Do as I say, not as I do - sometimes I feel like that is my motto. I don't always set the best example for my kids, as much as I want to.
Particularly when it comes to keeping my house clean.
But you probably already knew that, right?
Right.
In our house, things that aren't used very often tend to stay where they land until we go on a cleaning spree...or until we decide it's some sort of safety hazard and move it. Case in point: when my husband got a replacement mirror for my car, the box in which it came sat on the third step coming up into our living room for a long time. Like, weeks. At least.
Another example: a marker fell down the steps. It sat there for a while. I'm not sure how long, because after a while, you just don't tend to notice the clutter, at least not until it starts jumping out from behind corners and yelling BOO!
The other day, Craig was bringing the Imp into the house. I was standing at the top of the steps watching them come in. The Imp spotted the little marker and picked it up. "Oh - what a good boy!" I called down to him. "Thank you for bringing that up!"
The Imp, of course, completely ignored me. He looked at the marker, then looked around. Then he spotted the box. He looked back and forth - marker, box. And then - plop. Marker in the box. He beamed at me, then climbed on up the steps.
Maybe he's seen us shoving things into the closet one too many times.
Friday, July 30, 2010
5 Question Friday With Mama M. (7/29)
It's time for Five Question Friday with Mama M. at My Little Life! Fun questions this week! Not that they ever aren't, but I particularly enjoyed a few of these. Hope everyone had a great week!
1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?
I still sleep with a Shamu stuffed animal that I've had for longer than I can remember. Shamu wasn't always my favorite (although he was always among my favorites), but he's stuck with me for the longest. My favorite was a tiny yellow stuffed...puppy, I think, but I was convinced and adamant that it was a kitten...that I called "Meringue," for whatever reason. Meringue actually belonged to my mom, though, and eventually passed back into her stuffed animal collection. Meringue now resides happily on the stuffed animal shelf in my parents' computer room.
2. Do you dream in color?
Honestly, I don't know. My dreams are so hard for me to remember that even if I could remember what they were about, I couldn't tell you whether or not they were in color.
3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?
I'm between 5'5" and 5'6". I think it's a good height, and only wish I were taller when I'm sitting in a car and the seat belt is slicing across my neck (why don't they make those for people of average height?) or when someone is calculating my BMI.
4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?
Hmm. There are several I'd choose, but each would probably eventually get annoying, so I'd need to be able to rotate through. The first one that comes to mind is Sean Connery.
5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?
Oh my gosh. This is SUCH a pet peeve of mine. I always take it back to the corral...seriously, how hard is it??? Although I'll admit that I'm a little more understanding of the fact that it is harder for some people, like those with multiple small children, than it is for most people. So if you have a few little toddlers hanging onto you and there are no spaces near a shopping cart corral, and you have to leave it in the space - okay, I can sympathize. But if you don't have little kids and you just don't feel like making the walk to take it back - seriously? That is really inconsiderate...not only of the people whose cars are going to get scratched by them, or the people who can't park in that space because the cart rolled a few feet and now it's blocked, but also the poor employees who are going to have to trudge all over the parking lot, rounding up stray carts. Come on. Have some consideration of others, please?
1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?
I still sleep with a Shamu stuffed animal that I've had for longer than I can remember. Shamu wasn't always my favorite (although he was always among my favorites), but he's stuck with me for the longest. My favorite was a tiny yellow stuffed...puppy, I think, but I was convinced and adamant that it was a kitten...that I called "Meringue," for whatever reason. Meringue actually belonged to my mom, though, and eventually passed back into her stuffed animal collection. Meringue now resides happily on the stuffed animal shelf in my parents' computer room.
2. Do you dream in color?
Honestly, I don't know. My dreams are so hard for me to remember that even if I could remember what they were about, I couldn't tell you whether or not they were in color.
3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?
I'm between 5'5" and 5'6". I think it's a good height, and only wish I were taller when I'm sitting in a car and the seat belt is slicing across my neck (why don't they make those for people of average height?) or when someone is calculating my BMI.
4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?
Hmm. There are several I'd choose, but each would probably eventually get annoying, so I'd need to be able to rotate through. The first one that comes to mind is Sean Connery.
5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?
