Dogs Love Babies

Can you guess why?

Hmm. It's a mystery.

Cheers,

Breanna

My Cabbage Babies Are Here!

No, not the weird dolls with funny noses. Actual cabbage seedlings, poking their heads up in the flats where I planted them, obediently following package directions to "sow them indoors" x number of weeks before the last frost date. What can I say, I'm all about following directions, even when there's a blizzard outside. It's exciting to see my little cabbage babies doing what they're supposed to. They're very cute.

(I did have a Cabbage Patch doll when I was little that my grandmother made me. Her name was, intuitively enough, Cabby. She died many deaths but is, I think, still kicking around somewhere at my parents's house. I'll have to dig her out for Miss Boo, who is all about babies these days.)

Ah, the many joys of housekeeping. I read a comment on a blog yesterday to the effect of, "I just was home for 4 days recovering from surgery and I thought I was going to go nuts! How can you be home all day and stand it?"

This came after I'd had what I'd characterize as a Really Good Day-- the kind of day where you feel good and get all your work done in a good time, get 3 good meals for the family, and go to bed with the dishes washed. (All this with makeup on, no less.) One of the days where I love my job. I had them while I was working as a nurse, too, about as frequently.

That perspective is, I think, the secret; of course the woman home from surgery was going to go nuts because she was... home from surgery. You can't do anything while you're ill but lay on the couch and watch daytime TV, which is enough to drive anyone to tequila and yelling at inanimate objects. When you're a housewife, you have a job to do. To those who work outside the home and only manage to do the bare necessities when they are home, it must seem like there's not enough work at home to occupy a day. I'm a pretty organized person, but I never get everything done that I'd like to get done and I'm never not busy at home. (I force myself to take breaks, now that I'm carrying around a watermelon under my shirt.)

Think about this--there are nine million things you can do as a housekeeper to make your house more comfortable, frugal, run better, etc. While it's important to pick a point to say "enough is enough" so that you have a stopping point each day, there IS a job description of sorts.* And keeping house IS a job.

I finally put it this way to the Husband, and I think a light bulb came on in his head: A woman feels about her house the way a man feels about his job. If it's not what she thinks it ought to be, she feels like she's failing the same way that a man feels when he thinks he's failing at work. The kicker being that this applies for most women even if they also have a paying job--like it or not, people still think of the house as the woman's thing.

I think that's the real reason a lot of women say it drives them crazy to be home too long-- they begin to notice the things about their house that they really don't like, and they don't have enough time to do anything about it. They may want clean, pressed shirts and fresh baked bread, but when you get home at 6pm and have to be at work the next day at 8am, what are you really going to do about that? Aside from hope that someday you get a big enough raise to hire a housekeeper? (See, I told you it was a real job.)

I'm not judging anybody else's situation, just being grateful for my own. I'm having another one of those days where I like what I do. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

*The job description is:
1) Everybody needs clean clothes.
2) Everybody needs to eat dinner.
3) Nobody should get typhoid from the bathroom.

Everything else is gravy. :)

Naptime in the Big Girl Bed

The Big Girl Bed makes even naps more fun. ...although Miss Boo looks so tiny in the bed that she looks like a doll.

See? (Do you notice Lambie, dead on the floor under the bed? Lambie had a hard night the other night and has been exhausted ever since being smothered under Miss Boo all night.)

I was going to write a nice profound post with a quote from my devotional book that was impactful for me this morning, but blogger ate my post three times so I decided it wasn't meant to be.

In summary: don't get discouraged with dark times and impatient enough to take a deliverance which isn't of the Lord. It won't work and it'll just make things worse. Be content to sit in the dark and wait on Him, and He'll deliver you when it's right.

The imagery made me remember Frodo in Shelob's lair. We may be having a global depression with a crew of happy idiots running things, but things could always get worse; at least there aren't any giant spiders living in my laundry room. :) (And Congress, with all their flaws, aren't quite as crazy as the last Steward of Gondor, either.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Puffy

Did you ever know someone who was 1) utterly good-hearted and 2) utterly tactless? Well, I do, bless her heart; and on Sunday she approached me to ask how I was doing because I was "getting puffy and flushed around the face." Turns out she was worried I might have toxemia.

