Night Weaning, Part 2

Sorry that this is probably really boring for other people reading it, but I've got to record it as part of my Little Chub journal.

So, night 2 (Monday night), Little Chub only cried for about 10 minutes before falling asleep, which was half as long as the night before. Yay! Unfortunately, she woke up about five times during the night, so Peter was POOPED on Tuesday from going back and forth so much. Monday, I planned the day so that she would fall asleep in the car, but Tuesday, I had to try to get her down for her nap, without nursing, and I was hoping to do it before 1pm, so I could go for my swim while she was napping (which is how Peter and I have worked out our schedules). The bedroom was too light, though, so 30 minutes later, she was still awake. Lucky for me, Peter was fine with watching her instead of working on homework, so I managed to go for a slightly abbreviated swim (only shortened by about 10 minutes though...). While I was gone, he tried to put her down for a nap, too, to no avail, so when I got home I put two blankets over the windows and made our bedroom as dark as night, and she went down really easily. Yay!

Then, last night, night 3, she only took 6 minutes to fall asleep. Even better! And she slept without us needing to do anything until about 8am. I should add that she's been going to bed around 11pm recently, but we'll be putting her to bed earlier tonight. She was super tired the last two nights when we finally put her to bed. Last night, we put her to sleep in our bed, and we slept in our pull-out couch bed, and she still managed to fall off the bed. We'll eventually move her twin bed into her own room and we'll be getting a bed rail for it so she doesn't fall off.

Today for her nap, she fell asleep within ten minutes with pretty much no crying, just with me cuddling her as she tried to get to sleep. It worked perfectly for me to go for my swim. Three successful nights in a row. The sad thing is that the last time she nursed was on Monday evening. I think we're pretty much done with breastfeeding now. Only 14 1/2 months of nursing for my little baby!

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Little Chub has been doing the cutest things recently! I first noticed with the mirror. We have a full length mirror in our hallway at the top of the stairs, which is a permanent fixture of the apartment. Every time Little Chub walks past this mirror, she HAS to stop and look at herself in it. She will stand in front of the mirror for long stretches if nobody makes her stop. The funniest part is that sometimes she'll stand in front of it and then turn sideways and look at her belly, exactly the same way I do when I'm trying to see what Pummelo looks like these days. I guess sometimes it takes a kid to make you realize the bad habits you have...

Some other things she's done that show me just how closely she's watching me are:

*Standing in the bathtub when it's time to get out of the shower and shaking the water off of her legs
*Nodding her head and saying "Mmmmm" when she eating
*Going to the scale in the corner of the bathroom and standing on it, looking down until a number pops up with her weight (which is never accurate because she's holding onto the wall)

These things crack me up, but it also feels really sweet that she is trying to do things exactly as I do them. Yesterday I taught her how to rock her baby doll (actually it's not hers...she stole it from the playground in our courtyard...oops!). She was so sweet! As she gets older, I'll try to explain to her about the baby in the tummy, but I'm not sure she'll really ever get it by September, since she'll only be 19 months old.

On top of all of that, she's finally started babbling the "mamamamama" sounds, so one of these days, she might actually call me mama! It only seems fair, since she's been calling Peter "dad" and "daddy" for over 4 months now...

Night Weaning

We've officially begun night weaning Little Chub, as of last night. This time, there is NO turning back (just because I say so). Peter was a pro last night and he put her to sleep by rubbing her back and singing to her while she cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep. We put her to sleep on the guest bed for now, which was a last minute decision. I was originally going to sleep on the guest bed while Peter and Little Chub slept on our bed, and then we were going to try transitioning her to her own room in August or so, but he decided at the beginning that she needed to be away from the place where she associates nursing and sleeping. So, she woke up once, after about 3 or 4 hours, then a couple hours later she fell off the bed. Both times he went in to her (he was going to sleep with her, but decided to sleep in our room with his alarm clock so he could snooze it four or five times...) and rubbed her back and sang to her, and she was back to sleep within about 5 minutes both times. Little Chub woke up in a great mood, but Peter is tired because he's not used to getting interrupted sleep. All in all, last night was a great success, but I have NOT forgotten that the first night we tried the Ferber-ish cry-it-out method with her, she fell asleep after 15 minutes and slept well all night long... I'm hoping she is more ready this time around. I feel bad about it, but I am just not one of those moms that can keep nursing a kid during the night until they are 3 or 4 (or really, even 2). We think she's more ready right now because she actually slept through the night twice last week (!!!!), and then woke up only once the two nights after that, which is the best four nights of her entire life.

I was originally planning on still nursing her to sleep for her naps, but now I'm not sure if I want to do that because I really want her to not associate nursing with sleeping in any way anymore, and I'm afraid that would slow down our progress at night. I really am sad that she is pretty much not nursing anymore, especially with not nursing for sleep anymore. I wanted to breastfeed her for at least 18 months, but, as it is, she pretty much isn't getting any milk when she nurses anyway. So now I'm conflicted.

Wish us luck for tonight!

KT

...is a great mommy with a really good sense of humor and a good head on her shoulders. Few people are as balanced as she is (or at least appears to be [now you can't argue with me KT]). And I love the way she listens.

What is Your Secret Dream/Ambition?

Mine is to be a doula or a midwife. I think that being a midwife is something I will never do because it is a bit more of a responsibility than I really ever want to undertake, AND because it does not focus quite as much on the part of labor/birth that I love so much, which being a doula does. Anyway, someday...maybe I will certify to be a doula.

So Much For Dreams...

Little Chub is going to have a little sister! Maybe this means I'll also carry the baby to term instead of having her super early like in all of my dreams.

They scared us a little by making us come back in so the radiologist could do some double checking, but it turned out to be a color spot that showed up with one kind of transducer but not another. Whew!

We're excited. Of course, we'd be excited either way.

Now we don't have to buy any new clothes. :o)

What Are You Afraid Of?

Well, a lot of things really. I kind of let fear rule my life a little (okay, A LOT) too much. In no particular order, here are a few things I'm afraid of:

*My house being broken into while I'm home without Peter
*The dark
*Random boogey-men being anywhere and jumping out at me
*Having my feet uncovered by my blanket while I'm asleep
*Sleeping with my back to a window or a particularly scary edge of the bed
*Snakes, scorpions, stinging insects, bears, etc. (this one is particularly bad--I jump and run every time I hear rustling when I'm hiking or camping...yesterday I jumped into the car when I heard rustling behind the car, but it turned out to be Little Chub...)
*Being attacked
*Being near windows at night, especially when the curtains or blinds aren't closed, for the above reasons

So I guess my fears are pretty much due to an abundance of paranoia and an overactive imagination. But then I've got the other fears, which are social, such as:

*Calling people I know on the phone (I'm not afraid to call people I don't know)
*Talking to people I don't know
*Speaking, and particularly, praying, in public
*Any new situation
*Traveling to foreign countries, aside from Canada and the better known parts of Europe (we want to go to Peru next year and I'm freaking out about it!)

I guess that last one falls into both categories.

So yeah, nothing typical like heights, or spiders (although I always make Peter take care of spiders, but that's pretty normal I think), but these ones are enough to drive Peter crazy!

19w3d

Here's me at 19 weeks 3 days yesterday (though it could be a little less than that). Yeah, so when I look at myself, I wonder why nobody can tell yet that I'm pregnant, but looking at this picture... I've been trying to wear clothes that make it obvious, and my VT told me Monday that she'd just had a conversation with someone wondering if I was pregnant. They didn't know, but they were wondering. That's a maternity shirt, but those are my normal pants from before. They make Pummelo Chester kick me a lot, but they still fit. I don't wear my normal pants very often because of that, but it seems like most of the belly is up higher than the waistline of my lowriding pants. Anyway, maybe I'll force Peter to take a picture of me in a different outfit so you can see (if you care at all) a little better what my belly is like.

