Gabriel decided not to poop yesterday. That was bad. It meant he was holding a lot of it inside of him. I was scared to see what torrent of baby crap would come spewing out of his little Poopchuck rear, and now I know why I was scared. He just decided to grace me with his poop. Two days of stored up poop. All of it. Just. For. Me. I have never seen that much poop in my life. Egads, the horrors which can be found in a baby's diaper. I am traumatized for life.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna slap my brother in law with a dead fish (hi John). Sometimes he sends me cool and funny stuff. I know they're not viruses and so I just open them. This morning I open a video of a giant camel spider eating a lizard. I now have the heebie-geebies, am completely traumatized, and will probably have screaming nightmares for the next few nights. So yeah, that boy's gonna have to pay for sending me THAT. *shudders*

It's been hotter than hell here. Seriously, the face of the sun or the center of hell are probably cooler than it is here. Saturday at 1pm the temperature in our area was 112 and probably only got hotter as the day went on. Something is seriously wrong. This is only July (and our usual scorching weather is August and sometimes even September) so I dread to see what temperatures the next few months hold for us. It's also humid out which makes it all the worse. Saturday night after visiting Diana in the hospital Rob and I saw an electrical storm over downtown LA. There was no rain, just a whole lot of lightning. *meeps*

Sunday we slept in as much as possible and then made our way to the LaVerne / Montclair / Ontario area. Normally I wear t-shirts and won't wear tank tops. I don't feel comfortable in tanks and don't like showing off my arms, but in this weather I no longer care. I just don't want to melt. So, I made a stop at the Lane Bryant in LaVerne and stocked up on tank tops. I give up. In my fight with tanks the heat won. With this heat I could care less if my arm fat is showing. Not dying from the heat is priority number one.

After stocking up on tank tops we headed out to the Babies R Us in Ontario. Good lord was that an expensive shop! Everything came to almost $300! Babies are most definitely expensive little critters. Everything we bought were things we needed. Stage 3 nipples for his bottles (for when he hits 6 months), baby feeding spoons, a box of rice cereal (he can start solids at 6 months), crates of formula, a few boxes of diapers, and some clothes the next size up that he will soon need. Oy. After packing up the car with our purchases we took Gabriel to the Mother's Room and changed his diaper and gave him a bottle. On the way out we decided to buy one thing that wasn't needed, but was so cute we just couldn't resist. It's a little vampire Halloween costume. Complete with cape, a little tuxedo looking outfit, and a hood with a widow's peak. Too cute. Last October when I was pregnant we bought some cool Halloween pacifiers and one of them looks like a vampire mouth with fangs. We'll use that with the costume. Yes, we already did have a Halloween costume for him - the lobster one. But he can wear both. At this point we're planning on going to my Mom's house for Halloween (if Rob can get the time off of work) so that Gabriel can be in the Halloween parade and so we can take him trick or treating. Los Angeles is no place to spend your very first Halloween. So one of the costumes he'll wear in the parade (probably the lobster one) and the other one (probably the vampire one) he can wear out trick or treating. I know it's supposed to be a Dracula type costume, but we've dubbed it his "Strahd Von Babyvich" costume. Don't worry if you don't know what the hell I'm referring to, not many people will.

When we were done with Babies R Us we grabbed some boba teas at Lollicup and then headed to Golden China in Montclair for dinner. We hadn't had anything to eat that day other than the boba teas, so we pigged out on appetizers. When we were done we headed back home. By the time we got back home it was already late so we put our purchases away and bathed Gabriel and got him ready for bed. We were very ready for bed and sleep, but Gabriel was not. Rob finally took him for a bit of a ride in the car and finally got him to fall asleep.

Unfortunately that sleep did not last and Gabriel was up at least four times last night. Once he wanted more food and the other times he was just being ornary. He used to sleep through the night just fine, but now he's waking up all cranky all the time. I have no idea what's bothering him but I would like to find out sometime soon because neither Rob nor I are getting very much sleep and it's really taking its toll on the both of us.

My ear still hurts today. It's inside the ear and sometimes even feels like it's hurting near the jaw. This is the same ear that kept going deaf. Taking some Motrin helps it, but if I yawn or sneeze or anything like that it hurts like hell. Most of the time it's a throbbing pain, but sometimes it feels as if there is a knife stabbing inside my ear. I have a doctor appointment on Friday with an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Good Sam. Rob has off of work on Friday so that's pretty much the only day I have the time to see a doctor. I have the appointment for Friday morning. If this goes away on it's own I'll just cancel it, but if it sticks around at least I know I'll be seen by a doctor. I have a feeling it's an ear infection. I used to get swimmer's ear all the time from the chlorine in the Los Angeles tap water. I'm thinking it's that. Hopefully some ear drops will clear it up. I'd rather stay away from oral antibiotics if I can because it will seriously mess up another medication I'm on and mess with my body something fierce. So, we'll see what happens with that.

Today I'm taking care of a screaming Gabriel, having random items fall off of the fridge and onto my head, trying to get more laundry done (there's always laundry that needs to be done around here - today it's our clothes and if I have the time the towels and the baby clothes), dealing with the pain in my ear, and sweltering even though the air conditioning is cranked down. I'd like to fast forward to the weekend if possible.

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