This week has been draining - emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially. I’m just tired, and looking foward to the next few days when Tom is home and I can ‘check out’ for a while. In the mean time:
1. If you are not already a fan of Mermade Baubles, then this is a great opportunity to check out Jen’s talent and enter for a chance to win a beautiful necklace.
2. A great article about money management and the stress it can have on a relationship. When i forwarded this to Tom, he said “Well, that’s it. You will just have to start wasting money on electronics if you want this marriage to work.” 
3. I am going through my photos, trying to sort out all my ‘crafty’ photos, and realizing that I only manage to take pictures of maybe a third of the things I make. Note to self: work on that.
4. We’re going to make this this afternoon.
5. This fruit fly trap actually works much better than cussing and spraying them with cleaner midair.
6. Finally, a way to get Tom and Ella to eat eggplant and squash: slice it thin, bread it and deep fry it. So basically, cancel out any nutritional value. Next up: beets.
With everything that is going on right now, you wouldn’t think that I would have time to seriously consider which nationally available ice cream brands have the best coffee flavored variety. After months of research, and complete surrender never to fit back into a size 6 jeans, I think I can now say that the top two are: Tillamook’s Espresso Mocha and Breyer’s Plain Coffee.
You’re welcome.
If you’ve given birth in the last three years, please consider taking the survey. The survey is exceptionally detailed, so it took me a while, but you can save and return to it as you have time. I am impressed with the level of though that went into many questions, and that soon the information will be available nation wide to mothers and families who are trying to make educated choices about their maternity care. From their website:
“We believe that women of childbearing age must have access to information that will help them choose maternity care providers and institutions that are most compatible with their own philosophies and needs. We hope that the Transparency in Maternity Care Project will provide information that will help women make fully informed maternity care decisions.”
Me too.
Edited to add: This link to an amazing resource from the March of Dimes about the health of infants and mothers across the country. You can choose your state on the top left. So many of these stats are eye opening, and makes it all the more clear that being #29 safest place in the world (behind Cuba!) for mothers and babies is not good enough. Our children deserve better, and if mothers will not stand up for our health and that of our children, who will?
A couple things:
Anyone want to trade some graphic work for something crafty? I have my basic image down, but I just need someone with some skillz to spiff it up. Let me know if you are interested and we can work something out.
Good news, the odds of being killed by melting night clothes is only 1 in 538,523. Bad news, one in 200 of us will die from a fall.
Road schooling! I’ve been looking for this idea, because I knew it had to be out there.Yes, I still want to live in an RV. You didn’t forget did you?
Tired of reading the same 3 books over and over to your toddler? Have an actor from the Screen Actors Guild read them something else instead!
It’s been linked like crazy lately, but really - If you haven’t read Moxie’s “The Right Way“. please, for your own sake, and the sake of the parents around you who you don’t see eye to eye with, go.
A perspective on becoming a LM or a CNM. Becoming a CNM would take longer, and be more expensive, but the Navelgazing Midwife makes a few points which made my start googling nursing schools in my area. (Warning, header photo NSFW, but not porny).
OMG GET IN MY MOUTH. (Warning, food porn ahead. Excessive viewing may make you scowl at your whole wheat cherios in soy milk with utter contempt.
Oh hey, can I slip in here that 3 months postpartum, I could not fit into any pants I own and have had to wear maternity pants for the last week? HATE.
I’m making this this afternoon, after we get back from the park.
I have three lengthy posts I want to make, but the funny thing about cutting your toddler’s TV time to a third of what it used to be, is that your computer time also gets cut to a third. Hmm. So for today, a quick list:
This book makes me cry every single time I read it. I’m the first to admit that the mother/daughter continuum is a emotional place for me, but this book manages to bore to the center of that emotion by the third page. It’s beautifully illustrated, and I think it would be a lovely gift for any new moms out there.
And while we are talking about books, this one was a grab-it-off-the-library-shelf book, and it wasn’t until we got home that we realized it’s all about how animals (including humans!) nurse their babies. Very cute.
I have three projects to finish before I’ve given myself permission to start this little knitted dress(pdf).
Sarah Jane’s post about perspective is worth bookmarking and rereading on the rough days. The blessings abound when I let myself see them as such.