Oh my gosh. This is SUCH a pet peeve of mine. I always take it back to the corral...seriously, how hard is it??? Although I'll admit that I'm a little more understanding of the fact that it is harder for some people, like those with multiple small children, than it is for most people. So if you have a few little toddlers hanging onto you and there are no spaces near a shopping cart corral, and you have to leave it in the space - okay, I can sympathize. But if you don't have little kids and you just don't feel like making the walk to take it back - seriously? That is really inconsiderate...not only of the people whose cars are going to get scratched by them, or the people who can't park in that space because the cart rolled a few feet and now it's blocked, but also the poor employees who are going to have to trudge all over the parking lot, rounding up stray carts. Come on. Have some consideration of others, please?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Breastfeeding, Take Three
I know I still need to post a birth story. It's coming, but I'm still working on processing everything mentally. Until then, I'm going to post some post-birth stories. I'm going to start with my experience with breastfeeding this time, because it wasn't what I was expecting.
Not much has been, really. And I'm getting to the point where I think that's okay, but, as I said, I'm still processing.
I had many high expectations of what would come out of having a natural childbirth. One of these was an easier time with breastfeeding than I had with the other two. Not that I a particularly difficult time with either of them, but I figured after an unmedicated delivery, it would be even better.
First, there would be no medications in my system to keep me from being able to nurse right away, as happened with the Birdie's birth. I wasn't able to nurse her until several hours later, after the medications wore off.
Second, there wouldn't be any medications in my Bumblebee's system, thus making her more alert than babies born during medicated deliveries. She was very alert right away. But, then again, so were the Birdie and the Imp.
Third, waiting for her to come on her own (instead of being induced) might - I speculated - help my milk come in faster.
Fourth, having natural oxytocin in my system instead of synthetic oxytocin might also help my milk come in faster.
But guess what? There was one factor I didn't consider, and it was probably the most important one with relation to breastfeeding: hydration. It's quite possible that the things I listed above would have made my breastfeeding experience better...if I had kept myself hydrated. But I didn't. It never even occurred to me that I needed to. After all, it was never that big of a deal with my other two. Oh, I knew it was important, but I never went out of my way to make sure I stayed hydrated, and I had plenty of milk for both of them.
But guess what else I had with them: IV hydration during labor. Something I didn't want and didn't have during my labor with the Bumblebee. I was pretty dehydrated afterwards, and I didn't do anything to take care of it.
And it made a big difference. Huge. So big that, for a couple of days, I didn't think I was going to be able to breastfeed my Bumblebee long-term.
Everything started off well. Immediately after delivery, although I was pretty shell-shocked from what I'd just gone through, I was able to nurse my Bumblebee for about an hour and a half. I was never pressured to hurry things up. They let me stay there and nurse her until she was finished.
She was 7 lbs, 8.5 oz. when she was born.
She nursed well in the hospital, although it wasn't as frequently as it should have been. I'd planned to have her room in with me the whole time, but I was exhausted that first night, so I asked them to take her to the nursery for a while. They brought her to me when she seemed hungry, which meant she went for some fairly long stretches in between feedings - becaues newborns are sleepy like that. I should have been feeding her every two hours, and I knew that, but I hadn't slept in more than 48 hours and I didn't have the willpower to choose nursing her over snatching a few hours of rest.
They weighed her that night around midnight, and she was 7 lbs, 5.3 oz. We left that day, the 20th, so that was her discharge weight.
On the afternoon of the 21st, we went to the pediatrician for her first weight check. Most breastfeeding moms are familiar with the horror of the weight check. After a mostly sleepless night spent trying to figure out what in the world you can do to placate your newborn who will only sleep if you are holding her, which of course you are told you absolutely must not do, you stagger in to the pediatrician's office, only to have them tell you your baby has lost too much weight, or is on track to losing too much weight, and (if they are supportive) inform you that you and your baby are sleeping too much (What? Seriously?) and that you should be waking up every two hours to feed her (if they aren't supportive, they start talking right away about supplementing with formula).
