Gettin' Ready for the Showdown

Hey Mommies!

I've been reading about Evening Primrose Oil and Red Raspberry Leaf Tea, and their effects on labor; and I was wondering what all of you think? My doctor said I could take the Evening Primrose Oil if I want to, but to not get my hopes up since it's never proven to make labor easier. Do you have any experience with it?

I haven't asked him about the Red Raspberry Leaf Tea, but it sounds like it's the shiftier of the two. If you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear it!

I'll give you "Pure Sea"...

Whoever came up with the idea for Afrin "Pure Sea" nasal rinse has obviously never had actual sea water up his/her nose.

Baby Baby Baby

It's been a while since I posted something about the baby, so I thought I would post this! Baby Atticus has been so active lately, I'm beginning to wonder if he'll come out dancing. And he has also taken to sticking out right to the left of my belly button. All the time. I'm not sure if it's a knee or an elbow, but he loves to jab it straight out, causing mommy to make a weird face which causes strangers to stare at her. He's also taking advantage of the space by doing somersaults, which feels SO weird.

Developmentally, he's getting fatter, probably with adorable dimples like his daddy :) He's 16 inches long, 3.3 pounds, and heading into a growth spurt.



This Saturday, Trevor and I went to an all day birthing/newborn care class provided by the hospital. It was great and we learned some good pain management techniques, but I have to admit that we spent a lot of time laughing. We did practice sessions throughout the day, where the teacher would time out "contractions", and our labor coach had to help us through whatever technique we had been talking about. This was great for the most part, but we had a hard time with the visualization technique... probably because our teacher kept talking about purple clouds wrapping around her.

Anyway, our labor coach was to come up with a place to "take" us for five minutes, to remove us from the pain and stress of the contraction. By the third time we had to do this, Trevor and I were in fits of giggles. Trevor said "I can't think of anywhere to take you!", so I suggested "Take me to the fair, I love the fair."

"I hate the stupid fair!"

"You're not the one in labor! Tell me about the baby sheep and the fair rides and the hypnotists and the giant lemonades."

"Fine. We get in the stupid car and drive to the dumb fair. We go on the rides that make me puke and then I lose my wallet. We eat some corn dogs and elephant ears that make us sick and then we get in the car and get stuck in the traffic on the way home."

"I hate elephant ears, I'd rather get some cinnamon almonds."

"I want a funnel cake."

"Okay, get a funnel cake. Tell me about the baby animals."

"There are baby horses, baby cows..."

"Baby pigs! Oh, are there baby sheep?"

"Sure."

This went on for five minutes. The rest of the couples seemed to be having an equally hard time with it, because I'm pretty sure all ten couples were laughing... even the girl who was horribly uncomfortable with twins. I guess the lesson here is that if we want to so this, I'd better write out a script for him to read.

Trevor is 26!

Yesterday was Trevor's birthday! We had some of his siblings over for cake and ice cream... an AWESOME cake, I might add. I made a dirt bike cake for him! Here are some pictures!

Frosting trees, Oreo road, and two hills! The dirt bike is not to scale.



Trevor's favorite part of the cake... the toy dirt bike.

Happy Birthday Babe! You get to eat chocolate cake for breakfast for the rest of the week!

Sock Fish!

I know there are people waiting to see pictures of my short hair, and I promise that they are coming! In the meantime, watch this video! I love stop animation, and I thought this was a particularly clever idea. Look at the sock fish!

Oh, Jack Handy.

I decided to take a break from my incessant nesting to eat some raisins and read some old Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy that I found in a closet. I had forgotten how funny some of them are. For Example:

• "Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a "shell" if you will. But my shell isn't made of a hard, protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags. "
• "I bet the sparrow looks at the parrot and thinks, yes, you can talk, but LISTEN TO YOURSELF!"
• "Worship the potato? The idea seemed silly to me. But then I thought, what else is more deserving of worship? It's simple, it's comes from the earth, and it can kill you if you disobey it."
• "If you ever go temporarily insane, don't shoot somebody, like a lot of people do. Instead, try to get some weeding done, because you'd be really surprised."
• "Marta says the interesting thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives connected by a thin strand. Come on, Marta. Grow up."
• "I wish my name was Todd, because then I could day, 'Yes, my name's Todd. Todd Blankenship.' Oh, I also wish my last name was Blankenship."
• "Love is not something that you can put chains on and throw into a lake. That's called Houdini. Love is liking someone a lot."
• "The other day I got out my can opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought, 'What am I doing?!!'"
• "It makes me made when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away from the first fight."
• "I think in one of the previous lives I was a mighty king, because I like people to do what I say."
• "The tiger can't change his spots. No, wait, he did! Good for him!"
• "Here's a suggestion for a new animal, if some new ones get created or evolve: something that stings you, then laughs at you."
• "I wonder is Dracula ever has ticks."
• "Some folks say it was a miracle. Saint Francis suddenly appeared and knocked the next pitch clean over the fence. But I think it just a lucky swing."
• "One day one of my nephews came up to me and asked if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one, I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn't know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he has asked me."
• "If you ever drop your keys into a river molten lava, let 'em go, because, man, they're gone."
• "The first thing was, I learned to forgive myself. Then, I told myself, 'Go ahead and do whatever you want, it's okay by me.'"
• "Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff."
• "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."
• "A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down in the dirt and beg for it."
• "Laurie got offended that I used the word 'puke.' But to me, that's what her dinner tasted like."
• "The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."

And my favorite Deep Thought ever:

• "It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs."

Musings on Haircuts

I just got my hair cut. No, not just one, all of them. Here is my deal: even though I love having a new haircut, I hate the process of getting it done. There's the whole awkward conversation with someone you don't know, but the worst part for me comes when they start styling your hair. But first, the awkward conversation.

Take today for instance: the girl cutting my hair is from Chico, and had been married for just as long as me. We should be able to find things to chat about, right? Well, once we got past how awful Rexburg winters are, and how we both don't know what we're going to do for our 3rd anniversaries, we were out of subjects. So she asks me how long it took me to grow out my hair.

"A year and a few months."

"Wow! That's so fast! And your hair is really thick too. It must be GREAT to have hair like this."

At this point I think, sure, if you exclude the 15 years of childhood where I looked like a wilderbeast because my hair was too crazy to manage, and the literal months of time I have spent straightening and taming, trying to make it look even semi-normal. Of course, this sounds ungrateful (and it is) so I say

"Yeah."

More silence. Then she says

"Okay, let me go get my diffuser."

And now we have come to the point that I most hate, because I never know what to do. I honestly don't know what my problem is, but I find it impossible to tell a stylist "You know what, my hair is really difficult, and I have yet to have a post-haircut style turn out well. I'm just going to leave like this, don't worry about it." I don't have this problem with any other service. I can tell a waiter if I want another fork because the left tine on this one is bent to a 45 degree angle. I feel free to ask the sales associates at Old Navy to fetch me another size or color. But for some reason, I just can't open my mouth to tell my stylist that she is doing my hair wrong, and I would rather she just not mess with it after it's been cut.

Is it because the few times I've been able to say it, the stylists look hurt and confused? Or is it because after the awkward conversation I feel too socially paralyzed to do anything other than sit there slightly embarrassed? It's nothing against them personally, I just have difficult hair. Today when the stylist finished and told me I could put my glasses back on, I knew she was embarrassed by how it turned out. I looked a little like this picture of the dude who plays Dr. Cox, only my hair isn't quite this short.
Oh well. It's not a bad haircut at all. But a diffuser was never meant for Michelle with short hair.