Another note- avocado is now her favorite food (see lower pic) and as a result she's pooping sticky little nuggets much to the consternation of her mom.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
6 month pediatrician appointment
She had her 6 month gig yesterday and made it to 14 lb 8 oz, 26 inches. She also stood up tonight without any help, sorta. I had her hands and she leaned forward then pushed up and stood there looking at me like I was supposed to do something else.
Another note- avocado is now her favorite food (see lower pic) and as a result she's pooping sticky little nuggets much to the consternation of her mom.
Another note- avocado is now her favorite food (see lower pic) and as a result she's pooping sticky little nuggets much to the consternation of her mom.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunglasses
Viv has her 6 month pediatrician appointment this morning and we'll try to post something about it this evening or tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a picture of Viv in the sunglasses Grandma Kathy got for her.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Crime Map
Alice found this Google earth map that shows the crimes to date in the city- I've added a tag for where our house is (look on the middle-right of the picture).
The Other Side of Mardi Gras
While Mardi Gras was quite a success for the city, tucked away in the parts of town the tourists and revelers rarely see the continuing cycle of violence continued unabated. Last Thursday night 3 boys (14,16, and 19) were shot in Bywater. The two younger ones were dead at the scene and the third is still hanging on by a thread. In Mid-City, someone opened fire at a club hitting 6 people, 1 of them died over the weekend in the hospital. The weekend was relatively quiet except for an 8-year old boy getting shot in the leg while in the car with his mother, and then Fat Tuesday brought the beginning of another round. A young man was found shot to death under the I-10 along one of the parade routes frequented by people from some of the poorer black neighborhoods. In East N.O. a man was shot twice in the head and died in the middle of the street. Two men previously from New Orleans, but now living in Baton Rouge were shot in their car on Canal St. A man was stabbed to death in the Garden District after trying to set someone’s car on fire. Another man was shot to death in Gert Town.
It really starts to wear on people living here. At a parade on Saturday, some ass lit off fireworks and everyone in the crowd visibly winced, ducked down, and started looking around. After we all realized what it was, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but we all knew what each other were thinking. When you walk along the city streets to the parades you find yourself watching any young black man you see that is obviously a local and just as obviously, not in his usual neighborhood. For a long time people here have relied on the fact that murders occur somewhere else, but not in your neighborhood. With crime occurring at the current rate, how long can this hold true? When 8 people die in half as many days, simple statistics are all you really need to see that it’s just a matter of time before the whole city is overrun. Everyone here has a story of being held-up at gunpoint, or their house broken into, or hearing gunshots in the night. Something has to be done.
The city promised to crack down on this. The FBI and DEA have added people here and Alberto Gonzalez promised to add a significant amount of money to help, including a new crime lab. I hope it’s enough but so far I can’t see how a thing has changed. The police are overstretched and half of them can’t be bothered to give you the time of day even if you’ve been robbed. The DA’s office is absolutely horrific- last year they had a 7% conviction rate. The thugs here know that even if the police get off their butts, the chances of them spending more than 90 days in jail is slim to none (in Louisiana, charges have to be filed in 90 days or the defendant walks- the DA failed to meet this deadline over 600 times last year). ‘Misdemeanor murder’ is what it’s called here. Only 1 of 162 murder arrests led to a conviction last year.
Anyway, I don’t know what really can be done. Staying informed can’t hurt though, and to that end here are three sites that do an excellent job of portraying this from the view of us living here:
b.rox.com
nolafugees.com
neworleans.metblogs.com
It really starts to wear on people living here. At a parade on Saturday, some ass lit off fireworks and everyone in the crowd visibly winced, ducked down, and started looking around. After we all realized what it was, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but we all knew what each other were thinking. When you walk along the city streets to the parades you find yourself watching any young black man you see that is obviously a local and just as obviously, not in his usual neighborhood. For a long time people here have relied on the fact that murders occur somewhere else, but not in your neighborhood. With crime occurring at the current rate, how long can this hold true? When 8 people die in half as many days, simple statistics are all you really need to see that it’s just a matter of time before the whole city is overrun. Everyone here has a story of being held-up at gunpoint, or their house broken into, or hearing gunshots in the night. Something has to be done.
