belly button lint

2009-09-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Like Paris, I'll come back here again some day. Right? Right?!

RIP Stim

2009-04-20T12:12:00.001-07:00

When I started climbing at Vertical World upon arrival in Seattle some eight years ago, I remember watching an old dude picking his way along the bouldering traverse. He was spidery, with white hair and a gentle voice. Later, he gave my girlfriend and me tips on an overhanging route. We muttered that the old dude could stick a dyno better than we could!

He was a regular at the climbing gym and drove a beater, a Saab, was it? Eventually I joined the gym staff and got to know Stim better. I ran into him at the local crags a few times. He was soloing with a stick clip, something I'm not likely to do. Photos of him climbing also appeared in a few local climbing guides. I admired him for being active into his 80s.

Not being from Seattle, it was a long time before I figured out he was from one of those old Seattle families, with wealth and posterity. I happened to catch The Bullitt Foundation name on our local NPR station one day when the lightbulb went off.

I read this morning in the local paper that Stim died this weekend at age 89. I haven't been climbing at the gym or the crags for a few years, so I'm not sure if Stim was still out there on the sharp end. There will probably be some shindig to remember him to which I won't be invited. That's OK. I'll savor my memory of Stim: that awesome old dude with a gentle voice who climbed into old age like a rock star.

Talent

2009-04-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

When I first heard the Susan Boyle buzz, I was all Yeah, yeah, another 'Idol' singer. Whatever.

Then, it hit the New York Times, which I just got around to reading. Wow. Just wow.

Watching Susan, and Paul Potts performing Nessun Dorma (one of the most beautiful arias I know), is a reminder that beauty and the extra-ordinary are around us, overshadowed, overlooked and unappreciated in our processed, plastic world. What a lovely reminder to slow down and take a second look.

>> Susan Boyle's video
>> Paul Potts' video

Don't you twitterstand?

2009-03-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

I debated the best place to post this: blog, twitter or #fb. Then I remembered the blog and #fb are synched!

Dammit Molly, you are a young, hip, tech-savvy thirty-something, and I will not let you turn into my mother! xoxoxoxo.

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
Uploaded by LePostfr

Same old same old

2009-03-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

Wowza, it's been a while. I wish thoughts could become blog posts, you know, like mental dictation with a built-in thesaurus for extra brilliant word choices. They'll probably have that figured out by the time Sprout and Coco are my age.

Sprout turns the big oh-four next week. He's becoming such an amazing little boy. Daily we have such fascinating, mature conversations that I can't fathom what he'll be like at seven or 17. He also recently joined Little Kickers and is now Mr. Soccer. Which makes me now, uh, I guess, a soccer mom.

[Note to self: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED AROUND HERE?]

Meanwhile, I joined an early morning running group. It's a bunch of moms from the neighborhood, and we do about 3 miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:15. OK, I'm making this sound like it's a well-established gig when tomorrow is actually my second time, provided I wrap this up soon and hit the hay. Pre-dawn is no small feat for me, so this is a big deal. I signed me and TJ up for Seattle's Rock n' Roll Marathon in June, so it's time to get back on the ball!

Coco is thriving in full-on toddlerhood complete with steep ups and downs. He has also been babbling like crazy. It's cute as can be, but also frustrating for all parties as we often fail to communicate effectively. Tonight Coco was pointing to the dinner table and insisting vociferously on something. We held everything before him, one by one to no avail, then finally Peter resorted to holding him over the table like that claw arcade game. He never did reach for anything specific. I wish we had made more signing progress, but he'll be talking sooner than later, I think.

Last week the grande dame of the family, Peter's grandmother, died. She was 97 years old. That's a very long time for anyone to live, though we were sad to hear of her passing. Peter made the trip to Iowa to be with family, and I'm glad he did. We three were there in spirit if not in person. Throughout the weekend, Sprout and I spent some time discussing death and family. Kids are surprisingly matter-of-fact about these things, but he was still mildly sad.

To lighten the mood, we watched Pete's flight on google earth for a while before cruising around the globe to familiar locales. We caught this street view from his school. Pretty funny as we recognize this group walking to the play yard, though Sprout isn't in the photo.

Other than being crushed by work and looking forward to a trip to Maui in April, life's been the usual daily busy. How about you?

Homemade Valentines: Easy-to-Make Valentine's Day Cards and Crafts for Kids - Kaboose.com

2009-02-08T10:18:00.001-08:00

"What to do with a sick 4yo on a Sunday afternoon in early February."

From my inbox

2009-02-06T16:46:00.000-08:00

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; for it becomes your destiny.

-Upanishads

Lately

2009-02-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

having a one-year-old bustling around the house has been making me so very happy and a little bit sad.

Coco is the sweetest thing. OK, so he has tantrums, is a picky eater, often throws food and drinks on the floor and tries to karate kick his way out of diaper changes. But other than that, he's just the sweetest thing. Tonight he was waddling around the kitchen pretending to be a chicken. I should have captured this on video, because I cannot possibly do it justice with the written word, but suffice it to say, I sat watching him with the biggest, dumbest smile on my face. We were doing dinner clean-up, KEXP playing in the background, and there was our baby chicken strutting around in his onesie, bawk-bawk-bawk.

When presented with fresh mango at dinner, in Coco-speak, he asked me, "Wassat?"

"Mango," I replied.

He popped it in his mouth and signed more... MORE!

Coco doesn't have loads of words, but after a couple of weeks at school, he has mastered "MINE," which is a useful word to know when you have a crafty older brother who regularly attempts to negotiate exclusive possession of all the best toys. Those being the ones Coco is holding, looking at or thinking about. Miiiiiiiiine!

Speaking of the big brother, Coco adores him. Sprout can trigger belly laughs merely by making a goofy sound and bugging his eyes. The two of them roll around together laughing, and it's music to my ears.

The two of them take bubble baths together, too. Coco loves the bath, stripping his clothes off and trying valiantly to climb into the very tall tub himself. It's hilarious to watch him try to do everything. In his mind, he's as big and capable as us. In reality, he's a half-pint.

But for a half-pint, he's growing so fast. It's going by in a blur. Whenever I can, I hold him tight and encourage him to rest his head on my shoulder, snuggling it next to my neck so I can breathe deeply his babyness. It will be gone before I know it, replaced by a "big boy."

Three kids sounds like such madness to me. But there I was last night, feeling wistful, thinking about names again.

Someone, smack me.

Something interesting comes out of Pittsburgh. No, really.

2009-02-03T22:38:00.001-08:00

Start here. And walk down the streetview.

Activity in which my children are not permitted to engage unless they can guarantee they won't die young. And that they will have children first.

2009-01-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Rockin' robin (tweet, twidly-deet)

2008-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

First I cheated on my blog with facebook, now it's on to twitter. Check the twitlints to the right, make an account, follow and tweet with me! What can you say in 140 characters or less? Find out! C'mon.... you'll love it.

The quiet

2008-12-04T22:24:00.000-08:00

Right now, the house is quiet. Everyone has gone to bed. This quiet time to myself is the reason I stay up too late.

Before kids, I had all the time in the world to myself, to read, climb, run, eat, craft, take a meal with friends, hang at a bookstore, go to a movie. They still make movies, right? Now I steal these moments in between family meals, piles of laundry, grocery shopping, reading Dr. Seuss, playing with the shape sorter, visiting the Children's Museum, the Zoo and the libraries, and, of course, work.

Sometimes I feel like I need to be doing something fully qualified as "productive" during these quiet times. Then I remind myself that I need quiet alone time to rebuild who I am. When we're in New York, I'm also hoping to take some time to witness a film or two on the screen. And visit a bookstore without going to the kids section. Check out some galleries and museums and special exhibits. Run by the East River and through Central Park. These make me a better mom, a better wife, a better friend, a better ME.

Will four be any better?

2008-12-03T11:17:00.001-08:00

When they said that it's not the terrible twos you have to worry about, it's the terrible threes, they weren't kidding.

Tick tick tick

2008-11-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

This long, relaxing weekend is moving at a deliciously slow pace, and yet at the bottom of my stomach, panic and worry are brewing.

I have only 13 more work days in the office before I take off for 14 days in New York. My stomach lurches as I write that.

There are 27 days until Santa Claus touches down, alighting upon a tall roof in New York to leave behind a bounty that one hopeful three-year-old Sprout has already dictated in a note. "Bring the same for Coco," he suggests.

In 38 days, Coco will start daycare. He turned one just ten days ago, and I've been turning up the heat on weaning. We're both waffling. When I gaze down at his snuggling form, I see his contented eyes roll around while he reaches to twiddle his hair or touch my mouth. He's comforted, secure; it's the only 100% mommy 'n me time we have together. When he's done, he's all smiles and bounces, happy as can be. Sigh.

When we drop Sprout at school (daycare rapidly evolves into preschool as the kids get older and more involved), Coco dashes into his brother's classroom, kicking a turbo-boost into his crawl when he sees me coming for him. He stands up at the kid table, anxious to see what all those cheerful boys and girls are doing. We will be visiting the wee kids room in the next weeks to start assimilating. At least two other one year olds are starting in January as well, and Coco won't even be the youngest of the bunch.

And in 44 days, dear husband turns 40!

Coco turns one!

2008-11-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's all party, party, party until the cake's gone.

Also known as the important task called gravity testing

2008-11-12T18:51:00.001-08:00

When Coco started saying "Uh oh" this week, it was the cutest thing. Ever. It's one of the few understandable words he says, making it extra adorable.

Tonight, it's adorableness has officially worn off. Piece by piece, he dropped his dinner on the floor.

Pear chunks? Uh oh...

Quesadilla wedges? Uh oh...

Shredded chicken? Uh oh...

Avocado? Uh oh...

He's been cleaned up and turned loose in the living room. I can see him dropping toys and saying, you guessed it, "Uh oh..."

Veteran's Day

2008-11-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a moment to think about how Bill and Barbara met, about 65 years ago in London's Hyde Park. They both had stopped to listen to people on Speaker's Corner. Afterward, Bill walked next to Barbara, matching strides. Neither was a tall person. He asked if he could walk with her. Her reply: "Yes. But that's all."

She was delighted. He was a U.S. military officer. She was a Wren with a longing to see the world, to leave her life in England. They walked again the next day. And sometime after that, they became a couple. During the war they were posted far apart. Their love affair burned hot through passionate postcards they wrote to each other, many with the greeting: My darling... My dearest one... Each note simmered with thinly veiled desire, jealousy and love.

About ten years ago, I had the good fortune to tour England for three weeks with Barbara, my dear grandmother. She took me to many places from her childhood and her young adulthood. She told me so many stories that I keep in my memories and in my heart. We happened to be in London on their wedding anniversary, and I surprised her by taking her to the hotel where she and Bill spent their wedding night. There were issues with her paperwork, and Bill left for the States first. Some months later, she sailed across, a war bride, leaving Leigh, England far behind.

My grandmother was dedicated to tracing the family genealogy, and to this day, if I google her name, I find links to my family history dating back to the early 1800s. It makes me sad to think that our names end up on a lineage only to be forgotten as years pass.

On Veteran's Day, I salute my grandparents, William A. Maybury and Barbara Mayor, who would not otherwise have met in Hyde Park had it not been for WWII.

Bottomless pits

2008-11-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my parents used to say I had two hollow legs. No wonder! Every school day, I walked down, then up, a couple of hundred city steps from the school bus stop to where our house was perched, high on the hill. I ran around, full of energy, climbing tall oak trees, racing bikes and playing it-taggers and hide 'n seek with my friends until the streetlights came on our dead end street.

My parents took me on summer hikes and backpacking trips. We ate granola bars, cored apples refilled with peanut butter and raisins, handfuls of toasted soybeans and drank water from a canteen. We didn't have much in the way of processed foods, that I can remember, except deli meats. We always ate whole wheat bread of some kind. Happy Meals were a rare, but coveted, treat. A weekly eight-pack of bottled soda was reserved for my parents only.

It's a marvel, then, to watch my own little boys burn energy and eat and eat and eat. Tonight Sprout downed half an apple, a grilled cheese on sprouted wheat, 3/4 of a pear, a handful of edamame, a yogurt and a cup of milk. Coco wouldn't touch the edamame (first few tries of most food is almost always a rejection), a whole grilled cheese on sprouted wheat, 1/4 of a pear, a cup of water and some bits of apple. This after consuming a waffle, a yogurt and a huge portion of applesauce for breakfast, two slices of turkey, a slice of cheese, crackers and strawberries for lunch.

There are days when Sprout eats what looks like a pretty big meal then asks for more. And more. An avocado, cheese stick, a bowl of crackers and a slice of turkey later, I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out what to give him sometimes.

If he was sloth-like, I would be worried, but he's not. He's kinetic! Tonight after his bath, I watched him strike super hero pose after pose before the mirror, entertaining himself with BIF! BAM! POW!

There are frustrating nights when he won't eat any dinner, like last night when he rejected chicken and cheese enchiladas, no matter how much I tried to convince him they were just like the burritos he loves so much. When I review what he ate today, I can't complain a whole lot. Some kid elsewhere no doubt dined on a Happy Meal, a soda and a bag of cookies before parking his butt in front of a television for a few hours. I'll trade that for a diced avocado any day.

