Things I'd Like To Do

So tonight, I'm going to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie.  This might not be the brightest choice, considering that Cy tends to wake up sometime between the hours of 4:30am and 6:30am, and considering that I have gotten only 4-5 hours of the sleep the past few nights; however, this is actually something that I've always wanted to do, but just haven't had the opportunity.  Plus, I found out that my 78 year old grandmother is going to a midnight showing, so really, I had no excuse!

Anyway, this got me thinking about other things that I've always wanted to do, but for whatever reason, just haven't had the chance. Some of these things seem rather mundane, but they still fit the bill:

• Go camping in the backwoods.  Now, I've been camping, and I've even been backpacking, but always in either official campgrounds, or on the Appalachian Trail.  Neither really give you the feelings of survival and isolation that are so intriguing about the backwoods.  My dad and I keep talking about this, and in fact, we have tentative plans to take on the backwoods of the Sierras next summer, provided I'm not pregnant!

• Go to a tailgating party and then a college football game.  This one really is just a matter of not having had the opportunity.  Sure, a football game alone would be fun, but I love the atmosphere of camaraderie and school spirit that accompanies the whole pre-game part.

• Ski.  Ok, so technically, I've been skiing, but I was 7 years old, and it was about an hour at a ski school, and it was awful.  I'd like to try it for real some time.  Snowboarding would suffice too.

• Grow a garden and keep chickens.  This one seems a little silly, but the older I get, the more I have a desire to be more in control of the food my family and I eat.  I'm never going to be the flower garden type, but a vegetable garden and a few chickens would make me happy.

• Go Rock Climbing.  I'm a little surprised at my desire for this activity, considering that I hate heights and/or the possibility of falling.  But it seems strangely exhilarating, and very gratifying.

• Ride a train with both a sleeping car and a dining car.  This is something that actually really, really want to do.  Trains are my favorite way to travel, and I would love to take one either all or part of the way across the country, seeing historic sites, eating in a fancy dining car with table cloths and silver, and sleeping in a sleeping car.  Do they even have these any more?  Perhaps I should look that up before I get too excited about the prospect...Anyway, I've always thought this would make a great family vacation, although probably one of those where I'm super excited about it and my kids roll their eyes and complain the whole time!

So, what are some things you've never done but would like to, no matter how simple or silly?

Counting down the days...

Ugh.  Cyrus and I leave for Phoenix in 13 days, and suddenly, things that I've been tolerating for the past four months have become completely intolerable.  For some reason, the last two weeks of any experience are always the hardest for me.   In elementary school, the last two weeks before vacation made me restless and antsy.  Anytime I've been away from home for an extended period of time, I hardly miss my family until I'm about ready to go home, and then it becomes almost unbearable.

Now that the end is in sight, being without my husband and being the sole parent for Cyrus is driving me a little nuts.  Not to mention that fact that we've been living in someone else's house, albeit my parent's house, for the past four months.  I lost my patience and yelled at Cyrus three times today.  And it wasn't that he was being unusually naughty - I just couldn't keep my cool.  He has recently started throwing a massive fit every time I change his diaper.  Usually, I try to find something to distract him, or I sing him a song, but today, I suddenly felt overwhelmed and frustrated at being the only parent, and instead of trying to help him out, I yelled.  Loudly.  And I might have cursed.  Now, don't get me wrong, my parents have been incredibly helpful, but it's just not the same thing as having Jason around to jump in when I just can't do it any more.  It probably doesn't help that Cyrus woke up at 4:30am today for the second day in a row (stupid daylight savings time).

I've been trying to remind myself all day long that I just need to make it a little while longer and then our little family can be together again, in our own house. Now, if Cyrus could maybe sleep in past 5am tomorrow, I might just make it!

How My TV Obsessions Reflect my Phase in Life

There was a time in my life when I was totally addicted to the TLC show "A Baby Story".  I think it started about a year or so after Jason and I got married, which is probably when I started thinking about having a baby.  I loved hearing the couples' stories and seeing the labor and birth process.  I especially liked the 6 weeks later update.  This obsession continued all the way through my pregnancy with Cyrus.  Sometimes, I panicked about how my birth would go, especially after watching an episode that ended with unplanned C-section or some other complication.  Since I was aiming for a natural birth, these episodes really upset me, especially as I got closer and closer to my due date.  On several occasions, after a panic session, Jason "banned" me from watching it!  I watched it anyway, but tried to limit my panicking, at least for a while.

A little dose of reality...

Lately, I've been feeling kind of old.  Not old in general, but old for a mom with a one year old. I didn't realize it until last week, but I think this is because, for the past year and a half, most of my exposure to moms has been through the Mormon church.  In Mormon culture, it seems to be the norm for moms my age to have children who are already in school and to be on child number three or four.  They might even be done having children, whereas I am just getting started.  All of the new moms I've come into contact with are a good four or five years younger than I.  I got pretty used to being one of the oldest "new" moms in any given setting.  Apparently, this started to give me a complex.  

Because of our current family situation (me living in Denver, Jason living in Phoenix), we've had to delay expanding our family.  And I've actually started to panic about this, because Cyrus is a whole 15 months old and I'm not pregnant again! (Another norm in Mormon culture - when child A turns 1, mom should become pregnant shortly thereafter).  And I'm almost 30! And we want to have four kids!  And I'm so old!

And then, last Thursday, everything came back into perspective for me.  For the past three months, I have been attending a Stroller Strides class here in Denver.  On Thursday night, a few of us got together for dinner and some time away from babies.  All of these moms have infants, most of whom are younger than Cyrus.  Throughout the course of the evening, I discovered that, not only was I the youngest mom there, but I was the youngest by quite a few years - in some cases, a full 10.  And, not only did these women all have young children, but most were still planning to have more.

Huh.  Oh yeah... As far as the rest of society is concerned, I am still young.  I'm not this ancient, time-waster who waited too long to start my family.  

