knowing me better than i know myself

While nursing Mr. Wesley, I like to keep myself entertained with a diverse pile of stuff to match any mood: a set of scriptures, an Ensign, old Readers Digests, the current Parents magazine, brochures on child development, and a book of Jumbles. The latter I recently pulled out of my bedside stand. I think mom gave me the book before I was married, and I had done one or two and no more. I am proud to say I am almost 100% done with the Jumbles.

I love Jumbles. When I was in elementary school (I think!), I'd sit on dad's lap in his recliner and we'd do Jumbles together. What is a Jumble, you ask? Oh heavens...

This here is actually what I call a "super Jumble," since it has six words. Most only have four. Super Jumbles are in the Sunday paper.

Anyway, I love Jumbles. And my mom bought me a Jumble book knowing I love Jumbles. And now that I finally have time to get through the book, I am so deliriously happy! I've even resumed doing the Jumbles in the paper that I used to skip over in my quest to finish the paper as quickly as possible and move on with my life.

In thinking fondly of my Jumble book, I've come to consider quite a few gifts that at first glance seemed odd, then turned out to be 100% absolutely perfect. Just what I needed. I just didn't know it.

• One year, "Santa" left me a fingernail "hygiene" kit in my stocking: nail clippers, a nail file, tweezers, and a under-the-nail-scraper thing. OK whatever, Santa, thanks. But I still have it and I use it every day. I've replaced the tweezers and clippers but they all still fit perfectly in their little case. Wow, that Santa knew.
• Another year for Christmas I got a robe. I never had used a robe. OK mom, sure. But, then I went off to college and in the dormitories I fell in love with that robe. I just recently replaced it with a new robe. Now I'm a convert to robe wearing! I love them!
• Once, mom and dad saw the clutter of my shoes collecting behind my door in my room and bought me a "shoe bag" that hung over my door. OK whatever, parentals! But they knew. That shoe bag was a blessing. I used it, and suddenly I could open my door all the way! Wow!
• And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention dear Shanester here, who bought me a shoe rack for Christmas a couple years ago. Thanks, Shanester. I gave him a list of stuff I wanted that year and every single thing he got me came from that list, except for the shoe rack. He knew I needed one and he kindly encouraged me to use it. Ahh yes, I did need one. And I use it.

I think the trick, with a gift, is to pay attention. You know your friends and family. Listen to them when they are just chatting away, and you'll discover interesting things. When Christmas comes around, you'll know exactly what to do. I'm so fortunate my family sometimes knows me better than I know myself. Or they were so darn sick of the piles of shoes. Either way, I truly have benefited. Thanks, guys.

my favorite joke

A woman decided she didn't like her husband anymore, but to avoid a messy divorce, she planned to hire a hitman. She didn't really know where to start, so she opened the phone book and looked under "Hitmen," and called the first one on the list: Artie the Assassin.

"Hello?" Artie answered.

"Yes, hello, I'd like to have my husband um, disposed of," she replied.

"Well you're in the right place! Just give me the details and I can take care of it tomorrow," Artie said.

"OK. Every day after work, about 5 o'clock, my husband drives his purple punchbuggy with yellow flowers to the Safeway to pick up groceries for dinner. I guess that is as good a time as any to take care of it," she said.

"No problem, will do," Artie said.

"What about cost?," she inquired.

"Well, actually, you're my very first customer. Because I'm new in the business, I'll cut you a break and will do this deal for just one dollar."

"Wow! Thanks Artie," and the plan was made.

The next day, Artie was waiting at Safeway and sure enough, at 5 pm, in came a purple punchbuggy with yellow flowers and out hopped the targeted husband.

Artie runs up to the guy, grabs him by the neck, and strangles him dead.

Meanwhile, a bagger helping load groceries into another customer's car, sees the commotion and tries to intervene. Artie, a total professional, finishes off the husband then turns to the bagger and proceeds to strangle him until he falls down dead.