TagCrowd?

2008-11-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

created at TagCrowd.com

wordle?

2008-11-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

Did they do this when Bush won?

2008-11-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

2008-11-04T21:44:00.001-08:00

Thank goodness I don't have to spend the next four years as an angry drunk. Phew!

If wishes were horses...

2008-11-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

I wish Barbara was still alive. I'd be calling her right now. Without fail, we talked about every federal election. She was one of my role models, showing me my civic duty, my right, my privilege to vote.

2008-11-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Polls are closing. The waiting game begins.

2008-11-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

I remember waking up on Election Wednesday in 2004, hanging over the side of my bed and glaring in disbelief at my radio. Four more years of George Bush. I raged in the car on the way to the office. Cried my eyes out on 65th St. I had to pull over and collect myself.

Compare that to 1992, a quiet evening at home, tipping back a celebratory raspberry lambic.

Tonight I have the option of going to some election parties and tying one on in public. This could be a great scene if Obama reigns victorious. But should he lose, well, nobody likes an angry drunk. Be forewarned, friends, that's probably how I'll be spending the next four years if McPalin are in the White House.

As I watch the NY Times map fluctuate with each control-R, I'm thinking I need to spend the night in my pyjamas on my sofa with my family and the 30-year-old television on a stool and my laptop in arm's reach with a hopeful bottle of lambic chilling in the fridge.

T minus 362 days

2008-10-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

Until I turn 40. Ugh. In the meantime, I ushered the age of 39 in with a fantastic weekend. I treated myself to a small shopping spree downtown, sticking to my birthday tradition of a new pair of boots. Then, with my mom in town, Peter and I were able to get away for 18 wonderful hours.

We left the house around 6:00 on Saturday evening, bound for a night on the town. Peter reserved us a room at the tastefully appointed Mayflower Park Hotel. We scored a room on the 11th (out of 12) floor with a view facing south over Westlake Center. A few blocks away, we dined on steak frites and pumpkin gnocchi at the Virginia Inn. Afterward, we strolled (some of us in our birthday boots) over to Tula's for the big hit of the evening, two sets of smoking jazz performed by Dapp Theory.

The cover was $14 per person for the sold out show. I'm so glad I made reservations in advance, because this was easily the best $14 I've ever spent, and I would have been sad to miss it.

When we moved to Seattle, and I started listening to the local jazz station, I realized there was actually jazz music that I don't like. Who knew? I thought all jazz was of the same vein, but frankly, save the keyboards and other electric instruments, most female vocalists, the Internet's so-called uptempo smooth jazz. Give me Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Parker, Terence Blanchard, the Marsalis men and most of all, John Coltrane.

Dapp Theory sizzled. Poet, John Moon's spoken jazz punctuated the performance. I'm still trying to confirm the name of the saxaphonist because that man positively filled the room with sound. They played two sets, starting at 8:30. During the break, Pete and I were shocked by how many people were leaving. Where is everyone going? we wondered. It was only 10. Street parking was free after 6. It was Saturday night. Belltown isn't that unsafe. Why were people skipping the final set? At New York jazz clubs, there are separate seatings for each set, and most people would think the later sets are the best.

Meh, their loss. We stayed until the end, absorbing every note before floating back to our hotel room for some much-needed time alone. Top it off with breakfast at Lola, and I'd say it was one fabulous birthday weekend.

Marathon, post #1

2008-10-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

The marathon. It is done.

A couple of Saturday mornings ago, we headed to Portland with the car stuffed with kid gear and one small bag of running gear. I forget how much stuff you need to take when traveling with kids, especially two kids of different ages. For Coco: Pack n’ Play, stroller, diaper bag, baby toys, baby snacks. For Sprout: air mattress, books, toys, water bottle, kid snacks. The car was full.

Once in Portland, I picked up my bib then we drove the course. Portland’s marathon may be flat, but it’s also darn ugly. Long stretches pass through industrial zones that cannot be described as even slightly scenic. But flat, it is. We picked several meet-up points along the way: mile 7 and 11, which is the same spot; mile 18; mile 21 and at the finish.

Friends Doug and Carlene hosted the entourage, making us a wonderful dinner of lemon chicken and pasta, grilled squash and corn on the cob. Sprout made himself at home, testing the bounciness of their couches and watching the first 15 minutes of all their G-rated movies. After 15 minutes, he was either bored or scared by all of them.

On Sunday morning, we dragged everyone out of the house by 6:15. Bathroom break count: 1. It was early, but not as early as Peter recommended. On this point, I will admit, he was right. Downtown was clogged, and I was getting stressed inside. I jumped out of the car, blew kisses and joined the throngs of people headed to the start line.

But first, bathroom break #2.

The sky still dark, I squeezed into the masses at the start line and found myself near the 4:45 pacer. Perfect! I can get out ahead of the 5:00 pacer in case I had to make any stops. The air was electric. My stomach full of butterflies and nerves as I conversations bounced around my ears So many people were running with buddies, but I prefer quiet and solitude. I put on my headphones to drown out the nervous noise. Confession: The Jackson Five's I Want You Back makes me smile every time. I defy you to do otherwise:

The start was exciting! Everyone running, smiling, feeling great about what lay ahead. I could barely keep from choking up. My mind raced with thoughts. My first marathon! I am going to do this! Don’t get psyched out… this is just the very beginning. Save all this mental juice for mile 18, when you’ll really need it. I wish my dad knew I was doing this. Don’t cry!

The sky brightened as we dashed through downtown. Crowds cheered. Bands played along the sideline to keep our spirits soaring. As I left the downtown core though, I had that sneaking feeling again.

Bathroom break #3. Bathroom break #4 would happen a few miles later.

Someone had warned me this could be a problem, and suggested taking Imodium to counteract it. Since that would be new to my system, I rejected the idea. In retrospect, it might have been a smart move. That and, I cannot say this emphatically enough, do not eat two ears of corn on the cob for dinner the night before! What was I thinking? I’m not sure how much time I lost, but every pit stop had a line. I’d say at least 15 minutes slipped through my fingers.

Coming up on mile 7, I didn’t spot my support team. I had visions of Sprout pitching a fit and Coco having a “mamamamama” meltdown while Pete was trying to wrangle them to our spot. Then I noticed a pacer up ahead, and nearly burst into tears. It was the 6:00 pacer! I was crushed. How had I lost that much time already? But as I got closer, the sign became clearer: 5:00. Phew. I ran with the pace group for about a mile, but it felt just a little too slow. Little by little, I pulled ahead on the Front Ave. down and back.

Then, as I approached mile 11, I spotted my trio of fans on the sideline. I was feeling good, and seeing their faces boosted my spirits even higher.

Pete handed off a couple of GUs along with some words of encouragement, and I ran onward. My nutrition strategy was to carry some GUs in my pocket and consume one every 5 miles at the beginning, then more frequently as I approached the bridge at mile 17. Pete would restock me, if necessary, at our meet-ups. This worked out fine through the halfway point located on a hateful section of road, which was the dreaded Highway 30: four lanes of traffic with the leftmost lane coned off for us runners. That meant one lane of oncoming traffic continued toward us, with not an insignificant number of semis blowing wind and rain.

Ahhh, did I mention it was raining? Yes, the Portland Marathon which markets that it hasn’t rained in 20 years was a brisk, soggy run for most of us in 2008. I felt sorry for the many women running in tank tops and shorts.

Along this stretch of road, I noticed I had been running near the same participant for some time: Patty the Power Walker. Patty was WALKING as fast as I was running. What am I doing? I should be walking this thing? Or running faster!

With the St. Johns Bridge in my sights, I downed an extra GU. And, I think in the haze of anxiety, another. Not too long after that I started feeling bad. Really bad. I was jittery and nauseous. I must have over-GUed. Don't puke! Keep your head down. Up the hill. Don't puke! There's Patty again. Damn her!!

As I turned the corner to cross the bridge and looked up, I saw that the 5:00 pacer had passed me on the hill when I wasn’t looking. I tried so hard, so very very hard, to keep up with them, but that pacer whisked the group away in front of me. I think this was the start of what they call “The Wall.”

I always thought The Wall was like bonking on a bike ride. In my mind, it meant I couldn’t go any faster, no matter what I did, and it would feel like I was running through molasses. That’s how it is on a bike. And that’s how it started on the marathon. Only what came next was pain, a wall of undeniable pain. Suddenly my right ankle, knee and hip radiated pain. Then my shoulders. OMG, where is the mile 18 Tyelonol-sponsored stand? There isn't one!?!! There SHOULD BE!

My cheering section wasn’t at the first water tower, our agreed upon spot, and I can’t tell you how crushed I was. I hobbled onward, cringing. A mile later, lost in a cloud of pain, I saw a little boy way ahead on the sidelines, hopping. Oh, he looks the same size as Sprout. Hop. Hop. Hop. It IS Sprout!!

He ran alongside me, holding my hand. I told Pete how much I was hurting and he reminded me the end was in sight. Just a few more miles!

The good folks on Willamette Blvd. set up a celebratory balloon archway at mile 20, and at that point I started the countdown. Every mile was marked with a big bunch of blue balloons and a sign, and I strained my eyes to spot the next one with every that I passed. At mile 22, a long downhill passing Adidas headquarters lay in wait. The choices were to run down that hill and die from the jarring pain or walk and live. I chose living and gradually transitioned back into a run at the bottom.

At mile 24, I was offered a beer.

Mile 24! To keep things going, I sipped half a GU and immediately the nausea returned. A long straightaway lead us to the finish line. I couldn’t believe how many people were walking and talking like it was no big thing. I must have passed a hundred people. There it is... the 26 mile sign! The finish chute turned two corners before the runners would see the actual finish line. The announcer called my name and my eyes welled up.

And then, I finished.

My first thought was of my dad. One strong motivating factor for committing to this event related to my dad’s death a year ago. He died of a massive heart attack at 57, far too young. My dad didn’t look terribly unfit, but his arteries were clogged. Eventually one closed off, and it killed him.

My second thought was of my grandmother. She was the picture of elderly fitness into her 80s when she died. She was so healthy, in fact, that at 80 she asked her doctor, “But how am I going to die?” She had a lot of life left to live because she took great care of herself, ate a good diet, exercised regularly. She was walking home from her exercise class, in fact, when she was fatally hit by a car.

Neither of them will know that I look at their lives as examples. I take much more from my dad, but his death has made me take a serious look at my fitness. I want to be a better example for my kids. I don’t want to die young from heart disease. I want to live into my 80s and beyond.

My next thought was of Pete. Without his support, I wouldn’t have made it over the finish. He has encouraged me to try a marathon for years, and I finally took one on. He helped map out a schedule, pushed me out the door when I was feeling lazy, let me off the hook when I was in the dumps, and kept the positive thoughts going all summer. Thanks, schmoopie!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

2008-10-02T22:15:00.001-07:00

The marathon. It's this weekend. I'm scared. I'm excited. I'm trying to keep a positive outlook and to visualize crossing the finish line. In my mental snapshot, I'm smiling and crying.

My training has gone OK. It wasn't 100% by the book, but I got in a bunch of miles. I figured out my pace. Slow, but steady. In the past I had difficulty with side stitch, but running slower has melted that away. I plod on relatively painlessly.

No one ever prepped me for the mental battle that takes place with long distance running. There are highs and really low lows. With each low comes the battle to dig out. Smile, even if it's just on the inside. Enjoy the run. Don't get sucked into the I wanna quit train of thought. Long runs have given me some experience to cope with the low points, but I would like to do better. Eating a GU only goes so far. Here's hoping the excitement of a big event does the trick!

If any of you out there are thinking of doing a half marathon, do it. It's not that hard. I ran one a couple of weekends ago without really thinking about it. You can too! The best thing about training has been seeing improvement. I'm not much faster, but I didn't train for speed. When I started running seven months ago, I could barely run around the 2.8 miles around Green Lake. Now it's not enough distance to get properly warmed up. Running up 50th St. to Phinney Ridge was formerly lung busting. Now it's a fun challenge to do it 2 - 3 times in a workout.

All this running has helped me burn a lot of fat off my post-baby body. As I get older, staying in shape is getting that much harder. A big training goal helps keep me on track, though I still have a ways to go. After the marathon, it's all about the core. I never had abs of anything other than marshmallow before, but currently, my core is a disastrous mess. A peek in the mirror makes me think it's going to be harder work than marathon training.

First, 26.2 miles. Yikes!

on blogging

2008-10-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I barely shared it with anyone. I was nervous about what I wrote and wondered what people would think. After a while, I realized blogging is boring if no one is reading. It's much more interesting to write something and hear what people think. Of course, with only an itty-bitty handful of readers, any non-spam comment makes me smile. Imagine my thrill when my #1 fan from Wisconsin made a comment! OK, she's a dear friend (who should start blogging already!), but I love the idea that I can share what was going on with my friends, old, new and never-even-met, via this medium.

I read blogs for the same reason. I can think of a few of you out there who I rarely see, but who I keep in touch with by reading your blogs. I've learned things about all of you, and I love that you share your lives this way.

