I didn't mean to win the poll! Honest! (We should have known, though, since I am often eerily clairvoyant.... It's kind of crazy! Maybe I should have foreseen my win.... ;-))
But, hey, three cheers for me! And, really, isn't it kind of fun to have the mom be the most in tune? That's kind of fun. :-) Right? At the very least, it was fun for me, while things were kind of painful and crazy, to be watching the clock thinking about poll times. Thank you, all, for playing!
And a HUGE congratulatory 2nd-place prize to Christy! Christy guessed 2:34! Only 11 minutes short of Maren's actual birth time should have gotten her major, major props. Again, I'm sorry to have been only 3 minutes off. (Three minutes, people! Three minutes! Haha!)
3rd place was a distant hour off, so Christy was solidly in the pocket. You rock, Christy! You might even find some cookies in your mailbox sometime. ;-)
Friday, December 17
Thursday, December 9
Maren Elise
Best few days EVER: Maren was born on November 24th, the next day was Thanksgiving (what a perfect day to go home with a new baby!), and the 26th was our 8th anniversary. I love November and Thanksgiving so much! It's been wonderful to celebrate our anniversary around Thanksgiving every year, and now we get to celebrate our daughter then, too. Happy Thanksgiving! So many things to be grateful for.... :-)
In honor of the fact that my due date was this week, and to finally reveal the results of our prediction poll, here's the two-week-old story of Maren's birthday! (Thank HEAVEN she came two weeks ago instead of staying in there clear until now. :))
The Timeline!
5-something in the morning: I get up after a nasty night of bad pregnancy-sleep to get ready for the hospital. It didn't take long, since I was, you know, going to have a baby. Haha! You don't exactly do your makeup for that unless you're the most ridiculous, vain lady in the world. :) (I did tame my bed-hair a bit. And I enjoyed a loooonnnng shower. :)) Matt made me a not-too-big-but-not-too-small breakfast. And then I went to hug Seth in his sleep so I could have a little moment with my boy—the last moment it was just him in our family. Oh, I love that kid. I was glad when he wandered out of his room a few minutes later (oops, I guess I had woken him up.... :-)). He sat on my lap for a while, hugged me and the baby over and over, and told me I'd do great. I could have cuddled with him all morning and then some (even though it kept making me cry). Ah, my sweet boy!
7:00 am: We show up at the hospital for my 7:30 appointment time. By the Grace of God (really...), I wasn't overly nervous. Nervous, yes, but not phobic-nervous. I was so grateful for that relative amount of peace.
They took a couple hours to get me a room.
9:30 am: My day started with a botched IV. The bruise all up the side of my arm is way impressive! My battle scar!! (I was pretty bummed that my day started this way. Great, I thought. So this is how it's gonna go! ;-))
Then on to IV #2. Then on to the first of five—FIVE—liters of saline I got that day. That's 11 pounds.
The nurse was pleased to see that, "hey, you're already having a lot of contractions! You feeling those?" To which I could only say, "uh... Sure.... I pretty much ignore them but, sure...." I mean, hahaha! I had been having them for months. Her enthusiasm was amusing.
10:30 am: The induction begins! Doctor placed a tablet of Cytotec to ripen the cervix, which was hardly dilated at all and still ridiculously posterior. There was a long, long way to go. (Matt had predicted a birth time after 7:00 pm and I had predicted 2:48 pm. I was now laughing about my early time as hard as Matt had always laughed over it.... :))
10:30 am to 11:45 am: I had to lay flat and pretty still so the tablet would stay in the right place and do its job. Contractions were the same ol' same ol'. I started to feel bad for Matt that things were so boring. (I wasn't too chatty. I was listening to Tosca. :))
Sometime in the noon hour: I started to have contractions that were totally new to me! They weren't the uncomfortable-yet-painless Braxton Hicks contractions that I'd had 10 million of, but they weren't the destroy-your-soul contractions that Seth's labor had started with. It was something . . . in between . . . . I'd breathe through the intermittent pain that was progressively getting worse and wonder, huh, is this what normal labor is like? Is this what women are talking about when they sit at home counting contractions and they don't want to die but the pain is manageable? Huh. Huh. ;-)
1:00 pm: Still finding the contractions absolutely fascinating even though they were starting to get extremely unfun. (And starting to wonder.... If these contractions keep getting worse, and I keep listening to Andrea Bocelli sing Recondita Armonia, will I ever be able to listen to that aria again? ;))
1:10 pm: My doctor stopped by to see how things were going. The idea had been to break my water after four hours of nothing really happening. But here we were only 2 1/2 hours after getting the tablet and I was, surprisingly (or NOT ;-)), apparently in active labor. (Cervical-ripening drugs are slow-mechanism stuffs—this is why you can get them and then go home for the night. We always thought if they'd have sent me home, I'd go right back to the hospital in major labor. Ha! We were right!) He mulled it over for a little while, smiled and asked me if we wanted to get on with it, and went ahead and broke my water. Cervix was only 2 cm dilated and still horribly, horribly posterior. (Worst exam EVER.) Long way to go, still. Dr. Awesome had to go to clinic at that point and told me he'd be back late that afternoon. (Hahahaha!!)
2:25-ish pm: I had been suffering through some really bad contractions. The nurses were just checking stuff on the computer and dawdling around when one nurse told the other: "She says she went pretty fast with her first, maybe you should just check her now...?" Uh...ok.
So, rather perfunctorily, she did.
I keep trying to think of an awesome way to express the mood of the room, the thoughts in my head, the look on Matt's face, and the tone of the nurse's voice when she said: "Ohhhhhh.... Yeah, you're 10 centimeters...."
But I can't.
It was hilarious and shocking and action-springing and a relief and validating and, well, I'm back at hilarious.
I wish I could have read all their minds so I could tell you their thoughts—it was obvious they were funny.
My thoughts, all together at once, were:
—Whaaaaaaa...?
—Of course! HAHAHA!! Of course!
—Huh. So THAT'S what that incredible, mind-boggling pressure was that made me feel like the bottom of me was just going to explode in half.... Yes, now that I think about it, I've heard people describe this as "the urge to push." Huh. Maybe I should have said something. Also...that's been going on for at least half an hour. Have I been fully-dilated for half an hour?
—HA! I KNEW I was in PAIN! This proves it! Dilating in an hour? So validating. Thank you, thank you.
—Woo hoo!! Baby's coming!!
—Whoaaaa.... Baby's coming....
And, of course:
—Hey, two minutes ago, who knew my prediction wasn't so off after all?! Laugh at that, Matthew! ;-)
2:35-ish pm: The nurses are happy to find out my doctor is already back at the hospital, but he is headed to the OR for a c-section. I have two options: I can have them get the on-call doctor, or I can try to wait half-an-hour for mine. In the back of my mind, I knew this baby wouldn't last a half-hour. But I really wanted my doctor. He's awesome and amazing, and one of the benefits of the induction was that he'd definitely be the one there. So I said I'd wait (and wondered what kind of craziness might ensue...!). Five minutes later....
2:42 pm: My doctor comes in! Sweet! His other patient was being prepped for the OR and since he's awesome, he rushed over to my room hoping to be able to deliver the baby before his patient was ready for surgery. He seemed pretty confident it would be quick. (What? Do I seem like a quick laborer or something? ;-)) I look at the clock, thinking about my 2:48 prediction. If I really hurry, maybe I can be right on! YES!! (Six minutes, though? I didn't think I could hurry that fast.)
2:43: Doctor sets things up.
2:44: Doctor takes a look and says: "Whoa, look! The head! Look at this, Matt!" Matt says when he heard the doctor say that, he genuinely didn't believe it. He actually thought the doctor was mistaken—because, you know, awesome ob's can just be wrong about that sometimes. ;-) ("But Auburn, I've been to a lot of deliveries. The head doesn't descend that fast unless it's a seventh baby or something. Insane.")
2:45: Beautiful baby Maren was born. It took about 45 seconds and two whole pushes.
She hardly cried. By the time she was back to me, she just laid on my chest and looked around with wide, bright eyes. She seemed so...comfortable. And actually happy...? Can a brand-new baby have joy in being alive? She seemed to.
Matt called Seth to tell him the happy news. Seth's response: "Ah. Welllll.... I'm just going to play on the slide a little more, then I'll come to the hospital." Haha!
Matt texted my parents in the waiting room. (They had knocked on our door just before the surprise 10-cm discovery and been turned away with the promise that we'd invite them in "in about five minutes." Haha! :)) Because he underplays everything, Matt's text just said: "Auburn wins the poll." My mom said: "What was her prediction? Oh noooo.... Does that mean it's gonna be a while...?" My dad said, "No, he said she WINS. I think she's already born! Say what?!" Then my dad texted it to Matt: "Say what?!"
Seth was the first person to come see Maren.... It was beautiful. I'll probably write about that all on its own sometime.
And then Seth got to bring all four of his grandparents in to meet his new sister.
All in all, it went well! A beautiful day. A painful day (yowza...), but a beautiful one. :)
So here she is: Maren Elise Williams. She was a petite 6 pounds even, 19 inches long. She's beautiful and amazing, and the best Thanksgiving/Anniversary present we could have ever waited our whole lives for. We're a happy family!
(Pictures are all from our day in the hospital. We went home the next day—on Thanksgiving! Our more recent pictures still haven't been uploaded from our camera. But I'll post more later.... :))
In honor of the fact that my due date was this week, and to finally reveal the results of our prediction poll, here's the two-week-old story of Maren's birthday! (Thank HEAVEN she came two weeks ago instead of staying in there clear until now. :))
The Timeline!
5-something in the morning: I get up after a nasty night of bad pregnancy-sleep to get ready for the hospital. It didn't take long, since I was, you know, going to have a baby. Haha! You don't exactly do your makeup for that unless you're the most ridiculous, vain lady in the world. :) (I did tame my bed-hair a bit. And I enjoyed a loooonnnng shower. :)) Matt made me a not-too-big-but-not-too-small breakfast. And then I went to hug Seth in his sleep so I could have a little moment with my boy—the last moment it was just him in our family. Oh, I love that kid. I was glad when he wandered out of his room a few minutes later (oops, I guess I had woken him up.... :-)). He sat on my lap for a while, hugged me and the baby over and over, and told me I'd do great. I could have cuddled with him all morning and then some (even though it kept making me cry). Ah, my sweet boy!
7:00 am: We show up at the hospital for my 7:30 appointment time. By the Grace of God (really...), I wasn't overly nervous. Nervous, yes, but not phobic-nervous. I was so grateful for that relative amount of peace.
They took a couple hours to get me a room.
9:30 am: My day started with a botched IV. The bruise all up the side of my arm is way impressive! My battle scar!! (I was pretty bummed that my day started this way. Great, I thought. So this is how it's gonna go! ;-))
Then on to IV #2. Then on to the first of five—FIVE—liters of saline I got that day. That's 11 pounds.
The nurse was pleased to see that, "hey, you're already having a lot of contractions! You feeling those?" To which I could only say, "uh... Sure.... I pretty much ignore them but, sure...." I mean, hahaha! I had been having them for months. Her enthusiasm was amusing.
10:30 am: The induction begins! Doctor placed a tablet of Cytotec to ripen the cervix, which was hardly dilated at all and still ridiculously posterior. There was a long, long way to go. (Matt had predicted a birth time after 7:00 pm and I had predicted 2:48 pm. I was now laughing about my early time as hard as Matt had always laughed over it.... :))
10:30 am to 11:45 am: I had to lay flat and pretty still so the tablet would stay in the right place and do its job. Contractions were the same ol' same ol'. I started to feel bad for Matt that things were so boring. (I wasn't too chatty. I was listening to Tosca. :))
Sometime in the noon hour: I started to have contractions that were totally new to me! They weren't the uncomfortable-yet-painless Braxton Hicks contractions that I'd had 10 million of, but they weren't the destroy-your-soul contractions that Seth's labor had started with. It was something . . . in between . . . . I'd breathe through the intermittent pain that was progressively getting worse and wonder, huh, is this what normal labor is like? Is this what women are talking about when they sit at home counting contractions and they don't want to die but the pain is manageable? Huh. Huh. ;-)
1:00 pm: Still finding the contractions absolutely fascinating even though they were starting to get extremely unfun. (And starting to wonder.... If these contractions keep getting worse, and I keep listening to Andrea Bocelli sing Recondita Armonia, will I ever be able to listen to that aria again? ;))
1:10 pm: My doctor stopped by to see how things were going. The idea had been to break my water after four hours of nothing really happening. But here we were only 2 1/2 hours after getting the tablet and I was, surprisingly (or NOT ;-)), apparently in active labor. (Cervical-ripening drugs are slow-mechanism stuffs—this is why you can get them and then go home for the night. We always thought if they'd have sent me home, I'd go right back to the hospital in major labor. Ha! We were right!) He mulled it over for a little while, smiled and asked me if we wanted to get on with it, and went ahead and broke my water. Cervix was only 2 cm dilated and still horribly, horribly posterior. (Worst exam EVER.) Long way to go, still. Dr. Awesome had to go to clinic at that point and told me he'd be back late that afternoon. (Hahahaha!!)
2:25-ish pm: I had been suffering through some really bad contractions. The nurses were just checking stuff on the computer and dawdling around when one nurse told the other: "She says she went pretty fast with her first, maybe you should just check her now...?" Uh...ok.
So, rather perfunctorily, she did.
I keep trying to think of an awesome way to express the mood of the room, the thoughts in my head, the look on Matt's face, and the tone of the nurse's voice when she said: "Ohhhhhh.... Yeah, you're 10 centimeters...."
