Welcome to the Cheesecake Factory

Someday...likely in about 14 years, I am going to have to pull out these pictures and remind Munchie that once upon a time she used to smile at me. She'll be horrified to find out that when she was a baby we would joke about going to bed at home and waking up at the Cheesecake Factory because of this grinning, posing, cooing girl that would great us at 5 am.

Then again, she'll probably already hate us for all the pink she's wearing in her baby photos (blame this onesie on Aunt Dawn and Uncle Todd, honey).

She's breaks all the rules, sleeping through the night, rolling early, entertaining herself more and more every day. So I've started breaking one for her.

I've become a closet co-sleeper.

Everything I've read tells me I shouldn't. They talk about SIDS, the possibility of rolling on her, acting like it's the equivalent of a plugged in hair dryer next to a full bathtub. But Munchie loves it, and I do, too.

We don't do it much, but this week it's become our new morning ritual. She goes to bed in the late evening (in a diaper one size up, which seems to help with keeping her dry all night and hence asleep), and wakes up for food every morning between 5 am and 5:30. We feed, we rock, but she just will not go back to sleep, not even if you turn off the light and rock her in the dark, or turn on the WombBear and leave her in the crib.

So instead, at 6 am, Smartie gets up for work, and Munchie and I curl up in the big people bed. She smiles, she kicks, she coos at her daddy until he leaves and turns off the light. Within three minutes she is back to sleep, curled up next to me, a pillow on one side to ensure she doesn't roll over. And she sleeps like a baby, of course.
I get almost another hour of sleep out of it. Smartie wakes us when he's changing his clothes, we have some more coos and smiles, and everyone is ready to get up for the day.

It probably hasn't been established as a permanent habit yet, so this weekend is the test. Can she co-sleep while daddy's still in bed, and do we even want to try? Or will someone have to sit up with her from 5 am on? And what happens Saturday night/Sunday morning when we stay at our first hotel for a family reunion in St. Cloud?

Consider this the Friday cliffhanger...

Mary Poppins - 16 hours a week?

I'm currently looking for someone who can watch the Munchie 2 days a week while I'm either working upstairs or going to meetings. I've put an ad on Craig's List to generate some interest (5 resumes in the last hour, so now I have to decide where to go from there. I really wanted to find a referral from someone, but no one seems to know anyone good, so I'll have to do interviews myself.

I assume that it would be an easy gig -- come to my house twice a week, feed and play with the baby, rock her when she's sleepy and put her in the glider for naps. Besides, we have super-good cable.

But I would be upstairs most of the time. Maybe people would find that annoying. Especially since I have a feeling I'd come down a lot just to check in. And hold her. Maybe do a feeding.

And from the last time I had someone watch her while I was home, I've learned that I would have to try really hard not to come down if I hear any crying, wanting to know what was wrong.

Gee, who wouldn't love that?

But seriously, this would be the easiest job in the world...who wouldn't love to watch this?

11 weeks

Today, Munchie is 11 weeks old, and has more toys than any child her age could ever need. Yet she is starting to play with them now, an activity I think I find more fascinating than she does. She's finally started rolling over when Smartie can see, which makes me feel better, as I think he was starting to believe I made it up.

Tummy time is becoming more fun for her, and even when she spits up she just goes on playing. Her new game is to try and lift her arms and legs at the same time and roll on her belly like a really flat "U". She likes to see how much weight she can put on each limb, and how hard it is to balance based on what she has up in the air.

Honestly, we are starting to get a little nervous. She's trying to scoot so hard, and she wants to try and sit up in our laps. You never know where you are going to find her when you look in her crib in the morning -- sometimes you lay her horizontal and she's verticle when you wake up, other times her head is where her feet were. She's trying to grow and move so fast, and we don't know whether we want to encourage her, or swaddle her so she will just stay at this stage a while longer.

One of the things I'm coming to terms with is the new levels of rude that are acceptable, especially in my own home. Passing gas used to be considered impolite. Now, it's become one of the most adorable and welcome things in the world. She makes a little shocked face when she does it, and I shout "Toots!" and her, while she then breaks out in a giant grin. I have to try to remember not to do it in public.