So why a blog I'd been reading recently went private, I have to wonder. I'm not planning to ask permission to read it. But I checked in every so often to hear that blogger's voice out of curiosity. Isn't that what this experiment is all about? Blogs are equally boring if there isn't any writing. But if insecurity leads to shuttering the windows, I guess that tells me something about the writer that speaks more volumes than any post ever could. Ever heard of livejournal?

Whatever. Moving on.

The weather

2008-09-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

My inlaws were in town for 10 days in August. "August is the best time to be in Seattle," I boasted. "Never rains! Sunny, warm, glorious days. It's the big secret about Seattle. We have great summers."

Bzzzzzt!

I think it rained more than half of those days, and I needed a jacket (A JACKET!) for the other half of the days. My mother-in-law took to wearing my fleece jacket all day long, even in the house.

No sooner did they depart, looking forward to hot, humid New York City, than summer returned to Seattle. It hasn't rained yet in September, and the forecast looks clear for as far as they can predict.

Where can I move that it's always like this? In the 50s at night for comfy sleeping. Up to 80 during the day. Sunny. Low humidity. Ahhh... this is Seattle's finest.

Blah

2008-09-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

The funk... It has returned.

I'm not sure why. Some ideas:

Election angst.
Pending autumn, which means winter, which means long dark days.
Facing a couple of months without childcare until Coco starts at UTCS.
Wondering how Coco will fare at UTCS in January considering he will need to eat lunch there, drink from a cup, sleep on a cot and play with other kids.
The Olympics are over.
Fear of marathon failure.
Lack of good sleep.
Persistent muffin top.
Chocolate is not low calorie.
Missing my dad and realizing I can't run away from all the estate responsibilities any longer.
Not spending enough time outdoors.
Feeling like there must be a software package out there to help me get more organized but I have no idea what it is.
More election angst.

How are you feeling?

Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal

2008-09-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal
By RICK STEINER
GUEST COLUMNIST
The Seattle Post Intelligencer

While I disagree with many of Sen. John McCain's policies, I was willing to concede that he may at least make a wise, rational president and represent a step in the right direction for the nation. No longer. With his pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, he has shown a spectacular, even dangerous lack of judgment.

In addition to her frightening lack of qualification to be vice president (much less president) of the United States, Palin is an evangelical, anti-choice, pro-gun, right-wing conservative who wants creationism taught in schools. She is currently under investigation by the Alaska Legislature for alleged abuse of office. Many of us in Alaska simply cannot imagine Palin having anything to do with U.S. foreign policy, domestic policy, national defense or the countless other affairs of federal governance.

A particularly worrisome aspect of the Palin candidacy is her abysmal record on the environment during her two years as Alaska governor, and how that would translate into national environmental policy if she became vice president. Her environmental record as governor of the nation's "last frontier" deserves close examination.

Climate change
Although Alaska is ground zero in the crisis of global warming, Palin has done virtually nothing to address the problem except hold meetings and appoint a "climate sub-cabinet" that likewise has done little. Lots of talk, no action. Although in the past two years the Arctic summer sea ice shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, Palin apparently does not believe it is human-induced or cause for alarm. She was asked to establish an Alaska Office on Climate Change, an Alaska Climate Response Fund (based on a tax on Alaska oil production) and emissions reduction targets for Alaska, but has taken no action on those requests.

Polar bears
This summer, Palin filed suit against the Bush administration over the federal listing of polar bears as threatened, saying that her opposition was based on a "comprehensive scientific review." But when asked to release the scientific review, she refused. The document, later obtained by the public (from the federal government), clearly shows that, contrary to Palin's assertions, the state of Alaska's marine mammal scientists agreed with the federal conclusions that the polar bears are in serious trouble because of global warming and loss of their sea ice habitat, and that they would be gone from Alaska by 2050. Palin clearly decided to oppose the listing in order to protect Arctic oil and gas development, then publicly misrepresented the basis for her decision, and then tried to conceal all of that. Having run for office on a platform of honesty and transparency, this behavior was neither. Her extreme position here puts her to the political right of the Bush /Cheney administration.

Endangered species
Earlier this year, Palin approved a $2 million state appropriation for a conference on the "economic impacts" of the Endangered Species Act, designed to persuade the public that ESA listings were too costly and unwarranted. Recently she agreed to use the money instead to fund the state's lawsuit against the Bush administration over the polar bear listing -- a likely violation of the state constitutional provisions on appropriation. She opposes additional species listings and other protections in Alaska, where many species are at risk because of climate change and other threats.

Predator control
Palin approved and expanded the state's aerial predator control program, where wolves are shot from aircraft and bears hunted from aircraft and killed upon landing. This year, her state biologists even dragged 14 newborn wolf pups from their den and, having already shot their parents, then shot each of the pups in the head at close range. Last year, her administration offered a $150 bounty for each wolf killed until the bounty was ruled illegal by the courts. Hundreds of wolves are killed each year by this antiquated state program that has no scientific justification whatsoever, but rather is designed to appease Palin's urban sport hunter supporters.

Pebble mine
Palin aggressively opposed the "clean water initiative" on the August ballot in Alaska (which then failed), favoring instead foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams. She has supported virtually any and all mining proposals that have come her way, even likely the enormous Pebble gold and silver mine proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed. That plan put at risk the largest runs of sockeye salmon in the world, where this summer fishermen caught more than 27 million salmon.

Oil and gas drilling
Palin has supported oil and gas drilling plans anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. On her watch, regulation and government oversight of Alaska oil facilities is terribly lacking, and she has declined to establish a citizens' advisory council to provide more effective public oversight of the expanding oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska.

Exxon Valdez oil spill damages
Palin refuses to push Exxon to pay the government for the unanticipated environmental injuries from the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Almost 20 years later, the private case is still unresolved and the governments likewise have yet to collect full payment from Exxon. Shortly before Palin took office in 2006, the governments presented Exxon with a demand to pay $92 million for this additional environmental damage, but her administration has since not pressed the issue nor taken Exxon to court to collect the money. Meanwhile, Exxon reaps record profits from Alaska.

Trans Pacific shipping
Palin repeatedly has been asked by coastal residents and organizations to enhance the safety of merchant shipping through Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a primary shipping route between Asia and North America, but she's done nothing. Citizens want better vessel tracking, powerful rescue tugs along the route and a risk assessment. While her predecessor funded a scoping study, the Palin administration has not appropriated one dime to improve shipping safety through the Aleutians, and says it will take no further action to reduce risk for several years into the future.

The pattern is clear. On the environment, Sarah Palin is essentially George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and perhaps James Watt rolled into one, but with a more pleasant demeanor. At a time when the nation and world urgently need strong environmental leadership from the United States, it is important to look beyond charisma and carefully consider the environmental implications of our vote in November.

Rick Steiner is a professor at the University of Alaska.

Another Palin

2008-09-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

Working parenthood

2008-09-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Do you suppose Sarah Palin ever spends her day at the dining room table, unshowered, in her pajamas and a big sweater, connected to the office computer via her laptop; breastfeeding the baby; entertaining the older kid with puzzles, videos and music, kissing cheeks; ordering pretend pizzas, strawberry cakes, oranges and cheese crackers from the make believe restaurant; making suggestions on what would be a good model train route; tickling bellies as they scoot past; dashing outside to drag the recycling bins to the curb; getting up to break up scuffles, open yogurts, extract electrical cords and ironing boards out of the baby's hands, to clean up cat puke, pancake syrup and gravity-tester macaroni noodles from the floor after wiping someone's bottom all the while being a productive professional?

Probably not.

But I'm guessing Joe Biden's day didn't go this way either.

I've been cheating

2008-09-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

Dear blog,

I'm sorry I've been a little absent lately. You've been wondering where I've been, what's been on my mind and maybe if I've been writing somewhere else.

I have.

Confessions: I've been on Facebook.

I know, I know... I've been cheating. I'm sorry! It's just that on Facebook, I can sum up how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking about in a few seconds with my status. Facebook is so... so easy. And fast!

If it makes any difference, I think about you all the time. Many are the posts I've written in my mind that somehow haven't made the leap to computer monitor. Things like the continued adventures of working motherhood, Sprout's move to a new class, Coco's crawling and babbling of "mama", Peter's sudden tool lust (that must go with having a new shed), the one year anniversary of dad's death and that whole Palin/teen pregnancy/"family values" thing.

I'll be back, blog. I promise! Facebook is still new and exciting, but it will eventually become part of the routine. And anyway, winter will be here soon, along with the rain and 16 hours of darkness, or so it seems. I'll be back!

But if you find out I'm on MySpace, you have permission to dump me.

xoxoxo.

In other news...

2008-08-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Coco ate a Yo Baby!

Inspired

2008-08-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Last week when I was out for my Sunday run, I bumped into some friends on the course. G. didn't know I was training for a marathon, and asked me cheekily if the Olympics were the cause of what he considered to be bizarre behavior on my part. I answered no and laughed. But today, I wonder how many women across the world woke up, laced up their shoes for the regular Sunday run and hit the pavement inspired by Constantina Tomescu. I know I did.

If you tuned into the race last night, you saw Tomescu open up a comfortable lead over the chase pack. She has an aggressive style, sort of slamming her body into forward motion. When I saw her splits at 5:30 minute miles, I was in awe. At one point, she upped the ante to 5:16! Wow. She runs more than twice as fast as I do. I don't think I could run 5:16 for even one mile!

For my marathon, I am not out for speed. But just to put it into perspective, today I ran The Longest Run Ever, and I was out there for 2 hours 50 minutes and ran 14.5 miles. Tomescu ran 26.2 miles in 2 hours 26 minutes. Indeed there are faster times to ponder, but there was something about watching her out there, running alone just like most of us do on our Sunday runs.

Did I mention she and I are the same age? And she's also a mother?

When she qualified, Dara Torres fever swept the nation. She's even older than I am and has a young child as well. I'm not about to leap into the pool to relive Torres' race, nor will I try to match Tomescu on the next long run (or ever.) But it's wonderfully inspiring to know those women are out there, pushing the boundaries and winning with passion. I'll play their races over in my mind, listening to the crowd roar, to keep me going next Sunday, no doubt.

Happy Monday morning

2008-08-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Coco just called me "Mama!" Now I'll have this doofy grin on my face all day.

Portland or bust

2008-07-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Coco and I survived all that Friday horribleness, whatever it was about. Overtired? He was a positively delightful baby after he got over exerting his VP status. Luckily for Peter, he was gone through all the nonsense, off running RAGNAR until returning home on Saturday evening.

Along those same lines, about a month ago, I did something a little crazy. It was something I'd been talking about doing for a while, and it was time to shut up and put up. So I registered for the Portland Marathon.

Gulp.

Registering meant I had to start hitting those long runs right away if I held any real hope of making it through the entire 26.2 miles on October 5. The amazing thing about long runs is that every one of them becomes known as "the longest distance I have ever run," and that's exciting stuff. Two weeks ago, I knocked off 10.25 miles on a Sunday afternoon, though it was rough going at the end. I was tired, cranky and ready to be done. There may have been a few too many hills for where I was in my training.

So last weekend, I stuck to a very flat route (longest yet!) and focused on steady, consistent running. It went great. Two days off lead to tonight's five-miler, which was my fastest yet. So maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to do this.

Realistically, I am not going for any special time. If I finish the race without walking, barfing or spending half of it in the port-o-potties with a case of the "OMG, what am I doing here" runs, I will be thrilled.

My true motivation is to get into shape and get closer to my pre-babies physical condition. Parts of my body have, errr, shifted slightly, but not alarmingly. More old jeans may be the horizon. (It's embarrassing how many old jeans I cling to.)

This race is also a sweet kiss good-bye to my thirties. For a pre-40 goal, however, I left myself a little buffer. I turn 39 at the end of October, so if I fail miserably at the marathon this year, I still have next year. If I succeed, I have some crazy ideas on what I can do next summer to give 40 a big old open mouth "Hello baby!" kiss. You know, something as if to say, "Brace yourself, 40s. I'm not sliding into middle age just yet!"

If all my plots of physical domination and reunions with old jeans fail, I'll give up and buy a ridiculous car. Either way, I think I win.

MEMO

2008-07-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

To: Wacked out Mommy
From: Coco, Sr. Vice President, Stinky Diaper Inc.
Subject: Hellfire Baby, version 2.0.8

Regarding your letter: Suck it up! I'm a baby. I cry. It's what I do. If I cry a lot, well, you could call me an over-achiever in that category. I like to think that if you're going to do something, you should give it your all. Hence, the deep, guttural screams. Those were really something, weren't they? I gave them a 9.8 myself.

It's not like you haven't been through this before. Am I right? Check the above links to jog your memory.

Look, I just learned how to sit myself up. Crawling is starting to make sense. I will practice all my new maneuvers all the time. During the day, in the middle of the night and at all times in between. Because I can. And I must.

If you play your cards right, I might start eating soon. That's what these teeth are for? Not for nipping you, you say? Don't get too excited. I'm feeling the power of my Senior Vice-Presidency status, and it feels good.

Dear Coco,

2008-07-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

Can we just stop the crying? Please? Pretty please? I'm so over the crying. The screaming.

What the heck do you want? You're fed. You're diapered. I place you in your bed, gently, on your super cozy blankie.