Before I joined the church, and, truthfully, before I started dating Jason, I really thought that I wouldn't even get married until I was 28 or 30, and who knew when I would have kids.  But being around all of these young Mormon moms made me forget that there are lots of ways to live life.  Sometimes, I do wish that I had been able to start my family earlier, but that just wasn't in the cards for us.  I wasn't in a place to get married, much less have kids at 21 or 23 - that just wasn't me.  

There are lots of things I like about belonging to a community where people follow similar paths.  It makes a lot of things easier, especially when many of those paths are not followed by mainstream society. (Abstaining from alcohol and coffee, for example).   But, as I've recently realized, it is important to have my social circle extend beyond this community, if for no other reason then to help me maintain a broader perspective on the different ways that life can be lived.

Yep! We're alive...

So. I've decided that going too long without blogging becomes a little like going too long without talking to an old friend. The longer I go, the more guilty I feel, which makes it that much harder to pick up the phone (sit down at the computer) and say hi. Plus, the longer I go, the more there is to talk about and I start to put off the conversation because I know how long it will take us to catch up. Eventually, though, my desire to talk to my old friend outweighs the guilt and overcomes the procrastination. So here we are.

Our little family has been through quite a few changes in the past five months (five!) since I last blogged. A lot of these events deserve at least one, if not more, posts of their own...but if I try to write a post for everything that has happened, I'll get so overwhelmed that I'll never blog ever again! So, instead, here is the reader's digest version of the past few months:

At the end of April, Jason lost his job. It was a contracted position that we hoped would be made permanent, but it wasn't. Along with losing income, we also lost our amazing government insurance plan. We joined the ranks of the uninsured and the unemployed.

Despite applying to well over 100 positions, Jason did not get one single interview - a testament to the dire state of employment in the state of Oregon. So he started applying outside of the state.

In May, we flew to Phoenix, AZ for a job interview with a national pool supply company. They offered him a position as a manager in training. The starting salary is painfully low, but the growth potential is fantastic. So, despite my strong hate of the heat and my love for rainy, gray, fall Portland days, we made the decision to pack up and leave our beloved Portland for Arizona.

Kind of...

Winter Olympics Highlights

It has been years since I watched the Olympics, either Summer or Winter.  For Summer Olympics, I have been essentially sequestered in New Jersey for the last three Olympics.  I couldn't remember why I had missed the last Winter Olympics, but then Jason reminded me that they were always on really late at night, and I guess I just wasn't that interested.  When I was younger, I LOVED the Olympics.  Of course, figure skating and gymnastics were my favorites (I'm pretty sure this is the case with most young girls).  So this year, when the Winter Olympics were actually taking place in my time zone, I was all excited for women's figure skating - the rest I would endure if I had too.

However, I was surprised to find that my tastes have grown up a bit, and I was quite entertained by several events other than women's figure skating.  In fact (and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this), I didn't even watch the women's figure skating!  So, here were the moments that I found most entertaining, ending with number 1:

4.  Ice Dancing.  I don't have much to say about this.  In fact, my friend Bridget really summed up how I felt about the event this year.  I always thought it was the sad little sister to pairs skating, but I found it quite enjoyable this year.  Read her post for a more articulate response. 

3.  Bobsledding.  OK, I'll admit it, my only exposure to this sport is the movie Cool Runnings.  It didn't seem all that exciting to me, until we happened upon it and saw the US break the track record not once, but twice.  I was on the edge of my seat each time they took to the track, but most especially during their fourth run, my eyes glued to that little clock and the time of the German team in first place.  I was also shocked at how awful it looks when a team crashes.  I believe it was the Russians during their first run - I was kind of horrified, but couldn't pull my eyes away.  In a weird way, it almost made it all more exciting.

2.  Men's 4x10K Cross Country Relay.  Seriously, who would have thought that this would be exciting?  This certainly wasn't an event we planned to watch - we just happened upon it on Wednesday evening, right as the fourth and final leg was beginning.  For some reason, Norway was expected to do well, I think because of their fourth and final skier, Peter Northug.  But at the start of the final leg Northug was 37.5 seconds behind the three leaders - kind of a lot for just 6 miles.  The anouncers commented that if anyone could do it, it would be Northug, but they had pretty much written it off as impossible.  As we sat and watched sections of the race, we saw that Northug was getting closer and closer to the three leaders.  Just before the final mile, Hellner from Sweden pulled out front, leaving the skiers from France the Czech REpublic behind.  The amazing thing was that, each time we saw those two skiers, Northug was getting closer and closer.  By the time they entered the stadium, he was right behind them!  There I was, cheering on this crazy skier from Norway in a sport about which I cared very little!  I knew the gold was out of his hands, but I so badly wanted him to overtake the other two and win the silver.  And then, he did!  He got this amazing burst of speed and just flew by the other two guys, looking almost effortless.    It was a surprisingly exciting moment!

1.  Men's Short Track Speed Skating, specifically Apollo Ohno, and more specifically the final of the Men's 1500.  Who knew that short track was oh so exciting?  It's a bit like roller derby, and can change in the standings can change in the blink of an eye.  Every time I watched Apollo skate, I was just sure that he wouldn't medal - and almost every time (the exception being when he was disqualified from the men's 500) he made it, just in the knick of time!  His moves were effortless and graceful - every time he passed someone, I was in shock that it had happened so quickly!  My favorite moment was in the final of the Men's 1500.  Apollo was in fourth place, with one lap to go, and there was just no way he was going to make it.  I got so stressed out that I stood up and then sat back down, inadvertently sitting on the cable remote at exactly the crucial moment!  I happened to hit the button that brings up the guide, covering the entire TV screen, but stilling allowing us to hear what happened.  Right when the TV went blue, the two South Korean's in first and second place took each other out, putting Apollo in second and the other US skater in third!  Jason was less than pleased with me at that moment.  It was a very exciting race, made even more suspenseful by my over-excited, klutzy behavior!

