What resolution?
I am genuinely laughing my ass off at this moment. How could I possibly create a New Years resolution when I cannot manage to post to my blog more than once every two and a half months?
Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. Baby brain has just stuck around a lot longer than normal this time. I promised updates sans baby, so I must deliver.
To do so, I’ll go back and let out some steam re: Albertson’s Douche Bag Clerk. I saw him again and narrowly escaped his checkout line over the holiday week and it reignited my desire to out him on my blog.
This jerk liked commenting on my unseasonably warm apparel. It was a cold(ish) October night. I had on jeans, t-shirt, thick Columbia jacket, beanie, scarf and some Wellies.
Let’s just pause right here, because Oregonians lurrrve their weather-gear. I’ve seen peeps rolling around Portland in rain gear or Uggs and scarves as soon as the clouds come through at the end of summer. So, my choice of clothing in October was modest all things considered.
I’ll start by breaking down the offending get up:
Jeans: totally normal
T-shirt: a little chilly for a t-shirt, hence
Jacket: right now all I have save for one sweatshirt (okay, okay- its been four years since I left California, I need to remember the benefit of layers and long sleeves here in Oregon)
Scarf: Was really more of one of those hipster-y scarves, not really a warmth generator
Wellies: My dog walking shoes, already had mud from some earlier rain.
Beanie: My hair looked like shit. No, really, like shit.
Ok, there you have it. Not a biggie. Not like I showed up in snow bib, gloves and ski mask. I didn’t go running around the house grabbing every warm item owned because I was cold. It was all circumstantial.
Back to Douche Bag Clerk.
My biggest problem with this guy (aside from the fact that he once denied me alcohol and then I had to leave the store so my husband could purchase it) is that every time I end up in his line he starts popping off with the comments. Like that night:
DBC: “A little early to be dressed that warm, huh?”
Me: “Uh, what?” (why is this ass talking to me?)
DBC: “If you think its cold now, just wait until Winter starts”
Me: “Actually, I’m not cold” (why I am even responding?)
DBC: “What’s with the boots and hat then?”
Me: “Walking my dog, you know, mud” (you’re that grinch who wont sell me wine!)
DBC: “Well then what’s with the jacket and scarf? You know it’s not even cold now, you’re gonna be sorry in a couple of months”
Me: “Look, ass face, you’re carrying an extra two Michelin’s around your middle, your blood may be running a little warmer than others.” (Yeah, that last part was in my head as I walked out with my groceries, but it was a good one, huh?)
At what point did customer service oriented chatter cross the line into banter? I can’t stand Albertson’s anyway, and their clerks are the absolute worst. Albertson’s is just unreasonably close to my home for last-minute things. So seriously, why are clerks chatting up patrons like this? Just say hi, smile, take my money and pack my shit up without cracking my eggs!
Now that I’ve hashed that out. I’ll find more non-baby related things to share.
Oh yes, resolution. No fast-food. Like, ever. On top of a million other “sounds good” ideas, like updating the blog. I’ll share them with you here. Be back in two months. ;)
I will have a non-baby related post coming soon. I swear.
While the euphoria of new-baby slowly starts to wear off and my ability to hear everything else going on around me returns, I have been busy racking up things to post about that are non-baby related.
It may take a while to get a post or two up, but I am dying to tell you about the jackass cashier at Albertsons who insists I am dressed far too warmly for this time of year. No matter what rebuttal I have for my excessive layers in the grocery store, the fool insists I am dressed too warmly and will regret it soon.
Do I detect a trace of sinister from him? What evil weather plot is he cooking up from behind the CASH REGISTER AT ALBERTSONS?
Gotta love the night-shift whacks.
The sun is out…
Aside from having a newborn, we’ve been pretty busy with the sun. It’s been so wonderful having the sun these last few weeks, it’s sort of dictated our days as of late. I’ve abandoned anything needing updating in front of a computer screen (sorry, blog(s) –and thank God for Blackberry mobile Facebook). I’m not much of a mobile blogger. Come to think of it, I’m not much of a blogger at all.