And tomorrow's the big day!! I had yet another dream a couple of nights ago that I had a baby boy, born at home without a midwife. This time instead of being born at 18 weeks, he was born at 25 weeks, but like last time, he was just fine (and so was I) but he was smaller than a normal baby. That makes 3 dreams that I'm having a boy. Tomorrow we'll find out if that means anything at all. (I hope so because I've grown attached to him...but I'll be happy either way.) If they can't tell tomorrow, we have no more chances.

My Turn

4 jobs I've had:

Lifeguard/water aerobics instructor/swim instructor at the YMCA
Research Assistant for an Organic Chemistry Professor
Photographer at The Picture People
Administrative Assistant/Manager at Peaceful Spirit Massage Center

4 movies I've watched over and over:
Beauty and the Beast
The Mask
Shanghai Noon
The RM

4 places I've lived:
Greenville, Texas
Tucson, Arizona (I've lived in more than four houses in Tucson...does that count?)
Stanford, California

4 TV shows I love to watch:
American Idol (I've seen about 1/3 of a season)
Nature (on PBS)
CSI anything (used to, before Peter came back from his mission)
Judging Amy (same as above)

4 food faves:
How can I list only 4???
PIZZA
ICE CREAM
Brie and baguette (mmmmmmmmmm!)
Fondue with yummy bread (esp. the recipe Issyl. and I found...)
Gee, do you think I like dairy at all?

4 people who I want to do this too:
Issylthesthlia (Thanks for not doing it yet so I could list someone...hehe)

Bad Blogger

I am a bad blogger. And it's funny, because I was actually going to say that before I read ktmama's blog. I decided to say it anyway. But right now, baby's sleeping and I'm awake, and even though I haven't cleaned up her mess from yesterday yet, I'm catching up on blogging. There have been tons of things I wanted to write on here, and of course, I don't remember any of them!

We had a great day yesterday. Peter finished a homework assignment unexpectedly early, so he ditched a class where the teacher just stands up there and reads from her notes in a monotone voice and we went to Big Basin Redwood State Park to do some mild hike/walking, followed by Montebello Open Space Preserve. Little Chub was sooooooo cute! We let her walk A LOT, and by the end, she was bone tired and could barely walk anymore, but she was having a blast! We haven't had a day like that in a VERY long time, and as a result, we've been missing Tucson like CRAZY!! All of our bright green ribbons of cottonwoods and sycamores and other pretty trees surrounding wide shallow creeks that we can walk in to keep us cool as we explore and look for birds and other wildlife... I miss this!! I miss being so close to family in Tucson, and everything I know. We have dreams of maybe being able to post-doc in Tucson, or get hired there permanently so we can call Tucson our home again. We love it here, but California is not home. And it is too populated. It is SO hard to find somewhere that you aren't going to see cars driving past, etc.

Now baby is awake, and I've barely scratched the surface!

Baby Stuff

Last night I dreamed that my baby was born. It was a boy! The dream was in the present, so when he was born, it was obvious that we had the dates all wrong, but since he was so small, we also decided that he was born early, too. The fact that he was a boy was very central to the dream. Add that to the fact that I had another (less vivid) dream that the baby is a boy a while back AND I keep slipping and saying 'he' instead of he/she or (ACK!) it, and you get a mommy that now very much wants a boy baby... I will be happy either way, of course, but that dream last night was so real seeming, and I fell in love with that baby! The baby, by the way, was born at home, very quickly, and after he was born we figured we should probably call the midwife to come help us take care of matters (like all the legal pooey), and I had almost no pain whatsoever. We just went about our business, but with 2 kids instead of one. He also learned to sit up in about a day.

In reality, our midwife really did tell us NOT to call 9-1-1 if we have the baby at home before she would be able to get there (if the baby is coming too fast, she WILL come here rather than us going to her, which I think is incredibly awesome!) because they then just rush you to the hospital and treat you like a drug mom.

Anyway, we get to find out the baby's gender (if baby cooperates) on April 26th! Less than two weeks! I was starting to reconsider finding out, but after that dream, now I NEED to know! I've pretty much decided not to find out with the next one though, but that's easy to say years in the future...

Oh yeah, and as long as we're talking pregnancy related stuff, for the due date they set for me, I'm 18 weeks 2 days today, and I've gained 5-7 pounds so far. (I hate watching those pounds go up and up!) That means that even if I gain 2 pounds a week for the rest of the pregnancy I'll gain less weight than I did last time. Yippee! Let's hope I can keep it up! The swimming is great, but I sunburned my back last week and now have a very tan circle on my back that doesn't so much match the rest of me. Oh well.

Miscellany

I suppose I should mention on here, for the record, that Little Chub is fully walking now. It's very cute! And she lost one of her Robeez shoes that our friends gave her for her birthday (expensive!!). It's sad. I hope we can find it! She loses everything! We just barely found Peter's phone in her toy drawer and his keys in her toybox, to go with the fact that she threw MY keys away, which means when we move, we have to pay for the apartment to be rekeyed, and we only have the valet key to our car.

Little Chub got to find Easter eggs for the first time (of course the first time...) on Sunday. Next year we'll probably do it on Saturday, but since it wasn't anything major this year, we just did it on Sunday. She was cute, going from one place to another collecting all of her colored eggs. We didn't get a chance to dye eggs though, but we definitely will next year! What do all of you do for Easter?

Last night, Little Chub woke me up multiple times per hour, and she does NOT know how to fall back asleep without nursing. So, since I can't nurse her and sleep at the same time because my body can't fully relax in that position, I feel like I was awake all night long. And I am grumpy! She woke up at her normal time saying "Dat?" with a big smile on her face, and I didn't smile at her out of the principle of the matter, and then I felt guilty. So yeah. She's making NO progress toward sleeping through the night, and we're having another in 5 months??? How exactly is THAT going to work? I have no idea what to do. Any suggestions?

On the bright side, I get to go swimming today! And tomorrow and the next day! Yay!

Birth Radio Special

There was an interesting special on the radio here that I only heard part of, called "Birth". The only place I've found that you can listen to it is http://www.prx.org/pieces/16661. I had to sign up for an account on that site to access it, but you can use mine if you like... The username is my email address before the @, and the password is "stupid". It's definitely worth listening to!

Swimming

I've started swimming! So far I've only gone once, but I'll be going at least three times a week, more often as Peter finds the time to watch Little Chub (not really very likely). When I went on Wednesday I swam a mile plus about 200 yards. Hopefully as I get more in shape I'll be able to do more laps in the same amount of time... But I'm excited! This is the only exercise that I actually look forward to doing. I LOVE swimming!

Sage Femme Midwifery

Well, we had our first appointment today! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat (in the 150's). I think we're just going with a due date of September 15, since we really have no way of knowing when I ovulated, and it's too late to pinpoint it precisely with ultrasound (the error margins are rather large this late in the pregnancy). I'm hoping this won't turn out to mean that I deliver in the hospital, BUT, the hospital they work with is staffed with MIDWIVES, and this midwife would come along as well, meaning that even if I was in the hospital, I could birth MY way. I just wouldn't get to feel like I was in a home-like environment, but being able to birth how I want to is the most important. If you'd like to see the birth center's webpage, it's www.sagefemme.net.

They discourage ultrasounds, but I'll be doing one because I'm a verified worry-wart. Someday, we've decided we won't do any ultrasounds. The problem is, we were discussing whether or not we would get one before we got to hear Pummelo-Chester's heartbeat, so I really was feeling concerned about if there really was a baby to speak of, and if all of his/her limbs were present. And of course, we want to know the gender (but that's not an okay reason for an ultrasound). After the appointment, I was thinking about it, and I decided that it would be really fun to be surprised. But not this time, since we're doing an ultrasound anyway.

