A pinch of politics

Didn't stay away very long, did i? But sometimes things come up, and one wants to talk about them, and having a blog is a way to do so. So maybe i will do better with not blogging, in the later part of the week.

I usually don't talk about politics here...in general i like to keep out of politics in most of my life. But yesterday i was driving to pick up A, and listening to President Bush being interviewed on NPR. Of course, Iraq and the proposed troop 'surge' was a big subject of discussion. They had a taped question for the Prez from a soldier who is currently stationed in Iraq, and the question was (paraphrased) 'If the surge doesn't work, what are you going to do then?' Bush's response was (also my paraphrase) 'Many advisors and generals assure me that the troop surge will work. We just gotta give it a chance.' Translation -- i have no freaking idea what i am going to do. Okay then.

The thing is this. We have been in this war for nearly 4 years, and it has taken this guy this long to admit that it isn't going 'as well as we would have hoped.' Yeah, you invade a country and plunge it into civil war -- indeed that is not going as well as anybody would have hoped -- and then you pointedly refuse to believe for years that there even is a problem with your approach. Then when it is impossible to deny the problem any further, what do you choose to try? Throwing a few more soldiers at the problem and hoping that will work. Yes, the military advisors say it will work. Why, they have been begging for more troops for about 3 years now. Probably, 3 years ago a large escalation would have helped quell the problems that are currently going on there. At this stage, i am not so sure, and 21,000 troops really isn't all that many anyway -- and addition of 15% to what is already there, possibly (not sure of the numbers)? What upsets me more than anything, though, is the sheer refusal on this fellow's part to admit and confront the reality.

You would think that nearly four years would be more than enough for even the most dense of human beings to look at a problem and say 'this is not working, we have to try something else'. Four years is, in fact, quite a long time. I know this very well, myself. How do i know it? Because one day before the ground invasion of Iraq, i was sitting in front of my friend's bookstore talking politics with a bunch of book people i had just met, drinking wine and eating couscous. They were drinking wine, that is -- i was not, since i was heavily pregnant. 'If i don't see you before he comes, have a good birth!', said the one lady as i left to go home that night. Not that i knew at the time that Nicolas was probably past all help already and i could have drank all the wine in the world. The next day i went to the hospital and found out he was dead, and my husband and i sat there watching the invasion of Iraq on CNN as we waited for the induction drugs to work. It was an odd thing, really -- watching the start of a war which you know will claim many lives, and waiting for the birth of your own dead baby. It was an odd thing.

So yeah, i know exactly how long it has been, and every year in March when the newscasters start talking about 'another year of war in Iraq and XXX dead and YYY destroyed', i remember my own dates and their curious coincidence with the war. I remember my own past four years, things accomplished (many) and things changed (many) and things left undone (many many). Granted i am only trying to build a stable life, not a stable 'democratic nation', but on the other hand i don't have nearly the level of resources that Mr. Bush does. So, yes, it still boggles my mind that politically we are this pass now, because i cannot let go of the fact that four years is a long time. Yes, it is -- it is very, very long.

quick post

The *nice* thing about having a ticker is that every monday the number gets higher! (knock on wood)

Lately i have been really doing anything and everything but work. I seem to spend most of my time doing the preggo navel-gazing thing, or wasting time on the 'net, or reading, and it is getting to be bad. So this week i am going to make a special effort to get caught up at work and actually accomplish something. Which means i will not be posting here much...if i am successful in my new determination to spend less time on the internet. Except of course i have to check in on a few folks...so that is always how it starts, and two hours later...you know?

irony...

...is having a tantrum because you are refusing to wear your 'Question Authority' t-shirt...

language development

C's new phrase today seems to be "Oh crap!"

At least that's what i think she is saying, it actually sounds more like "Oh kap!" when she says it so i am not to worried that other people will understand her....and of all the things she could possibly say this exclamation is pretty benign. Still, it seems like an odd development....makes me wonder what is next...

typical

Dh opened the appliances this morning -- one of them has a ding, another one has a wiggly handle. Like, is it me or does it seem that everything possible goes wrong here?