Portland’s notoriously short blip of a summer has me both rejoicing and quietly condemning. I am soaking up as much of this vitamin-d as possible, but at the same time finding myself pissed off and overly pessimistic because I know it will end soon. Sun, oh how I had forsaken you back when we lived in California and now I grovel at your feet begging for a few weeks more of your delight. Seven weeks of shine is not enough for me. But months of 100+ degree arid temps does not please me either. Is there a happy medium?
We began tossing around ideas of moving again last year and it still rolls around in our daily conversation. Even though we’ve been quite happy in our average condo, thoughts of a house without an HOA and neighbors a little further apart is very alluring (the key to that sentence was “IN” the trouble with condo life starts when you go OUT). Even if we don’t need the space, I know the dogs would appreciate it.
We’ll see how this plays out.
Sun at the Lake
To start off, one: our little one arrived healthy and safely on June 5, 2010. Just a few days after his due date. He was born at home at 9:33 am, weighing in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20 1/2 inches tall.
And, two: yes, natural childbirth hurts like a m***** f***** –duh.
Was it manageable and did I survive? Hell yes. Does the pain instantly go away the minute the child pops out? Absolutely. Does it hurt a little a few days later (like right now)? Sure.
As per my earlier post, our adventure in home-birth was not to demonstrate some crazy feat of heroics, but rather to have an experience completely at my own control, letting my body do what it was meant to, rather than when the docs want it to, appeasing their scheduling needs.
Without backtracking too much, I was due June 1 and really, truly thought with this little guy I would come closer to the end of May. Well, June 1 came and went without much activity. I had been having contractions off and on for weeks but nothing was sticking around longer than an hour or so.
Thursday: Finally I had a check in at 40 weeks on Thursday, June 3 with my midwife. The plan was to “sweep the membranes” if my body was indicating it was ready. However I was only dilated to 1 cm, and not ready so it wasn’t done.
Went home wondering when the heck little-man would be coming. Babies are “term” at 40 weeks and most healthcare providers want you delivered by 42 weeks. No one was in any rush to push me to have the baby only being two days past my due date. (Amen, to that!)
Contractions kicked in around 4:30 that afternoon, and were intermittent throughout the evening up til Friday at 4 am.
Friday: I called to let my midwife know about the contractions and she asked that I call her if my water broke, or if they were 10 minutes apart for greater than an hour. For the better part of Friday, the contractions disappeared.
As the day progressed Jay was getting ready for his friends from the Bay area to arrive for a BMW event here in the Portland area. We had been putting all sorts of contingency plans together about the event with regard to whether or not the baby would be here.
Around 2:30 that afternoon while we were awaiting the arrival of our friends and prepping a dinner -the contractions decided to come back. Scattered again, coming 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes, then 20 minutes apart for the rest of the afternoon and evening. The crew of Bimmers and friends showed up, and we had an amazing tri-tip dinner and lots of yummy sides. I lost track of the contractions and went about the night.
My new t-shirt from our friends. Just a few hours before labor began.
I went to bed at 10:30 and Jay decided to join the guys for a beer at a pub down the street. “Might as well…” I told him –nothing was happening. I climbed in to bed and fell asleep by 11… only to be jarred out of bed by some intensely strong contractions at 12:15 am.
Saturday: Now they started to come consistently every 10 minutes. Uh oh! I waited to call Jay thinking bars close at 2 anyway, he’d be home and the contractions would probably go away. Only they didn’t and they got stronger. I began pacing through them in our bedroom, finally settling into a frog-like squat on the side of my bed with my pillow between me and the bed frame to rest on. I just kept sitting through them like that –sometimes shifting my weight side to side to ease through the really nasty peaks of the contraction. About 1:30 am I heard Jay come in… he walked right past me as I was on the floor. He asked why I was down there, but the trademark “Oh shit!” look on his face told me he already knew. I told him I was waiting until 2 am to see if the contractions would stick and that I would call my midwife after if they did.
