Written on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 by Jessica
Friendship among women:
A woman didn't come home one night. The next morning she told her husband that she had slept over at a friend's house. The man called his wife's ten best friends. None of them knew anything about it.
Friendship among men:
A man didn't come home one night. The next morning he told his wife that he had slept over at a friend's house. The woman called her husband's ten best friends, eight of whom confirmed that he had slept over, and two said that he was still there.
Okay, just to warn you, there's not much in this post to interest you unless you're actually Seth's mommy. Someday I might actually add this stuff to his baby book where it belongs. :)
I wouldn't say he's mastered pronouns, but I've noticed that when I clap my hands and say, "You did it!" he'll respond by clapping his hands and saying, "I did it!"
He's moving into the realm of four-word sentences: "Are you watching me?" Although sometimes it's still "Watching me?" or "You watching me?"
I think he's ahead of the game when it comes to talking and counting (today he told Daddy that he has five toes!), but on the other hand, he shows little interest in colors and shapes. (Yes, he has a favorite color [pink], as evidenced when you give him his choice of objects, but just try getting him to tell you what color something is.) I was inordinately excited last week when he told me the color of one of his foam letters was pink. And after that he began to say that all of his letters are pink. Oh, well. :)
As of last weekend, he has started to name shapes, not just repeat them when we say what they are. He's also started to sort blocks by shape, which is something he was supposed to be able to do months and months ago. (Sorting by color, shape and size were milestones I read about eons ago, it seems.) I still haven't seen him sort anything by color or size, though.
He's starting to have nightmares. Last night was terrible. He slept fitfully from 1 AM to 3:30 AM, waking frequently and having nightmares all the while. First he started talking in his sleep, "No, no, noooooo, no." Later on he bolted out of bed and demanded that I take him to the window. He kept insisting that there were birds outside. And even later (still sleeping) he was rubbing his chest and saying, "Sorry," which you may recall is how he says something hurts. Poor baby.
And tonight, guess what happened. At 8:40 he started saying, "Night, night," which is often just a ploy to get us to give him a pacifier. He normally goes to bed at 9:30 or 10:00. He kept insisting, though, so finally I gave him his pacifier, tucked him in, and said, "Night, night." He said, "Night, night," and I shut the door and walked away. Now, I know you'll never believe this, but Bob and I still put him to sleep each night. One of us lies in the bed with him. I know all the child experts say not to do that, and they all said not to nurse him to sleep or let him fall asleep in my arms when he was a baby, but I figure that in the blink of an eye, he's going to be a teenager, so I'm going to hang on to these little-boy years. But tonight, I wanted to see what would happen, and guess what? He went to sleep. All by himself. Imagine that.
You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
One time I couldn't remember my password to access my online account with my health insurance company. To retrieve my password, I had to answer a security question. "What was the make and model of your first car?"
Easy. Chevy Cavalier.
Wrong. Oh, wait. Must be "Chevrolet Cavalier."
Nope, still wrong. What the heck. Oh, many it's case sensitive. "chevy cavalier."
Wrong again. After the third failed try, my account was locked, so I had to call customer service. Bugger, bugger, bugger!
Would you like to hear the answer that I myself supplied to the question? You're not gonna believe this:
1984 Chevrolet Cavalier Station Wagon
What on earth was I thinking? (Or perhaps more accurately, how dumb can you get??)
Suddenly, I remembered that I had decided to be veeeeery specific, because, after all, we were dealing with my precious supersecret insurance records. Right.
Anyhow, I thought of this incident as I read this darn funny article today about just this situation.
Written on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 by Jessica
When Seth hurts himself, he says, "Sorry," or sometimes, "Ouch! Sorry." It's really cute.
He's not actually apologizing to himself. You see, if Daddy or I hurt him by accident—for example, a couple of days ago I was rounding the corner with Seth in my arms and I ended up bumping his head against the corner—we naturally say, "Oh, Seth! I'm sorry." And we hug him and kiss it and make it better.
So now Seth thinks "sorry" means, "It hurts!"
