I took Savannah swimming last week but I didn’t get pictures of it. I took her again yesterday and I managed to get photos this time! I spent the evening at a friend’s place which has a swimming pool for the area. We went in, there was no one else around. The water was really warm, and Savannah seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Rather, she made those shocked/happy/confused looks the whole time, hehe. Normally if she doesn’t like something though, she is very vocal about it. It wasn’t until we had spent a good amount of time in there that someone who apparently worked on the maintenance of the pool came in and told us that the pool was closed for cleaning. We didn’t see any signs, the gate was still open, so I don’t see how we were supposed to have known that it was closed! It was a little murky, but I thought that was just due to the chlorine. I was a little worried that maybe there were a lot of chemicals due to this ‘cleaning’, so when we got back to my friend’s place, I rinsed Savannah off. It’s a day later and her skin seems just fine, so no harm done!

Okay so I have another poop story. I know it seems like the only things I post about my baby are poop related, but really it was kind of funny.

She was fussing to be fed, so I took her to the couch and fed her. After snoozing a little, she was comfy and happy. She had a hooded bath towel (which I use as a blanket these days because it also acts as a spit-up absorber! They’re also lighter and don’t heat her up as much in this southern heat, but still provide the swaddling factor) and I laid her down onto the nursing pillow and I lay next to her. I took out my french copy of the first Harry Potter and read her the beginning of the second chapter. (I’m half hoping she will learn french from me reading aloud to her.. every bit helps!) So I’m halfway through the second chapter, when Harry visits the zoo on Dudley’s birthday, when Savannah spits up a bit. She does this a lot after her feedings, so I’m not exactly surprised. I wipe her face with the towel see if it leaked anywhere else.

I leaned over her and my hand touched her leg and it was moist. How did spit up get all the way down to her thigh? I take my hand away and it’s covered in poop! AAAH! It was all over MY shorts, my shirt, everywhere that my body was anywhere near her bottom. There was a puddle of it on the pillow, and all over her towel and of course her outfit and her diaper, but that’s a given :p She’s laughing of course, she thinks this is hilarious.

I scoop up all of the poopy stuff and put her on the floor in her room on a towel while I drew a bath. I had to take off my stuff too and throw everything in the wash. After also adding the towel, her outfit and diaper to the wash, I bathed her and put her in a nice new warm outfit and down for a nap. Messy day number 2. (HAH! Number TWO! Get it?! :p)

My husband recently started a company, called Oxide Solutions, that does IT support and graphic design. I help out sometimes, mostly moral support for now. Recently we just started to rent some office space! It’s looking awesome. I picked a blue colour for the walls, and they didn’t have exactly what I wanted as far as the shade went, but they had a much brighter version. We got the bright blue on the bottom and a toned down one for the top. It looks great so far, I love it! Lucky for us that one of the Oxide team does painting on the side! He’s been working on the walls and it’s almost finished. Soon I’ll have my very own cubicle! It will be nice to separate work from home. As much as I love working from home, things like the dishes, laundry, food, and tidying up always distract me. At least this way I’ll have a space for all of my Kina-Ink related work things and I can help Oxide out as well. The baby will come too though, she can keep me company!

Yesterday I helped (a little) put up one of the cubicle walls. I think we may be going back tonight to work on it some more. Almost there! Here are a couple more pictures, just for fun.

So today I met some friends to go to a really charming downtown café/restaurant called Gaulart & Maliclet. I brought the baby with me too, thinking it would be a nice outing for her. First of all, they were very French in that the place was teeny, cramped, but totally stylish and cute.

I took one look inside and noticed it was a bar-style at the front of the place. A tall counter that took up half the already narrow space, and a row of tall bar stool style high backed chairs. The front door had a step one foot high to get in, which was interesting to heave the stroller over. I kept thinking to myself that I should have just brought her in her sling.

Then trying to wheel the stroller through the restaurant.. well we had to ask everyone to move, and the stroller just BARELY fit. I hit every molding on the floor, every chair, purse, ankle, waitress and table corner on the way in. Everyone was super kind in going out of their way to let my massive baby stroller through the hallways until we finally found our seat at the back of the café.

We all got delicious food and coffee. I actually found a place that served something very close to my absolute favourite sandwich; a french baguette with a black olive paste/mixture, goat cheese, basil and tomatoes. So very tasty. I enjoyed every bite. Unfortunately recent ‘mom’ training has led me to inhale every meal at lightning speed so that I can tend to baby. I should have savored it, Savannah was quite well behaved the whole time.

Once I finished my meal, (about halfway through my friend’s meal), I got up to bottle feed her and noticed her bottom and back was moist. Ugh, I just dreaded having to change her diaper in this tiny place. I checked the bathroom but there were no surfaces to change her diaper on. It was a very European style bathroom though, all tile, one toilet and one urinal cramped into a tight space with a sliding door as an entrance. This was the very first time that I took all those baby changing stations for granted. I never really noticed them before, or paid close attention to which places had them, and now I actually needed one!