Minutes later, you roll over, pissed off at everything. Spewing bile. Flipping out. Arching your back. Freaking out.

I'm seriously expecting the neighbors to knock on the door and ask what's going on.

GO. TO. SLEEP.

Signed,
Your wacked out Mommy

Childish insults

2008-07-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

My three year old called me a poodle.

Should I be upset?

The weekend

2008-07-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a weekend of working in Portland to find these clues: a box of gluten-free pizza dough mix, a box of gluten-free muffin mix and the fire extinguisher on the kitchen counter.

No one in our home has a gluten allergy. But I think this has something to do with the school picnic Peter and Sprout attended. I wonder what they ended up taking. Pizza without gluten? I don't know about that...

And I hope nothing caught on fire, necessitating the extinguisher. Maybe there was a lesson in fire safety? Sprout is into a fire fighter stage and will pass on a Thomas the Train video in favor of watching a fire safety video instead. (!!!)

Coco, my new blog name the mini-mini-man, started sprouting a third tooth over the weekend. He also appears to be on the brink of major developmental changes related to movement. He's trying so hard to scoot around, and he loves to be supported while standing. This weekend he also sat up all on his own and beamed brightly at this accomplishment. It has yet to be repeated.

Terra cheerfully accompanied us on the trip and toted Coco around town and played with him in the hotel room. Some say "it takes a village," and I am very happy and grateful we have such kind and caring friends who want to share themselves in our kids' lives.

You can give a man a tiny computer, but that won't improve his spelling ability.

2008-07-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

I admit that giving Pete a Blackberry for Christmas was a luxurious gift. But it has paid itself off many times over. For instance, when we were driving to Northampton, Mass. from New York last month, I was 15 minutes from passing out dead due to a lack of caffeine. The Blackberry delivered specific directions to the nearest Starbucks tucked into an obscure shopping center somewhere in Connecticut just 10 minutes away. A good thing, since I was driving.

Using the map function works only as well as the address you enter for your destination, which we learned getting lost on the way to Terra's at 5:30 in the morning.

But there are the times when we order a pizza to be delivered just as we're about to arrive home, hungry and cranky, facing a bare cupboard. Crisis averted.

And there are the times that trivial facts are confirmed or denied during heated ~~arguments~~ discussions, giving someone the opportunity to do the Smarty Pants Dance. Or at least wear a special smug expression.

And there are the times that we've checked our Netflix queue, though it's a painful application and they need to rewrite it. Immediately.

Pete hasn't taken to all aspects of mobile living. His Facebook profile seems stuck on "Wearing a black shirt on a very sunny day," but he does send me sweet missives while riding the bus to work. Oh, and of course there is looking up the bus's ETA while standing on a dark street corner downtown.

There are the times that I receive the odd news updates verbally shared with me after Blackberry buzzes: stock market falls X points; updates on the primary race; scores of earthquake, fire and flooding news; deaths of dignitaries; etc.

This afternoon, Blackberry came through again. Glancing up from the tiny screen, Pete declared, "Ralph Nader won Wimbledon."

"Ralph Nader won Wimbledon?"

"Yeah."

"Really. Ralph Nader."

"Yep."

"Not, 'Ralph Nader announces run for presidency?'"

"Nope. He won Wimbledon."

"And here I didn't even know that he played tennis..."

Dear Dad,

2008-06-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

So the house is cleaned out and your stuff has been given away or sold. Reviewing the itemized list from the auction company was a bit heart-breaking. So little money for things you probably thought had value. I don't care about the money. All I was looking for was for the auction to pay for the house clean out, and it did with a little extra. But I think you would be burned up. All your tools, except for the handful that I took or gave away, are gone. All the interesting things you brought home from job sites, like antique elevator buttons, slabs of marble and light fixtures, are gone. The lumber is gone. The motorcycles are gone. Thankfully, the mannequins and those boxes of "dogs" are gone. :-)

The wind chimes you made are gone, but I will always cherish the one I have. I have the kite reels. The Adirondack chairs you made when I was a little girl are gone. I'm tearing up wondering what happened to them, but please know that it meant the world to me that you made a mini Adirondack chair just for me, to sit in style next to you and mom. I should have found a way to keep those chairs, but that will be my regret to shoulder. I always believed my dad could make anything. Still do.

Summer finally arrived in Seattle this week. I have a vivid image in my mind of you coming home from work on a warm sunny Friday, not unlike today. You walk into the house through the side door, the sun at your back. You put down your tool box and your hardhat by the door. You're wearing white painter pants and a yellow T-shirt, pocket, of course. You're happy. You put on some tunes, turn them up loud (I get that from you) and hop into the shower. We have a nice talk about I don't know what in the kitchen, the windows open, birds singing outside, sunlight filtering through the trees.

No, I don't care about the money. I care that this scene will never take place again except in my memory.

One day, I'll be older than you, you know, since you're frozen at 59. I'll hold you in my heart forever, probably a bit younger, a bit thinner, a bit more of your ideal self. In my version, your heart is healthy, you're fit and strong. I'll never get to see you get old. Never get to see you play with both my boys. Lots of nevers.

I miss knowing you're out there on a Friday like this one, living the above scene that I play over and over in my head. You deserved many more Fridays.

Note to self

2008-06-25T09:52:00.001-07:00

This appropriate reminder appeared in my inbox today with my Crucial Skills newsletter.

"If everybody thought before they spoke,
the silence would be deafening."- George Barzan

And the princess and the queen lived happily ever after

2008-06-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we drove down to the Columbia River Gorge for the wedding of our friends, Doug and Carlene. This being Sprout's first wedding, I prepped him last week on what to expect.

"When the wedding starts, everyone will be quiet. Some people will walk into the room and some people will speak. There will probably be some music. But the rest of us will listen and use our best manners."

"Okay."

"At the end of the ceremony, Doug and Carlene will give each other a kiss, and then we get to clap and cheer. And after that, we go to a party!"

"Okay!"

"Everyone will be dressed very fancy. Carlene will be in a pretty dress. Kind of like that picture of mommy and daddy where you think mommy looks like a princess."

"Oh! And where daddy looks like a queen!"

"Ummm... Do you mean like a prince?"

"No. A queen."

"A king?"

"No! A queeeeeeeen!"

He sometimes gets hot and cold mixed up, too.

And now in stereo!

2008-05-31T17:38:00.001-07:00

When both kids are crying at the same time, like right now, up in their rooms, one through the baby monitor, the other loud enough on his own that a monitor would blow the front door off its hinges, I can't help but think, "Parenthood is the BEST!"

And another thing

2008-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

I think we're starting that whole separation anxiety business.

But, things could be worse... I could be 40 weeks pregnant and sick of it all. Oof.

Mum nums

2008-05-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

The child still won't eat solids. He responds as if either a) I'm trying to kill him with specks of rice cereal and bananas or b) that this is all one big joke, now let's shove our hands in our mouth to block the offensive foreign matter, shall we?

I'm going to have to admit that he's just not ready, and it's driving me crazy. I even offered him a fry tonight, but it didn't work.

Meanwhile he's sprouted a second tooth, weighs a healthy 18 pounds and has a noggin in the 90th percentile. Looks like mommy's milk is doing him just fine.

Grrrrr.

Baby #2 embarks on adventures in solids, lives to tell, but not happily.

2008-05-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

My side of the story: "Get eating, little man, because momma wants to see some sleeping through the night action pronto. Yuuuuummmmmm! Open wide! What, you don't like plain rice cereal? Screw the books. Here's some bananas, too. Eat up!"

His side of the story: "Seriously? This is what all the fuss is about? You people are crazy. Another shot of mommy's milk, bartender, because this food sucks. And these teeth? They're overrated. I'll be seeing you again at nine, midnight, two, five and six o'clock for refills, thank you!"

Resistance is futile. And he knows it.

Those crazy Benin spammers

2008-05-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Don't they run spell and grammar check? And it's quite kind of them to warn me about imposters.

ATTN: BENEFICEARY,

I WANT TO INFORM YOU THAT I HAVE FINAL COVERT YOUR USD$1.2 MILLION TO ATMCARD.I HAVE PAID FOR THE PROCESSING AND DELIVERY CHARGES.THE ONLY MONEY THATYOU ARE GOING TO PAID THEM IS TO OBTAIN THE AFFIDEVIT OF ONWERSHIP FORM THEFEDERAL HIGH COURT OF BENIN REPUBLIC AFTER THAT THERE WILL MAIL YOU THE ATMCARD THROUGH DHL SERVICE.

TRY TO CONTACT THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO QUICKEN THE PROCESSING OF YOURCARD BEFORE YOUR ATM MASTER CARD ATTRACTS DEMURRAGE.NOW WE HAVE ARRANGEDYOUR PAYMENT THROUGH SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTER ASIA PACIFIC,

THIS CARD CENTER WILL SEND YOU AN ATM CARD WHICH YOU WILL USE TO WITHDRAWYOUR MONEY IN ANY ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD,BUT THE MAXIMUM ISFIVE THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS PER DAY.SO IF YOU LIKE TORECEIVE YOUR FUND IN THIS WAY,PLEASE LET ME KNOW BY CONTACTING APEX BANK ATMPAYMENT DEPARTMENT AND ALSO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION AS LISTED BELOW.

1. FULL NAME..............
2.ADDRESS WERE YOU WANT THEM TO SEND THE ATM CARD........
3.PHONE AND FAX NUMBER..........
4.YOUR AGE AND CURRENT OCCUPATION...........
5.COPY OF YOUR PICTURE...........
6.YOUR COUNTRY.......................

THE ATM CARD PAYMENT CENTER HAS BEEN MANDATED TO ISSUE OUT YOUR PAYMENT ANDYOU HAVE TO STOP ANY FURTHER COMMINUCATION WITH ANY OTHER PERSON(S) OROFFICE(s) TO AVOID ANY HITCHES IN RECEIVING YOUR PAYMENT.

NOTE THAT BECAUSEOF IMPOSTORS, WE HEREBY ISSUED YOU OUR CODE OF CONDUCT, WHICH IS (ATM-0811)SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING THE CARD CENTER BY USING IT AS YOUR SUBJECT.

REGARDS,
BARRISTER CHRIS IBOTAA

Thanks for the photos, Terra!

2008-05-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

A Mother's Day prelude

2008-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today was Seattle's first Bike Saturday/Sunday of the 2008 season. The city closes a lovely stretch of Lake Washington Blvd. It's flat, smooth and at the edge of the water with unobstructed views of Lake Washington.

Sprout, Magic and I met Terra at the northern end of the closed section. Though Baby Magic is too small (technically speaking) for regular lugging around town in a bike trailer, I thought it would be fine since we'd be going at Sprout-speed. That is, slow.

Slow, he may be for adults, but Sprout is all heart with a side of impressive endurance. Terra and I coached him as much as we could, directing him to stay to the right and keep his eyes in front. But, being three, Sprout is drawn to the middle of every scene and finds the view behind him much too enticing. He rides a crazy line, and chatters the entire time. We took one long rest stop early on, mostly because he just had to taste those mini peanut butter crackers and the z-Bar I packed. Terra and I were engaged in a good conversation, when Sprout packed up his remaining snack, hopped on his bike and said, "Let's go!"

And we did. He pedaled his itty bitty bike for all he was worth, biking the whole four-mile trip under his own power. He even sported an XS bike jersey and 2006 STP tyvek jacket. Lots of adult cyclists smiled and cheered him on. A big thank you to all the cyclists who rode carefully around us. We really did try to keep a straight line, and you should know that it made his day to ride on the street with the big kids.

A prouder momma I could not have been.

That said, I was certain a round trip was not on our agenda. So while Terra played with Sprout at the Seward Park playground, I booked back to the van with Magic in tow. The pavement was smooth, and I was on my slow bike, so I biked hard for the physical pleasure of it. The baby cooed and giggled behind me. Life was grand for four miles. But when I stopped and flipped up the trailer cover, I saw he had a big pool of drool on his chin.

And it was bloody.

My heart dropped and my brain castigated my poor judgement.... this is why you don't tow babies around! They're too small! Did he bite his tongue off? Shit shit shit!

Wait a minute. He can't bite himself. He doesn't have any teeth.

I peered in his mouth to find the source. Oh. Yes, he does have a tooth! Just a tiny shard of enamel cut through his gums, but there it was. His first tooth.

My boys are growing up at every turn. What a lovely day-before-Mother's Day.

You've got the cutest little baby legs... and hardhat and spiked belt, circa 1985

2008-05-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

Overheard at Barnes and Noble in the magazine section

2008-05-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Twenty-something princess #1: "Kate Moss. Oh my god. I LOVE Kate Moss."

Twenty-something princess #2: "Oh my god. Me too. I am totally in love with her."

Twenty-something princess #1: "I can't believe you have $200 that you haven't spent yet. I would have spent it, like, immediately. How did you get it, anyway?"

Twenty-something princess #2: "Long story short, a good family friend is the attorney for Bill and Melinda Gates."

Me: "Huh? Logic please?"

Twenty-something princess #1: "Wooooowwwwww...."

Flips through magazines and reads: "'How to Make the Most Impact.'"

