Cat toys experiment

We have accumulated a lot of cat toys. I think the major problem is that they get stuck under the couch, the refrigerator, the washing machine, so we lose track of what we have and buy more. Sometimes Brian will do a big clear out and liberate all of the cat toys at one time. Then the cats set about getting them back under the couch. We imagine that they have little cat thoughts like this:

"Hm.. I think I'll go over here and take a nap. What the...? Oh man! He got them all back out again! Ugh. He's always making a mess with those. I mean, I don't have any thumbs! I can't pick them up! All I can do is try to bat them around and under stuff, and that takes FOREVER. Well. I guess I'd better get busy putting those away again. Hopefully he'll get the message this time!"

We have also noticed in the past that some toys appear to be preferred by the cats, but we never remember which ones. So this time, we decided to do an experiment.

Here, Brian is setting up the cat toys:


Jasmine was immediately intrigued/annoyed by our experiment and decided to get an early start:


Here's what we found when we woke up in the morning. You can see that the light green mouse that was closest to Brian, the wooly pink mouse (it doesn't look like much of a mouse anymore), the glittery green mouse and one of the green rope mice are gone. It would appear that the cats don't like the rope mice much, but they do like green!


Whoops! An interloper!


The baby also doesn't seem to like the rope mice. He goes straight for the Fish.


Then for the leopard print ball...


And whats better than one ball? Two that you can bang together!


Beamish surveys the destruction left in the baby's wake.


A few hours later, I check in again. The Fish is gone, but whether this was baby-related or cat-related is not clear. Also missing: one of the red rope mice. Surprise, the two balls are back!


Later that evening, not much has changed. One yellow rope mouse is missing, but that is it. All is quiet on the cat toys front.


That night we know that something major is going on, because Cherry is heard annoyedly meowing ALL FRIGGING NIGHT. This seriously disrupts the sleep of the lead researcher whose ears are already baby-trained to be supersensitive! And we were right. The next morning, all of the cat toys have been "put away" except the leopard print ball.


The baby is fine with this result, because the leopard print ball becomes his favorite new plaything. I guess he just wanted to get revenge on the cats for past injustices. In fact, when the baby was having issues with the cats overstepping their boundaries, Caleb suggested that one day the tables would be turned. It appears that he was right.

Results:
- The non-rope mice are favorites.
- Green is the cats favorite color.
- If all the other cats slack off, Cherry will clean up for everyone. This is no surprise, as Cherry is very conscientious in cleaning up. I swear, she'll spend like, 10 minutes kicking the cat litter around after she does her business, until no trace of the smell remains. Then she'll spend another 5 minutes wiping her paws on the mat beside the litter box.
- The baby prefers the balls.
- No one likes the rope mice.

Cherry - Bug Assasin

All of our cats are fat, pretty much, but Cherry is the fattest. By far. She looks like a big stripey sausage. But Cherry has a secret identity: Ninja Bug Assasin. Cherry plucks bugs out of the air and eats them, while the other cats look on admiringly. Here is but one example of her powers:


Ninja cat from meandertail and Vimeo.

comics

Our newspaper is running a bunch of test comics to replace various ones that are gone or going. One of them I had never seen before, F Minus. It is HILARIOUS. Unfortunately its month long test is over now so I thought I'd look it up on the internets. Check it out! He has a blog too where he sometimes explains the story behind the cartoon. <

Speaking of comics, there are some comics that I can't believe still exist. Like, who reads Family Circus? Anyone? Garfield used to be funny when I was a kid (or maybe I just had a kids sense of humor and maybe it is just as funny now...) but now it totally sucks. And, Dennis the Menace and Marmaduke? OMG.

Other comics I actually enjoy and I can't understand why. In this category we would find Funky Winkerbean. It is so depressing, and yet I read it every day.

What are your favorite comics, and which ones can you totally not stand?

Okay, my life is complete now

I got my iPhone (in lovely, tax-free New Hampshire)! And it is, in fact, just as wonderful as I dreamed it would be.

New baby!

Melissa had her baby yesterday! Her water broke at 1:30 in the morning. After a valiant 17 hours of labor, she delivered the baby by C-section. So at around 8:30 last night, Madeleine Ruth G. was born. She weighed 8 lbs, 5 oz and was 21 inches long. Mel's mom sent a picture that I'll try to post here.

We're up in NH right now, actually, so we're looking forward to seeing Owen's new girlfriend when our conference ends.

Yay, new babies!

Deaf and dumb divers

Last night, Brian and I were watching 'Nature' on the PBS HD channel on our fabulous plasma TV. It was really amazing. They cut from an underwater shot to one of the divers getting out of the boat. They were talking to each other, but all we could hear was the sounds of the water lapping up against the boat. No words coming out. I said to Brian, "I think something must be wrong with the audio." And he said, "No, I think they're just deaf and dumb." Huh? Why were they talking then, moving their mouths? "They must be lip reading" was his answer. I asked him to check the 'info' for the program on the cable - surely if this was a program focusing on deaf and dumb scuba divers, it would mention that in the program notes. But it did not. More of the show, more water noises, no words. I noticed that it wasn't narrated either, which seemed strange. I made Brian check the non-HD channel and it was fully narrated AND the people were talking out loud. So no shows about deaf and dumb scuba divers. There's a niche that needs to be filled, if you're looking for one.

I'm not a vegan, but still.

This blog (it was a Blogger 'Blog of Note' today) looks hilarious. I'm going to have to keep reading.

Boring life update

Just a bit of an update. Everything is going well here. Owen is really burning through his first year of life. Remember those days when we were super excited that he had HIT SOMETHING? Okay, yeah. The kid is now standing himself up and trying to climb the stairs. We are so not prepared for this newfound mobility. So far he has still not mastered the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing, much to my dismay. It is hard to function at work when you have not slept straight through the night for oh, almost a year (since I was pregnant!) But we are working on this, and actually he slept from 7pm until about 6:30 am about half of the nights last week. So I am pressing onward! Of course, just because Owen sleeps through the night does not mean that Mommy sleeps through the night, at least not yet. I still wake up once or twice out of habit!

It is still so, so hot here. And muggy. And occasionally rainy. On Friday I got absolutely drenched walking from work to our parking lot, and then again from the daycare parking lot into daycare. Then I had to meet Brian at Elmo's, aka "The restaurant I used to hate because of all the kids which now I love because of all the kids", looking like crap with frizzy hair and very soggy shoes. And of course we ran into someone we knew from Duke. OF COURSE.

My brother and his girlfriend recently bought their first house and they finally closed on it. Okay, they closed on it a couple of weeks ago but it took like, 6 weeks or something insane like that from the time they first were supposed to close to the time that they actually closed. Legal hell!

Melissa's due date is tomorrow! Woo!

Finished

I finished Harry Potter. That is all (I do not want to spoil it!).

Uh, no.

When we moved to Durham, we were totally psyched to find that one of the like, three Dunkin' Donuts IN THE ENTIRE TRIANGLE AREA was right down the street from us. We had to drive past it to go to work. It was the greatest thing EVER. Okay. It would have been better if they had ever carried my FAVORITE donut, the chocolate frosted cake donut. They were all into the raised variety, which I do not like. Anywho! I also like the coffee quite a bit, and we would always go there and get coffee. Iced coffee even, although that is not big in the South (why, I do not know - it seems like a total haven for iced coffee!).