I think the Winter Olympics has a new fan.  And now I'm kind of excited to see what the Summer Olympics has to offer in 2012. Bring it on!  What were your favorite Winter Olympic moments?

It's a New Year

Sigh.  Things in the blogging world just kind of petered out at the end of 2009 for me - not quite the big finish I was hoping for.  Oh well.  Here's to a new month and a new year, hopefully full of more consistent blogging.  I can proudly say that I averaged 48 posts in 2009 - just shy of one post a week.  Not bad considering that I went five full months without a single post.

So this post isn't really a real post.  It's more just my way of kickstarting my sluggish blogging brain.  One of the unfortunate side effects of not blogging for a few weeks is that I get a bunch of ideas rolling around in my head, which, rather than make it easier for me to blog, just makes it harder.  I'm hoping that by seeing something posted in January it will take the pressure off and make the next post roll out more smoothly.  We shall see.

As cliche as it is, I am going to post a few...well, I hate to call them resolutions, so let's call them, um, goals? That's not much better. But you get the idea.  Some things I'd like to try to accomplish for this upcoming year.

1.  Read more books.  This is kind of a vague goal, and really isn't setting the standard very high since I only read 3 books in 2009 (shameful, I know, especially for a former book worm).  So, instead, I'm going to make the rather lofty goal of reading 25 books this year.  That's a little fewer than one book every two weeks.  I better get on that...

2.  Related to goal #1 - make full use of the library.  I am a book-buyer from way back. I like to own my books, what can I say?  However, if I'm to read 25 books this year, I can't really afford to buy them all, not to mention how difficult it will be to find storage for them in my storage-challenged house.  So, the library it is. Plus, I want to encourage the habit in my wee one.

3.  Blog more.  Ha! Another vague goal.  But really, I kind of already started this back in October.  At the very least I'd like to stay close to current on Cy's blog.  It's been a good six weeks since my last post on that one, and his grandparents are getting antsy.  Maybe a post a week is a good goal for that blog, and perhaps two posts a week for this one?  Maybe if I just try to average 2 posts a week, that will give me a little more flexibility.

4.  Make more of an effort to stay in touch.  I kind of suck at this.  The more I move the more people with whom I develop friendships, and the more overwhelmed I get at staying connected.  I think it's just a matter of putting in more effort, even just in little bursts.  Perhaps I should make this one more specific too.  Ok, here it is - call or e-mail one friend a day.  This might seem a bit over the top, but I think if I keep this in mind it will get me off my butt and help me connect with people who I do actually care about.

I'm quite sure there is more I would like to do, or at least more that I should do.  But for now, we'll leave it here.  Thanks for indulging in this somewhat stream-of-consciousness style post.  I promise to be more articulate in future posts...well, maybe I can't promise that, but at least I'll try.

...And We're Back!

Well, I really did think that I would maintain a little more momentum after finishing NaBloPoMo, but then we went to Kansas for a wedding...which is actually one of the main reasons why I did NaBloPoMo in October instead of November.  So, we have returned from our week away, and as entry back into the blogging world, I thought I would share a few little tidbits I discovered while in Kansas:

1.  I love weddings.  I don't know if it's going to more weddings or simply getting older, but each wedding I attend (particularly those for people to whom I am close) I get more emotional than I did at the previous wedding.  Maybe weddings remind me of my own wedding, or maybe I just love the whole sentiment.  This wedding was a little bitter-sweet, as it was the last of the Wells siblings' weddings.  There are no weddings looming in our future and this makes me sad.  However, Jason's sister Kelly looked beautiful and the wedding was quite the party!

The happy couple and their wedding party.

2.  I play a (very distant) second fiddle to my child.  On several occasions, various family members, on seeing us for the first time on this trip, ran excitedly toward us and exuberantly greeted Cy.  Then, only after smiling and cooing at him, they noticed either me or Jason and then said hi, generally as an after-thought.  I would be offended except that this happened so often that I must simply take it as a compliment that we made a baby too cute for our own good.

3.  Babies are cute and welcome almost everywhere.  A wedding party-bus (or trolley, in this case) is not one of them...Yes, this was a little lapse in judgment on Jason's and my part.  Jason was in the wedding party, and after the ceremony, the wedding party boarded the trolley/party bus to go take some more pictures around Kansas city before the reception.  At the last minute, myself and a few other spouses were invited on.  Without thinking, Jason and I agreed and Cy and I boarded the trolley...Of course, babies need to eat, and they don't often want to wait for the 1.5 hour party-bus ride to do so. However, a bunch of unmarried young folks don't necessarily want to see a baby nursed on their party bus.  Nor do they want to hear said baby screaming at the top of his lungs when he has to wait to eat.  Add to that the beer bong and bawdy drinking songs, and well, I think I just earned the "worst-parent-of-the-year" award...

Cyrus melting...

Yes, that is a beer bong.  Don't ask me, I'm not nearly cool enough to get it!

4.  Snoring is almost never cute. Unless it is a baby doing the snoring.  Then it is extremely cute.  And must be recorded.  And shared with everyone we see the following day.  I would share this video with you, except that I  can't figure out how to upload a video with the new editor, so I guess we will save that for another day.  If you do know how, please share!

5.  Due to aforementioned cold, I now realize that my child is never allowed to have anything worse than a low fever and mild congestion.  This very minor illness ripped my heart out and brought tears to my eyes.  Anything even remotely more severe will likely kill me.

6.  A sick and slightly cranky baby is not the best traveling companion.  Unless you are flying a nearly full Southwest flight and wish to have an empty seat in your row.  Then, a cranky, sick baby may be just the ticket.

