b.rox

Today her umbilical stump fell off. To celebrate, we made a pilgrimage to Bayou St. John.

She’s definitely growing. Her loose folds of skin are filling in with baby fat. Xy has been breastfeeding, and the results can be seen daily. Funny, by sheer coincidence we watched The Life of Mammals just before the birth. Mammals [...]

In between changing diapers and rocking the girl to sleep and running the odd errand or rustling grub, I’m preoccupied with migrating rox.com to a new webhost. Dusting off those command-line skillz I haven’t used for a good while. So far, so good.
Update: The migration was a success. I hope to write something about DreamHost [...]

Keep N It Real Social & Pleasure Club was in our neighborhood today. It ended just two blocks from our house. Actually we missed the parade, but we caught these fabulous DIVAS (acronym for something but I forget what) just as things were breaking up.

Persephone had her first social outing today.

I didn’t even know there was a Louisiana Derby but apparently there is. So we went to a party at the home of Sue, Steve and Sebastian, who live near the track.
We didn’t go to the race itself, but the party was fun. There were lots of Bloody Marys [...]

Much to my regret, I’m shopping for a new webhost, and I could use a little advice.

From our friend MF in China comes the following awesome weirdness:

It’s a hand-embroidered bib with a gun that says “poop” on it.
No, I don’t know what it means either, but you’ve got to admit it’s cool.

We took the girl in for her second appointment with the pediatrician this morning. She weighed in at 5 lbs. 15 oz., up five ounces from last week and almost back to her original birth weight. (I understand a slight weight loss is expected at first, at least for breastfed babies.) The doctor said she [...]

The Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA) guarantees we can take twelve weeks off from work to have a baby or care for a sick relative, and that our job will still be there when we come back. It does not, of course, guarantee pay during such a leave. That’s a benefit, and different employers [...]

We took our first stroll around the block yesterday.

Many of the sidewalks are impassable, so we had to push the stroller in the street. On Iberville I saw a renovation underway; they were sanding, with clouds of lead-based paint dust going everywhere. (I’ll be placing a call to the city’s Department of Environmental Health tomorrow [...]

PJ Christie has written a song using lyrics adapted from a poem by yours truly.
Here is the original version:

Nicotine Sonnet
When we met you smoked
Salem Lights, I think,
And your breath would stink
so bad that I choked.
Then one October night
I lit up
a Lucky Strike.
I don’t know what
Possessed me
To rip the filter off.
Now each time I cough
You bitch [...]