Okay. So we've lived here for just over 4 years and the DD had been there since before we got here. I know they had problems with getting stuff from DD - it is one of those small shops that is a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins/Subway all-in-one, so it wasn't like the guy was getting up in the morning, saying "Time to make the donuts" and going to our DD. For a week once they had no donuts because the DD in Raleigh was not going to supply them anymore or something like that. I guess that kinda thing makes it tough to be a Dunkin' Donuts - no donuts.

Anyhow, about 7 or 8 months ago, our friend the Dunkin Donuts disappeared, as did our friend (not that I ever got anything from it) the Baskin Robbins. They were replaced with COFFEE WORLD and ICE CREAM CLUB. I was ticked. COFFEE WORLD also sells Krispy Kreme donuts! I've only had one or two Krispy Kreme donuts in my lifetime, neither of them plucked hot off of the glazing conveyor belt, but I wasn't a fan because - raised donuts. Anyhow, whatever. All of this is irrelevant except for the fact that they had the GALL to put up a sign outside that said:

"Now serving better coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts"

I'm sorry, what? WHAT? BETTER coffee? I don't think so. I don't agree with Rachel Ray on many, many things (like, for example, calling a sandwich a 'sammie'. Hello. Are we five?), but I have to say that we are of like mind when it comes to coffee. So now I won't go to COFFEE WORLD out of principle. Ugh.

Well, right across from this whole debacle there used to be a Burger King that closed a while ago and has just been sitting dormant since then. A few months ago they started remodeling it, and it became a Starbucks. I don't really like Starbucks coffee, and I don't really like the way they take over the world and everything, but I was secretly looking forward to the coffee wars, and hoping that Starbucks would teach COFFEE WORLD a lesson.

I felt really guilty about this because I thought this was a local guy's coffee shop and I know I shouldn't want the little guy to get beaten by the corporate giant. Until my favorite computer support guy came up and showed me his iPhone and pretended that he wanted to get ice cream in Manhattan. He searched for 'ice cream' in New York City and showed me all of the entries that came up, and one of them was ICE CREAM CLUB. You already know that this is a chain because I put the link up above, but this was the first I had heard of it. So! It wasn't some little local guy building his coffee shop with his own blood, sweat and tears! He was just a franchise of some other bigger company that I had just never heard of. Well, I stopped feeling bad and started looking forward to the battle.

Every day when I drive to work, I pass by the COFFEE WORLD and Starbucks. The Starbucks always has like, eight cars waiting in the drive thru line. The COFFEE WORLD does not. One car, maybe. And hardly anyone parked outside. And every morning, I take a sick pleasure in this. Better coffee than Dunkin' Donuts. Whatev.

Is this really necessary?

Brian got this free razor in the mail from the friendly folks at Gillette. As he was opening it, he said 'Oh my god, it has five. No, SIX blades.' I didn't really look at it until I just went upstairs to go to bed (okay really, to read Harry Potter. Come on.), and I was really moved to photograph it for you.



Really. Five blades? Is shaving really a FIVE BLADE affair? I mean, I shave two entire legs, two armpits and some unmentionable areas, and two blades (maybe there are three on my razor, actually) serve me just fine. Do faces really require two extra blades?

Plus an extra blade on the back for, I don't know what. Slicing your finger open when you go to reach for your insane five-bladed razor?

Kingdom of Loathing

Tiffany reminded me today about Kingdom of Loathing. I used to like that game a lot, especially when I was in the end stages of grad school. I feel the Brian's (and perhaps the Roger's and the Industrial Strength Science friends of the Brian's) of the world would also enjoy.

I can't remember my password, and its tied to an old email address so I can't get it back. Bugger.

Hypermiling

I saw a piece on GMA the other morning about "hypermiling", which is basically trying to maximize your gas mileage. Some of the tips I remember:
1. Inflate your tires to their max allowable level
2. Coast when possible
3. Avoid quick accelerations
4. Don't speed
5. Turn car off when not moving (or even when moving, although they mentioned that this wasn't really advised!)

There are more, but this is what I remember. Since I got my hybrid 2 years ago, I have become a little bit obsessed with my mileage, so I decided to give these tips a try during my commute. (about 25 minutes, most of which is highway). I basically paid more attention to #2, because my car does some of the other things for me - it turns off when I'm stopped (which freaks my mom out because she forgets and thinks I've run out of gas or something), and it uses an electric assist when I am accelerating (unlike the Toyota technology), so actually, I think I do better when I accelerate rather quickly to get to my desired speed. Anyhow, I was about halfway through the tank of gas when I started, and I was getting 40.8 mpg, which is not great for me, but I've had the A/C on for Owen's sake. Today when I got home I was at 42.8 mpg. So I've improved two mpg in a few days, and its harder to budge the overall mileage when I'm well into a tank of gas. We'll see how I do on my next fill up.

Its fun, because its kind of like a video game. And you know how I like the video games (I finished FFXII this weekend btw. And I cried a little bit at the ending. How freaking lame am I?).

It is true that there is a learning curve to driving a hybrid. When I first got my car, I was averaging 37 mpg on each tank, and now I usually average 42-43 (without my A/C).

What am I doing??

Why am I still sitting here screwing around on the internet when I could be reading Harry Freaking Potter?? Every moment I waste is another moment I might get accidentally spoiled on the ending!! Ack!!

Boy or Girl?

Melissa has ended her long, practically-entire-pregnancy-long blog silence about a week before her due date. She and her husband are way more patient than either Brian or I, so they have elected to not find out the sex of their baby. Go to her blog and vote on whether you think she's having a girl or a boy (she put a lot of pertinent info on her blog to help you decide).

I would have said boy, because many things from her pregnancy have been similar to mine except that hers did not involve a big pink cast. However, I know three other people who are pregnant right now and they're all having boys. So I think that statistically, we're due for a girl. We'll see!

Trip to Chicago. Also: Why even babies hate American Airlines

You can read about our recent trip to Chicago on Owen's blog.

Kissing or nursing?

For a couple of weeks now, Owen has been occasionally 'latching on' to my face. I thought he was just crazed with hunger and trying to nurse off of my cheek, but I have started to realize that this is his way of giving me a kiss. Today he practically attacked me with face sucking while we were playing. What a Cassanova.

Feasting on Asphalt and other dorky shows I watch

Looks like there's going to be a second season of Feasting on Asphalt! We really liked that series, and not just because Alton Brown is my television boyfriend. I mean ME AND BRIAN liked that series.

Brian and I also enjoy all of the medical mystery shows on Discovery Health. The other day we were watching 'Diagnosis: Unknown!' which should really be called 'Diagnosis: How fast can you figure out who is poisoning the patient?' because they all start out as medical mysteries but they pretty much all finish with the person having been being poisoned. And you can always tell who is doing the poisoning from very early on, so there really isn't a lot of mystery going on. However, occasionally the show mixes it up and gives you a case where no one is being poisoned. The one we were watching was about all these North Carolina fishermen who were getting sick and having neurological problems and sores on their bodies. It was a result of a Pfesteria epidemic, which came from hog waste washing into the rivers. There were scientists at NC State working on it, and they got sick too because at first they didn't know that it caused these kinds of symptoms. When they figured that out, they built a BSL3 or something lab that vented out into the atmosphere but the ventilation was set up wrong and it was actually ventillating into this other guy's office. He still has problems with it. Anyhow, they apparently had a big summit to talk about this and it was at the Institute that I work at, so they showed a few shots of my work. Woo!

The third dorky show we're watching (also on Discovery Health) is called 'Jon and Kate + 8'. This couple had twins (through fertility treatments) and then wanted one more child. They had to go through fertility treatments again and ended up with 6 more. We like this show because they seem normal, like people we would hang out with.