We were seated in the back, and there were only 3 other small tables in the same nook as us. I thought about using one of the tables to change her, but I could just imagine if the host came in to seat some people at the table, with a baby and a messy diaper on the surface that they were about to eat on.. I decided against it.

There was a tall stack of glass bottles of water in cardboard boxes, and I used the top box as a makeshift changing table. It only smelled/seemed like the baby had a wet diaper, but man oh man.. it was the biggest poopy diaper I had EVER changed on her. EVER. Of course she waited until we were in the smallest, most crammed and awkward restaurant for me to change this massive diaper of hers. With help from friends to make sure she didn’t fall off or fling the dirty diaper into a nearby table with her flailing feet, we got her cleaned up and changed before any staff (or customers) took any notice.

She was great the rest of the time. We paid up and headed home. She was quiet all the ride home, as well, minus some occasional cooing. Then we got home and I had to change her again because she had spit up. I lay her down and went to unbutton her spit-up soaked onesie, when I saw a massive mess of poop. On the OUTSIDE of her diaper! It was all on her stomach, her back, legs.. how did I not see it when she was in the car? How did I not even notice? Two of the biggest poopy diapers EVER, and both within hours of each other. I ended up having to give her a bath, which I rarely do in the middle of the day.. but man.

What a messy kid!

No seriously, where does it go? I could have sworn it was only yesterday that I was 40lbs heavier waddling around trying to get chores done. It’s already August and it still feels like summer hasn’t started yet. Moreso because here it ALWAYS feels like summer. Yes, even in the winter :p

Some kind of routine has slowly emerged, even if it’s somewhat forced by me. Savannah usually gets SUPER ULTRA FUSSY in the evenings and then we finally get her to sleep, then I pass out wherever I was when I got her to sleep (last night it was on the couch in the living room, lying sideways with her sleeping on a couch cushion.. I’m such a great mom o_o;;) Then after the waking up and going back to sleep every 2-4 hours overnight, I keep her awake at around 8:30-9am and go on a walk around the neighbourhood. So far those have been going okay, except it’s almost 90 degrees by the time the walk is wrapping up, and Savannah gets SUPER cranky and hot. I don’t blame her. I’m usually dripping sweat everywhere by this time and approaching sunburn status. I *would* walk in the evenings but she’s just way too fussy, and the only other time it’s safe to go outside is early in the morning.

Yesterday I actually took her out swimming. I was at a friend’s new apartment that had a pool, so we decided to go in and bring her with us! She took it rather well. She loves the water, but I think the whole concept of being outside and the water not being bathwater, and her not feeling the “bottom” of the pool (or tub, as she’s used to) made her really confused. She did grin quite a bit but mostly seemed in a state of awe/shock. She did kick around a lot and splash, it was cute. Of course I was holding her the whole time. She slept very well after all that! Too bad it wasn’t at night, haha.

The drawing challenge is going well, so far it’s on day 4 and I’ve been able to make a drawing for every day. There are a lot of other things I *should* be working on now, a painting, those shoes, and a handful of commissions.. but my days are just too short, it seems. Like I said. Where DOES the time go?

I have been playing Blizzard RTS games since I was about 12 years old, starting with Warcraft; Orcs and Humans. I quickly jumped onto Warcraft 2; Tides of Darkness as soon as that came out. I was really obsessed with it for a couple of years, it being the game of choice for my brothers and I to play against each other over our home LAN.

When Starcraft first came out, I was kind of skeptical and I stayed with my Warcraft 2 for a while. I watched my brothers play a bit and then decided to try it for myself. I tried the terran campaign and loved it. I soon became obsessed with that game, as well as Brood Wards when it came out, and forgot about Warcraft (until Warcraft 3 came out, but that’s another story)

Over 10 years later, actually almost 12 years later, I am 25 years instead of 13, I have a child of my own, and I have been waiting for over a decade for the sequel to come out, and it finally has! I bought StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition online, and picked it up yesterday at Best Buy. I was so giddy I couldn’t stop grinning. I opened it all up and took a picture of the contents of the collector’s edition. It has tons of goodies including an art book and the original StarCraft as well.

Sadly I haven’t started playing it yet. I picked it up last night, but then Mom duties took over. Savannah was especially fussy (why today?!) but I did get a chance to watch the non-spoiler parts of the Special Edition/Behind the scenes DVD that came with it while I fed and put the baby to sleep.

I play to binge on the game this weekend I’ll let all you other battlenet players know my ID when I get it.

Happy playing!

Well this weekend ended up being pretty nice. I already wrote about Saturday, but the rest of the day was good too. Sunday was also pretty wicked because we had the day off from the baby (yay family sitters!) and we went to see Inception with some friends. I have to say I really enjoyed it and I think I’m gonna have to see it again to catch all of the details over again because the movie was so complex. Great original story, as well.