By 3 am they were definitely sticking and had dropped to every 6 minutes. I called the midwife. Thankfully I was able to get Jay back up out of bed and moving stuff around, like our youngest son who was camping out in our bed since his Lula (grandma) was in town and sleeping in his room. And the door to the bathroom, which I wanted removed so I wouldn’t have to fuss with the damn thing during labor.
The midwife sets up everything needed in our room.
Jay and I prepped our bed, having no idea really where I’d deliver. I certainly wasn’t laboring in the bed –laying down was intensely uncomfortable. I kept crouching down on the side of the bed each time a contraction hit to work through it.
The midwife arrived shortly before 4 am, with her team (an RN and midwifery assistant) in tow. They began setting all sorts of equipment up. When she was settled she checked me to see how I was progressing: dilated to 5 with a bulging bag of waters! I was thrilled, never having accomplished that on my own before. Every other birth I was in a hospital bed with Pitocin controlling the show, and a side order of Demerol waiting in the wings.
Things were sort of slow and steady, the midwife and her team chatted with Jay and I, all of us parked around our king-sized bed. I am sure Jay felt a little weird with all the women in the room, but it sure as hell beat having him sitting in the corner of a hospital room. Besides, he was all superman helping me through the truly worst parts of labor, literally carrying my weight for me. Sometimes all I could do was lock eyes with him through a contraction, and that was enough to keep me from losing it. The sun was starting to come out, I could hear chirping. The ladies helped me keep my sense of humor as contractions started coming on harder. We joked as we heard one of our annoying neighbors walking her dog right under our window.
Finally, around 7 am I started really losing it, the contractions were literally spilling over each other. As I peaked with one and started to come down, I could feel them starting again. I was nauseous, clammy and I could taste that tri tip in my throat. Only it wasn’t delicious anymore, and my mouth was watering for a different reason. I started feeling completely unglued and couldn’t focus and sweating out of control. The vomiting kicked in. I tried a shower. That helped for a while, but not long. Big deep breaths started giving way to absurd grunting and shrieking. I was definitely losing my grip.
Finally I pleaded with my midwife “I need something, I just don’t know what” (uh, yeah like a painkiller, or two or five?) – I wasn’t asking for meds (which I obviously wouldn’t get anyway!), but after a few minutes realized what I was trying to articulate was that I needed help keeping my focus. She got that immediately, gripping my hand and me gripping Jay with my other hand, I focused on her face through each contraction and mimicked everything she did, breathing in and right at the top of the contraction grunting really low. The lower I kept my voice, the less it hurt. The more I panicked and shrieked, the more it hurt. All it would take, however was one sideways glance at something else and it was like falling off a bike. It felt like it would take me the better part of two or three more contractions to get that focus back. I gave in to the loud growls and grunts for a while, only to attract our dogs to the door, and we all laughed as we heard them whimpering and scratching at our door for a few minutes.
After a while of this I felt this weird crampy feeling on top of the contractions. Where I was able to move through them to help the pain all of a sudden I couldn’t. Every move I tried to make felt like a complete zing in my side. My water still had not broken so my midwife anticipated that the water bag was getting in the way of Jonah making his way down through the pelvis.
She checked me, and I was dilated to 9. I could no longer squat or stretch through my contractions because the water bag was so far protruded. I had her break my water bag and Jonah slid down over the next hour.
The midwives had set everything up along side my bed for delivery while I had showered. We decided Jay could support me by sitting on a chair, holding me under my arms (my back facing him) so I could squat down to deliver Jonah. Gravity is a wonderful thing. I have no idea why we bother with sitting upright in a bed to push babies out (actually I do, its easier for the doctor to deliver that way). Only my legs were so exhausted and jell-o -like from squatting all night that I decided to go sit on the toilet to relieve my legs for a few minutes. Once I went in, there was no way I could get out. My legs were done.
The contractions were so fierce at this point I was gripping both Jay and the towel bar in the bathroom trying to rock through them. I wanted to bite something. I kept clenching my jaw. I tried to grab the towel and bite it, but couldn’t and ended up banging three or four times on the wall next to the towel rack. We share a wall in our condo with a neighbor on that side, and I’m thankful to say, that is all they heard from me that morning. Just the banging on the wall for that moment.