We also continue our 'Jeopardy!' dorkfest.

Obsessed

If you wanted to get me something, say, an iPhone, that would be lovely. Thanks.

Vote for me

Please go to http://samueladams.com and vote for my photo:



Navigate to the 'Shots of Summer' part of the site and then to 'Voting Gallery'. You'll see my photo. Click on it to vote.
We want to win a trip to the Sam Adams Brewery! Wahoo!

Traveling with an infant

Owen and I are just about to head out on Owen's FIRST PLANE TRIP. More excitingly for me, its my first plane trip where I am 'That lady with the screaming child'. Hurrah!

We are heading up to NH to see my family, including my brother Jim, his girlfriend and their new house (which he will hopefully close on tomorrow). Also we are attending Melissa's baby shower! She's 32 weeks pregnant right now (not that you would know it from surfing her blog!!) which is right about the time that I broke my foot, I reminded her. Hopefully she escapes that fate especially since she'll be super pregnant in June and July and not November and December. Ankle swelling much more of a problem now!

Anyhow, wish us luck! We're getting back on Monday. Brian will be here holding down the fort.

Its bad.

Brian is fairly oblivious when it comes to fashion. Or the maintenance of personal appearances. He's not a horrendous slob but he will let his hair get RIDICULOUSLY long and stupid looking and THEN try to cut it himself.

(Oh dear god, look at this picture from about a year ago and tell me that I am mistaken. If we hadn't been there for our ANNIVERSARY I think I would have ditched him)


And also, wear vendor t-shirts and shorts to work every day as if he were a grad student. Anyhow. Brian will let himself look like whatever, but he does notice when other people look REALLY bad. I enjoy it when we're in a public place and he points someone out to me and is like, "I cannot believe she is wearing that." You know you look like crap when BRIAN notices your fashion transgressions.

And so you can imagine how embarassed I was when we were sitting at dinner the other day and he asked me to look down at the table again. And then said 'Oh my god, your roots are horrible!'

Oh bummer.

Mehrun's a goner. He lost to a long haired construction worker!

What is... we're dorks?

I mentioned in my last post (I think) (also, OMG! Two posts within the same week! Unheard of!) that Brian and I have become a little bit obsessed with Jeopardy! You would think that watching Jeopardy, it being a game show and not really having characters or anything, you wouldn't really be able to get into the actual people playing the game, but alas. We do. Because: we're dorks. We liked the last guy who was a champ for a while (5 days I think?) whose name I forget, but he is seriously the nerdiest guy on the planet. Just imagine the nerdiest guy you can imagine, and it was him. But we loved him and we were really sad when he lost. He was kinda quirky in his nerdiness.

Right now we are also in love with the current champ, Mehrun. We love him because he is from New Hampshire, and I am from New Hampshire! We love him because he is from DURHAM, NH and we are in DURHAM, NC! We also love him because he makes hilarious faces at the camera, both at the beginning when they are introducing the contestants, and during Final Jeopardy! when he has finished writing his answer. Right now he has made just shy of $100,000 in 4 days of winning and we hope he keeps winning and that he comes back in the Tournament of Champions and plays our friend the nerdy guy. Because (and I think we've established this pretty well here), we're dorks.

My once monthly post

Its that time of month again! No, not THAT time.

A lot and not much has been going on here. I mean, Owen is just about 5 months old now. Can you believe that? We can't. He's doing great. He's bene in daycare for a month now and its going pretty well. And more to the point, I'm doing pretty well with it too. Not the first day, which was filled with many tears. Or even the first week (okay two) which was filled with even more tears and also worry about what he was doing all day. I had been going over to feed Owen on my lunch break and it seemed like every time I went over there (or to pick him up) he was sitting in the swing sleeping. I got myself all worried that he was so unfussy that he was just getting stuck in the swing all day and forgotten about. Of course, this is not true, I just happened to be coming over when he was taking one of his regular naps and that week they happened to be using the swing pretty heavily for his naps. Which is fine. Now these last couple of weeks Owen has learned how to shriek with this horrible, ear piercing scream and he's quite fond of doing this when you put him down for a nap or to go to sleep at night. So then I started to worry that Owen had become the "bad kid" in his class. Hee. How fast they change.

Actually, it seems that Owen might have become so screamy because he's getting his first tooth! It just poked through, we just noticed it this morning.

My brother and his girlfriend are in the process of buying a house - OMG! Jim's a grownup! Owen and I are traveling up to NH in 2 weeks so we can go to Melissa's baby shower, and we're looking forward to seeing Jim and Sara and their new house. I'm a little worried about making Owen's first plane trip by myself, but I'm sure it will be fine. Then in July we're going to Chicago for my cousin's wedding. All three of us are going on that trip. We'll get to see bunches of relatives and family friends then, and we're also looking forward to meeting my other cousin's new son Caleb (he's ~2 months older than Owen I think?)

I'm giving a talk on Tuesday for work and I'm totally not ready. Ack! In fact, that is theoretically what I am doing now while Owen takes a nap. And yet, here I am blogging.

For this Memorial Day weekend we're going to two barbecues at various peoples houses. One is this afternoon, one is on Monday. The weather is really great here this weekend which is nice. Our friends left sunny wonderful Durham and went to Iowa for Memorial Day and I saw on the news this morning that its totally raining there (ha!).

All of our TV is over for the season which is both good and a bummer. The Heroes finale was kinda crap I thought but we liked the Lost finale (we always like Lost, I never know why people complain about it so much!). We're totally obsessed with watching Jeopardy now. It comes on right about when Owen goes to bed so thank god for DVR!

Okie dokie, Owen just woke up!

The Sweaterboy saga continues...

Remember Sweaterboy? I know you've all been waiting patiently to find out what he's up to. Well. The other day I was going down "to the farm", and when I turned a corner I saw someone coming down the hallway on one of those Rascal thingies.

(ooh - I thought of a better link for that)



Anyway. We have a couple of these at work that are available for people to use. I was 9 months pregnant with my foot in a cast, and I never used one.

Guess who it was? Sweaterboy!

He had his knee wrapped up in an ace bandage. I don't know what he did, but still, its a little wussy. Yet, hilarious. I actually had to call my friend upstairs from my cell phone in the "farm room" to tell her, rather than waiting until I got back upstairs.

I love it when I get scam emails that look relatively real until I realize that I don't have an eBay account. I bet people fall for these all the time:

Dear eBay Member

According to our site policy you will have to confirm that you are the real owner of the eBay account by completing the following form or else your account will be suspended within 24 hours.

Never share your eBay password to anyone!

Establish your proof of identity with ID Verify (free of charge) - an easy way to help others trust you as their trading partner. The process takes about 5 minutes to complete and involves updating your eBay information. When you're successfully verified, you will receive an ID Verify icon in your feedback profile. Currently, the service is only available to residents of the United States and U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Guam.)

To update your eBay information please click the link bellow:
(REDACTED)

One would have to hope though that actual eBay has some command of grammar ('Never share your eBay password TO anyone?!') and spelling ('click the link bellow').

