Category Archives: Uncategorized

Thinking about judgment

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So everyone has times when their behavior doesn’t exactly match up with their stated positions/world views. It’s a normal thing. There are a few ways this can be dealt with. Someone can more or less subconsciously refuse to look at the discrepancy and continue on their merry hypocritical way–I think this is the majority reaction really; it is certainly the easiest. You can examine your world view more closely and decide that it no longer works for you and you should change it to align with your behavior. You can examine your behavior more closely and decide that it is inappropriate and you need to change it to align with your world view. Or, as Noah points out, you can look at your world view and behavior and decide they both kind of suck and change both. I think this last one is uncommon and maybe a bit drastic. 😉

This got really really long. Continue reading →

Oh yeah

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I got a new cell phone to replace my dying one and they couldn’t port my contacts. I am pretty unlikely to take the initiative to do it all by hand. If you have my phone number and you would like me to have yours this is a great time to send me a text message with your name. 🙂

ETA: I will not be responding to the text messages because we get a limited number. 🙂

This made my day

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(4:00:17 PM) friend: how you doing?
(4:00:55 PM) me: my nose is running like a faucet, I’m flippin hot (and not in any good way), if I stand up for more than about 3 minutes I’m super dizzy
(4:01:06 PM) friend: that sounds sick
(4:01:11 PM) me: But mostly I’m in good temper, which is rather surprising.
(4:01:29 PM) friend: you usually are whenever you’re doing what you think is right, and its hard

He went on from there, but that’s the bit that made me laugh in a cheerfully self-mocking way. 🙂

Activism (specifically: lactivism)

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When you tell someone else they should feel guilty, you are no longer dealing with guilt. You are dealing with shame. I believe that shaming people is wrong. Do I feel that every infant deserves a full-term breastfeeding experience because that is what is best for children? Yes. But I also feel that nursing is a dyad relationship. If the mother feels that her ability to adequately parent her child will be compromised because she will feel ill will, pain, hostility, resentment, etc towards her child then I am not sure it is actually in the best interests of the dyad to nurse. I feel it is sad when mothers don’t want to nurse, when they don’t even try. But a lot of why I feel that way is because I had a very easy experience breastfeeding.

I 100% believe that women should be encouraged with great vigor to give it a shot because even a couple of days of colustrum is better than nothing at all. But if a woman decides not to nurse… you know, I can’t see how me climbing on a bully pulpit and telling her that she sucks is helping anyone or anything.

People make me sad. Today, lactivists are at the top of the list of reasons I’m sad. Stop being such sanctimonious assholes.

A good day

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I spend most of my time on lj posting about being unhappy or talking about Shanna. That is totally not representative of my every day so uhm, here’s a post that is less depressing.

Today is a good day. I got a little bit of yard work done out front. It’s been bugging me so I’m glad I’ve gotten around to it. I scheduled house cleaning stuff for the next several months so that I can stop feeling bad about how little cleaning I do. (Noah [whom I do not spend nearly enough time talking up–he’s so fabulous] does most of the ‘picking up’ so our house isn’t too bad, but he doesn’t really like doing the deeper cleaning.) Currently it sucks for me to bend over and do it so we decided that three or four months of someone else cleaning our house was a Good Idea. The vast majority of this additional spending right now is coming out of the much larger than anticipated tax refund, so I am thanking my lucky stars that we got it. I really and truly see the financial privilege I have these days and I feel so grateful that I have it. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure can do a lot of work towards making life easier so that you have less stress. That leads to increased happiness. So I thank anyone upstairs who is listening that my life is so easy at this point.

For all that I’m not a great pregnant person I am deeply grateful that this pregnancy is easier than Shanna’s. I’m super tired. I have a lot of random body discomfort. I’m cranky. But I haven’t puked once! I am not so completely listless that I am not functioning! I do manage to take Shanna out to play at least once a week and I’m arranging for her to have more opportunities than that with other people. I’m cranky with her, but she’s spectacular about telling me, “It’s not nice to yell at me.” Which really puts a fast halt to my temper tantrums. Having a two year old call me on my behavior is incredibly humbling in a good for me way. I really love having her.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the sexual assault stuff and I am feeling… better isn’t quite the word but less disturbed. I’m feeling more like I really have handled things in a way that is ultimately good for me. Of course I have done things poorly at times. Of course I have not always been in the best place right that minute. But overall I don’t feel like I am a terrible non-functioning crazy person. And sometimes good enough is good enough. 🙂