I know this lady and I dearly love her spirit, so I smiled and reassured her that I just tend to get puffy at the end of pregnancy, nothing to worry about and my blood pressure is fine. May I offer a suggestion, however?

Don't tell a pregnant lady, particularly one who's eight months pregnant, that she looks puffy. She knows.

Cheers,

Puffy Lady

The Carnage

You thought eating in the high chair couldn't get any messier than mac n' cheese. You thought wrong-- you forgot about... SPAGHETTI AND YOGURT!

The horror.

Especially since we are now insisting on feeding everything to ourselves. Sometimes we decide it's easier to drink our yogurt, which is why after this meal we had to have a complete bath. We even had yogurt in our eyelashes.

In other news, Miss Boo's grandparents came up last weekend and brought a twin bed, which we outfitted with a siderail and some pretty striped sheets. I am happy to report that the Big Girl Bed is a hit, to the point that Miss Boo would rather sit on it and play with her toys than sit in the toybox, which is saying something. She can also stand on it and see out her window, which is exciting, especially since we've become obsessed with birds over the last few days and she can see them sitting in the trees outside. It's also much, much nicer for Mama to be able to come and sit beside Miss Boo on the bed to get her back to sleep in the middle of the night than to lean awkwardly over a crib or try to stay awake in a rocking chair.

Boychild continues to try to punch his way out of the womb. The fact that he has made little progress does not seem to discourage him. He is most active about 2am, which seems to bode ill for my future sleeping. I'm trying to enjoy Miss Boo's relatively quiet nights here for a few weeks before I'm up every 1.5 hours again, feeding a little man who seems like he's going to be a hungry one.

We have quite a bit of snow here, and a row of lovely icicles on the garage, but we are keeping warm and cozy. Hope all ya'll are too.

Cheers,

Breanna

We're Snowed In

...but still here. :) I will post some cute Miss Boo pics tomorrow, and give a report on the Big Girl Bed that we acquired this weekend, which is working out awesomely (praise God!). But right now, it's snowing and there's a desperate need in the house for chocolate chip cookies.

Cheers,

Breanna

Lent for Protestants

Being Protestant (and pregnant) I haven't been fasting in particular for Lent. However, as Holy Week and Pesach get closer I have been thinking, weirdly, about Judas.

There are a couple of schools of thought about Judas. One is that Judas betrayed Christ on purpose, knowing full well what he was doing, possibly laughing in his sleeve about the fact that he made thirty pieces of silver on the deal. The other is that Judas's thought process was something like this: "Christ is supposed to be the King and Messiah but He's messing it up with this suffering servant garbage. I will therefore hand Him over to the chief priests and the scribes and force His hand. He will have to call down power from heaven and take His rightful place."

People object to the first idea on the practical basis that thirty pieces of silver wasn't really enough money to be betraying a Friend; it would be like selling out someone you love for a hundred bucks. People object to the second because the Bible is fairly clear that Judas was not saved, and this line of thinking seems to make him into a mistaken saint, instead of a judged sinner.

I think we can understand Judas's motivation a little better if we add to the statement in the second theory "...and it won't hurt anything that I'll be in on the ground floor of the new government, and I can remind Christ that I was the one who saw to it that He came to power."

See, Judas's problem was that he didn't understand anything of Christ's true interests. We tend to identify more with Peter or even Paul than we do Judas, but it might behoove us to think about his characteristics. Judas was involved with ministry--did the buying for the apostles and Christ. He helped himself to the moneybox, too, and saw nothing wrong with using the ministry for personal gain, but that's not a unique thing in religious circles, now is it? He justified attempting to manipulate the Lord as simply doing what he was pretty sure the Lord wanted done anyway. His big blind spot? For Judas, the Kingdom of Heaven was only relevant in how it could make Judas's life better. His last act, in the face of the dramatic implosion of all his plans, was the ultimate selfishness of hanging himself rather than repenting.