Me: "Maybe not being such an empty-headed excuse for an intelligent life form would be a start."

Twenty-something princess #1 looking over #2's shoulder: "Eye shadow! I love eye shadow."

Me: "Or that. That could work."

M'aidez!

2008-05-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

Wowza, what a day.

It's May 1, which is the kickoff of bike month. As I work for a bicycle organization, this is serious stuff. We organize a monthlong bike commute contest, and for the second year in a row, I was nominated to be a team captain. This put me in a bit of a pickle because Baby Magic is too young for the bike trailer. My rival team captain, also back for a second term, benevolently granted me a waiver, whereby I am permitted to count my miles if I run to work instead of bike.

This is ideal for me, since I've been complaining about not finding time to train for the Portland Marathon. My rival even generously offered to count my miles as double (!) if I push the baby jogger. I would have to conduct a multi-modal commute: drive Sprout to school, then find an unzoned place to park where I could then run to the office. The run couldn't be too long because I would have to repeat it at day's end.

Well, I seized the day. Or should I say, I wrangled the day. This morning it was a case of the usual madness: me standing outside in my jammies trying unsuccessfully to fit the Burley jogger into the trunk; Sprout running around in his underwear playing trucks instead of getting dressed; shoes no where to be found; Magic bawling; the phone ringing; etc. etc.

I managed to make drop-off and find a good parking spot before embarking on my 2.44 mile run. Upon arrival, my day ramped up immediately with conference calls, graphic demands, members randomly dropping in to ask random questions, an email every nine minutes, nursing, attempted naps, a server move, more graphic demands, more emails, more phone calls, the usual haranguing and browbeating and constant interruptions. My entire day was set aside for one chunk of tasks that I got to spend about two hours on, if that. At one point, I was 30 seconds from putting my head down, raising the white flag, bursting into tears and assuming the fetal position.

Finally quitting time rolled around whereupon I stuffed my gubbins back into the jogger (which involved removing a wheel first), strapped the miniman in and set off running 2.44 miles back to the car. Convinced I was late for Sprout's pick-up, I screeched into the school's driveway. A fellow mom just leaving offered to hang at the car with Magic while I dashed upstairs for Sprout. Her daughter "had to climb on the wall anyway." A fellow multi-tasker!

The classroom scene: trucks, no socks or shoes. Sprout agreed to quickly depart until Marco (Marco!) said, "Wait for me, Sprout! I want to leave with you!" And of course, Sprout delighted in this affirmation of his popularity and demanded that we should wait for Marco.

Well, Marco's mom was immersed in some conversation with the teacher and was not budging, so I was left to say sixteen times, "Marco needs to wait for his mommy, and we need to go downstairs where Layne's mommy is watching Colin."

Must've been the seventeenth time before it clicked for Sprout, and I hustled him out the door. We were just down at the top of the stairs when another little girl, Bess, chased after us.

"Where's your dad, Bess?" My desperate question was met with only giggles. And then suddenly Marco appeared to join our merry gang.

Why, I ask you, was I trapped in the stairwell with three kids and no other parents around? Try reasoning with a 3 1/2 year old that he needs to go back upstairs to find his mother instead of giggling on the stairs. Right.

After everyone was packed safely in the car for the quick ride home, Sprout hit me with, "I had a big fight at school today!"

The interesting thing about three-year-olds is that, for the most part, they are brutally honest. Even to the point where Sprout has said he doesn't like my hair in a ponytail. At least he hasn't yet said that these pants make my butt look big. Anyway, though they may be honest, they are not always accurate or linear in their explanations. I heard some tale about an argument over a red shovel with Levi in the sandbox. I don't think anyone was bonked, but I can't be sure.

Oh, and before I even got out of bed this morning, I had to explain how the doctor extracted Baby Magic from my tummy. I left out the whole incision bit and went for the more generic "and the doctor helps the baby come out of the tunnel" version.

Lord, I'm exhausted.

Pending: 1 friend request

2008-04-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

There is an e-grenade in my inbox. Someone from high school friended me. "Hi, past!"

What to do?

I must be doing something right

2008-04-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

I was carded this weekend. Twice!

First, when buying a six-pack of Cinder Cone Red from the Queen Anne Metro Market. The clerk looked about my age, which is nearly 40. Hold on, gotta retch. aaaaackckckckckkkaghghhg!!! OK better now. When I smirked, he said, "What, they don't card you anymore?" Then I handed him the card and he said, "I'm surprised!"

I figured this to be just a little ego boost when the next night while buying a bottle of wine along with a cardload of groceries at Whole Foods, the clerk there also carded me. This was especially odd since 1) Whole Foods is a regular haunt and 2) I am positive this clerk has waited on me dozens of times.

So uh, cheers to me!

A funny

2008-04-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house. And there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the hall, he found the coat rack had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall.

In the front room the TV was blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, and the fridge door was wide open. Dog food was spilled all over the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know how every day, you come home from work and ask me what in the world I do all day?"

"Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

Running fast but not getting very far

2008-04-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

I am trying to find the time and clarity to write. The days are a blur of wake, eat, shower, drop-off, work, eat, baby, baby, baby, work, pick-up, eat, stare at ceiling, sleep, baby, baby, baby.

Somehow I got this crazy idea that I will run the Portland marathon this year, but where oh where do I fit run, run, run and then run some more into that schedule? Magic is still waking up several times a night, only now he is in his crib in his room down the hall instead of next to my side of the bed. I think parents lose brain cells and gain wrinkles from having their sleep constantly interrupted by a baby. I've been holding out hope that when he turns six months and starts solid foods that he'll sleep longer at night. Then I read in a book or on a website that this is a myth, and I just about cracked up. If he doesn't start sleeping through the night, there is no way I can do a marathon.

But today is today. Sprout is in a good mood this morning. Magic is chortling in his bed. The coffee is strong. Back to the office, day 9, here we come.

Where did the time go?

2008-04-13T17:04:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow, I am headed back to the office fulltime. I have one week of in-law support to keep Magic entertained at home while I grind my gears at work. Then next week, we start bring your baby to work (every) day!

Will Baby Magic bean someone with a rattle at the staff meeting?
Who will steal Baby Magic's lunch from the fridge like they stole mine from the freezer?
Will he pound the keyboard and wipe out a day's worth of work in quick, two-fisted action?
Will the dogs howl when the baby cries?
Who will be revealed as an ususpecting baby fan? Or baby hater?
Will I loose my sanity?
Hmmmnnnnnn?

Stay tuned.

Is that a faint light at the end of the tunnel?

2008-04-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

The past week has been a jumble of emotions, activities and memories. And one massive cloud of dust on top of one massive mountain of stuff.

We started out strong. The first layer of stuff in the house was fairly easy to deal with. Trash goes in the black trash bags for the dumpster. Usable items go white trash bags for donation. Black. White. Black. White.

After clearing out 3/4 of a dumpster full of black bags and delivering multiple loads of white bags, the layers underneath required more thought and emotional output. My dad's certificate from carpenter school. All the postcards I ever sent him from all across the country and around the world. The list of items in his own (fucking bastard) father's estate. Old quilts. Architectural antiques (white or black?) Pins, buttons, stickers. Caps, helmets, hard hats.

My father saved utility bills for years and years, all neatly ordered and stacked. I have no idea why. Magazines. Catalogs. Newspapers. Mannequins (?). Tools. Building supplies. Appliances. Stereo equipment. Televisions. Stuff, stuff, stuff.

My heart has broken a million times in the past week. Every time I see a photo of my dad as a kid, a teen, a hot twenty-something, and a good-looking thirty-something, a mellow forty-something, and a tough-riding fifty-something, I stare at his face, tracing the lines of my nose, seeing the origins of my personality.

As the estate administrator, I'm charged with making many difficult decisions. My mind is filled with conversations with my dad as I explain why I'm doing things the way I am. We need to finish this job, dad. We can't be left with this house, dad, with these things. Our hearts will hold safe all the memories as long as our minds are capable. Every day I am here, dad, I wish for you not to be gone. Dead.

When I'm driving away from the house each evening, my body is tired, slumped from the load. I cry and cry and cry.

Does not handle stress well

2008-04-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

I am bugging out.

Tomorrow I have a 6 a.m. flight to Pittsburgh to work on my dad's estate. The pile of tasks we have to deal with over the next week is smothering me. The house. All the stuff in the house. The truck. The bank. The lawyer. The courthouse. The memories. The grief.

My dad was a packrat. I think he still has receipts from 1987. We are going to need an industrial strength shredder for the acres of paper. I can't even fathom the other layers and layers of stuff that we need to sort through. It's making me feel panicky.

On top of all this, the wee one is going with me (or rather, with his milk source), making me worry more about how much I'll be able to get done without letting him lay there and entertain himself. My mom and brother will be there, too, thankfully. My rock, Peter, will be staying at home with Sprout. His parents are coming into town to visit and help out. They'll be here for a week after I get back -- the week I go back to work.

big sigh.

Na na na na... na na na na... hey hey hey... stay dry...

2008-03-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Time is marching on and I feel like I am standing still. Other than setting up my Facebook profile, I don't have a lot to show for my days. And yet, I haven't gotten around to blogging about the St. Patrick's Day Dash (first step to a marathon), Maui (amazing water) or all the wonderful changes taking place in Littleboyhood.

Some months ago, I blogged about our first serious foray into potty training. From that weekend on, Sprout consistently made twice daily deposits, and we bid bye-bye to the poopy diaper. After a couple of weeks of proud big boy status for making regular pees in the toilet, he realized, "Hey, this is WORK. It's RESPONSIBILITY." He got lazy, relying on his pull up instead of dashing to the bathroom if his bodily functions threatened to interfere with important play.

We couldn't complain. He was doing most of the work and we were simply the support team. Still, I was annoyed every time I purchased another pack of overpriced training diapers. For weeks, he's been wearing them under a pair of undies. Though the pull ups have remained dry, even through the night, Sprout wasn't ready to ditch them entirely. "I'm potty training," he told us every day while insisting on the extra layer. Part of me suspects it was the appeal of wearing any article of clothing emblazoned with Lightening McQueen.

There must have been something about freedom of swim trunks on vacation because Sprout has gone pull-up free for 96+ hours now. My fingers are crossed, but I think he's made it. Bonus points: daycare fees drop with potty training!

Quietly now: yahoo!

On Facebook, another crotchety 30-something.

2008-03-27T15:57:00.001-07:00

Recently a sub-30 (sub-25?) friend created a networking group on Facebook for classmates of a UW-Extension program I was taking. Without having any idea what this would bring, I created my Facebook profile.

Can I just ask all you relentless networkers out there -- you know who you are -- HOW DO YOU FIND TIME FOR ALL THIS?

It's not like Facebook has demanded much, but it has sucked away hours of my day already! My half-baked LinkedIn profile is still twisting in the wind out there. Thank gawd I never got into Friendster or MySpace (shudder). A few friends and I tried and failed at keeping a group LJ. Keeping this blog even remotely interesting has been challenging enough. I can't even get all the pictures off my digital camera and posted onto Snapfish in a timely manner. Having never found a need for it before, I only just got into IMing. And no, I do not want to "chat" lest I waste any MORE time. And can anyone tell me why webcams don't project sound?

When I wasn't looking, I inched closer to 40 than 30. This being the networking age and all, I feel somewhat compelled to join all these networks. But tell me, does anything ever come of it? Do we get smarter? Faster? Better informed? Richer? Thinner maybe?

Or, just overexposed?

Little boys

2008-03-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

All hail! His majesty of royal three-ness!

2008-03-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

This one goes out to Joey, Albert and that other kid I was madly crushed out on back when they let me play D&D with them in 1985.

2008-03-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

OMG, there I am in the bottom left corner under Doubting the technical accuracy of this diagram --> Yes --> Blogging about diagrams! I won't tell you how I got there, but let me just say how proud I am of that ATM interface I programmed in Pascal once upon a time.

Ever so briefly I lived in the Preferred painting pewter figures box, but it didn't lead to boys. In fact, I think this needs a version for the dozen or so girl D&D players. My story would go something like this:

Exposed to D&D early in life --> Yes --> Tapped a never-ending vein of geek boys who were afraid to make a move --> Eventually tackled one and married him.

The. End.

Simon's Cat

2008-03-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Muffins anyone?

2008-03-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing about lording myself over those fallen pre-pregnancy jeans... eventually, enough grime builds up so that they need to be washed. People in New York and Tokyo pay hundreds of dollars to have jeans abused by a machine to replicate just the kind of look I achieve through a week or three of baby drool, cracker smudge, toothpaste, and whatever that black smear was. I, however, prefer to look at least modestly clean. My jeans bounce back, clean, stiff and shrunk back to shape, which means the vanquishing starts all over again.

Gypsy passed on this tip: Stuff both legs into each pant leg, then pull them up to stretch out the denim. So there I was, laying on the bed, grunting, flailing around kind of stuck with both legs in one side of my old jeans. Neo the cat gave me his usual You people are too strange look. When that was done, I squeezed myself in and, fly down, did a bunch of squats. Gingerly, I snagged the first button. Squat-squat.

The second button. Squat-squat.

Until finally the last button yielded.