Self-esteem rising...only to fall again

I'm going to go out on a limb here and generalize that those who blog do so with the anticipation and hope that others will read their writing. I will go even further to say that those of us who leave our blogs open hope that strangers may also read and find interesting the things that we write. Even if this isn't true for other bloggers, it is for me, even if I wasn't willing to admit it right away. Blogger has two easy ways for me to know if others are reading my blog: the follower gadget and comments at the end of posts. So far I have three followers (one of which is my mom) and I appreciate them all. And, I think around 8 or 9 people have commented on my blog overall. Not bad, considering that this blog has really only been active for a month.

Now, I will admit that I've decided that I will feel somewhat successful as a blogger when I have a stranger either comment on my blog or become a follower. So, imagine my delight when I opened my e-mail a few days ago and saw a comment from a person I did not know! My confidence sky-rocketed and I felt ever so slightly proud of myself. It was on my post about jogging strollers, which I did think was a pretty interesting post, if I do say so myself. And then I opened the e-mail to read the comment and saw this:

"Thanks for sharing that! Nice post. I just glanced through it. "

It was followed by a link to buy strollers.

So. Not only did my one stranger commenter only "glance" through my post, but he then used the comment section to advertise! Not exactly what I had in mind...

Oh well, I guess I haven't quite reached stranger-commenting-worthy status yet, after all. It's a good thing that I don't really base my self-esteem on the comments on my blog or that could have been a real doozy!

Reflections on NaBloPoMo

Here it is, November 1, and I no longer "have" to write a daily blog post - and yet, here I am, still writing a post. Even as I plopped down on my couch this evening and proudly asked Jason "Guess what I don't have to do tonight?" I had three blog post ideas running around in my head. So, I guess NaBloPoMo served it's purpose. Here are some other things that occurred as a result of writing 31 posts in 31 days:

1. I now think about things from a blogging perspective. At the beginning of the month, I really had to push myself to come up with something to write about every single day. As I've already mentioned, small occurrences in my daily life now practically write themselves into posts!

2. I've realized that I really enjoy the idea of a blogging community. I've learned new things or gotten new perspectives from the comments people have left on my posts, and that is an unexpected positive side-effect.

3. Things I thought might not be interesting sparked thoughts in other people. Some of the posts that I did simply as a way to make sure that I wrote a post every day garnered the most comments, or at least prompted people to ask questions that will lead to other posts.

4. I've gotten over some of my perfectionism and am OK to post something even if I can't weave my words into the work of art that I'd like to.

5. I've enjoyed blogging so much so that I started a second blog for Cyrus.

6. I had a really good excuse to finally write Cyrus' birth story - something I'd been wanting to do for three months!

7. Perhaps one of the greatest things is that I now have almost 40 posts for the year of 2009! That averages out to nearly 4 posts a month for January through October. Of course, 31 of those happened in October...

It helped having Kristen plugging away right beside me. And, now I get to sit back and relax for the month of November and read Bridget's blog as she completes NaBloPoMo this month. I will say that this was a tougher challenge than I thought it would be and yet one that I'm proud to have accomplished. Now we'll just have to see how long I can maintain this momentum!

A Costume Conundrum

As a kid, I loved Halloween. I looked forward to trick or treating and I planned my costume months in advance. Fortunately, my mom is an extremely creative woman and a talented seamstress, and she always willingly (or at least, that's how I remember it) spent hours creating whatever costume I came up with - a court jester, a senorita, a spider, etc. But I think some time in high school I stopped dressing up and I stopped looking forward to Halloween. It's become a kind of non-holiday for me. I'm honestly kind of envious of those people who still love dressing up and who still put tons of effort into coming up with and executing creative costume ideas, but I'm just not one of those people. And I've pretty much been fine with it, until now. Because now I have a child.

I hadn't really thought about it until recently, but I've decided that I want to be one of those parents who participates enthusiastically in things, and doesn't just watch from the sidelines. And this includes the spectacle of dressing up for Halloween.

I realize that my child is very young, too young in fact to understand or care about Halloween, and certainly too young to know whether or not his mom is enthusiastically participating in the festivities. But this year seems like a good year to start participating because, one, there will be pictures, and two, Jason and I are attending a few Halloween shindigs where costumes are strongly encouraged. So what the heck.

However, there is a very good reason why I haven't participated in Halloween costuming for the last several years. Somewhere along the way, I've lost my sense of creativity when it comes to those kinds of things. I just can't seem to come up with an interesting, creative costume for myself that can be made (as I believe the best costumes are) and that I haven't already seen a million times. So now I'm caught in the perfectionist's web: Do I let my desire to participate in Halloween outweigh my desire to have a unique, creative costume, or do I simply throw my hands up that I can't come up with the latter, and therefore forgo it all together?

Now, you might ask if this whole thing applies to Cyrus's costume too, since after all, he is too young to choose his own costume, which means I must do it for him. Fortunately, I've been let off the hook this year, as one of his many grandmothers found and purchased an extremely cute monkey costume for him. So he is set. But, this creates another whole dilemma - that of whether or not to try to coordinate my costume with his. And, on top of all of it, as you may all realize, Halloween is just a few short days away, which means that whatever I decide had better happen quickly or else I'll have no time to pull it off.

What's your opinion? Do you dress up for Halloween? Do you try to coordinate your costume with your child's? Do you go store-bought or handmade, and how much time and effort do you put in?

More Thoughts on Plane Travel

Cy and I flew home from Denver today, and I can't help feeling just a little proud of myself for having completed a round-trip flight with him by myself. Aside from the occasional rude passenger on the way there, and an unexplained 10 minute screaming fit as we boarded the plane on the way home, I actually feel that the whole experience went pretty well. I can admit now, I was kind of terrified that I would explode with anxiety over the whole thing. I had visions of 2.5 hours of a screaming child, a seat-mate who overflowed into my seat, rude comments about breastfeeding, unsympathetic airline workers, etc. I think a few things helped:

1. I used a carrier with Cy and just checked our carseat and stroller at the ticket counter. I know that you can gate-check those items, but our stroller situation is really just a snap-in frame for our carseat. I realized pretty quickly that at security I would have to remove Cy, take the carseat off of the frame, fold up the frame and put both through the x-ray machine, and then do the whole thing in reverse, all while holding Cyrus. This just didn't seem practical to me. By using the carrier, I was hands free and the security part was essentially seamless. Also, the carrier worked great when Cy fell asleep during the flight and I wanted my hands for drinking, or eating, or doing a Su Doku puzzle.