So, we had our first weight check. Since this is our third baby, we really weren't too worried about it, especially since everything went really smoothly with the Imp. He only lost about 7 oz. total - about 7% (the "danger cutoff" is 10%) - before he started gaining. During our weight checks with the Birdie, Craig and I developed a bit of a tradition. We'd choose a weight, and then we'd bet on whether she'd be over or under it. Loser had to buy at Starbucks after the appointment. So, on the way to the appointment, we joked about it, and settled on 7 lbs even. If she was 7 or more, Craig won; if she was under 7 lbs, I won.
Except, of course, if she was under 7 lbs, I was really losing. After all, the Imp never dropped below 6 lbs, and the Bumblebee was a pound heavier than he was - so I didn't really expect her to drop below 7. Even though that's what I bet on, 'cause I'm pessimistic like that.
And, as it turned out, the pessimist in me won. 6 lbs, 14.2 oz. Then, to make me feel even better about it, they had me nurse her in the exam room, then they weighed her again to see how much shegained with a feeding. The result after I fed her? 6 lbs, 14.1 oz. All right! I actually must have sucked some milk back out of her! Great job, Mommy!
Of course, the pediatrician's lactation consultant was ever-so-encouraging. "If she drops below 6 lbs 12 oz, we'll be concerned, but I don't expect that to happen. This is your third baby; I'll bet your milk comes in in the next 24 hours."
Oh, yes. I'll bet it does. Just like, "This is your third baby. I'll bet your labor goes fast." And, "This is your third baby. You're already at 6 cm - she'll be here in no time." Also, "This is your third baby. I'll bet she slides right out with you barely even having to push."
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll get to that part in another post.
Back to the milk - have you guessed it? Nope, as a matter of fact, it didn't come in "within the next 24 hours." 7/22 (Day 3), weight: 6 lbs, 13 oz. Only one ounce lost away from, "Danger, danger, supplement NOW!" As before, I nursed her, they weighed her again - and she was still 6 lbs, 13 oz. I started to panic. Someone remarked, "At least she didn't lose any [after being nursed]." Ohhh, yes. Thanks ever so much for that. I started to cry.
7/23 - we went to the hospital for the weight check because we had some routine tests that needed to be run since we left the hospital early. This time, we received a little bit of hope: 6 lbs, 14 oz. I nursed her, and it actually went up - 6 lbs, 14.7 oz! Not much of a gain, but I'd just nursed her shortly before we weighed her, so she'd already mostly drained me. So this was somewhat encouraging, but the pessimist within reminded me that Craig and I are pretty sure that the scale at the pediatrician's office is not reliable - we think it's consistently low, so it was possible that 14 oz. on the hospital scale would still be 13 oz. on the pediatrician's scale. However, it was enough to get us out of the weight check cycle.
7/25 - I'd been feeling pretty encouraged, but overnight, I accidentally went for about 5 hours without feeding her. I should have been ready to explode, right? Nope. I barely felt full after that. So I knew things were still not where they needed to be. Completely discouraged, that evening, I spoke on the phone with my doula, who agreed that things didn't sound right and suggested I spend a few days of strictly nursing every two hours (or more often) and otherwise keeping the Bumblebee skin-to-skin with me and doing nothing else. She also helped me realize I hadn't been drinking enough water to make up for the fact that I hadn't had IV hydration during delivery, so I was very dehydrated, which was probably the main reason my milk was being so stubborn about coming in.
Unfortunately, the timing of me needing to focus 100% on the Bee coincided with my mom going back home for a few days (she had been with us since the day before the Bumblebee was born); fortunately, I have an amazingly supportive husband who never once questioned or argued about my need to do this, and took on either caring alone for our two small children or arranging for someone to help him out with them. I was able to settle on the downstairs couch with my Bumblebee and three travel mugs that I kept full of water on Sunday evening and stay there or in bed with her constantly until Tuesday evening, with only a few breaks.
And guess what? It seems to have worked. On Wednesday morning (7/28, 9 days old) I had to take her to the pediatrician for an unrelated issue, but of course they weighed her. I went in, half-fearful and half-hopeful. This time, the hopeful side won out. Weight: 7 lbs, 4.2 oz. - a gain of 6 oz since her last weight check, 5 days earlier. Since the average rate of weight gain for a breastfed baby is 1 to 1.5 oz. a day, that was enough to let me know we were on the right track, finally.
What a relief.