As this is going on, the store manager calls the police, then tries to save his customer and employee. Unfortunately, Artie begins strangling him as well, and he falls down dead.

The police come and apprehend Artie.

So. What is the headline in the newspaper the next day?

drumroll




"Artie chokes 3 for $1 at Safeway."

safeway should totally pay me

My good deed for the day:

I missed the mailman. I had 5 letters I wanted to get out today. Safeway, up the road, has mail pick up at 12:30 pm. Sure I could make it if I drove, but what if I walked? Some pleasant cardiovascular activity for the day! So, I strapped on the Wes-man in a baby carrier (handmade for me by Melani, thank you thank you!), and we started a walk.

To give you frame of reference, I live at about 29th, and Safeway is at about 37th. Not too far. A good walk. Even a hill or two.

But then!

I remembered I saw a Safeway cart in front of the apartments next door. Some looney no doubt dumped it; how rude.

I grabbed the cart! And off on our journey...

Until!

Halfway there, I came across another ditched Safeway cart. Wowsers!

So, imagine: Me, with a squirmy baby strapped to my chest, my bills in one hand, two nestled Safeway carts in the other, crossing Highway 99 (i.e., busy thoroughfare) at lunch time, with beads of sweat on my forehead and a look of determination in my eye. Success. I arrived at the P.O. drop box on time, and Safeway got two AWOL carts safely returned.

What a fun morning!

w.g.g., s.o.s., p.d.q.

This is a post for moms and dads. HELP, PLEASE!

I am writing about sleep. Baby sleep.

When Wesley was born, we had to wake up every 2 hours to feed him so he'd gain weight. After that, he would wake up every 2 or 3 hours on his own to eat. All fine and good, since he was a tiny baby!

Eventually, it morphed into 4, 5, 6, or 7 hours of continuous sleep at night. The heavens shone down on us! I was such a happy mama, and the envy of all my friends!

Then something happened. I think it started in August-ish when it got sososososo hot. Really hot. He would wake up every 3 hours again. Ergh! I attributed it to the heat, fed him, consoled him, put him back down, no problem.

But it kept going.

OK, so perhaps it's a growth spurt. I have other friends who said, "oh yeah, my baby did the same thing at 3 months and in 2 weeks we were back to 5 hours at night."

But it's been much more than 2 weeks for me. And this is still going on.

Why won't the boy sleep? Last night I was up every hour from 3 until 8, either feeding him or reswaddling him and begging him to go back to sleep or listening to him cry or crying myself. It was awful.

At one point, a couple weeks ago, we tried the "let him soothe himself to sleep" thing, where he cried some and and we comforted him some but left the room while he was still awake. It worked OK for a few days, but then we kinda let it go since we have to be in the mood for the "give and take" that generally ensues. But lately, we haven't even had a chance to try it, because when the boy gets fussy around 7 or 7:30 pm, I just feed him and he immediately conks out. (Which I understand poses a problem itself, his dependency to "nurse to sleep." So there are more issues for me.)

So what do I do? I have Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, but finding time to actually read it is impossible. When Wesley's asleep, I want to be asleep. I am utterly exhausted. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture -- waking someone up just as they get to that REM cycle.

Plus, I read one chapter or so of the book and tried to implement it. The author said if the baby is tired, put him to sleep no matter how early it is and you'll be surprised that he'll sleep through until this normal awake time and no earlier. Since common sense would say if I usually put him to bed at 8 pm, and every day we wake up at 8 am, if I shifted the bedtime up an hour, the awake time would shift as well. The book argues otherwise.

So one day, we put Wesley to bed at 6:45 pm since he was in rare form. But it didn't work, and he was roaring to go at 7 am the next morning, a Sunday. I was so upset I cried.

