Day 2: Sabine's Birthday

Today Sabine turns two! I had a really hard time picking what picture to use for today. I took a couple today while we were strawberry picking, but neither of them were exactly what I was looking for. I had wanted to use this one where you can see the '2' I painted on her cheek but you can't see her face very well, and there's another one that's perfect except it is both Jacob and Sabine, and since this is her day, I wanted it to be of just her.

I've gone back and added a rule, plus I edited another, because I had such a hard time picking today - one photo only, and no more.

Anyway, this picture took the cake (haha, birthday joke) because it so accurately represents Sabine these days; she's all quirky with her little arm bands she insists on wearing and her hair is all over the place and beautiful, and she's always watching what's going on. I took this picture at Jacob's last baseball game on Saturday. I said that day she looked like she stepped out of a Molly Ringwald movie, that or an old school Madonna video...and you can't even see what she had on her feet.

You can see the runners up here and here and here (oops, last link to be added later, flickr is being extremely slow right now).

Lay your fuzzy lit'le head down

I was just watching Sesame Street with the kids when Ricky Gervais came on to sing Elmo to sleep. I love it when celebrities are on Sesame Street. I've got to hand it to the SS peeps, they make the show interesting for parents and kids alike. We laughed our butts off and then I promptly when to youtube so we could watch it again. Here it is for anyone wanting a silly laugh, also, for my future quick-reference.

Anyway, I can tell how the next hour is going to go because after each youtube video they keep popping up another funny celebrity guest appearance.

All Smiles

My family and I often notice clever commercials and really appreciate their creativity. One of our favorites right now is the American Express commercial with all the faces. Zach suggested that I take some inspiration from the commercial and capture some photos like that. Well that was a couple months ago and I've only gotten one photo, so rather than this post being a collection of smiles, it's just one. But at least now I've got the tag going and it will be easier to post them in the future. For today, I hope my cheese grater makes you smile:

It's Facebook's Fault

I miss my little blog and I'm constantly telling myself that today will be the day I catch up. There's just so many things I want to post about, I don't know where to start, and it feels hopeless anyway because there's never enough time. I don't entirely know how it happened that I've been so inattentive to blogging, but I do know that Facebook is mostly responsible.

I've been on Facebook for a couple years, with waxing and waning interest, but I guess our relationship (mine and Facebook's) turned serious when Jacob and I started playing Farmville. I thought it would be a cute game for us to play together, because farming is his thing and maybe it would teach him problem solving skills and some other life concepts, numbers and spelling and whatnot, motivate him to learn to read, etc. It did do all that, and it might sound cheesey, but since I was sitting down with him to play and we were talking about it together I think he was learning things. I don't think it's so much what kind of tools you use to teach your kids, as much as it is you sit down with them and spend that time together talking it over.

I also used Farmville as a bribe to get Jacob to get dressed in the morning, get ready for bed, help me with certain tasks, but then he just memorized how to log on himself and started playing without me at times. He'd always get caught and warned not to do that again, etc, etc, but he'd always do it again. The weeks went by and it became an obsession. So I've phased out our crops and weaned us off this week. We're going to be taking a break from it for a while. It's feels liberating. I'm going to have to start hiding the computer from him though.

Anyway, being on Farmville meant I was logged onto Facebook at least a couple times a day, and so naturally I started posting more and more on facebook. It's like an abbreviated form of blog posts and is an outlet for me when time is sparse and I don't have time to blog. A lot of the things I would have ended up blogging just ended up as a status post on Facebook, and helped alleviate whatever stress was building up from not being able to get my thoughts out - but not all of it. And there's far more people I'm in contact with on Facebook than will ever read my blog. It's just a better way to keep up.

In no particular order, here is some stuff that happened over the last couple months in status posts copied from Facebook:

is teaching Jacob how to play Uno. Oh my God for the 80th time, no, you can't put a that RED 5 on that BLUE 8. I seriously underestimated the difficulty a five year would have with this concept!!! Holy crap, nooooo that Draw 2 can't go on that GREEN 6!!!!!!!

Ran the half marathon this morning. 1:56:30's. I'm happy with that and I don't think I ever want to do it again....

Just got home from the movies...Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. You definitely have to have read the book to follow the movie.