We have a little over 4 oz. to go to get her back to her birth weight, so I expect she'll hit it by Monday, if not sooner. Her next visit is on Monday (two weeks! Wow!) so we'll find out then whether we made it or not.
Regardless, I've learned a very important lesson for next time, if I decide to have another natural birth: drink way more water than I think I need, because my tendency is to not drink enough. I guess this should be obvious, but since I was probably over-hydrated after my first two babies' births, it didn't matter nearly as much whether I drank enough during those early days (which, of course, I didn't, but as I said, it didn't matter).
So, now I know. That's one item to go in the "Lessons Learned" list.
One of many. Very, very many. I'll get to those other ones soon.
Not much has been, really. And I'm getting to the point where I think that's okay, but, as I said, I'm still processing.
I had many high expectations of what would come out of having a natural childbirth. One of these was an easier time with breastfeeding than I had with the other two. Not that I a particularly difficult time with either of them, but I figured after an unmedicated delivery, it would be even better.
First, there would be no medications in my system to keep me from being able to nurse right away, as happened with the Birdie's birth. I wasn't able to nurse her until several hours later, after the medications wore off.
Second, there wouldn't be any medications in my Bumblebee's system, thus making her more alert than babies born during medicated deliveries. She was very alert right away. But, then again, so were the Birdie and the Imp.
Third, waiting for her to come on her own (instead of being induced) might - I speculated - help my milk come in faster.
Fourth, having natural oxytocin in my system instead of synthetic oxytocin might also help my milk come in faster.
But guess what? There was one factor I didn't consider, and it was probably the most important one with relation to breastfeeding: hydration. It's quite possible that the things I listed above would have made my breastfeeding experience better...if I had kept myself hydrated. But I didn't. It never even occurred to me that I needed to. After all, it was never that big of a deal with my other two. Oh, I knew it was important, but I never went out of my way to make sure I stayed hydrated, and I had plenty of milk for both of them.
But guess what else I had with them: IV hydration during labor. Something I didn't want and didn't have during my labor with the Bumblebee. I was pretty dehydrated afterwards, and I didn't do anything to take care of it.
And it made a big difference. Huge. So big that, for a couple of days, I didn't think I was going to be able to breastfeed my Bumblebee long-term.
Everything started off well. Immediately after delivery, although I was pretty shell-shocked from what I'd just gone through, I was able to nurse my Bumblebee for about an hour and a half. I was never pressured to hurry things up. They let me stay there and nurse her until she was finished.
She was 7 lbs, 8.5 oz. when she was born.
She nursed well in the hospital, although it wasn't as frequently as it should have been. I'd planned to have her room in with me the whole time, but I was exhausted that first night, so I asked them to take her to the nursery for a while. They brought her to me when she seemed hungry, which meant she went for some fairly long stretches in between feedings - becaues newborns are sleepy like that. I should have been feeding her every two hours, and I knew that, but I hadn't slept in more than 48 hours and I didn't have the willpower to choose nursing her over snatching a few hours of rest.
They weighed her that night around midnight, and she was 7 lbs, 5.3 oz. We left that day, the 20th, so that was her discharge weight.
On the afternoon of the 21st, we went to the pediatrician for her first weight check. Most breastfeeding moms are familiar with the horror of the weight check. After a mostly sleepless night spent trying to figure out what in the world you can do to placate your newborn who will only sleep if you are holding her, which of course you are told you absolutely must not do, you stagger in to the pediatrician's office, only to have them tell you your baby has lost too much weight, or is on track to losing too much weight, and (if they are supportive) inform you that you and your baby are sleeping too much (What? Seriously?) and that you should be waking up every two hours to feed her (if they aren't supportive, they start talking right away about supplementing with formula).
So, we had our first weight check. Since this is our third baby, we really weren't too worried about it, especially since everything went really smoothly with the Imp. He only lost about 7 oz. total - about 7% (the "danger cutoff" is 10%) - before he started gaining. During our weight checks with the Birdie, Craig and I developed a bit of a tradition. We'd choose a weight, and then we'd bet on whether she'd be over or under it. Loser had to buy at Starbucks after the appointment. So, on the way to the appointment, we joked about it, and settled on 7 lbs even. If she was 7 or more, Craig won; if she was under 7 lbs, I won.