Judas was selfish, but not more selfish than any of us. It is sobering to think about all the times we might have been tempted to use ministry for personal gain, whether that be monetary, emotional, or social. It's doubly sobering to think about the ways we try to manipulate God. I'm not talking about praying for something in an attempt to determine whether or not this is God's will for your life, I'm talking about the times when we know what we want and try to bend all prayer and all advice to make it happen. We tend to minimize these sins, but when you think about Judas it takes away some excuses.

If you look at disobedience and greed under their proper name of betrayal, it sort of gives you a whole 'nother thing to repent of this Lenten time, doesn't it?

Peace,

Breanna

I Want Chickens...

...but I'm not crazy. I realize that chicks who have to be under heat lamps, new babies, and ambitiously expanded gardens are silly things to put together. But next year, maybe I can get my chicks.

It's really the fault of Rhonda, a poetic Aussie blogger/housewife I've been reading lately who has a flock of "chooks" in her backyard and grows all her own vegetables, even pineapple (they can grow things in Australia that you can't grow in Montana). I have chicken envy from reading about her birds.

I figure if one house in the neighborhood can keep a pseudo-junkyard next to their garage and another house can have the contents of their basement strewn about their yard for six months, and still another mystery house can have a rooster secreted somewhere on the premises (I can hear him when we take walks) then I can have three or four hens for eggs and to eat the grasshoppers. I've got the coolest idea for a coop and "chicken tractor" (a little device they can scoot around the yard in, while being safe from hawks) and the tractor would make it so Padraig couldn't eat them. Although I'm pretty sure he would be afraid of them, like he is of crows and cats. (I have a neurotic dog.)

And yes, I know they poop. It'll be good for the compost pile. And I'll be able to keep it contained if they only go from the coop to the garden to the coop. But I'm not getting them this year, so why think about it?

Anyhow, my project for this spring is to have a baby and then oversee the planting of my garden, which the Husband is gamely offering to do as long as I tell him where to put things. He is an engineer, so he's also going to put in some stepping-stone paths and make a proper fence for me, so it ought to be a thing of beauty.

Miss Boo WAS teething yesterday, by the way; not one, but FOUR teeth were poking through her poor little gums. No wonder the kid was fussy. She had another up-and-down night last night, but finally settled down around 2am and slept until 5am. Then she woke up to see Daddy off to work and kindly consented to come snuggle in the big bed with me, patting my face and saying, "Mama, Mama, hmmmm," as though she was trying to put me back to sleep. We both ended up going back to sleep and woke up at the unheard-of time of 8:15. I haven't slept past 8 since... wow, since I was pregnant with Miss Boo. We were in an awesome mood this morning and ate cinnamon rolls.

Boychild has been kicking me--a lot--and putting on weight. I think he means to make me buy even more clothes. I cleaned out the thrift store's maternity section the other day; if he gets any bigger before he's born I may end up running around wearing a blanket with a hole cut in the middle for my head. I look really weird with a gigantic belly but not (hopefully) very gigantic arms or legs. I actually look fake.

This is getting to be a long post and it doesn't have any cute Miss Boo pics (sorry) so I should probably stop now.

Hope you all had as great a morning as I did,

Cheers,

Breanna

At 36 Weeks...

Miss Boo feels more adventurous about playing near my feet. Here is why:

Coming in near the feet...

Getting closer...

Hey, Mom, want me to describe your knees to you, since you can't see them?

In other words, I'm getting to that stage of pregnancy where none of my clothes fit, my bones come unhinged, and I whine each night about my swollen feet. But other than that, it's the miracle of life and such. I went grocery shopping yesterday and concluded that this will be the last time for a while that I go by myself with Miss Boo. When hauling milk into the house from the car makes you exhausted, it's time to call it quits and sit with your feet up, drinking decaffinated beverages.

Speaking of beverages, how unfair is it that the one time in your life when you really deserve a glass of wine to relax your back and make your outlook more cheery, you can't have one?

So today, Miss Boo (who may or may not be teething; she is certainly grumpy) and I are taking a snow day, since it's snowing. That's right--we did the dishes and we made the beds, and that is all we're doing until it's time to fix dinner. So there. I will get these fat feet of mine to a more reasonable size, even if I have to be a slug all day to do it.

