Apr 29 2006
My results to this suprised even me…..just ask Mike how long I take to shower in the morning or how often I leave lights on in the house and the idea of connecting me to “Green Politics” would definitely be a little absurd. Everything else is about right though…
| You scored as Green Politics. You are a Green! You beleive in emphasizing environmental issues and that it is important to protect wildlife.
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What is your political ideology?
created with QuizFarm.
Apr 29 2006
The first piece of large baby furniture has been bought today, and so begins the epic struggle between Father and Instructions in 3 Different Languages None of Which Are Intelligible. I stand as yet another warrior on a battlefield of broken hex screws and extra “Part F”’s.
My entrance into the War was not a pretty one. Carleen and myself drove down to Tulsa to pick up the crib. Carleen suggested picking up her mom’s (larger) car so that we could make sure the crib would fit. “Oh it’ll fit.”, were the words that sprang from my mouth. As a guy, I lack the mental flashing red lights and buzzers that go off in women’s minds at a statement such as this.
We arrived at Babies ‘R Us and shop for several other small items as well as the crib, the bedding and mattress for the crib as well as a mobile and a few clothes; which were quickly and easily piled into the car. Now the crib itself. It came in a standard cardboard box wrapped with several ties. It immediately became apparent that only an act of God would get that box inside that car without large quantities of Duct Tape (something not easily found at your local Babies ‘R Us, go figure). Then I had a brilliant flash of inspiration - the box is likely filled with padding (it was) SO by unboxing everything the crib should fit no problem! Upon unpacking the crib, I discovered to my great joy that Ha! it will easily fit….then I got to the headboard. You see, instead of making a nice simple headboard which would have fit in the car of an average single person or couple with no children, this headboard required an SUV all to itself - now you know why you see all those parents with SUV’s it’s not for the KIDS, it’s for the kids’ STUFF.
So after pushing both front seats forward, adjusting the backs up as straight as they would go, opening both back windows, I achieved the seemingly impossible task of fitting the entire crib in the back of the car. On the drive home Carleen says, “Can I say it?” I may have only been married for 4 years now, but I know an impending “I told you so.” when I hear it. My response was, “Hey, the crib is in the car.”
Apr 23 2006
So I was talking to Jason, a friend and fellow co-worker (in Hell) and I asked him, “In 30 years, what is going to be our generations ‘nostalgia’ item?” I in turn asked Carleen the same question. Got some interesting responses and I thought I’d just throw this out on the Great Wide Internet to see what other responses I’d get. Now I’m defining “our generation” as the X-er’s, those born between ‘65 and ‘79 ( I seem to remember Carleen writing a bit about the different “Gen’s” on her Library Shrine blog but I can’t seem to find it - perhaps that was a paper…). Carleen mentioned that we are the “gamer generation” so any video game character is of course going to be on the list. Responses so far…
Can’t remember all the rest right now, but go ahead and comment to add some more!
Apr 12 2006
BOY! Carleen was right, I was wrong, but hey what’s new. Everything looks good, and as soon as we figure out how, we’ll try to post a video in all it’s wonderful glory. So, I’d like everyone to meet Liam [something] Huxley. We’ll have to figure out what that [something] is now, I guess.
Apr 07 2006
It dawned on me the other day that once next week rolls around, I will technically be half-way done with my pregnancy. Honestly, up until now this whole experience has pretty much been about waiting for things to happen. Waiting for my tummy to show, waiting for the baby to move, waiting for the day we’d find out whether we had a Liam or a Callan, so now that all that stuff is happening, my mind is starting to become a lot more focused on that inevitable day when I arrive at the hospital, woddling with pain in full bitch mode ready to burst this baby into the world. But it’s kind of hard to prepare for something like this and it doesn’t help when the books I have on childbirth provide very little description of what labor pain actually feels like. The closest personal experience I have for comparison would be the time I got stung by a sting ray while Mike and I were on vacation in South Carolina. In an attempt to try and calm my hysterics, the life guard told me that other beach goers she had attended to that summer who were also stung had either compared the pain to being in labor or being shot.
However, I did find a few things on the internet that helped put things in perspective a little. For instance, I didn’t realize that when you have a contraction, your muscles actually do contract. Duh, I guess that’s why it’s called a contraction. Another website actually described a contraction to be like “an orgasm or an ocean wave”. Well, damn, that actually sounds pleasant. Almost makes me wish I could be in labor all the time. A lot of other descriptions I read were from women who had had epidurals or had taken other kinds of pain relief. I’m planning to not take any pain medication, not because I think I’m some sort of Amazon woman or something, but because I just want to be fully aware of what’s going on and not be all dopey. I’m sort of hoping I’ll take after my mom when it comes to labor. It only took her about five hours total to pop my brother out and even less with me (like two or three hours).
