10:19AM - Vacation to Michigan
Here is a link to the web album of our recent vacation, in case any of my loyal readers are not on the facebook.
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| 2009-Aug-Leland |
Here is a link to the web album of our recent vacation, in case any of my loyal readers are not on the facebook.
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| 2009-Aug-Leland |
You know who cracks me up more than anyone? Opal Covey, Toledo's next great mayor? Good guess and yes she does. But you know who cracks me up even more? Me. I just cheered myself up by reading my early posts, including of course, the midget posts of late '05. To be fair, the commenters make me laugh as often as I make myself laugh, but one of the most hilarious things is that I can be so un-ironic with irony.* So in a tribute to ME, I'm posting my notes of the highlights and lowlights of the bar exam. I started this earlier in the week when I was in Columbus taking the Ohio bar exam, 7 years after my first bar exam.** Cell phones were strictly prohibited and I had withdrawal from not being able to twitter or facebook all my awesome observations. As I told my cousin Kate (on twitter, obiouvsly), those 20somethings don't understand the brilliance of my quippiness. So here is my list -- dreadfully lacking in parallelism, which pains me*** -- of high/lowlights. There is a story behind nearly every one of these, but the story itself is not that good as the tagline might lead you to believe, so this will hopefully make you think I lead an exciting life.****
I asked Elena what she learned today at her violin lesson. She was playing "echo bush" so she asked me what I learned today at violin. I told her I didn't go to violin. What did you learn today, Mommy? She asked over and over. And she persisted:
Elena: Did you learn ANYTHING today?
Me: Yes, I learn something every day.
Elena: What did you learn about today?
Me: What did you learn about today?
Elena: Italy.
Me: What did you learn about Italy?
Elena: What did you learn about today?
Me: (sigh) Insurance
Elena: What's insurance?
Me: ???
Elena: What did you learn about insurance?
Me: Uhhh.....
Elena: What did you learn about insurance?
etc., etc., until:
Me: That it is not fun.
Today I learned that I don't think being a lawyer is fun,* but unfortunately I'm raising a lawyer-in-training.
This is the conversation that I had with Elena earlier this evening:
Me: You can't watch a show because I said that you couldn't watch a show unless you played well with Jasper until he went to bed.
Elena (looking shocked): I WAS playing well with Jasper.
Me: Grabbing Jasper and pinching and pushing him is not playing well.
Elena: I was playing well with Jasper when I was playing with him. When I was pinching and pushing him, I wasn't playing with him, I was fighting with him.
There was more conversation which involved me trying to hold my ground, but as soon as she said that, I knew that I would give her another chance (and I did) because she was technically right. I explained that if she is playing well with him, there is no fighting. She seemed genuinely amazed by that. And afterwards, they played beautifully together.
*Or rather, I've known this for a long time, but was forced today to disclose it
Jasper is 8 pounds, 12 ounces!!! That makes him 5th percentile without even adjusting for the fact that he was 5 weeks premature! If you adjust, he is 50th percentile for weight, a higher number than either of our children has ever achieved thus far. So that's the good news. The bad news is that he is sick. :( Between his runny nose, weird congestion sounds, viral rash, and the awful gash he gave himself on his nose, he is quite a wreck. Fortunately even though his cold makes him more grumpy, he has been mostly just sleeping the past couple of days. As shocked as we are that he gained 2 pounds in 3 weeks, you can sort of tell in his cheeks -- that's where all the weight is going, I think. He also uses the enormous cheeks to squirrel away milk that he can then spit at random. At this rate, he will surpass Elena in weight in approximately 7 months.
There will be photos to accompany this update, including illustrations of chubby cheeks, once I figure out why the hell my new camera refuses to upload pictures properly.
Remember how when Elena was a baby, I posted pictures of her each month wearing only a diaper and with the changing duck as a reference?* We thought we'd try it again with Jasper. We didn't quite make it on his 1 month birthday, but we took pictures on his due date (March 5). The changing duckie looks huge, which is partially because Jasper is so tiny and partially because it was never really a good frame of reference anyway.