And because I promised Firemom over in this post she made about her post-baby body: a photo of my belly, after two babies and at least 458 cupcakes. I can’t bring myself to post the picture here, since I don’t want to see it every time I scroll down, but there it is if you want to click. I grew up in a house where anything over a size 2 jeans was ‘fat’, and smoking (and the risk of cancer) was a fair tradeoff for keeping the weight off. I think I’ve come a long way from that mindset, but it still sneaks up with me when I am in the shower and my hands do not recognize my own body.
These little girls are worth it though.
And in case anyone is still here, and not over on Flickr snickering at my flub, want to play Scrabble with me?
Wow. So today kind of sucked. Between the massive tantrum at Costco (which ended with me sitting outside in the cold wind with Alice in the sling, and Ella throwing herself out of her wagon onto the concrete, screaming that I hurt her when I caught her to keep her from cracking her skull - loved that part) and the arguing with the husband about something that I thought was done being an issue, but apparently is not, I’ve been ready for bed since about 11am. But here it is, 6pm, and I am on my bagillionth cup of coffee, wondering why I don’t have the energy to clean my damn house.
So how about some links?
Homemade poptarts. Oh yes. I am going to hippiefy this recipe and we will have a 4th option for easy breakfast (currently: oatmeal, flax waffles, or eggs. I can hear you all at the door, begging for a breakfast invitation.)
$1 hosting from Surpass Hosting. I’m jumping on this and moving the ol’ bloggidyblogblog to my own domain soon, so that I can play with design. *twiddles thumbs until Thursday*
This + This = just say “No” to babies. Except, oh my goodness, last time I wrote in my blog that we were not having any more babies for a while I was already 3 days knocked up. Nonononono. After a day like today, that wouldn’t even be funny.
I desperately want my hair this color.
A great article about infant constipation. You’re welcome.
Worldometers. Happy birthday to the 280,987.. 280, 988, 280,989 new people today!
Preschool craft site, for when it is 9am and I’m already out of ideas.
And if you are still reading, what is your plan-of-action when your toddler freaks out in a store? It’s happened to us every time I’ve taken Ella anywhere lately, and I am really dreading the next time I need something (ex: coffee, the way I am going through it) and Tom is not home to keep her. I usually just haul her under my arm, kicking and hitting (which is a feat with Alice in the sling), and take her outside until she calms down, but usually she wants to be outside, and we never get back inside to get the cart of things I left sitting in the aisle (which I feel like an ass about). So she gets her way, and I am frustrated, and uncaffeinated. She knows how to undo the buckles, so I can’t strongarm her into staying in the cart, when she is out she is constantly hitting things off the shelf/trying to open things to eat them, and when I strap her into a sling on my back, she give me bruises. I’ve even tried bribing her with rewards (stickers! donuts! a trip to Jamaica!) which is not my parenting style, but it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t work. I… am at a loss. Help? Tell me it’s a phase? Tell me it’s okay to leave her here with the cat? (Just for clarities sake, that was a joke.) In a perfect world, I would be able to anticipate what will set her off and avoid it (we carry snacks, we try to go after a good nap, etc) but lately it is just her wanting to be independent in places she can’t rule the roost, and when I try to put any sort of boundaries on the situation (ex: You may not open that box of valentine cookies) she just melts completely down. It’s killing me ya’ll.
Here, go waste your kid’s naptime like I did. (requires Windows Explorer)
Perhaps later I will have the energy to write an insightful post about how I am currently dealing with life by shutting us all on one room, cleaning it, and acting like the rest of the house doesn’t exist. I think my depression is directly tied to the fact that I can’t be everything, and I keep forgetting that my people matter more than my things - but ugh, no energy for that. Didn’t you hear, I’m exhausted. Back to bed, with my book, my girls, and my sanity. I left it there, I think.
I finally wrote up that introduction I’ve been promising, in the form of a Cast of Characters. Have questions? Ask away.
Another music player, but one of the coolest I’ve seen in a while. Choose your mood, and discover new music. We’ve been rocking out to Bing Crosby’s Great Day all morning. Bing has to be one of the best names ever (and hey, he grew up in Spokane!)
Tom is working 15 hours today (after a week of being home) so I am alone with two stinky girls all day. Hence the thrown together post. Hope your day is less frenzied, but with as many slobbery kisses.