Mostly I had a really good weekend. I really love my family. I have a wonderful, supportive, amazing husband. I feel like I had the most perfect-for-me little girl possible. I like her so much. I’m rather excited about meeting kid 2.0. If Noah and I combined to make one kid this awesome, what will 2.0 be like? I strongly suspect that next kid will be very very different from Shanna. I base this on the differences in the pregnancy. This kid is active in a way that Shanna wasn’t. This makes me slightly nervous because of the potential differences in sleeping habits. Shanna has been an awesome sleeper since birth. But we’ll roll with it. Whatever happens is what is meant to happen. I think that I am nervous about having expectations this time. Before Shanna I had almost zero exposure to babies. I had no idea what to expect and then she was so easy. (Maybe my memory is already getting fuzzy… who knows.) Now I’ve had a kid so I have a bit more of the ‘I know about kids’ attitude. I’d be better off assuming that I know nothing again. 🙂

So, yeah. Life is plugging along. I have 6ish weeks to go. I’m nervous but looking forward to the birth. It will be a rather different experience this time. Shanna has expressed rather strongly that she wants to be at the birth so that’s going to be interesting. Luckily nipple stimulation is a big help because there is no way I will be able to keep her from nursing during labor. 😀 I’m really looking forward to tandem nursing for some weird, masochistic reason. Something about it just seems really… I don’t know… motherly? Like even if I feel like psychologically I am not always the best at mothering my body is doing GREAT at the physical parts! I can’t quite figure out why I am looking forward to it so much. Too many years on MDC. They have infected my brain. 😀

So yeah. It’s a good day after having a couple of other good days in a row. 🙂

Rousing success.

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We just bottled two batches of mead that we started last July. Oh man. The Lotus Blossom honey is smooooooooooooth and extremely drinkable. It is perfect for right now by Noah’s estimation. The Mesquite honey we mixed with cinnamon and vanilla and cloves is absolutely divinely perfectly sweet in my opinion. Noah thinks it will be absolutely perfect once it ages a bit and mellows more. My first exclamation was, “That’s candy!” And I mean that in all the best ways. 😀

I think we have plenty of good alcohol for the next year or two. 😀

Follow up on spa day

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So I am going to www.spaelia.com in Los Gatos. They have some extra fussy bits for pregnant chicks and I’m taking advantage. It sounds like they are not too booked so if someone wants to join me for the pedicure part I bet you can call and get in at about the same time as me. (I am showing up at 10am next Sunday the 18th. I am not 100% certain what order my stuff is going to happen in but they would probably be happy to look it up and schedule people with me.)

I’m excited!

Musing about people being weird.

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(friends-locked only because they have a Stalin-esque policy about it not being ok to talk about stuff off site.)

I spend a lot of time on Mothering.com these days since you lame bastards wonderful people don’t post enough on lj. Some of the things I read about baffle me.

Ok, I don’t think I had heard much about hoarding as an illness before reading there. The stuff that people go through dealing with hoarding relatives sounds like a complete nightmare. Of course, there is my Uncle Bob. He’s a hoarder and he has made his property look like shit even though it probably could be worth close to a million dollars given its location. oy.

And the chick who is so offended that her friend asked her to not come to a birthday party after deliberately exposing her kids to chicken pox. She is ranting that her kids aren’t in the contagious window and how dare people not respect science!!! Uhm, if you are a non-vaxxer ranting about how people don’t pay attention to science you are pretty f’in funny. And as soon as you said that next time you deliberately expose your children to a disease you just won’t tell anyone because how dare they expect you to quarantine your kids? Uhm. You are the reason non-vaxxers are considered a public health menace, thanks bitch.

And when someone says, “It makes it way harder to deal with difficult toddler behavior when someone is judging me” having many many people rush in to judge the mom and tell her she’s handling everything wrong? Well I think that is irony in action.

Mostly I just find MDC to be a neverending source of reasons to be grateful that my husband isn’t a fucking asshole like most husbands and I feel like I’m maybe not so judgmental after all. Cause compared to most of them I barely judge anyone ever! 😀

ETA: WTF! I deleted something very snotty and put that it wasn’t worth the smack down from the mods and I got a smack down from a mod because I was rude. She said my original post was fine but it was totally inappropriate and rude to say that about the moderators. Fucking fascist dictatorship. Sometimes I hate the site. (The user agreement says that it is never ok to respond to someone in a rude or adversarial manner and I had been very aggressive towards someone. Apparently that is more acceptable than implying that the mods might call me on it. Oh go to fucking hell.)