BIG DAY today. Zach met the president, shook his hand, told him his name and got his picture taken with him! AND I was on national television breastfeeding!

To mark the official start of homeschooling, Jacob and I just made frosting (science and math), but with nothing to eat it on, we're just having it spread on bread!

Sabine took two 10 minute naps today. That's it.

I am celebrating the last birthday of my 20's in my home, alone, cleaning like a madwoman. Believe it or not, this is an often sought-after fantasy of mine!

is trying to get Zach to sit still and look at people of walmart. I can't get enough of this!!!

ran the 5k today and Jacob ran his first kids' run. He also won the Wii they had up for raffle! It seems luck follows wherever he goes.

This one is a post from Zach: Happy 5th Anniversary...We are still alive...and so are the kids! Looking forward to today and the weekend...

Just finished reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book.

Jacob and I couldn't stop watching the puke scene today from The Office wedding episode....hilarious!

Well there you have it, Facebook. Now that our relationship is out in the open, I have to break it off. Well, not completely, but I think we need to see other people and I need to visit other internet playgrounds for a while. Get some perspective. Some 'me' time. Don't worry, I'll still be visiting. Just a lot less. Well, at least a little less. I still care about you, but it's just that my blog is more of a long-term relationship, and we're a little more serious than you and I can ever be.

Jeter'sTwin

Zach was talking about Derek Jeter just a little while ago (he is always talking about Jeter) and I said something about his twin. Zach was all, "What twin? He has a sister, but that's it." For a couple minutes I had myself thinking that I know something about baseball that Zach doesn't, and then I remembered I tend toward the naive side of things.

Here's what I was thinking of though: Remember that Skippy peanut butter commercial Jeter was in a few years back? Actually, I've since looked it up and it appears that it's from 2001. Jeter's 'twin' appeared in it with him, or at least that's what I've thought all these years. Apparently it was just computer imaging. So I am stuck on this now and I want to find the commercial so I can show it to Zach because he's claiming to not know what I'm talking about.

I just spent a large amount of time driving myself crazy trying to find it. I can find several places online where they make mention of the commercial, but no clip of it. Not even on youtube or anything. I know someone reading this (if there is anyone left who still reads my blog) will have better luck and you'll post a link for me.

Susan Boyle

I just now got around to watching this video (and I'm posting a link as opposed to the actual video because I'm a moron and can't figure out how to embed a you tube video) of the 'Britain's Got Talent' contestant that everyone is talking about. I didn't think it was that big of a deal so I hadn't taken the time, but I'd say it was worth it. She's really good. It was kind of hard to hear her over the applause and the music, so I can't say it was the best performance I've ever heard, but what struck me (and what was so emotional) is the audience's reaction to her. It was moving to see everyone so touched by this woman. And also, the main reason I'm posting this is because I want to slap that girl at 1:25 and knock her around a bit when she makes that face. How rude of people to be like that. It's not necessary to be a bitch to someone just because they're ugly, or on the older side, or because they wear black stockings with white, open-toes shoes...

Does anyone know where our remote is?

It's been nine days, I figure. You know how when something goes missing you can't always trace it back to the last time you definitely saw it? You can bet you'll forever remember when it finally turns up, but when exactly it disappeared isn't always as clear. That's what I mean by 'I figure'.

We've turned the house upside-down. Everyone who comes over to our house is enlisted to turn it upside-down as well. It's nowhere. It really sucks because then we have to get up to turn the volume down every time a commercial comes on (you know how they make the commercials so much louder than the actual show) during Jeopardy.

The other day I wanted to watch the bonus footage on a movie I'd gotten from the library. Nope. I could only hit the select button and that was to play the movie.

Today Jacob was watching a DVD with a few different stories on it and he could only watch the first one, Click, Clack, Moo. It was seven minutes long and there is no down button on the DVD player to get to the next story.

I swear, if you have any idea, please send your thoughts. We're considering offering a reward...

What's your story?

You know how they interview each contestant on Jeopardy? Just a little tid-bit that tells a little about who they are...what's up with the things people say? They come up with the stupidest facts to tell the world about their lives. Some guy's biggest thing in life was that he once got invited to a party for Barack Obama (boy I hope I spelled that right). This was like 15 years ago, and he didn't even go. Swell. Oh, how about the lady last night who once voted in an election and had her picture taken and put in the paper because she was one of only 100+ people who actually voted. Fantastic.

