Giving medication to a baby who is screaming her rage is the worst. I once wrapped something she hated in chocolate ice cream; seconds later the Cipro AND the ice cream came back up. We called the pedi for a different antibiotic.

I am finding both e nail biting and nose clearing discussions disturbing in different ways.

Is it bad and wrong that I am actively seeking out a recipe for the turkey in gelatin thing Raquel mentioned?

Gaaaah! Gaaaaaah! Don't put those images in my brain!

It's just using that little suction bulb! It sounds much grosser than it actually is, but it's worse than nail clipping because it has the spit-guilt factor built in, as she only does the milk out the nose thing when she spits while attempting to eat.

In fact, most things about babies sound worse than they are. Like labor, which as I've mentioned, was way easier than food poisoning/stomach flu, and involved far fewer fluids than I was warned it would.

Is she called Cynthia, or Cindy?

Both, I think, depending on the situation. I think it's usually Cindy in practice, but she introduces herself as Cynthia. I dunno, maybe people do call her Cyn and I just don't notice.

Cyn plus our last name is ... either fun or very bad, depending on how you look at it.

I think extracting spit up from nostrils is worse.

Whose nostrils? I'd think perhaps one's own, or the dog's might be tops?

AS my cousin said about labor--"Sure it hurt like hell, but so do really bad cramps, and you get a BABY at the end of it."

It was bits of turkey suspended in chicken-fat-gelatin.

Oh god. My first meal in Russia (still Soviet at the time ) I asked for salad, because the meat pods were scary looking. I got this, on a bed of oil drenched cucumber slices.

I learned to like the meat pods. And buy carrots and cucumbers and tomatos from the little old babushkas selling them on the black market.

Is it bad and wrong that I am actively seeking out a recipe for the turkey in gelatin thing Raquel mentioned?

Just call it aspic and you'll be totally trendy.

I apparently just got a job. This wasn't the one I was crossing my fingers about, hoping for, but that one might still come through. I made a phone call for a job posted on craigslist, and within a couple of seconds, the guy said I was hired.

I think they were kind of desperate. Also, I think they want me to hand out paper things on street corners, but whatever. It's paid work, and I'd get free dance classes out of it, and it sounds like the hours are very flexible. Which is all good.

That's awesome, Ali.