Mandajuice

Accomplishments

I feel like I've FINALLY managed to have a productive day for a change.  Friday SLAYED me.  Absolutely did. me. in.  I had so much to do and the baby did nothing but sit at my feet and scream bloody murder all day.   I know you think I'm joking about the ear-piercing nature of her screams, but DUDE, I only wish it was a joke. 

At around 2:30 I was completely exasperated after having tried to get her to take a nap for over two hours.  She had finally fallen asleep nursing and I was about to put her in her crib and finally, for the love of all that is good and holy, take a stinkin' SHOWER, when Dave called and the phone woke her up.

The man is lucky to be alive.

At my wits end, I called him back and he rushed home to save me.  Of course, by then Genoa had cried herself to sleep in her crib.  Apparently she was even more exhausted than I was.  As much as her screaming drives me to drink, she is one adorable little girl.  I'd suffer years of screaming if it earned me even a minute of her laughter.  Or one of her chubby thighs for a snack:

Anyway, today was so much better I could almost cry tears of real, unmitigated joy.  So far, I've:

* Showered.  (Woo hoo!)

* Gone to the post office to stuff, label & mail 40 party invitations.

* Donated 9 bags of excess toys to Goodwill. (Double woo hoo!)

* Gone to the grocery store.  (where no one screamed or threw anything!)

* Finally fed my children something other than stale cheerios.

* Picked up and vacuumed.

* Had two different companies come out and give me estimates for moving our stuff.

* Called a third for another estimate.

* Read, responded to, deleted and banned a blog troll. (Triple woo hoo!)

Breastfeeding and obesity

I am really annoyed by the recently published findings about breastfeeding and obesity.  One of the main reasons I decided to breastfeed LONG before Alex was even born was because I wanted to do every. single. thing. I could to prevent him from becoming an obese adult, like both Dave and I are/were.  If there is such a thing as an obesity gene (and I truly believe there is), my kids have it.  In the battle of nature vs. nurture, I'm doing everything I can to keep nurture on their side.

The report says:

Women who were breastfed for at least a week were about as likely to be overweight or obese as women who were bottle-fed.

The first time I read it, I stopped right there, outraged.  One week?  You have to be kidding me!

The report then added,

Women who had been breastfed for more than nine months were about as likely to be overweight or obese as women who'd been breastfed for less than a week.

Which is more like it thankyouverymuch.

But still, I'm dismayed and doubtful of the findings, particularly given the way the study was conducted.

In 1989, the women were asked their height and weight and what those measurements were when they were children and at age 18. Then every two years, through 2001, they were asked to update their weight information. The surveyed women were all between 25 and 42 at the time of the 1989 questionnaires, Michels said.

In 2001, the mothers of these women were sent a questionnaire asking if their daughters had been breastfed and for how long.

When possible, researchers checked medical records to confirm what the mothers and daughters recalled but breastfeeding is not routinely documented. Still, the researchers believe the women's recollections of breastfeeding are reliable.

So basically, if the women were between 25 and 42 in 1989 when the study began, then their mothers, who were polled in 2001, were asked to remember what they did 37 to 54 years earlier?  We're talking about children born between 1947 and 1964.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I can hardly remember what I did last MONTH and my memory only serves to get worse, not better.  When I read my old blog posts from when Alex was a baby, I have no recollection of ever writing them.  If it wasn't all documented, I'd barely remember his birthday and he's only three and a half.

So I'm a skeptic.  I'm also a little sad because I'd rather see the scientific community focus on encouraging women to breastfeed longer, not supplying more (questionable) evidence that it might not be so beneficial after all.

Another shirt Dave wants me to try to sell

I'm with Vaginasaurus
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Brain dump list

1. A good sign it's time to vacuum is when my hair gets all wrapped around the babies toes.  Either that or she needs to wear socks in the house.
2. What is it about Mom talking on the phone that makes the baby scream?  Is it like dogs with those high-pitched whistles?
3. Dave accused me of keeping busy to keep from doing what I really should be doing.  He was right. Now I'm busy getting done what needs doing.
4. I think we need professional movers.  I'm loathe to hire them because A) I'm freaked out about all the moving horror stories I've heard and I fear waiting endlessly for our stuff to arrive and B) THE COST.  Dude.  Otherwise we'll have to go with the "you pack it, we ship it" places.  We'll see.  I really can't see how we'll be able to pack and load a truck by ourselves.
5. Genoa is the perfect twist of good and evil right now.  She screams like a banshee (Dave thinks I should sell shirts that say, "My other scream is a Pterodactyl") just to get what she wants and then three seconds later, she's an adorable angel.  She plays peek-a-boo by running down the hall and hiding behind the corner and then bursting out giggling and then hiding again.  She says ice (Eye-m), hello (mm-Lo) when I hand her the phone and brother (va-va).  She loves her Daddy more than anyone and when he gets home every night, she runs to the front door with her hands up wanting to be held by him.  She plays fetch with Harry (video coming soon).  She LOVES laundry and will actually help me put clothes in the dryer.  When I'm tucking Alex in bed and she's fussing with Daddy, she walks down the hall and drags my dirty clothes into the living room to smell me.  She's still not letting me get any sleep, but that's another post.
6. Alex is excited about our moving adventure.  He has lots of questions.  "Are we going to take Harry?"  "Will I get to bring this mini excavator?  What about this fire engine?"  "Can I bring my bike?"  One of the other moms at preschool stopped me on my way to pick him up to tell me how well-developed his reasoning skills are.  He had told her, "We're moving to Washington. Right now, we're just borrowing our apartment, so we'll just give it back when we move."   Such a smart little monkey.  He still has these little meltdowns where he becomes an emotional wreck (yesterday it was because he wanted to go for a bike ride but his elbow pads were "scratching him!") and reminds me of a toddler, but for the most part, he's becoming this rational little boy.  The other night I must've accidentally woken him up when I came to bed (he's still sleeping on the air mattress on the floor right next to me).  After a few seconds, he started to squawk at me like a little bird and when I turned to check on him, he was all puckered up waiting for another kiss goodnight.

