A friend of mine clued me in to this web site.  It will list the name, occupation, and address of anyone who has made a political campaign contribution.

 

For those of you who live in Medford, I've taken the liberty of providing a direct link to all of the Medford resident information.

 

Enjoy!

But not for me.  Kara is now working.  She had dinner on Monday with some friends of hers, and wound up with a call to do per-diem work at Lifecare Center of Stoneham, where she has worked in the past.  We've now moved to a shift schedule.  She's going to work mornings and early afternoons, and I'm going to work afternoons to early evening.

 

Of course, my work is far less lucrative at this point - it consists mostly of looking for a job in various ways.  I don't know how long she'll be able to work - she is getting pretty pregnant at this point.

Don't start making cookies with your 2 1/2 year old after 4PM if you expect her to go to sleep on time.

 

I mean, I knew I was asking for trouble.  She is completely transparent when it comes to sugar.  You can see it hit, watch her get all worked up, and then see it crash.  Actually, the cookie project wasn't the problem.  We had an absolute blast.  She got to roll out the dough and stamp the shapes and even eat fresh cookies out of the oven.  And best of all, we both got to make an officially sanctioned Big Mess™ in the kitchen in the process.  She loved it, and showered me with love afterwards.

 

The problem was, I gave her a "twinkle little star" cookie after dinner.  That one hit during bathtime.  I was able to handle that, since I'm the bath guy.  But then Kara came home right before bed when I was starting to read with Katherine.  She'd been out with some of her professional peers and friends from school, and she brought one of them home to gab some.  I had locked both of the screen doors, because Katherine's learned how to get outside, and so they had to knock to get it.  When I took Katherine downstairs (my second mistake), she got caught up in the commotion of a new person.  Then she really had a hard time settling down.  After Kara and finished putting her down, I had to go up and sing four songs to get her to go to sleep.  But sleep she did.

 

Oh, and her temperature was fine before bed and I did, in fact, feel her new teeth just below the skin at bathtime, so I think that's all that's going on.

Despite the runny nose and low-grade fever, it's still not clear if Katherine has a cold or just some new teeth.  I mean she definately has new teeth - we've felt them.  Sometimes the symptoms are quite similar. 

 

Me, I'm on the teeth side of things, but Kara is not as sure.  At any rate, she's been content to lounge around the house, which is good, because it's pretty gloomy outside.  This morning we did painting and played with two different kinds of blocks.  She's really amazing - she can build a block tower really, really tall.

 

Got a Skype call, gotta go...

No, nothing's happened with her sleep tonight, but the day was just pretty miserable.  I still think it's two upper teeth although you never can be sure.  She had a low-grade fever before bed and she's had a lot of congestion as well.  We gave her the double dose (Pediacare and Tylenol) before bed; with any luck, she'll sleep through the night.

 

She's also pretty laid back, but she can get really fussy too.  She stayed in most of the day.  I took her out to do a few errands (BJ's and Stop and Shop).  She was good in BJ's, but turned into a devil in S&S.  And I'm standing in the 12 item or less line with my big red car shopping cart with a very slow woman in front of me, and there are two teenagers behind me.  The woman at the next register opens up another 12 or less line.

 

Why don't they ever say the right thing, which is, "I can take the next person in line over here..."

 

Instead, she says, "I can help someone over here."

 

I start to back up the big red car.  The two teenagers behind me look at me, look at her, and then move over.  Joined quickly by some others.  Although my cashier was scanning the last of the woman's items in front of me at this point, the new cashier got the two teenagers and the person after them out the door before I had even paid.

 

And all the while, Katherine was like an angry cat.  She's kicking off her rainboots, she's asking to be let in the right door of the car instead of the left door, she's saying, "I'll be right back, I forgot something," and running off, and so forth.  I was really to explode by the time I got home.  I just handed her to Kara and put my head in my hands.

 

Anyway, the afternoon was quieter, although she had her moments.  She's sleeping peacefully now.

What a terrible night we all had last night.  I have suffered from sleep disorders ever since I was a little kid.  Last night I tried a new medicine - a muscle relaxant that was supposed to help.  It made things worse.  I didn't fall soundly asleep until almost 2AM.  About an hour later, Katherine got up.  It's pretty rare for her to have problems sleeping, but Kara discovered a couple of new teeth trying to come in later in the morning.  Anyway, Kara brought her into our bed, then put her back when she was asleep.  She awoke a second time, and came back in.  I guess they both finally got up at about a quarter to six.  What a drag.  I slept through most of it in 30 minute chunks.  Kara put a video on for Katherine, and then fell asleep on the couch.  She'd wake up every 25 minutes and put a new one on.  I became conscious at around 8:45.  At least I had a better rest than my girls.

 

But now it's raining and there isn't much to do around the house.  These rainy summer days are hard because there's only so many projects you can do before Katherine just needs to get some physical activity.  And the rain won't stop any time soon, so we are probably going to be in for a tough day.