Except, of course, if she was under 7 lbs, I was really losing. After all, the Imp never dropped below 6 lbs, and the Bumblebee was a pound heavier than he was - so I didn't really expect her to drop below 7. Even though that's what I bet on, 'cause I'm pessimistic like that.
And, as it turned out, the pessimist in me won. 6 lbs, 14.2 oz. Then, to make me feel even better about it, they had me nurse her in the exam room, then they weighed her again to see how much she
Of course, the pediatrician's lactation consultant was ever-so-encouraging. "If she drops below 6 lbs 12 oz, we'll be concerned, but I don't expect that to happen. This is your third baby; I'll bet your milk comes in in the next 24 hours."
Oh, yes. I'll bet it does. Just like, "This is your third baby. I'll bet your labor goes fast." And, "This is your third baby. You're already at 6 cm - she'll be here in no time." Also, "This is your third baby. I'll bet she slides right out with you barely even having to push."
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll get to that part in another post.
Back to the milk - have you guessed it? Nope, as a matter of fact, it didn't come in "within the next 24 hours." 7/22 (Day 3), weight: 6 lbs, 13 oz. Only one ounce lost away from, "Danger, danger, supplement NOW!" As before, I nursed her, they weighed her again - and she was still 6 lbs, 13 oz. I started to panic. Someone remarked, "At least she didn't lose any [after being nursed]." Ohhh, yes. Thanks ever so much for that. I started to cry.
7/23 - we went to the hospital for the weight check because we had some routine tests that needed to be run since we left the hospital early. This time, we received a little bit of hope: 6 lbs, 14 oz. I nursed her, and it actually went up - 6 lbs, 14.7 oz! Not much of a gain, but I'd just nursed her shortly before we weighed her, so she'd already mostly drained me. So this was somewhat encouraging, but the pessimist within reminded me that Craig and I are pretty sure that the scale at the pediatrician's office is not reliable - we think it's consistently low, so it was possible that 14 oz. on the hospital scale would still be 13 oz. on the pediatrician's scale. However, it was enough to get us out of the weight check cycle.
7/25 - I'd been feeling pretty encouraged, but overnight, I accidentally went for about 5 hours without feeding her. I should have been ready to explode, right? Nope. I barely felt full after that. So I knew things were still not where they needed to be. Completely discouraged, that evening, I spoke on the phone with my doula, who agreed that things didn't sound right and suggested I spend a few days of strictly nursing every two hours (or more often) and otherwise keeping the Bumblebee skin-to-skin with me and doing nothing else. She also helped me realize I hadn't been drinking enough water to make up for the fact that I hadn't had IV hydration during delivery, so I was very dehydrated, which was probably the main reason my milk was being so stubborn about coming in.
Unfortunately, the timing of me needing to focus 100% on the Bee coincided with my mom going back home for a few days (she had been with us since the day before the Bumblebee was born); fortunately, I have an amazingly supportive husband who never once questioned or argued about my need to do this, and took on either caring alone for our two small children or arranging for someone to help him out with them. I was able to settle on the downstairs couch with my Bumblebee and three travel mugs that I kept full of water on Sunday evening and stay there or in bed with her constantly until Tuesday evening, with only a few breaks.
And guess what? It seems to have worked. On Wednesday morning (7/28, 9 days old) I had to take her to the pediatrician for an unrelated issue, but of course they weighed her. I went in, half-fearful and half-hopeful. This time, the hopeful side won out. Weight: 7 lbs, 4.2 oz. - a gain of 6 oz since her last weight check, 5 days earlier. Since the average rate of weight gain for a breastfed baby is 1 to 1.5 oz. a day, that was enough to let me know we were on the right track, finally.
What a relief.
We have a little over 4 oz. to go to get her back to her birth weight, so I expect she'll hit it by Monday, if not sooner. Her next visit is on Monday (two weeks! Wow!) so we'll find out then whether we made it or not.
Regardless, I've learned a very important lesson for next time, if I decide to have another natural birth: drink way more water than I think I need, because my tendency is to not drink enough. I guess this should be obvious, but since I was probably over-hydrated after my first two babies' births, it didn't matter nearly as much whether I drank enough during those early days (which, of course, I didn't, but as I said, it didn't matter).
