party 'till ya puke

2007 has been the best year of my life.

I'm not out partying tonight, but at 5.5 weeks old Adeline somehow knew how to capture the spirit of the holiday.

I hope to write about our Christmas holiday spent at my parents house, but realize that I still haven't written Adda's birth story - in time I'll get better at typing while nursing and will be back to posing paragraphs on a regular basis! (Haaaaaa)

No grandparents in the house. . . .

I think I'm spoiled; up until this morning, since the day Adeline was born (17 days ago) I have had at least one of my parents or my mother-in law at the with me narly all the time. Mr. Hubby has been home all day, but tomorrow he may return to work, and I must admit that I'm nervous about spending all day alone with Adeline. I've spent lots of time with babies, but never such a young baby and for such a long stretch of time - and certainly not while sleep-deprived.

I know that everything is going to work out just fine, but damn. . . . it's a good thing we're crazy about each other.

~ * ~ * ~

I do plan on posting Adda's birth story someday, my excuse for not doing so already is that it is tough to type one-handed while nursing an infant, and the fleeting prospect of catching a nap is far more attractive to me than spending time online.

Since I haven't visited blogs in forever, I'm out of the loop - how the hell are you??

patience and optimism . . .

This is a very recent photo of Suki, who was given the command "wait". She is the most optimistic creature I have ever had the pleasure of spending time with; in Suki's world, "wait" usually means something good will happen if she'll just settle down and be patient for a little while.

That said/typed, still no significant progress on the labor front. My right hip feels like it doesn't fit my hip socket properly, but don't think that's a particularly useful trait at this point. I can't walk on un-carpeted surfaces barefoot without my feet absolutely killing me, although this suggests that my ligaments are loosening up, it gets me no closer to having anything vaguely resembling regularly occurring contractions. Also? I had a crazy-ass dream a few nights ago where I realized that getting a baby out of your body is like pulling a cash drawer out of a register - you can yank and yank, but if you don't pull at the correct angle, nothing useful happens. (If only childbirth were so easy!!!)

I'm trying my damndest to stay in a positive frame of mind, and am happy that I didn't go into labor last night: my parents spent the night at my house, and my midwife was out of town. I'm sure I would have gotten along just fine with the OB on call, and would have found an advantage to having my parents present for early labor, but I can't help but to be relieved that nothing happened. I would prefer to moan around my house for a while before getting my parents involved with labor - it could take a looooooong time, and I really don't want them to have to endure false starts, or sitting/pacing for a hoursandhoursandhours while my body figures out what to do.

Since that scheduling hurdle has been jumped, I'm having trouble trying to find an advantage to not being in labor RIGHT NOW. I suppose I could try to get excited about having more time to get more housework done, or figure out my Christmas card list, but I'm having a hard time feelin' it.

Days like this, I wish I were more like my dog.

a rare sighting

Back in mid-July, MadameD asked me how short my hair was. This got me thinking *again* about my inclination to not post photos of myself. Under past circumstances, my conclusion would still be "no photos of friends/family/me on my blog". My past reasoning would involve the BoogeyMan and the fact that I visit plenty of photo-less blogs and find them very interesting.

And now a baby is on the horizon, and I can't actually imagine writing about my baby without posting photos of him/her - I can't stop myself from posting cute photos of my dog!

To finally get to my point: I'm slowly warming up to being less anonymous. I may never post a non-muffled image of myself, I like hiding behind my jankedy alterations.



This photo was taken in October of 2003, minutes before I married Mr. Hubby. I have the same haircut these days, and other than a small-ish baby bump, look the same.

Yes - my eyes ARE closed . . . that way you can't see me!

Early Nursery Pics . . .

At long last, I'm happy to show off a mostly empty, finally painted nursery!



This is the fantastico star blanket that Madame DeBarge made.
It is by far the coolest thing the kid has received; I'm grateful to have a car seat/stroller, a crib, and a metric ton of baby clothes - but this is the kind of thing you try to keep forever!

I have been hiding this blanket from all my pets, who have a knack for trying to take ownership of my favorite items (or anything I pay too much attention to, possibly depriving them of attention for more than three minutes). To their credit, I have purchased used knit baby blankets from garage sales for them to nap/shed on in the hopes that they spend a little less time shedding on my furniture. As you can see, Suki wasted no time whatsoever in trying to lay claim to the forbidden baby blankie - other than moving the frog hamper over to conceal my painting error, this photo was not staged, no cookie bribery was involved.



