Pardon the dust

A new year seems like a good time for a new look around here. The design and layout will likely be changing over the next few days, so apologies if the blog suddenly becomes difficult to read.

PSA

We're safely home and, well, that fact is more significant than it may appear on first blush. Yesterday afternoon we had a pretty bad car accident on our way back to Salt Lake from Idaho. The roads got icy very quickly and our car rolled. We got very, very lucky and nobody was injured. The accident happened when there weren't any other cars around us and the car rolled off the shoulder (and not into oncoming traffic) in an area where there was a lot of brush and snow, so damage to the car and to us was about as minimal as it gets with a rollover. We were also all wearing seatbelts, and I've never been so thankful for a piece of fabric in my entire life.

People, wear your seatbelts. Make your kids wear their seatbelts. Make your mothers and your sisters and your friends wear their seatbelts. It doesn't matter how good a driver you are or how many times you've driven that stretch of road; an accident can happen in an instant, and frequently there's nothing you specifically do to cause it. I can't even count the number of times we've made that same drive, usually in worse weather conditions than the ones we encountered on Friday. It didn't matter--we hit ice and that was it. If we hadn't been wearing seatbelts (and Luke hadn't been strapped into his carseat) we certainly wouldn't have walked away from the crash without a scratch, and we might not have walked away at all. Wear your seatbelts.

Everything but the kitchen sink

Packing for our first trip away from home with Luke is...challenging. I'm fighting the urge to just throw every piece of clothing, toy, and baby accessory we own into his suitcase to cover all the bases, and clearly that isn't an option. Experienced mom packers, what's one thing that you wished you had brought with you on your child's first overnight trip?

Reasons why this is not a good week to mess with me

I am not the most pleasant person to be around this week. Luke has officially entered the 4 month wakeful stage (so nicely coinciding with the week we're taking him on his first overnight trip away from home) and I'm dead on my feet. Between his sudden decision to drop his evening nap and the last few nights of "MAMA, I IS AWAKE AND WANT TO PLAY!" shrieking into the monitor at 3:00 am (both before and after feeding, I might add) we're not getting much rest around here right now. Mom, Dad, Julia--you are officially drafted for baby duty when we get to Salt Lake this weekend so Juan and I can take a nap.

Anyhow, all of this is just to explain to you exactly why my students don't want to mess with my right now. Aside from the fact that I'm so tired I just spelled "right" as "reight" and had to pause a second when spellcheck flagged it because it looked okay to my sleepy eye, my work laptop was abducted by the IT department yesterday and I had nothing to do (seriously, I couldn't even grade papers, that's how dependent we are on those laptops at my school) for 8 hours. On a normal day that wouldn't have been a problem, but I was giving exams so I couldn't even while the time away by giving a lecture or three. I didn't bring my knitting because I thought I'd have my laptop, and reading a book during an exam just isn't kosher.

So, I started off the day in a bad mood because I was very tired and very annoyed that my computer was forcibly taken from me by people who swore that it would "only take an hour" to do whatever needed to be done to make the computer less vulnerable to hackers or elves or whoever else might want to invade my files. Then my students decided to forget the million or so reminders I had given them for the last week that their final was today and they needed their books, two pieces of blank paper, and a working pen or pencil. Over half of them showed up to class without anything at all and had to book it to their lockers to get the things they're supposed to bring to class every day.

I'd just like to state for the record that I was a very anal retentive high school student. I always brought my books to class; was never without a large spiral notebook and lots of pens; and I never, EVER forgot about a test. So, you can see how frustrating and perplexing it is for someone like me to be confronted with not one, but at least a dozen students who simply "forgot" that today was their test and *gasp!* they needed school supplies to take it. That doesn't include the two kids who outright refused to take the test (resulting in automatic referrals to the Assistant Principal's office) and the one kid who, for some reason, decided to crumple up his essay and put his gum in it so it was impossible for me to grade. I swear, the scheduling clerk gave me all the winners in this year's sophomore class.

Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to Friday since I have the day off to run errands and get us packed before we leave town Saturday. The kids and I need a break from one another.

Four Months

Luke turned four months old on Monday, and I have to say that I am LOVING this age. He babbles constantly, smiles and giggles when you play with him, still wants to snuggle a fair amount, and loves nothing more than reaching for toys and then jamming them firmly into his mouth. He's also started to enjoy the sitting position quite a bit, and just in the last few days he's stopped arching his back and trying to "stand" when we get him to sit.

Vital stats from today's pediatrician appointment:

Length: 23.6 in.
Weight: 13.6 lbs.
Head Circumference: 16.5

We've gotten the go-ahead to start him on rice cereal, so we'll probably give it a try this weekend. Surprisingly, he didn't have a major meltdown after his shots, and right now he's happily playing with Juan and acting like nothing in particular happened at all today. Hopefully this is the way all of his future vaccinations go (as if)!

Now we need to gear up to face our next big hurdle--traveling to see both sides of the family for Christmas.

homeownership bites (no, really)

The roof is leaking, sheetrock needs to be replaced (since it's now wet from said leaking roof), one swamp cooler is shot, and the cat is peeing on furniture again.

Oh, and it's only Monday.

That kind of day

Today was the kind of day that reminded me of the best and worst parts of my job. The best:

-actually getting kids who normally do nothing but goof off to do serious work,
-having a student trust me enough to ask for my advice about a serious personal problem,
-and having some free time during the day to stop and chat with my friends

and the worst:

-not knowing what to say to the student who came to me with the personal problem,
-having a student ditch class and steal my stapler,
-and practically dying of heat exhaustion in my classroom since the building's a/c is broken.

I also had the opportunity to learn that over half my students think that Europe, Africa, Paris, and Barcelona are all countries, and that two of them think that plagiarism shouldn't be a big deal because teachers apparently do it "all the time" with no consequences.

The extreme good and bad of teaching rarely coincide on the same day, but today was clearly special.

Dear Students (stupid, stupid students)

Dear Students,

You may wonder why my door is frequently closed and locked before school, during lunch, and during my conference period. Those of you who need to talk to me about different issues (usually related to excuses you have concocted in an attempt to get me to accept late homework) might find it irritating or inconvenient to come to my classroom only to find that you can't get in. For that, I am sincerely sorry.

Those of you who actually pay attention in class should remember that I have said (and repeated ad nauseum) that if you need to see me when my door is CLOSED AND LOCKED you should leave a note for me in my box. I'll come find you so we can discuss whatever pressing issue is on your mind. Those of you who spend class time braiding your hair or flirting with a member of the opposite sex, however, may not have absorbed this information, so you knock on my CLOSED AND LOCKED door when it is CLOSED AND LOCKED. Those of you with more than three brain cells to rub together will come to the conclusion that I'm not inside when no one answers your knock, and hopefully you'll come back later. Those of you who, I assume, don't have any brain cells at all (and no, I don't want to know why) will decide that maybe I'm inside, desperate to visit with you in spite of my CLOSED AND LOCKED door, and will rattle the knob. And knock again. And rattle the knob. And knock yet again. This tactic, while it will force me to make a mental note to remind all six of my classes of what to do if my door is CLOSED AND LOCKED, will not gain you entry. There is a very simple reason for this, and I guarantee you really don't want to know what it is.

Really? You want to know? That much?

When I'm in my room with the door CLOSED AND LOCKED and there isn't a class in session, I'm not grading papers. I'm also not talking to parents about confidential student issues (although this is what I will tell you in person if you ever ask). I'm not even having a wild party with all the other cool teachers. I'm pumping. Breastmilk. To feed my baby.

See, I told you that you didn't want to know.

So, I encourage you to respect the fact that when my door is CLOSED AND LOCKED, I will not let you in no matter how much you bang on the (tastefully frosted) glass or rattle the handle. Even if I'm inside, there's no way you're gaining entry. Accept it and move on, but please don't waste ten minutes of your time trying to break in. It won't work, and (if I ever find out who you are) it will almost certainly affect your grade in a very negative way.

Sincerely,

Mrs. M

P.S. I worry for the future of our nation when a 15-18 year old cannot understand that a CLOSED AND LOCKED door means that either no one is inside the room or someone is inside and they don't want to be disturbed.

P.P.S. In case anyone cares, our nanny made it home from Mexico late Sunday night, so daycare crisis averted. Barely.

I don't have the right kind of personality for my life today

I don't do well under stress. My anxiety genes take over the rational parts of my brain (you know, those parts that recognize that relatively minor annoyances don't constitute cause for large-scale freakouts) and I end up massively overreacting in the worst way. Take the last 24 hours, for example. Last night I learned the following:

-Our nanny may not make it back home from Mexico by Monday morning, which is when Luke is supposed to start with her. We had no backup childcare arranged.

-My principal expects us to perform the pedagogical equivalent of performing backflips on a balance beam before learning how to walk, all in the next two weeks.

-Juan will be working the night we return home from our Christmas vacation, leaving me home alone with a baby who will almost certainly be overstimulated, sleep deprived, and mad as hell at having his schedule so screwed up.

Number three is annoying, but it's just something to get through. Number two caused me quite a few headaches until I figured out how to juggle a few things around on my calendar to "make it work" this morning. Number one, however, is what kept me up most of last night, even after getting the names of some highly recommended in-home daycare providers from one of our friends.