I suppose that was a signal to the midwives that I wasn’t going to be able to get back out of the bathroom and Jonah was on his way out stat! Everyone quickly reassembled all the gear near our bathtub, and Jay sat on the toilet seat to hold me (under the arms) while I squatted and midwife caught the baby. This happened in 18 minutes. My midwife offered me the chance to help catch baby but I felt so unstable with my legs (even with Jay supporting my weight) I passed on that and then scooped him up after the midwife caught him.
Most unreal experience. Ever. Amazing how as soon as the little guy pops out, you completely pull yourself back together and no longer feel unglued and out of sorts. This endorphin rush lasts for the first day and you’re convinced you’re no longer tired and yes, you are in fact super-human. And then reality sets in the next day and you’re crushed to learn no, you’re a mere mortal. This has held true in every birth, be it in a hospital with meds or home.
Well, I was able to hold him while we delivered the placenta. I couldn’t even tell you how long we sat there on the floor of the bathroom, the five of us plus baby. They didn’t even suction Jonah with the nasal aspirator from what I can recall, he came out nice and clear and was blatting immediately. By this time Lula and all of our kids were downstairs having breakfast (they had been up since 5 or 6 am). We heard a stampede of feet and they all rushed through the door and gathered around the bathroom entry way as the midwife and team clamped and cut Jonah’s cord. Deciding they were going to see way too much of mom naked, they just as quickly went back downstairs.
It was so nice to crawl right back into the bed with Jonah and lay there, skin to skin for well over an hour while the midwife and team did their thing. After nursing Jonah, the RN collected him on the other side of my bed where they began to weigh, measure and do all of their official things. The other assistant helped me get my self cleaned up and stable.
Our boys were able to come up and see their new baby brother while the RN was getting him measured. When it was time to dress him, our youngest son was able to help by putting on his new brothers diaper and socks. It was a fantastic moment of bonding for all of us.
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After more time with Jonah they decided it was time for me to get looked at further, making sure I was stable and not at risk for any complications. Jay took Jonah downstairs while the midwife worked on me a bit and then I had a shower while they remade the bed with clean sheets and had everything ready for me.
Jay came back up with baby and we all got to spend the next few hours in bed with the kids, while the midwives cleaned up the gear, the birth mess, did a load or two of our towels and sheets, etc. I tell you, they could put a crime scene clean up unit to shame.
It was pretty awesome for this to happen while we had friends and family in town. We even got lucky with a 75 degree day, blue skies and sun, so it was warm and toasty in our room all day. Such wonderful change from our usual grey rainy June Portland.
PS- post birth coping? Tiger Balm for my back +Advil+Jay. He has literally not let me lift a finger. Which means I am eating like a queen, and have time to write this blog post. 
Dreams: Octopus Baby and Adopting Basketball Players
Since the age of seven I’ve suffered from bad dreams. Not always the scary “knife-wielding-man, chase-you-down-slasher” dreams, just bad, weird, unsettling types. I’ve had the more typical ones – drowning: check, falling off a bridge/cliff: check, reuniting with dead people: check checkity check.
I think the bad/weird dreams started largely in part due to (or around the same time of) the death of my great-grandmother who was living with us at the time. For the first seven years of my life, she was my constant –she did the bulk of the day-to-day raising of me. It was vaguely traumatic to process at age seven. For my birthday that year, my parents had planned a family party at home, followed by an awesome night for me: an A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum –one of our favorite times to go because of the fireworks (for the Memorial Weekend Holiday), even though I hid under the seat terrified the sparks would fall and burn me.
Gram and I -May/87 during my birthday party, less than 24 hours before she passed away.