Well, not much is going on here except that I've been working! I think its probably been a good way to get back into things: 2 weeks of part time and 2 weeks where my Mom was here. So I didn't have to go straight to daycare, I got to ease into it with still being at work but with a family member taking care of him. I've also had a few weeks to get used to the whole pumping thing. I'm still nursing exclusively, so I need to pump to leave something behind for Owen. So pretty much I spend an hour every day sitting by myself in a tiny room, alone with my thoughts and the whirring of my pump. Its a pain in the ass because we really don't have very good facilities for lactation and we have a lot of breastfeeding women who need to use it. So we each got scheduled two slots (I heard that recently there were even more breastfeeding women than there are now and everyone could only have ONE slot, which SUCKS). The whole scheduling thing is the biggest problem because there are natural breaks and downtime during experiments that I'm not able to take advantage of. I've been spending my pumping time listening to podcasts, so let me know if there are any good ones that you like. I know people say you can do work and stuff while you're doing it, but if I'm doing anything that requires any real active thinking it doesn't work as well. So, podcasts it is! When Owen starts daycare it will be nice because I can go over there at lunch to feed him myself. That will really help, because its hard to come up with three bottles worth with only two pumping sessions.

Wow. Wasn't that an exciting discussion? This is what its going to be like now that I'm a mom.

We also took Owen back to the cardiologist, as I've discussed (er... I mean as HE'S discussed) on his blog. I didn't get to stay long enough to see the doctor (even though I was there for over an hour an a half!) because I had to get to work where I was taking an Infant/Child CPR course. How handy that it was offered for free at work! The teacher was absolute crap though, but we got some booklets and stuff that will help me study and brush up on it.

For all of you who are looking for new music, my new favorite band is the Decemberists. My friend Dan is doing some music service of some sort (I don't remember what or how it works or anything) and he heard them on that, and then I heard them on his shared music library. I have a real tendency to get into something and listen to it over and over and over to the exclusion of anything else, and this is what I've been doing with the Decemberists.

I've talked before about how much I enjoy this sharing feature of iTunes. I only wish that the stuff you bought in the iTunes store was playable on more than five computers. I mean, maybe you shouldn't be able to play it DIRECTLY on more than five computers, but I think through a shared library (which you don't have access to 24/7) it should be open. Anyhow. The other week I noticed that someone had put up their music library called 'Hey J3N - I dig your music! Email me at *****', apparently in response to one of the other shared music libraries. I thought it was pretty funny and emailed Dan to tell him that someone was trying to pick up someone else in iTunes. A few days later I got an email from another friend at work that said 'Don't you think the title of your music library is a little bit confrontational?' I was very confused. But when I looked at the shared libraries, I saw that Dan had changed his to be called 'meandertail - your music selection is lousy and I hope we never meet'. Hee!

Well, Owen just woke up from his traditionally extremely short nap (40 minutes!), so its time to go!

Yay, me!

I always forget that I have the same birthday as Courtney Peldon of 'Go Fug Yourself' fame. Except she is 26 and I am a twenty-tween.

For my birthday, Brian and Owen bought me shoes and a new fancy camera. I guess all those trips to DSW with Owen in the BabyBjorn paid off, because he had good taste in shoes. My mom and dad got me a Kate Spade purse. For a loooong time I have wanted a Kate Spade bag, and this year I got two (I also got a Kate Spade diaper bag from my mom before Owen was born).

Brian took me out for dinner while my mom babysat. We talked about science a lot, proving that we're still just as boring as we ever were!

My friend Sheri made me a cake decorated with flowers she made out of Reese's peanut butter cups. Yum!

I don't know what it means to have my birthday fall on Friday the 13th, but hopefully it doesn't mean that 32 will suck.

Mii

(Gosh, remember back when I blogged? Yeah, NOT SO MUCH ANYMORE!)

(Oh - I've been meaning to say... I bought some shoes on endless.com and it was great! Overnight shipping was free PLUS you got $5 off your order. Try it!)

(OK. Here's what I actually meant to blog about.)

(Gosh, these pictures are taking FOREVER to upload!)

(No seriously. Like AN HOUR.)

The Wii is pretty cool in that its a video game system that EVERYONE likes to play, regardless of whether they're a video game dork like I am. My parents are here now and we've been playing Wii Sports. We also played with Brian's parents when they were here. I made a Mii for everyone (except Brian's mom - she played as my friend Sheri!):







I'm especially proud of the ones of my dad and Brian's dad. Every time they came up everyone in the room cracked up.

Remember me?

I feel like there were all these things I was going to tell you and now I can't remember. My brain is not up to full potential I guess, because Owen's sleeping from 8-3 was just a fluke - he's back to waking up at 12:30 or 1 am. Oh well, thats okay. Technically, thats considered 'sleeping through the night' since that only means 5 hours at a time. This is not my definition of it, but oh well. What do I know. They say you should feed the kid in his sleep before you go to bed, but I'd rather drink some wine and know I don't have to feed him for a few hours.

Nothing much is going on anyhow. We had a St. Pat's party (really, seriously, this was brought about because we had a cute outfit for Owen). We had lots of Wii sports playing, which was fun. You know a game system is really cool when people who could not care less about video games leave saying 'I want one of those!'

I'm shopping for a new digital camera. My nice, fancy camera (Sony DSC-H1) crapped out just before Owen was born. It wasn't that old - it was a PhD gift, and I've had my PhD for less than 2 years. I took it into a camera shop for repair but it will cost $250 to fix it, which I'm not convinced is worth it. So we're getting a new one. I am sticking to Sony because I've had three Sony digital cameras so far and I've really liked them all. And also, I've got a memory card for the Sony. They are coming out soon with a new camera and its sort of killing me to wait for it.

Back to work next week! Ack! Only part time for a couple weeks. G-G and Sky King are coming out for 2 weeks in April to watch the Bug so I can work full days for a bit. It will be a good way to get back into it.

Oh, so sad.

I am in love with Tom Hulce. You probably do not know who that is off the top of your head, but he played Mozart in 'Amadeus', my favorite movie EVAH (which I could practically recite by heart, I've seen it so many times) (he was also in 'Animal House', another movie that I like). I don't know if I am really in love with Tom Hulce? Or with Mozart as played by Tom Hulce? Whatever. He was totally cute in that movie with the laugh, and the messy hair, and the wigs, and the piano playing, and the tights...

So you can imagine how unhappy I was to see this. So very unhappy.

Now I can relive the Tom Hulce glory days with my DVD of 'Amadeus' watched on our new HD plasma TV. You see, Owen wanted it, and all the books say that you can't spoil an infant and you should always respond to their needs. So thats all we were doing - being good parents. Today our HD DVR box was installed so we can watch glorious HDTV on our glorious new television.

This month's mommy blog entry!

Seriously, I am not doing so hot updating my own blog. Oh well. I think Owen's life is more exciting than mine at this point. Actually, right now I am at work! Like a grownup! There are other adults here with which to converse! Unfortunately this is Brian's lab, not mine, so I only know two people here. Thus, not a lot of conversing going on.

I was planning on going back to work starting yesterday (8 weeks of leave) but as D-day approached, I realized that I was not really ready to go back. The Bug is still so little! And I cannot bear the thought of not being with him! This is quite a turnaround from how I thought I would be feeling right now, which is: bored of being at home and starved for adult contact. Well, I am a bit starved for adult contact, that is for sure. But I am not as dying to get out of the house as I thought I would be.

So I am taking 4 additional weeks off and will start back to work the last week of March. At that point, Brian and I will alternate Owen-shifts for about a month, because we didn't get a daycare spot until May 7th (I'm happy we got one at all, frankly). That will be a good way to ease back into things. At the moment I am doing some work at home and some at Brian's lab, trying to do additional experiments to get my paper published somewhere. Brian's lab has all the equipment I need, and is much closer to home and also Owen-friendly, if we both need to be here. We brought Owen in this weekend, in fact.

