My Escape Artist

We all know that kids climb out of their cribs at some point or another. As parents we just hope when it happens, they don't get hurt until we can get them a toddler bed or "big kid" bed. There are videos all over YouTube with parents showing footing of their kid making the big escape. My daughter was one of the few that never succeeded at climbing out on her own. She would put her foot up on the top rail, but never really got the gut to throw herself over the edge.

My son on the other hand took a leap this week, at 9 months old! I was letting him cry it out to go to sleep and about 20 mins. in, he decided he had enough. I heard an unusual noise and went to check on him. I peeked in the door and saw him on the floor trying to get out the door! Little squirt climbed out onto a pile of Tupperware boxed near his crib that are covered by a blanket. There was a pillow on top of that. My guess is...he rolled down the "hill" to the floor. When I found him, he was scared, but not hurt...thank God! I nearly had a heart attack! Eldon has just started really crawling and pulling up on everything and I think he was just not ready to give up practicing his new skills. He had a blast crawling around the room and climbing over the mattress while I lowered the crib at 10pm that night. Not a night I will soon forget.

My Good Sleeper

My good sleeper has stopped being a good sleeper. Eldon was the one who slept through the night when he was an infant, gets up no earlier than 6:30am, and was not a hastle to get to sleep. It is now becoming a hastle to get him to go to sleep. Last week I had to let him cry it out. He was screaming when I held him, he was screaming when I put him down, and he didn't want to eat. A bottle is usually the magic potion for Eldon to go to sleep. No more. So I did everything I could to make myself feel better about letting him cry it out. I changed his diaper, tried to get him to eat a bit more (he didn't), gave him some gas drops and Tylenol (just in case). After none of that did the trick, I put him in the bed and let him wail. For 35 minutes he screamed and carried on. Will was at work, so I was home alone and at about 25 minutes into the crying session, I called in reinforcements. My friend Mandy who is a proponent of the cry it out was all to happy to sit with me on the phone to prevent me from caving into the pressure to go get him. What would I do without those people. Husbands are great, but when you are in a pinch with your kids, its your girlfriends that will get you through it. I am so lucky to have so many that are part of the mommy club and have been there too.

Video Sharing Hits Orlando

I know it is good business sense to consolidate in tough economic times. But still, I am surprised that three TV stations in Orlando are sharing video. Not being an insider at this moment, I am not exactly sure how this works...but here is what I have deduced. The station assignment desks take part in a conference call each morning. The station with the pool camera that day sends the photographer out on the stories the desks agree on. They post up the raw video on an shared FTP site and bam! No work and at least two or three stories to show for it. Here is more information about who is doing this in Orlando. Part of the justification is that it is happening in L.A., D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago and others. If the bigger markets are doing it, why not Orlando?
I had my first encounter with this today. Just about a week into the agreement. We put out a release about an event happening today and it made the list of thing the "pool" camera was supposed to pick up today. We happened to be shooting the event so the station who was assigned the pool asked me if they could have a tape of what we shot. Being the good PR person...I said, of course, are you going to put it on the FTP site. They were. So we worked with them to figure out how we could upload directly to their site so all three stations could have quick and easy access, plus we didn't have to make dubs and drive tapes all over town. I was not able to watch evening news tonight, but the magic of the DVR will tell me tomorrow if this worked (meaning resulted in coverage on three stations with minimal work). WooHoo!
How quickly my years of journalistic ethics get thrown out the window for convenience. But seriously, I worry that might be what is having to TV stations too. I think local TV news should be careful with this. It won't be long before folks are jumping to the conclusion that if the stations can not shoot the news on their own, then maybe there are too many TV stations. Yikes!

Away from work guilt

I know I am not the only one who has away-from-work guilt. Today it is hitting me especially hard. I ended up with two appointments during the work day. One for my eye (after my daughter poked there with her fingernail last week) and with the dentist. The dentist was early in the morning, but I ended up at work an hour later than usual. The eye doctor is later, I will have to leave an hour earlier than usual. I hate that I feel guilty about this, but I do. I am a salaried employee and definitely work more than a 40 hour work week...not to mention the texting, emailing, and calling I do on my hour commute to and from work. In fact, today I did not take a lunch hour, instead I ate at my desk and am posting this just a few minutes after I finished eating...(here I go again...justifying every minute). Why do I do this?! Just to make myself feel better...I am posting a picture of me at work. I really did do something today! I promise!

Today Was A News Day

It is 6:20pm on Friday and I am posting for class at work. What is wrong with this picture. My job is supposed to end at 2:30pm on Fridays. I feel like I am back in news. Today I was, at least my employer was. A busload of patients, some with "flu like symptoms"shows up at one of our facilities. The result...a busy emergency room, but also a media convergence. Most of this blog I have talked about the drama of my kids...today I don't have kid drama to share because I haven't seen my kids yet! Only work drama for now. One other story today didn't quite go our way...I'll leave that one out of this post...good PR professional that I am. I has worn me out. But looking back on my life as a reporter and my life as a PR person, I would pick PR. If I was reporting any of these stories...I would still be at work getting the stories ready for the morning. I guess life isn't too bad after all. At least now...I know I won't be working this weekend!

Happy Independance Weekend

My husband was at work all weekend and my parents and in-laws helped me out with both the kids. But I think I am ready to get back to work and relax! It was a lovely, fairly laid-back Independence day. But the bigger news of the weekend, Eldon finally crawled. He was been working on this for quite some time, sliding around on his belly, but tonight he finally got the legs pushing in the right direction. I don't think he even realized what he has done yet, since he had been getting around fairly well just rolling and scooting. I was more excited about it than he was I think. Maybe he could do it all along and just decided to share it with me. Kids are crafty like that. I'll post a couple of photos of Carlina "enjoying the fireworks" Saturday night. She learned a song about the flag at school so she sang it for us with her "microphone" or telephone as she called it. Too cute!

Ear Infection #532

Ok...my daughter has not had 532 ear infections, but it could actually be an accurate representation of the number of days she has been on antibiotics. We got the diagnosis again today and another prescription for another antibiotic. But I am going to combat this one differently. After the last ear infection in April, I was willing to try anything else. So I went to chiropractic. A chiropractor friend of mine told me that he has had luck in reducing ear infections in kids through massaging the neck and opening some tubes there. Sounds good to me. So my daughter has been going regularly for these "neck massages" as she calls them. But we have another infection.

I am not ready to give up. I am going to use some of the suggestions I found in Parenting Magazine http://www.parenting.com/ChildHealthGuide/childhealthguide.jsp?xmlFile=1-3-4&cid=redirect-parenting-ear. Consequently my daughters doctor suggested some of the same things for home remades. Hopefully we will get through the holiday weekend with the prescription just on paper and no major pain. I am big enough to admit, if this doesn't work...I will be the first to head to Walgreen's.

Check out the ear drum photos...they are on that link as well.