I just saw that my last post before the pictures of Jasper was about how I was afraid he was going to be a giant. That is I suppose what the kids call "ironic" since he was 5 pounds, 6 ounces at birth and is now at 1 month only ALMOST 7 pounds and thus still smaller than the average newborn.
But one of the good things about Jasper being born prematurely is that he was born in the Chinese year of the pig instead of the current year of the rat. He made it by 6 days. And he really is a pig too, which I suppose sounds bad, but rat sounds so much worse.
I've been meaning to post a longer entry about Jasper, but I never get around to it, so I'm just going to post pictures. Hopefully Ammon doesn't mind his frequent appearances in them. Enjoy! You can see more pics on facebook, so if you aren't on, get on! And then we can play Scrabulous too.
Remember how I used to be afraid that Elena was a midget? I talked about it here and here, among other places. I am now ALREADY afraid that baby boy is going to be a giant. The main reason is that he insists on lodging his foot in between my ribs on a regular basis, making me want to gasp in pain except for that he is cutting off my ability to breathe deeply. This is despite the fact that after the whole incident landing me in the hospital on Christmas Eve, his head is engaged*, which at least in Elena's case, made her so much lower that she never kicked my ribs or affected my breathing. It doesn't help that I'm stuck on the couch/bed all the time, so can't really get in a good position to alleviate the pain.
The other reason I think he will likely be gigantic is that we have bought an ENORMOUS amount of baby boy clothes in size 0-3 months. We did this because (1) it is fun to shop and (2) we don't want to have to shop all the time when he is a newborn like we did with Elena. Elena was in her 0-3 clothes for probably 6 months. So this is a purely superstitious reason, but that's how I roll.**
So my worries have climbed to a new level, and so early. Pretty soon I'll start having fears about cat-stabbing.
*meaning, ready to come down the exit hatch
** for instance, I believe that we will not have any more premature hospital emergencies because Ammon packed overnight bags for me and Elena
Since we could have the baby any day now (sadly - see my care page at Lankenau Hospital), we better decide on a name. I've infiltrated Ammon's blog and posted a poll there: http://doctorideas.blogspot.com/
Please go there and vote!
I'm going to do a quick update with pictures because I've run out of work at work (the problem with being pregnant - no one wants to give you new work when they know you're on your way out) and I'm going to a baby shower at 4 so I have to stick around.
Last month we took a trip to central PA to see our friends who were visiting from Columbus. We hadn't been back since we moved (other than a quick trip to Harrisburg for the moot court competition) and it was good fun. We drove past our old house, drooled in jealousy over the new Wegmans that they built right down the street right after we left, and went to Hershey to do the chocolate factory ride, etc. We also went to the party for our friends, but for Elena, the highlight was definitely Hershey. I guess because we've always told her that she was born there so she considers herself a "Hershey kiss," she seemed to have a special connection to the place. Here are some photos of her with her factory worker hat and Hershey kiss cog:
We also drove by Hershey hospital where she was actually born, but that wasn't as exciting. I think she is pretty sure she was born in the fake chocolate factory.
For shocking revelations involving loyal blurty readers and family members Ammon and Jennette, please look at this two-part epxosé.
Caught on tape! Jennette and Ammon engaged in surprising behavior when they think no one is watching
Can it be true? Watch the shocking conclusion
I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures from my camera last night, so I'll be posting bunches of pictures soon. Here is a preview: Elena and Rosie in our "cabin in the woods" (as she called it) in the Adirondacks in August:
That was 3 months ago, which I can't figure out is surprisingly short or surprisingly long. That doesn't make any sense, I know. In 3 months from now, we'll have or be close to having a little baby boy.