But I can't.
It was hilarious and shocking and action-springing and a relief and validating and, well, I'm back at hilarious.
I wish I could have read all their minds so I could tell you their thoughts—it was obvious they were funny.
My thoughts, all together at once, were:
—Whaaaaaaa...?
—Of course! HAHAHA!! Of course!
—Huh. So THAT'S what that incredible, mind-boggling pressure was that made me feel like the bottom of me was just going to explode in half.... Yes, now that I think about it, I've heard people describe this as "the urge to push." Huh. Maybe I should have said something. Also...that's been going on for at least half an hour. Have I been fully-dilated for half an hour?
—HA! I KNEW I was in PAIN! This proves it! Dilating in an hour? So validating. Thank you, thank you.
—Woo hoo!! Baby's coming!!
—Whoaaaa.... Baby's coming....
And, of course:
—Hey, two minutes ago, who knew my prediction wasn't so off after all?! Laugh at that, Matthew! ;-)
2:35-ish pm: The nurses are happy to find out my doctor is already back at the hospital, but he is headed to the OR for a c-section. I have two options: I can have them get the on-call doctor, or I can try to wait half-an-hour for mine. In the back of my mind, I knew this baby wouldn't last a half-hour. But I really wanted my doctor. He's awesome and amazing, and one of the benefits of the induction was that he'd definitely be the one there. So I said I'd wait (and wondered what kind of craziness might ensue...!). Five minutes later....
2:42 pm: My doctor comes in! Sweet! His other patient was being prepped for the OR and since he's awesome, he rushed over to my room hoping to be able to deliver the baby before his patient was ready for surgery. He seemed pretty confident it would be quick. (What? Do I seem like a quick laborer or something? ;-)) I look at the clock, thinking about my 2:48 prediction. If I really hurry, maybe I can be right on! YES!! (Six minutes, though? I didn't think I could hurry that fast.)
2:43: Doctor sets things up.
2:44: Doctor takes a look and says: "Whoa, look! The head! Look at this, Matt!" Matt says when he heard the doctor say that, he genuinely didn't believe it. He actually thought the doctor was mistaken—because, you know, awesome ob's can just be wrong about that sometimes. ;-) ("But Auburn, I've been to a lot of deliveries. The head doesn't descend that fast unless it's a seventh baby or something. Insane.")
2:45: Beautiful baby Maren was born. It took about 45 seconds and two whole pushes.
She hardly cried. By the time she was back to me, she just laid on my chest and looked around with wide, bright eyes. She seemed so...comfortable. And actually happy...? Can a brand-new baby have joy in being alive? She seemed to.
Matt called Seth to tell him the happy news. Seth's response: "Ah. Welllll.... I'm just going to play on the slide a little more, then I'll come to the hospital." Haha!
Matt texted my parents in the waiting room. (They had knocked on our door just before the surprise 10-cm discovery and been turned away with the promise that we'd invite them in "in about five minutes." Haha! :)) Because he underplays everything, Matt's text just said: "Auburn wins the poll." My mom said: "What was her prediction? Oh noooo.... Does that mean it's gonna be a while...?" My dad said, "No, he said she WINS. I think she's already born! Say what?!" Then my dad texted it to Matt: "Say what?!"
Seth was the first person to come see Maren.... It was beautiful. I'll probably write about that all on its own sometime.
And then Seth got to bring all four of his grandparents in to meet his new sister.
All in all, it went well! A beautiful day. A painful day (yowza...), but a beautiful one. :)
So here she is: Maren Elise Williams. She was a petite 6 pounds even, 19 inches long. She's beautiful and amazing, and the best Thanksgiving/Anniversary present we could have ever waited our whole lives for. We're a happy family!
(Pictures are all from our day in the hospital. We went home the next day—on Thanksgiving! Our more recent pictures still haven't been uploaded from our camera. But I'll post more later.... :))
 |
| First moments. |
 |
| Later that day (or maybe the next), just playing with us for a while.... |
Tuesday, December 7
THE POLL ENTRIES!
The High-Hope-ers (Pre-Induction)
November 20th
2:19 pm
Laurie (sister-in-law)
November 22nd
8:15 pm
Sandy (friend)
10:16 pm
Kristen (sister-in-law...soon! :))
November 23rd
11:41 am
Samantha Burns (friend)
11:23 pm
Steven (brother-in-law)
November 24th
12:24 am
Ellie (sister-in-law)
Induction Day!
November 24th
11:24 am
Kathy (mom-in-law)
1:12 pm
Greg (bro)
1:46 pm
Tera (friend)
2:34 pm
Christy (friend)
2:48 pm
Auburn
4-o-clock-ish-sunset-y-ish :)
Gwen (my mom)
5:34 pm
Becca (friend)
7:09 pm
Jordan (bro)
7:13 pm
Matt (my man :))
8:27 pm
Janelle (sister-in-law)
9:23 pm
Hillary (friend...and labor-delivery nurse!)
The Apologizers
(Sorry, but I think the induction will last all day and night...!)
November 25
2:15 am
Chuck (dad-dad-daddio)
2:17 am
Amy (friend...and "Godmom" ;-))
The Foes!! ;-)
November 27
12:14 pm
Elizabeth (friend)
December 2
2:30 am
Bruce (dad-in-law)
Honorable Mentions
Before I announce The Big Winner, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize some special participants.
Special Thanks are in order for everyone who guessed I'd have the baby before the induction day. That was pleasant of you. :-) So for making me really hope you'd win, Honorable Mention to Laurie, Sandy, Kristen, Samantha, Steven, and Ellie!
Honorable Mention to these people with remarkably similar ESP:
Jordan and Matt had guesses only four minutes apart.
Our friend Amy and my Dad had guesses only two minutes apart! (And they were the only two people to have guesses on that day at all.)
Honorable Mention is in order for Elizabeth and Dad-in-law Bruce, who had the courage to guess the induction would be derailed even though they knew I'd just have to label them foes for it ;-). And who still had me going into labor well ahead of my due date. Nice to know that nobody's ESP was picking up the vibe that I'd be miserably waiting for labor into the middle of December or something. Thanks, guys!
And, finally, Honorable Mention to everyone who had a fun number that was obvious enough for me to recognize:
Steven for 11/23 at 11:23
and his mom, Kathy (my mother-in-law) for 11/24 at 11:24 (like mother like son!)
Ellie for 11/24 at 12:24 (24 is an awesome number—no, the awesome number—of course! 11/24 at 12:24 would have been pretty cool.)
Christy for 2:34
And Jordan for turning his birthday into a guess of 7:09
Big Winner and one more Honorable Mention coming up!
Special Thanks are in order for everyone who guessed I'd have the baby before the induction day. That was pleasant of you. :-) So for making me really hope you'd win, Honorable Mention to Laurie, Sandy, Kristen, Samantha, Steven, and Ellie!
Honorable Mention to these people with remarkably similar ESP:
Jordan and Matt had guesses only four minutes apart.
Our friend Amy and my Dad had guesses only two minutes apart! (And they were the only two people to have guesses on that day at all.)
Honorable Mention is in order for Elizabeth and Dad-in-law Bruce, who had the courage to guess the induction would be derailed even though they knew I'd just have to label them foes for it ;-). And who still had me going into labor well ahead of my due date. Nice to know that nobody's ESP was picking up the vibe that I'd be miserably waiting for labor into the middle of December or something. Thanks, guys!
And, finally, Honorable Mention to everyone who had a fun number that was obvious enough for me to recognize:
Steven for 11/23 at 11:23
and his mom, Kathy (my mother-in-law) for 11/24 at 11:24 (like mother like son!)
Ellie for 11/24 at 12:24 (24 is an awesome number—no, the awesome number—of course! 11/24 at 12:24 would have been pretty cool.)
Christy for 2:34
And Jordan for turning his birthday into a guess of 7:09
Big Winner and one more Honorable Mention coming up!
Thursday, November 18
Don't forget to vote!
You're already running out of time! Get your prediction logged! :)
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D7NFBHD
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D7NFBHD
Me and My Girl
For a lot of this pregnancy, I haven't felt so much like I'm getting to know this baby. And, honestly, I'm not really, am I? ;-) But Seth was such a funny dude even in the womb that I had distinct impressions about his personality. Which I wrote in my journal. And which were correct! Ha-HA!
Tell-tales for Seth.... He was a total acrobat, moving in strange, discernible, and funny ways. He was wildly active as such a tiny thing that I could feel crazy stuff at only 15 weeks. He never got into fetal position. (Hahaha! I wrote in my journal: "If that's not Matt-like behavior, I don't know what is." HAHA! Fetal position. Who needs it.) His ultrasounds were hilarious. Then I'd get those non-stress tests where they strap you up to a monitor, and he'd kick the monitor off—over, and over, and over again. I don't remember how I got the impression that he was also a mellow dude but with a physically active personality, but I did (maybe just because I guessed he'd be much like Matt), and it's totally true.
This baby has been asleep at every single ultrasound. Aw.... Darn! And she's more of a rumbler, not an acrobat. Her movement is fairly nondescript to me—instead of feeling feet and arms doing weird things, I just feel a rumbler in there hurting my organs. :) I also didn't feel her for so long because of the anterior placenta. She's a mystery to me!
[Amy says the mystery part is what I'm learning about her personality. She'll be an enigma! She'll be . . . like me!! I think that's an awesome and hilarious theory. As she grows up, if I ever think to myself, "man, you're just a tough one to figure out!," I'll also think, "you've been that way from the womb!" :)]
But lately there's something I've really, really been bonding with this little girl over. She's been throwing little fits. My little rumbler has these sudden bursts of activity where she frantically kicks as hard as she can—this jolting side-to-side craziness for a few seconds that makes all her other movement look weak. For a few brief moments—as knees and feet and butt and shoulders take turns frenetically stretching as far as my skin will let them—she seems like she's fed up with being a good sport about her compromised space, and she's just got to bust out.
"AAAAHHHH!!! Get me OUT OF HERE!!!"
I swear, I hear it! ;-) [I hear you, mija!]
And, while I grimace in pain from all the things her little fit is destroying in there :), I also smile to myself and think, "ah... You and me baby girl. I'm with you on this!"
And I think, hey, we can do this together. Almost there, baby.
Tell-tales for Seth.... He was a total acrobat, moving in strange, discernible, and funny ways. He was wildly active as such a tiny thing that I could feel crazy stuff at only 15 weeks. He never got into fetal position. (Hahaha! I wrote in my journal: "If that's not Matt-like behavior, I don't know what is." HAHA! Fetal position. Who needs it.) His ultrasounds were hilarious. Then I'd get those non-stress tests where they strap you up to a monitor, and he'd kick the monitor off—over, and over, and over again. I don't remember how I got the impression that he was also a mellow dude but with a physically active personality, but I did (maybe just because I guessed he'd be much like Matt), and it's totally true.
This baby has been asleep at every single ultrasound. Aw.... Darn! And she's more of a rumbler, not an acrobat. Her movement is fairly nondescript to me—instead of feeling feet and arms doing weird things, I just feel a rumbler in there hurting my organs. :) I also didn't feel her for so long because of the anterior placenta. She's a mystery to me!
[Amy says the mystery part is what I'm learning about her personality. She'll be an enigma! She'll be . . . like me!! I think that's an awesome and hilarious theory. As she grows up, if I ever think to myself, "man, you're just a tough one to figure out!," I'll also think, "you've been that way from the womb!" :)]
But lately there's something I've really, really been bonding with this little girl over. She's been throwing little fits. My little rumbler has these sudden bursts of activity where she frantically kicks as hard as she can—this jolting side-to-side craziness for a few seconds that makes all her other movement look weak. For a few brief moments—as knees and feet and butt and shoulders take turns frenetically stretching as far as my skin will let them—she seems like she's fed up with being a good sport about her compromised space, and she's just got to bust out.
"AAAAHHHH!!! Get me OUT OF HERE!!!"
I swear, I hear it! ;-) [I hear you, mija!]
And, while I grimace in pain from all the things her little fit is destroying in there :), I also smile to myself and think, "ah... You and me baby girl. I'm with you on this!"
And I think, hey, we can do this together. Almost there, baby.
Monday, November 15
Are you a winner? :)
It's Baby Time! And by that I mean: it's time to make your best guess as to when this baby is coming. (There's a link at the bottom to input your prediction!) Winner gets.... Fame and glory!
Maybe I'll even send some chocolate or cookies or a prize or something. ;-)
At the very least, I promise to tell the world you have ESP.
So, here's some background information to help you with your clairvoyance:
1) Baby is scheduled to be induced on November 24th. My appointment is at 7:30 am. If they have room for me, they get me in, they hook me up to IVs, they blah blah blah. And the process begins....
2) On November 24th, I will be 38 weeks and 1 day along. Seth came all on his own at 38 weeks and 6 days.
3) When Seth came, it was after two months of him being engaged and me having contractions every 3-7 minutes every day all day. With this pregnancy, I've had a gazillion contractions still. A gazillion. They started earlier than with Seth and they've been stronger than with Seth. But baby didn't go crazy and become engaged at 31 weeks. She's not engaged now.
4) You know how first labors last a really long time...? And then by your second labor, things tend to happen in more of a hurry...?