Upon returning, Gram was sleeping and had left a note not to disturb her if she was asleep. The next morning I awoke to my sister screaming and screaming. From that point, I was locked in my room until the situation was dealt with. Apparently, Gram’s alarm clock went off and after not being turned off my sis went to check on her, realizing she had passed away somewhere in the middle of the night. The last thing I remember was her being wheeled from the house on a gurney. And then seeing her looking so empty during her funeral service. My dad forcing me to lay my hand upon her in the casket to say good-bye. Shockingly cold and unreal.
Shortly after that, the bizarre dreams would begin –seeing Gram driving her blue Caprice through the streets of San Lorenzo as I waved vigorously for her to stop and pick me up (she used to pick me up daily from school), only to jump into her car and see her skin begin to slowly spot and darken (like age spots), then dematerializing right before me, leaving me alone in the back of the car. Other times I would dream I was being restrained by people as I tried mightily to run and hug her, with them yelling at me “You can’t! You can’t! That’s not her, it’s just her soul, you can’t hug her.”
Pretty heavy shit for a seven-year old, right? Over time, the dreams would lessen in frequency, but not their bizarre quality. Morphing into whatever was relevant at that time of my life.
Lately, however, the dreams have been just whacked out on a new level. Naturally, I’m chalking it up to pregnancy -not only have I read that pregnancy unleashes a multitude of oddball dreams, but I think the lack of sleep I am getting makes them ever more intense.
This week, I dreamed that I gave birth to our baby. Not unusual. That typically happens throughout pregnancy. The weird thing was that I wasn’t even aware I had given birth. One minute I was talking to the midwife while laboring, the next I looked down and there was baby. A HUGE baby.
Still connected to me via placenta and cord I picked it up and walked all the way across the room and began to give the baby a bath in the baby sink-tub. The midwife comes over and she’s really disappointed that I delivered the baby on my own. So we discuss ways that could have been avoided (ha, as if I’m doin’ this for a fifth time!). I’m disappointed that I didn’t realize the baby came out, as if I missed the event altogether.
Then we notice the baby is a girl, not a boy (yeah, yeah, yeah I know, I have all boys. I’m fine with having a fourth boy)… only after its belly button it doesn’t have legs and genitals, it looks like an octopus.
What the?!
The midwife assures me this is totally normal and that the octopus-like appendages fall off into normal legs and genitals. I am stupefied, obviously. On top of this, the baby, while wildly enormous for an infant– doesn’t even remotely look like any of my other children. The last thing I remember about the baby was wrapping it up and nursing it.
In other unrelated weird dream news…
This Monday morning I awoke to fragments of a dream where we adopted a basketball player for the off-season. Like some weird kind of “foreign exchange” student program. It was our duty to house, feed and show the basketball player around. The kids were stoked, and were sad when the baller had to leave for the season. Whole other realm of bizarre. I guess that’s what happens when I read posts on ESPN before bed.
It’s a fairly nice Saturday –about a month ago. Jay’s outside presumably working on his bimmer, hanging with the kids. The other neighborhood kiddos are out milling about and a few of the parents. Conversation between Jay and one of the dads turns to our soon-to-be bundle of joy. A neighbor we’re not that friendly with (he keeps his distance and usually minds his business), somehow joins the conversation and wide-eyed comments “You guys are having a baby?! Wow, you’ll probably move soon, right? How are you all going to fit?” Jay brushes this off with a casual “ha ha, we’ll see.”
A few weeks later, a mom a few doors down, with one child asks me the SAME thing. A woman who rarely exchanges niceties with me, save for a wave and occasionally a hello – in the entire two and a half years we’ve lived here. Meanwhile, her extremely repressed, closeted husband walks their poodle and never makes eye contact with us.
Uh… What the F**K?!
We all know each others square footage. We all bought our condos from the same person… we all know each others purported home-value (or lack thereof these days). But when did these insights translate into free reign on our parenting style and living arrangements?
Yes. Condo. I said condo.
Here goes the eye rolling, the “you can’t raise kids in a condo” eyebrow. Funny thing is, our condo is a *whopping* three bedrooms and 1500+ square feet. According to both mine and my husband’s childhood, most of us grew up in 900-1100 square foot ranch homes, with a few siblings squished in for good measure.