But also confusing to me is the middle finger. Yesterday I spent 20 minutes keeping her distracted by singing to the tune of "Frere Jaques" a song we wrote while waiting for Smartie to come home, comprising of these lyrics:

"Where is daddy, Where is daddy?
Where's he at, where's he at?
Tell him that we love him, and we really miss him
Come home soon, come home soon..."

About 10 minutes in, I started to remember the old game my mother played with me when I was young -- "Where is thumbkin?" I was fine until I reached the middle finger, then thought, "Did she teach me the middle finger?" I remember being told not to point with it, but not whether it was part of the "Where is thumpkin?" song and finger play.

I decided to do it. After all, she's already shown me she's well aware of her middle finger...



Happy 11 weeks, Munchie!

The rules of munchie

* If you make her a 6 ounce bottle, she will only eat 2 or 3 ounces
* conversely, if you make her a 4 ounce bottle, she will drain it and cry for another
* however, when you make the new bottle she will only eat half an ounce
* when it is smartie's night to get up, she will sleep through the night
* when it is my night to get up, she will wake up twice
* if you tell her it is smartie's night when it is really my night, she will still wake up twice
* if you put lotion on her forehead to take care of dry skin, the skin will stop flaking but will break out
* if you stop using the lotion the bumps go away but the flakes come back
* no matter how long you wait after she eats and how many times you burp her, she will always spit up onto a new outfit as you change her
* she will only poop when smartie is not at home
* wherever you set her down to sleep in her crib, she will always end up curled up in the top left-hard corner
* you will only have 60 seconds from the point in which she decides she is hungry to the point in which she decides you are starving her to death, and will cry for food even while sitting with the bottle in her mouth

luckily, she's very cute when she pouts, or this whole this would be a lot harder...

Ready for our close up

Munchie got all dressed up for our mini-oscar party last night. Sadly, there was no boa...


Sadly, she didn't make it to the show itself, but the Red Carpet is the best part...

ach du lieber himmel!

The Powerliberal is now --bilingual, I guess, thanks to a pickup from a spam blog.

If you'd like to see what "So pretty, so tired..." looks like in German, click here.

My favorite?

"Smartie and I had to cuckoo clock with Munchie all on our own, while the other babies watched, entranced. Smartie und ich musste Kuckucksuhr mit Munchie alle auf unseren eigenen, während die anderen Kinder beobachtet, verzaubern."

And yes, they stole my picture, too...

Out of steam

Passed out in mid play...


I'm not terrible surprised. It's 2 pm and she's already eaten as much as she usually does in a full day. Hopefully she'll stay down for a while so I can finish cleaning and dinner -- lemon rice soup, Greek salad and leg of lamb, with brownies for dessert. WE haven't had people over for dinner since the baby was born, and honestly, it's a lot harder to cook and get ready than it used to be.

Ready to move

Smartie and I used to joke when I was taking fishoil supplement during the pregnancy that I was trying to create an evil genius baby.

I'm not sure if she's evil or not, but she seems determined to push herself far beyond the limits of a normal 2 month old.

Although she's still an occasional roller, if you stick her down on her belly it's obvious that what she really wants to do is crawl. She pulls her arms in, then throws them out. She desperately tried to dig in with her knees, but she can't seem to go anywhere. She grunts, she cries, she even spits up with the effort she puts into trying to move forward.

And then she drops to the blanket, exhausted. And usually right where she'd been drooling for the last 10 minutes.

I don't know, when she puts enough effort into it, she really does look a little evil....

Discovering hands

This is the first time I've ever seen Munchie grab something on her own.

The Phantom Baby

Earlier this week, Smartie and I had our second night away from the Munchie since she came home from the hospital nearly two months ago. I had an early meeting on Monday morning, and the easiest way to arrange things seemed to be to take her up to her grandparents Sunday night, leave her over night, and have them bring her back down after I got back from St. Paul.

Once again, I experienced the phantom baby phenomenon. Throughout the night I would wake up bolt upright, convinced I had hear her squeal or cry in her crib. When I waited for her to come back I would check her pack and play, positive I heard the clatter of when she kicks her toys (actually, I was hearing Nico playing with her toys, but that's another story). I can only compare it to the couple of days after I had the baby and would think that some twitch was the baby kicking, even though she was in her layette at the hospital.

I'm supposed to be going to DC within the next few weeks. I hope I have room to pack the phantom baby in my baggage.

As for the Munchie, she came home even more the cherub she always is...