Besides all that, I only had one mis-stick when they drew blood because they have a nurse there who used to be a phlebotomist, and after they missed my vein the first time, they called her in. She was a pro! (I have notoriously difficult veins to catch, and I'm "used" to it, but I've always feared having blood drawn, and I hate it and I can't relax and it makes me really really heeby-jeebied.)

Anyway, we're excited! It actually feels like reality rather than theoretical knowledge! Yay Pummelo-Chester!

We're Baaaa-aaack!

Well, we're back! We came home to a house that is messier than it ever gets because we can't seem to pack our bags in an orderly fashion, EVER. Erg. It also smelled pretty strongly of fish because I forgot to put the crab leg I found at the beach outside. Oops. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We had lots of fun at Peter's mission reunion and playing with cousins and just hanging out. And I ate WAY too much food from the time my sister came to visit us here, to the time we got home last night. I gained like 4 pounds in two weeks. Sick! We made lots of yummy food for my sister, then I had lots of fast food on the way to Utah and before we got to Real's house, then more fast food on the way home (and candy while playing conference bingo--I should have controlled myself, but I ate most of my baggie during the first session on Sunday--that's what happens when you don't ever eat candy...). Anyway, now I feel so gross. I think I want to eat just rice, veggies and plain chicken breast for the rest of my life! And now I need to clean the house or I'll feel gross for even longer. Blechhhhhh. I will write about orientation at the birth center soon. My first appointment is Thursday at 2!

Dreams

Last night my dreams were incredibly violent. I have never in my life had dreams like these! In one dream, I was with a group of people at night in a large grassy hilly field. I don't know what we were doing, but every once in a while some large bears would come try to attack us and we would have to beat them. It was so real feeling--the heavy bears that were smothering me under their weight and the almost useless thuds of me pounding on the bears to beat them up. Later, in a different dream, after a lot more violence, I was beating up some woman. And when I say beating up, I really mean like killing her. I was pulling on her arms and legs and trying to pull them at the worst angles so that I ended up breaking all of her bones. And of course, kicking and punching, and stuff like that. It was really disgusting. And strangely enough, there was no fear in any of this--I was just doing what I had to do for some reason. I didn't kill her, but she was completely incapacitated. For the record, all violence was in self-defense, but still, I think I went a little overboard. Weird, huh? That is so not like me!

Happy Birthday Amberguesa!

Whoa! She's a teenager! Crazy! When I met her the first time, she was just a little doofer...like 6 or something. Now she's a witty smart and cute girl, or something like that.

Happy Birthday Pinkleberry!

Yay! Pinkleberry is one! Purpleberry is trying her hardest to walk so that when she sees Pinkleberry they can run around together. That will be so cute!

Prenatal Care

The birth center closest to us, Sagefemme Midwifery, is located in San Francisco. That's anywhere from 30-60 minutes from us, depending on traffic, but we've been up to SF a few times, and it's always been more like 40-45min. I called them several times yesterday, but they never answered, and today I finally got a hold of them. The way they do things, you have to attend an orientation first before you have any appointments, so we have to wait to go to orientation, next Thursday, March 22 (from 7-10pm), and then we'll schedule an appointment for the following week. The cool thing is that they will help me take care of applying for Medi-Cal and everything, and by waiting to do it through them, it ensures that I'll be able to get care covered right away. They also help people get onto WIC and stuff like that, which I think is really neat. They really do a lot for their clients/patients/whatever they call them. So, I have to wait about two weeks for a real appointment, but, at least I have a birth center I can go to! I'll be around 15 weeks or so (give or take a week) by the time I have an appointment, but that's not so bad. With Little Chub my first appointment was at 20 weeks. And really, the only reason I really want to have an appointment is to hear the heartbeat and have some peace of mind.

All About Little Chub

I figure since this started out as a diary of sorts about Little Chub and her progress, I should pour out details about her with reckless abandon, with no regard for the interest or lack thereof of my pittance of readers. (That sounds like I'm insulting you, but I'm not. Maybe because pittance sounds so...spitty...)

Little Chub loves to:

*Dance--we put on her little dance tunes, or sometimes our own tunes, like Gipsy Kings or Brahms even, and she rocks out
*Play outside--she rockets down the slide, eats sand, plays in the swing, and holds little plastic shovels trying to get coordinated enough to actually pick up sand with the shovel
*Put things on her head and call them hats
*Play with clothes and put them over her shoulders and put them on her head and try to wear them, no matter what they are or look like, including towels
*READ--she spends hours every day playing with books, both for children and adults and turns the pages and looks at pictures and takes all the books off the shelves; yesterday she categorized all of the books into books that have birds and books that don't, on her OWN (Wow!)
*Watch her Your Baby Can Read DVD's and occasionally the Backyardigans; both have music she can dance to
*Point to parts of the body--so far she can point to toes, hair, and nose, maybe eyes; she has always loved to grab our noses and play with them
*Eat--she LOVES to eat! One day for lunch I had two small pieces of lasagna, and she had one! And she can eat 1/4 of a pizza! You should see her shovel popcorn into her mouth! She also loves fruit snacks, so I'm probably going to go to Trader Joe's today to see if I can find some healthy sort of fruit snacky sort of things
*Pound on the piano and bang things
*Open the fridge (sigh)
*Open and close the screen doors over and over again
*Go for bike rides or sit on her daddy's shoulders
*Type on the keyboard and hit all sorts of shortcuts we never would have known existed, and she constantly puts the keyboard on Caps Lock; she also loves to hold onto the mouse and move it and minimize windows and stuff--this is all standing next to the desk and reaching up to the mouse and keyboard, which are at her eye level or thereabouts
*Sit on my lap and push my head backward, and if I leave it back for too long, she'll pull on my chin to bring it back up so she can push my head back again

Little Chub hates:
*Baths/Showers (this is a recent thing)
*Things in her hair
*Being forced to do anything

Little Chub currently sleeps an average of 10 hours per night and naps about two hours every day (not much sleep for a 12 month old), and she wakes up 2-4 times a night. (Those two nights sure were nice a while back though!) When she does wake up, it is ususally shrieking, so I think there might be something abnormal going on. The few times she wakes up by stirring and then doing little cries, I barely notice I woke up to feed her, but when she wakes up shrieking, it really makes my heart race.

She takes steps every once in a while, but still won't actually walk. She still thinks crawling is more efficient.

She has lots of words, including 'hat', 'shirt', 'that', 'this', 'clap', 'dance', and 'hi', but I have never, that I can remember, heard her make the 'm' sound.

The messier things are, the happier she is.

Little Chub likes to stand up in the shopping cart, even when she has a seatbelt on. Somehow, she can get herself out of any seatbelts that are not a 5-point harness or similar.

Little Chub poops 2-3 times a day, to make up for only pooping once a week for the first 10 months of her life.

Little Chub is short and weighs about 20 pounds.

Little Chub is very cute.

Where's MyTry?

Anyone know? Are you there MyTry? I miss your blogs and comments!

Little Chub Esta Caminando.

Well, she's getting there anyway. She maxed at 10 steps last night, outside on our back patio. The cool thing is that she walked several steps repeatedly, both last night and this morning. So far, though, the most steps she's ever done without us coaxing them out of her is 4. She seems like she wants to walk, but she just won't let go of the chair, or my leg, or the couch, or whatever, for more than one step, unless we make her. BUT, yesterday was a huge milestone. She did an unprecedented (by her) amount of walking. Yay Little Chub! She's so cute!

Worried again, but more this time...

I had a little bit of bleeding this morning (actually red blood, mixed with mucus, sorry for TMI), and I feel crampy right now. I'm very worried. Less so than I would have been if the spotting hadn't happened several weeks ago. I was going to call today to set up my first prenatal appointment... Now I'm not sure if I should bother. It's funny. Every time I am set to call and make an appointment, something happens to make me change my mind. I wish I had my own doppler. It's likely I could hear the heartbeat right now, if there is one.

