there goes the neighborhood

Postpartum Regression

2012-02-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

This might only be funny to parents. But since I'm a parent and I think it's funny, this is what you're getting from me today.

After Nate was born, every time I went to the doctor's office for him or for myself, I had to fill out a survey for postpartum depression. I always thought it was stupid, because I wasn't depressed. But now, looking back, I think I totally had a mild case of the post-baby blues. It's hard to differentiate exhaustion from depression... or hunger or frustration or happiness or any emotion other than exhaustion. But when I started to feel normal, I remember thinking, "Oh... this feels good. I like this better."

My friend was over last night and we were talking about what a joke these surveys are for someone who doesn't already know they're depressed or is about to go on a rampage. This is how I would mentally respond to the questions asked in the survey and this is why I didn't think I was depressed:

Do you still enjoy the things you used to enjoy?
I used to enjoy things like going to the movies with my husband and having a flat stomach and sleeping in till 9am and reading a book for hours and drinking alcohol or caffeine and taking a shower when I wanted to and skydiving and having a clean house. Do I not enjoy these things because I'm depressed? NO... I have a BABY! What new mom gets to enjoy things she used to enjoy? What new mom gets to DO things she used to enjoy? I actually never went skydiving. But I WOULD have enjoyed it and I can't now.

Do you find yourself unable to sleep at night?
This is a joke, right? Unable to sleep? HECK, YES I find myself unable to sleep! I have a newborn! Did you not consider that every single mom who takes this survey will be unable to sleep at night... due to the fact that it is a POSTPARTUM survey? What does this have to do with depression? This sounds more like a survey to ensure you have a baby in your house.

Do you find yourself feeling down for no apparent reason?
Nope. My child won't nurse, my boobs hurt, my stomach looks like a deflated, stretched out balloon and I haven't slept in weeks. No apparent reason? I have excellent reasons for feeling down. Must not be depressed if I have reasons for feeling like I do.

Do you get tired for no reason?
Dear survey writers, this is getting repetitive. Have you ever had children? I have one very small, loud and hungry reason for being tired.

Are you more irritable than you used to be?
Go flush your head in a toilet.

I guess that's a yes.

God Doesn't Babysit

2012-01-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

Two days ago, while I wondered if the entire community could hear my painful, rhythmic breathing and if I would ever not sound like a dying rhinoceros when I run, my neighbor passed in her car and said, "Looking good, girl". I said, "I HATE RUNNING!"

This is true most of the time. I advertise the fact that I am not enjoying myself, because I am not, in fact, enjoying myself. But I've discovered that even when I don't like it, running is like a cleanse for me. I am not one for the green liquid stuff that you're supposed to drink for a week at the expense of all other food in order to purge your body of toxins, or whatever other nonsense people use as an excuse to lose weight and enjoy exploding diarrhea. If you want more toxin removal, get an additional liver implanted. Or run.

I know you all think I'm perfect. I have that effect on people - making them think I'm flawless and stuff. But sometimes I experience symptoms of being a normal person. I get depressed that I haven't seen my husband in over six months. I get bitter that the Navy is taking him away again three months after he will finally get home and I despair of ever feeling like our little family is where they should be (which is with me, rubbing my aching back and telling me how flawless I am). When I start to blame Henry for all my problems, it's probably time to go running. It works the poison out of my attitude and, in their mutual disapproval of me forcing them to waste their energy trotting through the neighborhood for the sole purpose of sweating, my brain and my emotions team up. If I'm angry, I can usually overcome it by introducing something that, at least for the duration of my run, I am angrier about: exercise. Works every time.

And you know, there's science stuff about endorphins and there's the fact that I'm so stinkin' proud of myself for being 'A Runner' that I slyly slip it into every other conversation I have with everyone I encounter.

The conversations that don't include running usually feature the fact that my husband is deployed and that's why my child is ransacking the books in Barnes and Noble. This is supposed to illicit pity, but I think they see right through me when my response to, "Can I help you, ma'am?" is, "My husband is deployed."

Anyway. A run is like deployment. It's not fun and you go through cycles of, "I'm doing great! What a great runner/military wife I am!" and, "This sucks. This will never be over and if someone doesn't notice that I'm doing a good job and wearing my big girl panties, I'm going to eat Trader Joe's Tahitian Vanilla Caramels for breakfastlunchanddinner."

When I'm running, as with deployment, there are times when I don't think I'm going to have the endurance to not sit down and yell at passers by that everything is their fault, and so I pray, "please make me finish!" and God basically says, "You can do it" without saying anything, but every time I pray that, I know that my whines will get me nowhere because, I am, in fact, physically capable of finishing. I'm not really as strong or confident as I pretend to be, but I'm stubborn, which looks pretty similar.

Which brings me to my point. Sometimes I pray, "Please give me the strength to finish well" and He always does, but what I really want to pray is, "Please come babysit Nathan for me, so I can take a nap and then you can teach him all kinds of educational things because you're God and you know that stuff and maybe you can teach him to say, 'I appreciate you, Mommy. You're the best.'" But He never does that. My insight for the day is this: God doesn't endow us with so much strength that exercise or deployments are no sweat. He gives us just enough to finish. And that's good, because I'm so much more grateful for the gift, having experienced the struggle.

And also, He gives Trader Joe's Tahitian Vanilla Caramels. Because He saw Nathan climb onto the dresser yesterday and He knows I need them.

The Virus of Death

2012-01-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

I'm sick. Sick sick sick. You know how newly-discovered diseases are often named after the person they find the disease in before the person croaks? I am that person. I found a new virus. It's The Virus of Death.

A week and a half ago my throat hurt. Five days after that my dad came into town and I told him that my throat was more sore every time I woke up. We decided it was post nasal drip from allergies. The day after he left, I woke up in a lot of pain. It didn't go away and I was having trouble swallowing things. I barely slept Saturday night because of the pain, so I went to the ER on Sunday morning and got poo-pooed out with "It's not strep, so it must be viral pharyngitis". Which means that the cold virus got stuck all up in my tonsils, which were swollen and angry. As was my throat. And lymph nodes. I endured and felt stupid for going to the ER. It has gotten worse every single day since then. Yesterday it had been a week and a half and I wasn't eating or drinking much and I was taking (no joke) 1600 mg of ibuprofen a day. I went to the doctor and got poo-pooed away again. No fever. Not strep, so it must be a virus. Well DUH, I don't have a fever... I'm eating ibuprofen for breakfast, lunch and dinner! (breakfastlunchanddinner! SNL? No? Nevermind)

So today I didn't take the medicine and guess what? CHILLS! FEVER! THE PLAGUE! Oh, and the same painful throat that has been making me cry since Sunday. I did 15 hours of labor with no epidural and after 21 hours, I had a c-section. I know my pain scale. When I say my throat hurts like a llama who fell down some steep Peruvian mountainside with a Sherpa on his back, I mean it was a 7, folks. I didn't know throats could hurt so much. In fact, I've deduced that at night, little elves are crawling in through my nasal cavities to my throat and scrubbing it with sandpaper and gravel. Then they pour lemon juice on for good measure. Then I wake up and wonder if I'll ever eat again without feeling like I'm swallowing razor blades.

The Virus of Death.

So that was all background. Don't you love when people use social media to manipulate pity? I hate it when people do that.

Today I was g-chatting with Jon (yay!) and he told me not to leave the house before noon. I figured he was going to send flowers. Instead, a couple minutes to noon, my doorbell rings and TA DAA! Chinese food. Wonton soup, dumplings (!) and fried rice. From my favorite person in the universe. Who figured out how to order my sick soup of choice from a billion miles away in the middle of the ocean without a phone.

Best Husband Ever vs. Virus of Death.

The virus loses. Hands down. I am a happy woman.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T22:45:00.000-08:00

I am so grateful. For my husband's architecturally perfect nose. For my son's exuberance. For the blessing of them both. I am a wealthy person with a colorful happiness, thanks to these two.

I may be snarky and I may deal with life's difficulties by threatening to send my son to Cuba and take a nap until they return him with a bribe to never try that again, but I am so grateful for the rare 10 pm, when teething pains wake him up just enough to need rocking, when I get to hold his little, sleeping body long past the few minutes it takes to see him back to sleep. Because I love holding him, my sweet, monstrous little love. I love having my face on his soft head and quietly kissing him until I rally myself to put him down again.

I often curse the Navy for taking away my best friend, but this temporary absence does not diminish the depths of comfort, stability and peace my husband's love gives me. When I say I am a richer woman for having him, I mean I am fuller and continually grow in my capacity to hold the fullness that is marriage. The growing takes lots of commitment. Commitment to deny yourself the right to be angry. Commitment to make peace between two wholly different, but equally fallen persons. Commitment to not talk about sex in public. (Your voice is always louder than you think it is, Rebekah.) Commitment to a God who is the only foundation and salvation for this partnership.

"Thus far the Lord has brought us."

I am humbled by the gracious gift of my two loves. I am more humbled by the knowledge that God Almighty humiliated himself to be a man, that I might be able to comprehend Him. That He chased me down to tell me that, though I was less than undeserving, His love has caused me to be worth the salvation offered me. From utter darkness to warm sunlight. Merry Christmas. Merry day of Hope.

I am loved, so I am grateful. It is a beautiful Christmas, indeed.

Okay... Maybe You Should Have a Kid

2011-12-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

Despite my last post, I really do think I'll keep Nathan. And if I wasn't sure, today God and Nate worked in concert to convince me that children can be useful.

In the past year, every time I go to DSW... and I know this is probably weird, but I don't care if you judge me... I always pray that I will find a pair of brown leather, closed-toed, pumps for an incredible deal. I'm super picky and super cheap. Needless to say, it's been a while.

DSW is one of Nathan's favorite stores. It has loads of shoes, all within toddler reach and there are aisles to run down, mirrors to breathe on and people sitting down, struggling to shove their feet into boots to stare at. Toddler heaven.

I hate going to DSW with Nathan. Because there are loads of shoes, all within toddler reach and there are aisles to run down, mirrors to breathe on and people sitting down, struggling to shove their feet into boots to stare at. Mommy purgatory.

But I had a coupon that expired today. So we went and I headed straight for the clearance racks, as usual, and put the child down to consider a pair of overly-priced-even-on-clearance-but-they're-Michael-Kors-so-I-love-them heels. My son immediately walked over to a box, pulled out two matching shoes, walked back over to me and chucked them at my feet. Two Nine West brown leather, closed-toed pumps. On clearance from $80 to $20. He grinned. I grinned back.

Finally something we can agree on.

With the two coupons I had, the shoes were five dollars. Total. And to add blessing to good fortune, I walked out of that store with two pairs of heels, one pair of Steve Madden socks (all my socks are developing holes) and one pair of lavender tights for twenty dollars. Total.

It doesn't surprise me that God answers my prayers, especially one as (pathetically) oft-repeated as this. And it really shouldn't surprise me that he answers prayers through my son. After all, despite my threats of selling him on ebay, Nathan is an answer to a year and a half of heart-felt prayer, himself.

It is exceedingly appropriate, however, that the answer to my prayers was chucked at me by my 15-month-old son. Literally.

That's so us.

Don't Have Kids

2011-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

Jon loves being a dad. I get told all the time by spouses of pilots he's deployed with that he pretty much goes around proselytizing for parenthood. Which is really sweet. It warms my heart to see and hear how much he loves his family.

This is what Jon missed yesterday on our trip to Salt Lake City. This is the sort of thing that dampens spirits and makes people want to have their tubes tied. This is why I don't push my friends to have kids.

Traveling alone with a toddler is a very brave thing to do and I, therefore, am a brave woman. I packed very light, I had my brother purchase a car seat on his end, so I wouldn't have to check one and I bought a small umbrella stroller that I could check at the gate. I am brave and I am a savvy traveler. I am not, however, smart, because I traveled with a toddler by myself.

The first flight was fine. No real problems or anything. It was pretty much the same level of stress as taking a toddler to Costco and purchasing large items. Not fun, but not bad enough to make me avoid it. We landed, unruffled, in Phoenix, where we ate and I chased Nate all over the airport, hoping it would wear him out.

He was, indeed worn out and for the first forty minutes of the flight, he slept like a sweet little blonde angel with rosy cheeks and striped socks. If I could stop the movie there, you all would run to your spouses and beg for babies.

But, then, he woke up.

"But, then" is like the fine print on an "As Seen on TV" special.

He woke up a little off and started to cry, which soon turned to a scream. Screaming isn't fun, but it's totally doable. THEN he started to thrash. And kick and WAIL and SCREAM ('scream' and "SCREAM" do not mean the same thing). I am not kidding when I say I have never seen a child act the way Nathan proceeded to act for the remainder of the flight. It was like trying to hold an angry, rabid wolverine. On steroids. With a thorn in it's eye.

