Anticipatory ache.

Note: This has been sitting in the draft folder for several months, as you'll see from tomorrow's post, but I decided I liked it enough not to give it up. So here it is.

I open my front door to take out the trash and 90ºF+52% humidity hits me like a hot water bottle to the face. I close my eyes and try not to gasp at the shock of it because I don't want that sticky warm air going into my lungs, and all of a sudden I'm no longer standing on my front porch in Tampa on a May afternoon.


It was one of those nights during reading days/finals week where you've gone past a late night and into a really early morning without realizing it, and I'd hit a wall in whatever project I was working on, so I decided to empty the nearly-overflowing trash (one of the many small household tasks that fell horribly by the wayside during finals weeks). It was mumble o'clock in the morning of a cold December, but the stupid cat (as opposed to the smart one, who was curled up in a pile of quilts) heard the call of the wild and bolted out the door as soon as I cracked it open to come back in from the dumpster.

There was a sheet of ice all over the road, since the guy the HOA was paying to plow the private roads of our little neighborhood had gone out of town a few days before, of course neglecting to designate a substitute, which departure heralded the first big snowstorm of the year. Not having been properly removed by a plow, the snow had frozen under the various tire tracks and footprints, making a treacherous path, especially if one was trying to move quickly to overtake a stupid cat who was trotting down one's small road towards the larger cross street at the end of the block.

And halfway down the road I looked up from muttering under my breath about selling certain felines to wandering groups of gypsies and saw the moon. It was large-ish, though not full, and unobscured by clouds. The moonlit air was crisp and sharp, making shadows in the hollows of the ice. There was no other sign of life on the street than myself and the soft movements of a black-and-white cat no smarter than your average brick, and my breath caught in my throat as lines sang through my head:

The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep. . . .*

I paused to take in the sheer otherworldly loveliness of the moment, the cold air searing my lungs and throat till I almost couldn't breathe from the ache and the awe. The stupid cat had also paused, not willing to be too far separated from his pack leader, and had looked back at me just as I returned my gaze to him. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then he turned back and continued to lope down the ice-covered street, leaving me to stumble behind in a chorus of small ice crackles. I did catch up with him at last in the middle of the cross-street—luckily no cars were near—and carried him back to the house, shutting the door firmly behind us to keep wayward cats indoors.

The slam of the door in my memory shakes me back to myself. I step back inside and lean against the wall, willing the ghost of that cold air to come and cleanse my lungs from the humidity, and try not to think about this most recently realized implication of our cross-country move.

I push it out of my mind until late that night, so late that it's nearly early morning. My husband is gently snoring next to me and my mind is insistently focused on my phone. Finally I give in and pull up the Wikipedia article on Tampa's climate.

Average winter temperature: 70's in the day, 50's at night.
Lowest ever recorded temperature: 18°F; December 13, 1962.
Only known blizzard: The Great Blizzard of 1899.

I know my husband, if he were looking at this, would start singing the Hallelujah chorus; after all, he's the one who always started a Florida job search on the first day of snow every year while we were in Utah (he refers to it as "the enemy from above"). But to my Utah-born-and-bred heart, this is a sickening blow.

My son will not know snow. The weather here will rarely even hit freezing, let alone go through any type of snow weather. I will never again have to chase a stupid cat down a street slick with ice at ungodly hours of the morning.

It's only May and I feel the anticipatory ache of missing winter start deep within my bones. I have months to look forward to the fact that I will not get a chance to sit looking out the window at falling snow with a mug of hot chocolate in my hands.

Into my mind flashes Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight." Not the words exactly, but the impression of it. Frost creeping along the ground, firelight, a sleeping child. My throat tightens as I think of my son's lost frosts, and I pull up the full text on my phone.

I'd forgotten that after the first stanza, this isn't a poem about winter so much as about letting your child grow up to love nature and run free in the sunlight and love the world.

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores . . .**

I think of what my husband says, that Florida is, more than anything else, so very ALIVE. The size of the spiders alone attests to that fact, but more than that it's hard to escape the life that abounds everywhere. Plants, trees, lizards, bugs, crazy birds I've only ever seen in aviaries. And I do want my son to experience amazing things.

But even amid the comforting thought that all is not lost; that even having given up the snow I have gained other good things for my son, I still sigh at the final stanza:

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

And I lie in my bed in our apartment in Tampa, at dark-thirty of the morning, listening to the whir of the fan that we need to constantly run in order to keep ourselves cool even in the middle of a May night, and mourn in anticipation of our first missed snowfall, with miles to go before I sleep.

*Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening."
**Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight."

Star in the making.

That move, at 1:15, is exactly what the Little Guy does whenever you try to put him in his carseat, or his booster chair, or your lap, or anywhere else that might threaten to confine Mr. You Can't Contain Me.



In 16 years maybe he'll be saying hi to Nigel for me. But for now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go purchase some duct tape. We'll see who can't be contained now.

Hey there.

I promise I still exist.

What's more, I even still have random thoughts that I'd like to continue sharing with y'all. (Assuming anyone still checks this blog. Because six months is a long time with no posts.)

(Actually, six months is just a long time in general and boy howdy, have the past six been a doozy for me and Shallow Man and the Little Guy.)

(And I'd love to start telling y'all about them instead of continuing on in parentheticals, and I fully intended to do so but the Little Guy has pulled out one of his truly amazing apocalyptic colds, to which the Cold of the Century seems a mere trifle, which in practical terms means a whole lotta facial tissue—some name-brand, some not—and something like ten total hours of sleep for me in the past two days, no more than two and a half of which were consecutive.)

Wahoo!

So I'm going to skip on the real stories for now and satisfy myself with reassuring you all, once again, that yes, I still exist.



Tune in later for exciting stories! Or, you know, random nonsense. 

Pop quiz; or, why I haven't posted for a while.

Time for a pop quiz!


Which of these situations contains actual irony?

1. Rain on your wedding day.

2. A traffic jam when you're already late.

3. You grow up in Utah and love it there. Love the dryness, love the seasons, even love the snow as long as you don't have to shovel it or drive in it too much. You marry a guy who grew up in Florida. He complains about the lack of humidity in Utah and any hint of a snowflake (what he terms "the enemy from above") causes him to frantically scour the Internet for job openings in Florida. This goes on for seven consecutive winters, you watching him search for jobs that are in close proximity to palm trees while you're curled up on the couch with a blanket, a good book and some hot chocolate as the snow falls gently outside. Every winter, you worry a little bit about what would happen if he actually found a good job in Florida, because, as previously stated, you love it in Utah. And then the eighth winter comes along and . . . it's like winter forgot to arrive. Christmas is brown and green and dry. You get a little bit of slushy flakes in January but no real snow until late February/early March. For the first time, your husband isn't constantly searching for jobs in Florida, because the snow isn't driving him to extremes. And then, out of the blue, a sister company for the company he works for says, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?"

4. You live in Utah where it usually snows all the time. You have a toddler who likes to play outside. You'd rather keep the toddler and the snow from having too much direct contact so you start shopping for snowpants (he's already got a coat and mittens and a hat in the shape of a penguin). You find the exact kind you want—cheap, durable, not pink or purple—and the store is ALWAYS out of his size. You wait and keep checking because it hasn't snowed much yet this winter so it's not urgent that you have these snowpants right now and by waiting you can avoid having to pay shipping by ordering through the store's website because paying for shipping just kind of seems immoral to you now that you've got Amazon prime (and why doesn't Amazon make it easier to find size 18m snowpants in non-girly styles, anyway?) but finally there's a forecast for a big storm and you really want your little guy to be able to build a snowman so you just bite the bullet and order the boots and the snowpants and pay the shipping and then they arrive and the snow sort of comes and you build a snowman with your waterproof toddler once. The snow all melts the next day and within a week and a half your husband calls you and says that a sister company for the company he works for has just told him out of the blue, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?" It snows a couple more times in the next few weeks but the snowpants don't see any more use either because you're frantically packing for a cross-country move or your toddler is sick or both.

5. A sister company for the company your husband works for tells him out of the blue that they have an opening in Tampa and asks if he'd like the job. You say yes and start planning for a quick but organized cross-country move. Then your toddler gets a major ear infection, contracts the stomach flu, and gives that flu to you and your husband. Your family spends the better part of a week and a half recovering. Then your husband is flown out to work in Tampa early, leaving you alone with a toddler and a house to pack. Your babysitters get a nasty bout of illness. Your son gets RSV and ends up in the hospital overnight so they can observe his difficulty breathing. Husband comes home the night after toddler is discharged from hospital. All semblance of organization in packing and moving goes irrevocably down the drain; the only overarching theme of this cross-country move is "If it can go wrong, it will." We should just call it Murphy's Move to save time. The day you start packing the moving van, you get the worst cold of your life (because, let's face it, it's probably actually your son's RSV) complete with nasty cough (like unto one which hacks up a lung) which hangs on and hangs on and hasn't left yet.

6. You somehow manage to get to Tampa with your husband, your toddler, two cats, and the bare essentials which you took on the plane with you to tide you over until your furniture and other stuff arrives hopefully on Tuesday. Immediately your air mattress springs a leak.

7. You have a palm tree growing outside your bedroom window and a tiny lizard lives on your deck. Your toddler loves the new apartment and even though you have uprooted your entire life, have no idea where anything is in this town, have to learn an entirely new city, have no friends and are miles away from your family, your home and everything you've grown up with, you start thinking, hey, maybe living in Tampa is going to be fun after all.

8. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. (Note: you are not in any kind of silverware factory.)