Hat!

Little Chub's favorite word right now is 'hat'. She wakes up in the morning, puts her hands on her head and says, 'hat' over and over again. Earlier today, as I was writing a different blog entry, I heard her say 'hat' and turned around to see her sitting on the floor with a book opened on her head. And I WISH I could send you a recording of her saying it! It is the cutest thing ever! We aren't very successful recording her on video these days because the second she sees the video camera, she immediately turns all focus onto it and forgets anything else until we put the camera back away. But I will try really hard! Trust me, you want to see/hear it!

Yet Another Clarification

By the way, in case any of you were worrying (because Peter did), I am not sitting here wallowing in my misery or anything like that. I don't hate myself. I would really just like to be a better person. Everyone has room to be better. This (post below) is the area I'm focusing on right now.

Nice vs. Opinionated

Back in the day, I used to be a really really nice, sweet person. If there was one word anyone had to pick to describe me, it was always nice or sweet. That was when I was a kid, up until about age 12. Then, something happened. I developed all these opinions. Sometimes I find myself saying things that astonish even me (actually, probably more me than anyone else), and I wonder, 'Where did that nice, sweet me go?' This has actually been the cause of a lot of my self-esteem issues. Not that they're major or anything. And that's part of the problem. I have this little package of problems called judgment and pride. Here's how it goes: First, you develop all these opinions, and you let them govern how you think the world should be run. Then, when someone or something comes along that doesn't conform to your opinions, your habitual opinions cause you you to pass judgment on the situation, which in effect is causing you to pass judgment, in a way, on the person in 'control' of the situation. When conversation comes up, instead of accepting how things are, you feel that you MUST verbalize your opinions and make them sound LOGICAL so that someone would be stupid not to agree with you. And no matter how normal you manage to make it sound, YOU know in your head that what you've just said is not as innocent as it sounds and that you are not a nice person. And that makes you sad. It hurts your self-esteem. But that doesn't matter. Your self-esteem is already so inflated that it could actually use quite a few more of these puncture wounds. Self-esteem=Pride, in this case.

My goal in life right now is to TRULY return to being that nice person I used to be. To stop letting my opinions govern who I am. Instead, I should strive to live by the wise words of Christ in his Sermon on the Mount. My goal is to be 'pure of heart.'

Virtual Donation

Please take a few seconds to go to this website and donate feminine products to women in shelters just by clicking a few times.

My Little Monster

Well, I really just wanted to mislead you... For the last two nights, she's been an angel! For TWO nights in a row, she only woke up ONCE to nurse! WOOHOO!!!! Ironically, the first night she did this, I was awake for an extended period of time twice, unable to fall back asleep. The second night (last night), I slept for about 7 1/2 hrs straight (with normal turning over rousings and stuff), and then I woke up for a few minutes, but managed to convince myself to go back to sleep.

For the past two weeks, Little Chub has been teething. Her 8th tooth finally broke through the gums a few days ago, and finished coming through and giving her problems 2 days ago. During that time, we thought she was sick because she had intermittent bursts of what seemed like really bad pain. We thought maybe a tummy thing or something. She slept really poorly at night, waking up many times. When I finally realized she was teething, the light bulb went off inside my head, and now I feel really stupid for not thinking of it much sooner. Unlike Real, I never notice the fleshy breath thing. I think I need to learn my baby's cues better though, all things included. So, now we'll see how she does in the future, but those two nights have been great, more for my sanity than anything. It's always nice to know that she has the ability to sleep, even if she doesn't do it very often. My goal is to have her sleeping through the night without nursing to sleep by the time #2 is born. That gives us another 6 1/2 months or so, maybe a little less. I think she'll be able to do it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

It's Official...

I can now say with some amount of certainty that my stomach is bigger. I'm not "showing". I don't think anyone would guess by looking at me that I'm pregnant, unless they would have thought so before, too, but when I look at myself, I look like I have a few extra doughnuts in my abdomen. (uh-oh...maybe that's what it REALLY is...) Really, though, I'm in that nasty inbetween stage where all my clothes still fit just fine, but my tummy looks nasty to me and kinda bulges in ways that make me very unsatisfied with my appearance. And I haven't really gained any weight yet, maybe 1 pound, so I don't think it's from extra doughnuts. Besides, I only had 1! (I couldn't help it, I really needed a lemon filled doughnut. Very bad for me, I know.) Oh yeah, and right now, I'm somewhere between 10-12 weeks. With Eleanor, I had gained somewhere between 6 and 8 pounds by now and I was starting to wear transition pants, so we're already starting off better! (Thank goodness!!!!!!! Those are pretty bad stats.)

Down to the Top 16...

Well, I got 1 out of 4 right for who was going to leave American Idol last night. To my complete and utter astonishment, both Sanjaya and Antonella remain. (Well, despite Antonella's lack of talent musically, everyone says she's hot, AND there are inappropriate pictures of her circulating on the web, so of course she's still on!)

So, last night we parted ways with AJ Tabaldo and Nick Pedro, and Alaina Alexander and Leslie Hunt. None of this really surprised me, except that ALL of them deserved to stay more than Sanjaya and Antonella. And I don't know who was more surprised, me or Sanjaya. He totally expected to go. At least he is really nice, so I feel bad wanting him to leave. It was obvious by watching Antonella's facial expression that I was infinitely more surprised than her that she stayed. She totally expected to stay. She is the complete opposite of some other contestants, like Jordin Sparks and Lakisha Jones. Those are some really nice girls.

Earthquake!

Yeah, don't worry, we didn't even feel it... How ironic is it, though, that the U of A men's basketball team was playing Cal last night, and THEY felt it? It was across the bay from us, though for some reason, news reports insist on calling it the "San Francisco area". It was across the bay and further east even, and it was only a 4.2. Don't get me wrong--I don't actually WANT to be in an earthquake. Earthquakes in the bay area were almost a big enough deterrent to keep us from coming to Stanford at all. We're hoping we escape "unshaken".

To Clarify on the IQ Test

To clarify about the IQ test, the scoring is baloney. Peter took the test, scored 127, and then we changed a lot of his answers to be wrong, and it still said 127. Then we changed a lot again and it scored lower. So, maybe they have a formula for how they score the tests, but it doesn't appear to have much to do with having more right answers...

Oh Look How Smart I Am!

Well, I just took my IQ test. So did Peter. Then we compared. There were a few questions that had more than one possible answer. The saddest part is.....drum roll please.... we then went through to see what score someone would get who didn't know all the answers. We intentionally answered half of them wrong. What was our IQ? Another drum roll please! ........ 122! Then we went through and intentionally answered EVERY question wrong. What was our IQ? 92. It told us we were about average. Huh?!?

You gotta love how these tests inflate the IQ's they give people. Then they tell all their friends about it, and everyone comes to take their test, and everyone feels really smart. Yay for all of us smart people.

For the record, I never did figure out the mixed up letters one, and I happen to live in California. So, really my "real" IQ would have suffered from their putting the letters into two different groups. That really was tripping me up and actually made me feel kind of stupid. But it didn't matter, because my IQ is 132! Hahahahahaha!

Idol Girls

I'm not going to bother narrowing it to three. There are five I LOVE:

Lakisha Jones
Melinda Doolittle
Sabrina Sloan
Jordin Sparks
Stephanie Edwards

And, I'll AGAIN say goodbye to Antonella Barba. The other to drop out is hard, not because I like the rest so much or anything, but because the other three are so similar in their mediocrity. But, I think I'll go with Gina Glocksen, because her pitch was worse than the others, even though compared to Alaina, Haley, and Leslie she has a much stronger nicer voice.

So, for tomorrow, to leave, I pick:
Antonella Barba
Gina Glocksen
Sanjaya Malakar
AJ Tabaldo

Sorry guys...