So, now I know. That's one item to go in the "Lessons Learned" list.
One of many. Very, very many. I'll get to those other ones soon.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Welcome Bumblebee!
Welcome to our Baby Bumblebee!
Born July 19, 2010 at 2:26 p.m.
7 lbs. 8.5 oz.
21 inches long
And, look! She has hair!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
5 Question Friday with Mama M. (7/9)
It's time for 5 Question Friday with Mama M. I can't think of much else to write, so I'm going to be exceptionally boring and leave it at that.
1. What is one food you could eat everyday?
Every day...that's...a lot. Hmm. Well. Would it be wrong to say it depends on the day? I guess so.... Well...most days I could eat sushi. I imagine it would get old after a while, though.
2. Are you working in the career you thought you would be when you were 18?
I didn't even know this career existed when I was 18. Or when I was 28, for that matter.
3. What is something that you wish you would have done when you were younger and you didn't?
Travel more. Especially while I was in Europe. I definitely didn't take advantage of my options then. And now I have kids and a house and...kids...so travel - especially international travel - is pretty limited.
I guess there's always retirement...I hope....
4. What color are your kitchen walls?
Uh. Is it awful that I have to think about this? Umm...red and white. We actually have wallpaper up...a French theme, lots of black and white with splashes of red. Maybe I'll post a picture of it sometime. It's really pretty cute.
5. Do you remember what your very first favorite song was?
When I was in Kindergarten or 1st grade, I loved Ronnie Milsap. You probably don't even know who he is. He is (or was?) a country singer.... I don't even like country music anymore, but when I was really little, I loved it, or at least his music. I guess "Smokey Mountain Rain" was my first favorite song (other, I guess, than children's songs, and I can't remember what one of THOSE was my favorite).
---------
Edited to add a picture with the kitchen wallpaper in the background. It's hard to see, and I'll take a close-up picture tomorrow, but you can sort of see it in here.
Friday, July 2, 2010
5 Question Friday with Mama M. (7/2)
It's time for Five Question Friday with Mama M.! If you're interested in joining, pop over to her page and copy the questions, then provide your own answers - then make sure you link up to her at the bottom of her post!
1. What is one thing you miss the most about childhood?
I am going to take my friend Jaime's answer for this one and say NOT HAVING ANY WORRIES! Yes, I know, it's not really fair to steal someone else's answer, but I have thought this for years. So that doesn't really count as stealing, right? But, really, what did you worry about when you were a kid? (And I mean a little kid, because being a pre-teen and teen is a whole different ball game, and I wouldn't go back there for FIVE MINUTES even if you gave me a million bucks.
Okay, wait. Maybe five minutes. For $1,000,000. 'Cause we could really use that.)
Speaking of "we could really use that," see? That's one of those "worries" that I didn't have as a kid. No bills to pay, no job to get out of bed for, and no mirrors coming off of your car where this tiny little white piece of plastic breaks and the mechanic says it'll cost $400 to repair because of course the whole mirror has to be replaced for that tiny little piece of plastic even though it's just a little piece of plastic can't you just FIX IT??
Whew. Sorry. Fortunately there is such a thing as the internet now, and Craig was able to buy a replacement mirror for $80, instead, complete with the paint to make it mocha sand pimp-daddy beige or whatever fancy name they made up for the color of my car. Really, it's gold.
When you were a kid, you just didn't know what might happen. You weren't aware of all of the things that could happen to you if you walked along the rock wall at the top of the street, so you went ahead and did it when Mom wasn't looking. There weren't scary people behind every tree in the woods behind your house, just waiting to snatch you up. Well, maybe there were, but, again, that was Mom's problem to worry about, not yours!
Yep. I miss being like that. (And, worse for my kids, I remember being like that...so I know the tricks! I do!)
2. Are you still friends with your friends from high school?
All of them? No, of course not. Some of them? Yes, very much so. Thanks to Facebook, I'm in touch with many more of them, too. It's nice.
3. Is there a catch phrase, cliche, or word that just drives you bonkers every time you hear it?
Um, yeah. "I could care less." Because it means the exact opposite of what people intend to say when they say it. If you could care less, then you do care.