Hint: By my count, only one of these is actually ironic. The others involve bad timing, bad luck, Murphy's law, odd coincidences, frustration, facepalms, and, thankfully, a bit of fortuitousness.

2011 in review.

This post is a little late because I spent the first bit of this year dealing with an exorbitant amount of poop. (Oh, come on, I'm a mommy, I'm a blogger, you had to know it was going to show up eventually.) I spent the next bit of this year recuperating from the exhaustion of the first bit. But hey, I'm still ahead of where I was for 2010 in review!

To be honest, a lot of the past year is a bit hazy for me, as a lot of it I spent in a dark place where I didn't like myself much. I was happy with things going on in my life, but there were days—many more than I like to think about—where my sense of self-worth was absolutely nil. I've started coming back out of it in the past few weeks and I'm optimistic that this will be a good year, but I have to say that on the whole, I'm glad 2011 is over. I've loved the time I've spent watching the Little Guy grow and learn, and I look forward to seeing him get even more awesome in 2012 (although really, I just don't know if the world can hold that much amazingness. Maybe that's why the world is supposed to end this year: it will spontaneously burst from trying to contain the sheer awesome that is my son).

And now it's time for 2011 in review!


*Ushered in the New Year very quietly, with just our little family of three. Celebrated later that day with Southern New Year's and the Thompsons.
*Had lots of fun using my new bread machine until it broke. Experienced much frustration on the phone with the people at the warranty office. Eventually just decided to send it back to Amazon and go with another manufacturer.
*The Little Guy started off the year with a bad cough and I had my first experience as the mother at a sick-child visit.
*Eventually did get the Christmas tree taken down about a week into the new year.
*Continued the love affair with Netflix. Notable flings included Better Off Ted, 30 Rock, Monk, Psych, Word World, Mythbusters and lots of fun movies.
*Had my first experience flying on a plane with a small child (3.5 months old). The Little Guy was a champ and pretty much slept through all the flights. On each flight, we had someone stand up at the end to get their luggage and say, "I didn't even know there was a baby on the flight!" Well done, sir.
*Visited Shallow Man's family in Alabama. Flew into Middle of Nowhere, FL, to do so, which made landing kind of weird with no other lights around other than the airport.
*The Little Guy rolled over for the first time ever on the floor in Shallow Man's grandparents' house. Fortunately he chose to do it at the exact moment that his uncle was recording him, so we caught the big moment (and the big reaction) on camera.
*Briefly took the Little Guy to the beach for the first time at the Gulf Coast, although it was too cold to swim.
*Went in for an oil change and left feeling scared to drive because of all the repairs our car needed.
*Learned how to use my beast of an inherited sewing machine to make one of those car-seat covers for the Little Guy because I didn't feel like paying $40 for one on easy. It turned out way cuter than it had any right to.
*Lots of time spent cuddling and nursing my baby. This got less fun during my bout with mastitis, but it turned out okay.
*The massive amount of time spent nursing also lead to my achieving 3 stars in every level of Angry Birds.
*Started feeding the Little Guy solids, beginning his love affair with mush and solids in general.
*Learning how to make an em-dash on my iPod. It was definitely a highlight of the year.
*Feeling smug coming back from actually visiting the dentist and not having any cavities when Shallow Man had some.
*Just Jane again, and always.
*Campaigning to help my friends' band, Fictionist, during the competition to get on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (they eventually came in 4th).
*Celebrating my birthday at home because we'd finally taken our car into the shop to get everything fixed.
*Walking into the Little Guy's bedroom to find him calm and happy, listening to Shallow Man hum him various themes from Zelda.
*Finally making a decision on the new bread machine model and having it arrive. It's huge and white and we call it the Monolith.
*Making cupcakes for the ward's Pinewood Derby, but mostly enjoying watching Shallow Man get ridiculously excited about helping one of the Scouts with his car.
*More Geek Night parties, although the dynamic changed with the growing number of Geeklings.
*Twilight Time 3. This one was a fun event even though it was smaller, although it wasn't quite as awesome as Twilight Times 1 or 2 for the simple reason that the movie was slightly better than the others and less compulsively mockable. But there were more cupcakes, so that was good.
*Yes, I enjoyed the season of Jimmermania.
*March Madness was both awesome and heartbreaking.
*Saw a play version of Persuasion with KEY that was eye-opening—I didn't know you could ruin such a perfect story so completely. I would have walked out except I wanted to see how they handled the ending. I'm not sure it was worth it.
*Finally had to get a high chair for the Little Guy. Was both excited and sad to see him getting so grown up. It was really nice to see him start plumping up once he started eating solids, though.
*Did a lot more experimenting in the kitchen, coming up with some new family favorites like shrimp tacos, spinach mushroom quesadillas, and chicken tikka masala.
*Bountiful Baskets. Yes.
*Girls' Night Out with my sisters and the incredibly nice person at the Arctic Circle drive-thru who rushed our order because the Little Guy was having a meltdown.
*Making the decision to move to Salt Lake and starting the whole process of finding renters and moving.
*Tea with Mint or Lemon? at USU. The most fun I've had at the theatre in a long time.
*Discovering the best cobbler recipe ever.
*The Law Gals lunch. It was great to see old friends and new babies.
*The Little Guy producing his first tooth the day before Easter, probably in hopes of getting candy. It didn't work, which is probably why he came up with tooth #2 a few days later.
*So much of my time this year has been spent listening to the Little Guy learn to babble. I love all of his crazy little noises.
*Interacting with authors over email.
*Pantruca's!
*Finally getting the postage-stamp-sized backyard into shape.
*Coming back from the birthday party for my dad, Shallow Man checked Facebook on his phone and saw the news about bin Laden.
*I won a laptop from Pixar. No, really.
*Discovering how to make rosemary focaccia with the bread machine. Oh, yes.
*Visited the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU. Powerful, inspiring, moving, beautiful. Wrote this about it.
*Had my first Mother's Day as an actual mommy. Have to admit I loved it.
*The Little Guy celebrated Mother's Day by saying "Dada" for the first time.
*Celebrated our seventh anniversary. Crazy!
*The old faithful lappy kept having identity crises.
*Read "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson. Wow.
*Hosted the final Geek Night at our old place. Bittersweet.
*Packing, packing, packing. Blech. Trying to find renters. Double blech.
*Moving day made infinitely more stressful by having our car die on the freeway on the way there. Fortunately we were first in line in the caravan and were able to shuffle passengers to get things moving quickly. Also fortunately my dad and brother were able to fix it for $10. That did not help my nerves calm down at the time, though.
*Living in my grandfather's old house and getting used to calling it our house.
*The Little Guy considerately waited to start crawling in earnest until AFTER we had moved.
*Finally finding renters and having them be the best ever.
*Lots of time spent weeding and cleaning up the huge new yard.
*The summer and fall of the nightmare commute.
*Lots of time spent with my sisters and family now that we live a block away.
*Lots of walking on early summer mornings.
*Shallow Man's first Father's Day. I was kind of hoping the Little Guy would take that opportunity to say "Mama" for the first time, but it was not to be.
*Girl date with my mom and sister to IKEA and watching the Little Guy fall asleep in his stroller.
*Red Iguana. Yum.
*Finding Shelob living in my laundry room. Okay, maybe not Shelob exactly, but still a black widow.
*Watching the Little Guy's stats progress throughout the year as his weight started to catch up to his height. His head circumference was always way ahead of both of them, though.
*The Little Guy learned how to give kisses on request and also to say "bye bye" and "night-night" when he felt like it.
*Fourth of July was awesome. We went to the Army Band Concert the night before and the fireworks the night of, and the Little Guy loved them both.
*The Little Guy's makeshift hat for the band concert.
*Major geeking out upon finding that a movie was being made of one of my favorite books. (Yeah, I'm still excited about this.)
*Had to keep cutting the Little Guy's hair because it grows so fast and crazy. He still hasn't quite reconciled himself to the process, though.
*The Princess and the Frog with my sisters.
*Steadily increasing numbers of teeth.
*The week that we all caught the summer cold. Blerg.
*The arrival of a new geekling! The Little Guy was glad to have another boy in the group after all the recent girl geeklings.
*Making a birthday cake for my mom with my sisters.
*July 26, 2011: MAMA!
*Getting a new niece in July!
*Going to Lagoon for Shallow Man's work party. So much fun to have a real date day!
*The Epic Battles of trying to get the Little Guy to fall asleep on his own.
*The car transmission acting up again shortly after we'd gotten it to pass inspection and renewed the registration. D'oh! Finding out it was a relatively quick fix: *sigh of relief* I've said it before, and I'll say it again, my dad is a car wizard.
*The joy of a baby trying to learn how to walk on a hardwood floor. Luckily his skull is super-thick.
*Getting to have lots of talks with my sisters and getting to know them better.
*Discovering Niagara Falls in the basement and having to deal with the plumbers.
*Pondering the differences between editors and ghostwriters.
*Croup. I hate it so very much.
*The month of coughing which ended with the discovery that the Little Guy had a double ear infection, which made me feel like the best mom EVER. Fighting off that ear infection for the next several months didn't help that feeling much.
*Staycation 2011. So much fun. Took the Little Guy to the Zoo, This is the Place, Tracy Aviary, and Thanksgiving Point Gardens. He got to ride a train AND a pony! We also had the chance to go out on our own and see a movie, which was nice.
*Going to the fair with the Little Guy and watching his face light up as he got to touch cows and sheep and bunnies and pigs and . . .
*Getting to see Motion de Smiths again! It was a lot of fun to have them stay with us and finally introduce them to the Little Guy.
*Having our car transmission act up *again* on the way home from finally seeing Harry Potter 7.2.
*The fun of living close enough to the fairgrounds to hear part of the Weird Al concert from our backyard.
*Sibling movie nights = very yes.
*The Little Guy's first birthday was great. Loved celebrating and thinking back to a year before and all the fun stuff that had happened during those 12 months.
*Watching the Little Guy attack his cake. So very awesome.
*Took the Little Guy to the dentist and felt like a responsible parent.
*Learned how to make donuts.
*Teaching in Relief Society like, three times, because my lesson week kept getting bumped by things like Conference and Christmas and such. One of the cushiest callings ever.
*Another trip to the South, this time to Tallahassee as well as Alabama. So many adventures. Loved seeing Shallow Man's home ward and meeting people I've heard about for a long time. Swimming with the Little Guy at Wakullah Springs. Canopy roads. Visiting friends from law school. The Crepevine.
*The Little Guy maintained his "Champion Flyer" status.
*Having the airline break our less-than-three-week-old Britax carseat. *primal shriek* They did eventually replace it for us, though.
*iPhone! The angels sang. Especially because it offers an en-dash as well as the em-dash.
*The Book Exchange Party. One of the best ideas I've ever been involved with (thanks to megcellent and alli for being my partners in crime).
*The Dracula meeting of Just Jane was ridiculously fun with the husbands there. I especially loved the days leading up to it while Shallow Man was reading the book and would say things like, "Okay, seriously, I would sue Van Helsing for malpractice!" Having Kat be able to come and hang out for it was also especially great.
*Finally having the ear infections of doom clear up when we went to the specialist to see if the Little Guy needed tubes. *big sigh of relief*
*Taking the Little Guy trick-or-treating in his garden gnome costume.
*Being lawyerly from time to time.
*Coming up with fun business ideas and working towards putting them into action.
*November 3, 2011: He walks!
*Playing in the leaves with cousins.
*Taking a weekend for ourselves at the Little America, even if it did mean spending my first night away from the Little Guy.
*Winning third place in the Pioneer Woman's Princess Bride trivia challenge. Oh, yeah.
*Making new friends.
*Weaning the Little Guy the week before Thanksgiving. Both heartbreaking and liberating.
*Mice. Ick.
*Thanksgiving at our house with my family. Favorite holiday ever.
*Gourmandise and Banbury Cross.
*The Little Guy's first experience with chocolate pudding.
*Lots of editing.
*Taught myself how to knit.
*Cake Wrecks thinks I'm funny.
*The MoTab Christmas Concert, which was wonderful.
*Playdates with friends.
*Christmas with a toddler—AWESOME.
*Homemade ice cream!
*New Year's Eve with the family at our house. A great way to end the year.