Now that I'm actually writing about this I can't even remember any of the other stupid things I've heard. They're that trivial. Why can't anyone talk about what they do for a living, or how many kids they have? Those would be things that people can relate to. If they want 'different' stories to tell can't they come up anything vaguely interesting?

Anyway, speaking of the president, a couple weeks ago we were riding in the car when Zach heard something on the radio that prompted him to tell me, "Did you know that 75% of Americans don't know the president's name?" Are you serious? What a ridiculously inflated statistic. How could anyone believe that? Why would they even try to say such a thing? My response to Zach, "Did you know that 95% of statistics are completely fabricated?"

Smarter Than the Jeopardy Contestants

We've been watching Jeopardy religiously for a few weeks now, all three of us. It's a good way to make the shift from evening to night time (when bed happens). I've always loved Jeopardy so it's nice to get back into watching it, as well as to have a regular time marker to keep us on track with the routine.

Tonight there was a 'kiddy lit' category. The last clue in the category was something about Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. None of the contestants even tried to guess at it, but I got excited and said, "Jacob, you know this one!" And he came through with the answer. It was a very cool moment, especially because minutes earlier he'd been crying that he never wins at Candy Land.

We also like to guess the numbers when they have the lotto drawing during the commercial break. I'm so happy that we finally have something to get all of us motivated to keep to a routine, and that it's something we can all share.

Game Show In My Head

We were just getting ready to give Sabine a bath and get her down for the night. I'd used the word "naptime" in a sentence without putting it in air quotes or rolling my eyes, which is to say that we're getting better at the discipline and sleep issues. But Zach had turned the TV on to check a score.

Getting off the couch with a half naked baby, we saw a guy on TV half hanging out a port-a-potty trying to convince someone to give him a tissue or anything to wipe himself with. It was hilarious. Maybe it's because we haven't been habituated to much on TV lately, but everything seemed funny to us tonight. Anyway, we were laughing our asses off at this show - Game Show In My Head. There's one contestant and he's out on the street and he's given these challenges by the host, Joe Rogan. He's got a certain amount of time to find random people on the street and get them to do whatever it is he's been told - hence the hanging out of the port-a-john trying to get someone to give him something to wipe himself with. It could have just been this one contestant but he was freakin hilarious.

It probably won't last, and we probably won't even remember to watch it next Saturday night, just like a couple of other senseless gameshows we thought were funny. There was one really stupid one a few months ago - Hole In the Wall, where a moving wall came toward the contestants and they had to conform their bodies to fit through whatever the hole in the wall, whatever shape it was. Another one before that, Wipeout, where the whole show was people trying to get through these giant obstacle courses that were impossible and they always ended in them falling into nasty water. Incidentally, Hole In the Wall always ended with people falling in nasty water too.

Needless to say, we watched the entire hour and never gave Sabine a bath - details about her 'bedtime' to follow.

So anyway, if you're in the mood for some stupid laughs, or you want to feel better about yourself, check out the links.

My Idea of Heaven

Jacob got a gift card to Barnes & Noble for Christmas so over the weekend we headed there for some book shopping. I don't normally go into book stores. Not because I don't like them, but on the contrary, because I love them. Too much. So much that it's unhealthy. Before I had kids, ie when I had some sort of disposable income, bookstores and I had an obsessive relationship. But then I had kids, was bound to home a lot and discovered internet shopping. Now I get most of our books used from Amazon or some other such bookseller. I preview the books from the library first and only buy our absolute favorites. It's a much healthier form of book shopping for me.

So we went to Barnes & Noble with the idea that we'd look for the second book set of The Magic Tree House series. Jacob got the first four books from Drew for his birthday and we've recently started reading them. We had books five through eight in our hand when Jacob spotted the shelf of Doreen Cronin books. I don't usually have 'favorite' authors, books or movies. I mean I have a collection of favorites, but not a one favorite. However, after randomly selecting two different Doreen Cronin books a few years apart, falling in love with them, then realizing it was the same author, I can say for sure that she is my favorite children's book author, along with the illustrator of her books, Betsy Lewin.