Not too much else is going on. We are settling into being parents. The Bug and I are getting on a bit of a schedule, which is good because then I can sometimes find the time to shower (You only have to read this, not smell me. Be grateful for that). And, as you will have seen on his blog, he slept all night for the first time! Hurrah!

I am always shocked by how much we love our little Bug. Everyone said that would be the case, but it didn't seem real to me until it actually happened. I can't wait to see what he's like as he gets older. Its going so fast.

Additional:

I got a Wii! Brian has been trying to get me one for a while w/o paying an exorbitant amount for it. What worked: mid-week eBay purchase. I haven't had a chance to play it much though, but I did quickly try out the Wii Sports games. So cool. I got the Zelda game too but have not started it yet.

I give up.

Britney? This is the last straw. You and me are OVER (although I will always love the song 'Toxic', no matter how bad things get between us).

A miracle!

A miracle has occurred at our house. On Saturday AND Sunday night, Owen slept for 7-8 hours STRAIGHT. Holy crap. My mom asked if I thought he was dead when I realized he hadn't woken me up sooner, but I hadn't noticed because I was still asleep. Because this sleeping stretch went from the 7:30 pm feeding to 3 am. Then he slept for another couple of hours, until 6 or 6:30. Owen's a bit of a morning person. Of course, last night he woke up at 1 am like normal. I'm hoping the long sleep comes back tonight! We've begun swaddling him at night and for naps again, and I think that helps.

Here are a few things we did in Florida:
1. Flamingos in Sarasota Jungle Gardens. Also we fed the flamingos.


When flamingos attack on Vimeo
2. Circus Sarasota quick change artists. These are not as good as the ones who performed last time I went to Circus Sarasota, but still are pretty good. We were sitting in the front row both times, and I'll be damned if I can figure out how they do a lot of this.


Circus on Vimeo
3. Kayaking in the Myakka river. I left Owen with Brian and my mom and went kayaking with my dad. The Myakka river is chock full-o-gators so I was very excited about that. When we put the kayaks in there was one gator on the opposite bank. We had to paddle a little way and then portage over a small dam, and there were twelve gators on the bank over there. Then we hardly saw any others for the rest of the trip. There was one point where there were three around us and they all went underwater at the same time. Thats a little scary. The worst problem I had was with all the spiders in my boat. I'm lucky I didn't flip the kayak over with all of my wriggling. I stepped on one, I caught one on the end of my paddle (this required some panicky manuvering that I'm really glad didn't end up in a wet Lisa), I flicked some more off with my fingernail. We saw a lot of birds, herons, egrets, ibis and hawks, and we saw some limpkin at the end.

This is what happens when you mix 60 year old men with white water rafting.

Brian's parents are on a big trip around the world. They've been all sorts of places so far, and are currently in... New Zealand? Or Australia? One of those two. Anyhow. They recently went white water rafting which is totally fun and I would love to do again sometime if anyone wants to take me. The only problem with white water rafting is when you hit a rock and get bumped out of the boat. An even worse problem is when you do this very early on in the trip, so you have to spend the rest of the ride with a gaping wound.

Poor Brian's dad! Hope that heals by the time they get here (we're the last stop on the tour), or he's going to scare Owen half to death, haha.

Jiggle!

I'm writing this as I sit here jiggling Owen in my lap. Its really amazing what a good jiggle will do for a baby! Much of my life is spent jiggling in one form or another. When Owen is relatively calm, a little bit of jiggle will suffice. When we're in the early evening (dinner time) freakout period, we need a bigger jiggle. In that case, I bust out the iPod and start bouncing with the music, all over the room. Owen's favorite album right now is Muse - Black Holes and Revelations. He's asleep before the first song ends. This also makes it Mommy's favorite album right now.

He is still pretty easy to deal with, which is good. Unfortunately he's started waking up every 2-3 hours at night again, instead of giving us one 4-5 hour stretch in there. Oh well. Its not horrendous. This morning I fed him at 5:30 am and then heard him complaining (not crying, but whining a little bit) again not long afterwards. I kept trying to sleep through it hoping that he had just woken up and these were the going-back-to-sleep noises, but eventually a cry or two came out. Turns out he had spit up on himself in the bed and was laying there in a cold, wet patch of spit-up. Poor kid has a mean mommy.

Congrats to several people for several things.
First: to Matt and Melissa who are also heading down the baby path!
Second: to Matt (different Matt) and Herryn, who got a new job and are relocating to Dallas. Actually, I'm quite bummed out about this because Knoxville is only 5-6 hours drive from here, meaning that we actually see Herryn sometimes (like the other weekend for example!). Dallas is a million miles away. But we've never been there, so we'll go visit out there sometime and also see my Uncle Bart and my cousins. Anyhow, Herryn doesn't have a blog, but she does have a website now. So if you click on her link up there, you can watch her reporting videos! Woo! She's on TV! And I know her!

I just also needed to put this here: Congrats to Brian (the blogging Brian, not my Brian) for getting his paper accepted that had been under review for OVER TWO YEARS. We've all had papers go through what seemed to be interminably long review processes. But I have never, ever in my life heard of one going on for OVER TWO FRIGGING YEARS. Thats a new record of terribleness. So now when you're waiting for your paper to come back, just think to yourself: "At least it hasn't been TWO YEARS."

(Now see, for me? This doesn't happen, because the paper I sent out right after I had the baby got rejected without review! That was nice of them, eh?)

Choke!

I don't really like football, but I do have a favorite team - the Bears. We lived in the Chicago area until I was in 4th grade, and my dad grew up there too. Its kind of an inborn love of the Bears that transcends the actual football part of it.

When we lived in Chicago, we lived in a town that housed some of the Bears including my favorite football player ever, Walter Payton. I was pretty young at the time, but one time Walter, his wife and son were at the park across the street from our house at the same time as my friend and I. We kept an eye on his son while he and his wife walked around the park alone. How exciting! At the time I didn't even know how exciting it was. Maybe he wasn't a football legend at that time, I don't know.

After Chicago, we moved to Racine, Wisconsin which is not terribly far from the Illinois border. Thus, even though Wisconsin as a whole is heavily Packer-centric, Racine was a little bit split. There was a huge rivalry between the Bears and the Packers in town. There was a Packer bar and a Bears bar that were near each other and they always had wierd bets going when the two teams played one another where the bar of the winning team got to paint the door of the bar of the losing team in their team's colors.

In 1986, the Bears went to the Super Bowl. It was a very exciting time for everyone when we were given 'The Super Bowl Shuffle'. The Bears played the New England Patriots and won. So very exciting!

We moved to New Hampshire when I was a senior in high school, and my dad started watching the Patriots. Now he sort of watches both. This year was looking to be a very exciting year for our family because the Pats and the Bears both could potentially go to the Super Bowl. Who would we root for? I would stick with the Bears, for sure. But I bet my dad would root for the Pats.

Anyhow, of course the two playoff games were yesterday. We didn't watch them because, again, I don't really care enough about actual football to watch anything but the Super Bowl. I saw that the Bears had won, so I was excited. We watched the beginning of the Pats game, and it looked as if they were running away with it too. We checked in again during the 3rd quarter sometime and it was still looking good for the Pats. Then we went to bed at 9:00 because we're the exhausted parents of a new baby. I assumed we were looking at Super Bowl XX - revisited!! Except Ditka-less.