This little family is really all I need.

October Road

I hate to admit this because Dave is already mocking me enough about it, but I LOVE this new show.  I can't put my finger on why, exactly, but it totally reminds me of high school and I feel compelled to watch it.  Please tell me I'm not the only one.

When in doubt, DRINK

I'm busy working on a presentation I have to give on Wednesday night, so I'm technically putting off anything having to do with the move until after that's over.  I say technically because nothing in the world seems to be able to stop my brain from working in overdrive.  I can't sleep; I can't hold a thought for more than a second and not even CHOCOLATE sounds good to me.  The only thing I've managed to accomplish so far is to drink an entire six pack of Wyders Pear cider less than 48 hours. 

What else?  I'm proud of myself for finally getting back to work on the Naked Ledger.  I feel better after my daily spending confessional.  Not that it seems to help me spend any less money.

Dave and I are already managing to bicker about which house we're going to buy, even though we haven't stepped foot into a single solitary home.  I want something new.  He wants something without a homeowners association.  Apparently, without having looked AT ALL yet, these two things are mutually exclusive.  We'll see.  I need to contact the Realtor my aunt recommended. 

Not that we're buying a house right away.  My first order of business is to find us a temporary apartment to lease for a few months while we look for a house.  Then I guess I should probably give notice here and then start to think about how, exactly, we're going to manage to move all our shit to a different state.  Even though we've been planning to move for YEARS, I haven't even BEGUN to figure out how it's all going to work out. 

One thing we're sure about is that I'm not driving up there with the kids.  We'll definitely have to fly.   Genoa can't manage to sit in her car seat without screaming for even ten minutes, much less ten hours.   (If you missed this sound clip at the naked ledger, you should really give it a listen so you can feel my pain: Download SCREAM.wav)  Dave will need to drive either the moving van or one or both of our cars up there, so I'll be flying the kids up on my own.  FUN!

I'm not complaining, though.  I actually ENJOY having big projects like this to manage.  It reminds me of how much fun I had planning our wedding.  I get to make LISTS!

Lost

We just watched this week's episode and even though there are much more important things in my world right now, I just have to get this off my chest.

How has Hurley managed to gain so much damn weight!?!? 

As someone who once weighed over 300 pounds and often WISHED to be stranded on a deserted island so I could finally lose a damn pound or three, IT BUGS ME.  The Wikipedia entry claims it's 75 pounds.  No one could actually GAIN weight in that situation - even if they discovered a stock pile of candy bars and peanut butter.  It's just not possible given the amount of increased physical activity one would get even walking as far into the jungle as you'd need to just to take a crap! 

My guess is that without fast food and the addition of even a modicum of daily exercise, a real-life stranded obese person would lose no less than a pound a day, which means Hurley should be down, what, close to a hundred pounds (IE NOTICEABLY thinner).

On an unrelated, but also Lost note, no woman would ever refuse Sawyer his afternoon delight,  mix tape or not.  Am I right ladies?

Best case scenario

On July 18, 2004, Dave and I tucked our 9-month-old boy in his crib and spent the rest of the evening across the hall snuggled in our own bed.  Talking.  We've always been talkers and I think that's truly the core of our decade-long union - neither of us can manage to have even a single solitary thought without sharing it with the other.

That was our very first night in our very first home.  I had spent two weeks painting every square inch of it and we had finally moved in.  And together, in the dark, in our own tiny little love nest, we made a decision.  And then we stayed up half the night hatching our plan.

Most people would've spent the rest of their lives moaning and complaining.  Worrying about never being able to do this or afford that.  Lamenting the fact that their children would never have a back yard. 

Not us.

That plan has taken us 1005 days of planning, incredibly hard work and anticipation.  (and by "us" I mean mostly Dave.)

It has finally paid off.

Last night Dave was offered a job.  And it isn't just A job, it's THE job.  It's THE job at THE firm in THE city of our dreams.  When we hatched our plan almost three years ago, it was simple:  move to Washington state.  After more research and a few trips to check it out, we refined our goal:  eventually settle in Vancouver. 

It became our first choice even though we resigned ourselves to the fact that it would likely take several years to get there.  There just aren't that many firms in Vancouver (seriously, like five including satellite offices of Portland firms), and even fewer that practice the kind of law Dave wants to practice.  We assumed we'd have to settle in Seattle and then eventually move to Vancouver after four years - the length of time you have to practice in Washington before Oregon automatically allows you to become a Bar member without having to pass another exam. We figured we'd eventually settle in Vancouver as a suburb of Portland.

So this job?  This excellent job and Dave's absolute FIRST CHOICE firm?  A small firm where he'll get to expand his skills and practice the kind of law he's always wanted to in the city where we can't wait to live?  It's the Best Case Scenario.  The odds were against us, yet it couldn't have gone any better.

And you know what?  I'm not even going to say how lucky we are or thank god or anything else.

Dave EARNED this.  We deserve this.  HE deserves it.  Hello American Dream!  Hard work pays off.

Guess why she's so happy

Go on, guess.

Plugs

1)  Dave is clueless.  Seriously.

2)  I have the best son EVER.  He says the cutest things.