I think it's the uncertainty of these kinds of situations that just kills me. I don't do well with change as a general rule, and when I'm forced into changing plans (be they big or small) I tend to resist with every last ounce of strength I have. Professionally and personally this isn't a very good personality trait for me to have (as my colleagues remind me at times like these, flexibility is the name of the game when you work in education) and my inflexible nature then turns every unexpected event into a crisis to stress and obsess over ad nauseum.

We have backup childcare set up now, though I don't like it as much as I like our nanny. The school stuff has been sorted out for the most part, and, well, the Christmas thing is just going to suck. So why do I still feel like I'm in panic mode? Why are my nerves on edge and why am I snapping at everyone who dares come near me? I wish I knew, and I wish I could just turn off whatever part of my personality reacts to stressful situations this way.

One year ago today...

Exactly one year and one day ago I was convinced I wasn't pregnant. I came home after a long day of work to an empty house since Juan was on call, made some dinner, drank a beer, and started meticulously planning out my next cycle. It was going to be our 21st--twenty one months since we had started trying to get pregnant. I was considering taking a break for a cycle or two until our insurance processed the paperwork for my referral to a local RE but hadn't made up my mind one way or another yet.

In any case, I ate, I watched some TV and I went to bed. It was an altogether unremarkable night, but it was also one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Exactly one year ago today I woke up, brushed my teeth, turned on the shower, and (just for the heck of it) took a pregnancy test. I expected it would be negative--hell, I was testing when Juan wasn't even home, that's how much I was expecting a negative result. Except...it wasn't negative. It was positive. Positive.

I remember thinking that I should be crying. You're supposed to cry when you finally get the one thing you've wanted more than anything else for almost two years, right? I couldn't cry, though. All I could do was stare at that test. Positive.

Sitting here now, staring down at Luke, part of me still can't believe that it really happened or that I'm really, finally, a mother. It's been an amazing journey, and I feel like the luckiest person alive to have taken it.



I love you, little boy. You were unquestionably worth the wait.

This time the kitchen fire wasn't my fault

Juan started a fire in our oven on Thanksgiving.

Let me repeat that for those of you who are now staring at your screen in disbelief. JUAN started a FIRE in our oven on Thanksgiving. Juan, not C. The male half of our relationship started the fire. The one who never does stupid things in the kitchen almost burned our house down. That one.

Hee.

As you can tell from the lighthearted tone of this post, no serious damage was done (except the damage to Juan's food) and we were able to put the tiny fire out in about ten seconds, but still. I wasn't the one who caused culinary mayhem this time.

But let me rewind things a bit so you can get a full appreciation for what actually went down at our house last Thursday night. Being a fan of red meat and a decided hater of seafood, Juan responded to my decision to serve lobster for Thanksgiving dinner with a request for something that didn't swim. Fair enough, so my parents and I prepared our feast while Juan planned his own. We had lobster, shrimp, snow crab, spanikopita, apple pie, and (just for Juan) steak. Since there were so many different dishes (all of which had to be served piping hot) and one of us had to juggle Luke since he wasn't napping well that day, we ate in shifts. My parents and I dug into our lobster while Juan's steak was still broiling in the oven and everything was going very well until Luke needed a diaper change. Juan checked the steak, decided it needed a few more minutes under the broiler, and took the baby upstairs while my parents and I continued eating. Suddenly, smoke started pouring out of the oven and all the smoke detectors in the house went off at the same time.

Needless to say, scrambling ensued.

Sure enough, the steak had caught on fire while it was in the oven. Juan's steak was pretty charred, but some quick moves by my dad managed to save a small corner of it so he still had something to eat for dinner. The oven appears to be undamaged and we're very, very sure that the smoke detectors work properly, so overall the night wasn't a complete bust.

I should probably feel bad for crowing a bit over Juan's mishap, but given how much pleasure he's taken from my kitchen catastrophes over the years, it seems only fair for me to take some pleasure from his.

I take it back

Something exciting IS happening in our house after all! My mom and I went to lunch and a movie this afternoon in celebration of her birthday and when we came home my dad told us that he and Luke had a surprise for us. He propped Luke up with some couch cushions, made a funny noise, and Luke LAUGHED! My baby laughs!

In other baby news, Luke slept in his own room, by himself, for the first time last night and did great. I, on the other hand, hardly slept a wink for worrying about him. Hopefully tonight is better, otherwise it's going to be a very sleepy Thanksgiving for me.

Vacation, WOO!!!

I'm probably a little too excited about the Thanksgiving break given that I've only been back at work for a week and a half. I am excited, though, especially since my parents are still in town, Juan's week off starts on Thursday, and we have four delicious lobster tails in the freezer.

As you can see, I don't have any scintillating stories to share so I'll just wish you all a very happy (early) Thanksgiving.

Zzzzzzzzz...

Day three and I'm still alive. Being back at work has been hard. It's not just leaving Luke (who is doing much better at taking bottles, by the way) but it's also the fact that teaching is physically exhausting even when I'm not operating on 4-5 hours of sleep a night. I'd sort of forgotten how much energy it takes to jump around a classroom keeping kids engaged for 8 hours a day, and especially given the situation I'm coming back to discipline-wise I can't slack at all while they're in the room.

Anyway, I'm tired and will be going to bed now even though tonight is the premiere of Project Runway ans I never miss Project Runway. Better to delay the first "make it work" of 2007 than end up passed out and drooling over my laptop.

I came, I saw, I wanted to go home

Well, at least I didn't cry.

The first day back was predictably difficult and I spent most of my time feeling discombobulated after spending 6 months out of the classroom. The kids (who got away with murder during my absence) don't especially like the fact that I'm *gasp!* enforcing the rules, but I think things will settle down in a few weeks.

As for Luke, he spent the day displaying the kind of stubbornness only my child is capable of and refused to eat more than an ounce and a half all day. Wish us all luck in trying to convince him to take a bottle more readily tomorrow.

I may have a nervous breakdown, but at least I have a stapler

I've spent a good 10 hours putting my classroom back together this week (suffice it to say that I am less than thrilled about how my sub took care of it) as a way of focusing my anxiety about going back to work on something other than actual work. Fretting about the decided lack of a stapler in my room was a lot more appealing than thinking too hard about the fact that I would be away from Luke for at least 9 hours a day starting on Monday. We put the finishing touches on things this afternoon, and now all that's left is for me to walk in there tomorrow morning prepared to lecture my heart out about the English Renaissance and Elizabethan sonnets. Either that, or I'll break down in tears before the first bell rings. Who knows.

I wasn't even cooking...

Remember this and this? Yeah, well at least those times I was trying to make something.

We had a big day here today (rolling! Luke rolled over!!!) so I decided to celebrate with a nice glass of wine after Juan got home. I went upstairs to the wine fridge, picked out a good Riesling, and pulled out the corkscrew. I had a hard time getting it to actually puncture the cork, but I just thought that the foil around the top was especially thick or something. After a minute I got it in, though, and it was remarkably easy to finish screwing it in.

And then I pulled up. And...no cork came out. Because there wasn't a cork, it was a screw top.

Exhibit A:



After Juan picked himself up off the floor where he had (literally) collapsed from laughing, he insisted on taking photos to commemorate the event. I confess that I was laughing pretty hard by that point too because, really, WHO DOES THAT?

Anyway, that was my evening, and the upside of all of this was that we had to drink a whole bottle of really delicious wine. Pumping and dumping, here I come!

**I would just like to add here that while I'm slightly buzzed, Juan can't turn his head too quickly or he'll fall over. We had exactly the same amount to drink. I may have tried to use a corkscrew with a screw-top bottle, but my husband's the lightweight in our relationship.**

One Week Left

One week from today I'll be back at work. I'll leave Luke with my parents (who generously offered to come down to help ease me back into the workplace by providing childcare for my first work week) pull out of the garage, and head back to the classroom. I'll be perfectly honest here and say that part of me is really looking forward to it. I've missed teaching, missed my colleagues, and missed having adult (well, semi-adult--I do teach teenagers, after all) conversations during the day. But... I won't be with my boy all day anymore. I won't get to see his smile a dozen times before breakfast, won't be able to spend endless hours playing with him, and won't be the one to provide everything he needs 24/7. That last one is hitting me particularly hard today. One of the most overwhelming things about new motherhood is how much you're needed all the time, and while it can be a shock to the system in the beginning, I really do love how much Luke needs me.

My favorite part of staying at home has been that I've been able to be there for everything. Aside from the handful of times that I've left Luke with someone else for a couple of hours, he's gotten just about everything he could possibly need from me. Now I'm going to have to not only hand him off to a caregiver every morning, but I'm also going to have to come to terms with the fact that that caregiver will do the things I used to do between the hours of 8:00 and 4:00. She'll feed him, cuddle him, get him to take naps, love him, play with him, and be everything he needs her to be. There's a big part of me that really doesn't want anyone else to provide those things for him even though I know that he'll be fine, he'll still need me, and that it's good for him to learn how to trust people outside of our immediate family.

So if I'm not very talkative for the next week, it's because I'm soaking up every last minute of these few days Luke and I have left together. They're precious to me, and even though I'm looking forward to returning to work, I'll probably always second guess my decision to go back because it means letting him need someone else.

Three Months Old

When You Send C to Target...