A few books I loved during the year:
*The Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King, starting with The Beekeeper's Apprentice in January. Oh, my. Serious author crush. I've read through book 6 (which was nothing short of amazing) and can't wait to read more.
*The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This is the one I got at the Book Exchange Party and it was absolutely fascinating.
*The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The best words I can think of for this book are charming, sparkling, lovely, and delightful. It made me laugh and cry within the first ten pages, which takes more than you might think.
*Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was a great book club pick by megcellent and I loved it, especially the idea of there being a place somewhere where all our lost things end up.
*Wings, Spells, and Illusions by Aprilynne Pike. I am loving this series and looking forward to the next book being released this year.
*Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. One of the more inventive fantasy books I've read recently.
*Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. Wow. Just . . . wow. This was one of the top three books of the year for me (the other two being O Jerusalem and Justice Hall from the Mary Russell series). A new release and a beautifully written and beautifully dreamed fantasy YA novel that was the only YA book to make Amazon's Top 20 books of the year, and with reason. Even if you think you don't like fantasy or YA, if you love absolutely exquisite writing, you owe it to yourself to check out this book.



If I missed listing something that I did with you that you loved, I'm sorry. I probably loved it, too, but my memory does miss some things now and then.

Anticipation.

I know my Floridian-born-and-raised husband would certainly disagree with me on this, but there are few things that I love the way I love sitting in the house with all the blinds open and all the lights off in the late afternoon of a late November day waiting for it to start snowing outside. I can smell the snow; it's right around the corner and I'm so excited for it.

I won't love it so much when I have to shovel it or drive in it or watch said husband come home and start madly searching for jobs in Florida while he mumbles angrily under (or over, occasionally) his breath about "the enemy from above."

But waiting inside, curled up with a blanket/good book/cup of hot chocolate/two snuggly kittens/the cutest toddler ever?

That's my favorite kind of snow, and I'm kind of psyched for it.



Sorry, hon. If it helps, I promise not to sing any Dean Martin songs encouraging that particular form of precipitation. Or at least not while you're in the room. Or at least not too loudly.

Ungh.

I've been really lucky since the Little Guy was born in that I haven't needed to take very many "sick days," as it were. The problem with that is that when I *do* need one, it feels like several sick days all saved up at once.

Which is what today has been like. Seriously, it reminds me of the first trimester except I can absolutely guarantee that's not what's going on. But it means that all I want to do is curl up in the bed and sleep it off.

That's not exactly the Little Guy's idea of a good time, though.

He's just learned to walk and he's in the process of giving up afternoon naps and isn't exactly impressed with the brand-new-and-definitely-not-improved model of Mommy, The Lump! So I've barricaded us in the study (the smallest room in the house aside from the bathrooms, which makes it the easiest to keep warm), which incidentally has tons of books, a desk, a TV and a Love Sac, so I can sort of nap and sort of keep an eye on the Little Guy without going over the line into neglect. He loves the chance to sit on the Love Sac and eat animal crackers and watch PBS Kids (okay, seriously, Martha Speaks? THAT'S NOT HOW ANATOMY WORKS), so it's really not as rough for him as you might think.



So with any luck, we'll both survive until Daddy gets home from work. And with any more luck, tomorrow will be better.



And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to solving the puzzling question of why on earth that dog is still alive if she's got alphabet soup stuck in her brain.

An unforeseen benefit to having a son.

As I have mentioned multiple times before, I do not like spiders. They are gross and creepy and generally all-around-bad. I mean, they do have their good points like they eat other bugs and *spoiler alert* turn Peter Parker into Spiderman and save pigs from being eaten (although I can't guarantee those were both done by the same spider).

But really, I'd just rather not have them around.

I know some people who are more humane than I am and will rescue spiders they find indoors and transfer them outside on a piece of paper or in a cup or something so they can live a free-range spidey life. And that's cool if they want to do that. I do that with grasshoppers my cats drag in to play with, and with bees that get in the house if I can catch them.

But spiders? I have put them on notice many times before—if they come into my house their eight-legged lives are forfeit.

For me, a major perk of getting married was having someone to kill my spiders for me. Don't get me wrong, I can and will kill spiders on my own if I have to (the summer Shallow Man was out of the country for an internship featured several harrowing run-ins with large arachnids, which I feel like I've blogged about before). I am adept at the shoe swat, the stomp, and the turn-the-shower-on-and-wash-the-spider-out methods. I just would prefer, if someone else is around who can do it for me, not to have to get close enough to the spider to actually kill it.

I also figured that, as the mom, I would have to be the designated spider slayer for years to come while dad's at work because the kids wouldn't want to kill spiders (GROSS!). So I've been reluctantly resigning myself to the role of spider killer, and have even whacked one or two when my husband's at home so he knows I'm not a complete wimp (remind me to tell you sometime about the times when the spider I wanted him to kill turned out to really be as big as I said it was, rendering his rolling of the eyes totally unjustified).

So this afternoon I got back from an errand and had taken off my jacket and shoes. The Little Guy was standing up by the TV stand waiting for me to get his jacket and shoes, and just as I reached for his coat zipper, I saw a spider running on the floor. I turned to put one of my shoes back on so I could stomp it, but the Little Guy took one look at that spider, gave me a glance that clearly said, "No worries, Mom; I've got this covered," and he and his sneakers proceeded to stomp the living daylights out of that trespassing arachnid.

Wow. If I'd realized this was one of the perks of having a little boy, I'd've done it *years* ago. (Oh wait. Never mind. We tried.)

And now I dream of the day when I can just relax in a lounge chair and sip a fruity drink as my army of little boys stomps away all my spider-related woes. That's not too much to ask for, right?



Maybe I should've named him Samwise the Brave. . . .

In a funk.

The post title pretty much sums it up. I find myself feeling sluggish about life these days. The creative juices are flowing but seem to be trapped under a sheet of ice.

Like they're a mosquito stuck in amber and I can see them there and I know there's dino DNA to be had, I just can't get to it. And that's frustrating.

Yes, I'm a nerd. Said nerd turns around after an analogy like that and says, well, maybe it's for the best. You don't want to breed raptors, after all. That never ends well.

And I say, you know what, inner nerd? You're right. Plus it's a lot of work breeding raptors. It takes a lot of energy. I would much rather just snuggle up on the couch with a good book or with useless interwebs.

Inner nerd says, let's watch Jurassic Park instead.

But then the annoying industrious side of me pipes up and gives the rest of us a guilt trip about being unproductive, so I can't even lounge properly until the funk goes away but my veins are too full of molasses to actually get much of anything useful done, so, yeah. (In the interest of giving credit where it's due, it's not just Industrious Me's fault. The Little Guy also contributes a LOT to the preventing-me-from-lounging fund. Especially now that he's walking.)