Munchie shows her colors

For the locals, the NE is Nordeast. But for the family, pretend it stands for Nebraska.

(Another crazy day, and prep for a meeting this afternoon, so this is likely it for today)

So pretty, so tired...

This weekend we learned the lesson every new parent likely discovers the hard way -- hell hath no fury like a baby without a nap.

Each of our Saturdays seem to become a little more crazy, as we try to jam just one more activity into one short day. What used to be just lap sit story time and maybe a trip to the grocery store got stretched this week into story time, followed by a short work meeting in St. Paul (since weekday meetings are nearly impossible), lunch, shopping, errands and cumulating in an engagement party for good friends of ours. Simple enough, we assumed. Munchie would sleep in the car as we travel place to place, and likely take another cat nap in the stroller as we wheeled her around.

Nothing doing.

At story time she was more interested in the activities than I was. Once again we were at the new library, with a librarian who did not know the rituals of the lap sit. No songs were sung. No interaction at all. Even worse, our stories were the same as last week, and "Hug Hug Hug" wasn't really that riveting the first time. Smartie and I had to cuckoo clock with Munchie all on our own, while the other babies watched, entranced. I have made the decision that if we still have a substitute next week, I may need to run the class myself.

She slept all the way to St. Paul, and ate during the meeting, but that was the last time we saw her eyes closed. She watched the restaurant intently while Smartie and I had lunch, and she studied the bright colors as we walked the mall at Har Mar. We took her into her first pet store, and she became enamored with the fish, especially a bright purple and yellow one swimming in its own aquarium. Although a small cockapoo tried frantically to play with her through the plastic wall, nothing impressed her as much as that bright swimming fish.

Her afternoon was wrapped up with a trip to a store to buy her a new outfit for the party that evening, and then we came home. After a few attempts at rolling on the floor and a bottle, something shocking happened.

Munchie began crying inconsolably, and nothing could appease her.

It started with the quivering lip she shows us when she's unhappy. It's such a parody of sadness that it often makes us laugh at her, and once we laugh she begins to smile as well. How was I to know that this one was real, and that laughing at it made it worse?

The whimpers turned to cries, the cries to squalls, the squalls quickly lead to screams. It was the wailing of a child who had taken no significant nap since 8 am. It was the baby too sleepy to fall asleep. An hour of rocking, the monotonous repetition of the first two verses of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," and finally she dropped off, only to reawaken and bawl again every time she was placed in her crib.

After the third try, I just held her. For hours, and hours, and hours.

Needless to say, we missed the party, which seems like just what we deserve for keeping her awake so long. But Smartie and I did share a fantastic bottle of wine in the interim, and at least we managed to get a picture of her in her party clothes.

Stop stealing from the Munchie!

Over at Spotty's, it turns out that while I was hanging out with the bartender, Jack Nelson Pallmeyer was protecting my baby from debt. Skip through to 7:40, or watch the whole piece...

(More real posting later after I get some work done -- was at a meeting all morning)

Friday Night Fun

It seems like it was only yesterday when our idea of a good Friday night was to go out, have a nice dinner at a sit-down restaurant, maybe go for a drink afterwards.

Tonight, I'm meeting with the WOMB at the Sample Room for appetizers and a glass of wine. As much as I enjoy the idea of going out with the ladies, part of me can't wait to get home.

Because it's bath night.

Bath night has become my favorite pastime. If it wasn't so bad for her skin I would want to do it every evening. What originally began as a nervous, timid quest to clean the floppy yet fragile limbs of a newborn has now morphed into a time of play and discovery. Now that Munchie can sit up in the tub on her own, and has begun to explore how her legs move as she wills them, cleaning her has become the secondary task of the ritual, and the epic battle between Munchie and "Too Hot Ducky" has taken center stage.

Once she has balanced on her reclining seat, she is rinsed down to prepare her for her fight. Her fists ball up, her legs pull in, and water glistens in a pool in the concave center of her ribcage (which makes her look vaguely scrawny no matter how much we feed her). She is the featherweight, ready for battle.

We release "Too Hot Ducky" at her feet. Like the good prizefighter she is, she dances around him slowly on the balls of her feet -- a little splash to the left, another to his right. She slowly works him into position with her waves before she lunges in with a jab from one side, popping him into the air. He lands on her upper thigh and she purses her lips in an excited "ooooh!" before the aftershock of water pulls him back down to the bottom of her plastic tub.