My mom called at 10:15 and woke us up. She thought we had been up watching the game because I had called their house and left a message about it while the game was on. She said 'Can you believe that?' and I thought they had won. But NO! They lost! The hell? How did they choke like that? It seemed to not even be in question that the Pats were going to win. I don't know what happened.

Oh well. At least we know who to root for now.

I love Nordstroms

Before I had Owen (but after I should have had Owen), I went to Nordstroms with my mom to look for a nursing bra. I have been all over the universe looking for a nursing bra in my size (watermelon size) and haven't been able to find one, but someone at the maternity store suggested I try there. I have never bought bras at Nordstroms before - I never even thought about it. When I got there one of the sales women helped me out immediately. Brought me into the dressing room, measured me, brought bras into me and special ordered some for me from other stores when they didn't have any in my size in stock. I went back last weekend when Herryn and Kendra were here to see if she had gotten any in, and she had. And one of them fit me so I bought it. Yes, it was expensive ($52) but bras are always expensive. So its not like I was spending a lot more than I would normally end up spending for a bra.

I was so happy at how much help she had been, and I determined that this was their normal level of service because I heard her helping other customers in the other dressing rooms. She measured them (its important to know what size you really are!), asked them what they were looking for and then brought a selection of bras in for them to try. And she came back to check and see how things were fitting to offer suggestions. I decided that I am never ever shopping anywhere else for bras again ever. I'm going to Nordstroms.

Today I got a THANK YOU NOTE in the mail from the woman who helped me at the store. A handwritten thank you note. Holy crap. If I wasn't already only ever shopping at Nordstroms for bras, I REALLY am only ever shopping at Nordstroms for bras now.

Its hard out there for a mommy

Well, its hard to balance keeping Owen calm, clean, dry and fed, updating his blog, and occasionally taking a shower myself. So I've pretty much given up on the showering. Ha.

Yesterday I actually left the house twice, it was very exciting. Of course we were also having our first snowfall. I almost wrote 'snowstorm', but that would be a total misnomer. We had about an inch of snow, but here in North Carolina that is about equivalent to ten feet. Schools were closed in Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill. Of course, I grew up in the frozen north and have only lived down here for a few years (almost 4 years now!) so I know how to drive in the snow. Its not me that is the problem though, its everyone else on the road. I try not to drive in the snow or ice if I can help it, simply so some idiot doesn't run me down.

Anyhow, I had to take Owen to the pediatrician to repeat his newborn screening tests that they did at the hospital. The pediatrician never got any results from the hospital for some reason. It had just stopped snowing, but I still thought about calling the office to reschedule. It just looked slushy outside, so I decided to just go ahead with it. This was my first time driving with Owen in the car, so I was a little nervous. We had to be there at 10 am, so at 9 am I started thinking that I should get ready. First I had to feed him, which thankfully didn't take too long. Then I had to change and dress him. At this point it was 9:25. I wanted to leave at 9:30 (to allow myself extra time - the office is only about 10 minutes away), and I was still in my new mommy uniform of pajama pants and a nursing tank. Bugger. Quickly dress myself, load Owen into the car seat (it would have been a good day to try out his winter coat, but I didn't have time for that), get everyone into the car, phew! I made it.

We drove over to the doctors office and I went to check in at the front desk. They didn't have any record that I was coming in, because the person who had called us to schedule this had not actually scheduled the appointment with the lab. And also the lab person wasn't even there. So hurrah. All that for nothing.

Oh well. Later in the day I went to get my haircut. I thought I'd probably be gone for Owen's feeding time (one of the ten million Owen's-feeding-times that occur every day), and unfortunately when I go the food goes with me. I had pumped some milk in the morning and left it in a bottle for Brian, just in case. This was our first time using a bottle, so I was a little nervous about how it would all go, but he did okay. Unfortunately I left too little milk so I had to feed him again almost as soon as I walked in the door.

Finallly my hair has been cut though. I hadn't gotten myself to the hairdresser since JUNE, so it was a desperate situation.

Last night Brian was looking around on eBay for some Warhammer crap. He found some guy who was selling something he was interested in and wanted to see what else he had up for sale. He had some other Warhammer crap and then he had all these other figurines. They were very similar to Warhammer stuff in that they were metal and came in pieces that you had to assemble and then paint yourself. However, rather than being orcs, or goblins, or dark elves, these were naked women in comprimising positions (mostly bondage sorts of stuff). We did not know that such a thing existed. I'm curious what exactly you DO with these once you've painted them? I mean, are you going to keep your porn figures in a display case for everyone to see? I hope not.

Anyway, whenever I start to think about how lame Brian's Warhammer obsession is, I'm going to thank my lucky stars that he's not instead obsessed with porn figurines.

Owen's blog

Hi - Its Owen. I decided that I needed my own blog. You can keep up on my doings by visiting it here.

One week (and 4 days) old!

Thursday was Owen's one week birthday! I planned this post to go up on that day and, well, its taken me some time to finish it as you can see.

This week was a busy one for us, our first week as parents. The delivery went pretty well, I guess I was in labor (induced) for about 14 hours? At about 6 pm, it seemed like things weren't progressing very well and that I might need to have a C-section. They thought the baby's head might be too big to fit through my pelvis (see? I told you!). Then all of a sudden everything started happening, because by 9 pm I was 10 cm dilated. Pushing lasted for just over an hour (a very tiring and frustrating time), and Owen was born. Also - thank god for the epidural man. I got that at around 4 and was much much happier!

We spent two nights in the hospital. One night was really a non-night though - we had the baby at 11:16 pm, got into our postpartum room (closet with an en suite bathroom) at about 2:00 and stayed up until 3 am discussing the recent events. We had decided to let him spend the night in the nursery so we could try to get a little rest, but I ended up staying up most of the night wishing he was with us and debating whether or not I should go down and get him. I was really happy when the nurse called at 6 am and said he was waking up and wanted some breakfast! The nurses at the hospital were great and helped us out a lot with establishing feeding, showing us how to do various things, etc. I really liked all of them.


In our postpartum closet

On Sunday we came home from the hospital and back to our real life.


Getting ready to leave the hospital

I'm not sure Owen was all that psyched about the transition, because for the first two nights he was screaming and crying constantly. We thought he was surely dying. Also, we thought that we had made the most enormous mistake EVER. We couldn't get the kid to sleep at all. He wanted to eat (read: suck on me without the actual purpose of eating) every hour. We'd swaddle him up in a little Owen-burrito to get him to calm down for a little bit, but it wouldn't last long.


Owen in an Owen-burrito (this is at the hospital, so this was a professionally-wrapped Owen-burrito)

I was a nervous wreck until we hit our first pediatrician appointment on Tuesday.


On the way to our first doctor's appointment

We had a list of questions and I only got through about half of them before I started SOBBING. Brian had to take over and ask the rest of the questions. The doctor assured me that most new parents end up crying in the office at their first appointment. If you're a new parent and you didn't? I don't want to know, so please lie. Of course we learned that Owen is completely fine and not dying. We both felt a lot better and more relaxed after hearing that. I think Owen also felt a lot better too because suddenly he turned into a perfect baby. He slept easily throughout the day in his baby papasan, and he slept pretty well at night too.


Owen in his papasan

He'd fall asleep after I fed him and would sleep for several hours. I'd wake him up after 3 hours for a ~1am feeding and would let him sleep until he woke up after that, which would be for 4-5 hours.

At our 1 week peds appointment, we got to ask some more questions. We also found out that he had gotten back up to his discharge weight. And also, that he has a huge 37 cm head (this is in the 75th percentile of head size), a fact that my body can attest to.