Slightly related: He thinks "heavy" applies to any activity that is difficult. So if, for example, I'm struggling to open a jar of pickles, he'll say, "Hovy!" That's how he pronounces it.
I work from home most days now, so this afternoon I popped a roast in the oven for dinner. How very domestic of me! Of course, a half hour later Bob called to say that he'll be home late, but I still think I get a gold star.
First, get a random article from Wikipedia (left side of page under "Navigation"). Title of article is your band name. Next, the last part of the last quotation at the bottom of this page is the title of your album. Finally, the third photo* on Flickr is the cover art.
Introducing "Hard Things," the debut CD from Mutoscope.
Note: Many photos on Flickr are copyrighted. This one belongs to Stefano Perego.
The fact is, Bob and I would like to have another baby, which is hard to do when you're not ovulating.
My periods have been wildly erratic since they started up again in August. I've mentioned it once or twice here in my blog, but I certainly haven't given the full play-by-play. Trust me when I say it's been crazy.
My doctor has suspected Polycystic Ovarian Syndrom (PCOS) for some time now, which is why I had the blood tests. Over the last several years, several doctors have told me I probably have PCOS, so I figured it was a foregone conclusion, but it turns out that I don't have PCOS -- just high testosterone. Even though I have a ton of PCOS symptoms and characteristics (including cysts on my ovaries!), they are all things that can be caused by high testosterone alone. Bottom line is that my other hormone levels (e.g., estrogen, LH, etc.) are totally normal. Only testosterone is out of whack, so no PCOS.
Anyhow, the doc says that if I want to try to get pregnant as soon as possible, I should go on the pill for two months to reset my cycle and then take Clomid to stimulate ovulation. (Hmmm. Starting the pill to get pregnant. Whoda thunk it.)
For several months now, I've been wondering to what lengths I might go to get pregnant again. I knew for certain I would never resort to any expensive or invasive procedures (e.g., in vitro, ovarian drilling, etc.). After all, we already have one beautiful baby. If we never have another, I'll be disappointed, but not devastated. So extreme measures are out of the question, but what about less extreme measures like Clomid?
It was a strange feeling to be sitting in that room listening to her talking about Clomid. I thought I was fully prepared for the possibility of needing help to conceive, but to hear that I was already at that point where she was suggesting Clomid... well, it was a weird feeling.
I asked if Bob and I could first try to get pregnant without Clomid -- that is, just take the pill for two months and then see what happens after. She says this is also an option, so I'm currently all for that. Clomid has a one-in-100 chance of twins, which I find scary. I think I'd rather have just Seth than make the leap to Seth plus twins.
One final note: I created another blog many months ago in anticipation of my next baby. I finally started writing in it in December as a TTC (trying to conceive) blog. I never intentionally hid the new blog from anyone, but it never showed up in my profile after I started writing in it. I assumed it would. (Thinking back, I realize this was a dumb assumption. I'm sure I initially removed the blog from my profile b/c I wasn't writing in it yet. Naturally, I'd have to put it back in my profile to be seen.)
Anyhow, Seth got his own baby blog when I was pregnant, so I'm determined that if there's another baby, s/he'll get his/her own baby blog while I'm pregnant, too. Plus, I always regretted that I didn't blog everything leading up to Seth's conception. Even back then, I was scared that I'd never conceive, and I didn't want people to feel sorry for us if that were the case. Now that we do have a baby, the pressure is off. It's not a personal disaster if we can't have any more, so I feel more comfortable writing about it.
My voice deepened during pregnancy and never bounced back. Until recently, I had blamed the pregnancy and worried that my voice might get even deeper during the next pregnancy. (Gasp! Oh, the horror! Say it ain't so.)
The mystery has finally been solved. It turns out that I have high testosterone levels. Normal levels in a woman are between 25 and 75. (I have no idea what the units of measurement are supposed to be.) My doctor says she almost never sees anything above 50. Me? I'm at exactly 100.
If it were up around 200, she said she'd send me for a CAT scan to see if a tumor was causing overproduction. So I guess that's good news -- no tumor worries.