Hope you all can have a nice snow day too,

Cheers,

Breanna

The Neph and the Fifth Estate

Here's a picture of Neph, the good-looking boy who arrived last week, earlier than he had said he would arrive. We'll forgive him, but he needs to learn to give his mom a phone call first so she can have dinner ready. Kids are so inconsiderate these days.
Isn't he a handsome kid? I hear he's already putting on a couple of chins, like a good baby should.

I've been thinking lately about blogging and journalism and the fact that several major newspapers have gone bust lately, due to lack of circulation. Newspapers and TV news have taken to lamenting that people my age tend to get our news from the Internet, because, they say, we trust bloggers who may or may not be up to any good and who certainly don't have journalism degrees. Blogging is a new phenomenon, they say, bringing news down to the lowest common denominator.

I got to thinking about it and came to the conclusion that blogging has less to do with the lowest common denominator than it does with the tradition of the self-published pamphlets of the eighteenth century. Given that "anyone can write and reach the people" led, in that century, to the beginning of the United States and of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire respectively, maybe blogging is not such a bad phenomenon, even if you get the occasional jerk blogger and even if the majority of blogs are as unremarkable as the majority of pamphlets were.

But you can't really blame the poor old newspapers and TV news folks. They feel they are fighting for their livelihood. (Maybe they should stop condescending to their public? No, no, that would be stupid.) And in any case, I don't really have a greyhound in the race, this isn't a news blog and I have no ambitions for a readership bigger than the fam. (How much can someone unrelated to me really want to hear about Miss Boo, anyway?)

Speaking of Miss Boo, she needs a nap badly, so I will let you go for today.

Cheers,

Breanna

Um...Kind of a Lot Has Happened Since Then

As in, I now have a new nephew. My sister, who was originally due 3 weeks before me, has considerately given birth while I was in the same town with her and my new neph is here!

He's a really good looking kid, though he scowled at me for not being his mother.

I will get a picture of him up tomorrow, and a decent post. Things are still too crazy here today.

Cheers all,

Breanna

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It's hard work hanging out at the grandparent's house and getting spoiled. We've been needing to take more naps.
In our specially-purchased porta-bed. Didn't I say we were being spoiled? We got ice cream last night because we were maybe getting a tooth and "the cold will make it feel better". I'm pretty sure that if we'd thought a Porsche would make it feel better, Miss Boo would have gotten one of those, too. Grandparents. :)

Luckily, it's a cold, icy St. Patrick's Day today, so hopefully (here in one of the biggest St. Paddy's towns in the U.S.) the drunks will stay inside instead of running around stepping in front of cars, off bridges, or arguing they are perfectly capable of driving. In case you're ever in town on St. Paddy's Day here, just so you know, assume everybody above Park Street is drunk.

Our celebration, since some of us are in the family way, is consisting of eating corned beef and cabbage with a lot of extra vegetables and wearing a green maternity top. I didn't even think to pack Miss Boo anything so she's obviously Protestant today. Tsk.

So what is St. Patrick's Day really meant to celebrate, apart from Irish independance and the appreciation of a person for something as great as well-brewed beer? (The Catholic church doesn't officially endorse either aspect of the feast.) St. Patrick's Day is merely the feast day of St. Patrick, who as we all know drove the snakes from Ireland.

No, no, no, he didn't do that. There were no snakes in Ireland in the first place. How were they going to get there, swim? Ride in Roman backpacks? What Patrick did was experience an amazing missionary calling toward people who forced him to be a cattle-watching drudge for several years. He was Roman, not Irish, and was held by the wild Irish as a slave. Upon getting saved, Patrick returned from Rome to Ireland to preach to the Irish and get the Druids all het up.