My child thrashed and arched his back and screamed and SCREAMED and turned in thrashing circles in my lap, trying to escape something like it was burning him. I had no idea a human being could act like that. The whole plane was either concerned or penciling, "Get Sterilized" into their day planners. I had the guy next to me offering to help, people in front of and behind me offering help, THREE stewardesses at ONCE standing at our row, asking questions, offering wet paper towels, food from first class and asking on on earth they could do to help.

It really was horrible. Purgatory is here on earth. It's called parenthood and I just made up for 26 years worth of sin.

I may not be smart, but I still think I'm brave and travel savvy. And I'm awfully good at pretending to be cool and collected. I stayed calm the entire 40 minutes he had his fit and I calmly walked off the plane (he had stopped crying from pure exhaustion by then) and collected our things and picked up our luggage at baggage claim and layered my wolverine for the cold weather and waited outside for my brother and only let out a few choice words when it took me 20 minutes to install the carseat and made it back to eat dinner and go to bed by 9:30, San Diego time. But when I wrote my "this is how things went" email to Jon, I cried. Because I only pretend to be calm.

Which is all to say, whatever you may hear from my husband, do not have children. A purgatory sentence is best served off a commercial airplane.

One Billy Goat Gruff

2011-12-02T09:11:00.001-08:00

Recently Nathan has been trying to climb onto things. His little-boy-ness is so innate. Like climbing, for instance. In the past 2 weeks, I've looked over from the stove to see Nate with a desperate grip on the other side of a kitchen chair, grunting like an over-burdened ox and trying to heave his body up. In my infinite wisdom, I let him struggle. Not for his character's sake, but rather for my sanity, because I knew that once he could climb, it was all over... again... like when he started to walk.

The other day, I heard the familiar scrape of a chair being pulled out from under the kitchen table and the ox-grunts as he tried to climb, but when silence ensued, I looked up and he was standing on the chair, grinning like a fool at his mother as if to say, "Look what I did, Sucker!"

He then, being a newly established Billy Goat, proceeded to climb on top of the kitchen table.

In my infinite wisdom, I choose to empty the table of fragile items first, instead of hauling him to the floor, because I knew he would just climb back up while I was saving my hoard of breakables, that were up there for the sole purpose of being out of his reach. I got most of them and as I was going to grab the last one - a vase wrapped in paper - my own dear godzilla, destroyer of all that is good and holy, grabbed the corner of the paper and unrolled the glass vase onto the floor, where it shattered.

It wasn't even my vase.

And it was a special order.

Sometimes I get to this point in the story and I can't decide on the next line. A sentence is never enough to express my feelings, which are usually a mix of exhaustion, extreme exasperation and a tiny bit of hidden affection. He may be a horrible rotten monster who destroyed my body and is slowly chipping away at my sanity with his Billy Goat hooves, but he's my rotten monster. And for some unknown reason, I have a hard time being mad when he grins at me so endearingly with each new dangerous accomplishment.

Which is why babies have survived to this day. If they hadn't learned to grin before they were two, the human race would be extinct. And if we were extinct, there would be no one to feed Henry.

Therefore, God was not only looking out for the future of the human race when he programmed "smile" as one of the first learned tasks, but also for large yellow labs.

So I have a vase to replace.

And such is life.

Haiku #1

2011-11-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

Studying at night
The dog yawns at my hard work
"Laziness pays off"

Anorexia Lite

2011-11-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I kind of get girls who struggle with anorexia. I totally understand the need to act out in some way in order to feel in control when my situation is anything but controllable. And at times like these, when the husband is deployed, the baby has become a throw-everything-away-because-trash-cans-are-cool toddler and the toilet breaks and the care needs brakes, I consider the need to control things.

Don't get me wrong, though. I have a complete and utter obsession with food. I don't have the self-control to be anorexic. One look at a chocolate cupcake and I'm done. I read cooking magazines like romance novels. And just like romance novel readers imagine themselves in the arms of the shirtless, rippling-muscled Maximuses in the stories they read, I imagine myself slowly stirring the roux and steadily adding the cheese... maybe a little extra... like a block extra... and baking it for an hour with macaroni and bread crumbs and finally when the anticipation is too great, EATING the divine casserole for all it's worth and basking in the afterglow.

I'm a little hungry just thinking about it and I forgot what I'm writing about.

Okay, but the point is, I've noticed something about myself since the Navy kidnapped Jon. On bad days, when I'm exhausted and it's been rough and I find a toddler shoe in the trash AGAIN while looking for a sippy cup there, because I can't find it and that's where my offspring chooses to hide things, I rebel. Before bed, I survey the damage; it could be dishes in the sink or the remains of what used to be my makeup... and I do nothing about it. Let us be very clear it. It is not the exhaustion that keeps me from washing the dishes or my face. It's rebellion.

I get this little foot-stomp going in my brain and say, "I don't have to put up with it any longer! Too long have the tyrants of toddlerhood and housekeeping and beauty regimes held me under their power, but today I say NO! Yes, watching babies and cleaning house and trying to keep a bad complexion at bay all make perfect sense. But that's the problem. They're right. And rebellion requires a little bid of bad. So TAKE THAT, status quo! I'm NOT washing my FACE TONIGHT!"

After my personal revolutionary riot, I go to bed, feeling quite in control. It's anorexia lite. Act out without severe consequences.

Unless of course cold dish water is considered a severe consequence. Which, in my book, it kind of is. Cold dishwater is a personal pet peeve. Gross. So anorexia of all kinds comes back to bite you in the butt, I suppose. But at least I have a butt, since I never said no to that cupcake.

Have a butt to bite, Choose Anorexia Lite!

Gimme Some Advice

2011-10-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

Today Nate got together with his best friend Braydon and they begged for candy at a local shopping center that was hosting a Halloween thing. Jon just sent us these awesome "Thai Boxing" shorts for Nate, so he went as a boxer.

We tried to get some photos before we left. Notice the chucks. Also note that he got abs added with eyeliner for the actual event.
One of the restaurants giving out candy was also handing out fortune cookies. Nate's said, "Many people are seeking you for your sounds advice", which makes me wonder. Do they mean sound as in *shriek* *yell* *holler* or are they referring to advice? Like the time we went to our friend's wedding in September and just as the bride was asked if she takes this man to be her blah blah blah, Nate yelled, "Uh-oh!"
That's probably what they meant.Here he is with abs a bit faded, but still visible. All that candy is totally going to ruin his 6 pack. Maybe he'll learn, "Look both ways before you cross the street".

A Dear Jon Letter

2011-10-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

Why write two updates in one evening? Here is an excerpt of tonight's spousely email for your reading pleasure:

Henry won't shut up. He barks ALL the TIME now and he's SO loud and he won't stop when I tell him to and if you get a box in the mail with breathing holes in it, it might not be Nate. It's possible that I've sent the Navy a top-of-the-line alarm system that runs on table scraps. And by runs, I mean walks, because running is past the capacity of this particular model. It's slightly defective. But there's nothing wrong with the volume. This one goes to eleven.

I love you more than I love cold weather, chocolate cake, eyeliner, Henry, massages, boots, throw pillows, Stella Artois, cute undies, umbrellas, our Element, whiskey, clean sheets and cheese... combined... plus 20. Which is to say... a lot.

Look What I Found

2011-10-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is what over ten pounds of baby looks like, four days late. I'm so glad he made it OUT and a year later looks like this:
The All Stars just melt my Southern California hipster heart.

Obla Dee Obla Da

2011-10-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

We have mice. Which I do not approve of.

Correction: I do not approve of mice in my house. Despite Dr. Seussical rhyming, mice do not belong where people live, at least not while they still carry hantavirus. Maybe in heaven they will be disease free and we can contemplate their small furriness and twitching noses without spraying them down with Lysol. Until then, they aren't allowed in my attic.

Which leads to my dilemma. We set up traps and hid some poison up in the attic, away from the Man Child of Destruction and Eating Things That are Not Meant to be Eaten. And the practical side of me is content that the mice will soon be gone.

But the other part of me (not that there are only two parts of me - but these are the only two that pertain to mice) is a little stricken by the idea of killing mice. If perhaps there had been a book about giving a rat a cookie ... or if Beatrix Potter had portrayed mice as evil and not put sweet blue waistcoats on them ... maybe if they had red glowing eyes... I don't know.

I'm not even a vegetarian. But MICE. They're LITTLE. And CUTE. And I can just see the little mouse memorial service for the wayward teenage mouse who was warned against the evils of the trap, but didn't heed. Or the groups of maimed and brain-damaged mice in "Poison Eaters Anonymous". Call me ideological, but it's really hard to be responsible for killing cute things.

If only I needed to cause the death of sharks or snakes or spiders or cockroaches or fire ants (I. hate. fire ants.) or fascist, hairless cats... not that I want any of those to infest my house, but at least I wouldn't mind KILLING them.

But isn't that just the way of viruses? Hiding inside cute things to trick you into catching them? I mean, that's how the common cold gets around. Kids are cute, but when you get down to it, they're mainly just snotty factories of disease and malfeasance. Oh man. I came with that word all on my own, too.

But I didn't know how to spell it, so I had to look it up.

My point is, mice are really cute. And I hope they eat the poison but go off somewhere nice (and away from my attic) to die, so that their last hours are spend by the soft murmur of a peaceful stream.

That would help.

Ostriches Make Terrible Parents

2011-09-18T19:18:00.001-07:00

It's about time, right?

Some people need to talk issues out, but I typically go all ostrich and bury my head in the sand for a bit while the world careens on around my big exposed butt. Do birds have butts? Tail. My big exposed tail.

All that to say, I'm in Virginia and I'm getting to see people I love and attempting to see more people I love and mostly showing off my adorable offspring (which is not very ostrich of me, because I'm pretty sure ostriches make horrid parents). Nathan had a first birthday party yesterday and will officially turn one on Wednesday, which makes me proud and sad and hungry for cake. He's speaking now, but his only words are "Uh-oh", which was his very first word and of which he is exceedingly proud, and "mama", which doesn't count, because it doesn't mean "mommy", but rather, "I want that", which can refer to food, a toy, the bathtub... or his actual mommy, when he condescends to need me.

The other day I was at Potbellies (the glorious thing about that statement is that I have eaten at Potbellies like 5 times since I've been here (!!!) and I have no idea which time this was) and I was getting ready to leave, packing up diaper bag, purse and baby after tossing the trash. I was feeling efficient and capable, when Nate chucked his sippy cup on the floor. Without skipping a beat (and in that "you think way faster than you move" way), I simultaneously bent over to get the cup without putting the baby down and thought to myself, "I'm so much more agile than my mom or mother in law - they would take longer to bend over to get this". I was SO agile and swift that I smacked Nathans head against a chair next to me. He screeched and commenced wailing. And I was humbled. And decided that grandmothers know what they're doing when they stall before bending over. And also, I am, after all, an ostrich kind of parent.

Shame.

So don't give up, I'll post birthday pictures soon. And the multitude of Nathan stories will commence. But if you're bored with toddlers and their ostrich mothers, let me know and I'll do something by myself to tell you about. Maybe like a nap.

Now I want chocolate cake and a nap.

God Exists

2011-08-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

I usually reserve serious topics for my journal. It's so much more fun to read things that make you laugh, but I'm going to deviate today. Feel free to skip.

After all that I wrote the other day and all the precious prayers loved ones offered for our tiny baby, we lost the fight. I went in to the doctor's office yesterday and there was no heartbeat. Silence has never been so painful.

I was thinking about it all last night - specifically why we didn't lose the baby right away - why we had to go through weeks of hoping and desperate prayer, all to have the same devastating result. But I've decided if we had to lose our baby, I'd rather it be like this. This child was so loved and so well fought for. Many people were praying and hoping. What better legacy could there be for a life, than to be loved hard and fought for desperately? What a beautiful way to leave and enter the arms of Peace.

We named the baby Jesse. It's suitable for a boy or a girl and it means "God exists" or "Gift". Jesse is a gift. A precious blessing we won't meet for a long time, but probably the only child we will have that will never know pain or suffering. "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change..." No pain - only heavenly light.

And God exists. Even in this. Especially in this. When nothing else makes sense and I doubt everything, I can rely on two solid truths: God is big and He is good. Always big. Always good. And that is more than enough for me. I feel the pain. I am heartbroken. I feel so empty where I used to have a life inside. I long for my baby. I ache to tell Jesse how much Jon and I love him or her. But the only one who understands is Big enough to hold me and good enough to cry with me. And He's holding our gift, better and stronger and with more love than I could ever provide. Our baby is safe. With a God who is real.

Thank you, friends, for your prayers for us in these last weeks. God has been gracious to us. He has provided everything we need, often through you. Your support means more than you know and your love is remarkable.

