All You Need Is Love: February 2008

February 28, 2008

Little Miss LoJack

Baby Ryan was born Tuesday, February 26^th at 7am. She weighed 8lb 12oz (holy shit, Deb) and was 21in. long.

We have a niece!

Technically, SK has a niece and I can play almost-aunt for now, but really? I just call her my niece.

And I think she is beautiful.

And I held her.

And she farted her first little fart on me.

!!!!

Seriously, it was the cutest little toot I have ever heard. Clearly, she is super comfortable with me.

It’s no secret that babies make me uncomfortable. I have a lot of cousins and have baby sat for more than a few little kids in my lifetime, but I have never really been around newborns. Sure, I have held them, sitting down with my mom or their mom sitting right next to me, breathing down my neck, making sure I don’t let the baby’s head fall off or something. Hi, PRESSURE.

Until Tuesday night I have never been handed a baby knowing full well that the one doing the hand off completely trusts that I will not drop her child or break it. It was wild!

And who would have thought? I didn’t drop her, smack her head into anything, or trip and fall baby-first into the hard hospital floor. She was actually relaxed enough that she FARTED on me.

We’re going to be great buds.

The happy family

And here is a picture of Deb and Wil, pre-Ryan. Well, kind of. Ryan is there, but she is just a bump and is kind of hidden by Deb’s pretty flowers. Hi Ryan ;)

By the way, Deb is probably the biggest BADASS I know. She was induced on Monday morning, had contractions all day and was finally given the epidural at about 7:30pm that night, which she said rocked. Apparently, though, at about 3am Tuesday morning, the epidural pump STOPPED WORKING.

Oh. My. God.

Not having delivered a baby before, she thought maybe the pain was normal…? She kept telling her nurses and doctor that she was in A LOT of pain, and they kept telling her to push her little button to keep the drugs flowing. She kept hitting the button, nothing happened, and by the time her doctor realized what the problem was, it was too late to give her more meds.

Oh. My. God.

To all you non-epidural needing people (men) out there, this means she delivered an 8lb. 12oz. child WITHOUT ANY PAIN MEDICATION.

Oh. My. GOD!

But there she is, smiling in spite of it all, happy to be holding her precious little daughter in her arms.

Seriously though, OH MY GOD.

P.S.: Did you know that babies have sensors on them in the hospital? Ded showed me Ryan’s belly button (which, not gonna lie, almost made me gag) and attached to the clamp that is holding her umbilical cord shut (blech), is a big green thing. I was all, wtf? And Deb was all, it’s a sensor and if anyone, even us, takes her beyond a certain point in the hospital, the whole thing goes into lock-down. And SK was all, dude they so totally just LoJacked your baby.

Back!

Apparently, the Real Me is boring and has nothing to say.

…

I liked Semi-Fake Me.

I bet you all did too. She was funny (sometimes) and posted often and told stories about cars catching on fire, drowning in mattresses, and how her dog slams her head into walls because she thinks it will help her get to the human she so insanely loves on the other side.

Sigh.

In an attempt to get my blogging butt back in gear, I am going to create a list. If you know me, you know how much I absolutely ADORE lists. I think that there should be lists created for everything. Going swimming? Make a list of all the things you’ll need. Buying lunch? Make a list of all the possibilities. You can even make lists for stuff you DON’T want to do or buy! The listing potential of life is endless.

I think I like lists so much because I am such a freak about avoiding procedure and structure in my life. With a list, I feel like I am participating in a process I am in complete control of, a process I can handle and one that won’t make me spontaneously combust from the pressure of DOING IT THE RIGHT WAY. If I make the list, then obviously I am capable of doing/buying/completing all the items on it, which makes me feel powerful and in charge. Which I like. A lot.

But enough about my list obsession.

My idea for this post will hopefully spawn many other posts that you, dear InterWeb, will want to read. I am going to create a list of stuff about me (an elaboration of the “5 Things” post from a few weeks ago) and I am going to be as honest and open as possible. If there is anything on the list that you see that you’d like to hear more about, or hear the story behind, just leave a comment and I will create a post dedicated to the item you chose. If I get nothing back in the comment department, no worries…hopefully just creating this list will be the creative boost I need to get back in the game. And if not, well, at least I got to spend some time making a fun list.

1. I have an older brother. I don’t think a lot of people know this about me, even though I tell just about everyone I meet. I think people forget about him. I haven’t seen him in over 10 years.

2. The only pets I can ever remember having have been black Labradors and random fish. My mom outlawed gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs and basically any rodent and/or outdoor animal of any kind in our house. These things were vermin and not to be considered pets.

3. Once, my younger brother and I found a baby bird and broke my mom’s rule and brought it into the house. We kept it for a few days and then, in an attempt to teach it to fly, my neighbor broke its wing and it died.

4. I know all the words to the following 5 movies: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Jim Carrey’s Grinch, Elf, Napoleon Dynamite, and Clueless.

5. I can still remember my phone number from 1998. I get my current cell number scrambled up when people ask for it.

6. I can remember the license plates of both of my parent’s cars from California. I couldn’t tell you the plate # of my car right now if you paid me. The missing digit throws me off.