The amazing thing about the introduction of Christianity to Ireland is the effect it had on the Irish national character, which in Irish song and legend up until that time has a suspiciously over-brave tone. (As in, "I'm not afraid! You can't prove I'm afraid! I'm bigger than you anyway! I'm not going to die! I'll turn into a magic salmon!") Christianity pointed out that one doesn't, in fact, need to fear death, because of Christ's work on the cross. The Irish then became frankly fearless and started behaving in the most unlikely way. Christianity provided a channel for all the incredible artistic creativity and passion that sadly has been wasted for the past few hundred years on the IRA.

And boy, did the Irish run with Patrick's idea. They proceeded to enthusiastically set up monestaries for the purpose of copying Scripture and any other books they could get their hands on, and when they had their whole island evangelized they started out for England and the Continent as well. From what I understand, they got as far into Europe as Spain and parts of Germany. They preserved, almost single-handedly, the written civilization of Rome and Greece after they fell, and littered the world with copies of the Bible and extravagantly beautiful manuscripts.

How did this evangelical bonfire burn out? A very soggy island nearby took an interest in Ireland, unfortunately. We'll leave them nameless for now, but suffice to say that once Satan can convince a person or a category of people that they are perpetual victims and have the right to vengeance, it takes nothing short of a Great Awakening for them to become useful to the church again.

So the lessons of St. Patrick's Day are many: love your enemies, God uses the unlikely to advance His kingdom, and then it comes back around to love your enemies again, or you might miss your chance at doing something amazing for the Lord.

Way better things to think about today than "I'm Irish-- I 'Rish I Had Another Beer" t-shirts. :D

God Save Ireland,

Breanna

Cute Spring Cleaning Baby

So we are now at Grammy and Baba's house, and there are four inches of snow outside and it's still falling, but here are the spring cleaning pics I promised even though it's clearly not spring:

This is Miss Boo sweeping the kitchen for me...

And this is Miss Boo wondering if I could fly on this broom. :) Note the potholder on the floor in the background that she kindly got out for me-- 17 times. It makes spring cleaning go faster when you do that sort of thing.

We are at Grammy & Baba's house for the week, so posting will be infrequent, but we might post some cute pictures if we manage to get any this week and our camera doesn't die.

Happy Monday all,

Breanna

Still Here

No, I'm not dead or in labor--which are not the same thing, by the way; and I do have a cute picture of Miss Boo holding a broom and helping me with Spring Cleaning, but she's sleeping on my shoulder right now and I can't get up and get the camera. So you'll just have to wait for the next blog post to see the picture.

In the meantime, I am filling in my time until it's time to go to the airport and pick up the Husband. We got all of our spring cleaning done that I wanted to get done, except for organizing the bookshelves. I couldn't figure out how to do that with Miss Boo helping unless I tied her to my back like a papoose and didn't let her get down ever again. I should mention Miss Boo's favorite thing to do when she is quick enough behind my back is to pull books off the shelf and hide them.

Miss Boo and I (and the Husband, from the sound of him on the phone) still have colds. Miss Boo has a low, low voice today and it's funny and pathetic at the same time.

We are off to Grammy & Baba's house next week, so expect posting to be slow-to-not-at-all. But I will try to get that cute sweeping picture up before we go. :)

With that, I'm off to the airport for my man! Dang, I miss that guy when he's not around.

Cheers,

Breanna

Huttah!

(Ten points if you get the Strongbad reference.)

Spring cleaning continues apace, so I don't have a very detailed blog post for you today. Suffice to say my bathroom looks and works better than it has in a long, long time... nothing falls out the cabinet onto your head when you go to get a new roll of toilet paper. Yay organization!

On another note, I chipped a plate while putting the dishes away. You know how superglue has that little warning, "bonds skin instantly"? Yeah. They mean that. Ask me how I know.

I got my pantry organized yesterday while Miss Boo was napping, and discovered I have an entire empty shelf (or it became empty, once I grouped things logically). What would you do with a very short empty pantry shelf? That's too narrow to store your cutting boards and too short for boxes of mac n' cheese? It's just sitting there and tantilizing me right now.