Mind you, it is not a big deal. Since we unfortunately had to pay full price for the things, all this junk is covered under warranty, and they will fix it. It just means a further delay, somehow.

kitchen pictures?

Yeah, i'll put some up, but i wanted it to be more 'done' first. Applicances in, faucet working. So the appliances did in fact come today but the plumber did not -- somebody had an emergency (house flooded) so they put off our job. I guess i can understand that. So, i hope to have pictures by next week sometime...

better

He fixed it, the kitchen seems to be fine now...well at least as good as it is going to be. In fact it looks better now than before, now that most of the countertops are in. Supposedly the appliances will be delivered tomorrow, and the plumber is coming tomorrow to hook things up. So i guess there is no reason to panic...it will all work out somehow! I think i have just been doing this for so long now that i can no longer imagine an actual *ending* to it. But maybe there will be one?

you know it's bad when...

...you walk into your house in abject fear of what the 'fancy new kitchen' *now* looks like.

And, of course, find your fears justified...and no contractor anywhere in sight...

pretty picture

Yeah, they're fake...so sue me, it's the middle of winter. Not much pretty around here.

The funny thing is, i got these in October -- they were leftovers after my neighbor's daughter's wedding. I had them on the bookshelf for a good MONTH before my dh said

'Are those fake?'

'Uh YEAH?'

'Oh, that explains why they are lasting so long.'

'Uh, yeah....'

Men....sometimes you gotta wonder what's going on in there.

another no nap day

Seems to be a new trend. Sigh....and she has diahrrea too. And this morning the babysitter dropped her on her head. No, it wasn't as bad as all that -- they were playing a swinging game and C threw her weight back in the wrong way and got bonked. I actually felt worse for the sitter than for C -- this kind of thing has happened to me before and the guilt you feel when it is your fault that a kiddo gets hurt is pretty high. But i am not saying it was fun for C or anything...

So yeah, long day here....i was going to make some tasty chicken breast dish for dinner but screw it, it is spaghetti & red sauce for dinner...

navel-gazing preggo post

Ok, i guess once a week i can indulge. Nobody is being forced to read it, right?

16 weeks! That is a nice number. I am totally in maternity clothes now and can't figure out how to get my pants to stay up. Julie says to buy one of those belly-band things, and i might after all, but such a purchase does demand (1) finding time to go to the mall and (2) finding the courage to walk into the maternity clothes store, neither of which is likely to happen in the near future. Maybe the pants will just start staying up, as the belly gets bigger....

I have been feeling the babies move for the past week or so. It is very intermittent, and so it is not terribly reassuring. But at least i have determined that that is for sure what it is, and not gas. And i have been having less Braxton-hicks contrax, so that is good -- and less headaches.

This last weekend was awful though, i had no energy whatsoever. In fact i still don't -- i blew off work again (after i was done teaching) and came home to lay in bed. Still, i can't seem to relax enough to nap -- so i am working in bed, which is fine, i suppose. One of these days the rest of my department is going to wonder where the heck i got to. But probably by that point it will be obvious what is going on...

It occured to me, after following the discussion at Clare's, that i am probably anemic again, and that might explain the total total exhaustion/lethargy (and i look awful and pale, too). I guess i wasn't anemic at my 14 week visit (or at least not anemic enough for them to call me and put me on iron pills), but i did recall reading once that somewhere during the 16-20 week period is when the blood flow to the placenta is increasing at the highest rate. Maximum gradient, and all that. And considering there are two placentas, it makes good sense....so i am going to try to eat some serious iron-rich foods this week, i am open to suggestions! Steak every night sounds great, until you see the grocery bill for it...

There are various ways of sneaking iron into your diet, i know. Cream-of-wheat is rich in iron and a good-for-you hot breakfast. Of course in order to eat any kind of breakfast that requires preparation (rather than the grab-and-go) i have to drag self out of bed earlier in the morning so not sure that will happen...Molasses is very high in iron. And i just ate 4 eggs for lunch, that can't be bad. Granted, my choice of lunch was dictated by the fact that there is nothing else whatsoever in the fridge except beer and mustard...time to go to the store, sigh.