As most of you know from my early blurty entries, Elena has always been a little bit small. So small, in fact, that I was afraid she might be a midget. No mocking, I've heard it all before. Well, after 2 years of a high calorie diet and monitoring by a pediatric GI, I'm pleased to announce that the Monkey is now normal! She is 36" tall and 28 pounds (with clothes), which puts her in 25th percentile for height, 10th percentile for weight, and 50th percentile for height-to-weight or whatever they call it for proportion. She's never been above the 15th percentile in anything other than head circumference, where she is out of the park (thus contributing to the bobble-head look). Ammon took her to the GI yesterday and heard the good news. Now she will get weaned off Pediasure, which will make our grocery shopping trips so much cheaper (although she is really stressed out about this and keeps telling us that she is still allowed to have "chocolate milk pediasure"). Plus, according to the doubling your height at 30 months rule, she'll be 5'7 as an adult. Same as the height predictor, which is based on parents' heights. Now I have one less thing to be paranoid about. I only hope that the next baby is big and fat like babies are supposed to be.*
And because she is so big now, she went on an elevator yesterday!** Twice, actually! Once to get to the doctor (only 1 floor - and they had to find a security guard to let them down the stairs after) and once up to my office! They came to say hi after her doctor's appt since they were in the city (actually it was 5:30 by the time they got here, so I just left with them) and she said she wanted to come up to my office. I was pretty nervous about this idea because in fact the elevators in my building are terrifying.*** But she did it and she was fine. Of course, as soon as she came off the elevator at my floor and saw me, she said, "where are the stairs?" I of course deflected and said we're going to my office for a second, etc., etc. When we were ready to leave, she asked again, so I lied and said there were no stairs because we were up too high (no way I'm carrying a child and stroller down 25 flights of stairs). So I made sure we got on one of the non-freaky elevators and she did a great job. She was clinging onto me for dear life, but she didn't cry and a nice old lady distracted her so she didn't even notice the landing. Hopefully, this is the first step toward being able to ride elevators regularly because it gets really annoying locating and walking up stairs everywhere. To get to her doctor, we have to go up 4 flights. To get to H&M, we have to walk to the opposite end of the mall to go upstairs and then walk back to the store. Also because once we have the baby in a stroller, we'll have to take elevators.
Next phobia to conquer = airplanes. But not any time soon.
*I always tell moms that their kids are big because I mean it as a compliment, but I think maybe not everyone takes it that way. Can't we all agree that a big kid is a healthy kid? I guess maybe not with childhood obesity, but up until like age 5. Parents are so weird.
** For those of you that don't know, Elena is scared of elevators. Not just a little - in a complete disabling, phobic way. Every time we go anywhere new, her first question is "is there an elevator?" or "is it upstairs or downstairs?"
*** Once I was in one that fell 2 floors. It was so brief, but I did have enough time to wonder at what point in the plummet I was supposed to jump to lessen the impact and not break my legs.
Brett came through for us just in the knick of time - the new season of The Amazing Race started yesterday. Fortunately, my TiVo wish list caught it, but unfortunately, TiVo doesn't know what to do about CBS's stupid practice of allowing 60 minutes to run over-time and not updating its schedule accordingly, thus allowing TiVo to believe it may change the channel during Cold Case when in fact, Amazing Race is still going!! It's the regular Sunday night stress in my household - do we have to watch the last part of Amazing Race live so TiVo can get Desperate Housewives? It's almost enough to get us to buy another TiVo box (yes, our stress is mostly TV-related). So sadly, we missed about 15 minutes of the Race last night . . . . Regardless, I will proceed to commentate as if I saw the whole thing.
The Teams
Kynt & Vyxsin - the dating goths. The gender identity and/or sexual orientation of this team is unclear. They claim to be dating, but how can anyone believe that the man is straight? We theorize that he is a lesbian. It's really the only way it works. They should be a good addition to the Race line-up. I wonder how long the KISS makeup is going to last - it's got to be hard to keep it fresh when you're running around without a break for days. I'm guessing it will be a priority for "Kynt" (his real name is probably Brian)- we'll see scenes of him going into airplane bathrooms with his enormous makeup bag.