Some other things to consider:

• I've been pretty proud of myself for establishing 8 am as our "awake time." If he wakes up prior to 8 am, I'll go in there and reswaddle him and calm him down and tell him it's not time to get up for the day. I'll put him down and go back to sleep myself, and usually he is OK with that! It's been a total high point in my baby-training life.
• We have a really good bedtime routine I've been doing for a couple months now. We change him into PJs, read a couple books (many are "bedtime"-oriented books), then I nurse him with only the nightlight on and some jazz music playing, then I swaddle him and we say a prayer, and I lay him down to sleep. Usually, he's asleep by that time, but sometimes he's not.
• Yesterday it dawned on me that maybe I wasn't feeding him enough during the day so he needed more nutrients at night. Every time he got a bit fussy during the day I fed him. He must have fed 10 times, usually once every 1.5 hours. That's much more than I fed him previously. But, as you can see, he was still up 1,500 times during the night so it didn't work.
• He takes naps during the day. Yesterday he took three 40-45-minute naps, which I thought was an absolute victory. He sometimes takes 2- and 3-hour naps, but it's not consistent.
  
• Sometimes even though he's ridiculously tired he fights the naps, in those cases I generally do 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off... which means for 10 minutes I console him while he's inconsolable, then I take a break for 10 minutes and see if he can console himself. It generally goes on for 40 minutes before he finally goes to sleep. We've done the 10/10 idea at night, too, but usually at night he is better about going to sleep (perhaps because it's dark out?).
  
• He hasn't pooed for a couple days. I partly think he's working on one, and maybe that's agitating?
• The nurse from the pediatrician's office says that it isn't too early for teething. He is only 3.5 months! I'd die if he was teething.

I guess that's all for now. I feel so helpless. I know this boy needs his beauty rest, but he refuses to sleep. What can I do?

Please help.

pass the veggies, please

I've decided I want to become a vegetarian. I told Shane, and he told me he'd leave me. How sad is that? Well, specifically, he said he would not leave me if I still agreed to cook meat for him. And I really wouldn't want to do that, so I guess our marriage would be over. Hmm.

It all started when I heard from two different sources about a local farm taking orders for its cows. What? Yes. You can order like a quarter of a cow or a half of a cow, and then they slaughter the cow and you get the meat fresh from the farm. It cuts out the middle man (a grocery store), and you know where your meat came from and that it was organic or grain-fed or whatever. Plus, you're supporting the local guy. It all sounds so nice, right?

Well, not to me. I just can't come to terms with the fact that there's a nice little cow frolicking through the meadows right now, enjoying the sunshine, mooing with glee, who in a couple weeks could be on my dinner table.

It reminds me of an experience I had as a teenager. I went on a Pioneer Trek where for five days or something I wore bloomers and long sleeves in the unbearable heat of summer and pushed a handcart and ate gruel, all in the spirit of appreciating the pioneers and living how they lived. Well, one evening, as a "special treat," we had a bunch of chickens brought in and the kids (yes, us) could chop off their heads and help our chaperones prepare them for dinner.

Yeah, right. I did not have any of that chicken. But lots of my friends did. I couldn't deal with it.

Also as of late, I'm working my way through an old stack of Reader's Digest magazines I've never read, circa 2005. There is a personal narrative by this woman who set a goal to cook all 500 recipes from some Julia Child cookbook in one year. Her story was mainly about preparing the lobster recipes, specifically how you have to buy the lobsters alive and cook them at home. She elaborated on how she became a "mass murderer," as she put it, and how it got easier the more she did it. She commented on how each victim was different, like how one lobster was quiet in the back seat of her car, while another clapped away and roamed around in its paper bag. It pained me to read it. Plus, she went on about preparing some type of delicacy where you start slicing and dicing the lobster while it is still alive.

Do you see why I want to be a vegetarian?

I have a friend who is a vegetarian because she doesn't like the taste and texture of meat. My neice became a vegetarian when her brother brought home his first hunting kill, a buck, in a big bloody mess. I'd be doing it for the same reasons as her: so I'm not eating something that used to be cute and cuddly. I mean, even the "how's it going, Bob?" lobsters on Finding Nemo are cute and somewhat cuddly.