We first bought The Diary of a Worm when Jacob was a toddler. It was the first book I can remember ever buying him. I fell in love with the book and it's remained one of our favorites. The humor in her books is just so blunt, I don't know how to say it. I was reading a review of one of her books and they called it slapstick. But I don't really know that slapstick humor is what I would consider it. Anyway, they're hilarious. Recently we got Click, Clack, Moo from the library on a whim. It was the funniest thing Jacob and I have shared in quite a while. It's like she's living in his head. It's about farm animals on a farm and how they drive the farmer crazy with their anthropomorphic antics. This is Jacob's life! He goes around yelling about how his chickens got out of the hen house and are causing some kind of trouble that is normally a human activity.

So anyway, that would be my idea of Heaven. Being in this huge place of shiny, new books that are stacked to the ceiling. A place where you can read and learn about basically anything you want. And importantly, a place that is fully stocked with Starbucks coffee. I would gather all the people I love and keep them there so we could snuggle up and read books for an eternity. The only thing I would probably miss is my clothes because I also have a clothing obsession. Don't even get me stared on how I can't go into clothing stores. I actually had a dream last night about a store I was in the other day where I saw a couple of shirts I thought I couldn't live without (this happened in real life). In the dream I went back and bought them. But I didn't want to get started about that...

Besides the books I just mentioned, some of the others that we're reading, or just finished are The Secret Garden, which was mine when I was a kid. It took us almost a year to finish it because it's definitely not a fast-reading book, if you know what I'm saying. For book club last month we read The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. I really liked it, very good read. Right now I'm in the middle of reading a few different things, which I actually don't like to do. I prefer to read one book at a time. But I have all these parenting-type books that I need to get through, ones where you can't just sit down and read them straight through because it's too boring. There's a sleep book that I'm forcing myself to read, there's Living Simply With Children, which I hope to write more about in the future, and most importantly I'm reading The Vaccine Book (part of the Sears collection).

Beanie's yet to have any vaccines but I decided I'd start them at her six-month well-child visit. She actually hasn't had that visit yet because suddenly my doctor's office is a bitch to get on the phone to make an actual appointment. But I've got to hurry up and finish this book so I can decide which vaccines to get. Oh, so The Vaccine Book is the greatest book ever. Well, for the moment. Everything I've read about vaccines before has been put into one place. It makes sense, it's straightforward, and un-biased and provides information from several different angles. When I first started reading this book and discovered that it was everything I'd expected from it, I was so happy I almost started to cry (for real). It was like a breath of fresh air.

The End.

You call that Talent??

I don't watch a lot of TV, especially reality TV or talent/game shows, but I did watch America's Got Talent the other day. My mom and Jamie had it on at Camp a couple weeks ago so I saw one episode when they were going from 40 to 20 contestants. I saw the kid who impersonates Elvis that night. He sucked. No chance was he coming back. So you can imagine my surprise when I turned on the TV the other night because I am currently sicker than a dog and I felt like vegging out for once - and I saw the Elvis kid on again.

The show was just starting when I turned on the TV. I probably would have just skipped over the channel but since I'd seen the show once before I stopped there. There were a few acts and I'm getting the idea that this is an almost identical show to American Idol. There's the mean judge with the British accent that they apparently have to have on every talent show now. What's his name, Pierce or something? Well he doesn't like anyone, even the people who are good. But then Elvis gets up there, sucks some shit on stage, and I'm ready for the Brit to rip into him. He likes him! He thinks he's great. WHAT??! Guess what, Sharon and David Hasslehoff think he's great too.

All I have to say is You Have Got To Be Kidding Me! I think the show must be rigged.

Camp: Journal Style

Friday: I’m getting better at packing for two kids. We only left two hours later than expected. The ride was good, I sat in the back and did a little reading in between all the dealing with the kids. Jacob all the way up there - “When are we gonna be there??” He used to be so good in the car. I hope this is just a phase.

Saturday: I was nervous about the night because this is my first time night-parenting two kids by myself. Zach stayed home that week I came up with both kids, but the kids and I stayed in the same bed with Mom so she sort of helped through the night. I had to get Jacob up two times to pee because I forgot his pullups! He stayed dry though. Maybe this is the way to get him going through the night without peeing the bed…maybe the pullups signal to his body that it’s ok to pee and we should just ditch them all together. They certainly do suck as it is. If I'm going to be washing sheets anyway, why bother paying for the leaky pullups?

