"He who controls the past, controls the future...

9:29am: Yet one more reason I became a parent......
One morning last week the alarm rang at 6:30 (as usual) and I hit the snooze to sleep another 7 min (as usual). Baby started crying, grabbed her and came back to our bed to try to get a few more seconds of shut eye (as usual). When it became apparent that our daughter was no longer interested in sleeping and thought it was fun to climb us like her own personal jungle gym, I decided it was time to turn on the light and start getting ready. As soon as the light flipped on our baby turned to her daddy, placed her tiny hands on either side of his face, gazed into his eyes......and sneezed! I nearly fell out of bed laughing. Nothing says "Good Morning!" like a good, juicy sneeze in the face.

This morning the alarm rang at 6:30 (as usual) and I hit the snooze to sleep another 7 min (as usual). Baby started crying, grabbed her and came back to our bed to try to get a few more seconds of shut eye (as usual). I turned on the light and our baby turned to look her daddy straight in the eye.....and sneeze (as usual).

Ahhh....having a kid is great!

9:27am: Mmmm
I have a new favorite food porn site: http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/

I love the close-ups so you can see every tantalizingly luscious detail.
Great, all-American, food porn. :)

5:12pm: Ghetto Van Confessions
We have a 1999 Plymouth Voyager minivan with 201,000 miles on it. It is eggplant purple with two large rust spots, one on each sliding door.
The driver's side back window doesn't open, the interior light does not come on when you open the driver's side door.
The driver's side window also doesn't go down, so if you want to do drive-thru anything you have to drive alittle past where you want and then open the frigging door.
The front passenger's seat also has a mysterious substance stuck on the back that was there when we bought it.
You can also hear us coming from two blocks away due to the various squealings coming from under the hood.
Yesterday I was driving and asked if J could get the mail. I angled the van to get close so he could reach the mailbox. Apparently I got a little too close because the next thing I knew there was a loud crunch and our side view mirror is dangling off the side of the van.
J proceeded to make the van a TRUE ghetto van but reattching said side mirror with duct tape.
Ahhh the good life....

(Secretly what I am really doing is attempting to kill this van by hitting every pothole in the road and breaking it apart piece by piece.)

9:48am: It's been awhile....
...for two things. 1) Since I last posted anything and 2)Since I became a parent.
So I figured I'd take care of point 1 while I talked about point 2.
I've been a parent for over a year now and I've been thinking a lot on how I was before and how I have changed. At first I think I haven't changed at all, I still feel like my old self. But how I think has deffinitely changed.

While pregnant I got so sick of hearing "oh you won't believe the love you'll have for your baby" and "you won't believe how much your life will change" I could tell I was about to get "the speech" from these total strangers as soon as they saw my belly. My standard response was "looking forward to it" and "we're very excited" while I was mentally slapping them upside the head.

I get it now.

For those of you who don't have a rugrat this is the best way I can describe how you feel for the little bugger:
Remember what it was like when you first met that person who is/was the love of your life? This person can make you smile after a day of the whole world treating you like shit. You can't stop thinking about them, and just thinking about them puts a stupid grin on your face.
Then over the course of weeks or months you fall into a more comfortable but less intense relationship. You still are completely in love but your whole life isn't being consumed by it anymore.

That intensity of first falling in love is what you feel for your child and instead of the intensity fading as time goes on, it increases. It's crazy how much I love that little girl. I've given up a lot of my own freedom, time and energy in order to become a parent. Sometimes I miss being able to do some of the things I use to such as sleeping past 7:30 on a weekend, going out at night and being able to get buzzed (or flat out smashed) every once in awhile. But the way I feel for my daughter, I couldn't imagine making any other choice. As much as I miss being able to do all that other stuff, having her in my life more than makes up for it.

12:25pm: Happy Birthday to Jevchance!
I love you babe!

12:04pm: Second day back
This is my second day back to work. It's amazing how fast my leave went. My DD is now 9 weeks old and getting huge! She was born 7lbs13oz and is now over 12lbs. Yesterday she spent the day with grandma and I feel proud that I managed to restrain myself and only call one time. However, that was because I was busy at work trying to get caught up on stuff. Today I'm at my other location and DD is in daycare here. On the plus side, she is right here and I can pretty much see her whenever I want. On the minus side, I'm not as busy here so it's harder to keep myself from going over there every ten minutes. (didn't help that she was smiling all morning and then started to fuss and cry as I was leaving her)
Not much else going on besides my new found addiciton: World of Warcraft. :)

1:55pm: Yes!
Fraggle Rock: The Movie

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/20/film.fraggle.reut/index.html

8:44am: Stuff I didn't know...
Gary cole (aka Bill Lumbergh from Office Space) graduated from my high school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Cole

Now I know where he got the inspiration for that character. ;)

1:24pm: Overdue Update
Haven't updated this in quite awhile so here goes...

Yep feeling the baby kick still, even J has felt the baby a few times
90% sure baby is a girl. Yes, we are thrilled to be having a girl, and we would have been just as thrilled if we were having boy instead.
We will be naming her Amy Lynn.

Feeling very excited and scarred. I know this means my life as I now know it is going to be completely changed, I just don't know how. It's easy for other people to tell you how their lives have changed from having a baby, but everyone's different. Most of the time I can't wait to start being a mother but at times I just get very nervous about having to be completely responsible for the well-being of another person. It gives me a new level of respect for my own mother. I'm beginning to understand what she went through when she was first learning how to be a mother.