"'Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the Lord who has compassion on you"
Isaiah 54:10

When it Rains...

2011-08-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

My friend Mari has this phrase that she says and Jon and I say it all the time (I bet you didn't know that, did you, Mari?). When someone is ridiculous or something is stupid, she'll go, "Really? Really?!" The first 'really' sounds innocent and questioning and the second is dripping with sarcasm and half an octave lower. Ever since I experienced it in Pensacola, I have not found a phrase that more adequately fits my reaction to certain scenarios. Which is why I say it all the time.

Well, never has it been more appropriate. Please, pull up a chair and laugh with me at my past 4 weeks, shall we? You know how 'they' say when your husband deploys, everything will go wrong? Keep that in mind. You know how 'they' also say, "Go big or go home"? I'd rather go home, thank you very much.

Right before Jon leaves, I am finishing up a biostatistics class that I've been stressing about for a while. Right after he leaves I have the final exam. Right before he leaves we find out I'm pregnant (Exciting? yes. Planned? no. Overwhelmed? You bet your lily white!) Jon is due to make it back a month before the birth. That's nice of the Navy.

Right after Jon leaves, I start to hemorrhage. I never spell that word correctly. I always have to spell check it after three tries or so. But I go to the ER on Sunday, the nurse's office Tuesday, back to the ER again on Wednesday (more bleeding) and finally Wednesday afternoon, after two ER docs can neither confirm nor deny that the baby is okay, my OB spots a heartbeat. Relief floods. Then he tells me, the heartbeat is a little weak and let's just hold our breath, shall we? The following Tuesday (last Tuesday to be precise), I go back and the baby is doing great - growing and has a nice healthy heart beat. Oh but wait - there's pooled blood in my uterus. Up to the big ultrasound techs I go. Talk to the doc. Let's hope it absorbs.

Meanwhile, my momma flies out (GOD bless her!) because I was on home rest. What? Yes. that's bed rest without the bed. I think. No walks for Henry. No vacuuming. No anything that makes me feel useful. My mom and Mother in Law trade places taking care of Nathan and the laundry and the kitchen (etc) while I sit on my butt, going nuts because I hate having other people clean my house. But it's worth it.

I go back in tomorrow for more doc talk and my dad will fly out to help and will fly me and Nate back to VA for a month for some weddings and birthdays and lots of Potbellies.

Meanwhile, Henry has been getting into the trash and being kind of bad all of the sudden and Nate refuses to eat carbs or veggies or protein (that leaves fruit)... probably all because Jon is gone.

So TODAY, the friend that was going to stay and house sit and watch Henry had to back out... a week before we leave. That was fun. God provided, though, and I got another friend (I LOVE YOU REBEKAH CARTER!) to live here and take care of him. I have to give credit where it's due. God freakin' worked that one.

So when they say, "when your husband deploys, everything goes wrong", "They" have much wisdom.

But I hate them.

For being right.

I just want to turn to the universe and say, "Really? Really?!"

It's Just That With Jon Being Gone, Nothing Funny Happens

2011-08-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

But here are some smile-worthy things. Old pictures that I was looking through (I'm printing some to frame... we have not one framed picture of our son in our entire house... yikes).

Note the name of the beer is "Loose Cannon". How appropriate.

Uncle Andy
Poor tortured kid.

Back Home

2011-07-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

I get weekly emails from Babycenter about the progress my child should have made by month and week. This week, it said I should consider vacuuming regularly at this stage, since he's probably going to try to put things in his mouth.

I'm not sure how I feel about baby center calling me out on my cleaning habits. You don't know me. You haven't seen my carpets.

Also, Nate is trying to walk. Here he is a couple days ago. Note the T-rex arms.

Here he is last night way past his bedtime, so he's giddy. Which means he's braver and more willing to try walking, but absolutely void of the will to balance. Nathan Reckless Butterfield.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go vacuum.

How to Paint Your Nails... Mommy Style

2011-07-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

Step one. Prime the suckers.

Apply base coat a couple minutes before you leave to run errands. It dries fast and if it gets smudged it doesn't matter.

Step two. Load the sucker.

Put the kiddo in the car and anything else you need for errands, then put your first coat of color on, wave your hands like you just don't care and get in. Alternate hands in front of the air conditioner vent while driving to the post office. Realize when you see something fly off your car that you left the bottle of nail polish and the package for the post office up there before you took off.

Retrace steps and be impressed that nail polish bottles survive flying off cars at 20 miles per hour.

Step three. Repeat.

Mail the package, reload the sucker in his car seat and apply coat #2. Repeat air conditioning drying aid while you drive to the library.

Step four. Repeat.

Return books, wait a long time to talk to the gal you need to talk to, reload the sucker in his car seat and apply the top coat right before you get in. But realize you left the top coat at home. Never mind... you managed to smudge your thumb anyhow. And said sucker bit your finger and smudged that nail, too.

Step five. Give up.

Go home, pour a glass of wine and decide you don't need lacquered nails to be pretty. You're not a woman, you're a mom. Paint your toes instead.

The Neighborhood

2011-06-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

Our neighborhood has an annual yard sale. That means hundreds of garages open for business within stroller-distance. I love a good deal and this year did not disappoint.

We got a Pottery Barn outdoor table for $40 (I found a similar one for sale new for close to $1000). With two hours worth of sanding and refinishing, Jon has it looking like we paid every bit as much as the comparable one online.
Total investment, with wood sealer included was $53.
Because we never carry cash, once we found the table, I PROMISED the woman selling it I'd be back with the money asap, if she would just hold it for me. We ran to the ATM and Starbucks, which was very crowded. When I finally got up to the counter, I ordered Jon's drink but got a venti, because, as I explained to the cashier, I could just sip off of his and I didn't have time to wait for them to make me my own, because we had to get back to this yard sale to buy a table for our patio.

And it hit me how very suburban mom I am.

How very mini-van I am.

Never.

We also scored a Bob Ironman jogging stroller, which retails for $365 for $20... (*cough* soccer mom)...

It's a little beat up, but the idea is to run fast enough that no one can tell. Just me and the blur of yellow swiftiness I'm pushing along.

Jon managed to get rid of the huge nasty green chair by putting it out for free.

Our attempt to do the same with Nathan was not successful.

Maybe they read my blog.

Is He Eighteen Yet?

2011-06-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

People who read this blog and don't have children are going to pray to God for girls.

The problem with me (the only one) is that when my blood sugar gets low, I go psycho. I'm mean, I cry, I can't think clearly and I become convinced of things that don't make sense. When well-fed, I am eternally patient and logical and stuff, but forget to feed me and it's on your head.

Which is to say, I didn't get breakfast today. Or lunch, really (I tried to eat leftovers, but as always happens, Nathan was eating lunch and ate my food as well as his.) So when I was trying to do the dishes at 1 something, you can't blame me for letting Nathan play with the screen door, which sticks out a little from the door frame, leaving a couple inches of gap open to the front porch. Just enough for tiny arms to fit through. I imagine it would be a little unnerving to be walking by and notice tiny arms grabbing at the bricks and front mat, out from under the door. Nevertheless, It keeps him entertained and there's no harm in a front stoop, right?

So I washed and every 15 seconds (maybe every 25 seconds), I looked over to make sure he hadn't gone elsewhere. When he got bored and crawled over towards the dog's water bowl, I stopped him in plenty of time, only to notice he'd dragged in a funny looking leaf with him. Upon closer inspection, I realized (I cannot describe my horror) that it was the thorax of a particularly dead cockroach. It's legs and head were missing.

Poor Nathan. I grabbed him so fast and shoved my fingers in his mouth (at no other time would I ever willingly search a dark cavity for cockroach parts). I pulled out a leg.

Dry Heave.

My son ate a cockroach. This is SO much worse than the time he ate the spider. It was funny when he ate the spider. Cockroaches are never funny.

Imagine my face all screwed up and grimacing and nauseous. That's what I look like as I write this post. It gets even more grimacy with every "cockroach" that I type.

Does it make me less of a horrible, failure of a mother that I feel sick to my stomach about it?

MOST moms can leave their eyes off their 9 month-old for more than twelve seconds without said baby consuming a bug.

While sitting in the pharmacy last week, waiting for a couple prescriptions for the Bridge Troll, I chatted with an older Marine about having sons. He paused and said, "So... do you like being a mother?"

I don't suppose that it's such a strange question, but I delayed answering as I thought about the 104-degree fever and the emergency room visit three days prior, of the rash that brought me back to the doctor and had me sitting, waiting for medicine. I thought about how both times he's teethed, he pushed two teeth out at once, making everyone miserable. I thought about the spider. The way he glories in trying to eat dog food and splashing Henry's water all over the floor.

My answer is this. I don't necessarily love being a mom. I mean... I used to have things like sleep and manicured nails (well I could have) and time to read books. But I love being Nathan's mom. I love the way he grabs my shirt and shoves his face into my shoulder, giggling ferociously when his daddy makes faces at him. I love how he greets me, standing in his crib, grinning like a maniac when he wakes up. I love how he stands naked, peering into the tub, waiting for me to let him in to the water for bathtime.

I thought about changing the blog name to "Chaos" or "Bridge Troll Diaries", because I only ever write about the chaos that Godzilla Jr. brings to our lives, but I think the name fits. There goes the neighborhood. There goes the white picket fence, the clean floor and the bathing-suit body.

Here comes Nathan.

He is My Child After All

2011-06-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Because we live in San Diego (you know what's next... I'm going to talk about the weather. That's always where, "Because we live in San Diego" is going...)

Because we live in San Diego, it's been in the seventies and sunny. In an attempt to look like I live in San Diego and not Fargo, I put on some shorts and laid a blanket in the back yard, carefully arranging lawn chairs and draping a blanket to provide shade for the baby, and we headed out to bask. I brought a cookbook, because I read them like novels.

And like novels, they fascinate me and distract me from the fact that my son is pulling up the grass by the roots and eating it.

As if our grass stood a chance without his help. I barely water anything.

Once I did look up from the page on Coeur a la Creme with Raspberries (I know you're about to google it, so let me save you the trouble... here and here)... so once I looked up and noticed my ruminating offspring, I grabbed a basil leaf from the garden for him to chew instead. The first one I picked had a spider on it and despite the fact that he's an experienced spider-eater, I threw it away and got him a clean one.

He loved it.

He may be blonde and have blue eyes, but he loves basil. He is my Italian son.

When we were in Bolivia, building an orphanage (which means, when we were in Bolivia, trying to keep up with the Bolivians who were building an orphanage), the construction workers chewed Coca leaves... as in Cocaine. It was addicting, but they did it because it kept them from feeling hungry, since they couldn't afford food for lunch.

That's kind of depressing now that I type it. But as we were leaving the airport, we peered into the giftshop, where a shirt read, "Coca es no droga" (Cocaine isn't a drug). As if that wasn't funny enough, the only person on duty in the Drug Control room was asleep when we passed.

I see, South America. It all makes sense now.

Basil. Coca leaves for babies.

One-Uppers

2011-06-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

We had these friends in Pensacola (don't worry - it's not you, otherwise I wouldn't put it on the blog) who were total One-Uppers. If we had a funny college story, they had a funnier one. If we had a good recipe, they had a better one. They once stopped me in the middle of cutting onions while making dinner for them because I wasn't doing it right. Then finished cutting them for me. The "correct" way.

Awkward.

Anyway, Jon and I really don't like to hang out with that sort of crowd, but the truth is, we're closet One-Uppers.

When we were trying to get pregnant it seemed that everyone else was getting knocked up and we weren't. It was frustrating, to say the least. Then Matt and Ann (our wonderful brother and sister-in-law) announced they were having a baby. Then we found out she was a girl. Paul and Kristyn (cousins-in-law) were also having a girl, so when we found out we, too, were pregnant, we determined to have a boy. If we were going to be last, we were going to be different.

He was a boy, indeed. So when Ann and Kristyn gave birth to two sweet, 7 pound something babies, we determined to have a larger one (note: I was thinking like 8 pounds).

Skip ahead to labor day. Not the holiday, but they day I was in labor for 21 hours and had a C-section despite it all. As the doctors were wheeling me into the recovery room and I was wondering if I was ever going to be able to move my toes again, I looked up to Jon's triumphant grin as he yelled, "TEN POUNDS, ONE OUNCE!"

Once again, we had successfully one-upped.

I say all that to say this: Sadly, Nathan has inherited our One-Upping Gene. Evidenced in the post about those Jeans.

When normal babies suck on pacifiers like... well... normal babies, Nathan sucks on the whole darn thing. At once.

Par example:
That is an entire Soothie pacifier, shoved all the way in his big ole trap.

He's pretty pleased about it, too. (Even though it appears that Henry has had enough and is eating his head.)

And if you were about to get excited that maybe that mouthful of Paci might be keeping some of the drool in, you needn't:
Drool always finds a way.