Soda Vs. Pop. This makes me giggle because #1 - SO TRUE, and #2, oh grad school. So many man hours went into putting this together.
Cat and Girl. I’m slowly making my way backwards in the archives and have been snickering enough over here that Tom finally asked what I am looking at. Oh, just this. And this. Plus this one. Bonus points for literature jokes. Har!
When I am excited about a book, I tend to start marking it up, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins. I read quickly - both by nature and due to years of necessity (be it as an English Major (for realz, you wouldn’t guess it by my awesome command of language, aye?) or as a mom (on a good day, Ella sits on her potty for 5+ minutes at a time, andI can get a couple pages in). It’s not uncommon for me to get through a book a week, and anything that takes longer usually gets put into the “Eh” stack, unfinished. That stack has gotten pretty tall in the last few months. While there are plenty of things I do not miss about being in school, something I do miss is the constant stream of quality books that were being thrown at me. It has been a while since I read something that made me want to restart it as soon as I finished it, but I just finished Richard Russo’s Empire Falls today (read mostly at 2am) and looooved it. Apparently I am about 6 years behind in my devotion (oh, look, it won a Pulitizer Prize and was made into a HBO mini-series. I guess other people liked it too…) but of the stack of .50 cent books I bought at Goodwill a few weeks ago, this is the only one that has been worth it. Resurrection: predictable. Fortune’s Rocks/The Pilot’s Wife: Both suffering from a lack of development, and some very uninspiring writing. Hadn’t realized they were by the same women until just now, but OH now I can see it… Icy Sparks: An “eh” book that I eventually ended, but wished I hadn’t. Ehhhhhhh. While I Was Gone: Strong start, but then it just drags and drags. And drags. Next on my pile is Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, and I SO badly want to like this book. Please tell me I won’t hate it.
And because I can’t write a post not about my kids, Ella weighed in at our pediatrician appointment yesterday at 27lbs(54th percentile), and 3ft 1inches tall (97th percentile). Alice is now 8 lbs (69th percentile)(up a full pound from birth! Yay Boobs!) and 21.5 inches long (97th percentile). So basically my kids are long and skinny. I wonder where they get that from…
Is it impractical to plan on Kate Winslet playing me in the movie of my life, even though she is 8 years older than I am?
I am working on Alice’s birth announcement, and they come in packs of 100, which is about 85 more than I need. Would you like one? Email me at thetrivialpursuitofhappiness(at)gmail(dot)com with your addy and I’ll add you to the list!
Today is Alice’s first jaunt into the outside world, but luckily we are going to see a group of women who know exactly how scary and relieving this is. Ella is staying home and having a Daddy day, which will be good for all of us I think. Ella has been spending a couple hours each day with her Grandma, and we’ve had wonderful friends over a few times this week (bearing food and tiny clothes! yay!) but nothing compares to Daddy.
Nursing at the computer leads to awesome discoveries:
- A collection of antique medical and surgical instruments! Chance, you should love this site…
- 50 top 10 lists of 2007.
- This carrot muffin recipe was a huge hit around here. I made it into mini loafs instead and both were gone within a day. The next batch I am going to throw in more veggies (zucchini and apples maybe?) and use less sugar, and freeze a bunch for future breakfasts.
- Fun and different holiday music. In fact, if you don’t get the “All Songs Considered” podcast each week, you are missing out.
- I ordered this pattern. A part of me says “Hey, I could just figure that out on my own!” and then the other part of me remembers that I don’t have 97636 hours to waste troubleshooting a pattern. My time is worth $9 I think…
- Drool. It’s too late to order for Christmas, but I htink you deserve a “I survived the holidays” gift. *wink*
A note about comments:
Oh goodness I am so enjoying all the comments lately! I am slowly making my way through all the new blogs that you have all linked, and finding some amazing writers out there. Most of the time I am at my computer I am stuck only using my mouse (one armed nursing bandit!) so I haven’t been commenting everywhere I’ve been, but I am adding to my google reader daily.
Also, someone asked about the comments I leave here, but that seem to be from other people - they are the comments that are left over on the RSS feed of my posts on LJ. Since I made so many close friends there before I made the switch to wordpress, my RSS feed there gets more action than I do over here most days. Since only a couple entires are saved over there at a time, I have to snag the comments and paste them over here if I want to keep them (which I do!) Mystery solved.