Yesterday J discovered that we were almost out of diapers, so he asked me to run to Target sometime today to pick some up. He really should have known what he was getting himself into at that point, but alas he didn't remember the Cardinal Rule of Target. Namely, Do Not Send C There By Herself Or You Will Live To Regret It.

But I get ahead of myself.

So, there I was, Luke by my side, and the entirety of Target in front of me. I like Target. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that I love Target just a little bit. So much stuff! Such reasonable prices!

Diapers, right. I needed diapers. Oh, and Stage 2 nipples for Luke's bottles since we're hoping that a faster flow will help end Bottle Strike: 2007.

(is it me or am I giving a lot of things proper names in this post?)



Diapers and bottle nipples, check!

But the baby section was tantalizingly close to the Halloween section, and it wouldn't hurt to check out the deals, would it? No, indeed it would not. And, in fact, I found some great ones!



This t-shirt--only $5!



This wreath, 50% off!



CANDY! It's Halloween and we need CANDY!



Oh, and a festive felt bucket to put the candy in!

But really, I shouldn't buy anything else.

Or should I???



"The Office" stuff! They have I (heart) Jim notepads! Magnets! Just fifty cents!



(And yes, I do plan to use the I (heart) Jim notepads for my hall passes when I go back. So there, boring post-it note people!)



MOVIES! J was just saying the other day that he wanted Transformers and the latest season of "Scrubs"!



(please note, I was a cool wife and bought the version of Transformers with a box that actually is a Transformer. Best Wife Ever.)

Needless to say, by the time I was done there was barely any room for the baby in my cart, much less any other random Target merchandise. Thus I checked out, crammed everything into my trunk somehow, and ended up at home on Halloween night taking pictures of my Target purchases.



Luke is not impressed by Target, but Daddy is pretty happy about his movies.

Wow. Mommy guilt really sucks.

We're not having a good week. Luke started a bottle strike over the weekend (he'll reluctantly take one from me, but not from anyone else) and I found out yesterday that our daycare center won't be able to take him in December after all. Add this to the stress I was already feeling about going back to work, and I'm kind of a wreck at the moment. The guilt I'm feeling about this--about knowing that he won't eat if I'm not around and that we're now having to make some tough decisions about who will care for him in just a month--is tremendous. I've never felt like this before, and there's a rising sense of panic thrown in with the bone-crushing guilt because at least the bottle issue has to be resolved quickly. Quickly, as in tonight or tomorrow because I'm going to parent/teacher conferences Thursday night and Luke will be staying with a sitter and Juan. I don't know how I'm going to sit there and make small talk with parents and kids I've never met before if I know that my baby is probably hungry and crying at home because he doesn't realize that people who aren't Mama can give him the food he needs.

Aaaaand now I'm crying.

Motherhood is hard in ways I never imagined, and these issues are just two examples of the problems I couldn't have dreamed of only 11 short weeks ago. I honestly don't know what to do.

Yeah, it's worth it

I have had it up to here with my sub. He's a moron who hasn't taken his job seriously from Day 1, and now we could both get in serious trouble because of his attitude.

BUT...

Every time I get angry about this situation, I try to remind myself of why I have a sub in the first place.



To have Luke, to have had the chance to spend the last 11 weeks doing nothing but caring for this precious little boy, I'd do it all over again a million times.

Unreasonable anxiety

The coverage of the horrible wildfires in California has me on edge. Fire is one of the few things I'm truly phobic of. I still have nightmares about the day a 4 alarm fire broke out in the building across the street from our condo back in Maryland. I left for the grocery store and everything was fine, came back and there were fire trucks and visible flames in my neighborhood. Thankfully that fire didn't spread beyond the original building, but it was still the closest I've ever come to a destructive fire.

Now, watching news coverage of what's happening in San Diego and L.A., I'm seized with anxiety and "what if it happened here"s. After feeling horrified when I read that some people only got a few minutes notice before the fires hit their streets, I started to wonder what I would do in that situation. I know I could get Luke into the car quickly--he's never more than a few paces away from me at this point--but Jasper and the cats are a different story. The truth is that I probably couldn't corral both Codi and Arcadia without at least half an hour lead time. That terrifies me. I can't even think about the fact that my car is too small for me, the baby, the dog, and the cats to all really fit without feeling panicked.

I really should turn off the TV and stop reading online stories about the fires. First, though, I'm going to make a donation to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts and read up on wildfire preparedness. Just in case.

Three Things

Amalah posted this challenge today and since I'm in a meme-y mood (and since it's a very good question) I thought I'd tackle it. To wit:

What are the three things you wish for your kids to experience in their lives?

1) To always feel safe and loved at home.

I've always had a very strong connection to my parents and "home". It made moving away after college really hard and is the main reason why I talk to them at least twice a week. I always knew that no matter what I could go home if I needed to feel safe and loved. Even though Luke will live in a number of different houses and cities as he grows up, I dearly hope he always feels that he can come "home" to me and Juan whenever he needs unconditional love and protection.

2) To make a difference in someone else's life

Few things are more significant, in my opinion, than making the world a better place for another person. There's really not much more I can say than that.

3) To have lifelong friendships

I thought long and hard about this third one because experiencing love is certainly something I want for Luke. Friendship is an important kind of love, more important than romantic love in many ways, and I know that I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for my friends. You need people to turn to when things are bad, when you're unhappy, and when you need to talk problems over with someone outside of your family. I want Luke to know what that feels like, and I certainly want to send him out into the world knowing that he has people he can turn to no matter what happens. Everyone needs those kinds of friends.

Eight Things About My Marriage

The lovely M has tagged me for this meme and I confess to having sat on it for a couple of days just to think about my answers.

1) Where did you meet your husband?

Juan and I first met at a Golden Key Honor Society regional meeting that our university's chapter was hosting. I got roped into volunteering by two friends who wanted me to join and Juan was already a member. We worked the registration table together and I don't think he said more than a couple of words to me the whole night. Anyone who knows Juan knows just how absorbed he can get when a laptop is in front of him, so I can't blame him for completely ignoring the future love of his life that particular night. ;-P

We re-met at the start of the 2001-2002 school year when I joined GK and we started eating lunch together with our mutual friends. That's when we actually got to know one another.

Incidentally, two of my good friends also met/started dating their future husbands because they were involved in GK, so at one point we had a semi-serious discussion with Headquarters about marketing the society as a dating service. Oh, the eyes that must have rolled in Atlanta during THAT phone call...

2) What was the first thing you said to your husband?

Oh geez, I have no idea. Probably, "Hi, I'm Carolyn." I assume he grunted something in return. He's a man of few words.

3) Where was your first kiss? First date?

First kiss is easy--on the couch in his room while watching "The Simpsons"..

First date...that's a bit harder. See, we have different ideas about what our first date actually was since we hung out as friends a few times before what I consider to be our first real romantic date. Juan disagrees and says that those friend outings were also dates, so I'm going to tell my version of the story and then let him tell his.

Carolyn's story: After I discovered that Juan hadn't seen the movie "Shrek" yet (remember that this was early November, 2001) I proposed a trip to the dollar theater near our university to see it. We went, we ate Reese's Pieces, and midway through the movie he reached over and held my hand. It was the first time he'd worked up the courage to let me know in an explicit way that he liked me as more than a friend, which is why it was CLEARLY our real first date.

Juan's story: Okay, so he won't guest blog for me, but in a nutshell he came to my work one night (Halloween, actually) to ask me if I'd go to an Air Force ROTC Dining Out (for those unfamiliar with bizarre military traditions, it's essentially a roast/fancy dinner) the following night since he had to attend as an Army ROTC representative. I recall him saying that he "needed" a date, so I assumed that he was asking me because we were friends and he was asking me to do him a favor. The fact that he gave me 24 hours notice also contributed to this impression. He believed (and still believes to this day) that I should have somehow known, given this setup, that he was asking me out on an actual date-date. Anyway, I had to get my prom dress cleaned overnight since it was the only thing I owned that was fancy enough, we went, had a good time, and really started dating a little over a week later.

4) Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?

We dated for 18 months (long by Utah standards) and were engaged for less than a month before eloping. The reasons for the elopement were far less interesting than most people probably assume. Basically, we realized that given Juan's medical school schedule there was no way for us to get a marriage license in Utah (where we both agreed the wedding had to be) without literally camping out in front of the County Clerk's office less than an hour before our Monday morning ceremony. We couldn't change the date or convince the clerk to waive a rule about how long a license could be issued before the marriage took place, so we were legally married in Maryland 8 months before our family ceremony in Utah.

5) Where did you get engaged?

In my parents' living room in front of my entire family. Not exactly what I had always dreamed of, but it was very sweet nonetheless.

6) Where did you get married?

Our legal ceremony was in downtown Bethesda, Maryland; but what we think of as our "real" wedding was at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City.

7) How did the reception go?

I thought it was pretty fun. We had a light lunch for everyone, people talked and had a good time catching up (our wedding was small enough that most people knew almost all of the other guests), and there was a sword to cut the cake. Who could ask for more than that?

8) How was the honeymoon?

Aside from the fact that there's really not much to do in the Poconos in March and the fact that I had to spend one afternoon trying to manage a work crisis that erupted because a stupid Congressional staffer WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS BECAUSE I AM A NICE PERSON decided to lose a map I hand delivered to his office and then lied about it to my boss, it was a lot of fun.