5) When I went into labor with Seth, I had one very, very painful contraction out of the blue. (Remember, I'd had contractions every few minutes for months. Suddenly one was horribly painful.) A few minutes later, another very painful contraction. It got my attention. A few minutes later, very painful contraction #3 did not stop! For the next four hours, I was never not contracting—not for a single moment. They didn't even know how to read the monitor! I kept hearing things like: "We're sure that monitor isn't broken?" "Well, you're just one solid contraction!" "Wow, I've never seen contractions like this. You're a contractions machine!" The time from that first painful contraction until I was fully dilated wasn't more than two hours. Because of his stress, and because I didn't have contractions come and go to give us a good cool-down period between pushes, they'd only let me push every 10 minutes or so and it took as long to deliver as it had taken to dilate. The whole thing only took four hours. Four hours. And only half of that was to dilate. First baby, y'all.
Take from that information what you will!
Will I make it to induction, or will she come before then? Do you have some cruel reason you think the induction will be derailed and she'll come later...? Will my labor go just as fast as with Seth, or faster, or was Seth a total fluke and I'll be stalled out all day...?
The doctor is planning to let me sit there "ripening" :) for four hours. He claims I'll be very comfortable. (I can't help but wonder if this will jump-start contractions more than they think.... We'll see. :)) Then he expects to be able to break my water. He hopes to not even use pitocin. He says baby by dinnertime.
But, like I said.... Take from all this information what you will!!
I'm tempted to use Price Is Right rules to discourage people from wishing a long labor on me. Hahaha! But, no, I think you deserve full glory if you're the closest from either direction. Good luck! Channel your inner psychic! And we'll see soon how right you were!
CLICK HERE TO INPUT YOUR GUESS!
Maybe I'll even send some chocolate or cookies or a prize or something. ;-)
At the very least, I promise to tell the world you have ESP.
So, here's some background information to help you with your clairvoyance:
1) Baby is scheduled to be induced on November 24th. My appointment is at 7:30 am. If they have room for me, they get me in, they hook me up to IVs, they blah blah blah. And the process begins....
2) On November 24th, I will be 38 weeks and 1 day along. Seth came all on his own at 38 weeks and 6 days.
3) When Seth came, it was after two months of him being engaged and me having contractions every 3-7 minutes every day all day. With this pregnancy, I've had a gazillion contractions still. A gazillion. They started earlier than with Seth and they've been stronger than with Seth. But baby didn't go crazy and become engaged at 31 weeks. She's not engaged now.
4) You know how first labors last a really long time...? And then by your second labor, things tend to happen in more of a hurry...?
5) When I went into labor with Seth, I had one very, very painful contraction out of the blue. (Remember, I'd had contractions every few minutes for months. Suddenly one was horribly painful.) A few minutes later, another very painful contraction. It got my attention. A few minutes later, very painful contraction #3 did not stop! For the next four hours, I was never not contracting—not for a single moment. They didn't even know how to read the monitor! I kept hearing things like: "We're sure that monitor isn't broken?" "Well, you're just one solid contraction!" "Wow, I've never seen contractions like this. You're a contractions machine!" The time from that first painful contraction until I was fully dilated wasn't more than two hours. Because of his stress, and because I didn't have contractions come and go to give us a good cool-down period between pushes, they'd only let me push every 10 minutes or so and it took as long to deliver as it had taken to dilate. The whole thing only took four hours. Four hours. And only half of that was to dilate. First baby, y'all.
Take from that information what you will!
Will I make it to induction, or will she come before then? Do you have some cruel reason you think the induction will be derailed and she'll come later...? Will my labor go just as fast as with Seth, or faster, or was Seth a total fluke and I'll be stalled out all day...?
The doctor is planning to let me sit there "ripening" :) for four hours. He claims I'll be very comfortable. (I can't help but wonder if this will jump-start contractions more than they think.... We'll see. :)) Then he expects to be able to break my water. He hopes to not even use pitocin. He says baby by dinnertime.
But, like I said.... Take from all this information what you will!!
I'm tempted to use Price Is Right rules to discourage people from wishing a long labor on me. Hahaha! But, no, I think you deserve full glory if you're the closest from either direction. Good luck! Channel your inner psychic! And we'll see soon how right you were!
CLICK HERE TO INPUT YOUR GUESS!
Friday, November 12
Halloween
One of my favorite things about Halloween this year was watching Seth enjoy his candy. It brought back such fun memories! I loved seeing the excitement in his face and remembering just how that felt.
Matt and I were talking about how we remember that looking forward to Halloween as kids was more exciting than anything but Christmas. In the few days before, I could hardly stop thinking about it—always with total disbelief that something SO AWESOME as getting a HUGE PILE OF CANDY was really going to happen in a matter of days, one day, hours...!! A HUGE PILE OF CANDY!!! Can it be true? A HUGE PILE!!! OF CANDY!!!
And then the trick-or-treating would happen, and there it was. The huge pile. So fun and amazing and unbelievably incredible! I loved dumping out the pillowcase and seeing the spoils. :) Every year I meticulously sorted my candy, then counted it just for fun, then strategized how to eat it all. Plowing through that candy was just about the funnest five days of the year. :)
It was so fun to watch Seth open up his candy bag at home and light up over what he'd managed to bring home. You could see the wheels turning.... Which to eat first...? And after that...? He even had a really, really fun time offering candy to me and Matt—even things he likes. I think he felt rich enough to be a benefactor and it really excited him. So darling!
I had about half a moment where I thought, holy cow, he's going to fill up on candy before dinner. Maybe we should ration.... But it was immediately squashed by the memory of how fun it is to have one holiday a year where a HUGE PILE OF CANDY is yours, ALL YOURS!!! Why spoil the fun? Never! So lucky Seth gets to grow up without the memories of his parents sticking the halloween candy up in a cupboard and saying you get to pick two a day, or whatever. ;-) He gets to sort through it, eat it for breakfast, count it, give it away as presents.... Whatever he wants.... For a whopping three or four days out of the year. I love it. And we loved watching him love it. Too fun.
(Sidenote: To gorge or not to gorge? I think about this concept every time I get a big box of chocolates from someone. It's a lot better to just eat it all at once than spread it out! In my case, it's the calories I worry about. I trust my body to have no idea what to do with 8000 calories in 24 hours. Hahaha! But an extra 600 calories every day for two weeks...? Ouch! Trouble. With a kid—in addition to not wanting to spoil the fun—we'd still rather he gorge himself on candy for a couple of days than have candy every day for a month or whatever. Mucho mejor. What's the worst that can happen? A tummy ache? And then it stays totally novel and awesome, and unique to the holiday rather than turning into a little habit of getting candy after dinner every day.... Food for thought. Candy for thought! ;-))
(Another sidenote: I always wondered how the heck my meticulously-sorted candy disappeared faster than I expected. My mom fessed up just a few years ago.... Haha! While we were at school, she'd sneak some chocolates out of our stashes!! I have to admit.... I can see myself perhaps doing this to Seth someday.... Ha! Or maybe he'll keep wanting to give things away. Too bad he loves dark chocolate. ;-))
Wednesday, November 10
Today.
The Good:
Just found out that in addition to the two weeks of vacation we happened to get right at baby-time, Matt can take three weeks of paternity leave and not pay it back! YES! Now we just figure when we can make this work with the schedule they've given him (he can't do this during any critical rotations). Five weeks at home! During residency. Am I dreaming?
Also.... Matt gets the whole day off tomorrow. Woo hooooooo!!! Is it just my melted brain making things up, or has he not had a day off in about eighteen years? We get a few in the next couple of weeks! I love you ER. (Even if Matt thinks you're the one branch of medicine that's horribly boring.)
The Bad:
Seth woke three hours too early. Again. He was sick a couple weeks ago, and for at least a week now he's been awakened by incessant coughing early, early in the morning. I laid in bed trying not to burst into tears when I woke up hearing the coughing again this morning.... Not only is the day too long (starting three hours early!), but it's hardly manageable with such a tired Mama dealing with such a tired, tired boy all day. Every day. All day. He just needs a good night of sleep! Please?
The Ugly:
Me. :) Hahaha! Or at least my feet.
Oh, which brings me to another Good:
The glorious pedicure/foot massage I got yesterday. Ahhhhhh.... So therapeutic. (Thanks, Mom!)
Just found out that in addition to the two weeks of vacation we happened to get right at baby-time, Matt can take three weeks of paternity leave and not pay it back! YES! Now we just figure when we can make this work with the schedule they've given him (he can't do this during any critical rotations). Five weeks at home! During residency. Am I dreaming?
Also.... Matt gets the whole day off tomorrow. Woo hooooooo!!! Is it just my melted brain making things up, or has he not had a day off in about eighteen years? We get a few in the next couple of weeks! I love you ER. (Even if Matt thinks you're the one branch of medicine that's horribly boring.)
The Bad:
Seth woke three hours too early. Again. He was sick a couple weeks ago, and for at least a week now he's been awakened by incessant coughing early, early in the morning. I laid in bed trying not to burst into tears when I woke up hearing the coughing again this morning.... Not only is the day too long (starting three hours early!), but it's hardly manageable with such a tired Mama dealing with such a tired, tired boy all day. Every day. All day. He just needs a good night of sleep! Please?
The Ugly:
Me. :) Hahaha! Or at least my feet.
Oh, which brings me to another Good:
The glorious pedicure/foot massage I got yesterday. Ahhhhhh.... So therapeutic. (Thanks, Mom!)
Monday, November 1
November!
It's November!! AHHHH!! We're having a baby! :-D
In honor of November, when we met and when we married (four years apart :)), here's a little survey someone sent me forever ago.
When is your “engagement” anniversary:
June 22, 2002
When is your “marriage” anniversary:
November 26, 2002
How long have you known your spouse:
Since I was 17! Twelve years.
How long did you date/court before you were engaged:
Almost a year. Although, we weren't completely "official" that whole time. ;) (Matt had a hard time overtly admitting to ourselves that we were dating. So we just spent all day every day together, with dinner every night that he paid for. For . . . a long time . . . . Haha!)
Where did you meet your spouse for the first time:
Lobby of my dorm.
Do you have any children:
Seth and baby girl!
Do you have any house pets:
Never! :) (We once had a fish. But even that got gross.)
Do you own a house or rent:
Renting currently.
Do you live in the country or town/city:
"America's Finest City" :) YES!
What is one of your favorite activities together:
Walking the beach for the last hour or so before sunset.
Do you have a favorite vacation spot:
Ooooooohhhh.... Too many! Which to pick? I'll say that places we dream of owning a vacation home are Korea and Costa Rica, and we're master-planning a way to live in London for a year sometime.
When did you first kiss:
After many, many weeks of dating. AND! After Matt had already told me he loved me. (He says he was waiting for the right moment.... ;-))
What church do you attend:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Is this the church you were married in:
Yes, we were married in the San Diego temple.
What town is your current address at:
San Diego! Woo hoo!!
Do you work or stay at home:
I stay at home with my buddy Seth.
Where did you go on your honeymoon:
San Diego! (Can you tell we love San Diego?)
What was the funniest gift you gave when dating:
For a while we gave each other Little Mr. and Miss books (Little Miss Curious, etc.) with funny poems written in them.
How long did you know each other before you started dating:
Three years.
Who asked who out:
I'm not sure which date to count as our "start," or who would get credit.
How old are each of you:
He is 30 and I'm 29, counting the days to be 30! YEAH!
Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple:
Exhaustion.
Did you go to the same school:
Yes. This was good and bad. Good: we were at the same school! Bad: we couldn't stand the place. We dream of an alternate reality where we met at Stanford or something. :)
Are you from the same home town:
I'm from California, he's from Denver.
Who is smarter:
My IQ is five points higher! That's right, folks. Five whole points. :) But Matt has read everything, remembers everything he's read, and consequently knows approximately 800,000 times the number of things I know.
Where do you eat out most as a couple:
We love ethnic food, and we love a pretty view.
Where is the farthest you two have traveled together as a couple:
Korea? Italy? Which is farther away...? Probably Korea, huh?
[Sidenote: Ok, I just calculated the distance from San Diego to Pusan and to Rome. 6110 miles to Pusan. 6375 miles to Rome! So I'm not crazy to have to wonder which is farthest! I thought for sure the answer would be thoroughly embarrassing, and instead it's a virtual tie! But I suppose Italy wins. At least until I get funny and try to find the farthest Korean city we visited and the farthest Italian city. We lived in Denver when we traveled to both, which would give Korea the huge win. But we traveled from California.... Hmmm.... :)]
Who has the craziest exes:
We were pretty circumspect about dating and don't technically have exes. :) Hands down, I have the more embarrassing crushes. (Mostly because I had so many, while Matt crushed on no one. :))
Who has the worse temper:
Neither of us has a temper. Matt's foul mood is darker than mine.
Who does the cooking:
Matt! By a lot. (He never needs a cookbook. And he's good at it. And he loves it. So if he's home, he's probably the one.... :))
Who is more social:
Hahahaha! Me! Which is not saying much. We are total homebodies and love it.
Who is the neat-freak:
Depends. I'm more prone to leaving things out in the first place than is Matt, but Matt is more tolerant of something out for a long while than I am.
Who is more stubborn:
Depends! :) On who is right. Haha!
Who hogs the bed:
Right now I have a massive u-shaped body pillow taking up a large portion of the bed, so I guess me at the moment. :)
Who wakes up earlier:
Matt has to get up so early, the poor guy!
