The Complainer
I read Dooce a lot, at least a couple of times a week. Often I find her funny, many time meladramatic and whiny. And good God, has she been whiny during this pregnancy.
Take
this post for example. Each woman is different I suppose, but cervical checks are not that bad. Honestly. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a warm and fuzzy feeling either but it's nothing really painful. For me, it didn't feel all that different from my annual exams. I was "checked" twice at weekly appointments--my last two--and then at least twice while I was in labor but before my epidural. And until I read this post, I had forgotten all about these checks. Maybe time has made my memory fuzzy but I really don't think it was as bad as Dooce describes here.
Let's hope she gets an epidural before she even goes into labor because methinks someone has an exceedingly low threshold for pain.
Labels: i like stories, preggo
Crack for All You Non-Drug User Types
My parents had very definitive ideas when it came to food for their kids. Not to say, they were health-freaks. Oh no, we had our fair share of fast food. They did have very
particular rules though. Drinking soda before noon, for example, means that you must be living in the ghetto. Milk was to be drank with just about every dinner--even the aforementioned fast food. Sometimes even with pizza. Yeah, shudder with me now.
But perhaps they were most strict about cereal. On rare occasions, maybe in the summer as a treat, we would have Frosted Flakes. Other than that, it was always either Total or maybe Rice
Crispies. Now you can argue that Rice
Crispies may not be the most nutritional cereal, but it's better than a lot of others. At any rate, what my parents were trying to avoid--an addiction to junk cereal--worked. To this day, the likes of Trix, Fruit Loops, and Coco Puffs have never passed my lips.
Understandably, I was outraged when
they tried giving Fruit Loops to Rolo at his old day care.
For years I've been eating
Kashi Go Lean Crunch, but the last couple of months to spice up the morning routine, I've occasionally gotten
Total's Cinnamon Crunch. I like my cereal to stay crunchy in milk, which sadly, most Total cereals do not. But Cinnamon Crunch does plus it still have 100% daily intake of just about every vitamin and nutrient known to man.
The other day I asked Ron to pick up some bananas and some Total Cinnamon Crunch while I was at yoga. Instead he brought home
Cinnamon Toast Crunch because they "didn't have" the Total kind. Right. That's really just man-talk for "I'm a man and can't find anything even if I'm staring right at it".
So yesterday morning I bust open my box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, not really thinking there would be much of a difference, and HOLY GOD, is this crack in a box? It's so...sweet and sugary and....how about I have another bowl? This is what I've been depriving myself of all these years?
Once I had gotten my fix this morning, I noticed that the box says something about it being a great source of calcium and vitamin D. Now, I knew that Cinnamon Toast Crunch wasn't going to measure up to Total in terms of nutritional value, but I decide it can't be that bad right?
Yeah, it's great source of calcium and vitamin D if you freaking add milk (and presumably drink all the milk from the bowl) and even then it's only 25% of your daily intake! In fact, without milk, it has between 0% and 10% of your daily vitamins. Compare that to Total, which has that 100% of everything under the sun.
Oh you are bewitching, you Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with all your great, seductive flavor. But I'll be going back to my Total and
Kashi when you're done.
Labels: i like stories
Mother's Day
Sunday was Mother's Day and it started out in a way I will not forget. I awoke to the sound of
Rolo calling "Mama!" from the bottom of the stairs. Glorious sunlight was streaming into my room and the clock read 7:30am, a full hour and a half later than I normally rise on the weekends. For a second, I was completely confused and thought
Rolo must have gotten out of his crib somehow. But, no, upon rolling over, I realized Ron was already out of bed.
What makes this all so spectacular, and I apologize because I know this will sound
trivial, is that I didn't wake up when
Rolo did. Ron usually gets him on weekend mornings, a tradition from my maternity leave days that never ended. But the reality is that I would always hear
Rolo crying on the monitor and then I'd hear Ron and he playing (or arguing) downstairs, so even though Ron was the one who "got up early", I was awake anyway. But Saturday night the conditions were such that we had the windows open and a fan on in both our room and
Rolo's. The combination served to drown out any noise. So, inadvertently, I wound up getting extra sleep on Mother's Day, waking up about an hour after
Rolo. It was a superb way to start a day.
The End.