Uncle Bill brought up this rocket to shoot off at Camp. He had to build it first. It was a big to-do assembling it and then there was all this build up leading to shooting it off. We’re all standing around waiting with the cameras and you had to know it was going to happen…there was a ‘technical difficulty’ and while the guys were tooling around with the controls, trying to figure it out, that’s when it went off and all the cameras that has been at the ready missed the action. Then, apparently the wind was in a different direction than we’d thought so instead of landing in the nearby field, the parachute opened and floated right into the tree tops. I climbed the adjacent tree a ways but we all realized that that wasn’t going to work and we’d have to wait for the wind to blow it down.

Later on Jamie came in rushing to the bathroom and gagging about the poop he’d gotten all over himself. He had pet Ginger outside at dusk and didn’t see the poop all over her. She was tied up on the rope so I’m figuring she took a dump and then rolled all in it.

I had to wash her off in the dark and couldn’t see what I was doing. If it was light out I could have taken her out to the sandbar and washed her there, but no, I couldn’t have been that lucky. When I was done cleaning Ginger off with hand soap and a scrub brush in the dark I headed inside to soak Beanie’s onesie that her butt exploded all over, and then Jacob’s poopy underwear. This is my life; cleaning up poop.

Today was such a full day that I can't remember when it happened, but Beanie ROLLED OVER from her stomach to her back. I'm so proud of my girl rolling over so early.

Sunday: Jacob woke up dry again, after a couple nighttime trips to pee.

We went to church. Even though it's a mile from Camp in a town that boasts a whopping fifty residents, there were three times as many people at the service than there were last week at my church. I noted that the minister was a woman and the organist was a man. At one point in the service she started talking to Jacob and offered him a craft. She came back to where we were sitting and gave out the supplies. The minister apologized for not having any markers and told Jacob, "You can go home and decorate it with things that you like...You wouldn't decorate it with girl stuff like pink poodles (laughing), put things on there that you like to play with, boy stuff." I calmly sat there with my jaw tensed, and by God if we hadn't been in a church...

I found it ironic that the minister was spouting sexist remarks when she's occupying a traditionally male role. After the service she told me that she has 5 kids with a rather large range in age - the youngest just 7 months. That strikes me as remarkably similar to Governor Palin.

We headed into town to wash diapers and go to the store. The laundromat is a fun place to go when you’re feeling crappy about yourself, especially when you walk in with a baby. All kinds of dirty people like to come up to you and touch your baby. And then the freaky teenager with all the zits tells you “that’s a nice looking baby!” and your grip on her tightens. I always leave feeling better about myself because at least I have all my teeth.

Aunt Nancy is obsessed with all things Disney an Disney-like movies. She put in a movie, a version of the Princess and the Pea, with Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman, to watch. I. really. hate. musicals.

The rocket is still stuck in the tree.

Monday: It's freezing in here in the mornings when I get up with Beanie at 6am. I can't start a fire in this damn wood stove to save my life - literally, haha, because I might freeze to death.

I took Mango out to the island to run around the sand bar. I finally decided that Ginger was going to come too so I forced her into the row boat. I was feeling kind of bad about that, but when we got to our destination she took off like a bullet and had a blast running around the island with Mango. I figured it's the perfect place for her to run around because on land she's got to be tied up, but where was she going to run off to in the middle of a lake?

I spent 4 hours at the stove in the kitchen making eggplant parm. I made three pans of it for everyone. Uncle David came over and all of us had dinner together. The eggplant was freaking good. I should sell it!

Tuesday: I guess I got cocky. I was so tired from the nighttime ratio (1 parent:2 kids) that I only took Jacob to pee once through the night. 5am rolls around and I'm changing bed sheets, peeling wet jammies off Jacob's limp body. Not only did he pee the things that go under him, but he also soaked the things that are supposed to be on top of a person when they're sleeping because of the 'kicking off of the covers'. So I sent the bed pad, sheets, and comforter home with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bill because there won't be room in our car when we drive home.