It was out of a commercial for something I would never consume, like Lite Yogurt, where the mom is hopping around the house trying to get into those elusive jeans while the baby watches in wonder as she hops back and forth before settling down to a bowl of special K and fat-free yogurt while sitting cross-legged (!) on the floor (!!) gazing at her baby with a smug smile.

Or maybe it was a commercial for Spanx. Gypsy has been extolling the virtues of these modern girdles. I gather that they compress the wiggly jiggly stuff and make it smoother and more flattering. Right about now, I'm wondering if they make Spanx that can hoist unsightly muffin top into sexy cleavage. There are millions to be made here.

So much good cake, so little will power.

2008-03-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finally squared away the details of our vacation. We're going to Maui, baby!

A trip to the sunny warm beach is just what I've been looking forward to. Or was looking forward to. Because this afternoon was Try on all my summer clothes!!! afternoon. Neither my post-baby body nor my post-pregnancy psyche were ready for this.

Hope springs eternal but hips spring elastic.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Yes, those cute, slim-cut capris do zip and look OK from the front. From the back, I seem to have a case of VFOSPL, visible from outer space panty lines. Seriously! Check google earth!

All three bathing suits leave something to be desired. Something that a fourth, or even a fifth bathing suit couldn't satisfy. The tankini is a little too 'ini and needs some more tank to it. The Speedo is from my more, shall we say, athletic days. Its busy, red pattern does distract, nay blind, the eyes, however, which could prove advantageous. And the super-cute black halter-cut suit I got halfway through pregnancy looks OK. Unfortunately, it begs the question: Am I ready to slide into middle age with a skirted bathing suit?

The things we women go through when it comes to bathing suits, I'm telling you. Here is how it goes for men: Speedos? Or trunks? As if that needs pondering.

I didn't even get to the summer shirts. The buttons aren't ready for what I've got going on.

Turns out my big problem is food. I simply have to have it! Making good food choices is easy, right? For me, it's all about taste. Like that piece of coconut cake I had this afternoon; it tasted good.

Where can the angel on my shoulder score a taser so she could zap me hard when I reach for things like coconut cake? I'd wake up flat on my back in front of the cake display at Whole Foods, the coconut cake would be I don't even know where, splattered on the ceiling maybe? I'd slink my way out of the store all the better for it. Of course if this kept happening (which it would, have you seen their cake cooler?!), they'd probably ban me from shopping there and I'd be forced to buy groceries online, which I hear is a good thing, but it means I wouldn't be able to oogle cakes anymore.

Shit.

So, Plan B. I will be kicking it in gear over the next three weeks and hitting the pavement for regular runs as much as possible. Tootsie Pop (aka, Baby Magic) cooed me on for the whopping 2.5 miles I managed to run last week all in one push, thank you very much, with him and his carseat in the Burley jogger. We set an aggressive pace. Only the fittest of senior citizen power walkers passed us. Still, this very short run left me so pooped at the end of the day that I fell into bed a cranky mess.

Plan B is hard! But since getting shocked to the ground every time I think about cake (read: all the time) is impractical and possibly masochistic, it will have to do. Thank goodness I am breastfeeding or else I might have to run something insane like FIVE miles.

How I charmed the man who suggested I pay him to come into my home and bomb it with poison.

2008-02-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

Me: "So you mean these ants don't have a queen?"

Erik the Exterminator: "No. It wouldn't matter anyway. Like I could find that one ant in the nest anyway."

He totally shattered everything I read about ants on the Internet in that single statement.

Me: "I just thought, you know, that the queen would be bigger or that all the other ants would be marching her way to pay their respects. Or maybe there would be all these trumpeter ants lined up on a sweeping golden staircase leading to her throne."

Erik: "And they'd all shout out, 'All hail the exterminator!'"

Me: "YEAH!! Like that! And then you'd assassinate her! And the rest would die in sympathy or be taken over in a military coup and forced into ant slavery at someone else's anthill."

Erik: "I like you. You're funny."

The Ant Man

2008-02-25T21:14:00.001-08:00

About a month ago, I noticed a startling increase in ants in our kitchen. Then I spotted a few ants here and there in other rooms of the house. I smashed them, washed them down the drain and groused about their presence daily. When I found a few on my bedsheets, I thought I would lose my mind. So I called an exterminator to see what they would suggest.

Sprout was enthralled by the idea that A MAN would be coming to our very house in A TRUCK to check out the ant situation. Can you guess how he reacted when Erik the Exterminator showed up wearing BIG BOOTS? He was on this guy like ants on a piece of cat kibble.

We followed Erik around the house as he peeked around corners and pointed out what had to be high on mushrooms scout ants walking in stoned circles around the bathroom floor. Because really, food? In the bathroom?

Sprout was begging to engage him in conversation, so he pointed out any ant he spotted. Eventually Erik relented and asked him, "Have you ever seen an ant on the ceiling?"

"YES!" my young son enthusiastically told him, though I, the lucid and rational adult representing our family unit and our checkbook, had not.

"Really? Where?" asked Erik.

"In the kitchen!"

"I haven't ever seen them on the ceiling," I said. "You should probably take what he says with a grain of salt."

"So you saw it in the kitchen?"

"Yes!" Then his eyes got big and very serious. "And, and, and... I saw a great big mommy ant over by the stove!"

I don't know how the ants felt about that statement, but I just about died.

Maybe I misunderestimated her?

2008-02-23T18:12:00.001-08:00

Today a guest speaker in a class I am taking used the word irregardless.

Twice.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog for a dose of serious navel gazing

2008-02-14T14:11:00.001-08:00

I am not much for thinking about life after death, mostly because I think that when we die, we're gone. That's not very uplifting, but I've always accepted that the stint we get to have here on Earth is a one-time gig. For a long time, no one close to me had died, so it was easy to accept the black hole as what exists (or doesn't) after we're dead.

Then, my grandma died. A few months before it happened, Peter and I were visiting her, and she played a song for us, Sting's "Fields of Gold." I'll never forget how we were touched and puzzled that this particular song moved her. I'll never forget saying goodbye to her that day, kissing her cheek and telling her that I loved her. I'll never forget the call, three years and 361 days ago, telling me about the accident. I was in the process of making her Valentine.

Since that day, I hear "Fields of Gold" all the time, several different versions in all kinds of settings. I never fail to pause and think of my grandmother. Despite my grim outlook on the afterlife, I imagine her smiling at me from a field of gold. It makes me ill thinking about my grandma and my dad just gone, like that. But since no one has gone over and come back with proof, black hole of nothingness it is.

(And besides, if we lived on, what age would we be? And how old would our relatives and friends be? And what if we were widowed young and remarried? Who would we shack up with in the afterlife? And what about the animals? There must be animals everywhere! Would we have to be vegetarians because, think about it... killing animals in the afterlife to eat them only to have them come back again?! See, there are just too many logistics. My head hurts.)

Someone asked me yesterday how I held it together when my dad died. I took a deep breath and told her that his death is with me every day. Every single day. Back when we were trying to find a name for Baby Magic, I used to read the movie credits in case some fabulous name popped out at me. I went to the movies this morning, and found myself scanning the final credits again when two names happened to line up like so:

key grip: ralph reynolds
best boy: kelly jones

My dad's name is R a l p h K e l l y.

On the way home, I saw an eagle circling overhead. Yes, we have eagles in this area, but I rarely see them, especially in the urban setting. I've been struggling with an issue related to my dad's death over the past few days. I've been wishing for my dad's guidance, wishing I knew what he would have wanted. Why couldn't that eagle have dropped me an answer? Maybe it did, and I just need to figure it out.

Just part of the show

2008-02-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

There's something about breast feeding that makes magical things happen. My babies fatten up and I slim down into my old jeans faster. And almost anywhere I make that move to discreetly nurse a baby, crowds will gather.

It's true. Every time I opt to nurse in the car, our parking spot turns into a hotbed of activity. The parking spots on either side of us are inevitably vacated and reoccupied. I've watched three generations tumble out of Suburban after Suburban while nursing the babe in the parking lot of Bellevue Square. In Wallingford, a large carload of teenage boys spent ten minutes shoving and jostling outside my window. In Madison Park, coffee clatches have broken out and entire running clubs have stretched on the bumper just beside us.

One time, a cab parked perpendicularly in front of my car, and the driver sat right in front of me reading a paper.

If I duck into an otherwise empty hall of dressing rooms at a department store, it's only a matter of minutes before a gaggle of high school girls storms the hall with piles of prom dresses draped over their arms.

Now I realize there are few people who will choose to come in close proximity to a nursing mother and baby. But it's amazing how I can gather a crowd together at just the exact moment when I'd hope to repel people instead. So I've decided to stop trying.

Last Friday at the Children's Museum, my usual quiet spot was occupied by a surly teenage boy listening to is iPod. No doubt he was forced to the museum by his parents while some younger sibling ran wild elsewhere. I wasn't quite brave enough to damage his psyche by whipping it out and feeding my tot next to him, so I set about looking for a new spot.

Remembering that the exhibits at the far ends of the museum saw few visitors, I dragged Sprout to the far reaches where we set up shop in a Polynesian hut. He sat next to me on a wicker chair and we read books quietly through the first half. It was quiet enough, and though I am adept at keeping all the interesting stuff covered, one can still tell what we are doing. Then, I don't know what happened. It seems a tour bus of Russians found the Polynesian hut and voted it THE MOST FASCINATING EXHIBIT IN ALL THE MUSEUM. The hut filled with Russians. Russians pretending to make tea in the kitchen. Russians peering at the framed photographs on the hut walls. Russians reading the Polynesian newspapers. And a Russian grandmother fixing a steely Soviet glare on me.

I held my own, giving her the old Nothing to see here... Move along... Nothing to see... look. I think something was lost in the translation. This woman oozed mean at me.

It would be really, really nice if the museum offered a tiny space for nursing moms to feed babies discreetly. We don't need much. Barring that, next time, I would at least like to wear a batik muumuu and some sort of headgear so we could blend into the exhibit a little better.

A sign of my decline

2008-02-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

I caught a glimpse of Jeannie Tate's thumbnail in The NY Times and thought, "That's a nice haircut!"

I am totally growing my hair out.

Neti, meet Willy

2008-01-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

There's no doubt in my mind that using the Neti pot to flood out a sinus infection is pretty gross. But it's gross and fascinating in the same way that people candle their ears, exfoliate their skin, pop pimples and engage in therapeutic enemas. I've netied a few more times now and it seems to be helping. If nothing else, it fulfills the primal human urge to rid the body of gunk.

That guy drowning his septum in whisky had the right idea, but the wrong execution method. Back in college, my freshman friends and I were bored with the idea of merely drinking alcohol, doing funnels and shotguns, so we came up with brilliant idea one night to up the ante: The Chilly Willy.

I have no idea who suggested it, probably some frat boy dared us. It goes like this: turn a shot glass upside down and set on the table. Note that an inverted shot glass has an indentation on the bottom, just deep enough to hold a small amount of liquid. Fill indentation with Southern Comfort. Hold shot glass to nostril. Block other nostril with finger. Snort Southern Comfort. Amaze everyone at the party. Repeat on other nostril because imbalance sucks.

My friend Connie and I quickly became Chilly Willy regulars. I guess it appealed to our post-adolescent need to be seen as serious party girls. Though I have never snorted any other substance up my nose, I have snorted Wild Turkey, which stung too much. Connie liked vodka, but Southern Comfort was our hard booze of choice, in the mouth and up the nose.

I wonder what a Chilly Willy would do for a sinus infection?

Nifty neti

2008-01-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

OK, like everyone else out there, I've been nursing a cold for more than two weeks. The symptoms hae dwindled down to a constant need to blow my nose or violently suck the phlegm down my throat. It's been lovely. I woke up yesterday with a distinctly new pressure on my face and sore teeth. Google "sinus infection" and "sore teeth" and you'll find all sorts of dire predictions including death if this goes untreated.

Unwilling to die over this, I managed to score a same-day appointment at the clinic. By the way, what is with doctors these days? Are they starting med classes in elementary school?? I felt like I should have been reading her a nursery rhyme or helping build a tower out of blocks.

The exam consisted of peering in my cranial orifices, prodding my face and shining a light through my cheeks. All I knew was that I wanted to take a power drill to my right cheek to relieve the pressure, as long as my insurance would cover it.

"Nasal irrigation" was the suggested course of treatment. My young doctor admitted to having never put fluids up her nose voluntarily, but she was recommending it to me.

A few weeks ago, I had read a story in the New York Times about Neti pots, all the rage since Oprah anointed them on her show. (Note to Oprah: Could you bless my mutual funds please?) Interestingly, this story about pouring saline into your nostril to flood out snot was found in the Fashion & Style section. I would have thought irrigation of any sort would have fallen under Home & Garden myself.

So armed with a scrip for antibiotics in case the irrigation didn't work out, off to the new age pharmacy I went. Neti pots are kind of cute. They look like tiny teapots. But try as I might, I just couldn't get into the idea that I would be able to pour water through my nostril and it would miraculously come out the other nostril, not pour down my throat and drown me.

I came home empty-handed and sought reassurance from that ever-dependable source of visual information: YouTube.