My parents left on Friday to head back to Florida, and we've been doing a pretty good job since they've been gone. We've had a lot of friends and neighbors stop by to visit. On Friday morning, Wendy stopped in on her way back south.



On Saturday, the weather was really nice so we took Owen out for his first walk and showed him off to our neighbors who all thought he was the cutest baby in the world (which, of course, he is).



On Sunday Annie stopped by for a new baby photo shoot at which Owen fountain-peed all over the piano room. HA. Annie's reflexes have obviously been sharpened by being a parent herself, because she covered him up far quicker than Brian or I did.

And thats about it so far!

Quickly! A baby!

A quick update in case you didn't get an email from me (some of them got bounced back because the pictures were too big, or the list of addresses was too long and spammy, or something):

Owen Edward (the artist formerly known as Studs) was born on 12/29/06 at 11:16 pm!
He was 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long.
I thought I would never ever make it through the delivery, and yet, I did!

We got home from the hospital this afternoon. I'm too tired to finish the post I've been writing about how this all went down, so that will come sometime later.

Classical music humor

From Eve's blog, some humor for orchestra and band geeks.



I hate Pachabel's canon too.

Going in tomorrow

Ok! We're going in tomorrow night to be induced (at least to start the process). Apparently it will take a while, but Studs should be here (and have a real name!) sometime on Friday.

Still hoping I'll go into labor on my own sometime before then, but we'll see. Either way, we'll have a new baby in a few days! Wish us luck!

Still annoyed

Still no baby, still annoyed.

Jim is leaving in the morning, so he didn't get to see a baby after all. He went to the doctor with Brian and I this afternoon so I could have another non-stress test and ultrasound. Everything fine still, and still nothing is happening!

Also, Studs didn't get to make use of his Christmas outfits. If any of you have a Christmas baby in the future, I am totally regifting.

They'll induce me sometime later this week, as yet unscheduled. I would really prefer that he came on his own, but we'll see what happens.

Other than that, we've been playing Guitar Hero which I am getting better at. Its like DDR for your fingers. We've also been playing Advanced Mastermind, which I love. Its hard though when I'm playing with my brother and he SCORES SOMETHING WRONG and doesn't figure it out until I'm about ready to lose my mind. And we've watched some of the Red Dwarf DVDs Jim got us, season 7 (my favorite!) and 8.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas!

Today's update of annoyed-ness

Well. I am still here.

Ugh! Yesterday was Brian's birthday, so I thought that maybe Studs wanted to have the same birthday as his dad. Evidently I was wrong. Now Brian will be a 34 year old father instead of a 33 year old father.

Jim also arrived yesterday, and we spent the night playing Guitar Hero (which Jim brought with him) on the PS2. I took some video as I was hoping that it would be the last thing I did while I was pregnant, so perhaps we will later have 'video editing practice part II'.

The current last thing I did while I was pregnant was make muffins. Lets hope that sticks.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and gets all the Wii they want (especially those who have solicited references And also, me).

Video test

We used our fancy new video camera at the doctors office yesterday, and this morning I figured out how to edit our video in iMovie. So here's my first video test. Watch Lisa lay there like a beached whale! See and hear Studs' heart beating! Watch Lisa's stomach undulate! Also featured: You can see that Studs is still a boy, even though I wasn't sure how to indicate this on the video (since you see it actually right before the u/s tech asks us whether we know the gender or not). Thank god, because otherwise Studs would have been a very gender-confused girl with all of the blue boy stuff we have.

Here's the video.

Zippo

Just had my appointment which was exciting, and still NOTHING. Will have another one on Tuesday unless some miracle has occurred over the weekend. Think baby, everyone!!

More Y chromosomes than allowed

I love this whole thing about the Indian runner who failed a gender test. First of all, they have a gender test? Does this sort of thing come up often?
Second of all "more Y chromosomes than allowed" is sort of hilarious. I would think ANY Y chromosomes would be more Y chromosomes than allowed if you're a woman. The way they say that also makes it sound like she might have many, many Y chromosomes, which would be more than allowed for a man too.

Oh, and those of you who were hoping for the 20th are SOL, methinks. It is 2pm and there is no action on the baby front. On the plus (?!) side, tomorrow I'll get to find out how the non-stress test and biophysical profile work. I'm getting concerned that the baby and Brian could have the same birthday (the 23rd). Or that the baby and JESUS (and also my grandmother, but I figured the general reader would be more familiar with the whole Jesus thing) could have the same birthday. Holy crap. I knew it was within the realm of possibility, technically, but I never dreamed that I might still be pregnant at Christmas.

Instead? My mom and I made pizzelles. Hurrah!

T + 2 days

Oh dear readers, it is wishful thinking on your parts to think that a few days blog-free meant that I had had Studs. No, apparently Studs did not get the memo that his due date was on SUNDAY and that my weekly BabyCenter email was entitled 'Your newborn'. However, I didn't have anything to blog about other than to complain, so I spared you. Aren't I a very thoughtful pregnant lady? Also, you'll know when we have the baby because Brian's bringing his laptop to the hospital with us and we'll use the wonderful hospital wireless internet to send an email and/or post an update and picture. Promise!

My parents decided to come up this week anyhow, even though Studs hasn't given us any indication that he plans to arrive, EVER. They left yesterday and called us shortly after take-off (well... take-off in the car) to tell us that about 20 miles from home they had hit something on the interstate and punctured their gas tank (and messed up something else, I think, although my one remaining functional brain cell doesn't recall what). They live in Sarasota, FL in the winter and thus have the requisite old person Cadillac, even though they're not really old enough to require one yet. It is huge though, which was the appeal - better to cart around a bunch of out of town visitors, like myself. This was good for their long drive up to NC with the dog, the parrot and all their Christmas presents and stuff (my brother is coming this weekend, so they had EVERYONE'S presents). However, the wrecked gas tank necessitated a shift to their other car - also a Florida requirement - a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Its not THAT small, but its not large either. They all jammed in there and kept driving, but since they got a relatively late start they didn't make it yesterday. So they'll be here by about lunch time.

Brian and I have started an aggressive campaign of walking to walk the baby out. This doesn't sound like a big deal to you normal people, except please recall that I haven't really walked much since I broke my foot almost 10 weeks ago. I can get around a bit better on the Aircast but I'm still pretty slow, so it takes us 45 min - 1 hr to walk around our development. Awesome!

And thats about it. I'll go in on Thursday for a non-stress test and other tests to make sure the baby is doing okay in there, and maybe discuss with the doctor some means of encouraging Studs to come out, like what Aimee mentioned. I am ALL FOR THAT.

Bill Gates is so dreamy!

I didn't really find this article particularly interesting, but I was really amused at the sort of Teen Beat-esque picture of Bill Gates that accompanies it. Also, he totally has a Mac behind him.

Small with a huge head

Oh. One thing I did learn at the doctors office yesterday (although it shouldn't worry me much because I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER) is that Studs doesn't seem to be too big. She didn't give me a real weight estimate or anything, but by feeling around and measuring my belly she said that he was probably on the smaller side. "Thats a relief" I thought, until I remembered that what was really important was how big his head is. My friend had a small baby with a huge head, and I think the same thing could happen to me. Lets consider the evidence:

1. Brian has a huge head. Just try and find a hat that fits him.
2. My dad also has a huge head. My brothers aren't small either.
3. Every year at Christmas we do those Christmas crackers, because I married a British guy. They have a stupid joke in them (What do you call Postman Pat when he retires?), a little toy of some sort, and a paper crown. Brian, my dad and my brothers have a 'Big Head Contest' every year to see who can break the crown just by contorting their faces. This doesn't take long because they can barely squeeze the crowns onto their huge heads in the first place without them ripping.