I also have to ask them to test my iron levels again next week at my OB appointment. Usually they don't do it so often -- every few months not few weeks -- but i think it might be advisable in this case. But i don't want to take iron supplements if i don't absolutely have to, those things are awful.

The other thing i have to get is some fish oil pills, as they are supposed to help prevent PTL and also make you less stupid. (read it on some post of Moxie's but too lazy to find the exact reference) Both effects are greatly desired....

Alright, enough blah-blah for now. Going to work on probability problems instead. So you see why i have been putting that one off....

sketches of Frank Gehry

Last night, i was on my way to bed when dh put on the movie he had just gotten from Netflix, Sketches of Frank Gehry. 'Looks like i am the first person to ever get *this* one' he said, and probably so. How many people rent documentaries about architects, anyway? But i like Frank Gehry's buildings, so i settled down on the couch to watch for a little while. Of course, after about ten minutes of this-and-that, they went right to Bilbao.

Now, i have been to Bilbao. I was putzing around that museum instead of in the hospital giving birth to my second son -- because i had already done that, seeing as he had died 6 weeks before. But dh's mother still had the airline tix to Paris that she had gotten months before in preparation for the big event, so she came for his due date anyway (those stupid things are non-refundable, you know.) So, we had to do *something*. And, of course, everyone was like, oh you should get away, go on a vacation, blah blah. 'Where do you want to go?' said dh. 'I want to go to Bilbao', i said. 'Huh? Where? Why? What's there?' he said. (The level of cultural literacy in this family, though perhaps higher than average for the United States, is still rather low. )

I wanted to visit the Guggenheim Bilbao since the mid-90's when they first started to build the thing. And especially in 2002-2003, there was a very nice Calder exhibit there and i *really* wanted to go. But, you know, there are a lot of things to see in Europe, and limited time, and other people to consider...it seems silly to drag a 9-year old to an art museum when you can drag him to the Chateaux of the Loire instead. I figured we could get down there before we left somehow, but then i was pregnant, and travelling to interview for jobs -- it was clear it was not going to happen.

But yeah, i got to go anyway, because Nicolas died, so we suddenly had time. Yee-haw what luck. We spent a few days in Bilbao, and a few days in Barcelona (another place i had always wanted to go, you know). Just in time for mother's day. Oh loads of fun.

Anyway, so last night we were watching this movie, and the only reason i am blabbling about this here is that the depth of pain i felt when looking at the pictures of the Guggenheim Bilbao suprised me. I remember it well...but after all it is just a building. A building i even appreciate -- i even bought a book about it when i was there, it is so very impressive. The book sits unopened on my bookshelf.

After about an hour of this movie, instead of being impressed by the narrative of Gehry's creative processes, i just wanted to go to bed. So i did, fully expecting to cry myself to sleep. But as i lay there, i ran through the pictures of the museum in my mind, that i had just seen in the movie, and this is the one that came to mind...

Indeed, our first view of the museum was much like this -- i wanted to check it out before going to the hotel, so i set dh to driving through the streets of Bilbao and we turned a corner on a main street and saw it at the end.

"OH MY GOD!!!" screams my mother-in-law, "WHAT IS THAT?!?!?!"

"Ummmm...." i responded, "that's the museum? Remember, we came here to see an art museum?"

"Holy God", she said,"It looks like an alien spaceship."

The memory still cracks me up....it's like the time we stopped in Bayeux, in Normandy, to see the tapestry....

'No, you go on ahead, i'll just wait in the car, i don't want to buy any', she said.

'Mom.' says my dh, 'it's a tapestry from the 11th century, you can't buy it!'

Ahhh, family....what good are they, if you can't laugh at them occasionally?

no nap girl

C seems to be determined to give up nap -- no nap on wednesday, thursday, or friday...and yesterday a short one (1 hour). Couple that with being up late and getting up early and she has been a total pill. Dh bundled her into bed around 11:30 today and said 'leave her in there until she goes to sleep, because this is ridiculous' and he is right. Of course that means she has been raising a ruckus in there for the last hour and a half, with no intention whatsoever of going to sleep. In fact with the level of jumping going on, you have to wonder if she is likely to break the crib...

daddy's little helper

Here's C and daddy working very hard to fix the doorknob...