Complete and total self indulgence

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This is really not normally my speed. Most of the time my attitude is, “What a complete and total waste of money.” But uhm this pregnancy I seem to be feeling differently. I think that at least part of my change in attitude right this moment is I now understand just how little time and energy I will have after the baby arrives. And I have very little physical ability to do some of this right now. Oy.

So! I am thinking about doing a spa day. It makes me cringe thinking about how expensive it will be. Yet, I’m going to do it. Uhm, if anyone doesn’t want to hear about it don’t open the cut. Continue reading →

okcupid

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What is up with all the random dudes hitting on me on okcupid lately? I think I’ve been getting a message a day for about two weeks. Yes, I’m breathtakingly beautiful. Sure. Fine. I’m also married, pregnant, and super fucking cranky. (I am *not* listed as available.) Lame! Go away or I will post a picture of my stretch marks so that you do not find me so attractive any more!

Yay

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New netbook is here!! I’m going to spend the next several days trying to figure out how to format and install everything on a Windows box (haven’t used one in… 5? 6? years) and how to stop hitting the mother-flippin track pad while typing. I will probably be sketchier than usual in responding to stuff for a bit. 🙂

Yet more processing

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This morning is hard. I had a ‘moment’ where I realized that my first sexual acting out was at about three and a half. My rather clear memories of that were that I was just ‘supposed’ to do that. Now, as an adult I realize that in order to have such a clear sense of place associated with sex acts I was probably being molested at about Shanna’s age. I simply cannot conceive of anyone being such a monster that they would hurt a baby like that. But someone (someones?) did. It is becoming harder and harder for me to continue to have the self-narrative that I was just sexually precocious and any of what happened to me as a kid was by choice.

This is really really hard.

+/-

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+ Today has been one of my more productive days in a long time which makes me feel way better about canceling the play date for this morning.
– I canceled a play date because I hurt my foot yesterday and shoes are really not my friend. I really like the mom I was going to see so this is kind of sad.
+ I got to see a friend yesterday and she was very patient with Shanna’s mood.
– Yesterday was one of the hardest days I’ve ever had with Shanna.
+ Bad days for Shanna are so few and far between that I am shocked when they occur.
– I am moody on turbo. I think I want pregnancy to be over because I am tired of this hormonal roller coaster. (Other people get fussy when I think they are more moody during pregnancy. Mostly this is me projecting because I am fucking psychotic. But I do think that most pregnant women are more moody than they are willing to admit. 😛 )
+ Overall my kid is so awesome that she takes my breath away. I feel very lucky to have such a happy, good natured child.
– I’m struggling with feeling guilty about a boundary I need to enforce right now. The person I need to do this with isn’t doing anything wrong or bad, I just need to say what I need and that’s hard sometimes.
++++ Noah is seriously the most patient husband ever. I’m really not pulling my weight and he’s not bitter or pissy at me in the slightest. I’m really grateful that he comes home from work and makes me dinner while playing with Shanna. He’s so amazing.
– I want my body back. I am really struggling this time through pregnancy with feeling pissed off about my body being invaded. I would like to be able to wear clothes I actually like instead of whatever ugly tent will fit over my bloated body. I want to be able to sleep in any position I feel like. I want to be able to eat foods that are good for me without feeling disgusted because vegetables are nasty. I want to stop trying to eat more protein/calories because it’s what the baby needs. I want to stop taking huge handfuls of fucking pills every day. I want to have more energy to play with Shanna. I want to not be on the verge of tears most days out of frustration with all the shit I can’t do. (Yes, a good many of you other pregnant women don’t seem to be inhibited much and you don’t want to be treated like you are disabled. I don’t want to fucking hear about it.) Ugh.
– I hate technology. My phone is also broken in addition to the lack of working laptop.
+ Luckily I ordered a Netbook today so part of that problem will be solved soon.
– I’m simultaneously bored and overworked. This is part of the “I want my body back.”
+ I am actually looking forward to the baby. 🙂

Bunny-System comic

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I have been looking for this url for a long time. Now I found it. I am bookmarking it and putting it in several online places I frequent so I never have to search through the crappy ass archives again.

http://wordpress.thebunnysystem.com/2007/04/06/egotastic/

If you are a lumpy pear-shaped Goddess of sex, you should also keep this comic within easy reach. 😀

Yay progress!

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First day: one accident.
Second day: two accidents.
Third day: three accidents and two pees in a diaper when I was just not up for trying to potty her while doing errands.
Fourth day: no accidents at all during the day but once she got her night time diaper on she peed in it almost instantly and asked for another one.

Holy cow. We might actually get through this!