Hmmm... I think I'll tag Kathleen, Mama A, and Mama Emily to do this one next.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day

I am woefully late in updating with this today (it's been quite a day) but I wanted to link to the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day site as today is their Day of Light. Please take a moment, light a candle, and send good thoughts to those in your life who have experienced a loss.

The Other Side of the Fence

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about friendship. The friends I lost while going through infertility, the friends I gained, and the friendships I already had that grew stronger through shared heartache all occupy a significant portion of my thoughts these days.

Friendship is something I've always struggled with (I spent most of my childhood agonizing over why I didn't have friends and now that I'm an adult I've had to move away from the wonderful friends I made in Salt Lake and DC) so thinking about lost friends always saddens me. The combination of infertility and distance cost me one of the closest friendships I've ever had, and I know that's something I'll always be angry about. It also helped me grow closer to two friends I'd had for years, and if nothing else I'm grateful I had the chance to support them and get their support while we were still trying to conceive.

Now that I'm on the other side of the infertility "fence" though, I'm struggling with completely different issues. Namely, how do I stay a good friend to those who are still going through infertility hell? How do I know when to back off and give my friends space if that's what they need? How do I make sure not to say or do something that hurts them? You would think (hell, I would think) that it would be easy to know what to do since I've been there myself, but what's right for one person isn't necessarily right for another.

I've been very open about my infertility from day one. My parents and sister know about it--they even read this blog daily. All of my friends know what we went through; my in-laws know; and because I was a patient at J's hospital while we were searching for a diagnosis, many of his coworkers are aware of our problems as well. In spite of the intensely private nature of infertility, I had no problem with "going public". Talking about what was going on, sharing our story, and trying my best to de-stigmatize it helped me cope. I know that's not the case with everyone, though, which is one of the reasons why I think I'm having such a hard time knowing how to "be there" for my infertile friends now. Most of them aren't as open about their struggles as I was (and am) so the things I wanted people to do when I was in their shoes such as e-mails asking how I was doing, phone calls to check up on me after another failed cycle, etc... likely aren't what they want from me now. There's also the issue of Luke--I know that seeing or hearing about a new baby while you're infertile can be incredibly difficult. I never want to cause my friends the pain I felt when someone insensitively sent me unsolicited baby photos or wouldn't stop talking about their children while we spent time together.

I want to be a good friend. I know those I care about who are still battling infertility need good friends. I just need to know how to be what they need me to be.

Sunday at the Patch

I've been a little obsessed with pumpkins lately. Specifically, with pumpkin patches. We never went to one when I was little, so my first exposure to a "real" patch (as opposed to the piles of pumpkins at the grocery store around Halloween) was in college. After visiting Thanksgiving Point I decided that when I had kids we'd go to the pumpkin patch every year to buy our jack-o-lanterns. So, last weekend I started researching patches in El Paso and today we packed up the boy and drove to New Mexico to the La Union Pumpkin Patch. Luke was...unimpressed. We had a great time, though, and got some really nice pictures of the three of us.

Top Chef!

Anyone else see a resemblance here?


Top Chef's Dale


Luke

I think this seals the deal--we're rooting for Team Dale during tomorrow night's finale. Mohawk wearers unite!

Baby Smiles

Peaceful Moments and a Big Milestone

I'm on the mend again, and while I still have a stuffy nose my fever has broken and I was able to get a good night's sleep on Tuesday. Last night was a bit rough because Luke had a hard time staying asleep, but overall I feel much better.

I know I keep saying this, but things are going too quickly. I go back to work in just over a month, Luke's going be seven weeks old tomorrow, and as often as I tell myself that I'm going to slow down and try to appreciate all of the wonderful things about having a newborn I still find myself rushing around and missing little moments. The first few weeks of his life seemed to go by so slowly, but now there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and still spend hours just staring at him.

Luke is finding ways to make me slow down, though, most notably by giving me his first genuine for-sure smile yesterday. He was in his crib after a diaper change, and greeted me with a huge grin when I went to pick him up after washing my hands. We spent the next 10 minutes exchanging smiles, and I only wish I'd thought to run downstairs and grab the camcorder or camera to capture the moment. I promise to post some smiling pictures soon, though.

In lieu of a smile, then, I thought I'd give you all a sneak peek of the photo we picked for his birth announcements--the precious boy, asleep in his swing.

Sicky sick sick

If there's anything less fun than being sick when you have a baby I want to know what it is. Maybe it'll make me feel better. Fever + cranky baby + husband who can't stay home to lend a hand = miserable C.

Grandma is wise

Back when my parents were here (a whopping 4 weeks ago--good grief, having a baby has totally distorted my perception of time since 4 weeks feels like 4 months right now) my mom told us an hilarious story about how when I was a newborn she and my dad made all of these little charts and graphs to try to figure out if there was any rhyme or reason to my behavior.

(I should add here that I was an incredibly difficult and colicky newborn, so I don't blame them for trying to figure out what made me tick and/or scream all the time)

Naturally, there was no method to the infant madness, and they gave up on the charts after realizing that I just did things when I darn well felt like doing them.

Well, guess what brilliant idea I had over the weekend? That's right, a lightbulb went off in my head and I thought "Hey, let's chart Luke's meals, naps, and moods so we can figure out what his schedule is!"

I am such an idiot who needs to listen to my mother more often.

All week I kept Excel spreadsheets detailing Luke's every move. When he ate, when he slept, when he pooped, etc... Guess what I found? That's right, there's ABSOLUTELY NO PATTERN TO HIS BEHAVIOR WHATSOEVER.

Surprise, surprise, my newborn is acting like a newborn.

I did learn a few things, though, mostly about how I need to try to control his day a little less. I'm the queen of managing my own time down to the minute if I need to, and in college my friends used to tease me for being rigid about following my strategically planned day as outlined in my day planner. Life would clearly end if I took longer than 12 minutes to walk from my dorm to the student union back then. Now I need to realize that babies (and older kids) do things on their own time, and it's okay to relax a bit about the "schedule" and follow his lead on what to do and when to do it.

Like his mother, he is easily amused

Luke is on my lap right now and is just enthralled by the ceiling fan. Glad to know my child doesn't need all those fancy-schmancy toys we bought him in order to have a good time.

Aaaand he just spit up on my leg. Motherhood is fun.

Mama Bear

I think I may be a wee bit overprotective of Luke.

Saturday Juan and I decided to make the looooong trek out to Babies R Us because we had some good coupons and "needed" to buy a few things for the baby. What can I say, we wanted to get out of the house and decided that spending oodles of money on baby toys was as good an excuse as any for a 45 minute drive.

In any case, we packed up the diaper bag, strapped the boy in his carseat, and piled in the car. Juan in the driver's seat, Luke in the back, and me...right next to Luke. "How long are you going to keep riding in the back with him?" Juan asked me. I confess, I thought about answering "Forever" but decided that was probably not what he wanted to hear.

The truth is, I don't especially enjoy riding in back with the bulky carseat, especially since you have to be a contortionist just to get the seatbelt buckled. There's also a lot less elbow room than I prefer, and Juan and I rarely talk much when I'm back there. And yet... I can't shake the feeling that I need to be next to him. Just in case he needs me. Truthfully, Luke would be just fine if I was in the front. After all, no one is sitting next to him when he and I go out on our little adventures during the week and he does just fine. When I have the option of sitting back there, though, I have to do it.

"I don't know, maybe another month" I said after a long pause to consider Juan's original question.

Anyway, the trip was made, baby toys were purchased, and I rode in the backseat with the baby on our way home.

Then yesterday I surprised even myself by reaching a new level of overprotectiveness.

Juan was working all day but it was very slow at the hospital so "working" became "watching TV in his office while twiddling his thumbs." I was going a little stir crazy at home with the baby, so around 4:00 we hopped in the car and went to go visit Daddy at work. We ate potato chips, I watched some of the red carpet show while Juan played with Luke, and fun was generally had by all. Then the time came to drive home. Juan volunteered to take Luke in his car since I wanted to stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed. I agreed, and as I pulled out of the parking lot I realized that this was the first time Luke had been in a car without me. It felt weird and, well, wrong even though he was with Juan. Juan's a careful driver, and in fact he's probably a better driver than I am if you wanted to compare, but it still didn't feel good to be in a different car than my baby.

Still, I wasn't going to be the mom who couldn't be separated from her kid for even 30 minutes. I was, however, the mom who insisted on staying just ahead of the car her baby was riding in for 20+ miles. I couldn't help myself. Juan didn't know what I was doing (though he does now since he reads my blog) but it somehow felt safer that I keep my car ahead of his during that drive. My gut told me to protect my baby, and that was the only way I could think to do it.

So yes, I'm in full-on Mama Bear mode. My dad has joked many times that there's a part of my mom's brain that is always focused on me and my sister, and now that I'm a mother myself I can finally understand exactly what that feels like. I just hope I can manage to loosen up a bit since I'll drive us all crazy if I don't.

More on how I shouldn't blog about my job

Enjoying my maternity leave would be a lot easier if I wasn't being inundated with evidence that my sub is royally screwing up. It's almost enough to make me throw up my hands and just go back early, which really makes me mad. This time should be about Luke, not worrying over what kind of mess I'm going back to in November.