Jennifer & Nathan - one of the inevitable pretty dating duos. Their deal is that he cheated on her and so they have trust issues. They've only been dating for 2 years - not enough time to make it worth it to salvage the relationship after infidelity. I say she should have ditched him when he cheated because it's going to be a lot harder to do so next time he cheats and they are married with children. Based on this apparently gullibility/stupidity, she probably deserves whatever bad treatment he is sure to lay on.
Ronald & Christina - the father/daughter team. These teams are always doomed to failure. Sure, there are tears now about how much they want to not let each other down and how he is so sorry he missed the first 27 years of her life, but that's all going to change the first time dad whips out the genius techniques that made him such a loving father in the first place.
Shana & Jennifer - the "attractive" all-female team. These ones aren’t as attractive as past all-female teams, but they are sure to be as stupid.
Azaria & Hendekea - the engineer siblings. They finished first and they’ll probably be a good team, but it’s hard to know if they’ll be good characters. My favorite thing about them so far (other than their names) is that in the intro they are wearing lab coats and playing with beakers, although they are supposedly engineers (and not chemical engineers). I don’t know much about engineering, but I’m guessing not a lot of facilities engineers spend any time mixing chemicals.
Lorena & Jason - the dating couple that I forget about. I don’t know what their “hook” is. I do know that she cries a lot.
Nicolas & Donald - grandfather/grandson team. This is a new combo for the Race (as far as I know – it’s not like I’m actually going to do research). The old people never make it far, and especially not without another grouchy old person to yell at them, but I think this team will be entertaining. Donald reminds me of Rudy from Season 1 of Survivor.
Ari & Staella - the best friends with bad-ass gay guy attitude. This is the only time you’ll hear about them because they were eliminated. And they deserved to be because they were being cruel to their donkey (only in reality TV world would that sentence ever make any sense).
Marianna & Julia - the sisters who I believe are Cuban. Don’t even think about pronouncing their names in the Americanized way. I have a feeling this team is going to suck but think it’s always someone’s fault other than their own. The best part about their intro is when one of the sisters is saying how they are going to flaunt their feminine wiles to get ahead in the race and the video cuts to them in bikinis – the other sister totally checks her out! So creepy! Plus, they have tiny boobs, so I’m not sure what they’re going to flaunt exactly.
Rachel & TK - the “hippies,” although I think it’s unfair to call her a hippie just because her boyfriend has dreads. They are “newly dating” and it was love at first sight. At least that’s what he says about her – she was awkwardly silent at this point, which is unsurprising since I’d give him a 76% chance of having cooties (they’re probably living in his hair).
Kate & Pat - the married lesbian ministers. Please excuse my offensiveness, but this team is clearly going to be extremely annoying. Old lezzies are bad enough, but ministers? Forget about it. They’re going to constantly be talking about how god wants them to share their vaginas with each other. And anyone who dislikes them (and they all will), they will assume it’s because they are gay and/or called of god when really it’s just because they are annoying and think they are called of god.
The Episode
A good season opener in my book. I like that they skipped the detour and roadblock so the episode could be kept to an hour (unless the donkey thing was the detour, in which case, why didn’t anyone choose the other option, whatever it was – any regular viewer of the Race knows that when animals are involved, it’s best to stay away). There wasn’t a lot of cattiness or under-handedness yet (stealing a cab doesn’t count – that’s protocol), but I think I’m going to like this season. And it’s always good to see Phil again – I wonder who will have a gigantic crush on him this season? Ireland looks amazing, although I hope they get out of the English-speaking world soon. One of my favorite aspects of the Race is watching people trying to communicate with people who don’t speak English – it really brings out the worst in people.
So it's called Beauty and the Geek, not Geeks. The parallelism makes more sense, I suppose, but Geeks sounds more like Beast so for that reason, I prefer it.