Today my ambition is go to the store and buy lightbulbs, rubber gloves, and a number of other oddities that it's become apparent we need. I always feel strange walking into a store with my accumulated list and having an order that's something like: a mango, two packages of underwear, eyeshadow, a soap dispenser, candles, nails, dishwashing gloves, shelf paper, and a bottle of white wine. I'm sure the cashiers have seen odder combinations, but I seem to have a talent for it. They don't seem phased when I come back the next week to buy twenty pounds of rice, matzoh, bacon, and twelve cans of pears, either. Maybe I just look like The Type.

I'd better get busy. :)

Have a great Wednesday,

Cheers,

Breanna

Your Serious Post of the Week

So PBO has been making odd decisions for the past little while. I've been holding my tongue (or keyboard) about the little eccentricities like presenting the Russians with a Staples Easy Button and announcing our relationship with them has been "reset" or the bizarreness of a sitting president getting into a smackdown with a talk radio host (and then wussing out when said radio host offers to actually debate him). No, I've been restraining myself, even when PBO has declared that Nuclear Iran is not really a problem and is using the strategy on North Korea that Parenting magazine advocates for tantrums: ignore them, they only do it for attention.

But on Monday PBO announced--snottily, I might add, stating that his policy would be "based on facts, not ideology"--that he was reversing the current policy on embryonic stem cell research. In other words, federal dollars will go to fund research that involves killing small, defenseless humans in order that big, wealthy humans have a chance at maybe someday sort of making some illness better possibly.

See, here's the problem with making policy that is not based on ideology: you can't do it. There IS an ideology here, and it's not pretty. The ideology behind embryonic stem cell research says that it's all right for some people to take lives because they are more important than the people they kill. This is the same logic behind other, more frank abortions--somehow, the perceived good of a big person is treated as more important than the very life of a little, defenseless person.

"Well," proponents say. "They're only cells. It's not as though we're murdering people. And look at all the suffering we will alleviate."

First of all, once an embryo is fertilized, you can't make a logical or scientific argument for when it "becomes" a human. The process is chronological and seamless. A fertilized embryo has its own, unique DNA. (Yes, this is also why I'm against any in-vitro fertilization that destroys embryos. Sue me.)

Second, all the stem cell research that has been going on unabated in other countries has produced not one cure. Stem cell research in this country, which has gone on under private funding, is barely "promising"-- it has lately enabled one rat with paralysis to shuffle.

Thirdly, there are stem cells that are not from embryos. You have them in your fat tissue, among other things. Why not study those? Why are we so comfortable with abortion in all its ugly facets that we don't even bother to pursue alternatives?

The idea that there is a special class of people who are not quite human isn't new thinking, and it should be a red flag. When were other times in history when you can remember a group of respectable, educated people making arguments like "Well, obviously it would be wrong to do that to people, but they aren't really people like us" or "We have to do this, for the good of society" or even "The financial burden of stopping this would be too great"?

Slavery in the U.S. and the Final Solution are what come to my mind, and I don't want to go on the record as one of the respectable people who excused a great social evil simply because it was expedient.

Christians stood up and cried out against slavery. Christians preached (and died for it) against the Final Solution. There has to be something more productive we can do about the great evil of our time besides just standing outside clinics with signs. Perhaps Christians could sign advance directives specifically refusing any treatment derived from embryonic stem cells. Certainly we must redouble our efforts at providing meaningful "choice" for women besides abortion, by giving them help, support, and making adoption less of a hassle for all involved. Most certainly, we must pray for the president, and the nation.

Really, when compared to government sanction of murdering some of the populace for the benefit of others, Russia, Iran, and North Korea can't damage us any more than we've damaged ourselves.

Please pray,

Breanna

I'm A Sissie...

...but I don't like single parenting. Even for a week. How could I, when Miss Boo has this kind of a daddy:

Getting ready... getting set...

One hand!

Two hands! The ceiling is safe for democracy again!

(Do you notice my cool new curtains with the copper rod in the background? They are so awesome, so much better than the striped circa-1970s-dental-office-style drapes that came with the house that had to be dry-cleaned when they got dusty, which was often, so they were constantly dusty... yeah, I like my new curtains.)