She goes in more slowly now. She reaches out delicately with her left leg, pushing "Too Hot" methodically into the tub's blue side, holding it there with her toes until finally her control gives out and it bobs away, free from her ferocious foot. She tries again with her right, with the same result. Finally, with the cunning of the victor ready to land the final blow, she traps the helpless duck between both of her feet, then pulls her legs up to her, bringing him in ever closer.

Sadly, her arms lack any of the precocious skills her legs have developed. Once the prey has been reeled in, she is at a loss, as her arms still won't do her bidding. They flop aimlessly, the splashes commence, and "Too Hot" has once again made it to live to fight another round.

Friday night at its finest...

Happy V-Day!

After an amazingly cranky day, Munchie is all smiles and giggles again this morning. Last night she wanted nothing but sleep, cuddles, and, oddly enough, a swaddle. This morning she just wanted food, to play, and to cheesecake at Daddy.

Tonight we're going to dash over to Drinking Liberally at the 331 to talk with Senatorial candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer for a bit (we'll be there from 7:00 to 7:30 and leave early so the baby doesn't bother the hardcore bar crowd).

Speaking of Drinking Liberally, here's an article that mentions both DL and Minnesota Monitor quite a bit (this is what happens when I do interviews at the bar).

Stats and Shots

Munchie is 10lbs, 14 oz. She is 23 1/3 inches long.

She had many shots. She cried. I cried more. She ate some food and went to sleep.

She's fine if I'm talking to her, cranky if I'm not. Smiley for the most part anyway.

I dosed her with a little tylenol, but I'm not very good with a dropper.


Must cuddle baby now...

Naughty -- a photo journal

Everything looks normal...


Until you get a little closer...


"Dude, you're all up in my crib, yo!"

2 months old

Today Munchie turns 2 months old. Yesterday, she amazed us by rolling over. Today she treated us even better, by sleeping through the night. Her 3/4am feeding didn't happen, and she just woke up at 5:30 ready to go. We were both grateful, especially Smartie, who's night it was to do the feeding.

Her biggest joy in life appears to be her legs, which she just discovered this week. If she's awake, she is kicking -- either on her belly on the floor trying to move around, on her belly on your chest trying to scoot herself up, on her back in her pack and play turning herself in a circle, or even better, in the tub kicking the rubber ducky and pushing it into the plastic side to see how long she can hold it in place before she loses control of her limbs.

When I watch her moving her legs non-stop, testing to see how far she can stretch them, how quickly they can move, and how hard she can make them kick out, I look at her and think, "Yes, that is definitely the same child that was inside me a few months ago..."

With all this activity comes sudden exhaustion, however. Just as she goes from asleep to awake in less than 10 seconds, and from awake to crisis mode in less than that, awake to asleep moves in just as quickly.



Happy 2 months, Munchie!


(Tomorrow morning is her well-baby check up and the dreaded shots...)

And there she goes - a rolling Vi-deo

Munchie will be two months old tomorrow...

Deceiving

She looks innocent enough. But no one told me in time that my baby was actually replaced by a Play Doh Fun Factory apparatus.


I think I may have a new color for them. I bet it will sell really well to 6 year old boys who would like to gross out their sisters.

When Smartie said, "I think I may smell poop," I had no idea how prophetic he would be.

You can never start them too young...

We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Steve Sarvi for coming to Drinking Liberally last night, and we wish him the best of luck in unseating Congressman Kline.

Needy, But Cheerful

We're having a needy moment, although we are in good spirits today. Once more, just minor spit ups, nothing unusual like before.

We'll be at the Chatterbox in St Paul tonight for Drinking Liberally. Steve Sarvi is coming to meet people, and the anti-war salon is meeting with us as well.

Tell them Munchie sent you...

Another attempt at Vi-Video

8 Week Old Munchie!

If this video does work, you will see that Munchie and the cat are quickly becoming good friends (sorry, no sound).



----

I'm almost afraid to write this on the chance that it may jinx things, but we haven't had a major spit up since Monday afternoon. This is especially impressive as she ate 27 ounces yesterday, a new record. The food combined with the lack of naps and the caucusing last night has put her into shut down mode today, however, and she's once again sleeping non-stop and eating very little. I'm starting to recognize these down days as her body's way of maintaining its own balance, so I'm just letting her be.