The odds are stacked against me: I like cheeseburgers and pork-kabobs and barbeque chicken. I can think of maybe two dishes currently in my dinner rotation which are meat-free. Any nutritionist will say you need "lean protein" as part of a healthy diet. Plus, it's just plain hard to say "no" every time someone prepares a meaty dinner for you.

sigh

In all honestly, I doubt it will happen. Although I really wish I had the willpower to do it. I really really do.

I guess for now, I'll be grateful that the grocery store acts as the middle man and I can disassociate where my meat actually came from. I'm just one of those people that can't think about it.

And I'll never cook lobster. Ever.

it's not mother's day, but...

Yesterday was AWESOME. Shanester, me, AND the Wes-man went to the BYU/UW football game at Husky Stadium on UW campus. Yes, a 3-month-old amid thousands of fans. I can say though for a fact that he was not the youngest attendee; I saw smaller babies and it made me feel less of a bad parent. I mean, it was loud at times.

But, we had a blast. Our seats were nosebleed, which actually turned out quite awesome. When Wesley started fussing a bit in the 2nd quarter, Shane took him to the very tippy top, where he rocked the little guy to sleep (can you imagine? at a football game, our son fell asleep!). To give you an idea of how high up that was, the rows at the stadium go A to Z, then AA to ZZ, THEN AZ and on. The highest row in the stadium is GZ. And there we were. It was great. We could see the field, we could spread out, Wesley could cry, it was awesome.

I cheered for BYU; Shane cheered for UW. BYU won. YAY! A very close, very good game.

Toward the end of the game, something happened that has gotten me thinking. Heidi tells the story best in her blog; go read it there for a teary-eyed entry. However, here is my more boring synopsis of what happened:

One of the Husky players was down. We all watched as a whole bunch of medics surrounded him and an ambulance drove onto the field. Then, there was some commotion on the other side of the field. Shane noticed that someone had come down from the stands and was rushing onto the field. Of course the person was restrained, but then the security guards finally let her go. She ran across the field to the injured player. It was his mother.

(As a funny sidenote, you never really realize how fast the football players run until you see a normal person run on the field.)

So, she ran to her injured son. I got to thinking about how I'd feel if my little boy was injured. Then, I got to thinking about my own mother, and the wonderful things in my life I have to thank her for. She has taught me so much. No one is perfect, and I know we've had our share of arguments over spilled milk, but when I look back on my life and childhood, I am so thankful for my mom. I had a great childhood, and I feel like I'm a well-adjusted, confident, normal adult -- thanks to my parents.

(all the girls: Leslie, Melani, me, and Mom)

Some things to note about my mom:

• My mom was always so good talking on the phone! She could go from an exasperated "Angela be nice to your brothers! You're giving me grief," to "Hello?" as sweetly as one could imagine. I always thought it was hilarious. I had to answer a lot of calls at my job, and when I really got into it I saw a lot of my mom in myself.

• My mom loves lists and little piles. I love lists and little piles! I have so much running through my head (especially as a mom myself!) that I thrive on lists, crossing things off one at a time as I revel in my productivity. And, when I'm organizing and cleaning house, I've been known to makes piles of papers all over the floor before anything gets put away. Receipts, bills, magazine articles to save, mail from friends, etc. Little piles, dotting the living room floor.

• My mom was always so enthusiastic and optimistic about things. I think she always saw opportunities for fun. On vacations, she'd be organized with coupon books and travel guides so we had all these plans of cultural, relatively inexpensive and interesting things to do. And then, she always saw the positive in situations, even if things didn't turn out like we'd hoped for or planned. I try to be that way, too.