Anyhoo, Miss Boo and I took the Husband to the airport in the cold this morning (the thermometer insisted it was -0, but I don't think that's technically possible) to wing his way to the midwest to talk to Various Important Business People about how he's saved his employers buttloads of money. Or something like that. :)

While he's gone, my idea is to do all the Husband-discombobulating cleaning/organizing/shopping that I normally squeeze in around the edges of things. I do not THINK this is the nesting instinct rearing its head early. Rather, I think I am wishfully thinking that if I do spring cleaning, it might warm up outside. At least warm enough to snow!

Also, there are several non-essential-but-gnawing-at my-subconscious organizational tasks (like organizing our books) that I've ignored since we moved into the house because I had a baby and essentials to get out of the way. However, these messy areas of the house have bothered me since we moved in. And I suspect if I don't do them before Boychild makes his entrance, they will bother me for a long time to come. ;)

I'm feeling optimistic about getting everything done. So far (beginning a little before the Husband left, on Saturday) I've cleaned and organized Miss Boo's room and closet (aka, the nursery), cleaned and organized our closet, cleaned the guest room, cleaned our bedroom, and cleaned the scary drawer in my dresser that had been breeding papers and random bits. Tomorrow my ambition is to scrub the bathroom from top to bottom and replace two lightbulbs in there. If I get it done, great; if not, also great. I am being easy on myself.

With that, I'm going to get a drink of water and put my feet up.

Cheers,

Breanna

Very, Very Cold, but At Least We're Not Ukraine

(Nope, nothing whatever to do with the title. It's just a cute picture. She starts blinking in anticipation of the flash now, whenever she sees the camera.)

At least we're not Ukraine, as in, at least we don't have Putvedev (as I call Vladimir and his buddy, who share a brain) threatening to shut off our natural gas if we don't pay our protection money. There is always something to be thankful for.

Miss Boo and I are staying inside today as it is 7 F out; we are supposed to go out to dinner with some people tonight so I hope it warms up a bit. As it is, Miss Boo is going to have to wear her snowsuit and I'm going to have to figure out how to bundle up in my very chic but hoodless maternity coat. The Husband will be fine. He is a rugged, manly type. :)

So I have discovered something about being a good girl and eating the proper pregnancy foods: it wrecks your tastes. For reasons of pan wickedness (my bundt pan refuses to release the cake properly, no matter how meticulously I grease and flour it) I have two chocolate cakes in the house. See, I need to bring a cake to that thing we're going to tonight, and I thought I'd make this chocolate cake recipie everybody likes, and I'd do it in the bundt pan so it'd be all pretty. It came out in hunks. So I have one chocolate cake in hunks, and I have one replacement chocolate cake I gave up and made in a 9x13 pan. And left in the pan. Oh well. At least they'll know it's homemade.

Given that I have this extra cake, I thought a little (little, seriously) bite of cake with my decaf coffee this morning might be sort of nice. Blech. I reckoned without the tastebuds and/or insulin receptors of a pregnant lady. I'm not sure I ever want to eat chocolate cake again, which makes me sad. I liked chocolate cake. Do you know what I ate for breakfast instead? Eggs, toast, and broccoli. Yep. It just sounded good. How wacked is that?

So I guess I'll be freezing that extra cake, unless someone wants to drive over here and get it. The Husband is going to be gone next week, and I surely am not eating that thing by myself, no matter how cold it is.

Well, extra cake is not a horrid problem to have. Hope you all have nothing worse today, and are keeping warm.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.
You're welcome, Steve, for the explanation of the inside family joke. You have now officially been promoted to Inside Family. (We don't speak of the Outside Family.)

This, How Joseph Looks

Forgive me for using a title that only a select few on my side of the family and nobody on the Husband's side will get; but check out these pictures, Grammy & Baba:
Looks very Biblical, doesn't she?

Apparently it's genetic. :)

Allow me to explain. When I was little, my siblings and I used to like to play Nativity Scene. If you don't know how to play, what you do is get a stuffed animal, swaddle it, arrange something as a manger, and then nominate people to be Mary, Joseph, and Everybody Else. (Everybody Else has to change costumes a lot.) I was tallest, ergo, I was always Joseph. There is an old home video of me with a beach towel draped over my shoulders in what I apparently felt was a first-century fashion, because when the camera operator asks me how I'm dressed I say, simply, "This. How Jospeh looks."