Speaking of caucusing, I do no recommend doing it on little sleep. I had been up since 4:30, and sleep deprivation in conjunction with my hatred of long uncomfortable silences left me walking away from the caucus not only as a delegate to the district convention and a delegate to pick the Minneapolis school board members, but also as on of the associate precinct chairs for next year. The good news is I think I just have to make photocopies and sign people in, not that I have to run the caucus. The bad news is it seems like once you are in you keep getting renewed every year until you hit the 8 year limit. So I may be stuck for quite some time.

At least now no one can tell us we can't bring the baby...

Happy Super Tuesday!

or, for those of you of other political persuasions...



I'll be over here all day and night...

OK, Let's Talk Caucuses

It's time to caucus tomorrow, and I've made my decisions...

I've decided that I will be of best use by caucusing as an uncommitted.

See, I think that all of our candidates will be much better than the alternatives, but the most frustrating aspect of Minnesota politics to me has been the erosion of reproductive health support in the last 6 years. So I will caucus uncommitted, as a women's health advocate. Here is why:

College students in Mankato are paying up to five times more for birth control pills due to a technical glitch in some federal legislation.

Campus health services were once able to get deeply discounted packs of the pills from drug makers, but that changed last year with the Deficit Reduction Act.

Minnesota State University pharmacist Ann Johnson says campus clinics were inadvertently dropped from a list of providers eligible for a discount.

The bottom line is that a month's worth of pills that used to cost $10 now can cost up to $50. Johnson says students are really feeling the price jump.

Cheaper generic pills are one way to save money, but MSU nurse practitioner Jodi Egeland says some students have bad reactions to the pills and can't use them.

There is concern students will skip the more costly pills, which could lead to more pregnancies.

It's not just a campus issue. Because of federal subsidies in general, and state subsidies in particular, the cost of birth control has skyrocketed, and not just for college students. The increase is hitting everyone -- women single and married, those with and without children. Yet the DFL has not only done little to roll back the measures that have been passed locally in the last decade, and done nothing to promote new legislation to ensure a woman can protect herself from unwanted pregnancies.

Most recently, DFL lawmakers worked together to promote legislation that would provide extra incentives to women who become pregnant to help them carry the child to term, including prenatal care and insurance benefits. It's a fantastic effort, but the support of the mother cuts off once the child is born. Subsidized birth control would not only be a cheaper option, but would alleviate the costs of many of the other expenses that come with a child that cannot be financially cared for, taking the burden back off the state.

For those who are pro-choice, it is a no-brainer. For those who are pro-life it is also a win -- what better way to end abortion than to allow easier, cheaper access to preventing pregnancies?

This will be my subcaucus of one for tomorrow night. I would write a platform, but I get awkward when I have to write a bunch of "Whereas" and "Henceforth"s. Any senate candidate who wants to woo me into their subcaucus will have to adopt my concerns to get me. And of course, I encourage others caucusing tomorrow to adopt the "Uncommited/Reproductive Health" subcaucus as well.

Nothing you can do...

There's nothing that upsets a mother more than being told there is nothing you can do, but there it is. It's reflux, she'll outgrow it, she doesn't need medicine, and you're just going to have to keep an eye on her.

There was no damage from the choking session. Her lungs are still completely clear. They won't medicate unless there's a fear of respiratory damage, and she appears to have the reflex to close off the windpipe well established. The doctor felt fairly comfortable in telling me that had I not seen her choking, odds are she was going to start crying pretty shortly on her own -- she just still had her windpipe closed so she wouldn't get any liquid in.

The only other reason to put her on medication is if she is not gaining enough weight. That does not appear to be a problem -- she weighed in at just over 10 and a half lbs.

It's hard, but I'm going to assume the doctor is right and not push it. The medicine hasn't been fully tested on infants yet, and some studies think that it could lead to an increased rish of stomach cancer in adults.

I'm going to try and worry less and assume my baby has good reflexes, and that she'll eventually outgrow the refluxes.

A long day, a longer night

Munchie's spit up issue took a turn for the scary yesterday, and Superbowl Sunday nearly turned into an emergency room day.

Munchie was eating a little less than normal, going through one of her snacking modes during the day. I set her in the glider to sleep for a while, and an hour later I turned around, I think because I heard her thrashing, but possibly simply out of luck.