Where was your first date:
Again.... Which to count...? But we like to say our "first date" was a Laker game. Courtside seats at the Pepsi Center in Denver. I slapped Shaq, stealthily held hands with Kobe, high-fived Rick Fox, B-Shaw and D-Fish. Awesome night. Oh.... And being with Matt was cool, too. (Would have been cooler if he'd have kissed me. Hahaha!! Fun, fun night together, though. :))
Who had more boyfriends/girlfriends:
We're tied at one. Each other! :) [Aw....] And yes, that's totally awesome. (Like I said, though, I have the funnier dating history. He was smart to just be a cool independent before me. :))
Do you get flowers often:
Sometimes! Not that often, though, because there's usually a far more romantic alternative and he's so good at thinking of those. I don't surprise him with creative moments nearly as awesomely as he does for me. I try so hard to think of great ideas! Matt is fun. :)
How do you spend the holidays:
We love to spend holidays at home with our own little family. It's the greatest. Always will be. :)
Who is more jealous:
Of...what...? Neither of us gets jealous of really anything, anytime.
How long did it take to get serious:
Three years. Haha!
Who does the laundry:
He's always shared the task with me tons. But now we have a washing machine he adores that plays Korean ditties, and I feel like I have cement in my ribs, and he's been doing all the laundry. Cheerfully. It's, well...pretty much heaven.... :)
Who’s better with the computer:
Several years ago I would have said me by a hair (plus, Matt was still preferring PCs! Please...), but Matt has stayed with the times and I'm still living in 2001. So Matt. Big time.
Leave a piece of advice for the other couples:
Talk. :)
In honor of November, when we met and when we married (four years apart :)), here's a little survey someone sent me forever ago.
When is your “engagement” anniversary:
June 22, 2002
When is your “marriage” anniversary:
November 26, 2002
How long have you known your spouse:
Since I was 17! Twelve years.
How long did you date/court before you were engaged:
Almost a year. Although, we weren't completely "official" that whole time. ;) (Matt had a hard time overtly admitting to ourselves that we were dating. So we just spent all day every day together, with dinner every night that he paid for. For . . . a long time . . . . Haha!)
Where did you meet your spouse for the first time:
Lobby of my dorm.
Do you have any children:
Seth and baby girl!
Do you have any house pets:
Never! :) (We once had a fish. But even that got gross.)
Do you own a house or rent:
Renting currently.
Do you live in the country or town/city:
"America's Finest City" :) YES!
What is one of your favorite activities together:
Walking the beach for the last hour or so before sunset.
Do you have a favorite vacation spot:
Ooooooohhhh.... Too many! Which to pick? I'll say that places we dream of owning a vacation home are Korea and Costa Rica, and we're master-planning a way to live in London for a year sometime.
When did you first kiss:
After many, many weeks of dating. AND! After Matt had already told me he loved me. (He says he was waiting for the right moment.... ;-))
What church do you attend:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Is this the church you were married in:
Yes, we were married in the San Diego temple.
What town is your current address at:
San Diego! Woo hoo!!
Do you work or stay at home:
I stay at home with my buddy Seth.
Where did you go on your honeymoon:
San Diego! (Can you tell we love San Diego?)
What was the funniest gift you gave when dating:
For a while we gave each other Little Mr. and Miss books (Little Miss Curious, etc.) with funny poems written in them.
How long did you know each other before you started dating:
Three years.
Who asked who out:
I'm not sure which date to count as our "start," or who would get credit.
How old are each of you:
He is 30 and I'm 29, counting the days to be 30! YEAH!
Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple:
Exhaustion.
Did you go to the same school:
Yes. This was good and bad. Good: we were at the same school! Bad: we couldn't stand the place. We dream of an alternate reality where we met at Stanford or something. :)
Are you from the same home town:
I'm from California, he's from Denver.
Who is smarter:
My IQ is five points higher! That's right, folks. Five whole points. :) But Matt has read everything, remembers everything he's read, and consequently knows approximately 800,000 times the number of things I know.
Where do you eat out most as a couple:
We love ethnic food, and we love a pretty view.
Where is the farthest you two have traveled together as a couple:
Korea? Italy? Which is farther away...? Probably Korea, huh?
[Sidenote: Ok, I just calculated the distance from San Diego to Pusan and to Rome. 6110 miles to Pusan. 6375 miles to Rome! So I'm not crazy to have to wonder which is farthest! I thought for sure the answer would be thoroughly embarrassing, and instead it's a virtual tie! But I suppose Italy wins. At least until I get funny and try to find the farthest Korean city we visited and the farthest Italian city. We lived in Denver when we traveled to both, which would give Korea the huge win. But we traveled from California.... Hmmm.... :)]
Who has the craziest exes:
We were pretty circumspect about dating and don't technically have exes. :) Hands down, I have the more embarrassing crushes. (Mostly because I had so many, while Matt crushed on no one. :))
Who has the worse temper:
Neither of us has a temper. Matt's foul mood is darker than mine.
Who does the cooking:
Matt! By a lot. (He never needs a cookbook. And he's good at it. And he loves it. So if he's home, he's probably the one.... :))
Who is more social:
Hahahaha! Me! Which is not saying much. We are total homebodies and love it.
Who is the neat-freak:
Depends. I'm more prone to leaving things out in the first place than is Matt, but Matt is more tolerant of something out for a long while than I am.
Who is more stubborn:
Depends! :) On who is right. Haha!
Who hogs the bed:
Right now I have a massive u-shaped body pillow taking up a large portion of the bed, so I guess me at the moment. :)
Who wakes up earlier:
Matt has to get up so early, the poor guy!
Where was your first date:
Again.... Which to count...? But we like to say our "first date" was a Laker game. Courtside seats at the Pepsi Center in Denver. I slapped Shaq, stealthily held hands with Kobe, high-fived Rick Fox, B-Shaw and D-Fish. Awesome night. Oh.... And being with Matt was cool, too. (Would have been cooler if he'd have kissed me. Hahaha!! Fun, fun night together, though. :))
Who had more boyfriends/girlfriends:
We're tied at one. Each other! :) [Aw....] And yes, that's totally awesome. (Like I said, though, I have the funnier dating history. He was smart to just be a cool independent before me. :))
Do you get flowers often:
Sometimes! Not that often, though, because there's usually a far more romantic alternative and he's so good at thinking of those. I don't surprise him with creative moments nearly as awesomely as he does for me. I try so hard to think of great ideas! Matt is fun. :)
How do you spend the holidays:
We love to spend holidays at home with our own little family. It's the greatest. Always will be. :)
Who is more jealous:
Of...what...? Neither of us gets jealous of really anything, anytime.
How long did it take to get serious:
Three years. Haha!
Who does the laundry:
He's always shared the task with me tons. But now we have a washing machine he adores that plays Korean ditties, and I feel like I have cement in my ribs, and he's been doing all the laundry. Cheerfully. It's, well...pretty much heaven.... :)
Who’s better with the computer:
Several years ago I would have said me by a hair (plus, Matt was still preferring PCs! Please...), but Matt has stayed with the times and I'm still living in 2001. So Matt. Big time.
Leave a piece of advice for the other couples:
Talk. :)
Friday, October 29
I Spy At The Wild Animal Park....
Does anyone else find this hilariously funny? We stood there and laughed for hours. Really. ;-)
Thursday, October 28
Eight Years.
Well, we made it eight whole years without having to go there. But now we have . . . a second car. [Cue music. Whatever kind seems appropriate. :)]
You can read all about our good fortune to live so happily with just one car by clicking on the following sentence. We've been so happy and lucky to share a car!
Like I wrote before, it's been pretty amazing how our circumstances keep lending themselves so well to sharing a car. And it's also been SO rewarding to share our schedule to the extent you need when you only have one vehicle. We've loved it.
Lately we've been considering our various options now that:
1) A second baby is coming.
2) Seth is in his last year without school.
3) Matt is finishing his last year of roaming from hospital to hospital, soon to be working exclusively at Children's just three miles away.
The first two say to us, break down and get a car. The third says, HA! Yeah right! Three miles away means NO second car required! HaHA!
Which is absolutely totally true, and resulted in a firm decision to work out another plan. We'd still share the car. For the days when taking Dad to work would mean waking two kids up at 5:30 in the morning, we'd get Matt a scooter. It's a safe route for a scooter, and a lot safer than a bicycle would be, and would take much less time than riding a bus or walking the three miles. Scooter it was.
Then we started to get real about our Camry.
The awesome, awesome Camry. It's been with us our whole marriage, and with me before then (and my dad before then!). "The Crammy" (as my roommates affectionately named it when it was how we all got to grocery stores :)) has been a great car for 11 years and almost 200,000 miles. And it's still a great car. (Consider, too, that it was severely beaten for many years by snow and ice and snow-clearing things like sand, gravel, and salt! This car rocks!) But it's starting to demonstrate that if we keep putting this kind of mileage on it . . . it's on its last legs. :-(
It occurred to us: with this kind of use, we'll need to buy a new car in the next year or two anyway. May as well do it now and have two cars, right? And if the Crammy is only asked to drive three miles to Children's hospital and back every day, how long might it last...? Another five years? More? (That would be SWEET!!!)
So in an effort to be reasonable, and in a dramatic effort to possibly lengthen the life of our awesome old-man of a sweet car, we decided on Thursday to start—to start—looking at vehicles. The beauty being we were in absolutely no rush and could wait months for a great deal.
On Saturday we looked at cars just to get a preliminary feel for things.
And on Monday...we drove a new car home.
Hahahahahaha!!
Turns out that being in no rush with the flexibility to wait for a great deal gives you a killer position during negotiations to get the great deal. And you end up with a car in two days anyway! Kind of funny.
But Matt had a good time negotiating from his killer "I don't need this" position, and Seth had a great time test-driving cars (happiest day of his life :)), and we ended up with a 2009 Kia Rondo. It only has 20,000 miles on it but we got it for almost half the price of a 2010. And it's a Certified Pre-Owned vehicle, which means we keep the great 100,000-mile and 60,000-mile Kia/Hyundai warranties. All in all, it worked out pretty well! We love how the car drives, and we love that it has so much more space without being a van or an SUV or a big car (it's footprint is smaller than the Camry's, but it has seven seats that actually feel more spacious, and tons of cargo room!). It gets great reviews. Hopefully it can last as well as we expect it to after having a killer Toyota for so long.... (Oh, Kia, they say you're pretty decent now. You better be! I guess even if you're not, we got you for cheap. ;))
So, goodbye you fabulous eight years of shared-car bliss! We never thought we'd get that much of you. Thanks to good fate and a good car, you stretched out to almost a decade. I guess that's pretty awesome.
(Watch, the Crammy will die tomorrow, and our car-sharing will be back! Haha!)
You can read all about our good fortune to live so happily with just one car by clicking on the following sentence. We've been so happy and lucky to share a car!
Like I wrote before, it's been pretty amazing how our circumstances keep lending themselves so well to sharing a car. And it's also been SO rewarding to share our schedule to the extent you need when you only have one vehicle. We've loved it.
Lately we've been considering our various options now that:
1) A second baby is coming.
2) Seth is in his last year without school.
3) Matt is finishing his last year of roaming from hospital to hospital, soon to be working exclusively at Children's just three miles away.
The first two say to us, break down and get a car. The third says, HA! Yeah right! Three miles away means NO second car required! HaHA!
Which is absolutely totally true, and resulted in a firm decision to work out another plan. We'd still share the car. For the days when taking Dad to work would mean waking two kids up at 5:30 in the morning, we'd get Matt a scooter. It's a safe route for a scooter, and a lot safer than a bicycle would be, and would take much less time than riding a bus or walking the three miles. Scooter it was.
Then we started to get real about our Camry.
The awesome, awesome Camry. It's been with us our whole marriage, and with me before then (and my dad before then!). "The Crammy" (as my roommates affectionately named it when it was how we all got to grocery stores :)) has been a great car for 11 years and almost 200,000 miles. And it's still a great car. (Consider, too, that it was severely beaten for many years by snow and ice and snow-clearing things like sand, gravel, and salt! This car rocks!) But it's starting to demonstrate that if we keep putting this kind of mileage on it . . . it's on its last legs. :-(
It occurred to us: with this kind of use, we'll need to buy a new car in the next year or two anyway. May as well do it now and have two cars, right? And if the Crammy is only asked to drive three miles to Children's hospital and back every day, how long might it last...? Another five years? More? (That would be SWEET!!!)
So in an effort to be reasonable, and in a dramatic effort to possibly lengthen the life of our awesome old-man of a sweet car, we decided on Thursday to start—to start—looking at vehicles. The beauty being we were in absolutely no rush and could wait months for a great deal.
On Saturday we looked at cars just to get a preliminary feel for things.
And on Monday...we drove a new car home.
Hahahahahaha!!
Turns out that being in no rush with the flexibility to wait for a great deal gives you a killer position during negotiations to get the great deal. And you end up with a car in two days anyway! Kind of funny.
But Matt had a good time negotiating from his killer "I don't need this" position, and Seth had a great time test-driving cars (happiest day of his life :)), and we ended up with a 2009 Kia Rondo. It only has 20,000 miles on it but we got it for almost half the price of a 2010. And it's a Certified Pre-Owned vehicle, which means we keep the great 100,000-mile and 60,000-mile Kia/Hyundai warranties. All in all, it worked out pretty well! We love how the car drives, and we love that it has so much more space without being a van or an SUV or a big car (it's footprint is smaller than the Camry's, but it has seven seats that actually feel more spacious, and tons of cargo room!). It gets great reviews. Hopefully it can last as well as we expect it to after having a killer Toyota for so long.... (Oh, Kia, they say you're pretty decent now. You better be! I guess even if you're not, we got you for cheap. ;))
So, goodbye you fabulous eight years of shared-car bliss! We never thought we'd get that much of you. Thanks to good fate and a good car, you stretched out to almost a decade. I guess that's pretty awesome.