I was hanging out in the living room with Sabine, who was laying on a blanket on the floor. Mom came in and decided to take a seat. Beanie started 'hitching', as Mom calls it, all over the floor, getting some actual distance from where she started out on the blanket. I picked her up and moved her back after she'd made it off the blanket. Then she got all like she was going to roll over from her BACK to her FRONT. She hiked up her knees to her chest then tossed herself to her left side. She was stuck on her elbow and kept lolling back and forth. Then all of a sudden she pushed right over her elbow! Ho-ly crap. Mom and I just sat there with our mouths agape. That's early for rolling over, especially the harder way. Jacob rolled at three months and Beanie is just past two months now.

Wednesday: I can't take it anymore. It's 6am and I'm so tired. Zach told me last night he misses the kids so much. Jacob all the time and Beanie in the early morning hours when they have their 'special time' which I prefer to think of as 'the morning freaks bonding time'. I told Zach, "Funny, that's when I miss you the most." The bad news is that both kids are up this early today. The good news is that Jacob woke up dry. Woohoo! Down with the pullups!

The rocket is still stuck up in the tree...

Beanie goes to the movies

When Jacob was a baby Zach and I took him along with us to a movie. He slept the whole time except for once when he woke up and all I had to do them was pop him on to nurse before he even made a peep. It was the most liberating feeling of my new motherhood experience; being able to have a baby and still maintain a social life. Zach, on the other hand, was extremely embarrassed to have a baby in a movie theater. He said he'd never do it again (I don't know why, it went off without a hitch) and has kept his word.

When I found out that The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was coming out with a sequel (finally) my friend Jen and I planned to go together because she is my movie buddy and we saw the first one together. This was back mid-pregnancy (when I heard about the movie). I'd been waiting a long time to go and giggle and act like adolescents again (we met in fifth grade). Jen, a new mother herself, couldn't be happier about accompanying my baby and me to the movie. We went last night, I popped Beanie into the sling and the night went off without a hitch. She was awake when we arrived but I nursed her at the beginning of the movie and she slept in my arms the rest of the time.

I actually didn't think the movie was that great. I think if a person hasn't read the books they would have a hard time following what was going on. Because they squeezed the last three books of the series into one movie they had to skip huge parts of the plot and leave out certain characters I was looking forward to finding out who they cast for the part. It was good to get out though and hang out with Jen (who, by the way, can't keep her hands off Beanie). I'm pretty sure she's in love with her just like I'm in love with her little boy, Joey. Jen and Dan are going to be Sabine's Godparents.

Anyway, I'm skipping around here. I guess some people think it's weird, but I can't go anywhere without my babies when they are new. I use the excuse that "She only gets it from the tap," but really, I don't want to leave her. For some reason I feel like that's abnormal in the eyes of others and they won't understand. I don't know why it should be that way. It would feel unnatural to me to leave a person who is basically like a fifth limb, attached to me by invisible heart strings, so soon after giving birth.

Well, now you know my secret that I am a sucker for queer chick flicks.

Olympics Anonymous

This is a little late now, but I did start the post while the Olympics were still on. And actually, the fact that I haven't posted much lately is due in part to the Olympics being televised into the wee hours of the morning (also due in part to the one-handed nature of my typing these days, as the only computer time I get is when I'm nursing the baby).

Anyway, didn't you sort of feel like you were addicted to the Olympics? Or that you spent all day looking forward to settling down on the couch at night to watch them? And did you fall asleep on the couch at midnight only to wake up every 30 minutes or so and try to stay awake to watch until it went off at 3am? No? Well that's what it was like at our house. It also stayed really messy in our house, to-do lists were thrown out the window and our kid didn't go to sleep until midnight because we really wanted him to experience then Olympics, after all someday he'll be an Olympic gymnast...hehe.

I did talk to a lot of other people who seemed to be as addicted as us, and then some who were not. It seemed like for two and a half weeks the country could be divided into two kinds of people: Those who watched the Olympics round the clock and those who couldn't care less.

Now that it's over I'm a little sad but I've just discovered the video clips on nbc.com and that's helping me with my withdrawal...

There's running hand-in-hand on the beach in my future...