This is all extra frustrating because it's keeping me from really enjoying November, which is usually one of my favorite times of year. (Yeah, I know that just adds to the weirdness. Whatever.)

I'd write an angry letter to someone, but I just don't have the energy.

Maybe I'll put in that Jurassic Park DVD instead.



If you see my missing get-up-and-go, please kick its wandering little trash back home to me. Much obliged.

So it begins.

Imagine this at our house tonight, only more manly and tough, and with the Little Guy instead of pigs. And without, you know, the singing. But other than that, this is exactly what our evening was like.




Yeah, we are in soooo much trouble.

How can you not love it?; or, The ruler of the waves.

So today we took the newborn divider out of the baby tub so there was more room for the Little Guy to splash around. Seriously, I don't know why it took us so long to do it, because a funnier sight than the Little Guy reveling in the expanded size of his new watery kingdom I have rarely seen.

His first item of business was to turn around so he was facing the reclining wall of the tub, which gave him maximum splashage space. The next priority was to grab the little crab-shaped sprinkler cup that came with the tub.

And then, oh, then, he splashed.

He splashed with glee and reckless abandon and giggled and squealed and splashed and wriggled and shrieked.

And eventually he would splash enough to fill up the little cup. And then the next time he raised his hand to begin another splash, he would inadvertently hurl the contents of said cup directly into his face.

Then he would gasp and cough and splutter and blink.

Pause.

Grin.

Resume splashing/squealing/giggling/refilling the cup.

Rinse and repeat.

Poseidon had best watch himself; there's a new ruler of the waves in town.



Yeah, I love that Little Guy. And at least now I know that his nose has definitely been rinsed clean both inside and out.

A few items of note.

In no particular order:

The Little Guy has his first ever real cold. I blame Shallow Man's freaky immune system. Usually the way sickness works in this house is that instead of everyone catching a bug in turn, I catch it twice and Shallow Man maybe coughs a couple times and is over it. However, this last week Shallow Man actually had to take two—count 'em, TWO—sick days. This same bug is the first thing that's actually gotten to the Little Guy. I haven't been sick at all. (Being hungover from lack of sleep after taking care of the Little Guy most of the night doesn't count.) It's not fun for LG or for me, but it is comforting to know that I won't necessarily have to catch everything three times going forward. (Have my menfolk met their own personal Cold of the Century? Only time will tell.)

The only thing LG hates more than vaccinations is having his nose wiped. Kleenexes are bad enough but heaven help you if you bring a nasal aspirator within twenty feet of him. At times like these, I think of the medical staff who debated so long whether he and his lungs needed to go to the NICU or not, and imagine how proud they'd be if they could see him now. Actually, scratch that. I'm pretty sure they could hear him from where they were. I'm pretty sure FRANCE could hear him.

When he's not about to collapse under the weight of just how mean Mommy and her evil Kleenex-weilding ways are, LG's new favorite thing is to bury his face in my neck and blow raspberries. Each time he does this, he then leans back to see if I noticed JUST HOW AWESOME HE IS, and gets the cutest smug little smirk on his face. Like, "Yeah, I just did that." (LOVE THAT LITTLE GUY.)

He's also tried to raspberry my chin, with less than satisfactory (to his way of thinking) results.

He's not quite crawling yet, although he's definitely thinking about it. With the way the cats keep taunting him by waving their tails tantalizingly close to his grasp, I give it another couple weeks at most. Heaven help us all once he's mobile.

I had another surreal I-swear-I'm-not-old-enough-for-that moment today when the pediatrician's office called today to do a survey on customer satisfaction and they asked for "the parent or guardian of Little Guy" and I answered "Yes, that's me."



Well folks, the sad little snoring and whimpering from the nursery are telling me that it's probably going to be another long night, so I'll sign off now. I've got a sad little boy to snuggle.

The Long Over-due Story of the Under-due Birth, Part Three and final.

When last we saw our heroine, she was still hooked up to several machines, on pitocin with an epidural, and still waiting for a baby to come. Kind of like the last time we saw her before that, except several hours later and much more tired.

At 7:56 a.m. Shallow Man posted on Facebook: "No news yet."

I had woken up a little bit before he had and spent some time just kind of staring out the window in the early-September-morning light, feeling grateful for our awesome view but wishing I wouldn't have to see it for too much longer. I was worn out, my lips were still chapped and dry from the oxygen mask during the night, I was hungry and my body was cramped and sore from not being able to change positions much. At some point (I can't remember now if it was during the night or that morning) they had determined that the Little Guy's heart rate did a lot better when I was lying on my left side, so I couldn't really even switch sides very much, and not for more than a couple of minutes.

The contractions were hurting, too, and I was having trouble with my epidural button. The anesthesiologist had told me that I could push the button for more relief when I needed it, but explained that it would take about 10-15 minutes to spread fully once I'd pushed the button, so it wouldn't be an instantaneous relief kind of thing. So I'd push the button and wait for the agonizing 10 minutes to pass. Only instead of getting better, the pain would worsen significantly in the interim, going from maybe a 2 to a 4 or 5. So I would push the button again when the time was up (it could only be pushed once every 15 minutes or so to make sure I didn't accidentally OD or anything) and start waiting again. By the time that waiting period was up, the pain would be at an 8 and I would be gasping and trying to hold back tears when the stronger contractions hit. So we'd hit the call button and get the anesthesiologist to come and do a quick hit directly into the IV line at my shoulder. Relief would instantly wash through me, I could relax, the world looked sunnier for a while. Until the hit wore off and I tried to push the button again. Rinse and repeat. (In retrospect it seems kind of obvious that the button was probably broken, but at the time I think I was too out of it to really put two and two together, and the anesthesiologist probably thought I was afraid to push it too much, as at one point he was telling me it was okay to just "ride that button" and push it as often as I needed to. For the record, I don't blame him at all. I know my coherency level dropped sharply as I crept higher up the pain scale.)

Around 11:00 a.m., in one of the lulls of direct-hit comfort, the doctor had come in and broken my water in an attempt to get things moving a little faster, as I still was hovering right around 4. I tell you, that is a weird sensation. But I was feeling giddy with relief from the epidural shot and was glad of ANY action tending towards forward progress. In fact, once they'd broken my water, I was feeling excited and positive again, and turned to Shallow Man and asked him to turn on the TV. He asked what I wanted to watch and I, without hesitation, asked for college football. "Because, you know, if we're watching something interesting and fun, it might encourage him to come out and see what's going on."

The BYU game wasn't starting until later that afternoon (if memory serves, it started around 4), so we just picked the first random game that came on. I think it was Iowa, but I'm not sure. At any rate, neither of the teams were ones I had any sort of stake in, which may explain why the Little Guy didn't fall for it. We ended up turning the game off once we started getting to the end of that Button of Doom cycle, anyway.

The repeated up-and-down of the pain level (especially the moments of 8s and even 9s) were really starting to get to me by mid-afternoon. I was able to take a nap at some point after a Direct Hit, but that only meant that I'd sleep through the 4/5 stage and wake up for a particularly nasty contraction in the 7/8 zone. Around this time I started getting vague thoughts about c-sections, but didn't say anything because I didn't know if it was some kind of prompting or just my pain aversion—"chickening out," in essence.

At some point during the day, they told me I couldn't have any more water; just ice. Something to do with not having too much water in the system in case of an emergency c-section or whatnot. (I honestly couldn't tell you what they told me because I was having a hard time concentrating on anything besides the stupid pain-and-button dance.) Which is all well and good, but at this point I had been in the hospital and in labor for well over 24 hours, hadn't eaten since dinner the day before, and I was THIRSTY. Ice, even flavored ice, was not cutting it.

After a particularly grueling hour, the nurse came in and checked me around 5:15. I knew she was going to say I was at least a 7, and the baby would be right around the corner.

"Well, looks like you're just above a 4 now," she said encouragingly. (All of my nurses during, as they put it, my marathon labor were amazing in this department. They walked the fine line between helpfully encouraging and disgustingly, unbearably and callously cheerful and they walked it well.)

I tried to say, "Are you sure?" but it probably came out as more of a whimper.

She thought for a moment and then asked if I'd like to have the doctor check, just to make sure. I nodded.

Once she left I stared at the ceiling, trying not to cry. Shallow Man was holding my hand, as he had been for most of the day, helping me through the worst of the contractions and being generally awesome and supportive.

Brief aside: I remember the chart describing the phases of labor in the pre-natal class we went to, and it said something to the effect of "Feelings towards partner during this time may either be of great love (leaning on them for support) or great anger, but either way are generally very strong." I had worried beforehand about the "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" route, and I had told Shallow Man in advance that if I did go that way to please forgive me in advance for any epithets I might yell at him, but it never got there for me. I was definitely a turn-to-him-for-support-er, and I have to take this moment to say that I never could have done it without him. I know he was probably freaking out, but he never let me see it. And honey, I'm sure those bones in your hand will heal eventually.

The doctor on duty was the third doctor we'd been through by now, and incidentally was the same doc I'd been scheduled to meet with the previous morning but who had been called away (I joked with him later that maybe the reason the labor took so long was because I was waiting for him to keep his appointment). He came in, checked me, and verified I was a 4, "and it shouldn't take more than another 7 or 8 hours." He was also being encouraging, but in my sheer exhaustion and pain he may have said years, not hours. I had been in labor for nearly 29 and a half hours. My rope was only so long, and I reached the end of it right then and there.

I dissolved into tears, sobbing as hard as my tired body would let me.