2. Breastfeeding. I toyed with just bringing expressed breast milk in bottles for the flight, thinking it would be easier, but I'm glad I didn't. Cyrus doesn't just nurse for food, he nurses for comfort. I was able to to nurse him when he got cranky, and basically just put him to sleep. I think this made the whole thing more enjoyable for both of us. Plus, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be to nurse him on the plane. He is still small enough, I supposed, that he doesn't really encroach on the seat next to ours.

3. I took advantage of pre-boarding. I know this seems like a no-brainer, but I saw a woman with a baby get on with the rest of the cattle today, and all I could think was, Why? Having a few moments to get the necessities out of my carry on luggage and get ourselves all settled without having to worry about hoards of people coming down the aisle really helped.

4. I had an aisle seat. On both flights, I was able to easily stand up and rock Cy when he got cranky or restless. I think this made a big difference for both of us. I would have felt really trapped had I been in the middle or on the aisle.

5. Cy is only 3 months old. Yep, I think this definitely helped. He will sleep in my arms, and he has no problem just chilling in my lap. I have a feeling that things may not go so easily in a few months.

A self-portrait as we wait for our flight to Denver

And now, a few thoughts about pre-boarding:

When I pre-boarded on the flight to Denver, the couple sitting next to me also pre-boarded. Now, as Jason pointed out to me when I complained about this, I realize that they don't ask you if you plan to pre-board when you choose your seat, but I really think they should. Isn't it the point of pre-boarding that you have a few minutes to get yourself settled without feeling pressured by those around you? When that other couple showed up right after I got to my seat, I felt like I lost my opportunity to relax and get organized for a minute, because I became instantly anxious about letting them get through. Granted, they were extremely gracious, but still. I think this should be taken into consideration. Just a thought.

Today, after they called for pre-boarding, I made my way to the gate and happened to be the first one there. The woman taking boarding passes put her hand on my arm and said "Wait a minute, this woman needs extra time" and then gestured to an older woman with a cane who was standing behind me. She took her boarding pass and then took mine. Now, I have no problem with this woman going first, but I have to admit I was confused. Weren't we both there because we needed extra time? Why was her need for extra time greater than mine? Sure, she took longer to get down the gateway than I did, but I'm pretty sure it took me longer to get situated in my seat. Was she in a special pre-pre-boarding category? I just didn't get it. I don't know that I've ever seen pre-boarders be prioritized, but maybe that's just me. Can anyone offer any insight for this one?

So, there you have it. Chalk it up to another milestone, if not for Cy, than at least for me.

Oh How Much Can Change in a Year

Exactly one year ago yesterday Jason and I found out that we were pregnant with Cyrus.  It probably seems a little strange to remember the exact date of that kind of thing, but I do. And I know the date because I remember feeling cramps on October 8, which was the due date of our first baby, the one we miscarried at 10 weeks.  And I remember thinking on October 8th that it was only the 17th day of my cycle (you keep track of these things when you are trying to get pregnant) and how cruel of a trick for me to be getting cramps on the very day that I was supposed to be giving birth.  And then nothing happened. I took a pregnancy test on day 26, and lo and behold, I was pregnant!  It was pretty much the perfect time because I think that if I hadn't gotten pregnant that month, I may have gone just a little crazy - in fact, I'm pretty sure I was already headed down that path.  As I'm sure is the case with anyone trying to get pregnant, it can be torturous every month that you aren't, and I think this is especially true if you've suffered a miscarriage - or at least it was for me.

So anyway, that blessed day came and suddenly our whole perspective changed.  We began making plans and before we knew it, our whole life had changed, and that was even before the baby arrived!  It is a rather interesting sequence of events that have led to where we are right now, and as I've been reflecting on it, I thought I would share.

We pretty much decided right away that raising a child in New York, and especially in the Bronx, just wasn't going to work for us.  Now I know lots of women who do raise kids in the Bronx, and I admire them greatly, but if you don't have to, why would you?  It's just hard in many, many ways.  Plus, we realized pretty quickly that we couldn't pay for child-care on our non-profit salaries, and we couldn't afford for me to stay home on just Jason's salary, while still living in New York.  So it was settled - we would simply have to leave New York.  The first question was where would we go and the second was, when would we leave.

Sometime at the end of October, well before we had told any of our family that there was a baby on the way, my dad called to tell me that the person who had been living in and managing the room rentals in his Portland house was leaving and that if we were thinking about coming to Portland in the next year or so, that we could take over.  Well, that pretty much answered the first question. Portland was where we wanted to live anyway, and now that we had housing it was a no-brainer.  However, we were still thinking we would wait until the end of the summer/beginning of fall to move - it just seemed a more convenient time for Jason's job.

Well, as a kind of side note, we decided to drive to Kansas for Thanksgiving, as that was where our closest family lived and we couldn't really afford to fly anywhere, and, we really didn't want to spend the holiday alone.  (Another key reason why leaving New York was bound to happen).  As we left our family and began the 20-hour drive back to New York, we both realized that we just really, really, REALLY didn't want to be going back there.  We were done with New York, and the sooner we could get out of there, the better.  So on that drive we decided that summer was far too long to wait, and instead, we needed to move before the baby was born.

We put things in motion right away.  We set a "Leave NY" date of February 28th.  We called my dad and told him he was going to be a grandpa and that we wanted to move into his house.  We gave our notice at both of our jobs and at our apartment.  We cautiously started telling people that a baby was on the way.