(Watch, the Crammy will die tomorrow, and our car-sharing will be back! Haha!)
Ohhhhh boy.
I've really been looking forward to getting a tour of the hospital where our baby will be born. I haven't been able to stand not knowing what it's like in there!
And I thought I'd enjoy it. Almost five years ago, I had really enjoyed the tour of Seth's hospital. Yes, almost five years! I had been so eager to see the place that I was one of the least-pregnant people there.
I think I was on to something....
Because this tour....
This tour scared the living daylights out of me. Too soon! Too soon!!
Even just sitting in the lobby waiting for our tour guide made me nervous! When a happy family came wandering in with "It's a Girl" balloons and bouquets of flowers, I apparently turned to Matt and muttered: "Oh gosh. Someone just had a baby. . . . Terrible things happen here...." (Haha! Matt laughed at that for a long while. At least one of us was having fun. ;-))
Have I mentioned I hate hospitals? Hate. It's amazing to me that Matt spends his life in them.
And have I mentioned that I hate not having complete control of my body...? The thought of all these people touching me, sticking things in me, collecting or measuring the gross stuff I can't keep from spilling out of me.... It's all very horrifying.
Worth it, though! Worth it! :) I keep chanting this to myself! (I'd be the perfect candidate for a home birth if I didn't care so much about having emergency care ready for our baby. Staying at home sounds sooo comfortable and appealing.... Aside from the mess. Hehe. ;))
So...yeah. I'm in a weird place. The idea of giving birth to a baby is a little too vivid right now, while the awesome idea of a new baby actually coming to our family is so surreal I can't even picture it. At all. Seriously? In a month we'll have another child? A baby again? A little girl? No....... Really?
Logically I say to myself, yes, there will be a new baby...right...? It's not just a medical horror occurring. It's really a new baby coming, Auburn, a new baby. Really! Even though you can't picture it. And I'll be so excited and happy in the hospital that Iwon't mind will be able to barely tolerate all the indignities and horrors. Right...? :)
And if there's one thing I learned from Seth's birth (or, rather, that was dramatically reinforced), it's that I want a pediatric team with their expertise and equipment to save my baby's life (or brain) if s/he plummets from looking low-risk to having a major emergency in mere (completely unpredictable) moments. So I can deal with it. Keep the maternal sacrifices coming.... ;-)
Less than four weeks, people! Whoa!!! :-)
And I thought I'd enjoy it. Almost five years ago, I had really enjoyed the tour of Seth's hospital. Yes, almost five years! I had been so eager to see the place that I was one of the least-pregnant people there.
I think I was on to something....
Because this tour....
This tour scared the living daylights out of me. Too soon! Too soon!!
Even just sitting in the lobby waiting for our tour guide made me nervous! When a happy family came wandering in with "It's a Girl" balloons and bouquets of flowers, I apparently turned to Matt and muttered: "Oh gosh. Someone just had a baby. . . . Terrible things happen here...." (Haha! Matt laughed at that for a long while. At least one of us was having fun. ;-))
Have I mentioned I hate hospitals? Hate. It's amazing to me that Matt spends his life in them.
And have I mentioned that I hate not having complete control of my body...? The thought of all these people touching me, sticking things in me, collecting or measuring the gross stuff I can't keep from spilling out of me.... It's all very horrifying.
Worth it, though! Worth it! :) I keep chanting this to myself! (I'd be the perfect candidate for a home birth if I didn't care so much about having emergency care ready for our baby. Staying at home sounds sooo comfortable and appealing.... Aside from the mess. Hehe. ;))
So...yeah. I'm in a weird place. The idea of giving birth to a baby is a little too vivid right now, while the awesome idea of a new baby actually coming to our family is so surreal I can't even picture it. At all. Seriously? In a month we'll have another child? A baby again? A little girl? No....... Really?
Logically I say to myself, yes, there will be a new baby...right...? It's not just a medical horror occurring. It's really a new baby coming, Auburn, a new baby. Really! Even though you can't picture it. And I'll be so excited and happy in the hospital that I
And if there's one thing I learned from Seth's birth (or, rather, that was dramatically reinforced), it's that I want a pediatric team with their expertise and equipment to save my baby's life (or brain) if s/he plummets from looking low-risk to having a major emergency in mere (completely unpredictable) moments. So I can deal with it. Keep the maternal sacrifices coming.... ;-)
Less than four weeks, people! Whoa!!! :-)
Friday, October 22
A visitor.
A little while ago, Seth accidentally left the sliding door open to the backyard. When Matt came home a little while later and headed out to say hi to Seth, I heard Matt call out to me: "Hey, Auburn, is that a toy lizard or is it real?" Which sounds scintillating to me.... If he has to ask, it MUST be something cool-looking, not your ordinary lizard! And I knew there wasn't any toy lizard. Matt and I get up close to it about the same time. He (the lizard :)) was AWESOME. Haven't ever seen one like this before....
Our favorite thing about this guy? We had just had an infestation of ants inside, which he promptly took care of. Ran around for a little while eating all of them. Gone. The whole three trails.... You go, Lizard!!
He also moved like a snake! Super-fast, as lizards are, but not a darter—he was a slitherer with legs under him. This whip-like side-to-side thing going on. Totally cool.
We chased him around for a while, trying to capture him (hard to do when the tail is so long...) to help him back outside. The harder it got, the more tempted we were to keep him around. Maybe he eats silverfish, too.... ;-)
Our favorite thing about this guy? We had just had an infestation of ants inside, which he promptly took care of. Ran around for a little while eating all of them. Gone. The whole three trails.... You go, Lizard!!
He also moved like a snake! Super-fast, as lizards are, but not a darter—he was a slitherer with legs under him. This whip-like side-to-side thing going on. Totally cool.
We chased him around for a while, trying to capture him (hard to do when the tail is so long...) to help him back outside. The harder it got, the more tempted we were to keep him around. Maybe he eats silverfish, too.... ;-)
Thursday, October 21
Kids' Day
(I actually wrote this on October 3rd! Just now got the pictures uploaded from Matt's phone, though....)
We had a great Mother's Day. And then we had a great Father's Day. And a little while later, Seth randomly asked from the backseat: "Is there ever going to be a Kids' Day?"
Haha! What a great question! If we can take a whole day for kids and spouse to say thank-you to a mom or dad for being a mom or being a dad, why not celebrate the kids sometime? How fun! It took about half a second for Matt and I to both answer, yes, there is a Kids' Day!
Then we made up some hooey about how, uh, I think it's next month sometime.... :) Seth was darlingly excited.
Every so often he asks us again, "Is it Kids' Day soon?" And today—woo hoo!—today we finally got ourselves together and had Kids' Day.
It has been so, so, so fun. First, we made a special breakfast. Actually two special breakfasts! Matt planned to make cinnamon rolls but didn't get around to making the dough last night, so while we waited for the dough to rise, he made Seth's favorite pancakes: whole wheat. Mmmm.... Then came the cinnamon rolls for lunch.
We've spent the day thanking Seth for being our kid, to which he always grins sweetly and says, "you're welcome!"
And we got him some sa-WEET presents: two dress-up costumes, because we couldn't decide between them! (We might have to make the unveiling of the Halloween Costume a Kids' Day tradition. :))
Much, much, much thanks to our awesome Seth for being our kid, and a great one. Here's to you, kid!
We had a great Mother's Day. And then we had a great Father's Day. And a little while later, Seth randomly asked from the backseat: "Is there ever going to be a Kids' Day?"
Haha! What a great question! If we can take a whole day for kids and spouse to say thank-you to a mom or dad for being a mom or being a dad, why not celebrate the kids sometime? How fun! It took about half a second for Matt and I to both answer, yes, there is a Kids' Day!
Then we made up some hooey about how, uh, I think it's next month sometime.... :) Seth was darlingly excited.
Every so often he asks us again, "Is it Kids' Day soon?" And today—woo hoo!—today we finally got ourselves together and had Kids' Day.
It has been so, so, so fun. First, we made a special breakfast. Actually two special breakfasts! Matt planned to make cinnamon rolls but didn't get around to making the dough last night, so while we waited for the dough to rise, he made Seth's favorite pancakes: whole wheat. Mmmm.... Then came the cinnamon rolls for lunch.
We've spent the day thanking Seth for being our kid, to which he always grins sweetly and says, "you're welcome!"
And we got him some sa-WEET presents: two dress-up costumes, because we couldn't decide between them! (We might have to make the unveiling of the Halloween Costume a Kids' Day tradition. :))
Much, much, much thanks to our awesome Seth for being our kid, and a great one. Here's to you, kid!
Tuesday, October 12
Anesthesia
My book has gone back to a shelf that's too high for me to reach, and I'm too infirm at the moment to climb up a stepladder. But I have to recap the glory of 1940's anesthesia. :)
I loved the excited manner in which he described how, woo hoo! Gone are the days! The days when women must suffer such pain to give birth! Pain is now entirely optional thanks to . . . nitrous oxide!
It goes like this, he explains:
A woman is instructed to bear down just before the worst pain hits. Then she takes a deep breath of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas." Blissfully unaware of . . . anything . . . the mother quickly awakes to discover that by bearing down before she was unconscious, she has assisted her baby in descending through the birth canal. As another pain begins to come on the process is repeated, until finally the mother awakes to find a newborn baby!
Awesome...!?!
You just have to appreciate our day and age, don't you? (And also, a man-centric medical world that managed to finally care about and address the issue of labor pain, even if the best they could come up with for a while was laughing gas!) Almost-all-of-human-experience Lady had no option but to suffer it out—over and over and over again if she didn't happen to be diligently scared into non-menstrual abstinence. (How sad that your relationship with spouse could be so scary! Imagine!) 1940s lady was still getting pregnant all the time, but she could at least whiff some laughing gas...? Dang! And now there's now, when the average woman can plan her pregnancies, then have a barrage of help during the delivery to manage pain in an actually low-risk way. Acupuncture, jet tubs, your husband, injections, epidural....
And you don't even have to be unconscious?! You have got to be kidding me! :)
Thank you, 2010. And all the research and progress that led to it. :)
I loved the excited manner in which he described how, woo hoo! Gone are the days! The days when women must suffer such pain to give birth! Pain is now entirely optional thanks to . . . nitrous oxide!
It goes like this, he explains:
A woman is instructed to bear down just before the worst pain hits. Then she takes a deep breath of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas." Blissfully unaware of . . . anything . . . the mother quickly awakes to discover that by bearing down before she was unconscious, she has assisted her baby in descending through the birth canal. As another pain begins to come on the process is repeated, until finally the mother awakes to find a newborn baby!
Awesome...!?!
You just have to appreciate our day and age, don't you? (And also, a man-centric medical world that managed to finally care about and address the issue of labor pain, even if the best they could come up with for a while was laughing gas!) Almost-all-of-human-experience Lady had no option but to suffer it out—over and over and over again if she didn't happen to be diligently scared into non-menstrual abstinence. (How sad that your relationship with spouse could be so scary! Imagine!) 1940s lady was still getting pregnant all the time, but she could at least whiff some laughing gas...? Dang! And now there's now, when the average woman can plan her pregnancies, then have a barrage of help during the delivery to manage pain in an actually low-risk way. Acupuncture, jet tubs, your husband, injections, epidural....
And you don't even have to be unconscious?! You have got to be kidding me! :)
Thank you, 2010. And all the research and progress that led to it. :)
Tuesday, October 5
Nurses and Residents
Courtesy of Expectant Motherhood.
This one had me chuckling a little. :)
"For many a young woman, admission to the maternity ward marks her first acquaintance with hospitals, as well as with the world of nurses and doctors. The immediate reaction may be one of strangeness, of loneliness and of homesickness. The nurses, in their stiff, white uniforms, may seem on first acquaintance somewhat stern and forbidding; you may even chronicle the impression that, to them, you are just another 'case,' which they are handling in a very matter-of-fact and routine sort of way. But beware of first impressions. Beneath their starched and sedate exterior, these daughters of Florence Nightingale cherish but one mission in life, the safety of such as you and yours; your welfare and that of your baby are their greatest concern and their greatest pride; let either of you show the slightest deviation from normal, and they are at attention to raise heaven and earth in your behalf. If they seem business-like, it is only because of their earnest desire to carry out every detail of the care necessary for your well-being. And what about the hospital doctors, the young men in white who venture hesitatingly into your room at odd moments, ask all kinds of silly questions and insist on thumping your chest or getting a drop of blood from your finger? Much maligned are these young men by misunderstanding patients, and a word in their support seems in order. They are doctors of medicine, you understand, who have gone through the most arduous period of study and training known to any of the learned professions. As medical students they have conducted dozens of deliveries and assisted at scores more; and they have passed no end of exacting examinations in obstetrics and every other branch of medicine. This may be their first, second, or even their third year out of school. Fresh from training in the latest scientific methods, they have at their finger tips an array of procedures which may be of the utmost help to your own physician, who will rely on them for much valuable assistance."
Ah, daughters of Florence Nightingale and young men in white....
(Interestingly, nurses are still almost all women. Do you find that odd? What's not "manly" enough for it?)