In fact, there's so much room in there, notwithstanding the paci, he started trying to shove some of my hair in too:
He is gifted. Not in intelligence or agility like his little girl cousins, who have hit all their milestones much before our lumberjack, but rather in boy things. Like showing off how very much he can shove in his mouth at once.

I'm going to be the mom who gets the phone calls in elementary school that my son is on his way to the emergency room with an eraser/rock/locker shoved up his nose.

And I'm going to regret passing on that gene.

Today Nathan Ate a Spider

2011-05-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

The child is teething. He has cut one tooth and is working (violently and with much angst) on the second. Coincidentally, he has a cold.

There is no rest for the weary.

(I'm talking about me.)

So this morning, while his just-got-back-from-a-month-long-work-up Dad was on the ship, making sure fire doesn't destroy the helo (or something like that), Nate and I skipped church and were playing at the coffee table. He's just learning to pull himself up and it's a lot of exercise for the both of us while he figures it out.

Nathan has Go-go-gadget arms. Their reach is longer than their length.

I had moved most everything out of his way.

Perhaps a half hour before all this, I'd seen a tiny (TINY) spider crawling on the coffee table and debated killing it. Why should I? It was too small to bite anybody and I kill every other spider, so why not leave one? Anyway, I smooshed it with a tiny-spider-sized scrap of paper.

You can see where this is going.

In one of his various chin-ups, he landed on the floor and started fussing. When I picked him up, I realized he had a tiny-spider-sized scrap of paper in his mouth. I pulled the sopping piece out and looked for the smooshed spider, which was, of course, missing.

So Nathan ate a spider today.

Unfortunately, it seems to have had no positive homeopathic effects on his teething pain.

Maybe crickets?

Power Struggle

2011-05-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

The two puppies are fighting over Henry's bone...

One puppy gives up and goes for the evidence...

From Now Until Maternity

2011-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

Gluttony is okay when it's that or... oh I don't know... selling your son on Craigslist because he's decided to boycott sleep.

Because let's face it. When gluttony was listed with really bad things like murder and wearing white after labor day, the church hadn't taken deployment into consideration, which turns otherwise rational, mild-mannered mommies into Temporarily Single Mommies. And single parents have a free pass when it comes to gluttony.

Because they're tired and they could be selling their children on Craigslist, which, let's be honest, results in a much longer purgatory sentence.

I remember a conversation in college where I responded sensitively to a friend who was expressing how tired she was because her newborn daughter kept her up all night by saying, "Well, at least being up all night helps burn off baby weight, right?"

Oh yes. I am that sensitive.

She replied that it did not, because if she was up, she was hungry and snacked. So she gained more weight.

I'm not sure that I agree, however. I think that the stress of being woken up from peaceful dreams of watching your children go off to college to the jarring reality of trying to comfort an infant whose only problem is boredom is stressful enough to burn extra calories (I assume that little life experience leads to boring dreams. I have no proof, but it explains so much).

Which also makes gluttony acceptable. In fact, I believe it changes the nature of the beast, so that overeating is no longer gluttony, but survival.

Survival. Do it for your kids.

Or do it because of them.

Lawn Saga 23

2011-05-13T09:50:00.001-07:00

The grass still grows and I still have to mow the weeds.

Yesterday I had a squadron wives meeting at the house, so I had to pretend to be put-together, which includes having some sort of control over the backyard. I knew I could artfully place the curtains so that I wouldn't have to mow the entire lawn, but I still had to mow the visible and Nathan was not asleep.

So I stuck him in laundry basket with some toys and sat him next to Henry on the patio.He did great. He looked up every so often to make sure I was still pushing around the noisy thing and chewed on stuff the rest of the time. He even threw a toy overboard.

The curtain trick, by the by, did great too. I'm going to have to mow the rest of the lawn sometime, but not today. Today I make amends to my son for sticking him in a laundry basket on the back patio like a redneck woman from lower Alabama.

Elegance Rather Than Luxury

2011-04-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony.

William Henry Channing

God and Nacho Cheese

2011-04-20T14:02:00.001-07:00

Nathan's reaction to low-calorie food

When I get to heaven, God's not going to have an awful lot to say about me... I'm not going to get one of the Patient or Generous or Kind prizes. Heck, I'm not even up for Most Improved (which always goes to the kid who didn't qualify for anything else). What He can say for me, however, is that I was grateful for my food.

I don't mean grateful in an "I once was starving and now I'm well-fed" way. It's more like, "I am truly giddy that you have provided for me with cheese and chocolate cake" way. It may be less moving, but BOY do I get excited about food. My pre-meal prayers tend to be heart-felt and full of enthusiasm.

With that understanding of my spiritual motivation behind us, you will no doubt understand how very thrilled... elated... I was when Taco Bell improved upon their Double Decker (which was almost perfect, already) by adding nacho cheese to the fatty fatty refried beans.
Praise. God. for Nacho Cheese.

It will be in heaven, with every single calorie and trans-fat that it represents. And maybe more. Because we all know that calories taste good. If a food item has 3 calories, it doesn't taste very good, but if it has 3000 (Bloomin' Onion, anyone?), it's delicious. Preservatives can ruin raw calorie flavor, but this really complicates the "more calories, more flavor" rule. That's why places like McDonalds and Chili's aren't very tasty, despite their high calories.

But Nacho Cheese cancels out preservatives, so Taco Bell is still okay.

All that to say, go to Taco Bell, eat that hydrogenated, trans-fatty, 89 cent-per-taco goodness and tell me it doesn't make you want to bow your sinner's head and PRAISE the LORD.

Good. Lord.

2011-04-14T22:37:00.001-07:00

And I do mean, Good Lord.
The Good Lord has been working overtime since Nate was born. This chair is supposed to contain him with its seat belt, not enable him to bungee jump for dropped toys. I found him like this. I had left the room (but carefully buckled him in beforehand) to get my shoes and when I got back, he was upside-down and grunting, trying to pick up his toy.

Being the good mother I am, I took a couple pictures before righting him. I took these on my phone though, so pardon the graininess.

Once more, with both hands:

I might be in need of a nanny.

This Blog is Like a Box of Chocolates

2011-04-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

... and I bet you wish you knew what you were gonna get

LAWN ADVENTURES PART DEUX

My other half (the lawn-mowing, trash-toting, oil-changing half) is still in Nevada, so I'm still in charge of the outdoor portions of home. Nevada is the middle of nowhere. More on that later.

Unfortunately grass continues to grow after you cut it once. San Diego has also been quite rainy. Which (thank you, First Grade) makes grass grow faster. I've been avoiding it all, but today Jon called and let me know that he would be leaving a week earlier and gone a week longer on the next work-up than previously planned.

Since 'The Navy' is unlisted in the phone book, I attacked the lawn.

Well I tried.

I located the weed wacker and successfully turned it on for... 20 seconds. I think it needs more line. I don't know why it stopped. Henry walked outside as I was heading towards the lawnmower, my Plan B. "I'm a lawn guru," I told him out loud.

strut. strut.

I turned it on and started to push towards the grass when a BIG lizard ran out from underneath. I screamed and ran away.

('guru' is a loose term.)

I mowed the front but only like three swipes of the back yard.

The overgrown tomato plant got ripped out of the garden and lavender and chives joined the rosemary and romaine lettuce in its place. We'll see about all that. This was successfully done with no breakage or screaming. Except for the lettuce leaves I accidentally broke off. And the plant I inadvertently ripped out with the tomato.

I should stick to housework.

Therin Lies the Problem

2011-03-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

When the husband is deployed, even if only for a month-long training, life goes on.
The sugar snap peas grow

The child grows

The grass turns into a Jungle of Amazonian proportions so that indigenous dogs must make pathways through the foliage just to do their business. A Jungle where ladybugs sway on the tops of tall grasses, two feet or more above the ground. A Jungle that rivals the chaos of the tomato garden.

In such a case... where domesticated backyard grows afoul, the temporarily-single, mild-mannered housewife must cry with Lady Macbeth, "Un-sex me!", a cry for the gentle nature of woman to turn hard and masculine in order to complete the work at hand.

(Although, unlike M'lady, I am not going to murder anyone. Just mow the lawn.)

I quoted Mrs. Macbeth as I grunted and sweated, the lawnmower becoming an extension of my arms as I hacked at the overgrown tangle of green. Ladybugs flew away in confusion (Ladybugs, it seems, procrastinate and would not survive any sudden form disaster, as they need the shaking of the grassy stalk they're resting on in order to feel the need to retreat.), weeds screamed as they were mown down, Nate screamed as he sat in his chair, frightened by the roar of the lawnmower (our neighbor came over and rescued him after a bit) (Apparently, temporary men make terrible mothers).

Here is the lawnmower posing with the last of the Jungle, which looks tame compared with the before picture above.

After finally mastering the Jungle, I quickly threw Shakespeare away and turned straight back into a woman, desperate for a shower and some chocolate.

"Woman, King of the Jungle", sponsored by the Navy and coming soon to a deployment near you.

Best. Costume. Ever.

2011-03-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

Three years from now, expect to see Nate in this... with brown hair, for Pete's sake.

One Quarter Irish

2011-03-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

But he's got his Irish great-grandmother's blue eyes.

The Mailman

2011-03-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

My son has blue eyes and...sigh... light hair. I can't type "blonde". I can't. It's light brown. At the nail salon the other day, the Vietnamese women fawned over him, asking if he wanted a pedicure, what is name was... if his daddy had blue eyes.

No... his daddy has green/brown eyes... just like me.

What about his blonde hair? Does his daddy have blonde hair?

No... his daddy's hair is brown... like mine.

...oh...

I felt compelled to defend myself.

Our mailman, I explained, is Filipino. So no need to worry there.

But in all seriousness, how did these two:
Make THIS baby:
Good thing he looks like his daddy's baby pictures.

Because the milkman is blonde.

Misuse

2011-03-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently we're not normal.
I left Nathan on top of his blanket and when I returned minutes later, his blanket was on top of him. Impressively, with the correct side up. Misuse of blanket.
Henry rests his head, and his toys in Nathan's seat. Perhaps he's playing house. Misuse of Bumbo.

Most heinous of all, I put my son in a girl's coat to see how it would fit his girl cousin. Misuse of baby. Big time.

Cookware

2011-03-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

The place this post is coming from:
The boy child and I both have colds. Mine is merely inconvenient. His is keeping him up and interrupting his ability to eat and BREATHE at the same time. Kind of crucial. He's miserable but he still laughs when we take a walk and he sees Henry, trotting beside the stroller. EVERY time he sees Henry trotting beside the stroller.

The reason for this post:
My ability to surprise even myself with my lack of brains. I tell people that I left my memory in the hospital on September 21, 2010, but really that's just a joke to make folks laugh and distract them from the fact that I am missing brain cells.

On to the post:
Because I desperately want to be a super mom, I make my own baby food, that is, in addition to breast milk (har har).
So today I get back from a successful shopping trip and fire up the stockpot with extra water in the bottom and the steamer basket up top and I steam away. Carrots, plums and pears. I decide to make more carrots, so I throw them in and run out to check the laundry.
*Ominous music*
I need sustenance, so I sit my butt down outside and eat a blood orange, fresh from the market. It is a law of the universe that something bad always has to happen right after a very enjoyable, sunny citrus kind of moment.
As per said law, when I return to my carrots, I am greeted by the smell of burning teflon. The carrots are perfectly steamed. The water is gone. The stockpot is ruined, complete with peeling teflon strips in the bottom. I trash the chemically-altered carrots and banish the pot to the patio.

That should read "BANISH the pot", because I did it with vehemence.

This is the same pot that I had been about to consult Pampered Chef about replacing because it was not wearing well. Now, however, I have ruined it all on my own and any hopes I had of it being replaced are dashed. Banished, rather... to the patio.

In confirmation of my MENSA-less capabilities, in answer to one of tonight's Jeopardy questions referring to a California city, I answered, "Las Vegas".

I live in California.

Dear All-Clad, I would be an excellent candidate for your charity. I would be ever-so grateful if you'd send a stockpot of the STICK variety, as I am permanently done with non-stick, to my address. In return for your kindness, I will be eternally devoted. I would even put a bumper sticker on my car for you or wear Soffe shorts with "All Clad" across the butt.

Even that.

A Boy and His Dog

2011-02-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

Turned around from ironing yesterday to find Henry laying with his paw possessively on the baby, who was pulling the dog's face fur.

They love each other.

When I say I was ironing, I don't mean that I was ironing my husband's shirts like a good wife, I mean I was ironing fabric to sew with. Don't go thinking I've become all domesticated and organized.