And then we were off. There was no turning back.  Even as we realized that the job market in Portland was somewhat abysmal. Even as we realized that the cost of moving across the country was going to be astronomical.  It didn't matter.  This just seemed to be the right thing to do.

So we somehow made it work.  We traded in our money-guzzling Saturn Vue (that is another story altogether - one that I may or may not have the stomach to tell) for a mini van with "stow-and-go" seating that would help facilitate our cross-country move.  We sold most of our furniture and cleared out more than half of the random crap that had accumulated over the five-plus years we had lived in New York.  And on February 28th we packed our van and a trailer, pretty much filling them to capacity, and headed west.

We arrived in Portland with a place to live and that was about it.  We had practically no furniture, no job, no plan, really - just a good feeling.  And fortunately, it worked out. Jason found a job that paid enough for us to pay our bills and included insurance (a big deal, I discovered, when you're about to have a baby).

Sometimes, it's hard to imagine that just a year ago our life was very different.  We definitely had more money, but we also had way, way more stress.  Life in New York is stressful, or at least it was for us.  When I saw the word "pregnant" pop up on that little test, I of course knew my life would change (how could it not with a baby) but I don't think I could have imagined it changing this much.  And yet, I'm glad it did.  It now feels like this is pretty much where we're supposed to be, at least for now.

A special kind of procrastinating

Tonight I tackled a project that's been gnawing at me for some time - I organized my dresser drawers. When we moved Portland in March, I was about 5 months pregnant and fully in maternity clothes. When we unpacked, I put only maternity clothes in my dresser and all other clothes went into storage bins. Ever since Cy was born, I'd been slowing adding non-maternity clothes to my dresser as my body returns to some semblance of it's former shape. As a result, my drawers had gotten really out of hand. There was basically no organization left whatsoever - I was just putting items wherever they would fit, regardless of what other items occupied the drawer. Finally, it just got to be too much. I had Jason take the storage bins off of the top shelf and I commenced sorting my clothes into three piles: maternity clothes to be stored until pregnancy #2, clothes that currently fit or are very, very close to fitting, and clothes that are still quite a ways away from fitting, and may in fact never fit.

I got about 3/4 of the way through my project and then lost motivation. Of course, this is the point in the project when things still look pretty bad - most items have been put in their place, but there is a smattering of items from all categories scattered across the bed, as well as some things about which I'm just not sure what to do. I walked out to the living to complain to Jason about how much I just didn't want to do this project anymore. He asked me how far I had to go, and when I replied that I was almost finished he gave me a knowing smile and said "Right there is your problem. You never want to finish things."

And he's right. This is my special form of procrastination, and it applies to all areas of my life. I get very close to the end of something - a term paper, packing, a household project, cleaning, organizing, etc - and I just kind of give up. I used to spend nearly as much time writing the conclusion to an essay as I did writing the entire remainder of the essay, and I usually finished the paper with no time to spare, even if I had started it plenty early. Even letter writing and thank-you notes are affected by this. I don't know how many times I have written a thank-you note, even addressed the envelope, and then never sent it because I didn't have a stamp, or just didn't take the time to put a stamp on. Every time I tackle a project like the one tonight, I stop just short of finishing it. Even as I write this post, there are a few items that need to be hung up that are still sitting on my bed.

I have no real explanation for why I do this. Perhaps it is a result of my perfectionism. Maybe there's some kind of fear that as long as a project remains incomplete, I can still fix it. This makes sense with an essay or even with thank-you notes, but makes no real sense when it comes to cleaning and organization. Sometimes I think it's a product of my indecisiveness - things left at the end of a project are often things for which I don't have a clear place or solution, and therefore I just kind of give up. Who knows?

Ha! Even now, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how the heck to end this blog post. Hmm. I'll guess I'll just leave it at that...a weakness that I need to work on.

My newly organized drawers. Look, I completed a project!

Suprising things I've done in the past 10 years

I won't lie, I am struggling with NaBloPoMo today. I am very tired and lacking inspiration. So, here is a list of some thing that I've done over the past 10 years that have been surprising to my family/friends, me or both.

1. Choose to spend a summer living in the woods in New Jersey with a bunch of crazy kids for a laughably small amount of money. This included using a latrine, sleeping in a teepee with a mosquito net, and going on several overnight backing trips with 9 inner-city teenage girls.

2. Join my college's cross country team for two years in a row.

3. Live in South Africa for a semester.

4. Return to said New Jersey woods for two more summers.

5. Move to the Bronx so that I can work for above mentioned summer camp full time, also for a laughably small amount of money.

6. Continue living in the Bronx even when I had the choice to move somewhere else, and continue working for summer camp for a grand total of 5.5 years (8 total summers at said camp).

7. Get married before the age of 30.

8. Become a Mormon.

9. Buy a Minivan

10. Move across the country with no job and no plan

11. Quite my job to be a stay at home mom.

What have you done that surprised you and/or those you love?

Is he breathing?

I wrote about Cyrus's napping issues a few days ago, but was careful to only hint at his night sleep, because it has been, well, easy. And I am kind of a believer in the ability of one to jinx one's good fortune by talking about it while it is still happening. But I'm going to write about it just a little anyway and hope that the cosmic forces out there don't punish me.

From the beginning, Cy has slept his one long stretch during the night. Now, I use "long" loosely, as it was only three hours in the beginning. But that long stretch has lengthened progressively over the past few months, going from three to four to five hours. Up until two nights ago, his longest stretch ever was 7 hours, and that was the night after he got his vaccinations. He has routinely only slept about 5 to 6 hours at the longest.