(I think I need to go watch Meet the Parents now.... ;-))
This one had me chuckling a little. :)
"For many a young woman, admission to the maternity ward marks her first acquaintance with hospitals, as well as with the world of nurses and doctors. The immediate reaction may be one of strangeness, of loneliness and of homesickness. The nurses, in their stiff, white uniforms, may seem on first acquaintance somewhat stern and forbidding; you may even chronicle the impression that, to them, you are just another 'case,' which they are handling in a very matter-of-fact and routine sort of way. But beware of first impressions. Beneath their starched and sedate exterior, these daughters of Florence Nightingale cherish but one mission in life, the safety of such as you and yours; your welfare and that of your baby are their greatest concern and their greatest pride; let either of you show the slightest deviation from normal, and they are at attention to raise heaven and earth in your behalf. If they seem business-like, it is only because of their earnest desire to carry out every detail of the care necessary for your well-being. And what about the hospital doctors, the young men in white who venture hesitatingly into your room at odd moments, ask all kinds of silly questions and insist on thumping your chest or getting a drop of blood from your finger? Much maligned are these young men by misunderstanding patients, and a word in their support seems in order. They are doctors of medicine, you understand, who have gone through the most arduous period of study and training known to any of the learned professions. As medical students they have conducted dozens of deliveries and assisted at scores more; and they have passed no end of exacting examinations in obstetrics and every other branch of medicine. This may be their first, second, or even their third year out of school. Fresh from training in the latest scientific methods, they have at their finger tips an array of procedures which may be of the utmost help to your own physician, who will rely on them for much valuable assistance."
Ah, daughters of Florence Nightingale and young men in white....
(Interestingly, nurses are still almost all women. Do you find that odd? What's not "manly" enough for it?)
(I think I need to go watch Meet the Parents now.... ;-))
Wednesday, September 29
Oooh.... This one's a goodie!
"Although the mother has no direct responsibility for the care of her baby during the first week or so of the puerperium, she will naturally want to acquaint herself with all that concerns this new and precious possession."
Monday, September 27
On Smoking
From Expectant Motherhood.
"While most obstetrical authorities, then, disapprove of excessive smoking in pregnancy (twenty-five or more cigarettes daily), there is no reason for believing that a woman who smokes moderately, let us say ten cigarettes or less a day, need change her custom at this time. If you have been used to smoking considerably more than this for several years, by no means try to give them up in pregnancy. There is no surer way of upsetting the nerves at a period when you should be calm and happy, or of converting a placid, sweet-tempered girl into an intolerable shrew. With negligible effort, even the most inveterate smoker can usually be content with a package a day or somewhat less, and if you arrange this there is no great cause for concern."
Really, people.... We just need to preserve the placidity of our sweet-tempered pregnant women...! (Er, I mean pregnant girls.) :-D
"While most obstetrical authorities, then, disapprove of excessive smoking in pregnancy (twenty-five or more cigarettes daily), there is no reason for believing that a woman who smokes moderately, let us say ten cigarettes or less a day, need change her custom at this time. If you have been used to smoking considerably more than this for several years, by no means try to give them up in pregnancy. There is no surer way of upsetting the nerves at a period when you should be calm and happy, or of converting a placid, sweet-tempered girl into an intolerable shrew. With negligible effort, even the most inveterate smoker can usually be content with a package a day or somewhat less, and if you arrange this there is no great cause for concern."
Really, people.... We just need to preserve the placidity of our sweet-tempered pregnant women...! (Er, I mean pregnant girls.) :-D
Friday, September 24
Clothing.
Courtesy of Expectant Motherhood.
"The most important consideration in regard to the expectant mother's wardrobe is that it should be attractive."
Ok, stop right there! This is already awesome!
"This may sound like a superficial observation but it is profoundly true. Yes, more important than knowing the dangers of circular garters and high heels is the knowledge that you are well-groomed, because only then (if you are like most women) will you really enjoy entertaining your friends and meeting your husband's friends, and in turn visiting their homes. Pregnancy is no time to be a recluse. The more you are in the company of others, the better off you are; indeed, I have long chronicled the impression that patients who start in labor while playing bridge invariably [invariably! Wow!] have an easy time [emphasis added ;)]. This is simply another way of saying that the woman who cultivates a certain oblivion to the fact that she is pregnant (although obeying the ordinary rules of diet and hygiene) does much better than her introspective sister."
It gets better! :)
"As the appearance of many expectant mothers attests, it is possible to look as attractive at this time as at any other. To be sure, the abdominal rotundity is a handicap [hahahahahaha!!!] but, for some reason, during the middle months of pregnancy women develop a special radiance which is most becoming and [wait for it!] tends to offset this."
HAHAHAHA!!!
HAAAAAHH!! [*wipe eyes*] Ok, continuing.... :)
"Moreover, maternity dresses are so ingeniously contrived these days that they resemble an optical illusion in their ability to beguile the eye in regard to your real contour—which, incidentally, is always more noticeable to you than to anyone else. Patterns for such garments, as well as the ready-made dresses themselves, are readily and inexpensively obtained at any department store and it is a good idea to exercise your ingenuity on this problem."
Love it. Am I the only one laughing my face off right now...? :)
"The most important consideration in regard to the expectant mother's wardrobe is that it should be attractive."
Ok, stop right there! This is already awesome!
"This may sound like a superficial observation but it is profoundly true. Yes, more important than knowing the dangers of circular garters and high heels is the knowledge that you are well-groomed, because only then (if you are like most women) will you really enjoy entertaining your friends and meeting your husband's friends, and in turn visiting their homes. Pregnancy is no time to be a recluse. The more you are in the company of others, the better off you are; indeed, I have long chronicled the impression that patients who start in labor while playing bridge invariably [invariably! Wow!] have an easy time [emphasis added ;)]. This is simply another way of saying that the woman who cultivates a certain oblivion to the fact that she is pregnant (although obeying the ordinary rules of diet and hygiene) does much better than her introspective sister."
It gets better! :)
"As the appearance of many expectant mothers attests, it is possible to look as attractive at this time as at any other. To be sure, the abdominal rotundity is a handicap [hahahahahaha!!!] but, for some reason, during the middle months of pregnancy women develop a special radiance which is most becoming and [wait for it!] tends to offset this."
HAHAHAHA!!!
HAAAAAHH!! [*wipe eyes*] Ok, continuing.... :)
"Moreover, maternity dresses are so ingeniously contrived these days that they resemble an optical illusion in their ability to beguile the eye in regard to your real contour—which, incidentally, is always more noticeable to you than to anyone else. Patterns for such garments, as well as the ready-made dresses themselves, are readily and inexpensively obtained at any department store and it is a good idea to exercise your ingenuity on this problem."
Love it. Am I the only one laughing my face off right now...? :)
Pearls of Wisdom
Long before there was "What To Expect When You're Expecting" there was another primer on all things pregnancy: "Expectant Motherhood." An indispensable guide! It was written by Dr. Nicholson J. Eastman, M.D., the Obstetrician-in-Chief to the esteemed Johns Hopkins Hospital.
I know this because my mom likes to buy us awesome antique books. :)
This book was first published in 1940. I have the Second Edition, which was published in 1947 offering more modern advice (my copy is a 1949 reprint). I have no idea how long this book was a standard. But it's hilarious. Hahahahaha!!!
I'm not sure what's funnier: the medicine, or the social commentary! Let's just say I have an even greater appreciation now for booming research and also for women's lib. ;-)
(Although, to give this guy, his society and his field credit, I'm sometimes even more surprised with how progressive some of it is. I'm curious how this 1949 version might be different from the 1940 version—the War changed so many things for American culture and for medicine.)
I give you some gems! And I'm sure there are enough to keep them coming for the next little while. Enjoy!!
"Today, thanks to the studies of two German doctors, Aschheim and Zondek, we have at last a sound and trustworthy test for pregnancy and interestingly enough it is performed, like the tests of old, on urine. In carrying out the test a small quantity of morning urine is..."
Can you complete the sentence?
He's just spent several pages talking about how difficult it is to diagnose pregnancy (a problem which is actually kind of interesting to imagine!), but now.... Now! Finally! A simple, easy test!! The small quantity of morning urine is...?
"...injected into a mouse or rabbit."
Of course!
"If the urine comes from a pregnant woman, definite and characteristic changes are produced in the ovaries of the animal within 48 or 72 hours; if the person is not pregnant no alterations whatsoever occur. This test is accurate in about 95% of cases."
:)
Even awesomer!:
"The skeleton of the growing baby is usually demonstrable in X-ray pictures of the mother's abdomen from the beginning of the fifth month and when thus seen is, of course, absolute positive proof of pregnancy."
Ah. Yes. So now we know what the deal is with those Baby Boomers.... ;-)
Actually, it at least goes on to say that visualization is rarely possible before 14 weeks (today's 16), so it's not that useful and is rarely used. Whew!
Friday, September 17
Wearing thin....
Yet getting so... not thin. ;-)
I'm at 28 weeks now. I think a week or two ago, a switch went off that went: "Ding. Third Trimester. Engage Misery." Not that I wasn't super-tired and super-sore the whole second trimester, too—but, wow! I'm just dying now! Awesome-baby-who-I-swear-I-adore is in my ribs now*. I'm getting a bit of a respite from the kicking-against-the-pelvic-floor trauma that seemed to last much of every day for so long (now it's just bits here and there), but my ribs! AhHOHOWHEHAHKJdfhkhsdfjhajhwoHWHAL!
[That groan turned out kind of cool. I like it. :)]
And, man.... Everything—everything!—just hurts. And I'm randomly morning-sick again, although this time, really just in the morning.
I'm overwhelmed, though, with how all this physical trauma (the pregnancy and the medical loveliness for so long before) is such a small price to pay. It really doesn't seem just to not suffer even more for something so miraculous and wonderful. So while I let myself acknowledge that, yikes, this is really, really miserable(!), I'm also really in awe. And so full of gratitude.
We have a good idea of her birthday ;-) (watch our plans get foiled, though!), and I'm counting the days...!
*Stand up. Find the top of your hip. Now find the bottom of your ribcage. How far is the span between bones? Mine is no more than an inch! Seriously! (My legs are 2/3 my total height!) This isn't so convenient when housing another human being.... The ribs—front and back—are truly suffering. Suffering, I tell you! Suffering! ;)
Love, love, love you, baby girl. :-*
I'm at 28 weeks now. I think a week or two ago, a switch went off that went: "Ding. Third Trimester. Engage Misery." Not that I wasn't super-tired and super-sore the whole second trimester, too—but, wow! I'm just dying now! Awesome-baby-who-I-swear-I-adore is in my ribs now*. I'm getting a bit of a respite from the kicking-against-the-pelvic-floor trauma that seemed to last much of every day for so long (now it's just bits here and there), but my ribs! AhHOHOWHEHAHKJdfhkhsdfjhajhwoHWHAL!
[That groan turned out kind of cool. I like it. :)]
And, man.... Everything—everything!—just hurts. And I'm randomly morning-sick again, although this time, really just in the morning.
I'm overwhelmed, though, with how all this physical trauma (the pregnancy and the medical loveliness for so long before) is such a small price to pay. It really doesn't seem just to not suffer even more for something so miraculous and wonderful. So while I let myself acknowledge that, yikes, this is really, really miserable(!), I'm also really in awe. And so full of gratitude.
We have a good idea of her birthday ;-) (watch our plans get foiled, though!), and I'm counting the days...!
*Stand up. Find the top of your hip. Now find the bottom of your ribcage. How far is the span between bones? Mine is no more than an inch! Seriously! (My legs are 2/3 my total height!) This isn't so convenient when housing another human being.... The ribs—front and back—are truly suffering. Suffering, I tell you! Suffering! ;)
Love, love, love you, baby girl. :-*
Thursday, September 16
Auburn's Tips for Vacationing Off-Season!
Undoubtedly, there are places which should not be visited outside of the tourist season. ;-)
Alaska, for example.
I'd love to take an Alaskan cruise one of these days. My favorite travel months of November through February would, uh.... Probably not work out too well.
When we were planning our trip to Costa Rica, we were a little worried about reports that through much of the year, the country is under water and you need to ride a kayak around. (Or something like that.... ;-))
What can you do? Gotta go during tourist season, right?
WRONG!
You can still beat the system! Muwahahahahaha!!
Check for the when hotels and vacation rentals and airlines claim "low season," "medium season," and "high season." Do NOT go in high season. It will cost a ton more, and the experience will be worse. DO go in low season!
But go for the first or last week of it.... ;-)
Muwahahahahahaha!!! Oh, so sneaky!
(Not really. It's pretty obvious. And yet...? No one does it....)
This will make your vacation cost half as much, give you a thousand times the experience, and the weather will be virtually the same. Jackpot. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
Maybe I'll end up with more tips than just this. We'll see. :)
I'd love to take an Alaskan cruise one of these days. My favorite travel months of November through February would, uh.... Probably not work out too well.
When we were planning our trip to Costa Rica, we were a little worried about reports that through much of the year, the country is under water and you need to ride a kayak around. (Or something like that.... ;-))
What can you do? Gotta go during tourist season, right?
WRONG!
You can still beat the system! Muwahahahahaha!!
Check for the when hotels and vacation rentals and airlines claim "low season," "medium season," and "high season." Do NOT go in high season. It will cost a ton more, and the experience will be worse. DO go in low season!
But go for the first or last week of it.... ;-)
Muwahahahahahaha!!! Oh, so sneaky!
(Not really. It's pretty obvious. And yet...? No one does it....)
This will make your vacation cost half as much, give you a thousand times the experience, and the weather will be virtually the same. Jackpot. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
Maybe I'll end up with more tips than just this. We'll see. :)
Wednesday, September 15
Vacationing in Summer. Part Three.
A few years later, I was back in England—this time as a student of art and architecture (no, not creating my own :)). I showed up the first of the year.