7. Pennies annoy me. I almost always throw them into any water feature I happen to be near. By my estimation, I have tossed away 58,649 dollars in my lifetime in pennies. Dangit.

8. I can’t get pedicures. There are multiple reasons for this. People are always amazed when I tell them how much I can’t stand them.

9. I loathe Peeps. Y’know, the sprinkle-covered chick and bunny-shaped marshmallow candies? HATE THEM.

10. Ben Harper’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” is quite possibly the greatest Beatles cover of all time. It is on the “I am Sam” sound track. I suggest you go check it out.

11. I once lied to my parents about how I wrecked my car because I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth: that it was 10am on a Saturday morning, I was dead sober, and I honestly just didn’t see the tree.

12. I sometimes have dreams of my deceased grandfather. Nothing scary. In my most recent one, he met SK and shook his hand and then told me he approved. I wake up missing him so much that my chest hurts for the rest of the day. I would have those dreams every night if I could.

13. I refuse to be friends with people who wear socks with sandals.

14. When I get really nervous, I throw up. When I don’t get enough sleep, I throw up. My terrible gag reflex also causes me to throw up. I should be a lot thinner than I am.

15. Donuts really gross me out. I will probably eat one if you give it to me, though.

16. At my 13th (14th?) bday party, my friends and I set my parent’s kitchen table on fire. I don’t think my parents ever found out. Yes, they were home.

17. My brother and I are CONVINCED we caught a super-spider in 1998. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and was the weirdest bug. No one believes us when we talk about it.

18. I once SANG the Pledge of Allegiance. Boo-yah.

19. I have never seen the original three Star Wars movies. SK says this makes me un-American. I simply remind him that I once SANG the Pledge of Allegiance. Double boo-yah.

20. My swim coach in high school was paralyzed from the waist down. Swimming with just her arms, though, she was still faster than the fastest swimmer on our co-ed Varsity team. She was a badass.

21. The Hills Have Eyes made me vomit. Literally. I don’t care if you have read this 17 thousand times on this blog or in surveys I have done, or if you have heard it from me 2 billion times. I will tell everyone I come into contact with that it was seriously the worst movie ever made.

22. I was a ballerina when I was little. For my first recital, I wore a sparkly yellow tutu with a sequin covered head dress that looked like a shiny flat banana on my head. Somewhere, my parents have the video. In the closet of my room at their house, hangs the tutu.

23. I don’t give money or food to fat bums. OBVIOUSLY they are eating somewhere. Is that mean? Eh.

24. One summer, however, I gave 25 McDonald’s cheeseburgers to a pregnant bum.

25. I have an uncle who works at the state penitentiary in Lompoc, California. This is the state pen that was made infamous by Vin Diesel in “The Fast and the Furious,” except that he was a total tool and pronounced it Lom-Pock. It’s Lom-Poke, dumbass.

26. I also have an uncle who works in Hollywood. He used to work on the TV show Wings, and then on Frasier. He’s pretty badass and got us in to see all kinds of show tapings at the major studio lots.

27. I have punched 3 people in the face in my life (thus far). 2 of them have been boys.

28. At my elementary school, we had monthly earthquake and drive-by drills along with the more standard fire drills.

29. I once was kicked in the ear under water while playing a game. It resulted in a broken ear drum and partial hearing loss in my left ear.

30. I get really offended if you don’t like my dog. SHE loves YOU. What’s your deal?

February 19, 2008

Turning it around

I started this blog to curb boredom at work. I thought that maybe instead of messing around on myspace or facebook, and in place of compulsively checking my personal e-mail account every 10 minutes, I would write. That might sound a little odd, but I thought that in place of aimlessly surfing from page to page on some social website, I could just keep a word file open all day and when the mood struck me, I would click over to it and put down whatever it was that was taking my focus off of my work.

Unfortunately, that is not what this has become.

I have lost sight of what I wanted this webpage to be for me. To be completely truthful, I don’t think I ever really made it into half of what I wanted to begin with. Instead of writing my thoughts and being honest and free, I have gone the easy route and told you all (all 4 of you) story upon story about my dog, and the lady who hit my car, and how frustrating it is to be a financially unstable twenty-something living with her boyfriend.

Not that any of that is bad, because it’s not. DON'T MISUNDERSTAND WHAT I AM WRITING. I enjoy SO MUCH reading about other people’s lives. I love reading stories about your children and your animals and your tough days and your good days. I love seeing your pictures and reading about all the funny things your kids say and how excited you are to be becoming parents soon.

It’s just not what I thought this would turn into for me.

I feel like some of the posts I have written have been meaningful. Some have been because I felt like I should post something that day. Others have been published solely in the hopes of making someone laugh when they read them, which is meaningful, I suppose. So ok, forget that last part--I like making people laugh ;)

I have always thought that I had something to say. I have opinions on just about everything and have never EVER been afraid to voice those with conviction. But for some reason, on here, to the Internet, I am afraid of saying what it is I really want to say. Exactly what I am hesitant about, I don’t really know.