On Thursday night, he went to sleep at 7pm, and at 4am Jason woke with a start to ask if I had heard him wake up. I hadn't. We were both suddenly hit with worry. Jason ran into his room to check if he was ok, and at first couldn't feel him breath. So he patted his head. Nothing. He did it again. Still nothing. Finally, Jason kind of jiggled his head, and - ahh releif - he moved. Twenty minutes later he woke up to eat. The next morning, we marvelled that he slept for nine and a half hours, but were sure it was a fluke. But then he did it again last night. And he's working on the same pattern tonight.

We've waited for this moment kind of since he was born. Ahh, to have to wake up only once a night! To get several hours of sleep in a row! Fantastic! And yet, at the risk of sounding like I'm complaining, because I'm really not, I never anticipated the stress that would come from having him essentially sleep through the night. When he wakes up every few hours, you kind of know that things are ok. Although I'm sure it's kind of false, there's a sense of security in that. It's kind of scary to have him sleep so soundly for so long. Just a few minutes ago, I went into his room to check if he was ok, and I too couldn't feel the rise and fall of his stomache. My heart dropped a little, even as I realized that he was probably just fine. I placed my hand in front of his face and sighed again with relief at the warm-cold-warm breath I felt as he breathed ever so softly in and out.

I realize now that the overwhelming fear that something will happen to him will never go away. Add that to the list of things I heard but didn't believe. After Jason and I lost our first pregnancy in the 10th week, we were understandably on edge when we got pregnant with Cy. After a brief scare with him in the 10th week, we saw his heartbeat again, and I remember asking my midwife in a shaky voice to reassure me that seeing the heartbeat at 10 weeks was a good sign. And her response stuck with me. She said: "Yes, that is a good sign. But Amber, that feeling that you're hoping will go away, that worry? It never does. Not even when they're 18." And although I knew she was probably right, I think somewhere in the back of my head I figured that once he was born, I would rest easy. I was wrong. Not only does that worry not go away, it seems to intensify with each passing day. And I'm quite sure that it will grow and stay with me until the day I die. Just a little side affect of loving another human being more than life itself.

My Cloth Diapering Story: Part 1

*I started out writing this post as a review of the cloth diapers we use, but as I started to write I realized that it might be helpful for someone out there to here about my reasoning and process in choosing cloth diapers.

Before Cyrus was born, Jason and I talked at length about whether to use disposable or cloth diapers. Throwing away all those disposable diapers just didn't sit well with us, not to mention the chemicals that are in most of the resonably-priced disposables. When I was doing research, I had a hard time finding good information on cloth diapering options and costs, so I'm providing my account for anyone else who might be interested.

So initially, we decided to use a diaper service. When we got to Portland, I looked into Tidee Didee, the only diaper service in the Portland area, as far as I could tell. Well, as environmentally concious as I'd like to be, I will admit that my wallet talks first, and the diaper service was going to cost close to $1,000 for one year! Yikes!

However, we were still really committed to using cloth diapers, so I started exploring other options - mainly, buying a stash of cloth diapers and laundering them myself. But I was worried about the extra work load, the mess and the excess water I would have to use to wash them, not to mention to cost of purchasing all those diapers. So, as is my nature, I dove into researching cloth diapers. I stumbled across a mail-order store located here in Portland that specializes in cloth diapers called Babyworks. Their catalog had tons of information and their salespeople were extremely helpful over the phone, spending over 20 minutes answering my questions before I had even decided to purchase from them. Not only that, but their return policy is amazing - 30 day returns, even if you've used and washed the diapers! They figure you can't tell if they work for you unless you try them. Impressive!

I discovered that there are many options - prefolds with covers, all-in ones, pocket diapers, one-size pocket daipers (and I'm sure I'm leaving a few out). As far as I could tell, the big downfalls with most of the diapering systems were 1) you had to buy them in multiple sizes as your child grew, adding cost and 2) you had to soak them in a big pail, which could get messy.

Enter the one-size pocket diaper. The idea is that the diapers are adjustable through a system of elastic and buttons or velcro and snaps, depending on the brand, and can therefore be used for babies 7lbs to 35 lbs - basically the whole diapering life of an average sized child. This means buying one set to get you through 2+ years of diapering! There are two brands of one size pocket diapers - Fuzzibunz and Bum Genius. Bum Genius uses velcro and snaps, while Fuzzibunz uses elastic and buttons to adjust the size. The Fuzzibunz product is slightly newer on the market.

Well, after some careful math, I realized that purchasing 24 pocket one-size diapers would be cheaper than buying the varying sizes of any of the other diapering systems. After additional research, I decided on the Fuzzibunz over the Bum Genius because it seemed that the Velcro closures on the Bum Genius would likely wear out faster than the snap closures on the Fuzzibunz.

My other issue was the mess. Babyworks recommended a toilet sprayer, a handy little sprayer that attaches to the back of your toilet, allowing you to clean off your dirty diapers before putting them in the hamper without getting your hands dirty. (Let me just add here that the thing works like a power-washer! Even when we've left poopy diapers until the end of the day, they spray off almost completely clean.) And, Fuzzibunz doesn't want you to soak the diapers in a pail, so there went that issue!

Once we had decided to go with cloth diapers, I realized that we would need some other supplies as well. We decided to use reusable wipes (basically just really plush washclothes) instead of disposable wipes, mainly because of cost, so we bought 32 of them. We also bought the diaper sprayer, some flushable diaper liners for when we're out and about, a "dirty duds bag" for the same reason, a washable diaper hamper, and a bottle of diaper detergent that will last us at least 2 years. Now, are you ready for the total cost of all of these supplies, including the 24 diapers?

We spent just under $600 for all of our diapering supplies, which will likely last us until Cy is out of diapers. Now, compared to the $1,000 a year for a diaper service, which doesn't even include some of the things we would have bought anyway, that's at least a $1,400 savings - more if he's in diapers for longer! And, there is a good chance that we can reuse the diapers and some of the other supplies with subsequent children. This might sound good in theory, but does it all work in reality? In Part 2 I'll give you my review of Fuzzibunz diapers and the whole cloth diapering process, as it's gone so far.