Home renovation is just so much fun!!

countertops in?

Nope...as expected, Randy showed up with only him, so....BUT, he did not leave -- in fact he put in a whole day of working on other things, mostly electrical stuff that needs to be fixed. So i am not unhappy with that result at all. It's always a joy when the lights work!

He won't be here monday but he will be here tuesday, with his helper...and one of the additional necessary cabinet parts arrived, so the countertops should be in soon, i hope.

a post about nothing

Yeah, not much content today, for whatever reason. Feeling a bit under the weather the last few days, not sure if i am getting sick or just being depressed. Today i am hoping to leave work early and go home and take a nap, we will see if that materializes.

Laura, i am not sure about how the babies are situated. On the ultrasounds they essentially look side by side but with one a little lower than the other, so sort of on a bit of an angle. The thing is i don't know how the u/s machine displays images, so i am not sure how this image translates to real life. For example, in the pictures below, the tech said 'one is head up, one is head down', but they don't look up-and-down on the pics, just side-to-side. I will ask at my next appointment, as i have been wondering about this.

The kitchen people finally delivered the countertops yesterday. Okay, let's think about this. They are wood butcher block countertops, so, er, rather heavy. So whom do they send to do the delivery? ONE GUY, and an old, dim guy at that. 'How are you going to unload them if it is only you here?' i asked. 'Uhhh....no husband at home?' he said to me....uh NO, and frankly you are lucky i am at home, i mean most people have schedules you know, and these were supposed to be delivered monday, then tuesday, then wednesday, and now thursday. And let me tell you, i am not lifting a finger to help unload the damned things. Even if i wasn't preggo, i wouldn't lift a finger, given the fiasco with the applicance panels. You can break your back with them for all i care. Let me know if you want me to call you an ambulance, i suppose i can do you that favor.

Ok, i did not SAY those things out loud. And my way too kind neighbor helped to bring them in. And hopefully that is the last we will see of the incompetent kitchen people.

(no, i did not get the applicance panel debacle worked out in our favor at all. But i didn't pay an additional $1200. Instead, we ordered appliances with stainless steel doors rather than applicance panels, so now my 'professonal look' kitchen will feature several mismatched stainless steel finishes. Which means, i suppose, that my head will be in danger of exploding every time i walk into the room. Because i am the kind of person who will not wear my off-white coat with my off-white skirt, because they are not the *exactly same* shade of off-white, though they are so close that most people do not recognize the difference.)

Our contractor is supposed to be putting in the countertops as we speak. 'You watch', said my dh,'he will show up and then leave, because he will say it is just him and the countertops are too heavy for him to lift'.

baby pictures

Yeah, i know these are like a month old (they are from a scan at 11 weeks), so i suck. I don't have a scanner at home so it takes me forever...


She labelled them Twin 1 and Twin 2, and as i recall (though this might not be correct) Twin 1 is on the left. One of them is alot wigglier than the other, that would be Twin 1 -- Twin 2 is happy to suck on his fist and relax. That was the same behavior we saw in the last scan too...Twin 1 was shaking his fists at us and twin 2 was just chillin'...i think so, anyway. I am not entirely sure still which one is which. I will have to pay more attention last time. The one on the right is lower, so that would be the presenting twin, right? And it would then make sense that that was twin 1. So maybe i am wrong...anyway, by the next time i will try to clear that up.

it must be january

because the catalogs are coming...

I will probably start seeds this year, but flower seeds rather than vegetable ones, and plant an annual flower garden instead of the vegetable garden. Unless dh wants to take over the vegetable garden process. I will chronicle this on my vegetable garden blog if anyone is actually interested...

he remembered!

Will miracles never cease? Amazing.

medicine cabinet

I will not bore you with the lengthy saga of the medicine cabinet. Let us just say that due to the usual state of things around here -- a bit of neglect (mine), a dash of sloppiness (Randy's), and an incredible insistence having things done perfectly to the last detail (my husband's), we currently have a medicine cabinet problem. So i have been looking for a medicine cabinet solution.

I found this: that's right, for a mere $225 you can get the door and the box, not attached together or anything mind you, just in seperate pieces, no hardware, so you can put it together yourself.