Now that doesn't look so hard, does it? And guess what, it's not! I am now the proud owner of a little white Neti pot. After two irrigations, I am amazed at the clarity of my breathing. I still have some sinus pain, but it is less severe. Maybe I should go more hard core:

Nobody make a sound.

2008-01-18T14:58:00.000-08:00

Behind a layer of Seattle overcast, the sun does appear to be in the sky, and yet both children are asleep in their respective beds AT THE SAME TIME! I don't even know what to do with myself because I thought a miracle of this magnitude was just not possible. What animals must be sacrificed to make it happen again?

With my projected 15 minutes of blissful silence, I'm going to lay on the couch and enjoy a snack that I call ghetto Reese's Cups: a big spoonful of peanut butter topped with chocolate chips.

Who says the first three months are the hardest? How about year three?

2008-01-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

Can you hear that where you are? You, in Magnolia, California, Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, Canada, Switzerland and Brazil, can you hear that demonic noise? Scary, isn't it.

That's my boy!

He's upstairs in his room screaming AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS the litany of things that he doesn't want to do including, but not limited to:

staying in his room
taking off a yucky nighttime pull-up
wiping his bottom after pooping
wearing pants
eating his breakfast
washing his hands, ever
letting me look at him
permitting the cats to exist
standing and sitting (he doesn't yet know what levitating is, but I fear he's working up to it)

There have been a few other items thrown in that I cannot understand through the rage. It can be frightening to see your child's head spin and shoot bile outside of a horror film set, but rest assured that it won't fall off.

Who is this person? I googled "how to deal with tantrums" and no one came up with Leave home! Get drunk! Join the circus! Because that's how I feel right about now.

Of course, I can't quit this parenting thing, and this, too, shall pass. But what a way to start the day!

I must go now. The spewing has suddenly halted and has been replaced by the sound of moving furniture. Oh wait! Did you hear that? He's hollering "MOMMY I HAVE MY PANTS ON!"

But are they on his legs or the horns that have sprouted from his head?

Nom de plume

2008-01-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

When we opened the envelope last summer and found out Baby Magic was a boy, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was totally OK -- even feeling like I had dodged a bullet -- with not having a girl in our household.

Then my friend Kelli recently announced that she has a girl baby on the way to join big brother Dillon. When I read her post, I felt a pang somewhere deep inside me. At first I tried to put it off as indigestion, but the more I read, the more I thought how nice it would be to have a little girl to pal around with me.

In fact, before we knew Baby Magic's sex, my mind swam with girl names, my favorite being Colette. With what would have been her last name, I had dubbed her Coco in my mind. She would be tall, of course, and willowy, so unlike me. Cute, athletic and too smart to let boys get one over on her during her teen years and beyond. She spoke fluent English, French and Italian. I had written Coco's life into early adulthood, when she and I regularly had lunch together and planned climbing trips with her as the designated rope gun. I was so proud of my beautiful strong imaginary daughter.

Visions of Coco disappeared along with her name when we opened that envelope. The business of picking a boy name proved much harder. Peter had his list. I had mine. My coworkers had theirs (Fausto, Bruno and Squamish among the thoughtful suggestions.) The negotiations ensued.

I had one name that I dearly loved and at first I held it close to my vest. I was worried that if I put it out there with all the love I had for it, Pete would shoot it down with pinpoint accuracy. And I was right. He hated it.

Turnabout being fair play, I, naturally, despised his favorite name. We were deadlocked and had only a couple of weeks to go.

Armed with short lists, we held several rounds of unproductive talks. Several of these meetings ended in someone storming out of the room. It always came back to our first picks and how perfect they each were, just not to each other.

The week before Baby Magic was born, Pete hauled home an enormous book of names. I looked at him incredulously. More names??! How could we cope with MORE NAMES?

But this being the man that I married, Peter didn't only find the long list of names appealing. It was the various sorting of names and the suggested method for winnowing down a list through analysis that this book specifically offered. Each name would be put through a rating system by each of us, and we would compare scores.

But can't we just feel good about the name? Why do we have to put them through analysis? I whined characteristically. Peter was determined we should do this, and he produced a stack of score cards and set the date for our next round of talks. Typical analyst.

As skeptical as I was, analyzing the names this way was very informative and useful. As expected, we each ranked our favorites highly, but it was seeing how close we were on an assortment of other names that was enlightening.

At 5 p.m. the night before our date with our baby, we named him. Moments after our congratulatory toast at a local cafe, the decision was nearly derailed when I listed a number of famous Colins: Hay, Farrell, Firth and Powell. Colin Powell? Peter was consumed by the idea that Colin could be pronounced Coolon, which sounds like colon. Eeek! [Note to all: Never ever call him Coolon.]

But settle on Colin we did. It was weeks later that I saw the similarity to Colette. Maybe I'll get those lunch and rock climbing dreams some day after all. But if he turns out to be a tall, willowy drag queen, he can always call himself Coco.

Small victories

2008-01-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

I squeezed into a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans this morning! And these were 100% cotton, no stretch Levi's. OK, so they were a bit snug and I may have damaged an internal organ when I zipped them, but they were on.

Woo-hoo! It's these kinds of victories that keep the campaign motivated. You know, like Mitt Romney and Wyoming.

Wanted: Brave friends who have kids the same age as ours

2008-01-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

No family nearby? Want to get away for a long weekend without the kids but the kennel won't take humans in puppy suits? We have the same problem.

Sure it would be fun for us all to hang out together, but let's get real. What we all really want is to ditch our kids and get out of Dodge for a couple of days to a place where we don't have to eat at 6:30 or be on the constant lookout for playgrounds.

Let's swap sleepovers!

Folks, we've done the math and a blissful adults-only weekend away skiing, hiking, sailing, climbing, eating dinner at 8:30, drinking until we puke, is easily worth a weekend of herding four kids, eating pizza, pitching tents in the backyard, flying kites, watching Sponge Bob videos and practicing the burp alphabet. It's true that four kids do outnumber two parents, and there may be midnight crying jags of homesickness. But when you add up the benefits, it's hard to go wrong on this deal. Look, if preschool teachers can do it with a 6:1 ratio, surely we're up to the 4:2 ratio!

But wait, there's more! Drop your kids off by Friday at 5:00, and you can still get a flight to Vegas that night! Red Rocks next weekend, baby! Or slot machines and the Blue Man group if you prefer. We'll even extend this special offer by a few hours to keep the magic alive. Just pick them up by 8 a.m. on Monday, and we'll still be friends. Any later than that, and there's a bottle of wine surcharge per half hour.

Act now! We're booking into winter 2008/09 when Baby Magic is scheduled for a sippy cup.

Fine print: Potty training not required. Weaning requirement may be waived under special circumstances. Special mac & cheese only dietary restrictions may apply. House must be childproof and fun-filled. Both parents should be present due to the risk that one adult may not survive the 4:1 ratio. Children should be prepared to run, play and act silly; whining prohibited. Warning: extensive use of videos may be used on extreme rainy days. Offer has no monetary value. Void in households with biters.

He's got the best seat in the house

2008-01-05T14:32:00.001-08:00

You know you're a mother when...

2008-01-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

you've got your feet in the stirrups for a PAP and you're entertaining a baby propped up on your chest.

Merry Christmas Eve

2007-12-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

Your cookies, Mr. Claus.

Bag it, tag it, sell it to the butcher in the store.

2007-12-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

Missing my dad comes out of nowhere these days.

Like when I'm walking through the dining room and I catch a glimpse of the photo of us together at my college graduation.

Like when I'm opening Christmas cards and reading all of the congratulatory notes about Baby Magic's arrival. Missing from my life this November was that tearful, joyous call to my dad telling him he had a second grandson.

My aunt sent me a couple of old snapshots from my college days, one of which showed me and my dad. My dad looks almost like an older brother instead of a dad. He looks really good, fit and strong. He's sporting a Carnegie Mellon sweatshirt walking beside me on Spring Carnival weekend, just after I competed on hill five for SDC Buggy. It must have been 1990, just about the time I was falling for Pete. My dad was just 38, the age I am now.

The photo is blurry, which made me laugh inside and cry a little, too. My dad took a bunch of photos that day, and none of them is clear. I think he needed glasses at the time but wouldn't admit it.

I excused myself from the dinner table and shut myself in the bathroom for a mournful cry.

This week, with the arrival of our new shed, we've been cleaning the house and organizing stuff. Peter has been doing most of the work, holding up pieces of paper before my glazed eyes asking me what to do with them. It's so much fun.

Eventually he picked up the red duffel bag that held the clothes my dad was wearing the day he died. Yep, that's right. I have a duffel bag with the clothes my dad was wearing when he died: a pair of jeans, a Harley T-shirt, grey socks and a pair of work boots. This rather confirmed my suspicions that my dad went cowboy.

After I returned from Pittsburgh after the funeral, I realized that no one had given my dad's personal effects to me. Concerned about things like his wallet, I tracked the items down to the funeral home. When I called and asked, they seemed surprised that I wanted them, but they agreed to put them in the mail.

When the large box showed up, it was my turn to be surprised. Expecting just a wallet, keys and other miscellaneous small items, I instead found my dad's clothes. The idiots at the funeral home -- and they were idiots -- had already given those small items to my dad's girlfriend without telling me. That may have been a violation of the law since I am next of kin, but regardless, I now have this bag of clothes.

Believe it or not, this isn't even the first bag of clothes that a person was wearing when they died that I have in my house.

When my grandmother was killed by a car as she was crossing the street, the hospital also bagged her clothes for us. My whole family was cleaning out her apartment, and it shattered my heart to think about throwing those clothes away. I can't explain it, but I wasn't able to say goodbye to her like she deserved. No one collected her ashes and keeping those clothes granted me a tiny, though morbid, connection.

So Pete held up the red duffel bag, flooding my heart with sadness. By ignoring the bag, I was compartmentalizing the grief, keeping it over there so it couldn't hurt me over here. I said to throw it out and turned my back to walk away.

Then tonight when I was taking out the trash, I saw the bright red bag in the trash can. I don't know how many bags of dead people's clothes a person can have tucked away in the back of a closet, but two doesn't sound like too many, does it?

Three would be pushing it. Definitely.

Tubal ligation isn't looking so bad right now.

2007-12-15T14:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a while because I am exhausted.

Nursing and reassuring a crying infant every two to three hours doesn't sound like such a big deal. Until you realize it means that the parents are not getting to sleep in significant chunks of time due to constant interruption.

This sleep torture makes for VERY CRANKY parents.

Last night was a dark, dark moment, hopefully indicating a dawn up ahead, when I threw a pile of innocent books from Pete's nightstand across the room in a fit of exhausted temper. It was a big pile, so it took a couple of hucks.

On one hand, things are easier because we have an idea of what to expect since this is baby #2.

On the other hand, things are far more difficult because we have a sprightly little boy who gets up early, needs less time to nap and has learned to say "NO!" and act difficult.

Thankfully, Sprout is wonderfully tender to his baby brother. But moms of future #2 babies be warned: your sweet loving #1 child, yes that apple of your eye, may turn on you when the second one comes along. You may fear that daddy will feel left out as the two children cling to you. Bwahahahahah! Daddy will be worth his weight in gold and the older child will cling to him, scorning you and your wicked mommy ways.

On paper, this sounds great, right? Mommy is off the hook! But in reality, it doesn't work that way. Suddenly my macaroni and cheese won't do. I can't be the one to fasten the seat belt. Nor am I adequate to refill a milk cup. It's OK for me to put on a Thomas the Train DVD, however. Wails of "I want daaaaadddddyyyyy!" will fill the air any time the kid feels he's getting shafted by mommy. Sleep-deprived moms will feel the sharp sting of raw emotions, while dads will be worn out from being in such hot demand.

In reality, both parents pitch in, taking up the workload where we are needed, and we don't discriminate as we try to get everyone fed, dressed and jostled through the day. An peckish preschooler can throw a mighty wrench into the system.

Sprout has taken to the tantrum, belting out an ear-splitting NOOOOOOO before throwing himself on the floor, kicking and screaming. After beholding this spectacle a few times, I now walk away immediately. A couple of times, I've suggested he should scream louder or kick harder, which sometimes makes him laugh. I mean, if you're going to have a tantrum, give it your all, and none of this fakey fakey poor-me stuff. Other times I am just certain my mother's voice spoke through my mouth telling him that I AM NOT having any of this business.

Ack!

And let me tell you this: It is not a good idea to have your spouse getting an MBA while working full time when you are having kids. It's really not. I know another couple who endured med school and residency during their first two kids, and I have no idea how they came out the other side without killing each other. My hat is off to them, though maybe, just maybe someone threw a pile of medical books one night, too.

One week photos!

2007-11-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

This is a test.

2007-11-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

Baby Magic's belly button stump fell of yesterday morning.

Just how sentimental am I?

Proofs 657 - 660

2007-11-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

That Peter is the right person for me:

657. He cheered with me when I reported my first post-op poo. And the subsequent two poos that followed. (Thankfully it's not such a hot topic of conversation at this point. It's more of a passing topic of conversation at this point.)

658. He peered closely at my incision, talking me through a particularly whimpery stage by reminding me that I'm scaring myself and that I've done this before.