• My mom always spent one-on-one time with me. When I went to early-morning seminary at Church, even when I was old enough to get out of bed and drive myself, she'd get up so we could pray together before I left. She bought these day-to-day calendars with little quotes, and we'd read our quotes every day. Another thing I remember, ha ha, is that she'd let me watch Beverly Hills 90210 (the original!) and we'd stay up afterwards "talking about" what happened during the episode. It wasn't the most morally clean show, and it presented many opportunities for discussion on choice and accountability.

• My mom also taught me to give people the benefit of the doubt. I remember as I grew up there were girls from school or Church that annoyed the heck out of me. I'd come home and bad-mouth them, and my mom would alway rush to their defense. She'd say, "Angela, they're just trying to fit in." She taught me a powerful lesson. We all are just trying to fit in. I shouldn't judge other people when I don't know all the facts, and I should just keep my mouth shut sometimes.

• My mom taught me how to pray. I think as a kid, when it was mom's turn to say family prayer, I'd be like "oh great, here we go," because sometimes she'd go on and on and on. But now that I'm older, I know how she felt. She was talking to Heavenly Father, pleading with him to watch over her children and help her run her home. I feel the same way now that it's my turn to be in those shoes.

• Most importantly, my mom always taught me that I could do anything. I seriously believed from a young age that I could be the President of the United States if I wanted to (I don't want to!). She instilled in me an incredible amount of confidence. I remember that as I finished up a test at BYU and handed it in, along with the wave of relief and anxiety that comes with finishing a test, I'd think to myself, "no matter what, my mom loves me." It didn't matter how well I did. I usually did well -- sometimes I didn't! -- but I always felt secure that I did my best, and that is what mom expected. She knew I could do it.

I suppose I could go on forever. I hope you all can see opportunities in your lives to think of your mothers and thank her for what she did for you. I mean, someone had to suffer through labor and delivery for all of us! That's no easy task (and I speak from personal experience).

Thank you so much, Mom. I hope I can be as good a mother to my son as you were to me.

life with baby

Short post today; I'm working on some fabulous ones in my head but this will do for now. We've got some new Wesley pics, posted here.

To give you a hint of their absolute cuteness:

That one's totally my favorite. Love the tongue. Note the Bumbo seat, which I got off Craigslist for $15! WHOO HOO! Those suckers retail for $40 or more.

In related news, yesterday I painted all 10 fingers and all 10 toes a metallic rose color, courtesy Avon, for the first time as a mother. I feel so fabulous! I really missed the glamour of freshly painted nails.

Little guy is currently sleeping. Nap away!

struggles with semantics

Today, a few English phrases and terms I don't really like and why:

• "Screaming Bloody Murder": As I have been making a lot of new friends with little babies, we of course complain about our babies' crying, and I hear this phrase many many many times during a single get together. I just don't really think I like it. I mean, imagine your exclamation if you were witnessing a manslaughter or being attacked yourself, versus your exclamation if you were very hungry. I just think they are different. Blood-curling versus simply uncomfortable? I've been making a habit not to use this phrase, since I just don't think it applies to a tiny baby. Wesley sure can wail, but not like Hitchcock's Psycho or anything.

• "Binky" or "Plugger": I just don't like these words. They just rub me the wrong way, I don't know why. I refuse to use them to describe a pacifier. I have a friend who calls it a "paci" and that is cool with me. I call it a pacifier or a sucker. Where did "binky" come from anyway??

• "Glass Ceiling": OK, now this term, it makes sense. It's a good analogy. Just don't use it 15 times in your quote in the New York Times. "Blah blah blah glass ceiling, blah blah blah glass ceiling, blach blah blah glass ceiling," OK I GET IT! We will be shattering a glass ceiling! I recommend minimal use. I must say that it's interesting to note that whoever wins this election, history will be made. I think that was part of McCain's plan.

• "Pick Your Brain": The problem with this is that there is no other way to say it, besides "I'd like to ask your opinion on something." "Pick your brain" is so much simpler. Yet I imagine myself with tweezers picking lint off of your sticky brain tissue, and it's just disturbing. So I try not to use this one as well.

That's all for now. Any you guys can't stand?