Growing boy!

Luke is growing like a weed, which makes me happy since it means that he's getting enough to eat (a concern I think every breastfeeding mom has) but also sad because my little baby is already growing up way too quickly.

Exhibit A: Coming home from the hospital




Exhibit B: Coming home from a picnic last weekend



So big!!!

Thoughts on a complicated day

Six years ago I was a college student in Utah. My roommate woke me up after she turned on the news and, like everyone else, we spent the rest of the day watching television, crying, and trying to understand what had happened. I remember thinking that nothing good could ever happen on any future anniversary of that day that would even begin to erase the horror and pain I felt anytime I thought about the terrorist attacks.

Last year I had an exploratory laparoscopy to figure out why, after a year and a half, we couldn't get pregnant. That turned out to be the one thing we needed to finally conceive, and two months later I found out that I was pregnant with Luke. Looking back, September 11 2006 was one of the best days of my life. I have very few clear memories from that day thanks to the lovely, lovely drugs they gave me, but the one thing I do remember was my OB/GYN telling me as I was wheeled into the recovery room that he had removed "a ton" of scar tissue from around my ovaries and that I shouldn't have any more problems getting pregnant. If I could have cried tears of joy at that moment, I would have.

Today I stood in the nursery holding my baby and singing to him, and all of a sudden I was bawling. I remembered the horrific images and events from six years ago and the wonderful weight that was finally lifted from my life last year and then looked at the beautiful baby boy in my arms. It was all just too much for me.

I have no idea how I'm going to explain September 11 to Luke when he's old enough to realize that it's not just another day. We'll be having lots of talks about what is and isn't age appropriate before that happens, but I know that I won't be able to tell him until he's much older how he's changed how I view it. Yes, it's still an unbelievably sad date, but it's also the anniversary of something that has changed our lives for the better in so many ways. I'm happier than words can say to be able to associate something so positive with a date that will always be connected to tragedy.

Did you know...

Did you know that babies can poop and burp simultaneously?

I didn't, at least not until 5 minutes ago.

Happy one-month birthday, sweetheart! You teach me new things every day!

All by my-self

Well, J's paternity leave is over, my parents have come and gone, and now Luke and I are officially on our own. All day long. Every day until Thanksgiving.

*gulp*

I admit, yesterday (our first day alone together) was rough. He screamed, I cried, it was hard. Today was a bit better. He had his worst meltdown yet before 9:00 in the morning, but I managed to get him settled thanks to our swing-of-awesome-baby-soothing-powers which made me feel like I might just do an okay job at this mom thing. Of course, he napped for three hours after calming down and hasn't had a decent nap since (and we had another meltdown at Target tonight) but we're working on it.

The whole time I was pregnant, I never really pictured what this time would be like. I imagined what I'd feel when I met him for the first time (and, as imagined, it was incredible) and what it would be like to see him really smile at me, to start to crawl, to take his first steps, but never this brand-new newborn stage where eating, sleeping, pooping, and screaming are pretty much all he does. I can't say I'm loving every second of it, but it's amazing to watch him take in the world for the first time.

He's fascinated by our blinds, and will stare at them while he's eating or while we're walking around the house. He doesn't startle when the dog barks, which is amazing to me (though my reading tells me that it's probably because he heard Jasper barking while he was still in utero) and he's already starting to track our faces when we move above him. He adores the mirror Juan rigged above his Pack N Play, and one of my favorite games is to point out the baby in the mirror next to our staircase when we come down after a diaper change. He hates having a wet or dirty diaper, so the changing pad has become one of his favorite places in the house. We hung the quilt my mom made him above the changing table, and he'll grab for it every single time we set him down to be changed. I've never seen a baby so enthralled by a wall hanging before, and we need to get some better pictures of him with it because it's beyond cute to watch him reaching for the bright contrasting colors.

Every morning we read two books together before going downstairs to really start the day. I read Blueberries for Sal to him yesterday, and it brought back all kinds of memories of reading it with my own parents when I was little. There are so many books I want to share with him!

I could go on and on, and I probably should write all of these little things down in his baby book so I don't forget them. He's already getting bigger--he officially grew out of one of his smallest onesies this week, and his fingers suddenly seem huge. Where did my tiny baby go?

Yeah, I think we're going to do okay by ourselves for the next few months.

Ahead of the game

So...it's not normal for a 3-week old to be holding up his head on his own, right? Because my baby is HOLDING UP HIS HEAD ON HIS OWN!

We're all a bit freaked out by this over here even though he's been showing signs of having abnormally good muscle development in his neck since he day 1. Still, when I walked into the family room this afternoon and saw him holding his head up for over 30 seconds (completely unassisted) while my dad was playing with him, I couldn't quite believe it.

In other news, Luke had his first bath last night, and while I'm not going to post the pictures (he will be a teenager one day after all) I'll tell you that he did great and didn't cry or scream at all. We could immerse him in water every day of the week as far as he's concerned, that's how much he enjoyed himself. Hopefully he'll continue to enjoy bathtime when it's just him and me rather than him, me, my parents, and J. It's far easier to deal with a squirmy, slippery, screaming baby when you have backup than it is when you're by yourself.

One thing I won't mind at all if he does early? Sleep through the night. He was up every other hour last night and I've felt like death warmed over all day as a result. Poor J had to go to work after that night, though, so he wins for feels-most-like-crap today.

Secret Weapon

Is it just me or have an unusual number of Bush administration officials started resigning since my son was born? Coincidence? I think not.

In related news, J bought Luke the following onesie that will get him fired if Luke wears it to the hospital.



And finally, courtesy of Slashdot's comments section, a joke:

Q: How many Alberto Gonzalezes does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, but he does it multiple times because he can't recall doing it before.

Suggestion for pregnant readers

When you have your baby and realize that the only pants you can fit into are still maternity sized (and really, at some point you just start craving pants with a button and zipper) do yourself a favor and get some new pants. In your new size. With a button and a zipper.

My parents are in town this week, and my mom and I took advantage of one of Luke's naps to make a very quick trip to Ross for some non-maternity clothes for me. I'm still pretty far from my pre-pregnancy weight and body shape, but I was DYING for pants that weren't either sweats or demi panel so we went out in search of some cheap regular pairs that I could wear until I fit into my old clothes again. Thirty five dollars and three pairs of pants later I walked out of the store a much happier woman.

So yes, even though I won't be able to wear these clothes for very long, I give two thumbs up to post-partum clothing purchases. Psychologically, it feels very good to know I have some cute clothing options back in my closet.

Never blog about work

Okay, so this is basically rule #1 of blogging. You don't blog about your job unless you're willing to lose said job over the things you write. I've always tried to follow this rule, especially since I started teaching, therefore I won't go into details about what's happening with my job at the moment except to say that hearing "Oh, don't worry about it" after receiving two very disturbing pieces of information this week isn't exactly making me a happy camper today. I love my job. I love teaching, love my students, and really do love my school. That said, I don't love how they're handling my absence at the moment, and I'm more than a little anxious about how things are going to pan out while I'm gone.

Now here's a cute baby picture to make me feel better about not being able to blog about my job.

Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little baby...

Oh dear, I think we have a boy who's mixing up his nights and his days.

(gulp)

Luke took two long naps today and now here it is, 9:00 at night, and he is wide awake. Not hungry, not fussy, just AWAKE. Awake and needing to be held. Daddy's on snuggle duty at the moment, and as adorable as Luke is when he's awake and happy, I'd really love to see his beautiful blue eyes close so we could go to bed!

Still, who wouldn't stay up all night for this face?



(memo to my son--this is what you should look like at bedtime, okay?)

Harder than it looks

We made a visit to the lactation consultant today. Breastfeeding has been an uphill battle for us over the last 6 days, and when it got to the point where I was bleeding, we decided we needed some help. The good news is that the LC was very helpful and we seem to have located the source of the problem. We're supposed to do some simple exercises with Luke prior to every feeding to help him learn how to properly position his tongue to feed. I'm still worried about how we're going to do long-term, but at least for now I think things will improve.

I never knew just how upsetting and all-consuming it can be to feed a newborn. When we came home from the hospital, Luke really wasn't getting enough to eat. We didn't realize it for several hours, and when we did we had no choice but to give him a couple of bottles. Then the pediatrician told us that he'd lost a bit more weight than she'd like to see (around 11% of his birthweight) and I felt horrible. Intellectually I know that we did the best we possibly could for him on that difficult third day of life. Things have gotten SO much better since then (thank goodness my milk came in quickly), and we know that he's getting enough. The lactation consultant was very reassuring on that point. Still, I spend virtually all day, every day thinking about how much Luke is eating. Is he getting enough? Is he really done with a feeding or is he just getting sleepy because his tummy is starting to fill up? Will he have a long enough nap after this feeding for me to take one?

Breastfeeding is hard. I truly, truly believe that it's the best thing I can be doing for him right now, but I can really understand now why many women give up. It's hard. Very, very hard.

Edited to Add:
We're back from the pediatrician and Luke has gained 6 oz! He needed to gain at least 3 to be back on track weight-wise, so we're pretty happy with 6.

Baby Luke--Day 4

I don't think I ever fully appreciated just how much a child can turn your world upside down until this week. Everything revolves around the needs of this little, tiny being. It's exhausting, but also wonderful. I had no idea.

