The Trixie Update

Who was optimistic? Not many of you. Only about 8% of you thought you can teach an old toddler new tricks. But to our knowledge, Trixie didn’t fall out of bed at all last night. (Unfortunately, she also tried to wake up a little too early around 6:30.)

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The overwhelming majority of you either thought there were no problems (19%) or it was a complete failure and she slept on the floor the whole night (50%). The correct answer lies somewhere in between. Jenn had to go help Trixie two times last night. The first time, around 1am, Trixie was lying on the floor (right next to the bed — presumably where she fell) pitifully crying and whimpering. She went back to sleep the second Jenn put her in bed. The second time, around 3am, Trixie was bawling at the gate. It took a little more work to get her down (so I am told) but Jenn succeeded.

Earlier today Trixie took her nap without falling off the bed, but it took me 90 minutes to get her to go to sleep. It was a nightmare, and makes me want to take up cat herding.

Now we’re getting ready to see if Trixie has learned anything since last night. Anyone want to take a guess? We’re resetting the poll. Place your bets for tonight’s [Monday night] record. I’ll post the answer first thing Tuesday morning. Well… maybe after coffee.

[Editor’s note] This poll is now closed.

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As reported below, we removed the crib side rail yesterday. How many times do you think Trixie fell out of the bed last night? Vote now, see the answer tonight after Trixie goes to sleep. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments.)

[Editor’s note] This poll is now closed.

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Keeping the crib side rail in the lowered position lasted only one day. It got too dangerous because a sleepy, wobbly Trixie was still inclined to stand up and grab for the railing, even though it no longer came up to her chest-level. Instead it cut her off at the knees, acting like a well-designed tripwire. To keep Trixie from catapulting herself onto the floor every time she stood up, we had to take the side completely off. She’s free.

Since we can no longer secure her in the “toddler bed”, we had to fall back to the next defensible position. We bought a door gate last night and have cordoned off her room. This line must hold. It also means that we have conceded that territory. She could spend hours exploring in there in the middle of night (if done quietly) and we’d never know. So, we finally had to baby-proof the room.

Now, I’ve told Jenn for 17 months that I would baby-proof the house, but I never really intended to because it just seemed like a lot of work. I’ve opted instead to actually watch the kid and intervene only when she tries to pry open the bleach with a kitchen knife. However, now that Trixie really, really has her own room, we went through and plugged the outlets, secured the electrical cords, installed toilet seat clamps on everything. You know, the works.

Tonight is her first night sleeping in there. Getting her to go to bed took a little extra work, but after hanging on the gate and howling for fifteen minutes she eventually wandered back over to the bed and crawled in. I was thankful when she finally fell asleep. It’s a little disconcerting to have her creeping around the room in the dark, knocking things over and running into stuff. It sounds too much like something is loose in there, just waiting for the rest of us to go asleep.

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1) The “One Year Ago Today” feature now works for all TPODs. See, you only had to ask about 20 times to get me to do it
2) No more TPODs from the future. This change won’t affect 99% of you, but I felt like explaining to the other 1%. It wasn’t a big mystery to anyone who looked at the TPOD URL structure to figure out how to check ahead and see photos before they are supposed to show up. That didn’t really bother me — it just meant you didn’t get to see a “new” TPOD on that day. However, today someone not only looked ahead, but left a comment, thus exposing tomorrow’s TPOD link to all visitors. Because of this, future TPODs are now protected. Sorry - no more predicting the future

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We’re feeling better. I was down for a total of two weeks. Trixie teetered on the edge the entire time but never fell over. It makes me think her flu shot might have actually worked.

Now that I can think straight again it’s back to business. First, someone asked a while back about a P.O. Box. I checked into it and I’m reporting back that we’re not doing that this year.

The cost of a P.O. Box to receive a Christmas card or two outweighs the risk of a mail bomb or stalker showing up at the door. Therefore, if you really want to send Trixie or the Trixie Update a card, here’s how to get our mailing address. Send me an email.* Write something personal in it, you know, share something, so I know that you’re not a crazy stalker. And by the way, I mean nice personal, not uncomfortable personal. I’ll email you our mailing address back.

Second, if you enjoy reading personal blogs and have a favorite you feel deserves more attention, you can nominate it for a BoB (Best of Blogs) award. We’ve been nominated, so I’m not suggesting you go plug us. But if there’s another blog you like, here’s a chance to show your appreciation.

*email us at TTU@trixieupdate.com. Important: include “Trixie Update Address” in the subject line or I probably won’t see it.

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She climbed out of the crib again while I was in the shower. Thankfully Jenn was home. We then caught a glimpse of how she was doing it. It looked like a cross between the men’s rings competition and a wounded gazelle trying to escape a lion.

We’re now keeping the side lowered so she can easily get in and out at will. We don’t want to take the side off entirely because Trixie rolls around like crazy in her sleep — imagine a sack of potatoes in the back of a pickup truck. We’re not sure what we’re going to do next.

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I was in the kitchen this morning, with Trixie in her crib, when I heard a huge thump-a-thunk. I promptly ignored it because how much trouble can she get into when she’s in the crib?

Not expecting anyone or anything else to be moving around the house, I almost screamed bloody murder when 10 seconds later Trixie came shuffling around the corner. This is a bad milestone, Trixie can get out of her crib.

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Really, I think I’m dying. This is going to be a slooow week(s). I plan to get TPODs up, but that’s about it. In the meantime, let’s see how sick everyone else is. Do you or did you have BIDS*? Go vote in the new poll. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments).

*Baby-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. For more information read the next post “Vector”.

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As reported in our last post, babies mess you up in the head. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to share their experience involving emotional instability and parenthood. However, I feel like I may have given the wrong impression once readers began leaving suggestions of which other movies not to watch. For the record, I want to state that there was never any chance I would watch Pay it Forward. This has nothing to do with having a child, I just lump it up there with other truisms such as don’t stick an auger bit in your eye and don’t make toast in the bathtub.

So sure, once you have a kid, you now get misty at the end of Old Yeller, but does it stop there? No. That’s easy to fix. Just get a Kleenex. The bad part is what happens to the rest of your body.

Jenn and I have never been sick as frequently as we have over the last 16 months. Actually, I’m sick as hell right now (which is why there hasn’t been a lot of activity on the site.) This is on top of two earlier bouts of super flu since Trixie was born. In the four years prior to her arrival, I only got sick once. Unless you count the two cases of pinkeye I got in my first month of moving to the Bronx. (That was before I learned not to touch anything in New York City.)

Jenn has also gotten horribly sick three times since Trixie’s birth, including a month-long case of something a just few genes removed from Spanish Influenza. (She also had a pretty good bill of health before Trixie.)

Is there a name for this condition? This rapid deterioration of a previously healthy adult once a baby enters the picture? My good friend Schaff, who has lost track of the number of times I’ve called to say, “I’m sick as hell right now,” has dubbed this condition BIDS: Baby-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Babies are not only purveyors of disease and pestilence — they weaken your immune system first by systematically denying you a good night’s sleep.

So without proper rest, you’re guaranteed to develop the worst possible case of whatever you come down with. But wait — there’s more! As everyone knows, disease thrives in crowds. When the host population is large enough for a disease to move around, lay dormant, incubate, and resurface, that’s when the really bad things happen. Plague, measles, flu, small pox.

When there were just two of you, it was easy to beat a disease. But once baby makes three, your host population has hit the critical mass. Now you all get to pass mutated strains around the circle. So there’s a good chance you’re not going to just get sick just once, but again, and again, and again. It brings the family closer together - just in time for the holidays.

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