There was a pause as four heads snapped around to look at me—Shallow Man, the doctor, the nurse and the intern—and then the doctor slowly said, "Or, at this point, given how long you've been here and your blood pressure, a c-section would be an entirely reasonable option."

It was like that one word—reasonable—was a ray of light flung into the darkness. Yes, I am waxing cliche here, but it was as if he'd thrown me a life preserver as I was drowning in despair and exhaustion. All of a sudden, the little c-section thoughts I'd been having made sense; it wasn't chickening out, it was reasonable. Shallow Man didn't know for sure what I wanted, but was talking with the doctor about the options. I caught my breath between sobs and asked, "How long would it take for a c-section?"

The doctor replied, "Well, it'll take a little longer right now than it normally would, because the shift change is coming up—"

I panicked for a moment, visions of another hour or two swimming before my eyes.

"—but we should be able to get you in there by 6:00."

I glanced at the clock. 5:30. The waiting could all be over in half an hour. I felt confident for the first time in hours as I told him, "Let's do it."

The sense of relief was amazing for my body. I was able to calm down and relax; the pain didn't even seem as bad once the decision was made and I knew it wasn't going to take much longer. The nurses went to get things ready before they ended their shift, and Shallow Man gave me a quick blessing. Then he changed into the coveralls (let me tell you, watching him try to figure those things out was entertaining) and called our families to let them know the plan. (My mom was heading to the General Relief Society meeting, which started at 6:00. My sister told me later, "Yeah, she was there, but I don't think she heard a single word during the meeting.")

Once they wheeled me into the operating room, we were greeted by one of our nurses from the day before, as well as my favorite doctor from the clinic, who'd been called in as the secondary doctor. The room was freezing, but they put some kind of inflatable plastic thing filled with hot air on top of my chest and arms, which kept me warm and blocked my view of the proceedings. Shallow Man is a bit squeamish when it comes to that kind of thing as well, so he stayed up by my head and the anesthesiologist gave us a running commentary on what was going on.

He told me that I would feel pressure where they were operating, but that I shouldn't feel any pain, so he told me to let him know if anything started hurting. I remember feeling one small prick like being poked with a needle but that was the only pain. There was some tugging and then all of a sudden—

a baby was crying.

I looked at Shallow Man and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Our baby was in the room. The doctor held him up to peek over the inflatable wall, but I couldn't see very well because I wasn't wearing contacts or glasses. At my urging, Shallow Man went over to the station where they were measuring the Little Guy, and I heard them noting down his statistics. 7 pounds, 6 ounces. 20 inches long. Born at 6:30 p.m. Then they wrapped him up and handed him to his daddy, and Shallow Man brought him over to me.

My arms were still secured at this point so all I could do was nuzzle his cheek with my nose. He was the most perfect baby I had ever seen, and he nuzzled me back. Someone took several pictures of the two of us and then the three of us, and then they took the Little Guy out of the room with Shallow Man in tow while I got stitched up.

The Little Guy ended up going to the NICU for about an hour because his lungs were borderline. Shallow Man told me later that he was so close to the border that the nurses spent just about as long trying to decide whether he actually needed to go to the NICU or not as he spent in the NICU itself.

In the meantime, the doctors finished on me, bundled me up in about 700 blankets and took me back to the room, where I proceeded to shiver violently for what felt like forever, and rejoiced when they told me I could have liquids again. That first drink of water was one of the most amazing things I've ever tasted.

What with the NICU and then the nursery and such, it was about three hours before I really got to meet the Little Guy, which remains my only real regret about the whole experience. Which, if you consider 30 hours in labor, is no mean feat.

Once I had my son in my arms, though, those 30 hours didn't seem so bad. Within minutes, I could no longer remember what life was like without him.

Even when everything was crazy in the following hours (when the morphine wore off and I couldn't keep any food down and STILL couldn't sleep) and days (c-section recovery is not that much fun, nursing was not much better at first, and my blood pressure took WEEKS to get back to normal but not before it sent me to the emergency room), I'd look at the Little Guy and smile. Holding him was the one thing that would always make me feel better, and I'm still completely in love with him.

I know I've probably forgotten some details, and I know it's been a ridiculously long story that was a ridiculously long time in coming, but I'm going to go ahead and end it with mush: I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat for our Little Guy.



Thanks for being so patient in waiting for this ridiculously long story to get posted. I promise to return to regularly scheduled non-birth blogging soon.

The Long Over-due Story of the Under-due Birth, Part Two.

When last we saw our heroine, she was hooked up to several machines, on cytotec, and waiting for a baby to come.


In the weeks leading up to the birth, I had frequently mentioned to Shallow Man that the thing I was most looking forward to about being in Labor and Delivery was a chance to sit in the jetted tub. And now I found myself hooked up to so many machines and monitors with tubes and tape everywhere and was told that the tub was not an option. Nor was walking around. Nor was anything, really, except staying in bed.

This wouldn't have bothered me much (aside from the sadness of missing out on the tub) except my back was starting to hurt from staying in the same position for so long. But my body was reacting well to the cytotec, which was promising, and the contractions weren't too bad, so I was able to go the first several hours without needing any kind of pain medication. We set up the laptop and started working our way through "Arrested Development." I think we were on episode 4 when dinner came, which included chocolate cake for me. Once again, L&D trumped GD. Unfortunately, sometime in mid-evening they told me I couldn't eat anything more until after the baby came. I could have ice and water. The ice came in several flavors, though, which helped, considering the massive snow cone cravings I'd had all summer, so it wasn't that bad.

Except that the contractions were starting to get noticeable now. I was having a hard time paying attention to the show. The new nurses had come in at the shift change shortly after dinner and had checked to see where I was. The cytotec was working, they told me, and I was up to a little above a 2. You're doing great, they said. Just a few more hours, probably, and it'll be over. In the meantime, if I needed any pain medication, just let them know.

Around 8 I asked for some meeds but not the full epidural. I wanted to hold off on that for awhile so it would stay effective longer. (Foreshadowing here: Oy vay.) So they added another ornament to my IV tree (I couldn't keep track of what all they had hanging on my IV tree at what times, but the saline drip and the magnesium were constants, with a bunch of others coming and going. I think at the peak, I had two trees and something like 7 or 8 bags going, but I couldn't tell you what all they were). That helped the pain quite a bit and let me relax again.

While I'm thinking about IVs, a quick word about the anesthesiologist(s). The first one was Indian, I believe, and was the one who actually put the needle in my arm. I had a harder time understanding him explaining what he was doing because he had a thickish accent, but what I did understand was his excitement about my crazy veins. Apparently he had never seen veins like mine before (they moved or something while he was looking at them?) and he was going to tell all his anesthesiologist buddies down in the lab about my crazy veins. He left at the shift change with the first batch of nurses, and the second anesthesiologist took care of me for pretty much of the rest of the time I was in labor, although I did see crazy vein fan guy again the morning after the Little Guy was born.

Around 10:30 or so on Friday night, the cytotec is still working and I'm getting close to a 3 but the pain is starting to really bother me and the contractions are getting more intense. We all view this as a promising sign and after some consideration I decide to go ahead and get the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and took care of that around 11:00 and within minutes I could tell a huge difference. Shallow Man also pointed it out. I was finally able to get a bit of sleep, even in spite of the blood pressure cuff, which was set to take my BP automatically every 15 minutes. I couldn't see the monitor from where I was, but I knew that my blood pressure was still crazy high because EVERY TIME it took my BP, the monitor would beep out an annoying alert to tell the nurse that my BP was high. (Shallow Man admitted to me, later, that he when I asked him what the monitor said, he would tell me the numbers were lower than they were because he didn't want to freak me out.) Plus my arm was starting to feel a bit sore and numb from the constant checking, but the epidural trumped it at least for a little while and I probably was able to get a couple hours' worth of sleep there. Even if it wasn't GOOD sleep, at least it was something. (Shallow Man was able to sleep a bit on the couch, although he kept dreaming about tornado sirens because one of my IV towers also kept going on the fritz and beeping and that beeping sounded just like a tornado siren. Or so he tells me. I grew up where earthquakes are the natural disaster of choice.)

I woke up briefly around 1:00, when they told me they were starting up the Pitocin, but fell back asleep until sometime in the obscenely early hours of the morning when the nurse on duty informed me that baby's heartrate was low so they needed to put me on some oxygen to see if that would help. (I'm pretty sure this revelation didn't help the blood pressure monitor feel any better about the sad state of my blood, but, as I said, I couldn't see the numbers from where I was.)

I don't know how long they kept me on that oxygen mask but it felt like years. I was tired, I'd been at the hospital for something like 16 hours, I was uncomfortable and couldn't move, the mask was parching my lips and throat something awful, and one of the nurses out in the hall had chosen this time to start making loud impressions of one of the other patients. (Yes. I eventually pressed the call button to ask my nurses, all of whom were awesome, to tell the other one to be quiet because it is way too early in the morning and I just want to sleep! and she apologized to me. I spoke to one of the supervisors the next morning and let her know, and she apologized too and said they'd talk to that nurse and let her know that wasn't appropriate. But it was still awfully aggravating at the time.)

And thus, by fits and starts and fitfulness and lack of sleep, we made our weary way towards morning. The nurses checked me and after all that night's work, I wasn't even quite a 4.

At 7:56 a.m. Shallow Man posted on Facebook: "No news yet."


Part Three coming soon. I promise it won't be such a long wait this time.

The Long Over-due Story of the Under-due Birth, Part One.