In fact most of you did, too, according to my poll -and to the private responses I received (thank you). What’s more, some of you even shared a room with an opposite-sex sibling (gasp! how taboo!).
I grew up in the most insane Brady-bunch style family. Two parents, two prior marriages and myriad of children of different ages. A picture-esque “blended family” (yeah. right.). A small 1000 sq foot 3 bedroom home. It had a kitchen, dining, formal living/family and a cove/nook at the back of the house.
There were three sisters (including myself) and one brother (I had a few other brothers but they were long gone and grown by the time I came around). The two older sisters shared a room, I shared a room with my parents until I was perhaps 2 or 3 and my brother, the oldest of us, had his own room. Until one day my parents discovered brother had quite a “green thumb” and a nice little pot-rig in his dresser drawer. He then lost room privileges and moved into the alcove where there was zero privacy. Besides, he was almost an adult and ready to move out (which only took another ten years). That left me to bunk with the younger of the two sisters, and the older sister got the private room, and finally parents had some privacy again.
Now, if I’m not mistaken, the real Brady Bunch had six siblings? Three girls and Three boys (at least, what I can remember from that catchy opening theme song)… and if memory serves, didn’t they bunk three and three?
Your needs or mine?
At what point did the McMansion become a necessity?
At what point did our view of appropriateness when raising a family become so distorted that the minute we spit out a second child our square footage needs to be upped to no less than 2000 square feet? If you want a McMansion, fantastic. But your “needs” are far different than mine, buddy.
Jay and I experimented with a few different living arrangements before moving to Portland. The last being a Stepford-esque neighborhood in a “new community” so far East of the real Bay area that it was the worst conceivable carrot/stick scenario one could imagine. We spent a decent sum of money, comparatively speaking with say Portland in 2003, to buy a 3 bedroom detached single family home, with a huge yard, and upwards of 1500 square feet. Some of those square feet sitting unfurnished and unused… because who really uses a hallway/formal living room? Besides, no one wanted to drive the hour and ten minutes to hang out in Brentwood, so we entertained infrequently.
Our floor plan was awkward, having all the bedrooms spread out on one floor (a single story being our preference with little kids AND dogs). With children’s rooms at the front of the house on opposite ends, and a master suite off the family room.
Talk about weird and a waste of space. Our dogs occupied the formal living room on our formal couches, as did the Christmas tree for 20-odd days each year.
We ended up bunking our two oldest children, with one room pretty much spare while our the third child shared a room with us the majority of his first year. This proved to be an exercise in sustained paranoia for me, as night time sleeping was impossible with all of our kids out of earshot, and the children’s rooms at the front of the house, with low level windows.
Even then, neighbors with less children speculated we were “bursting” at the seams living in a 3 bedroom home. We were always dumbfounded by this assumption –full on knowing that we were a pretty tight-knit family, that preferred to huddle together in the smaller family room, than space out and ignore each other throughout the various rooms in the house. Tack on to that the only real time spent at home was sleeping and eating with all of the boys activities, and a larger home just seemed to be excessive (read: more work that I want to do).
Our family and condo
So far, over the years, our room sharing arrangement has worked. Let’s pause for a moment to understand the benefits of room-sharing! Let’s think of the problem solving skills they’ll learn in the scenario, how much more tolerant, gracious and less entitled kids will act. If you’ve taken a look around at kids today, entitlement is a disgusting issue that needs to be addressed. I’ve never seen a more lazy group of youth with their hands out to their parents daily that “have to have” an i_________ (insert your must-have Apple gadget here), or their own laptop, or their own car (what?! It can’t be a used car!), or whatever is new tomorrow.
When we moved to Portland, we were convinced we’d get a row-house somewhere close-in. Neither of us really desired a yard, but if we had one we definitely did not want a large one. Especially when the trade-off was a years worth of raking mountains of leaves all to enjoy the yard for maybe 45 days a year. We ended up in suburbia, again. In Portland metro –where the row houses are interspersed in neighborhoods with homes ranging from 3-6 bedrooms.