I know I have more pet peeves than the average person

2011-02-23T08:10:00.001-08:00

"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
Alice Roosevelt Longworth

I hate it when people emphasize non-emphasizable vowels in writing. If I'm excited, I type, "Hooray". If I'm really excited, I type, "Hooraaaaaay", because that's how you speak it - prolonging the last "a". When I come across something like, "Adorableeeee" (via facebook stalking this morning), I cringe. Because you don't pronounce the "e" at the end, so you can't prolong it's pronunciation. It doesn't make sense.

I had more written, but I erased them, because it makes me sound terribly cranky. Come to think of it, I haven't had breakfast yet.

Aha!

For the Deployed

2011-02-19T23:33:00.000-08:00

Really it's just a work-up, but he requested pictures of his son.

Would it shock you if I told you that I was singing Bon Jovi to him in this one to make him smile?

I think this picture makes him look just like Jon did when he was little.

There has been much sewing in the house since my mom came into town. A little boy quilt was finished in case my niecew turns out to be male. A little girl coat is halfway done and I almost love it too much to give away. A dress for yours truly has been cut out and will soon be begun and I have fabrics for a girl quilt (in case said niecew turns out to be female) and fabrics for another boy quilt that forced me to purchase them while shopping for girl fabrics. I am merely a victim and am to be pitied, not blamed. Girl Scout cookies may help.

All that to say, my house is a little messy. Why I can't do everything and be the best at everything is beyond me. If only I had someone to blame other than myself. Again... I can't take the blame, because I'm the victim.

Girl Scout Cookies.

Thin Mints.

I love you, Husband. Come home soon.

(I'll be the fat one with a messy house and Thin Mint crumbs on her shirt).

Marked

2011-02-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

I was reading through some old entries in my journal (it says something about how dedicated I am to journaling that I've had the same journal for four and a half years) and I found one from a month after Jon and I got married. I wrote a prayer in it, which struck me and I think I could pray this every day for the rest of my life:

"Make us holier because of each other, but let us LOVE each other beautifully and stubbornly and righteously... Be our everything. Give us wisdom and perseverance and strength to live out that wisdom... Let your love be in us and let that love mark us and change us."

As I re-prayed the above today, I've seen God work these things in our marriage, but I have a deeper realization of our need for Him to keep doing so.

With Valentine's Day coming up, I am truly grateful for my best friend and humbled that God gave him to me.

"Oh God who hast consecrated the state of matrimony to such an excellent mystery... look mercifully on these thy servants." From The Book of Common Prayer

Musings on Success Envy*

2011-01-19T09:40:00.001-08:00

I have a thing about education. Some people want to be famous, some want to be rich. I want to be highly educated. At first it sounds harmless, because education is a good thing, but naturally the carnal monster in me takes that good thing and makes it about status. Highly educated people… people with multiple PhDs… they’ve got it going on. Nobody can argue with someone like that (unless they, too, have multiple doctorates), which is half the draw. There are very few people with those kind of credentials in this world and chances are, I’ll run into maybe a couple. So if I had myself a PhD or two, I would win every argument and people would ask for my professional opinion, which I would give, quite humbly. I crave the chance to give a “humble” opinion that everyone wants to hear.

When I put it that way, maybe I should just go to law school. I do love winning a good, well reasoned argument. Life is a game and I intend to WIN. That’ll show ‘em.

So really my problem, and, if I may, the problem of those fame-seekers, is that we want to be respected and recognized for our accomplishments. We just have to accomplish something first.

People that want to be rich are just selfish.

Just kidding. I want money, too. Because then, I could humbly distribute it to the less fortunate.

It would be easy to say, “Oh. My motivation is impure. I should not finish graduate school if that’s the real reason I want to get my Master’s.” But that doesn’t fix it, because then I make other things about success. I judge myself on how good of a cook I am or how clean my house is. Whether I can make that pillow/those curtains/that skirt myself. Whether I dress well. It doesn’t matter what I do, I’m hopelessly addicted to doing the BEST in EVERYTHING and doing it FASTEST. Rarely am I content to admit that I don’t know anything about such and such a subject and be content with not knowing.

Lima beans. I know nothing about the horticulture and business of lima beans. And I am content not knowing.

But that’s about it.

Here’s the glory of a lazy person: they’re typically pretty content not doing stuff or being good at stuff or having accolades. Motivated people get all the credit and none of the satisfaction. How good can that be? Give a lazy person a tv and a remote and they’re happy while I scrub and sew and study and sweat myself into discontentment.

There must be a middle ground, but pat me on the back if I can manage to stay there more than 10 minutes per year.

But if I could, if I could balance motivation and contentment, that would show ‘em.

And I would show them (humbly, of course).

*I was going to title this, "Succenvy", but when you say it aloud, it sounds like, "Sexenvy" which is something I do not know about and am content not knowing about. That and lima beans.

It's the Jeans

2011-01-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've canceled my last two hair appointments. One got the axe at the last minute, which is never something to be proud of. So today, even when I didn't have a sitter, I had to go. I wore the skinny jeans of post-pregnancy fame.

Because I wore the jeans that Nathan had previously peed on and spit up on several times, he felt the need to one-up himself. He gets that from me.

So he pooped on my jeans and my shirt when I was trying to keep him quiet. In the middle of my haircut. He does not get that from me.

There I sat for the last half of my haircut, smelly and a bit uncomfortable with the whole "baby poop on my clothes" issue while Nathan (returned to his carseat for reasons that rival radioactive waste leakage) screamed. He eventually fell asleep, sucking his thumb and sitting in his own mess while I tried not to think about it.

Every so often my hairdresser would fake a smile and laugh as if to say, "I'm having my tubes tied. Tomorrow."
Nathan Butterfield. The best thing that ever happened to birth control.

You turn your back for one second...

2011-01-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

We are dog sitting. His name is Gunner and he and Henry are best friends.

Today when Nate woke up from his nap, I greeted him enthusiastically, cooing and smiling. Gunner came running in to see what was getting so much attention. He peeked into the crib and I thought, "Aww! I'll get a picture."
Then I took Nathan out to the living room to feed him. Several minutes later, I heard the thump of a dog jumping on the bed. I had just made our bed, so I hollered "Get down!" to whichever dog had decided to mess it up. Nothing. I picked Nate up and went to investigate. No dog on the bed, but when I passed the nursery, I saw this:
My dog can barely jump on the couch.

Henry is baffled, since he has no athletic ability whatsoever and cannot fathom how this happened.

I admit that I told him to stay put while I ran for the camera, but as soon as I had these pictures I made him get down... which he did with ease.

Maybe he liked the attention I was giving Nathan and wanted some of his own, so he jumped in. Maybe he was looking for Nathan.

Maybe he's a mountain goat with a long, drooly tongue.

And Adding to My Vanity...

2011-01-04T12:19:00.001-08:00

Today I did what anyone who just got back from a two-week Christmas vacation wants to do... I got fillings for my two pregnancy-induced cavities. This was the second time I'd been to this particular dentist and thus, the second time Nathan had as well. They loved him the first time, but today, they took his picture... with the tooth camera. This was my view from the chair, pre-filling:
They played with him the whole time the dentist was boring holes to China through my mouth and when I left, there was a printout of his pictures (yes, multiple) on the back of the office wall. They even threatened to keep him.

As if I needed a reason to be stuck up about him.

Henry

2010-12-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

He's the best container-cleaner-outer we've got.

Betcha Wishya Didn't Ask

2010-12-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't posted anything in two weeks. Because if I don't have anything worth saying, I won't say anything at all. Unless it's in conversation and I'm trying to avoid awkward silence. In that case, I blather on like an idiot.

I wouldn't be surprised if the readership on this little blog is solely comprised of Nathan's grandmothers now, but for those of you who aren't, you may regret your curiosity, because this is what has been going on in our lives:

1. I get nothing done. Not even cleaning. My house looks like a recreation of Jon's dorm room in college. Minus the rats. And also minus the lightbulb hanging on a wire from the bathroom ceiling. I never used the restroom at that house.

2. Yesterday, Jon was dancing with Nathan in the kitchen and observed that Nathan seemed to have spit up, as it was in the corners of his mouth. We looked down and realized it was also on Henry's head. That boy has good aim. Dear Nathan's Second Grade teacher, Beware the spitballs.
3. The uber-comforter mechanism these days is my exercise ball. Jon lays Nate across it and bounces him. While this makes me nervous and worried and fills me with angst, Nate loves it and immediately calms down and starts drooling.

4. I am still a size bigger in all clothing (t-shirts, jeans, etc) than I was before I got pregnant, and it isn't changing. I'm coming to terms, but still a bit grumpy about it all. I miss my Joes Jeans.

5. Jon and I already gave eachother our Christmas presents. Because we didn't want to take them to Virginia. But mostly because we have no patience. Also, I got Jon the wrong present and we had to return it. Which would make me a bad wife, but I'm not owning up to anything negative until I've had more sleep.

There you have it. The updated state of my hazy life. Things are on the up, though, as the man child has started sleeping through the night again and I might regain consciousness sometime in the future.

I desperately want a piece of chocolate cake.

It's Almost December and I am Almost Old.

2010-11-30T22:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes all you need is a pretty centerpiece to change the seasons. Especially if you live in a place where "winter" is defined as less than 70 degrees and is as green as "summer" (which hovers around 75 and balmy).

Today Nathan was fussing (read: screaming) but I was trying to get ready to walk out the door, so I was not picking him up from his carseat. I looked in, though, to check on him and there stood Henry, his toy in his slobbery mouth, offering it to Nate. The dog looked at me and I at him. He wagged his tail. Then he turned back to the baby to try to quiet his tiny wailing master... with a de-stuffed toy pumpkin.

He's a pretty thoughtful dog.

It's not the first time he's tried to calm the baby by placing one of his toys in a screaming Nathan's lap. But you would too, if you saw this face:
Too bad it doesn't work.

An Open Letter

2010-11-14T00:11:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter to the manager at the warehouse gym on base:

Dear Gym Manager,

I don't know whose idea it was to face the treadmills in the "bring your child" area of the gym towards the mirrors. I wonder, in fact, if it was intentional. I wonder if, in your gym-humor, you and the gym rats thought it would be funny to put new moms in that position.

At first it wasn't really a big deal. I had put makeup on that day. I didn't look too bad. And actually, once I started to think about it, it was a bit motivational. There I was, running again for the second time in something like a year, my ponytail bobbing with each step, my headphones sounding theme music. I saw myself in slow motion, movie-style (never mind that the slow-mo was because the pace was set at "snail"). My feet hit the treadmill on beat, heightening the drama. I could run a marathon, looking this good.

Then I passed the first half mile.

I felt the prickle of sweat starting to form on my forehead, but never mind. It barely glistened and made the reality of my athleticism more believable. Swish swish went my pony tail in the mirror. Thump Thump pounded my feet, on beat with the music. I considered creating a new playlist. I envisioned the Rocky soundtrack playing as I raced, gazelle-like, up the stairs in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum. "Smart gym manager", I thought naively.

About this time, I was nearing a mile and my face began to turn pink. My forehead looked a bit wet and the song had changed, so my stride was off. Tired, I decided to look away from my own face. I looked down at my feet. They looked less glamorous. I never noticed before how scrawny my legs were, wholly devoid of muscle or tone. Those legs wouldn't make it up the Art Museum steps. I switched the song to something faster.

Then, as I told myself I had to run more than a mile and a half, I started to realize your motivation, oh Gym Manager. You want us new-mom types out. Maybe it's the screaming kids. Maybe it's the unwieldy strollers. Either way, you knew that the longer I ran, the redder my face would get. The less attractive my form would look and the more useless and defeating my theme music, because I was staring at myself with nowhere else to look. Flop flop went my tired ponytail in my reflection. Clomp clomp went my leaden feet. My face, I noticed, was very puffy red.

I barely made two miles running and was forced to walk the last half mile, not entirely because my body was tired, but because I was tired of staring at my sweaty tomato of a face in the cursed mirror. Still, I mused, two miles isn't terrible. I can still run a race... maybe a 1K.

The final defeat, evil manager of the gym, was rigging the treadmill's calorie count. Surely my hard work had burned a significant amount of calories. Surely all of that pain was worth it. But you must have sneaked in, worried that the mirror wasn't repulsive enough, and messed with the machine, because it informed me, upon completion of my workout, that I had only burned 272 calories. Nonsense, I tell you.

That's not even a bowl of ice cream.

Please remove the mirrors.

Sincerely,
Tomato-Face Butterfield

Goal Oriented

2010-11-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

Being goal oriented can be a bit stressful. I don't feel like a legitimate use of oxygen unless I've successfully accomplished something in the day. Which is good and bad. Ask Jon if you'd like to hear a first hand account of where that makes life a bit difficult (who, me?). On the good side, being goal oriented makes life more exciting. For instance:

As I watched my pregnant body stretch and widen and stretch some more, shrinking my wardrobe with every expanding inch, I promised myself that once that baby came out and once I shrunk back down to the size I was before (please laugh here), I would buy myself some new clothing. Specifically, skinny jeans. The goal-orientation eased the panic of knowing my sexy glory days were over and I was officially past the "Best I Ever Looked" part of my life.