Another great show this week! I told you the 5.0 MIT guy was a catch - did you see the bustier he sewed for his weirdo, possibly high on quaaludes this week, partner? She was the only one who could actually wear the costume he sewed and didn't have to wear her own clothes underneath so it wouldn't be pornographic. Sewing is super difficult if you don't know how, so I can't imagine that the geeks didn't actually have someone off-camera helping them (there would be no way they could accurately thread the thread through all the sewing machine parts otherwise), but still, I'm impressed - with the MIT guy that is.
Did you notice how Nicole (female geek) went back to looking the exact same after her makeover? This is because she suffers from the same problem as most female geeks and that is her refusal to wear makeup!! What else do all those nerd-to-beauty high school shows teach us other than all a girl needs to look pretty is to get rid of her glasses, get a decent haircut and wear makeup?!?! (optional in real life but required on said shows: throw on some slutty clothes). For the most part it's really true! Some geeks could also benefit from a good eyebrow waxing or at least plucking and a deep conditioning treatment, but come on, it's not that hard. The producers need to get Carmondy out there to help Nicole. The thing is she has an advantage over the other geeks because as a woman, there is no way to entirely avoid pop culture the likes of Cosmo, etc.
Last comment: Jasmine's super hero!!! Totally and utterly hilarious. I love that the judges just laughed at her freely and she had no idea that they were mocking her. I also love that they gave her a shout out since it was the "most entertaining thing ever" and she was genuinely pleased. This exposes a deep-rooted fear of mine, which is that any time I get a complement or someone laughs at a joke of mine, that they are really being sarcastic or mocking me in some way. I can't bear the thought of being a Jasmine!! Another example of this - Sanjaya on American Idol. The week he sang Satisfaction (I think), Simon said "fantastic" or some such thing in a super sarcastic voice because he'd given up giving criticism, and Sanjaya said all genuinely and sweetly, "thank you!" and looked like he may cry, he was so touched.
On the other hand, back to the show- Sam (male beauty) put on a performance that was completely self-assured and could have resulted in the same problem, but his was actually good and maybe even a tinge ironic. The self-tanner was genius (Ammon thinks that Nicole therefore came up with it).
Now back to my main topic of conversation, television. We missed Beauty and the Geeks last week, due to a technical malfunction with the satellite dish, TiVo or verizon, or most likely, some combination of the three. It angered me enough that we are switching back to Comcast (well that and Elena crying because Dora didn't tape properly during a storm and me not knowing how to deal). Apparently if you just keep bouncing back between them as we have, you get the best deals. Anyway, we watched this week's episode last night and it was a winner! I was waiting for the makeover episode and am relieved it wasn't the one we had missed. Can I just say up front that I knew the cute one and the second cutest one were attractive? Yes siree, and Jennette can back me up on this. The second cutest one (don't know his name, but he came out right before the cute prom king one) looks almost exactly like Josh K., whose last name I won't use here to protect both him and the woman who loves him.* They have the same lame-o flat-top haircut. Hopefully Josh watches the show and will be inspired to get a better haircut himself. Or maybe his sister-girlfriend will see it and tell him. I think we can all agree that it was pretty obvious that the cute one would win the prom king thing. I did think Josh (the really neurotic one who refused to take part in the Rorschach test) had an outside chance of winning, just for kitsch value. My favorite part was that two of the the beauties didn't get to go and they had to be all nervous that they weren't going to be asked. How's that for a taste of your own medicine! Ha! Also I hate Sam (the male beauty) and love how his partner snatched up the cute geek right away.** I also love how the Larper has a crush on the female geek and she clearly has no interest in him but he doesn't see it. And also doesn't see how Larping is not interesting to fake high school prom attendants. Ammon thinks the Larper is an awesome character but he is just too disturbing to me. And D&D is no laughing matter.*** By the way, he looked EXACTLY like Meatloaf when he did his makeover reveal. It's sad that when you look good, you look like Meatloaf.