Okay, even my husband laughed at that one, and this is a guy who is planning to cast the decorative capitals for the front porch pillars himself, in his spare time. Just because.

realizations

Today i realized that i am a very cranky and irritable person when i am pregnant. I am not my usual easygoing self at all. If people wish to have a good day, they would be well-advised to stay as far away from me as possible. Especially people who totally fuck up the design of my kitchen cabinets and then have the gall to send me faxes stating that to get the 'proper' three cabinet doors remade will cost $1200. ("proper" in this context means "those that match the doors on the cabinets which have been ordered, paid for, and installed", mind you, not even "doors that i wanted and thought i ordered". We long ago gave up on that pipe dream.) Twelve hundred fucking dollars for three cheap-ass pieces of laminate shit? What are these assholes smoking?

Oh, and i also realized that tomorrow is my 34th birthday. Yee-haw. I had forgotten to mention it to my dh, what odds that he will actually remember on his own? Not good ones, i'll warrant.

seriously

Yesterday, C and i met my friend M. for lunch. We were at the bagel store right before noon -- luckily just in time to get our orders and sit down before half the population of a local high school came in. So, we're just sitting there gabbing and C is eating her bagel -- when C puts down her bagel, leans into me, grabs my boob, and loudly announces to all and sundry: "Babies eat DAT!!"

Sheesh, i guess i should be glad she didn't lift up my shirt!

so much for my nap

Well, some lady just called and she is doing a photo spread about our block for one of our local magazines. She will be here in a half an hour or so, and of course wants the grand tour of as many houses as she can get....i was in my pj's in bed, it was silly of me to answer the phone. But you know, you have to participate in stuff like this when it happens, it's just good community activism...and after all i am lucky i took out the trash earlier (which, by the way, included getting rid of the rotten pumpkins from halloween which were *still* sitting on our front porch). I will just not mention the small problem of the rat...

Of rats and cross-town buses

I am very tired this morning -- i was up very late last night and C decided to wake up at 5:30 this morning (in addition to at 1 and 3, but at 5:30 she decided to stay up which is really the problem). So i made the usual ass of myself teaching class, oh well. And then, having some level of self-preservation left, i decided to blow off work (uh, i mean take some personal time) and go home and take a nap. Sounds like a plan...

Well, apparently i was too tired to read the traffic signals correctly because walking home i nearly got creamed by the cross-town bus. Ok, it was not really that close a call, but it is weird when you realize that you just nearly stepped in front of a speeding bus and it was your own damned fault.

I got home and even my neighbor told me i looked like i needed a nap.

So i came inside, but you know, noone has taken out the garbage for a while so all of a sudden the whole house stinks of this and that. Rotting parsley, bad potatoes, old soymilk, dirty diapers. So some basic cleaning was necessary, just to, well, be here. And then it only made sense to sort the laundry and start it going, right?

Of course, just as i walked into my basement laundry room, a large beast with a long tail ran right in front of me and down a small hole in the floor. I will tell you, i screamed, and i don't scream lightly -- ok, maggots make me scream, but rodents to do not...i don't think a rodent has made me scream since i was 12 years old. I've seen larger rats in my life and i knew something was getting in there, too, so i don't think why my reaction was so extreme...but anyway. I stopped up the hole with a heavy box, and started my laundry...but what a ridiculous morning! It is not even noon. I swear, i really need that nap.

All ok on the baby front

I had an OB appointment today and everything is fine...i have alot to say about it, but i am not sure if i will have time to write it out tonight, so i thought i would just say that....a long update will come later, if i can keep my eyes open long enough.

inside my head -- you wouldn't want to live there.

Ok, so i have to explain that the last week or so has been kind of nasty to me on the physical front. I have been having these terrible headaches which absolutely do NOT go away (for, like, days. Literally) and Braxton-Hicks contractions every now and again, and of course the everpresent gas. Not that you really care to hear about my gas issues, but i will tell you that there is nothing like a painful gas bubble at the same time as a BH contraction to totally convince a person that they are for sure in labor and it is the end. Good times.