This post may contain some TMI moments. Be ye therefore warned. (I won't feel offended if you skip it.)

It all began late in September. . . .

After my Monday appointment I had been told that I had mild preeclampsia and was told that I needed to be on modified bedrest. I didn't have to stay in bed all the time, but I needed to take it as easy as possible, so I arranged to borrow a computer from my place of employment so I could work at home for the foreseeable future, just as a precaution.

Thursday night we went to our prenatal class at the hospital, where we saw pictures of newborns and how they tend to look weird at first. My feet were swollen again. Still. Swollen feet was pretty much the norm in those last few weeks of pregnancy, but sitting in the hard plastic chairs in the classroom at the hospital tended to aggravate things.

Fortunately, the class got out about an hour early. The nurse who was teaching the class excused us and then said, "Next week we'll definitely take the whole time, though, because we'll be talking about breastfeeding, so be prepared." Thinking back on it now, I find this funny. Maybe if we'd been able to make it to that last class, it would have saved a lot of tears and frustration later on. Oh, well.

It was good that we got home early, though, because it meant that we had more time to set up the crib. We had originally purchased a crib from IKEA only to discover while trying to assemble it that the construction and design were sorely lacking in anything resembling common sense. The holes drilled for the pegs which attached the slats of the bottom of the bed to the frame were too small for the pegs actually to go in all the way, no matter how hard or how long we hammered away at them, so back to the store it went. We ordered a different crib off Amazon, but unfortunately cribs don't arrive in two days like all our other Prime orders do, so we had been waiting a bit for it to get there. It had finally arrived that afternoon and we were eager to get it set up so we could start getting the rest of the room ready.

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but Shallow Man told me later that he should've realized something was going on because I was acting really weird and out of it while we were putting the crib up. All I know is that it was taking longer than we thought it would (what furniture assembly doesn't?), that Shallow Man was getting grouchy (he tends to do that with furniture assembly that includes a lot of nuts and bolts in difficult-to-reach spots), and that I was tired and my feet felt like they were about to acquire their own zip code. So once we got the bed itself put together we decided that we would wait until the next evening to figure out exactly where in the room we wanted to (or could; it was a bit bigger than we'd thought) put it. This meant we also would wait until the next day to put the mattress and sheets in it. We also left all the packaging lying on the living room floor because we didn't want to haul it out to the dumpster in the dark.

The next morning, Friday, I stumbled over the boxes on my way out the door for my doctor's appointment. Shallow Man had already left for work (his co-worker drove him, as we only have the one car), and my appointment was at 8:50 so neither of us had had a chance to clean up at all.

I was scheduled for my 36-week appointment that morning and was told to arrive 10 minutes early so I could have my non-stress test before the appointment (by this point, because of the gestational diabetes I was having two NSTs a week). After waiting for about 40 minutes and seeing patient after patient arrive and get called back without my name being called, I checked with the receptionist. She explained that the doctor I was there to see had been called to the hospital to help with a c-section for a woman delivering twins, so they were a bit backed up, and would I be okay with seeing the nurse practitioner instead? I said that was fine, and sat back down to try and slog through some more of "North and South" (the miniseries is SO much better than the book). Finally my favorite nurse called me in for the NST, which went great. Everything was looking normal and the little guy was still healthy and active.

Then they took me over to the nurses' station to get my blood pressure. Based on the last few appointments and the new bedrest-ish issue, I was expecting it to be a little high, but nothing major. I was staring at the wall across from me when the monitor beeped.

"Oh, my." The nurse's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. I looked over at the display and then stared at the top number, which was 150. I couldn't even look at the bottom number.

"Well," the nurse said after a moment. "We'll try it again in a minute to make sure. But if it's that high, we need to send you to labor and delivery."

Of course this announcement helped my blood pressure calm down. Riiiiight. The next measurement was 161 over something like 96. Definitely panicking now, the first thought that came to me was "But I can't go to labor and delivery! I haven't packed my hospital bag yet!" (I had made a schedule to accomplish the last few tasks needed to welcome a baby with the goal of being ready by the time I hit 37 weeks. Packing the hospital bags was scheduled for Saturday. Of course.) I had to work hard to pay attention as the nurse explained that the hospital would check me and depending on their results I would either be put on full bedrest or go home with a baby. She gave me a hug and wished me luck, and I went out to the waiting room to call Shallow Man.

The next hour or so are a bit of a blur. Shallow Man's angel co-worker brought him to the doctor's office to meet me, and then we drove the four blocks to the hospital together, but it meant that I didn't have to go into Labor and Delivery alone. While I waited for him to get to the doc's office, though, I stepped into the bathroom to calm down and keep myself from crying. Then I called my mother, and then I worried. In particular, I worried about my hospital bag and the face that the new camera Shallow Man had ordered was supposed to arrive that afternoon and nobody would be there to sign for it.

A very delayed flash of inspiration hit me. I called my sister, who lived in Springville at the time. Let me just say here that of all the angels there ever were, she is the most angelic and awesome. She packed up her two children and went over to our house, where, over the course of the next few hours, she did the dishes, picked up and threw away all of the packing materials from the crib, put the mattress in the crib, washed all of the baby clothes and sheets we had, put sheets in the crib, arranged for our camera to be delivered at our neighbor's house (she was headed to the Brad Paisley concert with her husband in Salt Lake later that day and couldn't wait for the camera herself), arranged for said neighbor to bring the camera to us at the hospital, and packed up a bag each for Shallow Man and I, and brought those and the car seat to the hospital.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .

Shallow Man arrived at the doc's office, we drove to the hospital, and we got me signed in. They put us in the biggest labor and delivery room they had, with a wonderful view of Mount Timpanogos (and an average view of the Macey's parking lot) out of the huge windows. I was told to put on the oh-so-attractive hospital gown and then they hooked me up with the fetal monitors and the blood pressure machine, just like a non-stress test only oddly stressful.

The doctor eventually came in and explained that if I were earlier on in my pregnancy, this is where they would do another 24-hour urine test to see if it was serious preeclampsia, but at this point, waiting that long would be a bad idea, so induction it was. He also explained that eclampsia (which comes after pre-eclampsia, go figure) involves seizures, "so we have to put you on anti-seizure medication. If I didn't you could sue me for malpractice."

So I was introduced to the lovely world of magnesium sulfate.

"And with magnesium sulfate, the way we measure how it's working is by urine output, so . . ."

And that, my friends, is how I got a catheter hours before my epidural.

I was barely at a 1 when I came in because I was so early, so they had to put me on cytotec before they could even start pitocin. It was about noon when they got me hooked up to everything and started the induction. Shortly after that, they let me have lunch, which, miraculously, included french fries and a milkshake. I felt like I was in heaven for those short minutes, and decided that if labor could pre-empt GD like that, maybe it was even worth the catheter. (It wasn't. It might have been worth it if the nursing student hadn't had trouble on the first try. . . .)

My sister brought our hospital bags over, and I had fun talking with my 3-year-old nephew for a few minutes before they left. Our neighbor brought over the camera when it arrived, and Shallow Man had fun playing with his new gadget for a bit after I made him promise not to take too many pictures of me. I had called my mom to let her know what the story was and she had passed the word around to the rest of my family. A quick post on Facebook had alerted most of our friends, and all that was left was a quick text to my good friend Megan. "Looks like I can't make it to your baby shower tomorrow after all. . . ."

And then all that was left for the moment, really, was waiting. The doctor had cheerfully predicted that while it probably wouldn't be over before his shift ended at six, it probably wouldn't take too much longer after that. "You'll have a baby before tomorrow!"

So we settled in for what we thought would be not too very long of a wait. Oh, boy, were we wrong on that one.



Stay tuned for part two, coming soon!

2010, at last.

Yes, yes, I know I'm a month late for the year-in-review game. Just live with it.

Here are some of the awesome things that happened in 2010. As I suspected, it was a MUCH better year than 2009. (Although, let's be honest, it wasn't hard to do.) As always, if I didn't list something you thought was awesome, it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it; I just can't remember everything.

