when I started this blog five years ago, I was a pet sitter and the name animal-crackers made sense. now I'm a stay-at-home-dad and freelance writer, but rather than confuse everyone by getting a different blog, it's just easier to keep posting things here.

Here is a reprise of the one photo that actually made it through the digital wringer.

Oh for the love of god -- this camera fucking sucks.

After weeks of lamenting the crappiness of our digital camera and looking for an affordable replacement, I decided to give it another shot. The fun started when I popped in new batteries and managed to turn it on (after just three tries).

The language setting had changed to Portugese. Worse still, after clicking through several indecipherable menus, I discovered the English setting was gone. (Or as they say in Brazil, ido.) What the fuck?

I muddled through and managed to squeeze six pictures from the BRAND NEW never before used batteries, which are now dead. These are the pictures in the order they were taken.


























































































Honestly, I'm not sure which I like best, Demonic Blurry No. 4 or Ocean Bottom No. 6.

Se qualquer um que pode ler Portugese quiser esta câmera do caralho, deixe-me apenas sabem.

I just finished watching Executive Decision -- a fairly descent action movie starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo and a whole bunch of others.

It's about terrorists who hijack Oceanic Flight 343 with plans to explode a chemical bomb over...

Wait a minute. Oceanic? Isn't that the same airline in the TV show Lost? Jesus, how many planes has Oceanic dropped?

Seriously, I'd like to hear about other Oceanic disasters, if you know of any.

Warning: This blog entry contains material that may not be suitable for all readers. In particular, it's about vomit. If vomit makes you vomit and you don't feel like vomitting because you generally save that for when you've had an extra piece of cheesecake, then don't read this. Or eat the cheesecake, and then read this.

Seriously.

It all started on a sunny morning. The Easter Seals nutritionist stopped by for her monthly visit (and no that's not a euphemism). She weighed Dylan and we talked about his diet.

He weighed 16 pounds, 8 ounces -- which was 8 ounces more than he weighed four weeks ago, but 8 ounces less than he should weigh. For his adjusted age (7 1/2 months) that put him in the 10-to-25 percentile. (For his actual age, he's in the 1 percentile.)

Here's something we didn't know. Premies need 100 calories per kilogram per day. Dylan's 7.5 kilos, so he needs 750 calories. That's 34 ounces of premie formula. That's more than a quart. We estimated he was getting closer to 600 calories.

Of course we're concerned. He needed more food. So we fed him. And fed him. And fed him. You know, just doing what we were told.

After feeding Dylan, oh I don't know, something like a gallon of formula he started squirming and crying. I tried to burp him and instead he eruptted.

Now I've seen all sorts of puking. I worked in a group home where a guy ate an entire pecan pie in less than five minutes. But never have I seen puke like this.

It blew from Dylan's mouth like a fire hose. It sprayed the couch, me, him. We were soaked in vomit. Dylan looked at me, surprised. Half of his face was coated in it.

It took quite a while but eventually everything cleaned up ok. But good lord we don't want to see that again.

Andrea got the juice.

The former First Lady's people called to tell Andrea she's getting the The Rosalynn Carter Fellowship For Mental Health Journalism!!!!

The fellowship goes to 10 journalists each year. TEN!!! And of course they chose Andrea. These 10 fellows have a year to work on a project related to mental health.

Andrea's project -- mental health issues related to premature birth.

Check out Andrea's blog for further details that I probably don't even know yet.

I've been rather a schlep with new posts for some time now. I had a good reason for a couple of months -- an unusually large writing project. Then my old freelance copy editing gig started again -- thank god.

But I think the truth might lie closer to burn out. After months of detailing the Dylan Experience, I just didn't have the energy to blog regularly. Instead, I provided fits and spurts of shoddy writing and pictures from our crappy digital camera.

Like this one.
















And yup, that's about all I have for now -- shoddy writing and a pic. It's nearly midnight, the Dilly needs his meds and I need some sleep.

Good night.

Bug spray really freaks me out. Not sure why. Maybe it's because deet is a WMD, a nerve agent that causes a horribly painful death when OD'd. (It's true -- there was an L&O episode about it.)

Whenever Josh wants to be sprayed I hesitate. Rationally, I know I shouldn't. It's a product that's been approved by the federal government -- and you know they're there to protect us.

And growing up in the country with parents who loved to camp, I spent many days lathered in Off. I t-turned out m-mostly f-fine.