I took Jacob to the library today. While he was busy with his 'kid at the library' stuff, I was skimming the parenting shelf. I guess it's because I have a daughter now that I was so apt to notice all the 'mother/daughter bond' books. I also noticed that they all featured a black and white photo on the cover of a mother and daughter holding hands and running on the beach. There was only one book that veered from this theme and even that was just slightly different - it was in a meadow with the mother holding her daughter above her head.

Apparently these are the things you do when you have a girl? I guess at some point in the next several years I should expect to experience the glee of frolicking in the wet sand with Sabine...

Olympic Fever

Or: The blog in which I use the word 'Olympics' an annoying nine times.

Since we don't have cable at our house we recently had to get one of those fancy little boxes that converts your analog TV into digital - or maybe that's not it, I'm not sure. Either way it's an old TV and not digital-friendly so we needed the box. It's hooked up and don't you know we get all these other channels now. One of the channels is The Olympics Channel. That's not at all what it's really called but it's what I'm coining it and I'm giving it capital letters because it is That Important.

Basically it is the Olympics 24 hours a day. Not the real Olympics yet, but all the trials and world championships. It's really helping to build up the Olympics in our minds because we can really prepare and already be aware of the many different athletes to look out for so that our 2008 Olympic experience with be that much more enhanced.

Zach and I love the Olympics. We are both jocks at heart and get completely fired up to accomplish great athletic feats every time the Olympics roll around. I have to say, even though I was a figure skater in the past, I think I prefer the summer Olympics over the winter.

This year we are particularly jazzed to share the two weeks of sports greatness with Jacob. I'm stoked to watch the gymnastics with him. Paul Hamm is going to be his new idol (I hope) - bye bye Bob the Builder. Not really, maybe we'll just hear about Bob going to the Olympics and Spud in China for a few months afterwards.

Anyway, it's just really cool to be able to have a plethora of sports viewing round the clock right now...it's the only TV I've watched since the baby was born, you know, besides kid videos. The music they set the commercials to is really pumping me up for 8-8-08!!!

Getting some things off my chest

It's Tuesday. I'm still pregnant. For two weeks now I've been having all sorts of crazy pains that I didn't have with Jacob. It's not normal pain and for the first week of it I thought for sure I was in labor. It's pain that changes me, I get mad or weepy, I can't concentrate on anything, and sometimes it knocks the wind out of me. Stuff is building up inside with nowhere to go, I previously had all this positive energy built up in my reserves but now it is running dry. The midwives tell me all the pain I'm describing is normal, etc, but no one I know can relate to feeling this way when they were pregnant. And I've been asking a lot of people. This is frustrating.

On Saturday a wise friend told me to stop doing things, clear my schedule, relax, and then it would happen. I tried. It's just not me though. I can't sit still to save my life. I keep doing things, keeping the house immaculate because I want to come home from the hospital to a clean house, washing more baby shit, making room. Making to-do lists and then not finishing them. So I'm convinced that I just need to finish these last few things and then the Universe will reward me.

I had putting off filing half a year's worth of paperwork for the longest time. I finally did it last week. I've got a couple little business-y things that are 90% completed that I need to finish up. I have a gift for a friend that needs to be shipped off to Virginia. I really need to write the thank you note to the vet's which is three months late. If I could just clear these last little things from my to-do list I'm sure it would happen. So you see I can't settle down. Writing this post is one of the things on my list too. It's not really anything I think anyone is interested in, more for my record.

So here's some other random stuff: I was lamenting to Zach the other day how much I miss my clothes. I said I go and visit them in my closet every once in a while and dream about when I can wear them again. He likes to tease me about how fat I am. It has become a joke in my family to make fun of me. But the one thing you should never say to your 9 month+ pregnant wife, "Gee, do you think you'll ever be able to fit into them again?"

I mentioned above that at times I have been getting angry and impatient. It's a hormone thing. Last week I had to pick up something at the library, a different library than my usual one. A library I've written about before in a negative way. No matter how many times I give this library a chance, the nasty librarians there never fail to prove me right. My theory is this is the library they send all the ones who couldn't get a job at a nice library on account of the sticks up their butts.