Luke is doing pretty well for someone who's only 4 days old. We had a really rough day on Sunday because he wasn't getting enough to eat, and while I'm committed to breastfeeding for the forseeable future, it was such a relief to know that he wasn't going to go hungry or get dehydrated as long as we supplemented with formula. Things really turned around early Monday morning when my milk came in, and we've been doing very well since then. He was circumcized today (which could really be a post in and of itself, but just thinking about the three hours we spent at the pediatric clinic this morning is making me hyperventilate again, so I'll save that one for another day) and we have yet another broken swamp cooler, so keeping him comfortable has been top priority. It's also been harder than it probably should be, but we're doing our best.

Vital stats--8 lbs 2 oz at birth, 7 lbs. 5 oz. at his well-child visit today. It's a bit more weight loss than our pediatrician wants to see, so we're going back in (*shudder*) on Friday to have another weight check. I'm pretty sure Sunday's setbacks are to blame, but I'm glad that our ped is keeping on top of things and making sure that he starts gaining again. We also got his official length, which was missing from the paperwork we got at discharge. He's 19.5 inches, which puts him near the top of the charts. Just looking at his feet (he's definitely got Juan's Hobbit feet) you can tell that this kid is going to be tall.

Likes: the Baby Papasan, Mama, Daddy, FOOD, and snuggles

Dislikes: the heat, spitting up, getting hungry, and not being able to chew on his fists at all times

And finally, a few more pictures--I may not be the most impartial judge here, but I think he's the cutest baby ever.


Playing with Daddy


Snuggles with Mama in the hospital



Coming home for the first time!

Introducing...

Lucas John, born 9:11 pm on August 10, 2007. 8 lbs, 2 oz, and absolutely beautiful.



More to come soon!

Watch as I distract you with a cute cat story

No baby yet, but we have had some interesting goings-on at our house lately that might at least distract everyone from the fact that this kid is now six (SIX!) days overdue.

Last week Codi and Arcadia decided to go on a rampage. One night they were fine, and the next they were holy terror kitties. They raced around our bedroom at 2:00 am (repeatedly using the bed we were sleeping in as a jumping-off point, of course), attacked each other, attacked US if we weren't actively petting them, and harassed the dog (who didn't really know what to do--he's usually the one chasing them) until he ran into his crate just to get away. In short, KITTIES FROM HELL replaced our normally sweet, cuddly girls.

J and I chalked it up to the full moon or possibly the changing weather. Animals are supposed to be sensitive to both, so we figured that it was just one of those weird cat phases that would pass. It did, however, strike me as odd that the main instigator of the chaos was Codi. For those of you who haven't met our cats in person (or who don't remember my string of Arcadia-centric posts last year) Codi is the calm one. She's the good cat who never acts out, even when she's deathly ill and really should be trying to get our attention in any way possible. Codi just doesn't DO things like bite your feet while you're trying to sleep or attempt to chase the dog.

In any case, after around 24 hours of kitty mayhem, they seemed to calm down. They started crying whenever they saw me, though, which is usually a sign that they're out of food. I checked the hidden nook upstairs where we keep their dishes, and sure enough there wasn't a speck of food left. Piggy kitties had gone through two heaping bowls in less than 48 hours, which was almost a new record for them. When I went to pick up the bowls to refill them, though, I noticed something was in their water bowl. It was small, brown, and had clearly been dropped in there by a cat who couldn't decide if she wanted to play or have a drink.

When I pulled the object out, I immediately realized exactly why my girls had been such holy terrors for the last day. You see, it wasn't just any cat toy they had put in their (full) water bowl. Oh no, it was a catnip stuffed bear.

Catnip stuffed toy in a bowl of water. Picture that for a moment. Then picture the water I poured out of said bowl.

It was BROWN, ladies and gentlemen. Once the water had soaked through the bear, the catnip had steeped in the water creating a kind of tea that Codi and Arcadia had been drinking for at least a day. At some point it clearly got too strong for them, so they switched to the downstairs water bowls (which probably explains why their behavior normalized) but still. They were drinking CATNIP TEA and were high as kites until they switched to the fresh water!

In any case, I'm now keeping a very close eye on all of their catnip toys and making sure to check the bowl at least once a day. I think they learned their lesson--neither of them has played with that particular bear since it happened--but you never know.

Okay, OW!

I think I overdid it today.

In an effort to trick my body into going into labor, I've made all kinds of elaborate plans for the next seven days. Today I lugged all off the school supplies I bought over the weekend to my classroom in the hopes of getting the boxes that were already there unpacked. The administration moved me to a different room last weekend (at my request--I didn't want to be in the stinky hallway anymore) so I also needed to check out the furniture situation in my new digs.

Three hours later my room looks great (seriously, it rocks) but my back, pelvis, and feet are KILLING ME. I don't think I've been this sore since our move last year.

Baby is kicking away, so I know that he's doing well, but I feel like crap. It's all I could do to lift my foot from the gas to the brake while I was driving home, and now I've collapsed into a giant, moaning heap on the couch. Think I could train Jasper to get me a snack from the fridge?

Tomorrow is supposed to be devoted to finishing up some lesson planning and writing out the calendar for my long-term sub, and then I have a meeting with said sub on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday--makeup shopping. Then I'm going to do some serious art shopping on Thursday (after 13 months, J and I finally hung up some pictures yesterday and now I'm on a roll) followed by cooking/baking for post-baby meals on Friday. After today, though, sitting in my recliner and knitting for the next week sounds pretty good!

Of course, I'm really hoping that all of my activity will convince my body to just go into labor already, and I reserve the right to be seriously ticked off if it doesn't work.

No baby, but hey look at what I found at Target!

My 40 week appointment wasn't much fun. I still haven't made any progress whatsoever in spite of the fact that the baby's head is as far down as it can come. He's clearly ready, but my body has just decided that it would really rather stay pregnant forever, thankyouverymuch. The induction that I had assumed would be scheduled for late next week isn't going to be until the 13th thanks to a conference my doctor has to attend in DC. The news that I very possibly may have to stay pregnant for another 10 days (and that saying that my induction will be on the 13th is a bit disingenuous since I'll just go in that night to start Cervadil before really hitting the Pitocin hard the next morning) did not sit very well with me. In fact, I actually started crying a bit. So, it's no wonder that I left the hospital in a rather foul mood, which was compounded by the fact that we had even more rainstorms pass through yesterday.

I woke up in a slightly better mood this morning, though, so J and I went out for breakfast. Afterwards we headed to Target since the 4 Tums I had left in my last bottle clearly weren't going to be enough to sustain me for the next 9+ days. Once there, though, we hit the mother load. SCHOOL SUPPLY SALE!!! By "sale" I mean $.20 glue sticks, scissors, Crayola markers and crayons, 10 for $1 packs of spiral notebooks, etc... In other words, every teacher's wish come true. I loaded up a cart with the best of the goodies, and we headed over to the home improvement section to buy a thingamajig for an electronics project Juan is working on.

Before we got there, though, we glanced at the home decor department and found THE PERFECT RUG. We've been searching high and low for THE PERFECT RUG since we moved into our house last summer and realized that hardwood floors like ours need rugs. Pretty rugs. PERFECT rugs. We're too picky for our own good, though, because everything we saw had something wrong with it. This one had too much green, that one was too thin, and the one over there cost $700. THE PERFECT RUG, however, is, well, perfect. It's red and dark orange, looks fantastic with our redwood baseboards, and even compliments my armchair, which is may be the hardest piece of furniture in the world to match something with. It was also less than $100, making it THE PERFECT RUG.

Jasper thinks that it's Christmas morning or something, he's that happy about the rug (why? Who knows.) and I must say that getting all of the supplies my classroom will need for the next year has made me a very happy camper. I'm still not thrilled by the thought of staying pregnant for another week and a half (not to mention the though of a lengthy induction) but today's finds have certainly perked up my mood. Never discount the benefits of retail therapy, my friends. Never.

EDD

Well, it's here. My due date. Apparently nobody forwarded that memo to the baby, though, because he seems to be perfectly content to stay right where he is.

Actually, in spite of the fact that I may or may not have promised to give him lots and lots of presents if he decides that today is a good day to have a birthday, I'm okay if he just hangs out for a little longer. We just had the worst rainstorm of the season (it's starting to slow down now) and many of the roads between our house and the hospital aren't in great shape.

That said, we're serving him an eviction notice at my appointment tomorrow. My doctor doesn't want me to go much past 40 weeks, so we'll schedule an induction for sometime next week, though hopefully I'll go into labor on my own before then.

I know I've said it before, but I just can't believe how quickly this pregnancy has gone by. A year ago we were just starting to work with the amazing Dr. M, and now I'm getting ready to have a baby. Un-freaking-believable.

Why August is maybe not the best time to have a baby in El Paso

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:




Exhibit C:

5-Day Forecast for El Paso, TX

TUE
Overcast
A few tstorms. Overcast.
87º / 67º

WED
Cloudy
Isolated tstorms late. Cloudy.
91º / 70º

THU
Overcast
Thunderstorms. Overcast.
90º / 71º

FRI
Overcast
Widely scattered tstorms. Overcast.
87º / 71º

SAT
Cloudy
Isolated tstorms late. Cloudy.
91º / 68º

Programming Note

I just went through my woefully small blogroll and added a number of blogs that I've started reading in the last year or so since I last updated it. If you're looking for some great new blogs, poke around and check out some of these amazing ladies (and gentlemen) that I've listed. More will be added soon as I slowly sift through my enormous bookmarks folder.