Labels: i like stories
Notebooks
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I watched
The Notebook Saturday night. And then watched it again on Sunday. I am a total sucker for drama-star-crossed-lover type romances. I had read
the novel years ago (like in the late '90s, before the movie cover version was printed, thank you).
Also,
Ryan Gosling, who I did not know existed before Saturday, is hot. Both with and without the beard. Also, with and without his shirt on.
Labels: i like stories
Quilting
I can't tell you how badly I wish I had the time, patience and skill to do
this.
Labels: i like stories
Holiday or Not
My mother, she seems to be having a hard time with the fact we had Thanksgiving at our place. Or maybe she's just having a hard time with the holidays in general. I have my moments when I still get angry at her. It's easier to do that, get angry. But I know, without knowing, that there is something else there. I suspect that her mind and her heart are not well; one literally, one figuratively. So getting angry is much like kicking a puppy. I should know better.
*******
Ron may stop to get a Christmas tree tonight. I look around our apartment and it doesn't look very Christmas-y. More decorating to be done. The tree will likely only have ornaments higher than 3 feet from the ground. Or they'll all have to be plastic ornaments on the lower 3 feet. Curious toddler about.
*******
On Wednesday, Ron took Rolo to his parents house for an overnight visit so that I could go to my holiday party last night. So yesterday morning, I slept until 7, took my time getting showered, made-up and dressed, and drank coffee on the couch. It was peaceful, easy, and a reminder of the mornings in my old life. Although I did not do any stretching. I used to stretch every morning. Now I do not. Even when I have the time to do so.
*******
I have never been one to make New Year's resolutions and yet. Yet, I find some voice inside my head saying: "
Starting January 1st, I'll start stretching again. And in January, I'll start taking a yoga class. In January, I'll enroll Rolo in a music class. Starting January 1st, we're going to eat healthier around here. In fact, starting January 1st, we're going to all start eating together as a family. Can you imagine how much healthier we'd be eating if we all ate what Rolo ate? Starting January 1st..."*******
Rolo is sick. Fever, coughing. Trying to decide whether it's worthy of a doctor's visit.
*******
Work has been busy lately. Stressful, but maybe in a good way. I expected to fall on my face during a presentation the other day, but I held my own, even when I got grilled with crazy questions. I got high-fives from my team when I was done. Funny, how at age 33, high-fives can still make my day.
*******
I'm not sure why, but it doesn't feel like Christmas to me.
Labels: i like stories, random
Updates
No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Here's what I've been up to:
-Thanksgiving. It was a little cozy in our apartment, but hosting Thanksgiving for 8 people turned out pretty well. Food was good, no china was broken, and I think everyone had a good time.
-Massively large projects at work. Lots of budgeting. It's amazing how budgeting can be extremely hard and yet boring at the same time.
-Parties. My husband's siblings all tend to procreate around the same time, and so two nieces and one nephew all have birthdays within 12 days of each other. Which meant several birthday parties. Plus, a "Santa" party for Ron's sister's godchildren (I think she's a godmother seven or eight times over) and all the godchildren's siblings. I don't know, it's about 20 kids. Ron plays Santa. It's pretty funny. Coming up are a slew of other work-related and friend-related Christmas parties as well.
-Testing. I mentioned before that
Rolo was supposed to get some testing done. So far, we've managed to get two X-rays and the bloodwork done. The skin tests are up next, and I'm not sure what I want to do about the sweat test. Rolo was totally spooked by the X-ray machine, even though I was able to stand next to him the whole time (and pin down his arms--fun!). As soon as I picked him up off the bed, he started saying "bye" and waving to the machine as if to say, "Yeah, time to go now!"
-Christmas shopping. We've actually managed to get to a mall once or twice. Still lots more to get.
-Operation Kill Binky. After a couple of misfires, the discontinuation of the binky has gone rather well. Rolo has gone to bed without a pacifier every night for the last week. He cries a bit when we first put him in the crib, but it's only for a few minutes. I have, however, made some exceptions and allowed him to have his binky during these X-rays and blood draws. He is, after all, only 16 months old. In addition, I've finally given him a toy,
Fred the Monkey, to sleep with--up until this point, he's never had anything else besides a pacifier in his crib with him.
Well, that's it for now. Hopefully, I'll get back to posting again soon.