Possibly of judgment. From who? The handful of people who read this site, to most of whom I am related? Maybe. Probably.

It’s something I am deciding that I need to get over.

Not that I am never going to write another post about Bella, or SK, or the woes of buying our first house, because I so totally will because yeah, hi, that’s my life. But now, I will try and write about those things with the same intensity and passion with which I live them.

I will try and write so that you get to know ME. Not just the sarcastic, in love, dresses her dog in a blue king pillowcase for Halloween me, but the real, flawed, not always 100% sure of herself me. Because I need to know that these things, my life that is happening to me right now, is more than can be explained in a picture post, or a borrowed internet survey. I want to be able to look back at what I have written and remember how I felt when I wrote it, and right now, I can’t say that about much I have written.

So there you go, Internet. I am vowing to change. Well, I am vowing to TRY to change. Lay it all bare in a blog. Let go and throw it right out there for the world to see and pick apart.

Sigh.

Please be kind.

February 8, 2008

Notes on Bella

She’s tricky, that dog of mine. She’s gotten me to fall madly in love with her without my even realizing it. TRICKY BELLA.

When SK and I first talked about getting a dog, we had different ideas about what we would end up with. He wanted a Boxer, I wanted a Lab. He wanted to wait until we got a house, I wanted the dog RIGHT NOW. He wanted to get a tiny little puppy, I didn’t mind if the dog was a few months old. The only thing we agreed on was that the dog had to be a girl.

So when SK went to Canada with his dad, I went just to look at puppies with Chandra. Um, sure. I saw Bella and practically threw my purse at the breeder, screaming take whatever you want as long as I can take her with me!! I brought her home that day, 12 weeks old and adorable, and she was my roommate for the next 2 weeks while SK was gone.

She was a lab, she was living in our apartment, and she was not a tiny baby puppy. Hee…

She was a happy dog. Wary of new people, but not scared. She didn’t cry the first night I brought her home, and seemed to adapt to her kennel pretty well. She ate whatever kind of food I gave her, revealed to me her love for ice cubes, and wagged her tail so hard that I thought she was going to shake herself over. She played with her toys, didn’t chew anything she wasn’t supposed to chew, and was OK at the potty training thing.

And then the worms happened. She has had worms 3 times in her short 10 month life. The breeder I bought her from promised me she had been wormed, and even gave me a vet sticker to prove it. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! I noticed them the second day she was with me, right before I took her into the vet’s office, which was convenient. The vet gave me the meds to give her and she was clean and worm-free within a week. I noticed them again about a month a half later. She had a run-in with some angry fleas and dogs get worms by eating them (barf), so apparently she had ingested the gross little hoppers and BAM! Worm city. Again to the vet, again with the meds, again with the worm-freeness. Round 3 had me pulling my hair out. The fleas were gone! There was no more scratching! Yet, there they were, wormy and nasty. To top it off, the severe scratching she had been doing from the fleas had left her with big scrapes on her sides and legs which then got infected and all of a sudden my dog is trying to be a high school wrestler with her staph infection. In all, I have totaled her random sickness vet bills and let me just put it to you this way—Bella could have had A LOT of puppy friends to play with right now if she hadn’t made me spend all that cash on worm pills and vaccines.

Despite the promise she showed early on with the potty training, getting her to make it outside and down 3 flights of stairs has been a challenge. She went through a phase where she would sit by the front door for a few seconds, decide we weren’t moving fast enough and then pee all over the floor. Then there were the few months when she would sit by the door, cry for a minute, and then walk to the middle of whatever room we were in and just pee right in front of us. Now, she often goes to sit by A door, not necessarily the FRONT door. She is much better at holding it and rarely has accidents, but they happen. It’s been frustrating, but I think we have finally reached a place where we’re all finally starting to GET IT.

**Likely, she will pee in the hall today. Just because I said that.

She’s a cool dog though. She’s funny and keeps SK and me laughing. She can’t stand to not be involved in whatever we are doing. Whatever aloofness she had as a puppy is completely gone. She follows us from room to room, even as we are getting ready for work in the morning. She HAS to sit in between us on the couch, and wants to be included in all hugs and kisses. She cuddles right up to me on the couch, and likes to stretch out on our bed. She sleeps for hours right in the middle of the day, which also leads me to think that maybe she and SK have a little bit of the same genetic makeup.

While I would consider myself an animal lover (not so much cats though…) I have never understood the people who would drop thousands of dollars on their pets. Really? Because your dog was lame and ate a computer, you are going to fork over 3 grand to get it extracted from their stomach? Nuh uh. No freaking way! I never got those people.

Until Bella.

If that dog needed a kidney and I was a positive match, I would cut it out myself, put it on ice and throw the cooler to her vet.

This scares me as I have always viewed children in much the same manner as pets, and now that I have a soft place in my formerly stone-cold heart for my dog I am worried that I might be thawing too rapidly. I am hyperventilating at my computer right now OHMYGOD.