*The new year began with what was probably the best party we've ever had or ever will have at our house. New Year's Eve: Geek Style brought awesome Jenga, lots of laughter, great conversation, and just enough craziness to ensure that none of those present will ever be elected for public office.
*Beginning the final semester of law school and feeling great about my schedule, even though it involved an 8:00 a.m. class three days a week.
*Actually making it to class on time for the first several weeks of class.
*Getting Baby (our car) repaired after she sat in the cold and snow for a month and a half after the big break-down in November '09.
*Having to repair a flat tire in the snow and gunk of our parking lot before we could actually take Baby in.
*Steve's Intermountain is the best mechanic's shop in Provo. Just sayin'. He's honest, doesn't talk down to me just because I'm a woman, and is genuinely nice.
*Staying home all day one Wednesday while feeling sick and crampy and reading.
*Aubrey's wedding with Kat and KEY.
*New red coat, yo.
*Rejoining ILMR and editing a really horrible article, but at least the head editors were much better.
*Working at WSP with an awesome team of editors and friends.
*Geek Night X. The second-best party we've ever had here.
*Making Mario cupcakes with KEY for Geek Night X. Yeah, I'm still proud of those.
*Shallow Man finding the trauco in an old box while KEY and I were decorating said cupcakes.
*Our already-decrepit fence blew halfway over in a major windstorm and we had no choice but to pull the rest of it down to avoid damaging the siding.
*More Just Jane, including the expansion to 10 members, with the inaugural meeting of the new, improved club also being the first non-Austen-themed, but still Jane [Eyre].
*Lunches with KEY, when they happened. And even when they didn't, the weekly "I'm so sorry for being a flake, but . . ." conversations.
*Starting to feel a little weird the last week of January/first week of February, but knowing it wasn't what it felt like.
*Buying cruise tickets with the Cruise Crew on Friday, Feb. 5th.
*Taking that test on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 6th, just to prove to my body that it wasn't pregnant so it could stop acting like it.
*Ten minutes later, when I could think again, wandering dazedly into the bedroom and, after staring at the ceiling for several minutes, saying to Shallow Man, "So . . . I think I'm pregnant."
*Driving to Walmart that evening to buy another test just to make sure, and having the car start acting really funny again as we drove there.
*While shopping, thinking of the most hill-free route to take home to save the car from going up any hills while it was on the fritz, then getting out to the car and finding out that it would no longer shift into reverse. This officially bumped the two days of Feb. 5th & 6th, 2010, into "Most expensive weekend yet in our family."
*Riding in a tow truck.
*Our ever-growing collection of Steve's Intermountain keychains. Finding out it was not the whole transmission, thank goodness, just the sensor. FINALLY having a functioning car, but being afraid to accelerate or go up hills for the next (okay, I'll be honest) three months.
*Walking to the Student Health Center on Monday afternoon to get the blood test and trying to figure out how far along I was.
*Getting the quantitative results back and wanting to sing.
*Feeling great until placement break (of course!) and then getting hit with morning sickness, big time.
*Working from home. A lot.
*Missing a lot of class. (My professors were all in on the secret and very supportive.)
*Going to a lot of different wards (our 9:00 a.m. meeting time didn't gel with my hours-that-I-am-not-hunched-over-the-toilet schedule).
*Julie and Julia for Valentine's.
*Telling the rest of my family (my parents already knew) at my birthday party. Much rejoicing.
*The tree in our backyard had to be cut down before the HOA would replace the fence (we at least got them to pay for the removal). It ended up being removed on the morning of my birthday.
*And thus we were introduced to the power of the pregnant sobbing. (Confession: I would have cried about the tree anyway. But I wouldn't have been reduced to blubbering.)
*Trying to make dinner for one of the pregnant sisters in the ward without looking at any of the ingredients, all of which made me sick.
*The saddest day of all: Baby decided not to let me eat bacon for the rest of the first trimester. This is especially sad when you consider that I had just discovered The Pioneer Woman's Fancy Macaroni the first week of February.
*Shallow Man took me to see 12 Angry Men performed at PTC in Salt Lake for my birthday. I snuck in trail mix and managed not to get sick during the performance. Lots of fun!
*Olympics! So much fun to watch. Also, they helped me discover the joys of pregnancy emotions (I have never cried so hard during a commercial).
*Bar applications. Yuck.
*Hire's and the Roquefort Bacon H. "Whatever that is."
*Cousin party and Rayman's Raving Rabbids. Whoa.
*Going to the first doctor's appointment in March and having everything look good. But, just in case, he scheduled a sonogram for the next week.
*Coming back to work after that appointment just to find out that the company had apparently imploded (not literally) in our absence and that all but a handful of employees were being laid off.
*We were not included in that handful. Actually, everyone from me down.
*Which meant that I got to break the news to all of my friends that they were being laid off. This included going to the homes of two of them who hadn't been in the office to let them know before they heard it from somebody else.
*Fortunately, seven horrible days later, we saw Baby for the first time, and heard the most beautiful sound ever: a strong, healthy heartbeat.
*Spilling the beans to everyone and seeing all our friends get so excited for us. (I put it on Facebook, and then it was true!)
*Viewing party for New Moon (mocking commentary mandatory!) and the Team Jacob t-shirt.
*Morning sickness escalation and the first prescription, which made it worse. Lost five pounds in one weekend alone.
*Getting the second prescription and starting to feel human again.
*Except for the only being able to eat Easy Mac part. But HEY, if that looked appetizing, it should give you an idea of the amazing effectiveness of that second prescription!
*Going to Cracker Barrel because spoiled pork chops made me cry. (Yeah, not fun.)
*SLA night II, which ended up being me, Motion deSmiths and Megan watching "She's the Man." Awesome.
*Going in for our 12-week appointment the day before my last law school classes. I had nightmares for the whole week leading up to it about the last time we went in for a 12-week appointment. But he found the heartbeat instantly. I may or may not have cried.
*Holy cow, I do not even know HOW I finished that last semester of law school. But I did.
*Last class of law school.
*Last final of law school (which is the closest I will ever get to living that nightmare where you have to take a final for a class you didn't realize you were enrolled in).
*Substantial writing, aka Major Paper (neigh!). It nearly killed me, but I did it.
*Last papers of law school, for the most useless class ever, and the professor who I'm pretty sure gave me a lower grade because I had the audacity to be pregnant while taking his class, even though I can't prove it. He was the only professor who wasn't 100% supportive and willing to work with me. He did work with me, but under protest and not without accusing me of unprofessionalism first. Blech.
*Graduation! I am so glad we got to walk in the Provo Tabernacle! We were the last class to be able to do so, as there was a fire in December and the roof collapsed.
*Partying, relaxing, and lots of sighs of relief.
*Hitting the second trimester two days before graduation, and briefly thinking that the morning sickness would stop. (It did leave me alone for graduation, thank goodness.) This turned out to be a lie—the sickness wasn't going anywhere for the next few months. But at least I could eat bacon again.
*Being re-hired by the publishing company as a part-time independent contractor.
*Mother's Day wasn't traumatic for the first time in several years.
*CRUISE!!!
*The toilet of lost souls.
*"Aw, hell."
*Balcony!
*Cruise director Gary.
*Dennis, our waiter. ("Denniiiiiiiiis!")
*I ate escargot for the first time ever.
*Only having to send one plate back because I nearly gagged just looking at it (roast beef, of all things, which I love. Weird.)
*Cruise ship entertainment. ("You can't pay money for those shows!") The big talking purple couch.
*The Land Whale. ("Freeeeennnnnncch Toooooooooast!")
*Our seven-year anniversary, spent in Grand Cayman, with the most beautiful beach I have ever been to.
*The group excursion in Honduras—snorkeling, good conversation, yellow fish, not enough sunscreen despite reapplying frequently and liberally.
*Feeling Baby kick for the first time that I could definitely say was Baby and nothing else while standing waist-deep in the beautiful blue water at the beach in Honduras.
*Banana slug blisters. Apparently my pregnant skin does NOT react well to sunburn. (I haven't blistered since I was maybe 12, and never like THAT.)
*Magic shows with lame final tricks that rely on fictional sob stories.
*Piggy banks made out of coconuts, discovering ice cream and cinnamon, and an amazingly choppy boat ride in Belize.
*Karaoke and attempted dancing.
*Delicious food in Cozumel.
*Floppy hat!
*Trying to figure out what the heck the towel animal of the evening was supposed to be, and sometimes feeling glad that we didn't know.
*Renting a van and driving around Miami.
*Horrible service at Bubba Gump's, which I didn't notice because Baby had started the first-ever round of kick the bladder.
*Worst ever TSA experience at Miami international.
*Weather delay in Miami led to missing our flight in Dallas. After a mad dash across the airport on what ultimately turned out to be a wild goose chase (more Kick the Bladder ensued), we and the Smiths were given vouchers to a surprisingly nice hotel.
*Finally getting home, and the cats gluing themselves to our sides for the next day or so. ("Never leave again!")
*Early morning Spanish.
*Helping friends move.
*The most awkward dinner visit we've ever been forced to endure. (If you're reading this, it wasn't with you.)
*So much Gloria's.
*Camping for Memorial Day with our AWESOME NEW AIR MATTRESS. Seriously, it's amazing.
*Motion deSmiths left us. How we wept, precious!
*The Ultrasound on June 3rd. Despite having a feeling that Baby was a girl the whole time, as well as having a girl's name already picked out, baby very clearly showed us that he was a boy. He also was sitting curled up like a potato bug, blocking the technician's detailed view of his heart, thus necessitating a follow-up visit six weeks later (oh, darn!).
*GIVE MY SON THE JUICE!!!
*Family camping trip. Lots of fun with Kick the Bladder and pit toilets. Wind so strong we felt like our tent was going to blow away with us in it. Being the cool hangout for our nephews because with the huge air mattress our tent was like a carnival bounce house.
*I remember we got our oil changed in June because the sticker they left on our windshield said that the date for our next oil change was the day Baby ended up being born.
*Southern Culture Night. Hands on a Hard Body. Lots of good food. Very Yes.
*I finally finished reading Great Expectations, and it was better than I had expected.
*Lots of fun trying to change our car battery. Riiiiight.
*But we got the car inspected and registered and such WAY before the end of the month. No sneaking around backroads like last year.
*Fireworks with the family for the fourth.
*Bar study all the time. Post-traumatic stress and such.
*Follow-up ultrasound, where everything still looked perfect. :)
*One year later, and thinking what a long way we'd come, and being happier on that day than I would have thought possible a year before.
*Actually getting to go to my mom's birthday party this year.
*Having to get a doctor's note in order to take food into the bar exam. ("Because not all pregnant women need to eat.")
*The Dreaded Bar. Two days of UNGH in which my feet swelled up to ridiculous sizes.
*BUT—my magic spreadsheet predicting the essay question topics was pretty much spot on. The only one I didn't predict was Property, but that was okay because it was still an MBE subject. Yeah, I felt good about that.
*IT'S OVER!!!!
*Dinner at the Mayan with Megan and Mr. G, just because it was there. It's still as cheesy as I remembered, although I was greatly angered that the chocolate pot was no longer a dessert option.
*Finding out that E was pregnant and S was adopting, and we were all having boys. Hello, three musketeers!
*Being able to say that we were now "After the Bar."
*Failing the other test I took that week. (Nasty glucose test.)
*Failing the other nasty glucose test I took the next week.
*Hello, gestational diabetes.
*Hello, sore fingertips.
*Possible pre-eclampsia (what is with these whale-sized feet?). Fun sample collecting.
*Celebratory post-bar pedicures. (So at least the whales had cute toenails.)
*Inception. Twice. Even though my feet hated me for it later.
*We bought a car seat and stroller! That felt like a major accomplishment, somehow.
*Trying to find a suitable crib.
*Trying to figure out what the heck to name the Little Guy.
*Tensions between Barrie and Joyce.
*Weekly and sometimes bi-weekly non-stress tests, as well as another couple of ultrasounds. Which do, incidentally, help ME de-stress, because I get to see the Little Guy and hear his heartbeat on a regular basis. We find out baby has a big noggin.
*Reunions and birthday parties.
*Reading The Hunger Games Trilogy and being very glad, as I hit the end of the second book, that I waited until all three were out before I started them.
*Pre-natal classes with uncomfortable chairs and videos.
*Blood pressure acting sketchy.
*Geek Nights, Just Janes, more tense moments.
*Bar results come out and WE BOTH PASSED. Holy cow.
*Baby shower!
*The crib FINALLY arrives and we start putting it together Thursday night after our class.
*Friday morning I go to my 36-week appointment, planning to run some errands afterwards and then wait at home for the delivery man to show up with the new camera we've ordered. Instead, the nurse looks at my blood pressure and sends me to labor and delivery.
*Did I mention I was planning to pack my hospital bag later that day?
*Shallow Man's wonderful co-worker brings him to the doc's office and we head to the hospital. My angel sister heads to our house and packs bags for us, arranges for a neighbor to sign for the camera and bring it to us (she was headed to a concert in SLC and couldn't wait for it herself, which only increases her angelitude in my opinion), and even cleaned up the boxes from the crib (which we were too tired to throw away the night before) and fed the cats. At some point in the next few days she even did laundry for us, and I don't know what all else. Let me take a moment again to emphasize that she is amazing and an angel. Thank you so much, sis!
*The short version here is that after 30 hours of labor, I had a c-section on Saturday night and the Little Guy made his entrance to the world. Shallow Man and I fell instantly in love with him and it's only gotten better.
*Adventures in hospital staying. I found out that morphine is awesome. And I have never been happier to eat a milkshake in my life.
*Finally made it home the next week, although I had to get a prescription for blood pressure meds because mine was still higher than they liked.
*Having a moment of panic when I had to sign the "Parent/Guardian" line on the hospital release forms.
*Near-daily visits to the hospital lab for bilirubin counts. We were nearly on a first-name basis with the nurses there.
*One night with the Little Guy on bililights and I hope I never have to do that again.
*A fun trip to the emergency room for me because my blood pressure was reading something like 201/120. Yeah. When we got there and it was only reading 175/105, they couldn't understand why that made us so happy. Meds were upped and things turned out okay.
*Tripping down the stairs one of my first days home alone with the baby. Not recommended.
*Shallow Man having to work till 11 p.m. most nights the week after we came home. Also not recommended.
*Much pain and suffering and frustration and tears (on both ends) trying to figure out the whole nursing thing. Thank goodness for the lactation clinic.
*Being sworn in as lawyers and actually getting to go to the ceremony. Wahoo!
*Oh, losing, like, 40 pounds in the first three weeks after the birth. I was back in pre-pregnancy pants two weeks after he was born. I don't know how it happened, but I'm not complaining!
*Making a Hiccup (from "How to Train Your Dragon") costume for the Little Guy for Halloween, even though he maybe should have been Mount Vesuvius.
*The arrival of two more geeklings (one before, one after the Little Guy, and both girls).
*Slowly and gradually healing.
*The Little Guy's blessing day. I've been waiting for that one for a long time. (Yes, I cried.)
*Going to the funeral for my great-aunt, the last surviving member of my grandmother's family. Losing one of the Little Guy's socks at the graveside service.
*Thanksgiving. And pie. But mostly thankfulness for being so blessed.
*The Little Guy's two-month appointment. He is a string bean—long and skinny, but very healthy and cheerful.
*Completing 30 blog posts in 30 days for NaBloPoMo.
*Going to the Christmas party for Shallow Man's work at La Caille. Delicious food, even if the atmosphere is a bit silly. Two of his team members (sitting at our table) won prizes. We enjoyed the juxtaposition of our car being brought up by the valets at the fancy restaurant.
*The failed attempt to see my sister's quartet perform, and the encore just for us.
*Getting to see Red and Harry Potter in theaters when awesome people baby-sat the Little Guy for us.
*Finally leaving the publishing company for good and all.
*Working with Shallow Man again, only this time he's my supervisor, sort of.
*Little Guy's first smile.
*Little Guy's first laugh.
*Little Guy just being awesome in general.
*Another cousins party at the end of the year, this time with three new babies. :)
*We are a three-stocking family now!
*Spending Christmas at my parent's house along with my sister and her family because they were moving out of state on Christmas afternoon. Packing up their house in the days before Christmas.
*The best Christmas ever.
*Also the most tearful as we all gave our last hugs and goodbyes and my sister and her family packed up and drove off for four years of school in the South.
*One wonderful week of having a bread maker before it died.
*First eye appointments since the beginning of law school.
*Oddly, all of our invited guests for New Year's Eve ended up having to cancel, so we rang out 2010 as a family, with just the three of us. It was a good end to a good year, and I think the vast difference between the beginning and the end of 2010 were in keeping with the other surprises and changes that came along the way.