Labels: i like stories, Living, parenting, Rolo
Thankful
My sister-in-law, the one who had Baby M, is pregnant again. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before here. She's due the first day of February, but given her history with
preeclampsia, it was assumed the baby would be born before that. She had some early signs of preeclampsia pretty much from the moment she got pregnant, and then, she had an ultrasound that showed some possible abnormalities (though nothing definitive) with the baby. She has been cautious, emotionally-speaking, regarding this pregnancy, which is understandable after everything she went through with Baby M. But she was disheartened by the less-than-stellar ultrasound.
Then yesterday, another doctor's appointment. All traces of preeclampsia are gone. Her blood pressure is fine. And another ultrasound showed the fluid around some of the baby's organs, which was thought to indicate a problem, was gone. A perfect, perfect doctor's visit. Almost as if, for the first time, she wasn't a high-risk pregnancy. Maybe she would not have to deliver the baby early after all.
Then she got home to find out that her husband is being deployed, quite unexpectedly, to Iraq for a year. Leaving on January 30, two days before her due date.
Heaven help me, but I laughed when I found out he was being deployed. He's so not the type of guy you would think about sending to war. Regardless of whether I care for the guy, I still don't want to see him go off to war. He's been in the Navy Reserves for years, but the Iraq war really isn't a Navy war, so there was never any talk of deployment. Turns out that his new profession as a law enforcement officer cast him in a new light. He'll be retrained to be, I think, military police, riding in humvees.
At any rate, I think my sister-in-law is pissed, scared, stressed, you name it. This should make for an interesting Thanksgiving.
***************
Last year,
I said I was thankful for day care. And while I still love the idea of day care, if not my particular one, this year I'm thankful for different things. One, that my husband is not being deployed to Iraq and two, after reading manyp personal blogs about
infertility and infant mortality, I'm more thankful than ever to have my sweet little Rolo. The heartbreak that others, including my sister-in-law, have gone through is unimaginable. And so I am so lucky to have a great husband and wonderful, healthy baby.
What are you thankful for?
Labels: i like stories, Living
Ah, Easy Amusement
Rolo's new thing is to shake his head "yes" and "no". Except he really doesn't know which is which or that shaking one's head signifies either of those words really.
So, actually, what he does goes a little something like this: he'll start nodding and I'll say "yes?" and then he'll start shaking his head from side to side and I'll say "no?" and he'll continue alternating between nodding and shaking until he forgets which comes next and simply starts rolling his head in circles until he gets dizzy.
Then he tries to focus on my face and is all like, "Woah".
Labels: i like stories, Rolo
Champs
I live close enough to South Street to tell you
one thing: the city is freaking crazy right now.
I expect to see my husband some time shortly before sunrise. Two years ago, I would have been filing out to Broad Street (probably not South Street), partying. But now, I sit home, with a sleeping baby, different responsibilities, listening to the crowds outside instead. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish I was out there too.
But I am giving my office a couple of hours off Friday to see the parade.
Labels: i like stories, Living, society
The Reward for a Job Well Done is Having Done It
In the last 5 weeks, Ron will have been away 20 days. Ten days late last month and we're at the tail end of another 10 day stint. Conferences, classes, it'll all a good time.
We've known about both these trips since last fall and whenever I would thinkg about them over last year, it went a little something like this: OH MY GOD NO, how on earth will I handle days on end with the kid... ALONE??? Not that I don't love spending time with Rolo but most days I can barely keep my head on straight and that's WITH Ron's help. So how would I fare without it?
Just fine as it turns out. I love my husband, he's a great husband and a wonderful father. But he's not...super helpful around the house. And while he doesn't work nearly as much as the stereotypical workaholic physician, he's often left for work before Rolo wakes up and home less than an hour before Rolo goes to bed. So, to an extent, I sort of already do the single parenting thing.
There's a strange relief in these twenty days not being nearly as hard as I thought. Despite a pesky molar that's taking forever and six days to make its way though his gums, the kid is fine, the laundry is done, toys (mostly) found their way back to the toybox. I can handle this mothering thing. But I'm still pretty happy I don't have to handle it by myself. Ron's home on Sunday!
Labels: i like stories, parenting
Phanatic
By the way, it's impossible to find any toddler-size Phillies gear in the city or immediate suburbs. Or further out suburbs, like Exton. I know, I've tried.