I'm waiting in line to pick up a couple Clifford books for Jacob that he'd been asking for. Zach was in the car with Jacob, who had just fallen asleep. I knew I had a two dollar fine awaiting me, but that didn't matter, you don't have to pay your fines right away. They always politely ask if you want to take care of your fine today, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, and that is just fine with them. There was this lady leaning up against the front counter with a giant list of "all her summer reading" written on the back of an envelope. She was standing there having the librarian look up each and every book to see if they had it, and if they didn't, going through the process of requesting it from another library. Two feet behind me stood the computer with the catalog in it. I felt like ripping the list out of her hand and saying, "Lady, lemme just look them up for you over here." Seriously, she couldn't do it herself? The worst part was that the SECOND librarian was sitting on her butt at the desk behind the counter. I was being totally rude and I kept walking around to the side of counter and staring at her. After like 10 minutes to first librarian, in her squeaky voice said, "Bonnie, can you come help this patron here?"

Bonnie came over, retrieved my books from behind the counter and swiped my card. She told me that I had a two dollar fine and I said, "I know, I'll have to take care of that next time," and with my wallet secretly stashed in my pocket I added, "I don't have any cash on me today."

"Well, you can't check out your books today then." Are you kidding me? Are you really going to say that to a pregnant woman who has been waiting in line for a damn kids book for ten minutes?!

"Oh, really?" I played dumb. "Is that just the policy at this library?"

"No, it's like that at all the libraries." Why would she lie to me like that? Do I look stupid? I frequent to libraries at least twice a week. I know all the damn rules. If you're a crummy, miserable librarian eager to pull a power trip, why do it to me, then? Why not pull that crap with someone who deserves it?

I wanted leap across the counter and do something unspeakable to her. Instead I gritted my teeth, dug my nails into my wallet and said, "Well, I'll have to go run back to the car then." So I walked back to the car with my blood boiling and approached Zach. "Here," I thrust him wallet and said, "I have to pretend I'm getting money from you to pay the late fee." Then I opened my wallet, took out a dollar (I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of paying the whole fine) and proceeded back into the building. When I got there, instead of having all my books ready to go, she then started scanning then at a snail's pace. The lady with the list was still hanging around reading off titles, by the way. I didn't think it was going to be physically possible for me to leave there without blowing up, but I did. It probably took an hour for my blood pressure to return to normal though.

Oh, so the late fees. They came from the latest movies I watched. The first being Stranger Than Fiction (not worth it) and Waitress which was adorable and charming and I didn't mind paying the late fee for because that meant I got to watch it twice. I never used to like Keri Russel but now I totally love her just because of this movie. Thanks Anna for writing about it! I can't find the exact post right now though. In between those movies and then last ones I wrote about we also watched Catch & Release, which was cute and we liked it because it was set and filmed in Boulder.

Well, it's about that time of night where I need to start praying for contractions. My widwife is on call tomorrow and that would be a fantastic day to go to the hospital...

Movies

I've been getting some movies from the library lately because I figure pretty soon it will be something that I don't have time for. I request the ones I want and they come in to my library whenever they are available. So it was weird when Knocked Up and Juno (my movie taste varies) were available for pick up on the same day. They're both very different movies about unplanned pregnancies with a lot of weird similarities. Somehow when I rent movies in pairs like that they always end up being freakily similar.

I borrowed Knocked Up to watch with Zach because that's the kind of movie he likes, and I got Juno for myself because I didn't think he would like it. Let me tell you, Knocked Up was the worst movie I have seen in years, possibly ever. If you haven't seen it, don't bother. It was by far worse than any Will Ferrell movie we've seen in the last five years. It was completely unrealistic and stupid. There were scenes that I think they meant to be funny but really, it was just painful to sit through them. I'm kind of embarrassed to even admit to having wanted to see that movie.

Juno, however, was really good. Amazingly, Zach liked it too. He asked me why we didn't watch that movie first. I'd planned to watch it by myself but it rained that day so Zach ended up staying home instead of painting the exterior job he's working on. Anyway, moral of the story, Juno was a great movie, see that one.

Reality TV goes over the edge

I just read about this new reality show coming out where parents hand over their 6 month+ infants to teenage couples for several days in the name of entertainment. I can't even begin to describe the many levels on which this is disturbing. I'm absolutely horrified that they're apparently going to go through with this, and if I was done writing my last paper for my class, I would surely go about what a bad idea this is. Here's link to the webpage, and one to an article about the original British series this one is based on. And here's an open letter to NBC urging them to stop the insanity.