Five Reasons why I Don't Miss the Bronx

In the months leading up to our move out of the big apple, Jason and I spent quite a bit of time discussing all of the things we were looking forward to about moving to Portland. Now that we've been out of New York City for a full seven months it's sometimes too easy to forget just how much better life is out here in the Northwest. So, just to remind myself, here are five reasons why I'm glad we don't live there anymore!

1. Parking. I have my own parking spot, and it's all mine! I no longer have to weigh how much I want to go on a particular outing (grocery shopping, the gym, etc) with how willing (or unwilling) I am to give up my current parking spot. I no longer have to worry that if I return home later than about 6pm, I may have to circle the block for anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour and a half. (I wish this was an exageration, but it really isn't - on more than one ocassion we clocked an extra five miles just looking for a parking spot within a five bock radius). And, in order to get a gauranteed parking spot, I don't have to pay $250 a month!

2. Street Cleaning. Related to point #1, but most definitely deserving of it's own point, is that we no longer have to move our car a minimum of three times a week for street cleaning. Yes, that's right, once we found a spot, even if it was right outside of our building and we didn't have anywhere to go for several days, the longest it could possibly stay where it was was four days, and only if it fell over a weekend. Too many times we would find a perfectly good spot after circling for 20 or 30 minutes, only to have to get up at 6:30 or 7 the next morning to find a spot on the opposite side of the street, which could again result in another 20 or 30 minutes of circling. (Wow, I'm feeling all kinds of stressed out just remembering the parking hoopla!)

3. Laundry. I can do laundry any old time of the day I want to, and I can do it in my pajamas! In my first apartment in New York, there was no laundry facility, so I had to take my clothes to a laundromat. In those days, I did not have a car, so I had to haul my stuff around the block. I couldn't very well leave my laundry there, so I had to sit and wait for it to wash and then dry. In our second apartment, we had laundry facilities in our building, but it was almost as if we didn't. See, for some reason, the building managers locked the laundry room at 7pm. Now this might not seem terribly late in the grand scheme of things, but the thing is, we rarely, and in fact, most people in New York rarely, got home before 6 at the very earliest, and an hour is just not enough time to wash and dry your laundry. So, we had to do it on the weekends with every other person in the building who also worked too late to utilize it during the week. Which means, we had to fight for washers and dryers, which wouldn't have been so bad if all six of each worked all of the time - but they almost never did! In fact, the building managers seemed to have a policy that four of one machine had to be broken before someone could come in and fix them. Jason and I seriously considered breaking a fourth machine when we were down to three just so that they would all get fixed (we never did, but we came close). Again, the stress is building at the mere thought!

4. The Subway. Actually, more specifically, the walk to the subway. We lived about 10 minutes from our subway stop, which isn't such a bad walk when the weather is nice...However, the weather is often not nice, and bad weather is just made worse when you have to walk through it! Though it doesn't rain in NYC nearly as often as it does here in Portland, when it rains in NY it rains hard! And, remember, we then had to walk to work in it! There's only so much waterproofing you can do while dressed in work appropriate attire. Then sometimes, it was bitterly, bitterly cold. So cold, in fact, that more than once I actually wimpered while walking to the train! Then there was trying to dress for the weather outside while taking into account the temperature on the subway. For some reason, even though nearly everyone walks through the elements to get to a train, the trains were never set to a temperature that took into account what we had to wear on the walk. So if it was bitterly cold outside and we were bundled up in layers, the subway car would be set to a living-room-appropriate temperature of 75 degrees! Ugh. Yuck.

5. Having control over the temperature of my living quarters. In our Bronx apartment we had radiator heat. Now, with most radiators, you can adjust them with a little nob on the radiator. However, in our building, the super had decided that those nobs were too easy to break, so he just removed them. This wouldn't be so bad, except that the heat was routinely set to about 85 degrees during the winter! So warm, in fact, that having the windows open did nothing. Yeah, those windows that let in that same bitterly cold air, did nothing to the temperature of our apartment! We finally had to simply shut off our radiators all together - it was all or nothing.

Wow. I have a renewed gratefulness for having left New York! There were good things about living there, and there are actually things that I miss, but I'll save those for another post.

Lazy Sunday and a Little Perspective

It is rare that I get to spend a day relaxing at home with my husband, with no errands to run or tasks to complete. Although I have some time to relax during the week when Cy is sleeping, I am at his total beck and call during the work day. Saturdays are usually spent either running errands or trying to get in some fun family time away from the house. And on Sundays, Cy and I spend the afternoon at church. But today was General Conference (a special broadcast church service that happens twice a year), so I didn't have to go anywhere today. And, since Jason was home, I had a partner in meeting Cy's demands. The greatest part about this was that I got to sleep in until 10:30am (after a 6:30am feeding) for the first time since Cy was born! Now, I don't need to sleep in often, and I usually tried to get up at a decent hour even before he was born, but on occasion, sleeping in just feels luxurious. Once awake, I then got to spend a good portion of the day in my pajamas, just lounging around.

Another bonus about today: it put a little perspective on things for me, in kind of an odd sort of way. Although I love being with Cy, sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming to be the one person who can meet his needs, especially when I am with him all day by myself. On some days, I find myself just counting down the minutes until he goes down for a nap so that I can do something for myself: take a shower, eat some lunch, check my e-mail. When Jason is home, however, he loves spending time with Cy so much that, unless he needs to eat, Cy is pretty much with Jason most of the time. So, today, for example, I had so much time to do things for myself that I actually found myself almost missing him. I found that I cherished the few moments cuddling with him after a feeding before I handed him over to Jason, partly because I knew that I didn't have to hold him. I hope this makes sense, and that I don't sound like a terrible mother. I do love my child, but it was just kind of nice to have a day when being with him was completely a choice, and still one that I wanted to make.

Now, if only I can keep this perspective as we go into the work week...