And the headaches, what fun. My dh, who normally does not notice my moaning and groaning, even said on monday when i had had a headache for three solid days that i should go to the doctor because it is not normal. Ok, perhaps he noticed because whenever he wants some nookie, i keep saying 'i have a headache', because it's true. And yes, of course i know that headaches are a sign of pre-eclampsia, but you don't get pre-e at 14 weeks anyway, and headaches are also just a sign of...headaches. I actually think that mine are sinus-based because after 3 days, finally at 4 am on tuesday morning my nose started running and the headache started to recede. So there you have it, i have gas and i think i am pre-term labor. I have a freaking head cold and i am sure i am developing pre-eclampsia. Luckily i have the hardiness not to call my OB about every single little thing -- because, yeah, they would lock me in a rubber room if they knew what was really going on in my head.

So, anyway, on to some discussion of my OB's office. Oy.

First of all i have to say i love my OB, Dr. B. He got me through my pregnancy with C. He is very 'patient-oriented', meaning he is willing to do what you want him to do, and he is very nice. When i first went to him, he had no partners -- actually he had one, but she had left temporarily, and eventually the temporary became permanent. So it was just him, for most of the time.

At the very end of my pg with C, he got another partner, let's call her T1, since we are doing initials here and now there is another partner, and she also has a T last name. So i hated Dr. T1 immediately, because the first time i ever saw her, of course she didn't bother to read my chart, and pooh-pooh'd my concerns (whatever they were). I have gotten used to her a little by now, but i can't say i like her. She is a pretty lady, about my age.

Now, all of a sudden Dr. B has two *new* partners, and a new office also. The two new ones are also pretty girls...uh...i mean doctors, Dr. T2 and Dr. F. My experience with T2 is limited to one interaction -- she had the luck to take my history for the new office computer system. So yeah that could have gone better than it did. And F, she's the cutest of them all, but frankly with all these cute doctors running around the whole office seems more like the set of some sitcom than anything you would expect to see in real life. If i were Dr. B's wife, i would question this constant hiring of pretty girls, eh? But that's me, i have a suspicious mind.

So, i see Dr. B, i don't mind seeing the others but i expect to see him and for him to check up on me....which is fine. Today he was running late so i saw F for the most part of my appointment. Her i actually like, she is nice -- but she is young. Meaning, not used to wackos like me. She pretty much just started in her practice, you see.

So we jibber jabbered about my concerns -- headaches, BH contrax, that stupid intermittent stabbing pain. She decided to check my cervix because of the contrax (it is all fine & good. So probably i am just dehydrated, not that the good doctor thought to tell me that though...but i am making an effort to really drink more) and also noted that i was missing some kind of cervical culture so they did that when they did the internal. Note she was doing all this stuff *before* trying to get heartbeats on doppler or u/s. So i made the obvious comment -- shouldn't we check they are still alive in there first, might save you the trouble of taking that culture? Well, it was an obvious comment to me, but really she looked at me like i had fallen from the moon, and didn't say anything....ah, youth. And then, when she DID do the u/s, we heard the heartbeats and saw the babies and they looked great -- but did she check measurements? No, she fooled around with the 4D thingie trying to get a 'good picture'. Yeah, a good picture is one with some useful, medical content, not some silly thing i can put in a frame, kwim? But fine, whatever. Let's be fluffy. I'm trying, remember?

After that, they had to take my blood which was weird because it took awhile for the (very pregnant, and also fairly new to the practice) nurse to get the thing going...so of course she had to make conversation. Great. Then while i was sitting there in their lab area, this other nurse is doing another lady's urine sample dipstick. 'Are you seeing Ann?' she said to Dr. B. 'Yeah', he said. 'Because she's got it ALL in here'. And i swear, it was ALL, every one of those little squares on the urine dipstick was a different color. She started reading it off, 'glucose, ablumen, yadda yadda' (i don't know what the rest are). I think every person in the room stopped and stared, i mean what the hell? And then your heart skips a beat -- it's not YOU, it's someone else, and the worst has not happened yet, but still. One gets busy with one's own business, but that kind of shit is just scary when you know, when you have lived the 'negative outcome'. I had to leave the office and drive off while talking self down -- don't worry, Dr. B will take care of Ann, she was scheduled for her section in 2 weeks anyway, he will just take the baby a little early, everything will be fine. Why do i know she is scheduled in 2 weeks? Same reason i know her urinanalysis, and the diagnosis and treatment of everyone else that was in that afternoon. Their new office has this wide-open floor plan and unless you are shut in an exam room you can hear *everything*. Really, not a good idea. Anyway, i was so freaked out by the results of a person i don't even know that i left the office without my prescription and had to drive back and get it...

