to tell that this was a yeast rash versus a dermatitis-type diaper rash. The books all say it's very easy to tell, but you could've fooled Sean and I. Now that the rash is nearly gone, I will try PediaSure again and see what happens. I've started giving her two ounces of evaporated milk, diluted one to one with water, at lunch and dinner and at snack time if she seems to want it. She seems to be sensitive to whole milk (makes her rash worse), but evaporated milk is okay. It's the same thing as whole milk, just heat-treated and with 50% of the water removed, which is why it's okay to give babies as an alternative to whole milk.

Gonna go watch football with Sean for a bit before bed. I took some funny pics of Caitrin in the bath tonight and will get them edited and up ASAP. Be blessed!