Her eyes were wide, her arms were flailing, and there was formula coming out of her nose.

The first thing I did was get her out of the seat. The second thing I did was panic and start yelling at Smartie. Munchie still wasn't making any noise, so it took him a moment to realize there was something wrong. Our heads cleared enough to remember that we had the aspirator from the hospital, so we were able to get her nose cleared out and a large amount of mucus that had gathered in her mouth, too.

Then she started crying. It was like birth all over again. And I seem to remember she didn't like it much the first time, either.

The on call doctor said that if she was breathing without laboring, she was probably ok to wait until morning to be seen, as long as we kept her semi-upright while she slept. Likely, she had a small spit up but instead of it coming out she breathed it back in and started to choke. Keeping her upright makes that less likely to reoccur, although I found that less than reassuring since she was semi-upright in her glider when the incident happened.

We put her back in the bassinet last night, propped a few blankets under the pad to make a wedge, and brought it into the bedroom. But needless to say, I hardly slept. I had been waking up in the middle of the night for the last week or so, convinced that the baby wasn't breathing, and the only reason I never checked is because I could tell myself that since nothing had ever happened, why should something have happened this time? Now that something actually happened I didn't have that failsafe anymore.

We go to the doctor at 8:40. I'm demanding medicine for her. Either that, or they're going to have to prescribe me some sedatives...

More updates later.

Happy Superbowl Sunday! And Smartie's Superbowl Prediction

She's so happy, we don't have the heart to tell her they didn't even make the playoffs...


Smartie's Superbowl prediction -- Patriots by 3. He says they always win by one field goal in the superbowl.

(Lots more Munchie pictures in her 6 week to 3 month flickr page...)

Busy Day

Off to the accountant's...

Scoots -- A Photo Journal

From Bottom....





...To Top!

Tummy Time

Still has some spit up issues, though...

A note on the never-ending spitup

I looked a bit at GERD, and I think that may be what the Munchie has. The doctor said he thought that might be a problem, but that so many babies are over diagnosed and medicated with it that he's hesitant to do anything. We'll check her weight at her 2 month appointment a week from Wednesday, and if she's gaining adequately he'll probably have us just try to ignore it. I assume she is gaining fine, since I like to weigh her unscientifically by jumping on the scale with her and without her and compare. Last go around, it looked like 10.5 lbs, so my guess is she's gained at least a pound in the last month.

Here's the symptoms she has that match:

* pain, irritability, or constant or sudden crying (signs that may be mistaken for colic) after eating
* frequent spitting up or vomiting after eating
* vomiting more than 1 hour after eating (-- sometimes)

* inability to sleep soundly (-- sometimes, mostly in the morning)
* "wet burp" or "wet hiccup" sounds (yes, all the time -- yuck)


Other, less common signs include:

* constant eating and drinking (--mostly at night)

* swallowing problems (such as gagging or choking)

* frequent respiratory problems (such as pneumonia, bronchitis, wheezing, or coughing)(she's starting coughing all of the time, but I thought it was a hold over from the infection)
* bad breath (-- oh yeah. We actually were trying to figure out if it was too early to use baby toothpaste)
* drooling (-- yes. I was starting to wonder if she was teething early)

----------

She's started waking up at 5 and wants to be held, and screams if you put her back in the crib. But I've realized that if I set her in the glider she'll drop right off. I think it may be because she's slightly upright that way, which must keep the acid down.

Poor little baby. I can't decide whether to try the extra thick formula (which I'd sort of been doing on the sly, because I was worried about how much was coming back up, and she seems to be spitting up less since I started it), or try a new one (Similac has a sensitive stomach version) or if I should just wait until after her two month before I do anything and talk to the doctor. To me, two weeks doesn't seem that long, but that's a quarter of her life, so maybe it's too long to just try and ride it out.

That, and listening to her cries breaks my heart...

Busy

Work takes a lot longer when your baby has decided that 5 am is the proper time to wake up in the morning. Also need to get things together for the taxman, who we are going to visit tomorrow after lapsit story time.

Somewhere in here I promised I would write a reaction to the story of Maverick, the baby burned in the NICU two weeks ago, including this proposed "Maverick's Law" the family/lawyer wants to introduce this legislative session.

More later, should Munchie take another nap.