So today, impatient and realizing that my hips were never -ever - going to be the same size, I purchased some practice skinny jeans (practice because they were only $20 and I really need to figure out what I want before I go spending real money on these things). I didn't take the tags off, but did put them on when I got home to make sure they'd stretch well before I committed to keeping them.

Then the baby peed on me. And on my jeans.

I will not be returning them.

This is the part of the commercial when the music goes from victory-inspirational to - WAH wah waaaah- reality.

The other problem with being goal- oriented is the anticlimax.

Thanks, little Buddy. Ruin my body and pee on my consolation.

2010-10-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is my problem. And it is so typical.

I sit down to the computer, while munching potato chips and Killah' Clam Dip (if you want the recipe, I will post it - it's very delicious and one of the few foods I've made since the Chunk took up residence in our house)... so I am sitting at the computer to look up spanish rice recipes (yum) and in my search, somehow, I happen upon a white chocolate pumpkin truffle pie recipe and a recipe for peaches baked with pecans and almond paste and brown sugar and stuff. So now I don't want to make Spanish Rice and Jalapeno sausage for dinner. I want to make pumpkin doughnuts or chocolate spice cake or at least milkshakes.

Milk has calcium.

Meg- just between the two of us, I bought all the ingredients for pumpkin doughnut holes and also you're coming here on Thursday, so I thought... maybe we should utilize that recipe.

Anywho - for the rest of you, who aren't coming to San Diddly Ego on Thursday for Meg and Bek's World Famous Pumpkin Doughnut Holes, I found this in my distracted internetting. You can buy me this for Christmas, just check to make sure you all coordinate and I don't get too many copies: http://bakednyc.com/page/book/

I want to make everything in these cookbooks. Especially the New York Style Crumb Cake (Hallelujah!).

Good Dog, Bad Parenting

2010-10-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

The One Where She Says 'Breastfeeding'

2010-10-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

How do you type while holding a baby? With one hand. This might be the longest time I've ever spent on a post.

Why not put the baby down?

Hah.

Peace. I do it all for peace and a sleepy baby.

Gone are my idealistic notions of motherhood being friends... even aquaintances ... with productivity. It is noon thirty and all I've done today (other than nurture one very small human male) is eat two poptarts. I toasted them first, though... while holding a baby.

Here is the picture of this morning's six-thirty a.m.:

I am trying to breastfeed a boy child who should have gotten the hang of it a week ago... and since he hasn't, I have milk soaking my shirt and his clothes (he squirms a lot). Within minutes I have spit up drooling down my back. Soon after, he has managed (despite my best efforts) to dip, not one, but both heels into his poopy diaper in his angry flailing whilst I try to change him.

Good morning, sunrise. We have become friends over the past three and a half weeks. I'd only met you a time or two before this and I honestly would rather get back to that trend.

I must say, though, as I look down into this face:
(and that is exactly what I see right now... I took a picture with my phone and emailed it to myself and downloaded it to my computer and uploaded it onto this post... all with one hand)

...as I look at him, I kind of don't mind so much.

You'd be willing to type with one hand, too.

Monkey Ears

2010-10-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, this boy is real. And we made him. And I might get a little stuck up about it.

Because He Loves Me

2010-10-03T16:54:00.001-07:00

The Mother in Law is in town and she has been taking good care of us. She and the Husband went to the grocery store for me today. I asked the Hus to pick up something that tasted good, but had no specifics as to what I wanted.

Jon came home with: one chocolate covered donut, gushers, corn chips and cheese dip, a Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade and Haagen Dazs Five Lemon... my absolutely favorite ice cream ever. All for me.

I love him.

We're in Love

2010-09-28T17:50:00.001-07:00

Nathan Scott
September 21, 2010
10 lb, 1 oz., 22 inches

Jon came in and sang to our boy.
Selections included, "Play the Game" and "Kissed by a Rose"
All questionable lyrics with sex, booze and drugs were appropriately replaced with references to milk, eating and poop.

Megan will roll her eyes when she sees that we painted the walls gray...

2010-09-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

We finished the baby's room and he hadn't come yet, so we decided to redo our room. Over Labor Day weekend, we repainted, I sewed curtains and pillows and we bought a new duvet cover and a yellow candle. There's a rug in the mail to match. I thought that all of my antsy-ness would be used up, but it hasn't been. So I'm making kitchen curtains now. If this baby doesn't come out soon, I'm going to run out of windows on which to take out my impatience.
Here are updated pictures of the gargantuan belly that is still growing. Help.

Desperate Times...

2010-09-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Those Pretzel M&M's Really Aren't That Bad

2010-09-01T18:29:00.001-07:00

The Man-Child's room is finally done (almost). We're going to repaint that side table if we have time before the Child is born.
This is his changing table, refinished and full of clothes and blankets and bibs and diapers.
This is the corner where the glider will go when it arrives.
I love the vintage pictures - Jon built the frames and cut the glass (we will never cut glass again, by the way. Don't really recommend it).
This is my favorite room of the house. It's not at all cutesy and it's all boy. Now all we need is a baby to put in it. Henry has already graced the carpet with dog hair, so we're ready.

Setting an Example

2010-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

What Fatty really wanted this morning was a perfectly ripe banana. But none were to be found. So she ate a banana that would have been vastly improved by another 24 hours.

Fatty knew that she had to feed herself something with carbs (she was, after all, growing a baby) but everything she looked at made her a bit queasy. No to cereal. No to toast. No to last night's leftovers. So Fatty ate a corndog... for breakfast.

Please don't tell Fatty's doctor. He would be very disappointed. He would threaten Fatty with a huge baby. He wouldn't be so kind as to move Fatty's due date up. Only threats.

This, by the way, is what I found almost an hour after I got out of bed this morning. The dog had crawled up to Jon's pillow (thank God it wasn't mine, because I do believe that's drool) and fallen asleep. Pardon me, Henry, for interrupting your beauty rest.

Multigrain Cheerios

2010-08-20T14:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Jon told me he'd had his first baby dream. I've been having them for months. Mine seem to reveal my worries about being ready. For instance, I keep dreaming that the baby comes out a girl, which has caused me to ask at every ultrasound, "Is he still a boy?" In my last one, I had just had the baby and was trying to nurse him. I was going through a mental checklist of the proper procedure, when the baby unlatched and looked up at me and said, "You're doing it wrong." He then told me how I was supposed to feed him. Too bad they don't really do that.

Jon's dream seems to reveal how little he worries in general. He dreamt that he had the baby in his arms, but then got bored, so he put him down on the bed and started trying to find clothes to change into, but all his shirts became women's shirts when he pulled them out. That's it. That was the main frustration in the dream.

I dream that things go really wrong and I turn out to be an inadequate mother. Jon dreams that things go really wrong and his clothing turns to women's clothing whenever he tries it on.

There's something to be said for being a man after all.

If We Build it, He Will Come

2010-08-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

...at least that's what we're hoping. Here are updated nursery pictures. We had the wrong lens on, so there are but a few. More to come.

Jon made the shelf, I made the curtains (Jon helped) and the crib linens. Perhaps if we make the nursery all ready, then the child will be tempted to come out. We're trying.

Pass-on Worthy

2010-08-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article on signs of autism in newborns and infants (suggesting that autism is a life-long disorder, not the result of a post-birth exposure). Researchers found subtle deviations that parents may not pick up on starting as young as the baby's stay in the NICU and growing more and more noticeable as the baby gets older. Finally, parents start to observe differences after children are over a year, "By about 13 months, the development of children with autism started to diverge markedly from those without, according to the study."

Very interesting. Unfortunately, the things researchers notice in autistic infants that deviate from the norm are kind of specific and you'd have to have seen a ton of babies to notice them... meaning it's not very helpful for parents spotting the disorder in their own children. Still, it's progress!

The Other Members of This Family

2010-08-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

The main member participated in Mustache July at the squadron. He claims it was due to peer pressure, but we all know that he really just likes having a mustache because it looks funny.

Henry with the monstrous amount of hair we got off him last week.
Henry climbed up and cuddled with a gestating Nate while I skyped the Mother, the Father and Nana. He was probably communicating with the man child, plotting Nathan's escape and their coming misadventures together. Don't let the sleepy eyes fool you. He's plotting.

See? Plotting away like the sneaky yellow dog he is. Yellow dogs have very few morals.

I know you want another picture of Chester (the official name of the 'Stache), so here it is. Don't worry. He shaved it off after taking these this morning.

"...What heights of peace, when fears are stilled..."

2010-07-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

I found something today. Two posts by someone I immediately admire after reading only two of her blog posts. She could steal lollipops from babies for all I care. I love her.

As you know (read: "As I continually elaborate"), I prefer research-proven methods. I'm all scientific like that. I'm totally into the CDC vaccine schedule and multivitamins and exercise and the health-promoting benefits of having friends. Because they're proven. So when I discovered the following posts on the evidence pertaining to mom jeans - specifically to their negative impact on the shape of one's butt, legs and entire figure, I just about peed my pants (sorry, Mom, I know you hate it when I say that, but I'll make it up to you).

Please read the following posts and view the following pictures (read them in order) and just try to contain your glee. Let your fears of waking up one day and finding yourself looking like that mom, die here.

Research on Mom Jeans 1
Research on Mom Jeans 2 (note, this is the same post as the link at the bottom of #1)

You know you're a Martha when...

2010-07-23T12:15:00.001-07:00

... when in the middle of chores this morning you thought, "Well... I'm not really a Martha... I have 'sitting at Jesus' feet' on my to-do list..."

Baby Class

2010-07-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

Baby class is watching videos of babies being born and babies being nursed. Which means baby class is wondering how second babies ever get made if the husband is present at the first birth... and is not blind.

Baby class is practicing contractions with relaxation techniques. Which means baby class can get a bit awkward when 19 women are pretending to be in pain, while holding various birthing positions and breathing in "hee"s and "hoo"s as their partners look uncomfortably on.

Baby class is comparing the size of your baby bump to 18 other baby bumps and trying to calculate how long it will take each one of you to look normal again. And hoping you will look normal again.

Baby class is a tool to show how very immature you and your partner are, because you still follow many of the instructors comments with, "that's how we got into this mess..." whispered in each others ears and you find yourself snickering at videos the rest of the class is taking very seriously.

Baby class is showing up with Starbucks coffee and feeling awkward because all the other pregnant mothers are sipping water and eating fruit.

Baby class is wondering if you can get an epidural just to tide you over until the end of the car seat video.

Baby class is wondering if you can just adopt the rest.

Three Most Recent Pregnancy Comments

2010-07-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

During a quick trip to Costco, I was reminded that pregnancy is as good as an introduction in getting people to talk to you. I don't really aspire to talk to people at Costco - I aspire to buy food - so it was a bit awkward for me. The first comment was a compliment. Thank you. I will take those all day long.

The second was from a sleeze-bag who said "Congratulations" in the sleeze-baggiest way possible while staring at my stomach. I don't know. No comment. Except blech.

The third was the most interesting. I was head and arm deep in the milk refrigerator, reaching for the two percent (skim is for people who aren't pregnant) and I hear a high-pitched voice in my ear saying, "Oooh, when is the baby DUE?" Once again, caught up in food purchasing and not expecting strangers to make themselves familiar with me in Costco, it took me a minute before I answered.
"Uh... September 16th"
More mutterings and high pitched squeals (am I the only person who thinks it's weird that total strangers are giddy that I'm pregnant?). Then, reaching out to touch my stomach and quickly pulling her hand back, she says, "Oh! I just want to TOUCH it! But I was in.. hmm... where was I?" More deliberation, "Ah... I think it was the Wal-Mart!"
I didn't say anything, but mentally filed away that she had said "the" Wal-Mart, so that I could complain about people who don't speak correctly, like I do.
She then explained that in THE Wal-Mart she had been talking to a new mom and had reached out to touch her baby. When she did, the mother recoiled and said, "NO! No, touching!" The milk-interrupter gasped and "could not BELIEVE it".
It took many more "I can't believe it"s until I figured out that, instead of being appalled with her audacity in making herself comfortable with other people's bellies and babies, she was appalled that someone would mind a stranger poking at their child. Huh.
Then she patted my stomach (!), thanked me for being pregnant (!!) and walked away.

I wanted to ask her why she didn't learn her lesson the first time. I should have touched HER stomach. Then again, it may not have worked.

I'm not sure, folks. But you're welcome. You're welcome for being pregnant. You are not, however, welcome to my stomach, no matter how round it is.