The city promised to crack down on this. The FBI and DEA have added people here and Alberto Gonzalez promised to add a significant amount of money to help, including a new crime lab. I hope it’s enough but so far I can’t see how a thing has changed. The police are overstretched and half of them can’t be bothered to give you the time of day even if you’ve been robbed. The DA’s office is absolutely horrific- last year they had a 7% conviction rate. The thugs here know that even if the police get off their butts, the chances of them spending more than 90 days in jail is slim to none (in Louisiana, charges have to be filed in 90 days or the defendant walks- the DA failed to meet this deadline over 600 times last year). ‘Misdemeanor murder’ is what it’s called here. Only 1 of 162 murder arrests led to a conviction last year.
Anyway, I don’t know what really can be done. Staying informed can’t hurt though, and to that end here are three sites that do an excellent job of portraying this from the view of us living here:
b.rox.com
nolafugees.com
neworleans.metblogs.com
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Mardi Gras
Viv had a big Mardi Gras Day today and made out like a bandit in the stuffed toy department. The grand tally was 28 on the stuffies, and she got some other toys she's a little small for yet. She really enjoys the floats, but the noise finally caught up with her after about 5 hours and she decided it was time to go.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Yam!
Sweet potatoes are the newest food for the little squirt and they seem to go down fairly well. Feeding her is somewhat like trying to put lipstick on a hamster though. She squirms and wiggles and ends up with the better part of the food on her face instead of her mouth.
Viv also went to see one of the uptown Mardi Gras parades today and wound up with a whole bag of stuffed animals that were thrown to her. I had to help her catch them though. I think we'll take her to Zulu on Fat Tuesday and maybe she'll get lucky enough to get a coconut.
Viv also went to see one of the uptown Mardi Gras parades today and wound up with a whole bag of stuffed animals that were thrown to her. I had to help her catch them though. I think we'll take her to Zulu on Fat Tuesday and maybe she'll get lucky enough to get a coconut.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
So far so good
No sign of chicken pox yet and she's her normal happy self. At any rate, she's taken quite a liking to Angus who seems pretty agreeable to getting tugged and poked at.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Trouble brewing.......
It seems we have some bad (though not disastrous) news to report- Alice has come down with shingles. She's been feeling tender along a section of her ribs and back for a few days and this morning she had a bit of a rash. She spent a bunch of time dealing with her doctor and Viv's pediatrician and they now have her on anti-viral medication that should help it clear up sooner rather than later. We're very much hoping for sooner since she's pretty miserable right now.
The bad news for Viv is that Al was contagious before she knew she had shingles. Since it's a reemergence of a dormant virus that causes chicken pox when we're younger, there is a very high probability that Viv will be getting chicken pox. The good thing is that it typically is fairly mild in children under 12 months and she won't remember it. At any rate, we should know within a week if Viv has picked it up.
The bad news for Viv is that Al was contagious before she knew she had shingles. Since it's a reemergence of a dormant virus that causes chicken pox when we're younger, there is a very high probability that Viv will be getting chicken pox. The good thing is that it typically is fairly mild in children under 12 months and she won't remember it. At any rate, we should know within a week if Viv has picked it up.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Crawling
Viv is on her way to crawling, albeit slowly. She's managed to get her tummy off the ground and flop forward a few times. Most of the time she pushes herself backwards though, then gets really grumpy about it. It's just a matter of time and I'll need to be child-proofing everything in site.
She also has a new hobby when she wakes up in the morning. Around 5:00-5:30 every morning we're woken up to the sounds of 'mmmmbbbmmmeeemmbbbbbbbmmmmpppppppemmmmuuuum'
repeated over and over until we get her up and she gets fed.
She also has a new hobby when she wakes up in the morning. Around 5:00-5:30 every morning we're woken up to the sounds of 'mmmmbbbmmmeeemmbbbbbbbmmmmpppppppemmmmuuuum'
repeated over and over until we get her up and she gets fed.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Dogs, Dad, Pink Rasta, Rice & My Two Front Teeth
At the end of this post is the promised pic of the two front teeth. Besides the exciting teeth business, Viv has ventured into the land of big people food with rice cereal. She seems to really like it so far and later this week we're gonna move on to mashed sweet potatoes. With any luck I'll have her up to green chile and hot sauce within a month or two.
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