And, just in case anyone is interested, there's still no news on the baby front. Even after a full day of walking around yesterday (and more planned for tomorrow when these storms let up) I didn't have a single contraction.

Seven Days

39 weeks down, one more to go. I'm alternating between feeling like this kid can't come quickly enough (J predicts his arrival daily) and telling him very sternly that August 2 is the absolute earliest date he's allowed to decide it's time to met Mom and Dad. For their parts, my extended family has started betting on due dates (I've got August 4) and every time I call my parents to chat or pass on some piece of information I hear a little note of disappointment in their voices when I have to say that no, nothing is happening on the baby front.

In short, everyone (except possibly me) thinks that it should be baby time!

On a related note, the nursery is done and I think it looks fantastic!



Here you can see the bookcase that J just finished making last weekend. Clearly, we are far from completing our picture book collection!



You can hardly see it, but on top of the bookcase is a wooden pull toy (a train of zoo animals) that holds a very special place in our hearts. J and I bought it at a craft fair back in Maryland during one of the darkest months of our infertility struggles. I saw it, fell in love, and proceeded to spend the next two hours agonizing over whether or not to buy it. J persuaded me that I'd regret it if I didn't, and that buying it wouldn't jinx anything, so I took a deep breath and pulled out my credit card. When we got home I put it (still in the bag) on the top shelf of our guest room closet. I didn't open the bag again until last weekend, when I put it on top of the bookcase. I can't even describe what that felt like--just the act of pulling it out, dusting it off, and throwing that old bag away was a victory.

One more vistory, and one more week to (officially) go until motherhood. Maybe I'm more ready for this than I think I am.

One downside to being a speed reader

I gave in to the crazy last night and went to the midnight release of the final Harry Potter book. Thanks to some good company and a frappachino, I even managed to stay upbeat and excited while getting crushed by the million or so other people who simply had to have the book at the stroke of midnight.

Since I was smart and pre-ordered the book months ago, I only had to wait half an hour after the release to purchase my book and make my way home. I pulled in the driveway around 12:45, raced through my bedtime routine, and settled down to read. Which I did until around 2:30 am when I dozed off. I woke back up at 5:30, read for another hour, fell back asleep, and was up for good at 8:00.

I should mention that today has been Juan's only day off all week, so all he wanted to do was sleep and finish varnishing the baby's bookcase. Thus, no guilt trips from him about my plans to sit in my armchair and read all day long. And that's exactly what I did, taking only a couple of short breaks to eat and play with the pets.

I finished the book at 3:30 this afternoon. All 759 pages of it. Done. There are sooooooooo many things I want to discuss with someone else (anyone else!) who's also finished, but sadly it appears that once again my speed reading has worked against, rather than for me. None of my friends have finished it yet!

This is torture!

Practice Makes Perfect

Everyone keeps telling me that the wonders of late pregnancy (which, to date, include insomnia, pain, and an inability to just pack up and run away to the mountains when the heat here gets to be too much) are just preparing me for motherhood. And overall, I'm cool with that. I don't really need more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night and I can cope with quite a bit of discomfort--after all, I've already gone through an HSG, an endometrial biopsy, a hysteroscopy, and a laparoscopy for this baby, so what's a bit of pelvic pain and pressure every time I change positions? Even the mountain getaway doesn't bother me--it might be nice to hop in the car and drive 60 miles to cool New Mexico when the temperatures here hit the triple digits, but realistically we probably wouldn't have time/energy to go even if I wasn't pushing 38 weeks.

So overall, late pregnancy is agreeing with me almost as much as mid-pregnancy did. Early pregnancy can bite me, but that's a whole different post.

There's just one teeny tiny thing that's bugging me right now, though. Laundry. Oh, the laundry. Not just the insane first-time mom preparation laundry I'm doing for the baby, either. No, this is my personal laundry, which I'm doing at least twice a week now because I only have four tops and two pairs of pants left and I somehow manage to spill on at least one article of clothing every 7.5 hours. Ergo, LOTS of laundry is being done around here at the moment.

Again, this should simply serve to prepare me for motherhood. I'd be an idiot to think that baby doesn't equal lots and LOTS of laundry. Poopy laundry at that, which is at least one joy I'm not having to deal with just yet. Still, I would love to have a wardrobe large enough that would actually get me through an entire week without having to run a load or two. I'd love to be able to wear something other than my green tank with the beads or the red top with the little white flowers or the green t-shirt (that probably should be retired from the rotation due to bleached spots around the neckline, but that would leave me with only three shirts) or the white top with blue embroidery.

I swear, when I'm back down to my pre-pregnancy size I will never again look in my full-to-bursting closet and complain that I have nothing to wear.

I have 15 days left. It would be incredibly wasteful to spend money on more clothes at this point. I'd get to wear something new maybe 4-5 times before it wouldn't fit anymore thanks to the miracle of childbirth. And yet, I had to literally hold myself back from the maternity section at Target earlier today because the rack of $10 t-shirts was calling my name.

It's practice, C. It's just practice for the baby. The baby you've wanted so desperately for so long. What's a few loads of laundry when you think of that? Well, not much when you think about it that way, but boy it would be nice to actually get to wait until the hamper was full before having to face the washer and dryer.

Don't scratch!

Have I ever mentioned that I'm highly allergic to mosquito bites?

Exhibit A:



Yes, highly allergic. Putting aside the fact that my feet are horribly swollen at the moment and the fact that I obviously need to vacuum my stairs, LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BITE! Do you have any idea how hard it is not to scratch something this itchy that also happens to be the size of a pad of Post-Its?

So. Very. Itchy...

Oh, and Jasper would like you all to know that he doesn't approve of anyone taking a picture unless he's included in the shot.

Seeing Red(book)

It's been awhile since I last talked at length about infertility or a fertility-related topic. The tone of my blog has changed dramatically since I got pregnant, and while not all of the changes have been intentional, I have periodically wondered if it's appropriate for me to continue blogging about infertility given my audience (almost exclusively family and friends) and my pregnancy. I confess to self-censoring to a degree because I didn't know myself what I wanted to be--a mommy-to-be blogger or a former infertile blogger. I can't say that I've completely answered that question, but I hope to start to address it in the next weeks/months.

That said, there have been certain...controversies lately in a rather prominent part of the IF blogging world that have really struck a chord with me. In brief, Redbook hired Julia, one of my favorite infertility bloggers to write about her experiences as part of a new "Trying to Get Pregnant: The Infertility Diaries" blog they launched on their website. Julia, already the mother of one son, got pregnant with twins shortly after starting the new blog, but due to many past miscarriages she is far being from "out of the woods". Also hired was a Redbook staffer named Lili who was absent from the blog for the first few months of its existence. Redbook offered no explanation for Lili's absence other than to say that she would be back "in a few weeks."

Then, last week Lili wrote her first post which, among other things, gave the reason why she had yet to contribute to the blog. After five years of fertility treatments, she was just returning from maternity leave after having twins. Immediately, comments flooded in from readers who took offense not only to the overall tone of her post (which, in my opinion, reflected her status as an inexperienced blogger who had not given enough thought to her intended audience not a genuine insensitivity to the feelings of infertile readers) but to the fact that both of Redbook's infertility bloggers were parents. A handful of nasty personal comments were made about Lili that were completely uncalled for, but most of the comments urged Redbook to re-think their panel of bloggers and, at a minimum, add a new blogger who is currently undergoing treatments for primary infertility.

Neither Redbook nor Lili responded for several days, leaving the impression that they either had no idea how to handle a reader revolt or that they simply didn't care about the pain they had caused to many of their readers. Either way, it's not exactly the kind of impression they probably wanted to leave. Finally, a Redbook editor addressed the comments in a post today that essentially dismissed what readers were saying and declared the subject closed permanently.

For what it's worth, I do not believe that blame for this situation should be laid solely at Lili's feet. She has simply been the scapegoat for Redbook's egregious lack of foresight and empathy. In fact, I feel quite a bit of sympathy for her since I'm also no longer considered a member of the IF club by many of the women I grew to know and care about during the roughly two years it took us to get pregnant. Those of us who have "turned the corner" as it were still deal with many of the emotional ramifications of infertility even though we have gotten pregnant, and it's not easy to suddenly feel excluded from IF's tight-knit support network when that happens.

The thing is, a positive pregnancy test (or even an almost full-term pregnancy) doesn't heal the wounds infertility causes. It doesn't erase the days and nights I spent hurting, doesn't repair the friendships I lost during those years, and it doesn't negate the experiences I had in getting to this point. The truth is, I still feel uncomfortable talking about my pregnancy with those who don't know our story. I don't like having to smile and nod when hearing stories about other women's "oops" pregnancies. It makes me angry to see Nicole Richie (who is, in my opinion, the last woman on earth who should probably be a parent) on the cover of US Weekly declaring "I'm Pregnant!". I am thankful for this pregnancy every day, and I know that my experiences in getting here will make me a more thoughtful and grateful parent than I probably would have been if we had been able to conceive easily. I'm still hurting, though. That pain might go away someday, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't. It's part of who I am now. I alluded to this in my post about my baby shower last month, but didn't write extensively on the topic since I was still trying to figure out my reaction for myself.