Labels: i like stories
Weekend v. Weekend
Last Saturday, we dropped Rolo off at my parents' house and headed up to Manhattan for a much-anticipated overnight trip with Ron's friends. There were 6 of us, 3 couples and I very much like these people. So I thought what could be better than hanging out with great people in NYC?
Well. Well, when we got to our hotel, we found out we didn't have a reservation. I thought I had made a reservation online, but it turns out that their online reservation system is too complicated for me to handle. So, there we were in the middle of Times Square, of all places, with no hotel reservation for that night. This did not seem to me to be an ideal situation.
Luckily, the hotel that we did not have reservations at helped us book a room across the street
here. I was totally dreading this, figuring it would be some fleabag dive, but guess what? It was really nice. Small. Very small room. But very clean, modern decor with
H20 Plus toiletries that I just loved. So things weren't looking too bad.
Then we met up with the friends, and the NYC-resident friend insisted that we all go to Brooklyn. I like Brooklyn, my whole family was raised in Brooklyn, but it was already late in the day, and if I wanted to stay in Brooklyn I would have gotten a hotel room in Brooklyn. So we all traipse to Brooklyn, go to a brewery only to learn the tours are over and it closes in 30 minutes. So we go in search of a pub where we can watch the Phillies game. We find one, but it's not super-fun and the Phillies are losing. We decide to move on and come upon a Mexican restaurant with the Phillies on a big screen. We watch them lose and eat some of the most God-awful guacamole I've ever had.
No one's really having any fun and so we decide we'll head back into Manhattan. At the subway station, I use my "
all-day" MetroCard with no problem. But then most of the group
does have a problem with their all-day cards. The card reader keeps telling them "swipe again" and won't let them through the turnstile for several minutes. So some random stranger opens the adjacent door to the turnstile to let them through and I turn to the only other person in our group that successfully got through the turnstile and joked, "Well, we could have done that for them, but I guess we just like watching them struggle."
And then all of a sudden two men who had been loitering around the turnstile, watching our group unsuccessfully swipe their metro cards, start flashing badges. Two undercover cops. Did you know that it's illegal to go through the doors at the subways station instead of the turnstile?
I mean it makes sense and I'm sure fare evasion is a big problem in the city. A 45 minute ordeal ensued that resulted in tickets for each person in our party who walked through the door and also one for the guy who opened the door. The guy who opened the door seemed really nice and said he did it because someone did it for him when his MetroCard didn't work one day. His Russian wife was NOT PLEASED about this ticket he was receiving for "being a good Samaritan" and she made the entire situation worse by yelling at the cops. Things almost got out of hand when she pulled out the ol' "my taxes pay your salary" line.
Here's the thing, and I know this first hand: NYC cops don't fuck around. They have a low tolerance for back-talk and since they deal with the worst of the worst, they don't distinguish one type of crime from another. We're all scumbags. They don't really have the luxury of sorting out shades of gray, so everything is black and white. So when the Russian lady was getting in the cop's face, I had visions of us all getting arrested. And frankly, I don't need to get arrested ever again, but that's a story for another day.
In the end, the three offenders in our group walked away with $100 tickets. They're going to try to appeal these by demonstrating that they each had valid all day MetroCards and therefore, regardless of whether they walked through a door or not, no "fare evasion" took place.
Anyway, so all this sort of bummed us out and we (finally) arrived back in Manhattan for a drink, except no one was really in the mood and we headed back to our hotels.
This weekend, Ron, Rolo and I are headed to New England for our annual fall trip. Specifically, we're going to Portsmouth, NH and Newport, RI. This is our 3rd year of at least dropping by Newport on our trip because we really like the town. Last night I decided to use Priceline to find a hotel in Newport, but I assumed my price would be rejected because that's how things usually go on Priceline. I put in for a 3.5 star hotel in Newport for $175, because I was feeling generous and also because the median price for a hotel of that rating in Newport is $375.00. Well,
they accepted it right away and now 1) I am kicking myself for not putting in $125.00 instead and 2) I'm alittle nervous about staying in a non-chain, swanky hotel with a toddler.
But there's probably very little chance that we'll have a run in with police officers on this trip, but I'm thinking this will be a better weekend.