My Hair, Revisited

Well, you guys were absolutely no help about my hair! Oh well. I took matters into my own hands and I decided to get a leave-in conditioner (Garnier Fructis) and a Dove anti-frizz cream. They basically have the same purpose, so I don't use them at the same time. Then, I'm trying to train my hair to part on the side, because that goes better with my face shape, which seems to be somewhere between round, square, and heart-shaped, depending on how chunky my face feels like being. I think I left heart behind years ago, really, but I still have the pointy chin as a reminder. Anyway, today I parted my hair, put in the Dove, then blow dried my hair on the warm setting, then put a tiny bit of gel on the places that I had flyaways. When I was done, it kind of reminded me of one of those sexy 50's hairdos...I know, I flatter myself. I doubt it will last more than an hour, once I decide to actually touch it, instead of pretending like my head is made out of glass.

Idol Guys

Well, they did much better this time. I've gotta say, if Sanjaya doesn't go home this week... well, I can't really say anything because we've already established that America and I don't see eye to eye. But, really, out of all 10 guys, he REALLY did the worst. Chris Richardson was really close to my top three last week, and this week, he was my favorite. And Sundance Head finally proved to me that he even deserves to be this far in the competition, although he definitely wasn't my favorite. I loved Blake Lewis' performance, although Randy was right and it did get a little "pitchy" in places. He's such a talented singer though! And the other guy to make it into my top three, again, is Phil Stacy. I love his voice.

My guesses for who will go home:
Sanjaya Malakar
AJ Tabaldo

We'll see if I did a better job of guessing this time around...

Baby Steps

That's right! Little Chub took two of 'em! All on her own. She's taken a couple of steps before when we were holding her hands and then let go suddenly, but last night, she was holding onto a chair and then wanted to keep going, so she let go and walked two steps before losing her balance! Woohoo! What a cutie! My prediction was that she would walk on March 26, Peter's was March 12. I guess we'll have to see! She's the youngest of her playgroup friends, so the only one not walking right now...

My Hair

I've been thinking that my hair needs a little bit of a makeover. Nothing really super huge, just, maybe using some products (gasp!) in it or something. I'm really tired of having this inbetween straight and curly hair that is closer to straight but has WAY too much wave in it to look good with any haircut or to look good after a shower and doing nothing but brushing it. The problem is that I have no idea how! I mean, I do know one way, which is to blow dry it, which I'm maybe willing to do. But is there anything else I can do? What do pretty haired people do?

I also have these really lame wispies that are way shorter than normal ones because they are hair that is growing back from being pulled out by Little Chub when she was younger. They go across my forehead and straight down my part, which looks really horrendous. But I guess I'll probably just have to wait for those to grow out...

The Personality Quiz

I've taken that quiz 4 or 5 times now. That's the first time I've ever gotten a P at the end. The first couple times, I was INTJ, and I don't remember what the T stands for. Then the next couple times I was INFJ. Now I'm INFP. The two things that have remained constant over the years (since I was 16) are introverted and intuitive. I've changed from judging to perceiving and from thinking to feeling, although the latter is a category that my answers almost defintiely depend on my mood. There are always several questions in quizzes like these that could go either way for me, so my mood is what determines the answer. I'm sure it's like this for most people. I think it's really funny that I scored 100% on the introverted part. It doesn't surprise me, but it's still funny.

Anyway, I have way too much fun with these darn personality tests. I could get caught up in them for hours, and they never really tell me anything new.

My Personality

Your Type is INFP

Introverted	Intuitive	Feeling	Perceiving
Strength of the preferences %
100	12	12	11

INFP type description by D.Keirsey
INFP type description by J. Butt


Qualitative analysis of your type formula
You are:

• very expressed introvert
  
• slightly expressed intuitive personality
  
• slightly expressed feeling personality
  
• slightly expressed perceiving personality
  

American Idol, Plus Extra!

Well, I was almost 1 out of 4. But I changed my mind at the last second to kicking Sanjaya off instead of Rudy, and well, Rudy's gone now. So are Paul Kim, Amy Krebs, and Nichole Tranquillo. I'm quite shocked. America has proven to me that what they're looking for in a musical icon has less to do with musicality than one might originally think when hearing the word 'singer'. Oh well. To quote myself from yesterday, what do I know? America and I, we just don't see eye to eye.

Speaking of not seeing eye to eye with America, I think our entire justice system needs a rehaul. I've been thinking this for years, but when people end up getting sentenced to years in jail for throwing a cup of ice into the car next to them, or arrested for breaking down the door of an apartment with a sword trying to save someone they think is being raped, but being mistaken because it's actually only porn they're hearing through the walls, I get really really really frustrated. Fed up, really. It makes me want to DO something, but then, I remember that the way our 'democracy' is set up, my voice actually DOESN'T count for anything (see Bush vs Gore, 2000), which is another source of my frustration. Our whole government needs a rehaul. But, in my opinion, the only perfect government is one in which God is the leader, or someone who has the authority to speak and act for him, and I just don't see that happening anytime soon. In the meantime (until the Millenium), we can probably at least make some small changes, but our country is so attached to the Constitution that it's not likely to happen. The irony of it is that people uphold the Constitution, and they want to preserve the ideas in it, but at the same time, many of them want to remove the religion from it, which was central to its formation. I'm so blessed to live in this privileged country--I definitely won't argue with that. But I think there is some major improvement that needs to happen.

Sorry to rant. I guess one thought just led to another...

American Idol Girls

Well, I had the opposite problem than I thought I would. The girls really outperformed the guys. The only one that really doesn't deserve to come back is Antonella, just like I predicted.

These five girls were all really good:
Jordin Sparks
Melinda Doolittle
Lakisha Jones
Sabrina Sloan
Stephanie Edwards

If I had to pick three (like I said I would), I would have to go with:
Sabrina Sloan
Stephanie Edwards
Lakisha Jones

And that list would probably have been different if I wrote it 10 minutes ago, or 10 minutes in the future, because those 5 were all so good. Really, I liked almost all of them. There were a few bad notes here and there that kinda made me cringe. I thought it was particularly interesting that I agreed with almost everything Simon had to say the whole night, but I disagreed with Randy a lot. Does that mean that I'm mean? He was right about Gina Glocksen's note--she hit the top one that she was going for but then came down to a different pitch for an extended amount of time that really hurt my musical senses. And there was probably only one singer all night who did runs that actually sounded right with the music (I'm generally not a fan of runs because they detract from the music unless they're done just right), and that was Lakisha Jones. Anyhow, I guess tonight we'll see what the rest of America thought. I'll make some predictions just for the fun of it, even though it's likely the rest of America doesn't see eye to eye with me on lots of stuff.

Guys to Leave:
Sundance Head
Sanjaya Malakar

Girls to Leave:
Antonella Barba
Leslie Hunt

What do I know?

American Idol

Since Peter's been away doing his study group at nights recently, I've been watching TV some of the times that he's gone. So I've been watching American Idol, and this is the first season I've ever watched more than one episode in. Last night, the top 12 guys performed.

My top three are:
Blake Lewis
Phil Stacey
Jared Cotter

In no particular order.

In my opinion, Sundance Head should never have made it past Hollywood, because his performance there in the groups was one of the most hideous things I've ever heard. It really annoys me that they dropped out other people who sang and performed better than him in Hollywood just because they really liked his original audition. I could be wrong, but I thought each stage of the audition process was supposed to be based on the current audition. But of course, they want a nice show, so they keep people in based on potential and stuff like that. Money always wins.

Sometimes I really question what's going on in those judges heads. When they got to the last two girls, while choosing the top 24 contestants (12 girls, 12 guys), they sent home a girl who could really sing, and kept the girl that couldn't remember her lyrics, was really mean, and didn't have anything special to her voice. That decision was an easy one for me, and they chose the opposite. I will be surprised if Antonella makes it past the first round of the top 24.

