Troubles in babyland

Things are okay here, but we have had some difficulties.

Along with all the joys of births in the family, Sabine and my step-sisters baby boy, Grady, we have also had bad news. Last month we found out that my cousin Michael C. has a "mass" (doc-talk for cancer) on his liver and perhaps also on his pancreas. He is 40, happily married to his high school sweetheart, and they have 3 daughters, the youngest one is just 5. The prognosis is not good, but we are all very hopeful, after all, he is otherwise a young and healthy man. This week we also found out my step-father's younger brother, Sammy, has brain cancer. His doctor gives him 6 weeks. He is getting a second opinion. There are no words to describe my sadness and horror at this point.

Here is Sabine with her eyes open, and Arabella demonstrating their resemblance.

About 2 weeks ago Sabine stopped sleeping all the time and decided being awake more than asleep sounded like fun. So I am getting nothing done, including sleeping. Fortunately her night schedule has stayed steady so far, in her bassinet at 11:30 after nearly 2 hours of feeding, and then sleeping to 3ish, then back asleep about an hour later until 5 or 6 in the morning. She seems happier with me off both all dairy and chocolate. Dang. I can use non-dairy creamer and soy milk instead of milk, but I don't know any substitutes for chocolate.

Arabella seems to be adapting to life with a baby, but she has been crabby, especially at school. Her teacher and the other parents have been so accustomed to Arabella being a happy, cheerful child that they have really been shocked by her moodiness. At home she has actually been easier to deal with, but the mood is spilling into the rest of her life.

And then the monitor decided to start acting up, some days it doesn't work, or if it does it only works for a split second, and then its gone, blank. I'm taking advantage of today's working monitor time to post and check email, but don't be surprised if I don't respond to emails right away. If ever.

On Halloween we had a dramatic crisis, where after weeks of telling me she wanted to be a fairy princess, and me preparing for that, she announced she would wear neither her fairy wings nor her princess crown. I flat-out refuse to send a costume-less child out trick or treating, it's low-class and stupid. 11th hour crisis was averted by my pulling out a second pair of wings (I had bought when I was worried I might not find her fairy wings, these being larger and black and orange, instead of pink) and Arabella went out as a butterfly. Disaster averted. Sabine wore her Bayou Bleu gown from Auntie Robin and her pumpkin hat from Fairy grand-mother Nancee. The weather was mild, so I sat with Sabine on the front porch and handed out candy and visited with our neighbor Erin.

This is a picture I took this summer when we were in Texas, visiting family, these are Michael C's younger daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, with Arabella. Sarah and Elizabeth seemed to think Arabella was a big doll, and spent hours dressing her up.