tarot

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I dunno, i changed a few options around and got the High Priestess -- i am probably a combination of both. Not too shabby, at least i'm not this card...
Not yet, anyway...

overheard

at 4 am: "MOMMY!!! I WANT PANTS!!! NO JAMMIES, I WANT PANTS!! PANTS!!"

at 11 am: she's got her shoes and socks on, but...."C, if you want to go outside, you will have to put on some pants."

"pants?"

garden update

Well, given the mild weather we have been having lately, i went out to the garden this weekend to see how confused the plants really were.

(By the way i am no longer complaining about the mild weather. Though theoretically i like a nice cold winter snow so i can sit inside and watch it, i recieved my heating bill for December and was most pleased. Go global warming! I absolutely dread the winter heating bills, and most especially the December one, seeing as it always appears just when you have to pay off all those outstanding credit card charges from the holidays. So this month's was an exceedingly pleasant surprise. Naturally, as soon as i decided to be pleased about the warm weather, it started to snow.)

The plants are pretty confused. The winter pansies are going strong, blooming all winter apparently. Some of the roses are trying to put out new leaves, that is kind of disturbing. There are daffodils and snowdrops coming up everywhere. You can see some daffodils peeking out in the photo above. Those guys i am not worried about, they are pretty cold-hardy, but there are a bunch of confused tulips going too...so we will see how that goes. I also seem to have some pretty confused garden visitors. Somebody dug up a daffodil bulb and took a bite out of it...and promptly spat it out. I would think...those things taste nasty. But aren't the animals supposed to know that without trying?? What kind of moronic wildlife are we breeding in this city, anyway? Oy.

Good news is that it looks like all my cheap primroses are doing well so far (one is even trying to bloom, the idiot) and my expensive rare one is doing well too. Forget-me-nots look to be taking over part of the garden...i hope i have nothing else good planted there, i don't think i do. The hellebore looks like it has alot of new growth and buds. We will see if it blooms on time this year...

Hum...C sounds like she might have actually fallen asleep after all. Yes, it is nearly 2:30, and her usual naptime is around noon. But she was up from 3-5 am fussing last night for no apparent reason, and thus was snoring until 9 am -- while the rest of us had to get up at 7 to go to work. So i was really hoping she would *take a nap* so that i could *take one too*. Nope, never mind, no napping happening....sigh.

big step?

I finally went and dug the maternity clothes out of the basement and washed them. I have put this off, but at this point i can barely button my husband's pants so i guess it is time. No, i don't look preggo, i just look a little porky, but what can i do? School starts tomorrow for me and i can't very well wear my husband's pants, can i? Well, i mean, i guess i could....

training update

I have instituted Catherine's stickers-and-toys system and it seems to be very popular. I am not sure she has really understood that when she fills up the chart she will get a toy, but she is finding the sticker thing very interesting! So i have hopes..

overheard

A: Do you know what the total population of the world is?
Me: umm....No!
A: I don't either!

?????

toilet training woes

This morning, C took off her PJ's and her diaper, and started to pee on the carpet. I immediately snagged her and stuck her on the potty for a nice long time, where nothing happened and she claimed repeatedly that she was 'all done'. Okay, then, i let her go -- so she proceeded back into the bedroom and finished peeing on the carpet.

Oy, what a headache! What is up with that??

We were doing very well with the potty training right before she turned two. In fact it was mostly due to her daycare teacher Miss Annie...C was devoted to Miss Annie and as a result was steadily using the potty at school and at home, presumably to differentiate self from all the other, less accomplished kiddos in the room. Unfortunately for us, when C turned 2, they moved her up to the next room, with a different teacher. She was not happy at this development...and as you can imagine she refused to use the potty (ever again, it seems).