I had been looking at one of these, the woombie since a friend of mine recommended it. Another friend of ours bought it for Savannah and I just tried it out the other day. At first she seemed to struggle with it, it was a new concept for her, but then she actually fell right asleep! She stayed sleeping for hours in it, just plopped onto the couch in the living room, it was pretty funny. So even though we’ve only used it once so far, I give it a thumbs up

Our cat Dizzy came home from outside one day with a bum front left paw. He has been limping and can’t put any weight on it at all, and he’s been lethargic, quiet and in pain. I took him to the vet today and they’re keeping him overnight, so hopefully he’ll be alright. He’s really difficult with vets, they had to sedate him just to get him out of his carrier!

On the way home from bringing the cat to the vet, there was a huge lightning storm right above us. I have never in my life actually been IN a storm, actually where the lightning was striking. I heard a very loud snap of air as lightning came right down onto the ground in front of me. It was so scary! I was safely indoors but man.. It was scary. Brad caught it on video, I’ll have to figure out how to post it!

Finally got some photos printed of the baby. Seems that since things went digital, I ever really print pictures out anymore. But I wanted to be sure that in case something horrible and random happens to my laptop or backup drives, that I have hard copies of our baby’s first weeks.

We are hosting couchsurfers today! I didn’t get to meet them officially yet because I was half asleep but apparently they are coming all the way from California. I always wondered if the whole couch surfing thing worked out for people, and I guess they are living proof. I’d love to take advantage of it someday.

Tomorrow I need to get some arting done. Working on a book cover on commission; not illustrated or anything so it won’t be too exciting, hehe. Hopefully I can get access to some stock images that are royalty free so I don’t get sued for using them. The client wants realistic imagery that would just take way too long if i tried to draw it myself.

I can’t wait until this kid has a normal sleeping pattern. At around 1am she finally falls asleep after eating and then screaming for what seems like forever. Then I put her down and try to sleep in my own bedroom. Actually I can’t even remember that part at this point because I spend so much time in her room. Did I even sleep in my own room for any stretch of time last night? I honestly can’t remember. All I remember is going to console her at 3am.

I actually keep track of every time that I feed her. I write down the hour and whatnot. Last night I fed her before bed at around 11, then when she woke up at 3am then again at 5:30am and then this morning at around 8. Last week she used to sleep right through that 3am feeding, it made the night seem much more bearable. It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t take her so long to fall back asleep! Once she’s done eating, she slooooowly passes out, and then when you THINK she’s asleep and go to put her in her bed, she freaks out and starts crying. This eats into my sleeping time. Once she finally DOES fall asleep, she’ll be up in an hour to eat again anyway!

So let’s see.. from 1am to 3am, that’s 2 hours of sleep. Then again from 6am until 8am, that’s another 2 hours. So it looks like today I will be going on 4 hours of sleep. Success!

I took her for a walk this morning at 9am. Going to try to make that a ‘ritual’ so she gets used to it. Before she was born, I would jog every morning. At least this will lead up to getting back into some kind of routine. By 9:30 though it was already almost 90 degrees with 85% humidity and she (understandably) got fussy. We did manage a good half hour walk, though!

So I’ve been debating a lot lately as to whether or not I want to update the internet with personal going-ons. Lots has been going on in my life, just not all art related. Ok, so very little of it is art related.

In June, I gave birth to beautiful baby girl; Savannah. She’s been occupying pretty much all of my time lately. With her being about a month old now, things have calmed down slightly, but not much. She still needs to be fed every 2 hours, and sometimes it can take up to an hour to feed and burp her, and when she’s not eating, she’s often crying or has gas and needs to be consoled. This means I have a couple minutes every 2 hours to myself! Not very much time to do anything.

I haven’t even been able to cook or clean or exercise, which are all things I used to do daily. Now I get about 4-5 hours of sleep every night (spread out in intervals of when the baby is sleeping) and I do what I can to stay sane as far as getting online for fun, going for walks, or visiting family. Luckily we have a good support group and Savannah even goes to some family’s house for a visit every week give or take, so that daddy and I can get some alone time. Usually when she’s not around, I’ll try catching up with writing in my journal, cooking something nice, going out to get groceries among other things.

Art wise, well, I’ve mostly been doing non-illustrative commissions lately. I’ve been helping people with web sites, doing a couple of logos here and there, and designing things for print or web. I haven’t picked up my crochet needles since the baby was born I do plan on getting back into that soon though.

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, the baby will have a nice, long 3 hour nap in the afternoon. This is my only ‘me’ time and I try to use it wisely. At first I would just watch episodes of whatever series I was working on in Netflix, but now I try to use it to draw, cook or do something else that has been nagging me for a while. I’m still working on that Stanley Brambles illustration project, which I really had hoped to finish before the baby came, but oh well. Life happens! I hope to finish it soon either way! I only have a couple more illustrations to go. At least all of the sketches are done!

That’s all for now I think I’ll try to keep this more updated in the future.