Zucchini in California are not for Equal Opportunity

2010-07-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

Alternately titled "How to Overcrowd your Vegetable Garden"
Alternately titled "When Maybe You Didn't Need That Second Helping of Miracle Grow"

When we planted the tomatoes, I had in mind the tall, slender tomatoes my dad grew in Virginia. Then we Miracle-Grew them because we're afraid of killing all our plants (please see grass in the picture of Henry below). They are planning their premier in "The Incredible Hulk" and are twice as wide as my expectations. The zucchini... to be fair, the zucchini also happened to be over the sprinkler line we had cracked (before we fixed it) and was routinely receiving LOTS of extra water. (Our fix didn't last too long, either, so we're not using the sprinkler system (hello, hose!) until the garden dies out and we can get to the crack again.) Apparently, it is impossible to over-water zucchini.

Anyhow. The garden has taken over the yard and is plotting to take over all of California. With produce for all. The zucchini however, is not into sharing sunlight and is currently trying to crowd out the tomato and basil with huge hand-like leaves. Just like a younger sibling. Please compare with our first picture of the garden with baby tomato plants, a teeny tiny (manipulating) zucchini and kolanchoe (the flowers.. they've since been removed due to overcrowding) with this current view of the jungle:
The tomatoes do not appear to be phased and are producing blossoms and shiny green pre-tomatoes at an alarming rate.

The zucchini blossoms on the other plant (which is incidentally, not using the TONS of room it has in its own garden across the patio) are starting to fall off to make room for edible things.

Today is Henry's first birthday. He is celebrating in his usual manner... with lots of attention and naps.

A sneak preview of the baby's room with its new coat of paint and recently-assembled crib (FULL of baby shower clothing). It will be classy and it will be all boy. Stay tuned.

Guilty of Stalking

2010-06-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Brett Baker, I stalk your blog. Despite having met you one time ever. But I knew your husband in highschool... does that make it less... or more... creepy?

Either way, you read mine too.

With that said, I found this quote on the Bakery today and I loved it:

"normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. let me not pass you by in quest of some rare & perfect tomorrow. let me hold you while i may, for it may not always be so. one day, i shall dig my nails into earth, or bury my face in a pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky & want, more than all of the world, your return."
-mary jean iron

My Pregnancy, 6 1/2 Months

2010-06-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

Today I stopped by the grocery store to pick up eggs and milk. I got the carton with 18 eggs, instead of 12, rationalizing that we use eggs often and they'd get used up before I knew it. When I came home, I promptly dropped the entire closed carton onto the floor, cracking 17 of the 18 eggs. We're having quiche for dinner. And omelets for breakfast.

We're watching a friend's dog for the weekend. So last night, it was me and three snoring boys. I think if Nate wasn't receiving all his oxygen from me, he would have snored, too.

My physical therapist said if the muscles in my hip/leg don't chill out, she's going to have to order a maternity belt for me (think: girdle). This was Jon's solution. Tie the dog's leash under my belly. Thanks, Honey.

When I Call Toll Free, I Expect to Have to Fight for Help

2010-06-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Which is usually the case. I mean it. Almost always.

I had to call AT&T three times. THREE TIMES. to cancel our internet in Pensacola. Each time they said, "No problem. You'll stop receiving bills now." Each time I received a bill in my inbox the next month. Guess what just showed up in my inbox two days ago? I try to reserve this insult for slow drivers in the left lane, but I can assure you that AT&T is entirely worthless.

This is why I love USAA and OXO (the kitchen gadget company), because they are 100% helpful, every single time I call, bend over backwards to help me and I always understand what's going on and receive prompt, efficient service. We can now add Wusthof (the German knife manufacturer) to the list.

Today I call. I explain that although I adore the knives I've been using for two and a half years (not kidding. best knives in the universe.), my kitchen scissors seem to be rusting on one edge. "Oh," is the reply, "send it to our customer service and we'll send you a replacement!" Just like that. No questions. I must only include a phone number and my address.
Dear Wusthof, you exceed my pessimistic expectations. I will remain faithful in return. Brand loyalty status achieved.

A Little Boy Quilt

2010-06-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

I finally finished the first quilt for the boy child. I have to say, I am very pleased with this one. I made mistakes, but I'm probably the only person who'll notice. I love the manly colors with a bit of little boy softness. It looks like a serious circus.I can't wait to wrap up my sweet baby in it and kiss his tiny nose. Henry also is ready for him to arrive. He needs a little boy to play with him.
Look at the garden we made! We dug up the nasty grass, cracked the sprinkler pipe, fixed the sprinkler pipe (Home Depot stocks instant fix-it kits! Who knew?), built a wall with stone (muscle flex) and filled it up with dirt and tomatoes and zucchinis and rosemary and basil and marigolds and green onions and flowers. I hope it works.

Also I am getting huge. I ate dinner at the coffee table last night, sitting on the floor, and my tummy got stuck under it. Jon had to push the table out so I could escape. Yikes.

Maternity Clothes are not Cool

2010-05-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

But this one is.But it's lots of money. So I'm going to try to make it. Hah. Wish me luck.

My neighbor brought over two huge pieces of lasagna and I ate both before Jon got home.

2010-05-11T19:07:00.001-07:00

Also a quote:

Me: Thanks for making me feel so loved on mother's day!
Jon: All it takes is donuts!

Things I made (or helped make)

2010-05-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

We squeezed lemons yesterday into this bowl with the help of our automatic juicer. I'm going to make fresh lemonade. Yum. Also I made scones, but I've already shown pictures of those before, along with the recipe.

Last night and today I made an elephant. This is the first baby item I've made for our little boy and I love those big puffy ears. Never mind that real elephant ears are not puffy. The boy child will not know any better. The elephant is sitting in my lavender, which is about to bloom. Now the elephant smells like lavender. Which is girlie. But the elephant will get over it before the boy child comes around.This is the view from my face. The bump grows. This is my favorite made thing.

We have a bell on the back door that Henry rings when he needs to go out...

2010-04-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

...Which is why I was concerned when I heard it ring at 3am this morning and both Henry and my husband were snoring next to me. I listened for the sound that had woken me up and heard another rustle of the bell. Then another.
"Jon?"
*snore*
"Jon."
*snort*... silence... Jon tensed up, "What is it?"
I explained what I had heard and that Henry was asleep next to me (as if his blissful snores weren't enough evidence). We had a quick, whispered conversation. Jon volunteered that it might have been an earthquake (these things happen out here), but I could tell he wasn't about to go back to sleep. He leaned over and I heard a round chamber. He slowly (too slowly for my adrenaline-induced brain) got up and almost as slowly walked out into the hallway. I pulled the covers up to my chin and prayed it was an earthquake. I could hear Jon walking around, checking rooms.

Meanwhile, Henry got up and sleepily walked over to see what Jon was doing. He stayed in the hallway, "investigating", for 20 seconds, then waltzed back in and streeeetched lazily before jumping onto his bed and settling down to fall back asleep. Useless dog.

Finally, I heard the back door being checked (it sounded locked) and lights going on. Jon came back in and everything was fine. I felt guilty. I also had to pee. Jon accompanied me to the bathroom. We talked. I apologized. I blamed the earthquake. Jon volunteered that I may have been hearing things, but neither of us could get to sleep for a while, so Jon read the manual on our alarm system, which will now be used.

This is not a far cry from the nights in college when we would call Megan's then-boyfriend to walk through the house with a butcher knife to make sure all the axe-murders were somewhere else. That's what good men do. They humor the women who are certain they heard something and who scare the crap out of their men. That's what makes them good men. Also, that's what makes the women feel a little guilty and blame it on an earthquake.

I made Jon pancakes this morning. He deserved it.

This is Ridiculous

2010-04-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

I have no excuse. I am a five-year old with ADHD. I have been sitting at the computer (or running from it) all day and I still have five pages left. Which, admittedly, isn't much, but gosh. I'm so ready to be done. I'm willing to do anything else, but write. Except maybe have a plane crash into my house, but you get my point.

I have: stared at my expanding belly, which now covers the top of my shorts, so I can't see my waistband anymore... I know... you just looked down to see if you could see your waistband. That's what makes us friends.

I have: eaten everything in my kitchen that I don't hate. Which isn't much, so I've gorged myself on what I do like. Also, I ate some fruit today, so don't judge. I'm feeding Baby Boy, who needs lots of food. Seriously. He's gonna be huge and healthy and therefore come weeks early. That's my plan.

I have: consumed mass quantities of water and gotten very excited when I have to use the bathroom, because it's a legitimate excuse to get up, for which the angel on my shoulder cannot get angry with me. She has to pee, too.

All of this and God thought it a good idea to give me a little boy (all little boys come with preexisting ADD).

This is ridiculous.

Three Random and Unrelated Facts

2010-04-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

1) The more water I drink, the more often I'm thirsty. So much for thirst being a sign of dehydration.

2) I am a writing machine. As of today, I will have completed and turned in one ten and two fifteen-page papers. All written in about the span of a week, since I had all semester to do them. That makes sense.

3) A homeless man once told Jon he laughed like a 500-pound gorilla. Jon bought him a hamburger.

We Are Having a Man Child

2010-04-17T17:10:00.001-07:00

Our Current Family... Jon, me and our first child (he's adopted).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E66HOca7Auk
Our second child (he's normal).

I'm Supposed to Be Writing a Paper

2010-04-05T12:46:00.001-07:00

But my paper is on boring things and it just occurred to be that the worst job in the world must be being a colorectal surgeon. You spend all day staring up butts, analyzing butts and writing up reports on...anuses. In addition to the gross factor (which otherwise could be rivaled by veterinarians), there is significant awkwardness that is attached to that activity. "Oh my, do you have a bad case of hemorrhoids, Mr Jones... could you just hold still a moment longer?"

I imagine that in med school, they have a lottery system and the smart kids get something like dermatology and as the list goes on and get less good, "pediatrics... gerontology... orthopedics..." nerves begin to cause sweating until finally, "And the last three, Bob, Joe and Jim get colorectal surgery." Cursing ensues.

I can just see it. That's why I didn't go to med school. I'm not smart enough for dermatology or brain surgery and I'd end up plugging my nose all day.

Back to my paper... for a degree I'll probably never use. But at least I didn't go to med school.

Point Loma With a View

2010-04-02T09:09:00.001-07:00

The Mother-in-Law was recently in town. We had loads of fun, but got hardly any pictures. These are at the public launch at Point Loma:

The In-laws bought us this while they were here. We are so blessed. Our child is already so spoiled.

No Title Comes to Mind

2010-03-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors' dog decided to take up howling this morning. For no apparent reason, he has a bout of howls every 5-10 minutes. Mournful ones, as if someone has kicked him and stolen his mother. Henry sits at the back door, looking into the yard with his ears up. I don't know what he's thinking, but he doesn't bark or yowl back. For this I am grateful.

The other thing for which I am grateful is the above. Fresh tomatoes, fresh basil from our pot garden, olive oil, cheese and a little bit of salt. Broiled for a bit and then eaten while they're all drippy and delicious. And the ones below have herbed goat cheese, which is cheap-ish at the commissary. I treat myself well.

Compliments of My Mom

2010-03-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

Everyone is in a hurry to scream 'racism' these days!

'In what aisle could I find the Polish sausage?'

The clerk looks at him and says, 'Are you Polish?'

The guy (clearly offended) says, 'Well, yes I am.
But let me ask you something.
If I had asked for Italian sausage,
would you ask me if I was Italian?

Or if I had asked for German Bratwurst, would you ask me if I was
German?

Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog.
would you ask me if I was Jewish?
Or if I had asked for a Taco,
would you ask if I was Mexican?

If I asked for some Irish whiskey,
would you ask if I was Irish?'

The clerk says, 'Well, no, I probably wouldn't!'

With deep self-righteous indignation, the guy says,
'Well then, why did you ask me if I'm Polish,
because I asked for Polish sausage?'

The clerk replied, 'Because you're in Home Depot.'

About That

2010-03-19T10:31:00.002-07:00

My response to the previous post:

1) Listen to, take notes for and remember (hah!) two lectures DONE!
2) Begin and compile either a lot of notes or write a couple pages for term paper number 1. I don't do outlines. I'm pregnant, you can't hold me to normal standards.
3) Go to Bible Study DONE
4) Don't think about term papers number 2 and 3, since they are longer and MUCH more boring than term paper number one. They are also due before number one. Easy Peasy Done
5) Shower. That should have been higher on the list and preferably before Bible study attendance. DONE (but not before Bible Study... oops)
6) Make two French Chocolate Silk Pies for Saturday and don't eat either one until Saturday. Unless someone cancels, and then excuse the excess to pregnancy and pig out. "The Baby wanted pie..." DONE
7) Stop by CVS and the grocery store and get ingredients for Saturday's Belated St. Patrick's Day Invite the world dinner. Wanna come? (If you want to come, but don't want pie, let me know, so that I can maybe have a slice before Saturday) I realized I already had the ingredients. Not done, but not needed.
8) I made quiche for dinner and it was delicious.