Tomorrow, maybe I'll put my top 3 girls up, although I don't really expect to like the girls as much because I've always liked male voices better...

My Nerd Score

Looks like I have lots of residual nerdiness...

Little Chub's New Bed

Well, we did it! We finally sprung for a Uhaul, and we went and bought Little Chub her own twin sized bed. I decided on Friday that the next day, we were getting a bed no matter what. So, I looked on craigslist and found someone who was selling a brand new in the wrapping with warranty twin mattress with boxspring for $127. I arranged to meet with them (at their warehouse), we rented a Uhaul cargo van, and we went and bought the mattress. We actually ended up buying the next mattress up, which she sold to me for $177, because it has a 15 year warranty, and it seemed like a better quality mattress.

I decided that since I would probably never have a Uhaul again, I was going to try my darnedest to find a free couch to pick up too, but it had to pass the looks test, because once I bring one 'new' couch into this house, Peter will buck against me ever getting a different one, no matter how ugly the one we have is. As it is, he thinks our caved in, stained, and incredibly uncomfortable loveseat is sufficient, and doesn't understand why I want a long, comfy, you-can-lay-down-and-read-a-book-in-it couch, and preferably one that is nice-ish looking (and I'm really not all that picky, because most couches are a major improvement over what we have!).

Craigslist again--I found a nice looking long blue comfy couch for free, first come first served, pick it up off the sidewalk sort of deal. I really wanted to hurry to get that couch! So after we picked up the bed, we ate lunch, checked our email, brought the bed upstairs, and then went to get the couch. The person who offered it said they would take down the ad when it was taken. The ad was still up! It was feeling urgent though. We drove across several towns about 30 minutes to where the couch was located. WAS is the operative word here. When we got there, it was gone. WAHHHH! We drove all the way back home (mind you, we're paying .59 a mile here, and this was not exactly close to our house), and I spent the next several hours checking and rechecking every source I could think of to find a couch we could get, to no avail. We ended up taking the van back, with no new couch.

Overall, though, I have to say the day was a winner. Peter didn't see the need for a bed for Little Chub either (which I assure him would change if he had to wake up several times a night to feed her), so getting the bed was a W for me. I was the one that ended up driving it all over the whole bay area, because Peter was tired, and he followed me everywhere in our car, with Little Chub. I ended up really enjoying this--it was kind of exhilarating, which probably makes Real and Mommymonster9 laugh, and shows that I need to get out more...

The best part is, we have the bed on the floor, next to our bed, which is also on the floor, and Little Chub has spent the last three nights with plenty of room to sleep the way she likes to, and hasn't woken up more than three times on any of those nights! Last night I realized she was waking up one of the times because I nursed her, and then fell asleep afterward without rolling away from her and giving her lots of space, and after that she slept till the morning. YAY! Hopefully it's just a matter of time now until she learns to sleep all night long. I'm hoping this happens before #2 comes along in September...

For now, YAY for Little Chub's bed!

HOORAY! She's 1!

Happy Birthday Little Chub! Today was a happy special day! We were very lucky that Little Chub's birthday fell on President's Day this year, so Daddy had the day off from school! (He still had tons of homework, but he put that off until late in the day so we could have fu-u-un!)

This morning, we went to the beach with some friends. It was pretty cold, as it always is at the beaches in northern California, but the sky was deep blue and the waves were beautiful!

When we got home, we had to hurry and makes two kinds of cake and a couple of pizzas. Lucky for us, a lot of our friends had volunteered to make some pizzas too, so we only had to make two! Little Chub's party was lots of fun. There were tons of people crammed into our backyard, all friends that live here in our neighborhood, Escondido Village, and who are also in our ward. We are in a really picture perfect ideal situation here for making friends!

Then, some of our friends invited us over to look at the moon and stars through their 8 in telescope, which was awesome! (And she was asking me questions about Little Chub's birth, which made me all excited, because talking about birth, especially natural childbirth, really gets my heartrate up.)

So, now Little Chub is asleep, hopefully for the night, and not for a nap, and today has been one of the greatest days in a long time! :o)

Braxton Hicks? Nursing Contractions?

Last night and today, both times while nursing Little Chub to sleep, I felt the oh-so-familiar tightening of my lower belly accompanied by that feeling in my chest (that I think Real once described to me as blood pressure lowering?). So, if I was several weeks further along, this wouldn't seem strange to me at all, BUT I am only somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks along. It does seem too coincidental that both times I was lying down and nursing, but do nursing contractions feel the same as Braxton Hicks? They were completely painless. Both times I was also wearing pants that were not really tight, but you could say they were 'holding me in'. Anyhow, I'm confused. Not really worried, but, I had actually forgotten Braxton Hicks even existed, just to give you some idea of how unexpected that feeling was. It took me a minute last night to realize where I remembered that feeling from... Oh yeah, and I know it was my uterus, because it felt the same as a Braxton Hicks, but it was only located where my actual uterus is, so not as widespread a feeling as Braxton Hicks in mid-late pregnancy.

Any insights?

My Little Chub

Yesterday's Food

Breakfast:
Large slice of Peter's Valentine's Day ice cream cake

Lunch:
Leftovers of my calzone from Valentine's Day

Snack:
A small amount of even more ice cream cake

Dinner:
Spicy nacho Doritos
~1/2 chicken breast sandwich w/ tomato, lettuce, onion, mustard and low fat mayo

Um...yah. I wrote this down because of how embarrassing it is. I'm actually proud of myself for the dinner though (the chicken sandwich part of it anyway) because I was craving a hamburger, like a Whopper, and I went for the much healthier alternative of the homemade grilled chicken sandwich. Even the Doritos don't catch me up to what a Whopper would have done.

And about the ice cream cake for breakfast--it may seem weird, but in reality it lowers my overall calories for the day because you can bet your bottom dollar I would have still had the cake sometime later, even if I had eaten a normal breakfast. It's my "minimize the harmful effects of junk food" technique. It also works for yummy things like pumpkin chocolate chip bread or pumpkin pie, etc.

And since there are only two of us, we still have half the cake left! AHHHH!!

Our Valentine's Day

This has never been much of a special day for us. I always try to make it kind of special, but, well, as they say, it takes two to tango... I was watching the news last night as Peter was studying on campus, and they were showing long lines of guys in floral shops and candy stores, and they asked someone about if he felt pressured on Valentine's Day and showed him saying, "I think all guys are in the same boat when it comes to feeling pressured." HAHAHA! Yeah, anyway, that's all I'll say about that.

So, in the morning, I made Peter an ice cream cake (2 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate chip ice cream in the middle, and topped with a chocolate whipped cream frosting). This was really yummy! He actually came home for lunch unexpectedly because he finished an assignment early, while Little Chub and I were playing with her friend Oliver, and the smell of the cake was permeating the house so much that he went searching the kitchen for the source, and of course, found the incomplete ice cream cake. So as soon as I got home, I made up the frosting (~1/3 cup powdered sugar, ~1/4 cup cocoa, heavy whipping cream, beat it all until it's VERY stiff, then add vanilla and voila! Yummy yummy yummy!) and we ate some cake then instead of having it for dessert after dinner. Earlier in the day, I ordered calzones and garlic cheese bread to be delivered at the time Peter was supposed to arrive home. Unfortunately, he asked questions, so I answered them, and this was not a surprise either, AND he ended up arriving home a couple minutes before the calzones were delivered anyway. So we ate our calzones, and he rushed off back to school, to arrive home around 1:30am. Oh yeah, Little Chub and I made a heart shaped construction paper card for Daddy, that she colored on a little bit, which is what I think he liked the most.

Days like yesterday only serve to show me how selfish and greedy I am. It's really kind of depressing if I think about it too much.

And why is it that I haven't had anything positive to say in the last couple weeks? I think I need an attitude adjustment...