We rented a cute little row-house for a little more than a year. We came to the slow realization we weren’t going to get a dime for our once equity-abundant home in Brentwood and decided to buy the first thing that made sense in Portland before the market crashed here, too –still being a little gun-shy, a little raw, from our California home-buying experience.
We opted to purchase a modest condo. It seemed like a good idea. Especially as our focus was not on more kids at the time. Two kids share one room, one kid gets his own. Then we threw in the “home office” – which basically was a laptop on the couch, or kitchen table, or desk in the living room… because again, we were left with some awkward square footage to fill. If you’ve ever seen that show about hoarders… we’re the exact OPPOSITE we’re always trying to figure out just how little we need. And again, it felt weird having a couple of the kids bunking while one was on his own.
But what about the yard for the kids? Imagine that, we don’t really need one. As I mentioned above, it seems as if we’re home long enough to eat and sleep considering all of the kids’ extracurricular activities each day. The only family members that seem to be suffering from lack of yard? The dogs. They haven’t quite adjusted to condo life, but realistically they hate pissing in the rain- (just watch as Brutus makes the 100 yard dash to the fence in front, pees for five seconds then bolts back inside) so a yard wouldn’t do much good for them anyway. When it is sunny, they set up camp on the balcony over looking the creek. Lazy bastards. More often than not, when the subject of possibly getting a bigger home comes up- its not number of rooms we’re talking, its yard-for-dogs oriented conversation.
So what of baby-bundle-of-joy-to-be? Well, because apparently we are freaks-of-nature-parents that don’t ferberize our kids, or teach them to be self-reliant when they are 3 days old, and we tend to spoil the shit out of them every time they cry (yes, we pick up, soothe, breastfeed, coddle and goo goo talk to our babies) we’ll room share with little monkey #4. Yeah and probably bed-share (oooh, real taboo stuff now!)! And when he’s sufficiently sleeping through the night and not requiring night changings and feedings (because, really -who wants to get out of bed, walk the 10 feet across the hall to the other room to do all that?), he’ll bunk with his older brother… and we’ll have an even, happy two kids per room.
The same scenario most of you all had growing up. In other words, mind your f***ing business!
-b
Side note- while researching “stuff” for this post… I came across a few cool nuggets that show I’m clearly not insane for opting for a smaller household, or rather, there are more insane things I could be doing in a small home… like having 19 children (ala Dugger)!
First, thanks to everyone who responded to my poll, below. I ended up with a ton of personal responses since I had my poll closed and it helped with all of the “research” I needed for the blog post (which is forthcoming).
Enter, Midterms – April 29 at 6 am. And wait, allergies? No, not allergies, full blown sick. Head cold, congestion, the cough that won’t quit. The kind that takes your breath away mid-sentence. The one that cajoles you from sleep as if someone is atop your chest choking you. Add to that, a side of pregnancy. Big, huge, ready-to-burst from coughing so hard pregnancy.
I’ve pretty much been in bed since the 29th nursing the hell out of this sick. Finally felt better this past Saturday morning – tried to hit up the oldest kids soccer game, only to come home and drop off into a coma-like sleep, missing the middle kids soccer game and most of the day.
Awoke for pre-Mother’s Day sushi dinner with the family. Hot damn, it was good. And well, hot. Since I am forbidden the raw indulgence, I had to opt for the cooked kind.
Mother’s Day: kick ass pancake breakfast (thanks, babe!), church, and a starch heavy but yummy spaghetti dinner (thanks, babe!), another food coma and -f&*k!!- 750 words due by midnight. Plus an online discussion with the class. The topic: two critiques on unrelated artists works, provide feedback to the rest of the class on their submissions. Oh, and a timed online quiz.
Where the hell did the week go? Down the drain with my mucus and bloody snot, apparently.
Finally all that aside — rest. But not really. Jay’s brother and our sister-in-law in San Francisco went into labor with their first baby early Mother’s Day morning (we’re due about 2 weeks apart). The whole day was riddled with glances at our phones and updates. Suffice it to say, when sleep came for us at midnight –and no word on baby yet– it made for a horrible nights sleep. We did awake to good news that baby and mother were happy and healthy Monday morning.
