Gametes In Love

It’s a little known fact to most of you that S has over 1300 skydives. Yep, “What for you jump out of a perfectly good airplane for?”, skydives (and that’s where the term Whuffo for a non-skydiver comes from). He introduced me to the sport 9 years ago, and although I haven’t made a skydive in over 3 years, I have a little over 200 jumps myself. In addition to our time in the air, S and I each have several hours of indoor wind-tunnel flight time.

And now that G has reached the ripe ole’ age of 10 months, given the extensive training the high winds in our town have put him through, as well as the “fly training” S and G do at home, we decided it was high time he made his first flight. We fitted G with a tight pair of sunglasses, attempted to fit him with the smallest helmet iFly had onsite and off we went.

He did awesome!!!

He sucked up his little face, raised his head and embraced the wind. He opened up his arms wide and just relaxed in S’ arms. Of course, S never let go, and his flight lasted all of a minute, but he was a perfect little flier. We had to pause in the middle to get rid of the helmet since it wasn’t staying on, and he was a sport through the whole thing. Not a cry, not a fuss, not a peep.

Given that he was denied his morning nap for this adventure I’m really impressed with how well he handled himself. I’m looking forward to going again.

So… anyone know where I can get a mini-helmet for a 17 1/2″ head?

S and I did some flying too, which felt awesome. I haven’t gone since I got pregnant with G — for liability purposes you can’t fly while knocked up, and since he was born it’s just been hard to find the time. I think we’re both going to be good and sore this week from the work-out. Another parting gift I got from today was an obscene amount of tangles in my hair. I had tied it in a braid, but forgot to tuck the braid in my helmet, so off the bottom-rubber band went and on came the tangles. I spent over an hour seriously contemplating calling a professional hairstylist while I worked out the knots. Let this be a lesson to you — while out in 140mph wind, tie and keep your hair under wraps.
I also almost flashed all the other fliers, as the zipper of my suit came undone and my shirt was starting to pick up wind. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time 🙁 I’ll spare you this part of the video, though.

Many thanks to Ben, our instructor, and Matt, our tunnel driver. And our great friend Bradstyle for waking up early to hang out and fly with us this morning. Oh, also, if you live in the California Bay Area: iFly SF Bay in Union City — you gotta go check it out! Keep in mind, though, that G’s flight was a personal exception: the youngest you can be to fly is 3 years of age.

Anyway, here are some pics. Video’s at the bottom.

“Alright, I’m ready to go. Are we doing this thing or what?”

Woo hoo (Part I)

Woo hoo (Part II)

“Who you callin’ Goggle-face?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttGIlK06oxE]

Dear G,

Finding you sitting-up in your crib playing with the videocam is not what I had in mind when I put you down for a nap this afternoon. Naptime is for lying down flat as a board, closing your eyes and taking a snooze. Sitting up and rattling the crib isn’t fitting to that definition.

Please also tell me how you manage to immediately awaken even though I put you down half asleep… twice!

Sincerely,

Your “tired-of-battling-you-at-naptime” mom

G has sprouted two more teeth over the last few days. We now have all incisors in place. He’s pretty shy about his mouth and really doesn’t like me sticking my fingers in there. Therefore photos are a ways away, so I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.

His top lateral incisors are also doing the puffy thing on the gum-line, so there’s a change in a few weeks we might have those poking out as well.

Although I’m glad he’s handling all this teeth baking so well, I’m approaching each feeding session with trepidation. He’s known to chomp, which was unpleasant with just 2 bottom teeth. Additionally, in moments of distraction he twists his head to the side, but forgets to let go. All this equals “Ow!”. Now with two matching top teeth I’m, honestly, a little scared of him.

With his new-found chompers, G is now enjoying cheese, cut into little bits. He’s also tasted watermelon, pita bread, and umn… gyro meat. Yeah, I went a little lax the other day and decided to share my lunch with him. He enjoyed it! Down to the Avgolemano soup. That’s right — my boy’s first “official meal” was Greek food. Not quite Bulgarian, but it’s not like we have a plethera of Bulgarian fast-food places around us. Eh, at least Greek is close enough to his ethnic origin 🙂

In other news, Neko hasn’t had any accidents (or purposeful displays of disobedience) in 4 days. Yeah!

As you recall our most recent vacation resulted in a lot of pee puddles throughout our house, courtesy of Neko.

Sadly even after we returned (and cleaned-up), his behavior continued. What’s more he was taking bold steps and peeing right in front of me! I took him to the vet, read online articles, and made an appointment with a cat behaviorist (which is scheduled for the 11th).

His veterinarian (new lady, but I like her A LOT — I’ll be scheduling all his appointments with her going forward) did a urinalysis. The results took 4 days to get back, but here’s what we know: Neko doesn’t have a kidney infection, but he did have traces of blood and crystals in his pee. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. The crystals can be signs of a previous infection, but it’s nothing that can be treated with medication. I’ll be honest, my heart sank when I heard this — not that I wanted my furball to be ill, but I had hoped the results would show that we could address the problem easily. I don’t love medicating Neko — he’s not the easiest to give pills to, believe me, but I was willing to do a few weeks of meds if it meant no more pee. Yet, alas, no meds, because none were required nor help.

We go back to the vet in 2 weeks for a follow-up urinalysis test. Meanwhile, at home I’ve made the following changes:

– moved his food away from the master bathroom and down into the dining room. I’m hoping this does 2 things: 1) per reading suggestion, keeps his food away from his litterbox, which is also located int he master bathroom; and 2) since the dining room was his latest pee-area of choice (the only one he kept post-clean-up), I’m hoping he wouldn’t want to pee where he ate.

– replaced his ceramic water bowl with a stainless steel water bowl. The vet wants us to increase his water intake as much as possible, and said that steel bowls or recirculating systems seems to do that for cats better than ceramic bowls. I’m starting with steel first.

– change his water a twice a day.

– purchased a second water bowl. This is a new thing, but I figured I’ll keep one upstairs (still in the master bath, oh well) and one downstairs with his food. That way he doesn’t have to change floors if he’s thirsty.

– purchased a second litter-box. Now he has two. The fancy one upstairs, a Littermaid which cleans up after him; and the new, plain-box one in the downstairs bathroom. With one on each floor, again I’m hoping he won’t result to going on my dining-room floor when a litterbox is less than 10 feet away.

– changed his diet. This was another vet recommendation. She’s worried about his weight, and noted it might be contributing to infection, so she wants him to loose some poundage. Kitty-exercise videos aside, she has a new diet recommendation. It’s pricier (ugh), but hey, if it helps…

– twice-daily spray-downs of the dining room with Feliway. The Feliway hormone is supposed to be relaxing to cats and reduce anexiety.

So the results?

3 days now with no pee! I’m so excited!

I don’t know if this is a pattern, which combination of the above is helping, but something is working. I still wake up every morning with trepidation, and return from work worried if he’s left a puddle-surprise for me to clean-up, but a few days with no accidents is helping. I won’t go as far as say that we’ve resolved our issues, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

We still have the appointment with the behaviorist next Saturday. I filled out a very detailed questionaire for her, so I’m hoping she’ll have some additional tips on how to handle this situation and also teach us how to better, and more effectively discipline Neko.

So, Neko Pee Watch continues. I hope it lasts, ‘cuz I’m not looking forward to the idea of diapering a four-legged child in addition to my two-legged one. I wasn’t above it though!

Here’s something to bring a smile to your face — at least it makes ME smile.

It’s G laughing.