So... you can hold me accountable for all but the term paper. Go ahead. Do it.

Ooh! Ooh! I also applied for two separate jobs. That's something else I did.

Hold Me Accountable

2010-03-18T10:40:00.001-07:00

...unless of course I don't do what I intend on doing, in which case I hate being called out. Only hold me accountable for the stuff I successfully complete, please.

On the "stuff I intend to complete today" list:

1) Listen to, take notes for and remember (hah!) two lectures
2) Begin and compile either a lot of notes or write a couple pages for term paper number 1. I don't do outlines.
3) Go to Bible Study
4) Don't think about term papers number 2 and 3, since they are longer and MUCH more boring than term paper number one. They are also due before number one.
5) Shower. That should have been higher on the list and preferably before Bible study attendance.
6) Make two French Chocolate Silk Pies for Saturday and don't eat either one until Saturday. Unless someone cancels, and then excuse the excess to pregnancy and pig out. "The Baby wanted pie..."
7) Stop by CVS and the grocery store and get ingredients for Saturday's Belated St. Patrick's Day Invite the world dinner. Wanna come? (If you want to come, but don't want pie, let me know, so that I can maybe have a slice before Saturday)

The Husband won't be home until late, so I intend on getting all of the above done and not falling asleep on the couch with Henry, who is always suggesting family nap time. What a lazy dog.

No, Preggers, Wrong Item.

2010-03-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today I tried to swipe my credit card in the gas can of my car... sad.

Ranunculus

2010-03-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Flower Fields in Carlsbad - acres of bright, gorgeous reds, blues, yellows and pinks. I was delighted. And also we bought a bunch to plant at home. Naturally. Enjoy the pictures. They're cooler than my description.

My belly is NOT this big.. I'm leaning back to get the hair out of my face

Maybe I'm Shallow

2010-03-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

...But it isn't bothering me. Jon and I just purchased a Bugaboo Frog Stroller on Craigslist for over 64% off the new price, and it has only been used a handful of times - it looks new, too. It came with all the accessories, including a bassinet attachment, rain cover, etc. I have to say, for having expensive taste, we do it well. I strolled it around the house to make sure it turns corners well... this thing could fit down a sale aisle in Ross and turn on a dime. I have a crush on it.

We also got a Britax Marathon carseat for a great deal as well. More expensive taste, cheaply fulfilled.

True, I'm only 13 weeks, but who doesn't like to plan ahead? And who wouldn't relish the thought of a Bugaboo in the garage, waiting for the arrival of their little bundle of joy? Nobody. Especially not me. I am happily and cheaply shallow when it comes to baby gear.

Yay.

Baby Girl Cousin Shower

2010-03-09T13:16:00.001-08:00

I made a quilt. It is for our Butterbean's cousin, who is a little girl and is due in May.

This is the backing fabric, which I love. I also love the binding. No boring brown binding for this cousin!

We bought a lawn mower

2010-03-05T00:20:00.000-08:00

...now our neighbors won't hate us. Jon mowed the front lawn today.

Also, we're researching stroller and car seats and all kinds of fancy, expensive things. Naturally I want the most expensive ones. Naturally.
He looks like a platypus when he sleeps with his head in Jon's shoe.
I made French toast with asparagus and orange beurre blanc. It would have been delicious if I could ever get over the texture of french toast. Bread is not meant to be wet. But I liked everything around it and Jon enjoyed it, so it must be delicious if you don't mind soggy nasty bread. Ugh. It makes me think of the pieces of bread we would throw to the ducks at the river that would get all wet and sink... yuk.

I'm supposed to be cleaning the office right now. It's on my list for Thursday. But.. it's officially Friday, being 25 minutes past midnight, so I figure I can put it off some more. Clearly I'm beginning to get over being exhausted. Thank you, baby Butterbean.

Ironic Impossibility... or Impossible Irony

2010-02-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

You're looking forward to reading this one, aren't you?

You can always count on me for these sorts of things.
Fact: I am mostly always late
Hypothesis: There's nothing I can do about it.

Proof: Today as I was getting ready to leave for Bible study, on time, I mentally patted myself on the back. I was so on time. I was so on top of things. I had made my husband a fancy shmancy breakfast AND I was going to get to Bible study on time. I smiled as I grabbed my purse and reached for the recycling to take it out as I left.
It was really the beer bottle's fault. The cans and the newspaper wouldn't have done it, but the beer bottle had it out for me. It refused to be held when I picked it up and jumped out of my hand. No matter that I tried to catch it. It was determined to ruin things. The universe must have told it I was on time. It fell, crashed and shattered across the known world. Not only across the ENTIRE kitchen (ask Jon. I exaggerate not), but into the living room (carpet!!) and down the hall. It was impressive. I have to give the bottle credit for quick thinking and massive spreading potential. I knew as soon as it landed that I would be calling Brittany to tell her I was going to be late. But that wasn't really enough. The universe and the bottle (now blissfully shattered across the entire San Diego east side) must have been quite good friends, because as I was picking up large pieces (the poor Husband was getting a broom) my hand slipped and I slashed my finger right down the middle.
I stared gaping at my finger. It gaped back. Then, angrily, turned on the faucets and started spouting blood at me, at the floor and most especially at the broken glass. Cotton balls, water, bandaids and Neosporin. Brooms, paper bags and dust busters. Frantic wife, patient husband, confused dog (who got thrown in the back yard without a second glance).

I was not on time.

And now, I ask you: Is it humanly possible to be on time? Yes. Is it humanly possible for ME to be on time? No. Sadly when I'm on time I only get injured. So please tell me to be there 15 minutes before you want me. It's safer.

Babies are Like Happy Parasites

2010-02-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Clearly my maternal instincts haven't kicked in much yet.

I love my little 11 week old prenatal peanut. But really. I keep thinking of the time in college Sahara, then a nursing student, asked me what the difference was between a parasite and a baby. Both take nutrients first, both live inside of you, both come in from outside (well half of the baby comes in from outside, but we'll not go there). The only difference is that I WANT my baby, but I don't want a parasite. Also, once the baby is expelled (much more painfully than a parasite), the sweet thing continues to take food from the host/mom. For eighteen years.

With that said, I couldn't be more happy to be pregnant and growing a little peanut inside of me, so don't take my lunatic ravings as anything but that. :)

Also, I can't wait to start planning the nursery ... for my sweet little parasite.

Sour Gummy Worms

2010-02-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

Today was the best Valentine's Day ever. The Husband woke me up with breakfast in bed, flowers, a bowl full of three of my favorite candies, the comics and a card that promised lemonade and cinnamon rolls in the fridge. Henry was also there, wagging his tail.
A new church visit, lunch at yogurtland (YUM!) and a Costco-membership later, we went home and watched the Olympics while Jon grilled filet mignon and potatoes. Perfect.

I also took a midterm that I didn't do so hot on, but I don't care anymore about these things, so it didn't ruin my day one bit.

I gave Jon a card with the following poem hastily scrawled on it. I hate to brag, but I really do own the best husband.

Houses of Dreams
Sara Teasdale

You took my empty dreams
and filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun

The old empty dreams
where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
to even hold a song

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
and the empty dreams were wide
They were sweet and shadowy houses
where my thoughts could hide

But you took my dreams away
and you made them all come true
My thoughts have no place now to play
and nothing now to do.

Thank you, Jon, for the best and happiest two and a half years of my life!

I Wrote Crappy Poems in Highschool

2010-02-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

But now I know I can't write poetry, so I happily obsess over people who can. Like Sara Teasdale. Enjoy.

Child, Child

CHILD, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;
Never fear though it break your heart --
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well,
Though love be heaven or love be hell.


Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel --
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heave

Barter

LIFE has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

He Woke Up Anyway...

2010-02-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

I-10 owns me.
A summary of our drive out here:

Day one: Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas
Day two: Texas, Texas, Texas... and one hour of New Mexico
Day three: New Mexico, Arizona and California

Apparently they knew we were coming and wanted to make us feel welcome...

Henry wouldn't stand next to the big cactus, so here he is next to the one that pricked his nose.

Maybe this was in New Mexico
These pictures are not in order.

Spice Cake and Other Matters

2010-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

I was going to get up and clean the house, but Henry fell asleep on the floor next to me, and if I get up, he'll wake up and hyper the morning away, so I decided to post some pictures from the drive out, but the internet is being slow and it's taking forever, so I decided to try one really long run-on sentence and post a joke.

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, "That's the ugliest baby I've ever seen! Ugh!" The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down fuming, saying to the man next to her, "That stupid bus driver just insulted me!" The man says, "You go right up there and tell him off - go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you."

If Only it Would Break Back Into the Seventies, Then I Would Make Sense...

2010-02-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

January 24th was National Peanut Butter Day and I missed it! I only figured it out because I was eating peanut butter (crunchy) on bread and thought, "I love peanut butter... I wonder who invented it... I would like to put flowers on the grave of whoever invented peanut butter..."
So I wikipedia-ed it and discovered that there are a bunch of people with patents and associations to peanut-paste and nut-butter and all kinds of things. It was confusing. But I did learn that China is a big peanut butter exporter, which seems wrong.

So the flowers will go on my kitchen table, instead.

I did some more research and decided this would be an acceptable arrangement to honor peanut butter on my kitchen table:

( http://www.andreasverheijen.com/category/events/ )

A Calm, Moderately Opinionated Post

2010-02-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

Last time I posted on this topic, I stepped on some toes, so let me preface by saying that I do not mean any offense. I am merely putting my view out there because I think it's important and I want to pass along some key information to all five of you that read this.

I especially don't want to step on Megan's toes, because they've been sore lately. From Hip Hop, not from taking offense.

There has been mass hype in this and other countries about vaccination of children over the last several years or more, including reports of immunizations causing autism. Check this out. Dr Andrew Wakefield, who so famously linked autism and the MMR vaccine in children in 1998, has been fully discredited. A new report shows even further shady dealings, pointing out that Dr Wakefield was being paid by lawyers attempting to prove that the MMR vaccine caused harm to children. The sketchiness continues as it has come out now that he paid children at his son's birthday party to donate blood and caused unneeded painful harm to children in his research studies. All of this to discredit the man responsible for the 20% drop in vaccinations in England and Wales, which resulted in measles cases going from 56 for the year1998 to 1,370 ten years later. Thank you, Dr Wakefield, you have helped children's health regress.

Jenny McCarthy, the actress and spokesperson whose son was diagnosed as autistic has made the refusal of the MMR vaccine popular in America. Her son's autism, which she claims was a result of the above-mentioned vaccine, was magically cured a couple years ago. Interesting.

In addition to autism, parents seem to be concerned that the amount of vaccines given to young children are "too much for their little immune systems" according to a video I viewed on the subject (but cannot recall the title to). Do you find it amazing, as I do, that parents with no science background all of the sudden have become experts on pediatric immunity? (As though the experts who have spent many years of their lives studying and learning about the immune system and its components, many of whom have sworn to the Hippocratic oath, are all on a secret mission to pump harmful chemicals into our children). The CDC recommends the following approach to vaccinations (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/), not because pharmaceutical companies are paying them, but because excellent research has shown that the immune systems of young children react better when given multiple vaccines at once, as it causes a larger immune response, which helps the body see the bad things as bad. If you wait to immunize, your child ends up having to have more shots per vaccine in the long run, as their systems do not react as efficiently, as well as exposing them at younger, more vulnerable ages to harmful diseases that scientists have fought long and hard against to save kids.

Finally, not having your child immunized may pay off for you, since most other children are immunized. You may point out, correctly, that if the majority of the population is vaccinated, there will be no one to pass on the disease to YOUR child. This is called herd immunity. But the problem with herd immunity, is that a community has to maintain (usually) at least 90% immunity, which barely allows for those with compromised immune systems (HIV positive individuals, etc) who cannot build immunity. Not only do parents with this attitude endanger their children, but they endanger others who are more likely to have serious consequences to contraction of the illness. Oh yeah. And there's the whole travel thing. If you ever want your child to be able to safely travel to other countries, or if you don't want to have to hide them away from any foreigners that may visit your community, you may want to immunize.

I'm all about doing the popular thing when it makes sense. I eat organic spinach, because spinach sucks up pesticides and who needs those? But, while not vaccinating your children or waiting a long time to do so seems protective, real scientific evidence supports the opposite conclusion. I recognize that decisions either way are made out of love and concern for the child, but good intentions... you know.

You can stop feeling sorry for him

2010-02-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

Life......is......so very hard...

Keep in mind that all of these were taken from only one vantage point at several points in time. Sleepy laziness abounds here.