Yeah, all in all, I think 2010 is my favorite year yet. As the Little Guy grows and develops even more of a personality and gets even cuter (if such a thing is possible), I'll be excited to see what comes next!

You're on notice, 2011. You've got a lot to live up to.




I have to say, seeing as this post is a month and a bit late, that so far 2011 has not disappointed. Onward and upward!

Yes, there's that.

In times of trouble, it is a great comfort to me to reflect that, were the need to arise, the Little Guy could, in fact, kill Macbeth.



Take that, Caesar.

Best. Baby. Ever.

So I know I'm way behind in the blog posts I'd like to get written. There's still the birth story, 2010 in review, and a few others that I want to get done, but haven't. (All together now: Sometimes being a good mommy makes me a bad blogger. Sigh. Rinse and repeat.)

But I did want to take a brief moment to brag about my awesome child share this story. We just got back from visiting Shallow Man's grandparents in Alabama (and oh, the stories I could tell you about that trip. But that's for another time). We were pretty nervous going into it because although we have flown many times, we've never flown with a not-quite-four-month-old infant before. I was worried the Little Guy would have problems with his ears or the noise or have a massive blowout on the plane (yeah, I have a few more "I'm not blogging about poop" entries, too). I dealt with this anxiety the only way a mother can: by over-packing. But we flew on Southwest which = free checked bags. Which, of course = very yes.

I needn't have worried, though. Little Guy was, as per his usual, a champ. On each leg of the flights, I would start nursing him once we got in our seats, and he was completely asleep by the time we took off. He would wake up, briefly, once or twice during the flight and then conk out again in the face of the humming of the very large engines (our boy is curiously susceptible to the lulling sound of the car, so it wasn't too surprising that an airplane has the same effect).

The best part? At the end of each flight, the passengers around us (even one sitting right next to Shallow Man!) looked around when they stood up and said in surprise, "I didn't even know there was a baby on this flight."

Yeah, I know.

Best. Baby. Ever!



Unfortunately, between holding the Little Guy and worrying, we somehow neglected to get a picture of him being angelic on his first air voyage. Hopefully he'll do a repeat performance the next time we fly anywhere.

Dear Santa.

Dear Santa,

Remember last year?

Well, I just wanted to thank you for the iPod touch you sent me.

It's sure come in handy since the other gift I asked for arrived. (I forgot to mention last year that one of the perks of the iPod is that you only need one hand to use it. Same with my Kindle, even though Shallow Man, rather than you, gave that to me for our anniversary/law school graduation/Mother's Day.)

So, since I got everything on my list, I really don't have anything I want to ask you for this Christmas (at least not for myself. But I trust you'll bring something special for the Little Guy).

But don't worry, I'll still leave out milk and cookies for you. The way I figure it, the way you came through this year, you've definitely earned them.

Respectfully and very gratefully yours, & cetera.




P.S. Oh, also? Remember how I mentioned how a firstborn child was a great gift idea because you could use it for bartering?

Well, after careful consideration of the firstborn son now sleeping on my lap, I take it back.

I wouldn't trade him for anything.

Things I love; or, Just the facts.

I love:

*The fact that I have been able to see the seasons change from late summer to autumn to winter by watching the leaves change on the tree that is visible from the nursery window while I nurse the Little Guy.

*The fact that my red-haired son has long eyelashes which are strawberry blond and not white. (And yes, he also has my invisible eyebrows. But that's another story.)

*The fact that the Little Guy took two legitimate naps today, rather than a handful of catnaps. (The fact that I got a major amount of cleaning done may or may not have anything to do with this.)

*The fact that the Little Guy is starting to enjoy bath time.

*The fact that there is, in fact, the Little Guy.




Yeah, I'm hopelessly in love.