It's "I couldn't care less," people. PLEASE.
4. What is one thing that you think symbolizes America...besides "Old Glory"?
Umm...Sam the - I mean, the Bald Eagle? Right? Freedom and all?
Which, now that I think about it...why do we use an endangered species to symbolize America and Freedom? (Or is it still endangered? Please forgive my ignorance....)
Still, they are a breathtakingly beautiful animal, aren't they?
5. What are your 4th of July weekend plans?
Well, don't throw anything at me, but I'm planning to brave the raging throngs of hormonal teenage girls to go see Eclipse with my mom tomorrow, if my Baby Bee will let me. Hey, I enjoyed those books, thankyouverymuch, even if I do think the whole "phenomenon" thing is utterly ridiculous (Lord of the Rings, yes; Star Wars, yes; but not Twilight, sorry).
Sunday, we'll probably do something...go to someone's house...but if there are already plans, I don't know anything about them. However, there are fireworks in our neighborhood (or a neighboring neighborhood, but close enough), and we went to them last year and the kids loved them, so we'll at least be doing that again, I think.
1. What is one thing you miss the most about childhood?
I am going to take my friend Jaime's answer for this one and say NOT HAVING ANY WORRIES! Yes, I know, it's not really fair to steal someone else's answer, but I have thought this for years. So that doesn't really count as stealing, right? But, really, what did you worry about when you were a kid? (And I mean a little kid, because being a pre-teen and teen is a whole different ball game, and I wouldn't go back there for FIVE MINUTES even if you gave me a million bucks.
Okay, wait. Maybe five minutes. For $1,000,000. 'Cause we could really use that.)
Speaking of "we could really use that," see? That's one of those "worries" that I didn't have as a kid. No bills to pay, no job to get out of bed for, and no mirrors coming off of your car where this tiny little white piece of plastic breaks and the mechanic says it'll cost $400 to repair because of course the whole mirror has to be replaced for that tiny little piece of plastic even though it's just a little piece of plastic can't you just FIX IT??
Whew. Sorry. Fortunately there is such a thing as the internet now, and Craig was able to buy a replacement mirror for $80, instead, complete with the paint to make it mocha sand pimp-daddy beige or whatever fancy name they made up for the color of my car. Really, it's gold.
When you were a kid, you just didn't know what might happen. You weren't aware of all of the things that could happen to you if you walked along the rock wall at the top of the street, so you went ahead and did it when Mom wasn't looking. There weren't scary people behind every tree in the woods behind your house, just waiting to snatch you up. Well, maybe there were, but, again, that was Mom's problem to worry about, not yours!
Yep. I miss being like that. (And, worse for my kids, I remember being like that...so I know the tricks! I do!)
2. Are you still friends with your friends from high school?
All of them? No, of course not. Some of them? Yes, very much so. Thanks to Facebook, I'm in touch with many more of them, too. It's nice.
3. Is there a catch phrase, cliche, or word that just drives you bonkers every time you hear it?
Um, yeah. "I could care less." Because it means the exact opposite of what people intend to say when they say it. If you could care less, then you do care.
It's "I couldn't care less," people. PLEASE.
4. What is one thing that you think symbolizes America...besides "Old Glory"?
Umm...Sam the - I mean, the Bald Eagle? Right? Freedom and all?
Which, now that I think about it...why do we use an endangered species to symbolize America and Freedom? (Or is it still endangered? Please forgive my ignorance....)
Still, they are a breathtakingly beautiful animal, aren't they?
5. What are your 4th of July weekend plans?
Well, don't throw anything at me, but I'm planning to brave the raging throngs of hormonal teenage girls to go see Eclipse with my mom tomorrow, if my Baby Bee will let me. Hey, I enjoyed those books, thankyouverymuch, even if I do think the whole "phenomenon" thing is utterly ridiculous (Lord of the Rings, yes; Star Wars, yes; but not Twilight, sorry).
Sunday, we'll probably do something...go to someone's house...but if there are already plans, I don't know anything about them. However, there are fireworks in our neighborhood (or a neighboring neighborhood, but close enough), and we went to them last year and the kids loved them, so we'll at least be doing that again, I think.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