After the teaching challenge, I'm starting to think Jasmine (girl of unclear ethnicity) isn't really the dumbest one, she just acts the dumbest. Every person who taught math (as in, "what is arithmetic?") was waay dumber. Well, now that I'm remembering how Jasmine can't read, I'm conflicted. Nonetheless, she seemed pretty good with kids, which is good since her career is "babysitter." I think the cigar model is in fact the dumbest. And she has the most disturbing boobs too. I mean, every girl on there has ginormous breasts, but I think her implants didn't take properly. Oh I also think the one who got out is super dumb. I love how she said, "well, if I get out, I know I've done the best I can," but she was the one who wanted to go hot tubbing and never studied. The male beauty, though I despise him, was way more deserving of staying in. Oh, but I was impressed that she answered the math question right. I think they should have made her partner answer his last question so they could see whether it was entirely her fault that they got out.
OK, I was also planning on talking about Dirty Sexy Money, but I have to get a tiny bit more work done before I leave for the day. So stay tuned.
By the way, when does Amazing Race start again? Where's Brett and his color-coded fall lineup chart when you need him?
* Erica, I'm talking about you. And you know who I mean.
** He's a real catch - and I mean that - not only is he seriously attractive now that you can see his face, he has a 5.0 at MIT. And his personality doesn't seem cripplingly awkward.
*** By this I do not mean that it should be taken seriously. No, I mean that it should not be discussed at all even in a joking way because then I am scared that you play D&D and I will have to disown you as my friend. Ammon gets a free pass because he hasn't played since age 12 or whatever, but I still get uncomfortable at the thought of being married to a D&D player. At least there was no live action involved.
I was going to scan in the ultrasound pictures of our little guy, but there is something wrong with our scanner. The doctor thought it was really funny to print out pictures where he pointed to the penis and wrote "I am a boy!!!" I'm sure that the boy will love that when he is a teenager. I should frame it. There are some cute pics too, where he looks a teeny bit like the Masked Avenger (Elena's in utero name) but also like a boy wonder. Everything was fine - he was smaller than Elena was at this point, but I'm pretty sure they have my due date wrong. At the end there was a screen with all these growth percentages and most of them were like 12th or 15th percentile but there was one that was 72nd percentile - I can only assume it was head circumference. Anyway, you may now all submit name suggestions! We do have boy names from last time around, so maybe later on, I'll post those for your comments. We didn't even come up with girl names this time, which spared us a lot of trouble because girl names are so much harder. So the big-headed tyke is doing well - moving a lot (we saw him move for the first time this week - so much sooner than we saw E), but not as much as the hyper spazoid that was the Masked Avenger (not yet at least).
Being a single parent is so hard! This is only my first day of Ammon out of town but it sucks already. Getting up at 5:30 to take him to the airport also sucks, but the nighttime routine all alone is much harder. I kept telling Elena, "I need you to cooperate while Daddy is out of town," even though I know that is the worst sort of command for a toddler. But I couldn't think of specific things, especially specific things that didn't start with "don't" or "stop." Even though she pooped her pants and had a huge fit when we were on our walk and I tried to push her tricycle and she wanted to do it herself, she was actually really good. When I was putting her to sleep, she was looking around her room telling me all of the things the baby cannot play with. It went like this: Her: "My baby cannot play with my dolls. He couldn't play with my books. He couldn't play with my balloon. He couldn't play with my boogers." Me: snicker, snicker. Her: look at me in disbelief that I think anything is funny. Me: "your boogers?" Her (smiling): "yeah!" This was a much better bedtime than last night when she was a possessed devil child and screamed, "I want to bite you! Heather, DO NOT leave!"*
I feel like old timer dads must have felt when the wife went out to play bridge with her friends or something - I don't know where a lot of stuff is because I never deal with it. Case in point: paper towels. I could have sworn they belong in the laundry room, but none to be found. I need them to pack in Elena's lunch and to clean up the dog pee that is the inevitable by-product of leaving a senior dog alone for 10 hours.**
Since I was unable to post pictures of the baby, I will post pictures of the other baby:
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