So, to anyone who is harboring any resentment towards their own moms: please give her a break! Unless she is a sociopath, she most likely did the best that she could for you when you were growing up. She most likely made a lot of mistakes, just like you will(did)when you become(became)a parent.

1:49pm: Who's that tap-tapping?
Today is the first day I've been feeling regular movement from the parasit..er I mean baby.
I swear this kid already knows morse code.
Wait...I think I can decipher this....

E...T...M...O...R...C...H...O...C...L...A...T

Hmmm....it keeps repeating this same pattern. I wonder what it's trying to say?

12:40pm: For all of you in need of some romance
Here's a list of reccommended books.
http://www.worldoflongmire.com/features/romance_novels/

2:56pm: Confusion and disappointment
Well, first the confusion part:

As stated earlier the archives I've been working on seems to be going places and I've been asked to create a budget of what I would need for supplies. I have never put a budget like this together before so I'm kinda winging it right now. I'm looking at what I will need now and making guesstimates on what I'm going to be needing in the next 1-2 years.
I'm looking at catalogs for different companies to get prices but it is really hard to guess how many of a certain item I'll need. I don't know if the numbers I'm putting down will seem too low or be too high. I'ver ordered stuff before that I thought would never be approved because of the cost but my manager approved it with no questions asked. On the other hand I don't want this project to seem too expensive that it'll be dismissed right away.

As for the disappointment part:

Well, lets just say I've been let down today and I'm feeling really frustrated, helpless, and alienated.

2:16pm: Fingers crossed
Okay, as J mentioned in his own blog, there have been some promising developments with my job. I mentioned earlier how I have been working on the archives for my institution, but for the most part it has been on the side when my other responsibilities have already been taken care of.
Well....
The 10 year anniversary of the merger of place "A" and place "B" is coming up and people are wanting to do a celebration that shows the history of both places pre- and post-merger. Not only that but some talk of formalizing an archives department with an archivist has also been approached. At a meeting today my boss went to the mat for me saying that since I already have started creating this archives, my position should be restructured with a title changed from "assistant librarian" to "archivist" and have my job duties consist mainly of managing the archives.
I was also told to make a budget of what I would need to purchase to start the archives up. My boss told me to just create a wish list for everything that I have ever wanted for the archives and, if this goes through, I would probably get everything on it. WhooHoo!
We are now planning on taking it to the executive level of the institution in the next few weeks. If all goes well, all of this (including my upgraded position) could go through by the next fiscal year which starts in JULY!
There's still alot of "ifs" in this scenario, but I'm getting a positive vibe from everybody that we've talked to so far.

I'll keep you guys posted after the meeting with the execs in a few weeks to let you know what happened. Y'all keep your fingers crossed for me!

3:51pm: Silence please...
Walking down the hallways of where I work I constantly see people sitting in wheelchairs or laying on gurneys being pushed back and forth to whatever medical tests they need to have done. For the most part everyone politely moves to the side to allow them easier passage but usually they also keep walking and keep talking to whoever they are walking with.
Except for when it is an incubator that is being pushed across the hallway.
When people see an incubator coming down the hall with some tiny nugget inside there seems to be an unspoken agreement that everyone follows. Everyone not only moves to the side of the hallway but they also stop all movement, all conversations cease, and all eyes follow as it passes them by. Once it's a little further down the hall everyone resumes their walking and their coversations. Like everyone was giving sort of a tribute to whoever it is that has to spend their first few days of life fighting to live in a cold, sterile environment. I guess it's nothing huge but it's just kind of nice to see a bunch of strangers mutually cheering on the little nugget.

On a completely unrelated note:

J and I bought a new cereal at the store yesterday with a high fiber content 'cause we got inspired by loser to start eating healthier. Right on the front of the box it states that this "higer fiber cereal" is made up of flakes, twigs, and granola. I always new that high-fiber cereals made you eat tree bark, finally found one that is honest about it! ;)

12:12pm: Whoops!
I've had nightmares about doing this.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/30/britain.museum.ap/index.html

1:38pm: It's 1976 all over again!
Listen Up People!

In January of 1976 two bright and talented people were brought into this world...

Yes I am talking of Danny Pintauro from "Who's the Boss" and Emma Lee Bunton, otherwise know as "Baby Spice".

But since they didn't return my phone calls we decided to have a party for jevchance and losermlw!

When: Jan. 21 7:00pm - 7:12pm (when the beer runs out)

Where: jev and Das's house (let me know if you need directions)

What: Yes, we are going for a 1976 themed party for J and M who are leaving their twenty-somethings behind. You will see pictures of G.R.'s own President Ford, lava lamps, paisley shirts open at the collar to show off all that wonderful chesthair, a little Peter Frampton, a little ABBA, anything and everything that takes us back to those wacky days of 1976.

We will provide the food (meatballs, fondue, chocolate fountain, etc...)you provide yourselves in your best 1976 get-up (plus what ever drinky you plan on inbibing).
Dressing up isn't required, but come on! Live a little!

Please reply so we can get an idea of how much cheez-whiz we'll need for the fondue pot.

12:39pm: Fun with powerpoint
Would this have had the same impact if it HAD been on PP?

Gettysburg

10:52am: Christmas
I'm putting this in my own journal instead of replying to anyone's comment because I don't want to seem as if I'm attacking them for their beliefs.
( Read more... )