For the next few months, I got to know London in a really fabulous way. I love London! I had a great time becoming familiar with the subtleties of London culture. It began to feel like a home away from home.
And then . . . .
SPRING BREAK!!!
[Cue Psycho slashing music! Strings, strings, strings, strings!!]
Americans descended upon London like the plague. Not that I have anything against Americans in London.... (I was one, after all. :)) But they all came at once!
The city was changed.
Everything was more crowded. Dollar bills filled the donation bins. The locals seemed to disappear.... Instead of the usual dispersement of wandering patrons throughout a gallery, crowds followed each other to sardine themselves in front of something like Sunflowers by Van Gogh. (Furthermore, Americans aren't as quiet in galleries....) Bridges were suddenly crowded with tourists snapping pictures of Parliament, or St. Paul's, or the Tower of London. Those obnoxious tourist buses (for folks who go to a city to sit in a tourist bus) were out and about in droves.
The foot traffic on the sidewalks shifted sides, for heaven's sake...! :)
It was a different place! Really a very stark, unexpected, jarring contrast! (Kristin can back me up on this. It's true! :)) And I couldn't help but feel really, really sad for these thousands of people who were taking a trip of a lifetime, but had no clue that they weren't experiencing the real London.
A couple weeks later.... The American plague was gone, and London went back to normal.
And I logged away this rule of thumb: I'll never travel during Spring Break, either. (Not unless it's a place no one would go in Spring.... Like...?) What's the point of exploring a new culture if you'll just find a bunch of other visitors there? And even if I'm just visiting exotic Montana or something, I want to see exotic Montana the way the locals do! I want to see the quiet days! (Are there unquiet days in Montana? ;-)) I want things uncrowded and authentic. I want to soak up the culture. I want to wander a "tourist trap" on the days when it's left the most normal—the most natural, or the most empty, or the most quiet—and when it's being explored the way its own culture explores it.
And I definitely don't want to be one of those people who visited London during Spring Break 2001 without realizing that in the weeks before and the weeks after...it was a different place. They almost came at the right time. So close....
Strike Three against Summer travel. You're out, Summer. :) (And take Spring break with you. ;))
For the next few months, I got to know London in a really fabulous way. I love London! I had a great time becoming familiar with the subtleties of London culture. It began to feel like a home away from home.
And then . . . .
SPRING BREAK!!!
[Cue Psycho slashing music! Strings, strings, strings, strings!!]
Americans descended upon London like the plague. Not that I have anything against Americans in London.... (I was one, after all. :)) But they all came at once!
The city was changed.
Everything was more crowded. Dollar bills filled the donation bins. The locals seemed to disappear.... Instead of the usual dispersement of wandering patrons throughout a gallery, crowds followed each other to sardine themselves in front of something like Sunflowers by Van Gogh. (Furthermore, Americans aren't as quiet in galleries....) Bridges were suddenly crowded with tourists snapping pictures of Parliament, or St. Paul's, or the Tower of London. Those obnoxious tourist buses (for folks who go to a city to sit in a tourist bus) were out and about in droves.
The foot traffic on the sidewalks shifted sides, for heaven's sake...! :)
It was a different place! Really a very stark, unexpected, jarring contrast! (Kristin can back me up on this. It's true! :)) And I couldn't help but feel really, really sad for these thousands of people who were taking a trip of a lifetime, but had no clue that they weren't experiencing the real London.
A couple weeks later.... The American plague was gone, and London went back to normal.
And I logged away this rule of thumb: I'll never travel during Spring Break, either. (Not unless it's a place no one would go in Spring.... Like...?) What's the point of exploring a new culture if you'll just find a bunch of other visitors there? And even if I'm just visiting exotic Montana or something, I want to see exotic Montana the way the locals do! I want to see the quiet days! (Are there unquiet days in Montana? ;-)) I want things uncrowded and authentic. I want to soak up the culture. I want to wander a "tourist trap" on the days when it's left the most normal—the most natural, or the most empty, or the most quiet—and when it's being explored the way its own culture explores it.
And I definitely don't want to be one of those people who visited London during Spring Break 2001 without realizing that in the weeks before and the weeks after...it was a different place. They almost came at the right time. So close....
Strike Three against Summer travel. You're out, Summer. :) (And take Spring break with you. ;))
Sunday, September 12
Vacationing in Summer. Part Two.
The next year, another spur-of-the-moment trip. (I love my family. :)) My dad came home from work one day and said, "Anyone want to go to England in a few weeks?!" Hahaha!
He had noticed some amazing fares and jumped on it, figuring, why the heck not...?
A midnight-trip to Kinko's for passport photos was really the only casualty of our quick planning (we all looked pretty scary! Haha!) and, thanks to being willing to leave last-second and on Christmas Eve, we were able to take a trip of a lifetime that we surely couldn't have taken otherwise.
Strike Two against tourist season. :)
My dad even made it on the news to share this awesome travel strategy! There was a news crew at the airport and my brother Dave, ever the extravert :), shouted over to them: "Hey! Can we get an interview?!" And they actually came over! Turned their lights on us and asked my dad why were we traveling on Christmas Eve...?
When we came home two weeks later, our neighbors and friends were all excited to tell us they'd seen us on the news with his two brief words of wisdom:
"CHEAP. AIRFARE."
Moral of the story: You can go more places if you go at a weird time. And you can even get on TV. :)
He had noticed some amazing fares and jumped on it, figuring, why the heck not...?
A midnight-trip to Kinko's for passport photos was really the only casualty of our quick planning (we all looked pretty scary! Haha!) and, thanks to being willing to leave last-second and on Christmas Eve, we were able to take a trip of a lifetime that we surely couldn't have taken otherwise.
Strike Two against tourist season. :)
My dad even made it on the news to share this awesome travel strategy! There was a news crew at the airport and my brother Dave, ever the extravert :), shouted over to them: "Hey! Can we get an interview?!" And they actually came over! Turned their lights on us and asked my dad why were we traveling on Christmas Eve...?
When we came home two weeks later, our neighbors and friends were all excited to tell us they'd seen us on the news with his two brief words of wisdom:
"CHEAP. AIRFARE."
Moral of the story: You can go more places if you go at a weird time. And you can even get on TV. :)
Vacationing in Summer. Part One.
I should have named this series: "Vacationing any time other than Summer." Because that's what I mean to promote.
But not too vigorously, mind you, because I'm counting on the world to keep following each other on vacation the same three or four months of the year. So we can have good vacations. :) Yessss!!!
My testimony of off-season travel began in Nauvoo, Illinois.
It's an historical site for our church—a place where Mormons built a beautiful city from swampland before they were forced out to trek to the Salt Lake Valley. Like many members of the church, we have several ancestors who had lived there. And one of the restored homes open for tours belonged to my 3rd-great-grandfather! He built it himself and lived there with his family. When he left for Salt Lake he gave the home to Joseph Smith's mother. It's billed as Lucy Mack Smith's house, with secondary billing to my gramps Joseph Bates Noble. Very cool.
My parents had always wanted to go, and it worked out for us to take a trip in . . . December.
Illinois.
In December.
We were all a little skeered. :)
Can I just say.... It was AWESOME!!! We were in Nauvoo for four days, and all but one afternoon when another family came through for just a few hours, we were the only ones there. Sure we were cold! Who cares?! We were the only ones there! (As in, really, the only ones.) It was awesome. We'd go up to the brickyard to make bricks, or the masonry shop, or a restored home, or wherever, and the senior missionary couple would just light up, so excited to have people come by! They'd put down their cards (how many people get to see missionaries playing cards? ;)) and swarm us, giving us the best tour ever. We became friends with everyone there. We lingered. Pictures and journals were pulled out for us to look at. By the end of our stay, the missionaries even organized a piano recital for everyone's entertainment. It was the most charming thing of all time, strolling around this restored town (that was fabulously decorated for Christmas, no less—1800's style!) with no one there but ourselves and a bunch of cute, lonely, cold senior missionaries who loved us.
We loved the cafe we kept frequenting, too, and became friends with plenty of non-Mormon Nauvoo residents, which was fabulous! What a wonderful experience to truly experience this quaint, charming place—not at all as a tourist attraction, but a real town with real people.
We went to several other church history sites—Liberty Jail, Adam-Ondi-Ahman, the Far West temple site, Independence, Carthage Jail—and in each place, we were alone. I especially loved being able to talk so much with people at other churches—splinter groups that believed in, say, The Book of Mormon, but not in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a particularly wonderful experience at the temple for the formerly-known Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now The Community of Christ), and became fast friends with the woman showing us their building and sharing her testimony.
Contrast that with the stories I remember hearing from friends the following Summer: tales of waiting in two-hour lines, of picking and choosing which places you can hit on account of the crowds, of a line being ushered quickly through a building.... They all had a good time! But...we were the only ones there!
Was it worth the extra pairs of gloves to see a totally empty Nauvoo...? OH my goodness, YES.
It was an experience we'll never forget. Authentic. Not at all contrived. And complete with new friends, from LDS missionaries, to normal ol' residents, to volunteers from other religions.
My testimony of non-Summer travel was born! BIG time.
But not too vigorously, mind you, because I'm counting on the world to keep following each other on vacation the same three or four months of the year. So we can have good vacations. :) Yessss!!!
My testimony of off-season travel began in Nauvoo, Illinois.
It's an historical site for our church—a place where Mormons built a beautiful city from swampland before they were forced out to trek to the Salt Lake Valley. Like many members of the church, we have several ancestors who had lived there. And one of the restored homes open for tours belonged to my 3rd-great-grandfather! He built it himself and lived there with his family. When he left for Salt Lake he gave the home to Joseph Smith's mother. It's billed as Lucy Mack Smith's house, with secondary billing to my gramps Joseph Bates Noble. Very cool.
My parents had always wanted to go, and it worked out for us to take a trip in . . . December.
Illinois.
In December.
We were all a little skeered. :)
Can I just say.... It was AWESOME!!! We were in Nauvoo for four days, and all but one afternoon when another family came through for just a few hours, we were the only ones there. Sure we were cold! Who cares?! We were the only ones there! (As in, really, the only ones.) It was awesome. We'd go up to the brickyard to make bricks, or the masonry shop, or a restored home, or wherever, and the senior missionary couple would just light up, so excited to have people come by! They'd put down their cards (how many people get to see missionaries playing cards? ;)) and swarm us, giving us the best tour ever. We became friends with everyone there. We lingered. Pictures and journals were pulled out for us to look at. By the end of our stay, the missionaries even organized a piano recital for everyone's entertainment. It was the most charming thing of all time, strolling around this restored town (that was fabulously decorated for Christmas, no less—1800's style!) with no one there but ourselves and a bunch of cute, lonely, cold senior missionaries who loved us.
We loved the cafe we kept frequenting, too, and became friends with plenty of non-Mormon Nauvoo residents, which was fabulous! What a wonderful experience to truly experience this quaint, charming place—not at all as a tourist attraction, but a real town with real people.
We went to several other church history sites—Liberty Jail, Adam-Ondi-Ahman, the Far West temple site, Independence, Carthage Jail—and in each place, we were alone. I especially loved being able to talk so much with people at other churches—splinter groups that believed in, say, The Book of Mormon, but not in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a particularly wonderful experience at the temple for the formerly-known Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now The Community of Christ), and became fast friends with the woman showing us their building and sharing her testimony.
Contrast that with the stories I remember hearing from friends the following Summer: tales of waiting in two-hour lines, of picking and choosing which places you can hit on account of the crowds, of a line being ushered quickly through a building.... They all had a good time! But...we were the only ones there!
Was it worth the extra pairs of gloves to see a totally empty Nauvoo...? OH my goodness, YES.
It was an experience we'll never forget. Authentic. Not at all contrived. And complete with new friends, from LDS missionaries, to normal ol' residents, to volunteers from other religions.
My testimony of non-Summer travel was born! BIG time.
Friday, September 10
Summer's Over! Woo hoo!!
I went back to Sea World, the Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park this week after a bit of a hiatus and thought...ahhhhh.... Summer's over!
I hate Summer. I've always hated Summer. I remember as a kid—in my couple of years before year-round schooling—that while the end of the school year was pretty exciting, within a week or so I was so over Summer. By the time I got back to school, it was as if Summer had lasted four years. (And, when you think about the percentage three months is in a 6-year-old's memory, that makes some sense!)
Then year-round began, and my love-affair with the other nine months of the year hit full-swing. One-month vacations instead of three? Awesome. Three-month school periods instead of nine? Double-awesome. Family vacations in . . . Winter? Awesome times infinity!!!
Because, you see.... I hate Summer.
And here's why:
1. Too hot. (Not so much in San Diego, but still. We had a week or two when being outside all day wasn't pleasant. And that's just annoying.) (Oh, but then we'd go to my parents' and, AHHH! 95 degrees! 100 degrees! 90 degrees! No thank you. Denver.... 93 degrees! Provo.... 100 degrees!! Summer most of my life has been way too hot.)
2. Too dead. Denver was the one exception to this—it's dead the rest of the year! Haha! Seriously, it is. And then Summer comes around and everything is green and you think, ahhhh.... Why can't it be Summer all year? This was a huge paradigm shift for me: to look forward to Summer. (It was still too hot, though. :)) But California gets gorgeous through Fall and Winter—wildflowers galore—and within three days of Summer weather it's all a mass of death. Very sad.
3. TOO MANY PEOPLE. Anywhere you want to go, there are too many people! We refuse to partake. What's better crowded than uncrowded? Nothing.