Labels: i like stories, vacation
More on Sarah
In case you thought I hadn't noticed, I'm aware that Sarah Palin has sounded like someone with a lobotomy during recent interviews. I can't say for sure, but she'd probably do a bit better if the McCain campaign would just let her speak, but I think they're keeping her on a short leash.
Her debate was okay, although you could tell she was nervous. Not as good as her speech at the convention. Joe Biden, who's typically a total windbag, did a really good job too.
Anyway, the way Palin pronounces "Ameer-i-can" (over and over again) gets on my nerves and yet I can't stop mimicking her.
Labels: i like stories, random
Weird Conversations (Or Self-Serving Attitudes About Politics)
Me: You know, I'm not like 100%, gung-ho Obama, but I am leaning towards him.
R: I know, I know. But you realize he's going to tax the crap out of us, right?
Me: Well...(sigh).
R: You realize we're not going to be middle class anymore? Not according to him. I've worked a long time and those taxes will take a higher gross salary and turn it into low net salary.
Me: Well,
unless you're planning on making $5 million a year, which is impossible, we'll be middle class forever with McCain, regardless.
Labels: conversations, i like stories, Living
Ashamed to Admit
I'm sort of addicted to "
Million Dollar Listing".
But who the hell gave
Rachel Zoe her own
show?
Labels: i like stories
Yeah, So....
I'm still here. Let's see, what's new? Rolo still cries every time I leave him at day care now. His teacher is nice but a moron. It's taking me about an hour every night to prep all his food for the following day. No one really comments on how long it takes to cut an entire day's worth of food into teeny, tiny pieces. It takes a long time.
I'm behind on laundry. And cleaning the apartment. Really behind. Like I think it's gone from "messy" to "dirty" for the first time ever. And I'm beginning to understand how people wind up on "
Clean House".
Let's see, what else? Oh. I got my first Christmas card in the mail. It was from a seminary, and Father, please forgive me, but it's FREAKING AUGUST.
Technically, going on vacation in September for a few days. Still don't have a destination. Not so interested in finding one either. Too much laundry to do.
Work is busy. Very busy. With lots of details. That I can't seem to remember anymore. I write things down, but then I can't remember where I wrote them.
I believe this is the tip of what they refer to as "coming undone". It's an interesting place to be.
I need to set a schedule. The more disorganized I become, the more impossible it seems to crawl out from under it. Time to start organizing.
Labels: i like stories, random
A Year Ago
I look at the baby sleeping in the crib. He seems pretty long to me now, taking up about two-thirds of the length of the mattress.
One year ago tonight, just a few hours from now, my water would break and Ron and I would head to the hospital. I still would not know, not even then, how much my life would change.
It's been a good ride, though, little man.
Labels: baby, i like stories, Rolo
Lack of Foresight
So I just went to the podiatrist and oh, it was not good. I don't care to get into the details and believe me, you don't want to read about them. It involved novacaine and lots of guaze and consequently, I need to wear sneakers for the next 3 weeks. Which will make every outfit I own look that much better. I can't wait to show up at parties wearing a skirt and New Balance.
Also, I have a 5 mile walk this weekend? So, yeah, a bum foot should be awesome.
Labels: i like stories, winter of my discontent
The Banana Nazi
Today, Rolo and I are enjoying a nice, quiet day home by ourselves. While he naps, I've been attacking the cave that was once our bedroom. Somehow over the winter that room managed to collect every piece of junk we didn't know what to do with and today, it's all about purging and spring cleaning.
Rolo has also developed an aversion to most vegetables. I think partially this is because he's bored with his food and partially because he's realizing he has the option to refuse something he doesn't like. At any rate, after a battle involving mixed vegetables (in which I was victorious, I might add), I decided to feed Rolo little pieces of a banana I was eating. I had tried this weeks ago and he was all like, BLECK, what the hell is this? Even though he loves baby food bananas. I attributed this refusal of a food that he otherwise loves to the lumpier texture.
Today, though, whole different story. Even though he had already had a carton of mixed veggies and part of a container of green beans, which should have filled him entirely, he couldn't get enough of the banana pieces. I was trying to break off tiny pieces and mush them a bit before giving them to him and this took several seconds. Which, from the sounds of protest coming from Rolo's mouth, was entirely too long.
Labels: i like stories, Rolo