Little Chub's Upcoming Birthday Party

Obviously, I've never held a birthday party for a child of mine, as Little Chub is #1, and she's turning 1. We have quite a few people that we've gotten to know pretty well, and Little Chub has a little playgroup that she plays with outside three times a week. So, we've been wanting to have a little party for her to get all of her and our friends together to celebrate her big day (even though she has no idea it is a big day...).

This is really "nervous-making" for me. (To steal an appropriate phrase/word from the book Pretties.)

We decided we're going to have homemade pizza, and one of our friends actually offered to make some and bring them, too, which I actually accepted because it really will be a big help. Then, there's the cake. Or cakeS. How many to make? What flavor? How much ice cream should I have? What flavor/s? And what about little side food items? Decorations? Having a CLEAN HOUSE?? What should Little Chub wear? When should I try to give her a nap that day? Should I give her her own cake? Who should I invite? Should I invite neighbor Y if I'm already inviting neighbor X? What time should the party be so that all of the little one year olds are happy?

Anyway, I'm still excited about it. But I haven't been part of this world ever (because inviting friends over when you're a kid just doesn't carry the same burden of responsibility), so I'm not used to entertaining large groups of non-family people. We'll see how it goes! Monday!

My Migraine

It's been a long time, I know, but for some reason I just haven't felt like writing. In the meantime, I've been planning fun stuff like Little Chub's 1st Birthday Party, and what I'll do for Peter for Valentine's Day. Both of those include lots of yummy things to bake. Yum yum!

While I was at the store last night getting supplies for both events, I lost about 40-50% of my vision, from the sides and the top. I knew from past experience that this meant a migraine was coming on soon, so I rushed to do the last thing I needed, then went and grabbed a new bottle of Tylenol (a substitute, really) since we were out at home, and drove home, very worried that Peter was going to be gone all night and I would have to deal with Little Chub with one of the incapacitating kinds of migraines. (They vary for me, from really painful to crying in my bed in a dark room with something cold on my head and covering my eyes, with no sounds nearby if at all possible, and throwing up.) The normal pattern for a bad one starts with the vision loss. BUT, if I can catch them early with Tylenol, before my head starts to hurt, I can usually stave off the worst, and sometimes all, of the pain. So I rushed home (with Little Chub SCREAMING the whole way), where I found, to my delight, that Peter had gotten home early! I took my Tylenol (lots, because I needed it), and lay on the couch with a sweater over my head, trying to see if I could keep the migraine from getting bad. My head was hurting, and throbbing a little, as my migraines always do, but, it never got to the incapacitating point! I also ate some ice cream (which I had conveniently purchased at the store, for Peter's special Valentine's treat I'm going to make, and for Little Chub's party). It was wonderful! It had been such a long time! Yummy delightful ice cream!

It was such a blessing that I was at the store and able to get Tylenol (and ice cream!) when the first migraine signs hit, and that I made it home and took some in time to keep the worst from happening. I try not to take Tylenol very much at all, especially when I'm pregnant, but I have to admit, since I started getting migraines, whenever I feel a headache at all, I take some, because they have been known to develop from something that starts off feeling really minor. So, who knows how many times I would have gotten a minor migraine that I didn't because of that magical ability my body has to curb it when I take Tylenol in time.

Anyway, there was more interesting stuff I wanted to say besides talking about my migraine (which has been residually with me all day), but now I'm out of steam. More later, I promise! 'Bout Little Chub!

It's Catching Up to Me

It's finally getting to me, all this time of Peter being gone all day and evening/night long going to school and studying. It's not so horrible, really, but he's so busy this quarter, while Little Chub is starting to experience separation anxiety, so not only do we barely seem him for more than a few minutes on some days (I know, many of you have experienced much worse...), but Little Chub often doesn't want to be held by him because she's in a Mama phase, and that's sad. And the reason that it really finally started getting to me this morning is my stupid dreams this morning. In one, he was not being himself--he was refusing to see any logic and arguing with me and making me very angry, and in the other one, we were watching a (non-existent in reality) movie with some cheating going on and in that way that dreams have, we became the people that the movie was about, and it was no longer a movie but reality. ARGH! When I have dreams like that, I wake up with the emotions of the dream and even though my brain realizes they were dreams, I still have the chemicals/hormones/whatever floating around in my body that accompanied those emotions, and I have to make an extreme effort to change my attitudes. It's not fair to either of us to have stupid dreams affecting my behavior.

Anyway, we should be able to have some time with Daddy home for a few days now, and it makes the busy days worth it, because these days will be better, with less homework.

To Crave or Not to Crave?

That IS the question!
Whether 'tis nobler of the woman to suffer
The cravings and salivations of a usurping pregnancy,
Or to take food into her willing stomach,
And by succumbing end them?

What to do, what to do, to prove to Pop that I'm not a fool...

Sometimes my head is just full of these things... Strangely enough, the second has nothing to do with the first... I'm such a nerd.

Anyway. I never really feel like I get "strong pregnancy cravings", but all the same, I always get foods into my head while I'm pregnant that I don't normally think of when I'm not. This causes me to make purchases at the store that I wouldn't normally make, even though I rarely purchase the actual food item that would fulfill the so-called "craving". Yesterday, I decided some lime potato chips would be great. Mmmmm, it sounded so yummy, and I'd been wanting a BBQ with the whole hamburgers and potato chips thing for a few days anyway, so it was following along the same lines, but the LIME part was inserted, and quite necessary. I've also really been wanting popcorn. (Peter pointed out that both potato chips and popcorn are the best nutrition empty form of salt and fat he can think of. He has a good point...) So, at the store today, I got (in addition to the french bread) some popcorn (94% fat free butter) and some sour cream and onion Baked Lays. Hmmmm.... no lime. The chips did not cut it, AT ALL, but at least I kept the fat and calories to a minimum while succumbing my agency to pregnancy. I haven't had any of the popcorn yet. We'll see... I should just make a rule stating that I am allowed to indulge in a craving for 1 out of every 4, or something like that. I really don't get many, I swear!

I'll let you know about the popcorn...

Mmmmmm!

We went for a simple dinner tonight. I've really been wanting something bready recently, which was sad, since we were pretty much out of flour, so I couldn't make anything. So, when I went shopping today, I decided to spring for a loaf of french bread at Safeway (which, here, is $1.59) because I just couldn't wait the necessary 12-18 hours it takes to make my favorite bread (I usually just put it together and let it sit overnight, which is really the easiest way to go about it). So, it turned out that Peter needed a quick dinner anyway so he could rush back off to school and work on his homework with his study group. When I found out, he was going to be home in about 30 minutes, and was only going to be home for about 10 minutes. It worked out perfectly! We had really yummy french bread sandwiches!

My sandwich:
french bread
low fat mayo
Dijon mustard
thinly sliced colby jack cheese
tomato
lettuce
avocado
sliced turkey lunchmeat
onion

Peter's sandwich:
french bread
cream cheese
olive oil
thinly sliced colby jack cheese
tomato
lettuce
avocado
onion
sliced turkey lunchmeat

It turns out that as Peter was riding his bike home, he was thinking to himself that he didn't want chicken on rice with a sauce (which is pretty standard here, though the sauce can be one of MANY things), and that he would really prefer something with bread. Hehe! Yay! The sandwiches really hit the spot for both of us. Mmmmmmm! It was sooooooo good!

In addition to the sandwiches, we shared a pear and an orange, and Little Chub and I each had yogurt.