I think Miss Boo was going more for a I-want-a-feather-boa-and-all-I've-got-is-this-blankie look, but she still clearly felt gorgeous.

She had her 15-month appointment today, and the last of her immunizations until it's time for the kindergarten ones. (YAY!) She's growing as she should, and is developmentally on track. I even drew a surprised favorable comment for choosing soft shoes for her, go figure.

She's doing remarkably well with the shots this time, and seems to have forgotten all about them instead of moping for the rest of the day, the way she usually does. Hooray!

Hope you are all having a lovely Thursday,

Cheers,

Breanna

How I Get Anything Done

You'll notice me lifting my chin in an unsucessful attempt to slim my pregnancy chin. *sigh*...
This carrier is called a podagei. It's a Korean design. After seeing that they cost like $90 on the internet I got a kick out of building my own out of free fabric I had in the closet. I actually don't carry her this way all the time, but last night she was having a fussy I-only-want-to-be-carried-by-Mama night and I needed to do things with both hands.

Don't worry-- it's no more taxing to carry her this way than it is to carry her in my arms. In fact, it's more ergonomic. I just thought I'd share the pics (the pregnancy chin notwithstanding) because I thought I looked like I was double-pregnant and it was funny. (And yes, it's actually very secure, especially with a pregnant belly-- the straps can't slip up.)

I've discovered the best cure for I-only-want-to-be-carried-by-Mama is to be carried around by Mama for a while and to discover that Mama is very, very boring and that walking is more fun.

Miss Boo is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning (woke at 5am!) and I am wishing I was... but it is possible that since she woke up so early she might take a nap at like 8am, which would mean I get a rare morning shower, so cross your fingers for me. :)

Cheers for now,

Breanna

Scenes From My Day at 32 Weeks

Here's what my life looks like today... I put my knitting by my Bible, devotional, and prayer book so that I'll remember to keep working on my son's sweater. I feel sort of bad because I made like four sweaters and a couple of pairs of socks for Miss Boo and so far all he's got from me is three inches of sweater. Oh well-- I still have 8 weeks.

My bread came out... homemade. :) It wasn't that shape when I put it IN the oven. Oh well. The Husband likes it better this way than smushed into a brick-shape from the square pans.

Miss Boo likes napping in her big girl bed. She's been napping for almost 2 hours. I can't quite believe it and keep peeking at her, most likely I will wake her up but I can't help myself.

And a little light reading... I AM at 32 weeks, after all. Only 8 weeks to go!

We had a midwife appointment today; Boychild is measuring exactly as he should, kicking enthusiastically (he refused to sit still and have his heartbeat measured today, it took her longer than usual to count it) and is to all appearances head-down. (Breech paranoia in his mother is unfounded.) The midwife did inform me I look "puffy". This is not an insult when your midwife says it, I suppose, especially when she's reassuring you that no, you're not gaining weight like a lead ball on Jupiter, you're "holding onto fluid". Therefore I am instructed to drink lots of water and rest more with my feet up. So there you have it-- a midwife-endorsed excuse to cultivate my Dr. Phil habit. Or knit. Knitting would probably be more productive.

After hovering in the teens last week, yesterday and today our temperatures have been 50 F or so. It looks positively springish outside and the dog was lolling in the grass, pretending he was a puppy. This would have been merely cute had our grass not been muddy from all the melting snow. Oh well. I give up, really, on sparkly kitchen floors when I am 1) 8 months pregnant and 2) living in March.

Well, my water glass is empty, so I suppose I should go fill it and manfully resist peeking at Miss Boo again, in awe at her sleepability. Hope you are all having a lovely Monday!

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S. This laundry day is even more fun than usual, because I have to wash the Husband's dress clothes. He has to go to the mothership of his company on a business trip next week, and he needs to look snazzy as he is presenting to a bunch of Important Executives. Don't I have a smart, talented husband? The Important Executives think they discovered him, but I had him first.