659. He agreed to watch America's Next Top Model Cycle 9, Episode 10 on YouTube with me in five low resolution 10-minute segments. And he did so without barfing AND believed that Lisa had a lot of potential despite being eliminiated.

660. Before watching ANTM, he played this video for me.

And then we cuddled. :-)

And baby makes four

2007-11-23T11:03:00.000-08:00

BEFORE

AFTER

introducing...

Standard issue at all Seattle hospitals.

Sprout meets Baby Magic for the first time.

Already eyeing the same toys.

More later when I am less high on oxycondone.

OMFG! I'm having a baby tomorrow!

2007-11-18T21:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been a flurry of activity at the hive.

Sprout is sleeping in his big boy bed tonight for the first time! I'm not certain this was the best timing, but he has been very excited about this move up.

I've washed seemingly endless loads of laundry, folded piles of tiny clothes, toddler clothes and big mama pregnancy clothes. The bassinette is set up next to our bed, along with the tiniest socks, hats, onesies and sleepers. A pile of receiving blankets awaits for swaddling.

My mom arrived on Saturday afternoon, and we haven't killed each other yet. Fingers crossed!

After glancing into the hellhole that is my closet, I informed Pete that we had a big trip to the Salvation Army in our future. The more heinous maternity clothes need to get the hell out of my sight soon before I have a backyard bonfire. Pete suggested there was no reason to rush the clothes out, which I am sure is his way of expressing Maybe we'll have a third baby! Once his crack high subsides and his eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep due to crying and round the clock feedings, he'll change his tune.

I am nervous about tomorrow. In many ways I know what to expect, but there are so many things I can't remember. Like what did I do in the hospital for all those hours last time? I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow, starting at 7 a.m.

Crazy alert!

2007-11-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

There's something about being birth minus seven days that is exciting, terrifying and nerve-wracking all at once.

It's exciting because we'll finally get to meet this little guy. He'll stop doing the uterine mambo and wave his arms and legs around in front of our faces. We'll know the answer to questions like What will he look like? Will he be bigger than Sprout? Do you think Thor was the right name to pick for him? Because his face looks more like a Roald to me.

It's exciting because this round bulge under my breasts will be deflated. Soon I might roll over in bed without my bones sounding like a bowl of rice crispies *snap*crackle*pop*. Of course this is well after I recover from the c-section. I remember laying in bed whimpering last time because I couldn't roll over and the side of my body was asleep and tingling. Soon I'll get to back and belly sleep again! My pelvis should shift back together and I might start walking -- even (joy!) running! biking! climbing! -- without the telltale waddle.

It's terrifying because we're starting over again with a new human being. Years of agony lay ahead as we ask ourselves if this is the hotdog that depletes the boy's future fertility, if this video is the one that leads us down the path to ADD, if this cookie will flip the switch on diabetes some day. Terrifying to look down at that tiny face and know we are everything that makes the world safe for him.

It's nerve-wracking because I have almost delivered a healthy baby into the world. I'm probably not the only woman who faces down the final days in white knuckle fear that she's going to screw up, somehow, after coming this close. In the beginning, women anxiously look forward to blurting out the news to friends on day one of the second trimester (OK, a little sooner for good friends). For me, the second trimester brought the amnio waiting game. The third trimester was full steam ahead.

By now, it's almost like I have been holding my breath and swimming furiously to the other side of the ocean. Sharks and ocean storms be damned, we have a mother coming through, and she WILL make it to shore. I have elaborate escape plans worked out in my mind for when I drive over the 520 bridge in case it collapses. Plan A is just me in the car; Plan B is if Sprout is in the car with me. There is no Plan C if Peter is in the car, oddly enough, and he would really come in handy in these plans! Plan D is to avoid driving over the bridge entirely, which isn't all that hard in practice.

I've figured out escape routes from every room on the second floor of our house. Ending up on the neighbor's roof is my favorite.

I have not yet answered this one. Should I drive with the car doors locked because that's what I've always done in terms of personal safety or should I drive the the doors unlocked because we'd be easier for the jaws of life to extract?

My mind regularly grapples with random Quick! What would you do if... scenarios. I'm not sure what this is called. Modern nesting? A deep-seeded lunacy? First draft of "A Pregnant Woman's Worst Case Scenario" book? Likely it's too much exposure to popular media and a surge of some hormone or other.

In a word, these bizarre contingency plans most likely point to fear. I just want to make it through next Monday and hold my new baby, my husband and my Sprout close to me, safe and sound.

On the flip side

2007-11-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

About six weeks ago, I was sitting in bed, quietly reading a book when Baby Magic started practicing the Macarena. I grimaced while watching my belly writhe. He was all aggressive elbows and knees for a good 15 minutes before settling down again. I didn't think much of it until my next midwife appointment, when she laid hands on me and said, "I think this baby is breech!"

A quick ultrasound showed, quite clearly, the boy's big old head directly under my ribs.

ARGH!!!

Up until this point, I've been committed to a VBAC: vaginal birth after Cesarean. I was doing everything I could to keep my mind's eye on positive visualizations, seeing the birth, feeling the process, getting myself into the best possible frame of mind. But the odds were slowly stacking themselves.

A few weeks after Sprout arrived, I did some idle googling about pregnancy hypertension and preeclampsia. A few clicks later, I broke down in sobs realizing about how things could have taken a terrible turn. I just didn't know it during the labor.

Thanks to excellent medical care, my blood pressure has been doing great this time around. It has been trending very slightly upward, but nowhere near the scary numbers I had last time.

Then, for a couple of visits, some trace sugar started showing in my urine, a possible indicator of pregnancy diabetes. And my amniotic fluid was measured as low-normal. When Baby Magic flipped onto his bottom and nestled down low for the long haul, I finally gave up. Gone were the positive visualizations, replaced by a repeat of last labor: long, unprogressive, ending up in c-section. I couldn't get my mind back on track, and I finally decided the cards I had been dealt called for folding, not bluffing.

My midwives are wonderfully supportive, and so are the other women in my mom's group. I don't measure myself -- or anyone for that matter -- on whether or not a baby came through her birth canal. It's still very difficult for me to plan this.

I understand and agree with all of the medical reasons, but philosophically, I just can't adjust to the idea of consenting in advance to have my belly sliced open to have my son lifted out. Birth wasn't meant to be like this, was it?

Then again, going back a century and more to the flip side, no one would have know about my high blood pressure, let alone be able to control it, and would not be able to confirm the breech position. Going into labor with so many unknowns and lack of medical knowledge to respond certainly lead to terrible outcomes for women and babies. And when I look at it this way, there's only one goal: healthy mom and healthy baby.

So on Monday, Nov. 19, Baby Magic will arrive!

Holy crap, there's a lot to do. Starting with picking a name!

PHIP

2007-11-04T20:19:00.001-08:00

Last week was a big mess of stress at work and home, running around, pounding out emails, making phone calls, keeping OB appointments and booking three weeks-worth more, Halloweening, followed by more running around. Saturday brought a full day of class at the University of Washington Extension. This week looks equally packed, and next Saturday brings the same.

I cannot wait for maternity leave. I am so fried.

In fact, I am so fried that I ran out of gas on Friday afternoon. Only moments before it happened, I was cruising up I5 at 60 mph over the Ship Canal Bridge. The car burped a couple of times, and I felt that telltale shudder from within the engine. Fumes. No liquid. Please don't let me break down on the interstate!!! By a hair, I made it to the 45th St. off ramp, slipped the car illegally into neutral hoping and praying that I could defy American engineering and make it to a gas station just three blocks east.

At the top of the off ramp, I was snagged by a red light, and the car gave up. I tried -- foolishly -- to turn it over and over again. When a car is out of gas, it's out of gas. Turning it over just makes it crankier. And no matter how many times you unconsciously rock your body, the car will not be urged into forward motion. So I flipped on the hazards, glanced nervously at the line of cars behind me in my rear view mirror and did what any pregnant damsel in distress would do.

I called my husband.

No sooner did he answer the phone than I felt like a complete fool. He was several bridges and many miles away. What did I think he would do? After wailing about my situation for 10 seconds, I shakily got out of the car, determined to walk to to the gas station for help.

And then, like a scene from a movie, two young, brawny guys brightened the horizon and offered to help. A third materialized from the curb. Saviors! They pushed me and my car a block to the pet store parking lot, then waved and smiled before dashing back to retrieve their truck from the traffic jam I had created. I barely had a chance to shout my thanks, but certainly the universe owes them a pat on the back at some point. The guy at the gas station very kindly stepped in to fill a gas container for me, an action which hit me with an overwhelming sense of PHIP.

As my friends told me in my eighth month last time: Pregnancy Has Its Privileges.

I really needed that extra boost just then. I was worn to a nub, out of gas with swollen feet. That was my reminder to treat myself better, to talk more to my baby, to drink more tea and to take it down a notch for the next three weeks. So I'm going to push back at work and draw more lines. This has been a long-distance race. Sprinting at the end might get me to the finish sooner, but not at my personal best.

Long lost friends

2007-10-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

I count myself lucky that I have friends out there, all over the place, and though I haven't talked to many of them in a long time, I know we can pick up where we left off.

Nick is, I hope still, one of those people. We met many residences ago in Madison. He showed up at the college outdoors club where I was a member and threw himself into activities, leadership and friendship. Many of us were beyond the traditional college age, but Nick was smack-dab in the college demographic. I think he was 20 or so when we met, and I think I have seven or so years on him.

But in depth, Nick far exceeded the average 20-year-old, and we connected over climbing. He enlightened me on the weaknesses of sarcasm, which I still think about to this day. He was disarmingly honest to the core. And, I admit that at one point my heart grew a teeny bit soft, leading to one of those girlish crushes. With my boyfriend living overseas (or in exile during that temporary hiatus), I was going through a serial crush phase, and regularly burdened my roommate with painful stories of who I was crushed-out on every six weeks or so. It's a fact that these crushes run their course in six weeks. I wonder whatever happened to Lance? OK, that took more than six weeks. What a tease!

But I digress. Opening my heart and remembering that it's OK to feel love for a friend, including one of the male persuasion, was a valuable learning experience at that particular moment in my life. I also realized that having crushes felt goooood. Even if I never intended to act on them, they were good for the soul and kept the heart fluttering.

Nick visited us in Switzerland, and we had a great time road tripping around the South of France basking in the glory of clipping bolts under the sun. He also witnessed one weird argument over fondue and too much white wine between me and Peter, and probably wished he was just about anywhere else at the time. What are friends for?

We haven't been in touch much since then, but I heard through friends of friends that he ran for mayor of Zion, and was -- according to total strangers -- the hottest candidate on the ballot. (!) Anyway, he dropped this in my inbox recently, and I just wanted to share it. He's living the dream!

Caution: poo and sap ahead

2007-10-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

If you can't stomach potty training, best to click the little X in the upper right of your screen now.

After heading home from Target that day, our potty training adventures continued. Sprout embraced pull ups with a never-before-seen enthusiasm mixed with a huge dose of uncertainty. Over that weekend, we spent many hours in our two bathrooms discussing if he was done. Or not done. Or ready to go again. Or using the big potty or the little potty. And wiping, flushing and hand washing. There was the one mega-poo that took 75 wipes, 30 minutes of bathroom sanitizing plus a bath to survive.

But by the next week, he was pretty close to champ status. He raced to the bathroom, exclaiming, "The pee is coming!" with me fast on his heels to help struggle with zippers, buttons, elastic and shirttails. One afternoon his teacher proudly told me he pooed in the pot at school, and I realized there were others invested in this success. And when Sprout cried real tears because he regretfully peed in his pull-up, I thought, "This is really it!"

Last weekend, though, we headed to Vancouver, BC, and I figured all would be lost. Travel would surely derail our progress and lead to automatic regression. This is where I learned not to underestimate the single-minded determination of the ankle-biter crowd.

Though we packed a portable mini-toilet with us for familiarity sake, Sprout gamely used a variety of toilets along the way:

Two trips to the Honey Buckets at the farm we visited en route to pick a pumpkin.
The border rest area bathrooms.
The toilets at the Vancouver Aquarium.
The toilets in various restaurants including one stall so small at Hamburger Mary's that I had to stand outside it, but block him from view while he did his business.

We haven't changed a poopy diaper in a couple of weeks now, and I must say, the beauty of this exceeds our expectations. Today, we were tested when out for a walk on the Seward Park loop. About 1.5 miles from the start and finish, Sprout announced the coming of the pee. Peter and I glanced bug-eyed at each other. Then Peter calmly lead Sprout to a bush and showed him in hushed tones how boys do it in nature. Sprout was so enthralled by this new development that he lobbied to pee in a different park on the way home.

All of this makes me realize how quickly life passes and how much joy parenting can bring. On that day when I was cleaning poop off all the bathroom surfaces as well as my son's body, I wasn't super happy. But we had to go through that to get to the other side. He's growing into a curious, confident, skilled, rambunctious little boy right before my eyes. While waiting in a long line at the store on Saturday, Sprout was laughing and singing little songs to entertain us. When we got to the check-out, the cashier said to him, "You're so happy! That makes me happy."

It's hard to convey how much it all makes me happy in ways I never expected.