We All Fall Down

Ok, maybe you don't. But I do and we did! This morning Little Chub and I were riding Peter to class on my bike, and as I was turning around to head back home, my back tire rode onto my flip-flop, and down we went! Little Chub cried really hard for a minute or two, and her hand flesh was shaped pretty funny, but since she was wearing her helmet (thank goodness!), her hand was the only thing to be injured, and that only happened because she rests her hands on the outside of her little seat instead of on the bar in front of her. I got a scrape on my elbow and my knee. Thank goodness we weren't really moving when it happened! It was pretty embarrassing, though, that it happened on campus because a lot of people were around, including an old man who was probably a professor, and a college aged woman/girl who gasped and came running to help (which was very nice of her). I didn't end up needing any help though because Peter had only taken a few steps away from us, so he came right back and offered to come back home with us if we needed it, but it turned out we didn't, and everything is fine. I find it quite ironic that I fell on my bike and it had nothing to do with being pregnant. And my Little Chub is such a trooper! She is such a wonderful baby!

Not So Bad

I really am not quite as down as I might seem, but house upkeep is a big frustration of mine right now. In order to keep this house clean, that would have to be all I do all day everyday because there is constant pooey all over the place. So, instead of blogging right now, I'm going to go clean the whole house again.

This Is How Uncool I Am

*My house is never 100% clean. There are always piles somewhere, or the bathroom is dirty, or there are a few dishes undone, or Little Chub is playing with the entire contents of her toybox, or..., or..., or...
*We have absolutely NO schedule to speak of, no regularity in pretty much any aspect of, at least my and Little Chub's lives.
*We are not organized or neat
*On top of this, we don't ever even DO anything anymore. Little Chub and I get bored bored bored! I can't wait until the summer, so we can go swimming and stuff, and by then she'll be walking, and maybe she won't shovel sand in her mouth anymore...

Anyway, I'm not really so upset about all of this stuff. Our house is almost always presentable, but we do find it QUITE challenging to keep out the clutter, since our apartment is so small, and clutter reduction often requires at least a little bit of money spent on boxes or bins, or bookshelves, or things like that. Inspired by KT, I think I'll spend the extra couple of bucks on clutter reduction supplies, once I have an idea of how to go about it, and I can sacrifice purchasing something else that I might not need so much. Our biggest frustration with our day to day house cleanliness is the clutter (not that it's horrible, but I hate any of it really and I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes, when I look around and see an otherwise beautiful house, it drives me NUTS). Whule I'm at it, our carpet drives me nuts too, because it is not fluffy, and it is dark, so EVERY SINGLE TINY SPECK shows up on it, meaning, as soon as I'm finished vacuuming, it looks like it needs to be vacuumed again. ARGH! Oh yeah, and our bed is really creaky. That's annoying too.

Now haven't I just brightened your day?

Feeling Like Eyeore

I got kind of tired of putting down everything I eat. Maybe I'll pick it back up later... tomorrow, or 3 months from now, or never...

I've been feeling like there is a little bit more on my shoulders than normal, I don't know why. I've just been getting a little bit stressed about really little things that don't normally bother me, such as:

*My library books that were due 6 days ago (about 7 or 8 of them) that accrue fines of 25 cents a day, each...
*Having to file our tax return and stressing about all of the little things I might be supposed to mention, and trying to remember what year things happened--I don't want to be guilty of tax fraud or evasion...
*Money in general, because even though things are going pretty well, because of a one time student loan we got, we applied for the loan in October and STILL have not received the money, even though the credit for one of the kinds of loans shows on our account, and the other was already approved and we signed the MPN and everything...
*Health insurance, for me and for Little Chub--Little Chub qualifies for California State Health Insurance (Medi-Cal), but since she turns 1 in a couple weeks, she'll be kicked down to Healthy Families, which costs a tiny amount, unless I turn my application in, and since I'm pregnant, our income limit is higher, but I can't turn it in until Peter makes a copy of his paystub, since I can't take a picture of it and print it like I normally do because our printer is out of ink...
*I keep forgetting to send the NetFlix movie out in the mail, which makes me feel like we're wasting money because I'm not maximizing the number of movies we can get each month, but our apartment doesn't have an outgoing mail slot, which gets really irritating because we always have to go find the nearest blue box...
*The little messes that constantly reappear all over the house because I'm the only one who cleans (which is how it always is, but sometimes it just starts to get to me)
*Little Chub knocking over the standing lamp for the billionth time, and having it dent

I think that's all. And you see, that's not even very much going on. Why am I feeling stressed/burdened/mopey? I think I need more vitamin B...

We're going to go play with Little Chub's friend in a few minutes. That should be nice. In the meantime, maybe we'll dash over to the library and turn in the movie and take care of two of those stressors.

Food, 2/1/07

Breakfast:
Toasted Corn Pockets (fake Chex)

Lunch:
Small bean/cheese/sour cream burrito (really small)

Dinner:
Um...some neighbor church friends had us over for dinner. I ate a lot. It was so yummy!

Which reminds me! They had some homemade raspberry jam that one of their grandmothers made, to eat on the biscuits, and after eating some of that, I will never eat store bought jam again! It was SOOOOOOOOOOO good! I want to learn to make my own, except, berries cost a lot. Maybe I'll make some strawberry jam this summer or something... Anyway, they gave me one of their jars of it! Yay! How nice!

Water:
~40 oz

The Other White Milk

I like to consider myself a pretty reasonable person. Logic really appeals to me. I was led to The Lactivist Breastfeeding Blog by Issylthesthlia. The National Pork Board does not seem to be behaving in a reasonable, logical, rational manner! If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to The Lactivist blog. It's always best to hear something straight from the source anyway. I get so riled up when things like this happen, regardless of whether or not it's an issue that I already feel strongly about (and breastfeeding happens to be one that I DO). Needless to say, I am pretty riled up about this! I let the heat of the moment go, and I still feel pretty annoyed. Annoyed enough that I'm considering making my own T-shirt that says "the other white milk" on it, just so The National Pork Board can see that they won't get anywhere by bullying people into complying with their understanding of what infringes on their trademark of the phrase "the other white meat". I, personally, think owning a trademark of a phrase starts to infringe on our First Amendment rights anyway. I realize that they believe they have a foothold because she was actually selling the shirt with the (similar) phrase. She is potentially making money on something that "piggybacks" (that pun wasn't originally intended) on the wittiness of someone from their company a long long time ago, and they alone should be the ones making money on that oh so clever phrase "the other white ____". Right?

Ummm... NO!!! "The other white meat" is such a generic phrase! Milk has nothing to do with meat, or pork, and while the phrase about the milk appeals to us because we already know about the phrase, it does nothing but attract attention to the existence of the phrase, in a light that every human being should see as positive! Who WOULDN'T want to be associated with the healthy aspects and benefits of breastfeeding??? Unfortunately for them, The National Pork Board probably didn't realize that messing with breastfeeding advocates was probably not a very good idea. There are few groups in this country that unite as effectively as pro-breastfeeding women, and some of the things they said in the letter they sent to The Lactivist are only going to aggravate most breastfeeding women and pro-breastfeeding people in general.

And then of course, who would I rather sympathize with, in a battle between a large profiting national company that exploits pigs and a small blogsite that donates its income to a Mother's Milk Bank? That's not a tough choice for me...

Food, 1/31/07

Breakfast:
Bowl of Reeses Puffs

Lunch:
Leftover pasta from the night before
~8oz Cocoa Energizing Soy Protein w/ supplements
A few small chunks of cheese (meant for the baby)

Dinner:
TWO bowls of Reeses Puffs
More small chunks of cheese

Snack:
A pear
More chunks of cheese
4 bites of Peter's burrito

Water:
~40 oz

Notes for yesterday: Cereal was a bad thing to have for dinner. Even though I had two bowls, I was hungry again in a couple of hours. Then, the pear didn't fill me, and the cheese didn't satisfy, and it wasn't until I had a few bites of Peter's burrito (a REAL meal food, for me anyway) that my brain said Ahhhhh. The pear was really yummy though, and I still think it will normally be a great snack. But, all in all, I am very embarrassed about what I ate yesterday...