Note to self: paint chips lie. Yellow paint is always much more vibrant and bright on walls than you can possibly imagine. I was actually considering getting an even more intense color of yellow - thank goodness I opted for the slightly more subdued color! In person, the color resembles watered-down orange juice, and the dresser is the color of butter. Given that the wine-red carpet was not going anywhere, I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. All the same, I hope the yellow seems less intense once I've got more baby stuff moved into the room.

I had goldenrod/yellow shag carpet in my room when I was little, and one of the walls had fantastic gaudy yellow/gold/orange/brown flowers and vines on a white background. I can only guess that's why I'm inflicting this color scheme on my future baby?

Do you remember how your room was decorated when you were a tiny kid?

20 weeks to go

junglebetti-trivia-buffs already know of my photo-posting-paranoia; I admire people who are comfortable with posting photos of themselves and their families on the internet, but I'm still convinced that the boogieman/stalk-o-monster will find me if I do so myself. Or maybe I'm just too damn vain for my own good.

In any case, I've come to a compromise that was inspired by how bad my hair has been looking lately, how kind my coworker was to take the time to coax data off of my digital camera then copy it for me, and the chaos involved in getting Mr. Hubby to snap these photos before dashing off to work.

With no further fanfare, I present you:





Sexy, no?

by any other name . . .

My bloggie friend Alfredsmom recently asked me how Mr. Hubby feels about my plans to give our baby my maiden name.

First, I'll offer an explanation as to why I chose to keep my maiden name.

1) My father immigrated here from England as a young man, leaving his birth family behind. His older brother has two sons and three daughters, so the family name (ahem, one VERY common to England) is continuing on that side of the pond with no problem. I foresee my (handsome) male cousins' (handsome) male offspring having _no_ problem starting their own families.
Meanwhile, my father has two daughters, and my sister chose to take her husband's name when they got married. If I took on my husband's name, the "stateside" lineage of my father's family would lost, name-wise. And that would be a bummer.

2) Ever since I was introduced to the concept in my first anthropology textbook, I've been enthralled with the concept of matrilineal descent. It makes more sense: in this topsy-turvey world, when a child is born, one can always be certain of the mother's identity but not the father's. From a less clinical standpoint, it honors women's unique role in society, and I'm all about keeping women from under the collective male thumb.

3) I wasn't comfortable with changing my name in response to marriage. I really like my name, I find it melodic, and am comforted by the history attached to it. My official legal and spiritual union with Mr. Hubby changed many things about my life, but I really feel that as a woman, sharing the rest of your natural life with someone does not require that you change your name. Genetically, he "belongs" to his family, and I to mine.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

On to tackling "what last name does the baby get"

I can't offer as organized a solution, I've come to my conclusion through my own bizarre logic and by carefully sorting my emotions. THANKFULLY, Mr. Hubby is completely comfortable with his progeny having my last name, and is honoring my wishes. Our offspring are no less "his" by having "my" name, and I'm the person putting myself in physical peril in order to bring our offspring into the world. (So nyeeeeeh)

(Besides, anyone who has ever met Mr. Hubby will likely recognize his (even newborn) child in an instant; between the two of us, we're in for an atypically cute kid with a big forehead, big eyes, a pointy nose, a goofy grin and probable lack of shyness.)

PROBLEM: If I were really diligent about swaying western tradition towards a matriarchy, (or at least help the concept seem more common) I would do a metric ton of research and sort though all documents possible to trace back to my earliest female ancestor possible. Except that most of those gals have their father's last names, and then you fall into the "are you really my daddy" quagmire all over again. What if my search takes a wrong turn because great grandma somebody had a thing for hunters?

POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Legally change my last name to "Eve".
-except-

I don't feel _that_ radical about it. I figure I'll see if I can start something with this generation and let my son or daughter come to their own conclusion. Perhaps I'll just piss off genealogists, perhaps I'm contributing to honoring women in our society. Who knows.

ON A SEMI-RELATED TANGENT:
I've played a HUGE part in naming all of our collective pets, and struck gold every single time. I'm very pleased to introduce you to my girls, Suki and Lydia.
(Please excuse my crappy camera)


Suki is "guarding" her kitty-sister from thunder. Lydia is terrified enough of storms to put up with being subservient to the dog - later that evening chaos resumed.