Anyhow, if nature had taken its course during my twenties, my testosterone would've risen slowly and gradually lowered my voice. However, I did not let nature take its course. I was on the pill for an entire decade, which of course regulated my hormones and kept everything pretty normal. When I went off the pill to get pregnant, my testosterone levels likely shot up and lowered my voice. Sigh. None of this newfound understanding makes me feel any better when people mistake me for a man on the phone. Plus, it's pretty freaking embarrassing to have to come home to your husband and say, "Hey, baby. Guess what. I got too many man-hormones."
The doc has prescribed a certain birth control pill, YAZ, to lower testosterone, and also metformin, to help regulate blood sugar and hopefully lose some weight. She says my voice might even get a little higher, although it'll never return to its original pitch. Oh, and she also recommends a high-protein diet. Apparently, protein binds with testosterone and reduces its effect, but only in larger amounts (i.e., if I eat more protein than carbs). I go back for another test in two months.
I ordered a flower arrangement yesterday to be sent to a funeral today. The woman said they'd really try to deliver is that evening, but if not, they'd deliver it in the morning. This was fine, but I thought it was weird. A couple of weeks ago I ordered an arrangement for a funeral at 11:30 AM and it was delivered within an hour. I wondered why the hold-up.
Update: Spoiler alert. A couple of the comments reveal the Soylent secret (gasp!), so if you were planning to run right out and rent it for your "romantic" Valentine's movie tonight, don't read the comments. :) (Ha! as if it's available at your local movie place. The movie is older than I am, and as my sister would tell you, I'm ancient.)
Not sure how to spell it, but it rhymes with "pushed." (Update: Well, whataya know. It's a real word that can be pronounced to rhyme with "pushed" or with a regular "oo" sound, like "boo.")
Two nights ago, Seth squeezed in between Bob and me on the loveseat and, apparently, one of us shifted our weight and started to squish the poor little guy. "Squooshed!"
It's quite a versatile word, too, because the next morning I zipped his zipper way up under his chin. Seth hates that, but it was coooooold outside, so mommy instincts took over. He promptly cried, "Squooshed! Squooshed!" I relented.
Yesterday he bit me. Can you believe it? My sweet baby boy bit me, and even though it was through my t-shirt, he broke the skin. And then he seemed genuinely surprised by my reaction.
It had already been a very hard night for Seth last night, and at 2 AM, moments after he finally fell asleep, I couldn't leave well enough alone. He was holding a little truck that plays songs. I didn't want it to wake him, so I took the truck out of his hands and set it aside. In the process, I accidentally pressed my arm against his face and woke him.
Exhausted and distraught, he started screaming. I mean, screaming. He really wasn't even awake. Did I trigger a nightmare? Then he started thrashing, and wham! the back of his head smashed into my nose.
Instant tears. "Owwwwwwww!" I half shouted, half growled. It hurt like the devil. I jumped up. Did he break my nose?
I ran into the hallway. Bob scrambled out of bed.
"What happened?"
"He head-butted me!"
"Let me see."
I removed my hands, waiting for a gasp of horror or at least a look of surprise. Instead I got, "Yeah, it's bleeding."
Well, duh! These ain't red tears gushing into my hands.
Thankfully, I didn't say that. If I had, it would've been the pain talking.
I ran to the bathroom while Bob tended to a still-screaming Seth. I expected to see blood everywhere, but really, there was just a little bit on my hand. After the one initial gush, there was just a trickle. I was embarrassed that only seconds before I thought it was broken.
My nose is so sore. I never knew how often I absentmindedly I touch my nose. Do all people touch their noses this often, or am I just some kind of nose-touching, germ-spreading fiend?
36% of you only watch the Super Bowl to see the commericals. 29% of you aren't interested in "bowling." 29% rooted for the Giants (congratulations!) 7% rooted for the Patriots (too bad, so sad)
One of the greatest feelings in the world is when I finish singing a song to Seth, who always listens in rapt attention all the while despite my terrible voice and utter tone deafness, and he looks at me and says, "'Gin."
His favorite song right now is "This Little Light of Mine."