I suppose that in the end, nothing about infertility is fair or easy. What angers me most about the Redbook situation is that instead of directing anger at the editors who did not bother to consider the feelings of their readers or their bloggers, we have once again directed it at one of our own who is doubtless still dealing with the emotional toll infertility takes.

Some Assembly Required

My husband is either a saint or a crazy person. After spending a week working nights (a new experience for both of us, since he was only expected to work overnight call once a week while he was an intern) he started his weekend off not by immediately heading upstairs to take a much-needed nap when he got home, but by installing the carseat in both our cars and assembling two strollers. Something tells me that hearing my doctor say "We're just waiting on baby to decide when he wants to come" yesterday struck a chord with him because there was no stopping him until everything was assembled.

So, I now have an infant seat in my car and can even take it out for a spin in a stroller if I want to. Yikes!

Not that my thoughts about the baby coming early have changed at all. I'm still fairly confident that he's not going to be making an appearance too soon, though I don't think J would mind it much if he did.

In other news, my dad has taken off on another of his crazy bicycle trips. He and a friend are riding through Montana and North Dakota for the next couple of weeks, and we're all trying very hard to avoid thinking about what happened last year. Naturally, they're riding right through the massive heat wave that's hitting the West right now. It's been hotter up there than it has been here in El Paso!

Thirty Days

Well, this is it. My due date is 30 days from today, and as excited as I am to meet my son, I'm also feeling totally overwhelmed and unprepared. Certain pieces do seem to be falling into place rather nicely, though, and right now it looks like Juan will be able to take a week of vacation after his 4 days of paternity leave are up. My parents will be arriving just before he goes back to work, and that should leave me with constant help/support at home for the first two weeks or so of my life as a mom.

The good news for me is that the baby doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to come yet. I've only had (what I think was) one real contraction, my Braxton Hicks are still irregular and infrequent, and while I know I've dropped a bit, I'm still carrying fairly high. Our last doctor's appointment confirmed that he's head-down, which is good, and my doctor and I had a nice talk about what I do and don't want during labor and delivery. I see him again on Friday.

Hopefully my posts for the next 30 days will all be as dull as this one. STAY PUT, LITTLE BABY!!!

Happy Dance!

I cannot even tell you all how happy I am that today has come. Today marks the END of one of the worst classes I have ever had the displeasure of taking. I'm not joking when I said that every time I opened up the class website (online class, which should have been the first sign that it was going to be hellish) I actually groaned out loud. E-mails from the professor generally caused me to utter multiple four letter words, assignments made me feel like ripping my hair out, and I generally saw every day as a new opportunity to complain about something else I had to do for the class. Part of the reason why I haven't been posting much lately is that I've been in such a bad mood about the class that I didn't have much else to say except for "AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" on a daily basis.

But now it's over. I just submitted my final paper, and now I'm free as a bird! Well, a bird who has one (mostly good) class to finish and 9 weeks worth of lesson plans to write. Still, it's progress, and I hope to be back to more regular blogging soon.

Oh, and on a somewhat related note (related in that I'm happy about it) Juan is watching the last episode of Stargate: SG1 as I type. Let's just say that I never quite...appreciated this show the way he does, and I'm not exactly upset that it's ending. Sorry sweetie, I hope you find a new show that I actually like to replace this one!

Open Letter to the Weather Gods

Dear Weather Gods,

Have you been talking to my swamp coolers? Because, seriously, enough already. First there was the wind (unbelievable wind, nonstop, all week) and then the rain. Oh yes, the rain. You see, this is supposed to be the dry season. You know, part of the 11 months of the year when we don't see a drop of precipitation. While I wouldn't complain about the occasional light rainshower (note the emphasis on the word "light") I have to raise some objections to the massive downpour/hailstorm you sent my way this afternoon. In fact, the storm hit just as I was driving to the vet for the dog's appointment and mysteriously cleared up as soon as I left for home. Funny how that works, isn't it?

The story doesn't stop there, though. Oh no, you decided to play one last trick on me today. See, the whole city didn't actually get rain. The East side? Check. Central? Check. West side? Eh, mostly. The one part of town that is still bone dry? The part where I live. That's right, I still have to pay $$$ this week to water my lawn just so it doesn't dry to a crisp. This, while the rest of the city is practically underwater.

You are cruel, Weather Gods, and I'm not pleased at all with you at the moment.

Sincerely,

C

P.S. Oh, and if you thought that I hadn't noticed that my estimated due date happens to be exactly a year and a day after the flooding started last year. You pull that crap again and we WILL have problems.

Open letter to my swamp coolers

Dear Swamp Coolers,

Why do you hate me? Is it because J and I frequently talk about replacing you with refrigerated air? Is it because we didn't replace the winter covers after they blew off in February? Is it because you think I need to clean the house more often? I really can't figure out why you have such a vendetta against me, but you clearly do because you broke last week and then broke again today.

Seriously, what's the deal? Do I need to spend all my time scrubbing the kitchen? Swear up and down that the refrigerated air talk will stop? Sacrifice a goat? Please, just tell me and stop randomly breaking. I just can't handle any more days like this!

Sincerely,

C

Holy baby explosion, Batman!

So, we went shopping today. To Babies R Us. And, well, there was a coupon. And some gift cards. And maybe we got a little carried away. Two hours later, our car was full to the brim with baby gear and we were significantly poorer. The nursery is shaping up nicely, though!

Pictures to come--we still have a bit of cleaning and assembling to do!

In other news, J graduated from internship today (WOO HOO!) and was named Internal Medicine Intern of the Year! He found out about it yesterday morning but let me be surprised when the award was actually announced. I was so surprised that I forgot to take a picture of him accepting the award, though. I'm pretty proud of him--he's worked so hard this year, and it's wonderful to see him get recognized for it.

Back from the land of fry sauce and green Jell-o

I just got home from my last-vacation-before-baby trip to Salt Lake, and I had a great time with my family and old friends. It was the first time I'd been back since getting pregnant, and my mom and sister threw me a wonderful baby shower. Most of the guests were family friends who've known me since I was little, and one had even been a guest at the shower my mom's old job threw when she was pregnant with me. My parents certainly know how to maintain friendships!

It was strange to be the guest of honor at a baby shower. I avoided them like the plague while we were still trying to conceive, and as much fun as it was to play games and open box after box of adorable baby clothes and blankets, part of me felt very uncomfortable. Even at 32 weeks, I still can't quite believe that I'm going to be a mom soon and that infertility is (at least for the time being) behind me.

In any case, I'm home again now and starting to tackle all of my summer projects. Why do vacations make everything feel so discombobulated? I spent way too much time just playing catch-up this morning and I still feel like I'm out of the loop on everything. The house needs to be cleaned, laundry has to be done, and all the tasks (little and big) I deliberately put off until after I got back seem totally overwhelming at the moment. I hope other people feel this way right after they get home from a trip--it seems crazy to be disoriented like this after just a few days away.

On a related note, one of our swamp coolers broke last night. A belt (or something) snapped, which means that it's completely broken at the moment. Given that it's around 100 degrees outside right now, the remaining swamp cooler really isn't cooling the house very well. Guess my smug comment that I was going to spend the rest of the summer parked underneath one of the a/c vents came back to bite me. Send us lots of easy-to-fix vibes tonight, since J is going to try to get the swamp cooler back up and running once he gets home from work tonight.

Reality Bites

There are many things I find increasingly frustrating as I cross the line between teacher and student. When I'm at work I'm in charge, and after a year in the classroom I've gained incredibly valuable (in my opinion) real-world knowledge about what it means to be a teacher. While I'm at the university, though, my opinion doesn't count for much, especially in the eyes of professors who have either been out of the primary or secondary classroom for years or (worse) were never classroom teachers themselves. Time and again I've had professors tell me to do things that I know are totally unrealistic in an actual classroom. Just today I saw a professor publicly slam a high school principal for a disciplinary measure that, from my perspective, was completely appropriate given the situation. The professor's suggestion for how the matter should have been handled was completely unrealistic. He would have been laughed out of his own classroom had he attempted this "solution" with my high school students.

It's hard (if not impossible) to hold my tongue in these situations, but frequently I've decided that it's best for my grade if I just nod and smile. Let the professors, who by definition deal in theory rather than practice, live in their bubbles while those of us "in the trenches" continue to work with real kids who need real solutions when a problem arises.

My mentor teacher and I frequently commisserated about this issue last year when we were both taking classes. It just doesn't seem right that the people who are, at least in theory, educating educators are frequently so out of touch with the realities of what it's like to work with children.

Since you asked...

M requested an updated belly picture, so here's one that I took last week. Hard to believe that I'll be getting even bigger over the next 10 weeks!

Aaaaaaaad DONE!

Well, this is it. I've cleaned out my room, said my goodbyes, and driven the Border Highway for the last time. The next time I walk into that school for a normal workday will be in November. NOVEMBER!

To celebrate, I plan to spend the weekend painting the nursery and snuggling with Jasper. I really know how to party, don't I?