I was expecting this at the time, so figured we would lay off, just give her some time to adjust, and then start pushing the training a little more. Which is what we have done, and now it is nearly 6 months later and she has been using the potty a little bit more lately but really i have been unsuccessful with convincing her that she needs or wants to do it. This morning's little show has made it clear that my strategy of gentle suggestion and positive reinforcement is a total washout.

So what next? Bribery? Whips and chains? I am open for suggestions...

I'm kinda cute

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but maybe not so smart

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because i keep trying to drink my bath water

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even though i should know by now it doesn't taste good!

check THIS out

The other day, dh turned to me and said "look, it says here that January is 'National Organization Month!". And i said, "well, you know where you can stick THAT."

I have no new year's resolutions and though i do need more organization in my life, i am not deluded enough to think that this will actually happen any time soon. However, i do admit there are certain things in my household that totally annoy me. (besides my husband, of course...but what can i say? The guy has his good points.)
For example, this ridiculous pile of chargers for various electronic devices which had accumulated behind the speaker stand.

So, following (in principle, anyway) some idea i found in Better Homes and Gardens magazine, which i somehow have a subscription for even though i never purchased it, this morning i made the following 'charging station':You see? There is a basket, and there is a power strip in the basket, with one cord that goes out. All the chargers are plugged into the power strip. Then there is a 'shelf' made from a piece of cardboard covered in cute paper that sits on some wooden blocks, covering the chargers...and all you see are a few cables coming out. You put your stuff (phones, camera etc) on the shelf. Cute, no? And yes, i have a pink phone. Maybe too cute.

I was all proud of this system -- especially since i improvised it from crap laying around the house and didn't buy anything -- and was waiting to show dh (who hates clutter and mess). Of course, i wasn't paying attention when he came home and the first thing he did was that he tore the blasted system apart trying to 'plug in the phone'. Duh. What were those good points about the guy again? Let me try to recall...

Happy new year

Wishing everyone a peaceful 2007...one filled with happiness and good things.

doldrums

There is something useful in blogging, after all.

A few days ago, i became concerned about the level of depression that i have been fighting over the past week or so. I did fine through Christmas but since then i have been struggling with more-than-usual depression/suicidal thoughts/etc. Which is unusual for me when i am pregnant -- in fact pregnancy is typically the only time i have historically been totally free of my general tendancy toward a low-grade depressive state. I am a happy pregnant woman. Well, now, there is all that anxiety and fear and all of course, but that is very different than i-wish-i-was -dead-there- is-no-reason -to-get-out-of-bed. So of course my first thought is that both babies are dead, but there is no empirical evidence of that. Then it occurred to me that it might just be a reaction to the holidays.

So, i checked my blog from last year, and yeah i was pretty much depressed from Christmas through Nicolas' birthday in March, and then it lifted. I can't say i talked about it much on the blog, but i know myself well enough to read what was going on. Besides it is boring to write about depression -- i mean what are you going to say? 'Monday -- depressed today. No reason to go on. Except must do laundry. Tuesday -- depressed today. No reason to go on. Kitchen floor is dirty. Wednesday....' you get the drift. It's even boring to think about it.

So, we prattle about seed catalogs and cats and whatnot (which reminds me i got a shitload of seed catalogs in the mail!!)

But anyway, reading last year's selection made me feel that at least my depression was to be expected, it did not necessarily mean the babies were dead. It has, probably, much more to do with my mother, just as last year's holiday turmoil did. I had written something last year about my mother (and her annual holiday unpleasantness-making), much of which i had forgotten this year -- but this year she has my pregnancy to make unpleasant over so that is like a field day of nastiness for her to work with. I have not written about any of the stuff she is saying here, simply because it is so ugly that i do not wish to even have it recorded. Let it fall away into the oblivion it deserves. But yet there is some stress there too, of listening to the things she says and not having an outlet -- not because i don't have people to talk to, but because i simply don't have the energy to rehash that level of ugliness.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there. In order to shake free of these doldrums, i will now go count my blessings -- not the least of which is that there is still some ice cream in the freezer...