So let's get this straight. Everyone else waits for Summer to do things. So they can go somewhere crowded. And bake.
Very smart, people.
We went back to some of our favorite spots this week, found quick and easy parking, walked around in the 68-degree breeze and sunshine, saw nearly no one, took a refreshing breath and thought...ahhhhhhh.... It's back! Life!
I'm starting to get majorly depressed about Seth starting school next year—despite how much I know he'll love it—for two major reasons:
1. (another bullet list :)) Full-day kindergarten! Curse working parents for the demise of half-day! I have to lose Seth for 30+ hours a week?! You kidding me? That's cruel.
2. The Traditional Calendar!!!
I don't know who to blame for that one. But I'm having a heck of a time finding a year-round school. Even the "year-round" calendars still give you two months of your vacation in the Summer, and that is not ok with us. Not ok at all.
So I guess the school and the state and the country and the universe are just going to have to be ok with the fact that we will dapple into truancy. Hahaha! Really, though. We will. Because we love our family time! When Matt is post-call with a whole weekday free, we do something as a family. And we'll be darned if we start to only do those things during . . . Summer. [Ewwwwww!!!] Or weekends! [More ewwwwww!!]
Will we ever, ever, ever go to Disneyland in the Summer? Ha! No way. (You've got to be INSANE to go to Disneyland in the Summer. Those of you who have only been in Summer: do you have any idea what you're missing? It's a completely different place on those 10-6 days. Totally fabulous. Pain-free.)
Will we ever, ever, ever take a family vacation in the Summer? Double-no!! (Nothing ruins a great place like tourists! We'll even take bad weather to not go with tourists! A post on this to follow.... :))
Will we be able to resist bringing Seth home for perfectly gorgeous Winter days at uncrowded beaches and empty tourist sites, or for two-week vacations to destinations no one else is destining...? No times infinity!!
If truancy is a crime, lock us up now! (Or just get the independent study contracts ready. :))
Don't take it too hard. We like you, school. We just like being together so much more!
And we hate Summer.
I hate Summer. I've always hated Summer. I remember as a kid—in my couple of years before year-round schooling—that while the end of the school year was pretty exciting, within a week or so I was so over Summer. By the time I got back to school, it was as if Summer had lasted four years. (And, when you think about the percentage three months is in a 6-year-old's memory, that makes some sense!)
Then year-round began, and my love-affair with the other nine months of the year hit full-swing. One-month vacations instead of three? Awesome. Three-month school periods instead of nine? Double-awesome. Family vacations in . . . Winter? Awesome times infinity!!!
Because, you see.... I hate Summer.
And here's why:
1. Too hot. (Not so much in San Diego, but still. We had a week or two when being outside all day wasn't pleasant. And that's just annoying.) (Oh, but then we'd go to my parents' and, AHHH! 95 degrees! 100 degrees! 90 degrees! No thank you. Denver.... 93 degrees! Provo.... 100 degrees!! Summer most of my life has been way too hot.)
2. Too dead. Denver was the one exception to this—it's dead the rest of the year! Haha! Seriously, it is. And then Summer comes around and everything is green and you think, ahhhh.... Why can't it be Summer all year? This was a huge paradigm shift for me: to look forward to Summer. (It was still too hot, though. :)) But California gets gorgeous through Fall and Winter—wildflowers galore—and within three days of Summer weather it's all a mass of death. Very sad.
3. TOO MANY PEOPLE. Anywhere you want to go, there are too many people! We refuse to partake. What's better crowded than uncrowded? Nothing.
So let's get this straight. Everyone else waits for Summer to do things. So they can go somewhere crowded. And bake.
Very smart, people.
We went back to some of our favorite spots this week, found quick and easy parking, walked around in the 68-degree breeze and sunshine, saw nearly no one, took a refreshing breath and thought...ahhhhhhh.... It's back! Life!
I'm starting to get majorly depressed about Seth starting school next year—despite how much I know he'll love it—for two major reasons:
1. (another bullet list :)) Full-day kindergarten! Curse working parents for the demise of half-day! I have to lose Seth for 30+ hours a week?! You kidding me? That's cruel.
2. The Traditional Calendar!!!
I don't know who to blame for that one. But I'm having a heck of a time finding a year-round school. Even the "year-round" calendars still give you two months of your vacation in the Summer, and that is not ok with us. Not ok at all.
So I guess the school and the state and the country and the universe are just going to have to be ok with the fact that we will dapple into truancy. Hahaha! Really, though. We will. Because we love our family time! When Matt is post-call with a whole weekday free, we do something as a family. And we'll be darned if we start to only do those things during . . . Summer. [Ewwwwww!!!] Or weekends! [More ewwwwww!!]
Will we ever, ever, ever go to Disneyland in the Summer? Ha! No way. (You've got to be INSANE to go to Disneyland in the Summer. Those of you who have only been in Summer: do you have any idea what you're missing? It's a completely different place on those 10-6 days. Totally fabulous. Pain-free.)
Will we ever, ever, ever take a family vacation in the Summer? Double-no!! (Nothing ruins a great place like tourists! We'll even take bad weather to not go with tourists! A post on this to follow.... :))
Will we be able to resist bringing Seth home for perfectly gorgeous Winter days at uncrowded beaches and empty tourist sites, or for two-week vacations to destinations no one else is destining...? No times infinity!!
If truancy is a crime, lock us up now! (Or just get the independent study contracts ready. :))
Don't take it too hard. We like you, school. We just like being together so much more!
And we hate Summer.
Monday, August 23
There's No Hope
I want to like fish sooooo bad. It looks absolutely delectable. The meat is such a great texture, you can flavor it all different ways, it's really good for you...!Unfortunately, it also tastes like . . . fish! Like the way a pier smells. Like some kind of chemical is putrefying on your plate!
After a successful acclimation to spicy food (thank you, Chris, my "Spice Coach" ;)), I was determined to overcome my sensitivity to that "fishy" flavor. For years Matt was on the hunt for fish that was mild enough for me to enjoy. He'd order fish every chance he got and carefully evaluate.... Then it was either, "Nope, Auburn, this is kind of fishy." Or, if I were lucky, it was, "oh yeah, I'm sure this isn't fishy at all! You can try this one!"
So I'd try it.
Fishy. Every time.
Makes me want to puke.
Mahi mahi. Fishy. Mahi mahi encrusted with some kind of divine macadamia nut mixture. Fishy. The perfect salmon. Fishy. Halibut. Fishy. $40 fish entree. Fishy! I mean, really people. How can you stand it? Do you lick piers, too?
Eventually, Matt gave up. He'd try something and say, "you know, I could swear this doesn't have any fishiness! But you better not try it.... Sorry." :)
The nail in the coffin happened a couple years ago when Brian and Janelle drove to Denver and offered us some of their road snacks. I went for the beef jerky. Mmmm!! Beef jerkkk.... Wha...?
Tastes like FISH!!!
I started to complain. Does anyone else taste this? The beef jerky is fishy! No one believed me—thought I was crazy. I tried another bite. Ugh. Fish fish fish.
At which point, Janelle, incredulous, with a bit of "I'm in the twilight zone" in her voice, said: "Ummmm.... The bag of beef jerky was sitting next to a bottle of omega-3 supplements. Those have, uh.... Fish oil...." Hadn't come in contact—just supplements in a bottle sitting in a bag next to a sealed package of beef jerky. Could it be possible?
All these years I had wondered if the fishiness were just in my head, and now it all clicked. Why would my psyche randomly decide that beef jerky should taste like fish oil...? I started to remember all those times I had eaten something random at a restaurant and had to throw it away because it was too fishy—french fries, carrot cake?, vegetables.
My mind flashed to that chemical-paper genetics experiment in high school biology. Mr. Jones came in with a tube of little strips of paper, gleeful. "Golding! I can't wait for you to taste this! Muwahahahahaha!!!!" Everyone gets a paper to taste. For the vast majority, the paper will taste horribly bitter. But if you happen to have two recessive genes, you'll taste nothing. We had 25 people in the class. I braced for the taste! My classmates started to moan and spit and gag and complain. I tasted . . . nothing. Out of all 25 in the class, I was the only one who could taste nothing. I chewed on that piece of paper for a while just reveling in the awesomeness that is genetics (and in the chagrin of my teacher who had been so excited to torture me :)). So cool! Genes can make you not taste a nasty chemical on a piece of paper!
So now I'm tasting fish on beef jerky and realizing.... I've got some kind of freak genetic thing that makes me taste a chemical in fish other people don't taste!
My dream died.
I also felt vindicated. :)
But the dream died....
And I'll never be able to eat fish. :-( It's really, really, really sad.
A few weeks ago, Matt bought some Smart Balance eggs. He was so excited about them, too. They'll taste better! They're good for you! Seth eats so many eggs, and now he'll get more Omega-3s!
I made myself an egg-on-bagel sandwich and.... You guessed it!
Fish.
Are you kidding me! Eggs that taste like fish? Who could have seen that coming?! (Disgusting. I had to throw it away after a few bites because I just couldn't take it anymore.)
I don't know what they're feeding those chickens to get Omega-3s in those eggs, but the litmus test—me!—says fish is involved somewhere! I googled it to see if I were crazy. Sure enough, there were but a few souls out there asking the question: "why do my smart balance eggs taste like fish?" The world rose in revolt against them to say, wow, you're insane. But I think they're on to something...!
R.I.P. craving for fish. It's never gonna happen.
Tuesday, August 10
To find out or not to find out....
I just read on someone's blog (someone I don't know :)) about the really fun way they found out about the sex of their baby. They said at the last-minute, they asked the tech to write down the gender and seal it in an envelope—and right away they took the envelope to a baker and asked him to bake a cake with pink or blue frosting. They invited their families over for dinner and (with much fanfare, I'm sure) the soon-to-be-Mom got to cut into . . .
Is that fun or is that fun? If I felt like finding out along with a bunch of people, I'd wish we'd thought up this idea ourselves! Maybe at home with our own kids someday.... (How much would kids love that?!) Too cute.
Sunday, August 8
Another goodie!
Seth's prayer last night:
Heavenly Father
Thank You for our things ("our hings")
I would really appreciate it ("hur-preesh-iate it") if You would come to our house to visit
Really soon
And
I'm showing You I keep my deals
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I love that Seth doesn't say the same things all the time. :) And that He frequently tells God "I'd really hurpreeshiate it if . . . ." :-D You know, things like coming over for a visit. He's not a mimicker, that's for sure. Haha! (Or do I sometimes pray like that? Heavenly Father, we'd really appreciate it if Seth could get some help with his scratching so he doesn't die soon. But if he does die soon, help him be happy to live with Thee again. :))
(Showing he can keep his deals is a conversation I'd had with him the other night about why it would be a good idea to go to sleep after he had made a deal with dad for extra Legos time. ;))
The best prayer of the year was in Church a few months ago. Seth's prayers have been impressively context-specific. For probably a full year, every time he prayed at home he would start with: "Heavenly Father, please help us to have a baay-bee. Thank you for...." So when he'd volunteer in nursery at church to say the prayer for the snack, I'd brace myself for a funny situation (I worked in nursery with some other adults). But, dozens of times, he prayed only for things relevant to the nursery class, never for help having a baby. Whew!
Then he graduates to the big-kid "Primary" and I heard him pray in class a few times. It was always context-specific still—so when it was his turn to pray up at the microphone on behalf of all the kids (and bunches of teachers!) in Primary, and I was not telling anyone I was pregnant, I trusted everything would be fine.
First thing out of his mouth! In the microphone! Completely discernable!:
Heavenly Father
Thank you for our baay-bee
Please help our baby to grow
Ohhhh boy! Hahaha!
Then he goes on and on with the sweetest prayer ever:
Thank you for our moms
Thank you for our dads
Thank you for all the pretty flowers
and Thank you for the beautiful sky ("kighhh...")
Thank you for our hings
Thank you we can all be friends
Thank you that we can do hings
Thank you we can have our moms and dads
He had a few more, I just can't remember now. But do you think the cuteness and lengthiness made anyone forget that first part? Haha!
As soon as he says Amen, the chorister sitting behind me goes: "Aw! That was the sweetest prayer EVER!" And the pianist blurts out: "Cat's out of the bag! I hope you were ready!" And all the teachers and everyone else just sit there grinning at me with the funniest looks. It was hilarious. Not a bad way to tell everyone, though.... :)
Friday, August 6
Aha!
I found out the other day that there's a real reason I didn't feel the baby move until—honestly—the same day that Matt could feel her, too! (Almost 20 weeks!) Anterior placenta! (One of Matt's theories, actually.) The placenta is in the front rather than the back, and therefore acting as some kind of barricade. I'm also larger on the right side than the left! Hahaha! Which might be explained solely by the fact that she's breech and most of her body is over there. But maybe that's where the placenta is, too. I'm curious how long I'll look down and see my belly button off-center. Hehe. (No one else notices I'm lopsided, but I've been noticing since I started showing.)
I decided to dress all comfortably last week (21 1/2 weeks) and it happened to be a dress that showed off my belly, and Matt snapped some impromptu pictures. The evolution of the shot kind of amused me. :)
I decided to dress all comfortably last week (21 1/2 weeks) and it happened to be a dress that showed off my belly, and Matt snapped some impromptu pictures. The evolution of the shot kind of amused me. :)
Yeah, um. I'm pretty sure we didn't get anything serious. I'm pretty sure that's impossible when Matt or I is taking pictures of the other.
If those were a little painful, here's something gorgeous to feast your eyes upon:
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