On that note, I leave you with my excuse ridden blog post to finish up the intended post re: Siblings, Living Arrangements and Nosey-ass neighbors. Oh- as well as an update on earwaxpdx re: not so shitty food in Beaverton. Yay!
-b
Working on a new post- help me by taking this poll.
So I am working on a new blog post for the week, and would love your feedback to help!
Thinking back to your childhood, take a look at the poll below and answer as closely as you can. If your situation was totally different, write in your answer.
Keep in mind, I’m thinking formative years- childhood through high school ages. If your situation more closely compares to getting your own room as older siblings moved out and on to college, answer that you shared a room.
Thanks!
Hood To Coast Is Coming!
I’ve been waiting for Hood To Coast to come around this year. This race is amazing. There really are no words to describe it… I suppose that is why a documentary has been made about the race.
My first experience with HTC was with a group of coworkers in 2008. I had no idea what I was in for. I hadn’t yet competed in any races. I was a casual runner that had been running since high school, with a sweet spot for long distance, trail and road running. Put me on a track and I have a nervous breakdown if more than four laps are required.
Because the weather was so miserable here, I trained a lot in the gym. HUGE mistake. Monumental. This led to a blown out knee just after my second run of the event, and by the time my third run came about my teammates made an executive decision that I would NOT be running. I pouted, I cried, I drove like a ticking time bomb the rest of the trip. I was every bit the J.A.P my daddy called me as a child. It was embarrassing, humbling and a huge lesson learned for me.
I later apologized for being a petulant brat towards my teammates, thanked them profusely for pulling me off, sparing me worse damage to my knee. It took about a month of recovery on my leg and I had tweaked some tissue pretty badly… but I was back up and running a good seven miles a few times a week by the fall.
Running fairly steadily through the end of 2008 and early 2009, I was hoping to join another HTC team, but without the ties to my old co-workers (I had left employment and was freelancing) I wasn’t sure where to look. After nearly three years in PDX, I was still pretty much in the “acquaintance” zone with people.
Didn’t matter. Life had other plans. In March 2009 while on a trip back home to the Bay Area, I was moving furniture (what’s that about bending at the knees and team lift?!) and tweaked my back. Shortly before I had been telling my husband, “You know, my back has been feeling funky since we got here, I think I need a run to loosen up…” but had limited time and never did. The following morning I woke up with zero control over the right side of my body- hip to leg, it felt fat, buzzing, heavy –and then all of a sudden a sharp shooting pain knee to ankle.
After a trip to the ER and a subsequent visit to the family’s chiropractor in the Bay we were certain it was a herniated disc. After a few more painful, buzzing, numbing scary days we were back in Portland and I went to a sports and spine doc. He confirmed the disc was herniated and so badly that he wanted to do discectomy surgery, sure that steroid treatment wouldn’t work. I’ve abused my body over the years, having thrashed it about dancing for twenty years and running. I just wasn’t quite ready to cut it open yet, and convinced him to go ahead and try a round of steroid injections. Thankfully after a second round of injections I was running again by June. While I managed to squeeze in a 10k with my sis in July, I had zero hopes of joining a Hood To Coast team this late in the game.
Ironically, while I had been in the Bay Area that March, I had received word I secured a spot in the Nike Womens Marathon/SF for October 2009- so I had been eager to begin training, and was crushed when I tweaked my back during the trip. When I recovered by June, I was hopeful I would have time to train and make it for the October marathon. Again, life had other plans for me. BABY!
So here we are, two years since 2008 –knee injury down, back in jury down, two missed running ops and now a baby on the way! Thankfully, baby is due at the end of May/June 1. I just got word I’ve secured a spot on a HTC team for this August, and I’ll have plenty of time to get my 10k time back up to par before August.
Viva endorphins!
-b
Beaverton Food Sucks
I moved this post to my other blog –which is more about PDX stuff.