But, I’m definitely not relying on the “orgasm”, “ocean wave” comparison. I’m thinking “body on fire, burning, throbbing, menstrual cramps intensified by 100″ and “A LOT of pressure” to be a more accurate description. I hope I’m ready for this.
Apr 05 2006
So, the weekend before I left for Boston I was working on my literature review for my research proposal and my dad’s old but trusty laptop gave me a black screen error message that said something like “no kernal available”. Now, we’re normally Mac users in my family, always have been as long as I can remember. But this trusty laptop was an IBM, in fact, it was an unintentional going away present my dad got when he retired (unintentional as in they never asked for it and he never reminded them to ask for it). Despite my families disappointment in it’s pedigree, I always found this laptop to be a great accessory for school work. Unfortunately, as those of you more familiar with computers than I am would have already guessed, “no kernal” is not a good thing and basically means your computer has no more life left in it. So, to make a long story short, I got a new laptop, a MacBook Pro. I’m not really one of those people who get’s excited about computers. It’s a bit like cars. As long as they work, I could really care less what kind of engine or horse power it has. But I have to admitt, my MacBook Pro is, well, it’s just really purdy.
Apr 04 2006
I’m at nineteen weeks now and I’ve started to feel the first flutters of movement. I can’t even begin to express what an incredible feeling this is. We’ll be going in for another ultra-sound next week when we’ll, hopefully, find out whether it’s a boy or a girl. Of course, there’s always the chance that the baby’s legs will be crossed or its back turned to the camera. Considering Mike’s shyness and my camera phobia, this is certainly likely.
I don’t know whether it’s because of the ultra-sound coming up or whether it’s just something happening in my body but I’ve had some really strange and intense dreams the past few nights. I had quite a few at the beginning of the pregnancy, very drawn out and detailed dreams. Last night I dreamt that Mike and I adopted two twin girls who had lost their parents in the war in Iraq. The whole war and catastrophe thing has always been pretty prevalent in my dreams (gets pretty depressing). Anyway, these two girls were about four, one called Jill, the other called Gillian. Yeah. Not very creative parents I guess, or maybe they just really liked the name. So, as we’re leaving one of them just takes off, you know, like kids do sometimes, just starts running down the street. So I start running after her but I can’t remember if she’s Jill or Gillian so I’m just screaming “hey you” which doesn’t seem to be getting her attention. She just keeps running. She finally stops and I catch up to her and then I start yelling at her for running off and the whole time I’m thinking “this is really not a very good start to this adoption”. So, that part of the dream ends. The next thing I know I’m at some race track getting ready to run some race with Mike. We’re standing at the start line with all these other people when it dawns on me that I’m pregnant and probably won’t be able to finish the race so I ask Mike whether it’s legal for me to just stop and drop out in the middle of it if I get too tired. I keep tugging his arm trying to get his attention so I can ask him but he’s doing this thing that my dad often does when he’s really focused on things. That is, he just ignores me and doesn’t answer. I keep trying to get his attention but he still doesn’t look at me. Finally, I’m screaming at him and then the start gun goes off so I start running and in my last attempt to get his attention I turn back and flip him off! Next thing I know the track turns into this massive grocery store. As we’re all running up and down the aisles there’s all kinds of customers standing around doing their shopping. Sometimes they turn and wave at us. It was just really weird. The night before last I had another one that was a little more creepy. I was in some other country by myself trying to get someplace, not sure where. But along the way I keep meeting people who help me and one of them has a daughter who just had a baby. She invites me back to her home so I can see her grand-daughter. When I look in the crib the baby is actually one of those Russian dolls, you know, the ones where you keep opening them up and there’s a smaller doll inside. So, I look at the daughter a little confused and she just smiles back and says the “baby is inside” which makes me pretty relieved. She opens the dolls up and on the very inside is not a baby, but a tiny pink skeleton that sort of looks like one of those Mexican puppet skeletons that they use in those parades during Halloween. What’s weird though is that the skeleton moves just like a baby. The image horrifies me now but I don’t remember feeling that way in my dream. I just left and kept going.
So, that’s pretty much where my brain is at these days. Preoccupied, apprehensive and thoroughly confused by bizarre dreams. I can’t believe I flipped my husband off!