I thought I might have a picture of a 'Big Head Contest' in action, but I can't find one. Here's a picture of everyone in their crowns (my family and various and sundry friends and now ex-girlfriends) from a couple of years ago:



As you can see, my dad's and Brian's are already ripped, and Brian's is really just perched on top of his head. Also, Ed's (to the right of my dad) must be ripped in the back too because there's no way he got it that far down on his head without some rippage. I'd say the same about Jim's (he's on the left towards the back) but his looks pretty taut. It might be a little ripped though.

So basically, I'm screwed by genetics. I didn't get the twinning gene (this time anyway - it seems to strike on subsequent pregnancies in our family), but I bet you Studs gets the big head gene. Lucky me!

In other news: still pregnant.

Also, I am still pregnant. In fact, at my appointment yesterday I didn't even get any reassuring news so I think I will be pregnant forever. If you haven't noticed, my whiny-ness level has increased exponentially, and I'm sorry to say that it will probably continue to do so. And I was doing so well too. Fortunately, my boss told me yesterday not to worry about coming back into work anymore, and that I can just email him whatever I need to (I need to convert all the figures in my paper from RGB to CMYK so that they can now look like CRAP. Stupid journals and their stupid CMYK format). Thats good because a) I'm not feeling so super comfortable and b) I feel like I spend my whole day at work answering people who see me in the hall and say 'Oh! You're still here??' Yes. I am @#$%* still here. Shut up.

Whee!

I so want a Wii. Me and everyone else in the universe, so I am so not getting a Wii - at least not for a while. Thats okay, I'm still playing Final Fantasy XII on my PS2. Oh, and FFIII on my DS. Yes, I have a problem. And also, clearly they were exaggerating when they called the first one Final Fantasy.

Anyhow, lots of other people were lucky and did get Wiis. And then a lot of them broke their TV sets, windows, glass-topped coffee tables, whatever, when the Wiimote was not properly strapped to their wrist while playing (or... the strap broke. I'm more inclined to think 'operator error' myself). Brian just called me to tell me about one of the comments that he had read after a BBC News article about this.

I got one of the first Wii but after a few minutes playing the strap broke and the controller shot off and hit my partner in the face resulting in two broken teeth. She slipped at the same time falling into the TV set and smashing the screen. The TV was plugged into the surround sound system and consequently pulled it over and smashing into my CD and DVD collection. I advise anyone to be careful of the wii

Brian really enjoys it when other people are idiots, so he was practically wetting his pants reading this to me.

Still pregnant

In case you were thinking that a few days without posting meant that I wasn't pregnant anymore, you were wrong. I am still pregnant. And in fact showing no indications of becoming un-pregnant any time soon. Although I do think that Studs has 'dropped' now. I don't notice a big difference in anything other than that I think I look different (a little smaller, actually) in profile. Aaaaaand, that doesn't mean anything in terms of when he's going to come out, in case you were thinking that might be relevant or something. Really, nothing you learn at the end of your pregnancy is relevant to when you'll actually have the baby. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow when they'll tell me how dilated and effaced I am - two more bits of information that sound exciting but actually have no bearing at all on when I'll have the baby.

I have been working at home this week, but I'm going back in today. I think my boss is secretly thrilled when I work from home because he'd really rather that I didn't go into labor at work. Or have my water break or something. He's still adjusting to having a lab full of women, so I think this is just a little bit more female-related than he can take. Hee. I'm going to go in today and do a few last things in the lab and write out a list of what experiments I need to do when I get back, because god knows I'm not going to remember AT ALL what I was doing when I left. Hopefully then my boss will have read the draft of my paper I just sent him (he is very quick at this which is new and different for me, so this could actually happen) and I can stay home on Thursday and Friday and work on fixing it. I forget that each day that I stay home I really need to let people know that I am working and not having a baby. Everyone is relieved to find that out because there's a little pool going at work to guess when I'll have the baby. Only one person is out of it so far, she had me going a week early, on Sunday. People's guesses start to pick up again now - there's someone today and most of the rest of the days this week. Fortunately I don't think anyone has me lasting as far as Christmas (which would be a week late and while normal is not desired by me, thanks).

Biochemistry with the Celebrity Stars

And you thought that celebrities only had hidden potential as dancers.
They may also be able to solve some significant problems in molecular biology.

Rockin' the white elephant gift exchange

Last night was my work Christmas party. Last year I was on the organizing committee, and we decided to have a white elephant gift exchange. If you haven't done this before, you bring something fairly crappy (or at least unwanted) for your gift - a good way to regift something that you wouldn't actually want to give someone on purpose. Or a gag gift or something. At last year's gift exchange, I got some generic Barbie-type doll. After the official swap was over, I traded with someone else for an old fondue pot. We didn't have a decent one, despite assurances that we'd get several as wedding gifts. And I love fondue. I know who brought the fondue pot, and she thought it was a terrible gift. She had gotten it as a hand me down from her aunt or something. There was a recipe written on a card that she had included, her aunt's recipe, that called for 'Switzerland Swiss Cheese'. Heh.

The fondue pot gets a lot of use at our house, because we both go through periods of fondue addiction. We're in one right now, in fact. We had fondue for dinner twice last week (one time was during a fondue party at our house, the other time was just... Wednesday). So I was really pleased with myself last year.

This year I did possibly even better. Brian picked third, and he got a framed picture of my boss that someone had gotten in last year's swap. Ha. I'm going to display it on my desk at work, until next year when I am totally going to bring it back to the gift swap. I picked fairly far down in the order, about 2/3 of the way through. The person just before me let her young son pick and open a gift, and it was a stainless steel Cuisinart pizelle press. OMG. I love pizelles. And I do not have a pizelle press. My mom does and she always made them for Christmas when I was growing up. Yum. When my turn came up, I totally traded the little kid for the pizelle press. I was really worried that someone after me would take it, but no one did. So now, I've got a shiny new pizelle press, just in time for Christmas pizelle making! Two years in a row of awesome white elephant gifts.

His laugh really is annoying though.

Anderson Cooper could be my secret boyfriend if I was his type, which I'm pretty sure I'm not. Brian, maybe. But not me. Bit of a bummer. He's smart and funny and also totally hot - a trifecta.

Anyhow, I thought this video of him critically analyzing his co-hosting stint on 'Live With Regis and Kelly' was funny. The link to this from the CNN website was 'Anderson Cooper: Man, my laugh is annoying.'

BE ADEQUITE.

Ok, so the other week when Robert Altman died, Linsday Lohan, in the midst of her crippling grief, composed a little press release on her Blackberry so that we could all know how broken up she was by the whole thing (having just been in his movie, A Prairie Home Companion).

Read this here.

Obvy the girl didn't get much onset tutoring when she was being a child star.
Everyone? Please. BE ADEQUITE.

Oooookay. So everyone has been making fun of that pretty much ever since. Because its hilarious. And sad. And pathetic. Her publicist Leslie Sloane Zelnick, who has seriously been working overtime for this girl lately*, tried to soften the blow a little bit by saying how she wrote this right after she had heard, she hadn't had time to compose her thoughts, blah blah blah. One would think that Linsday would have learned a lesson from this, but no. Nor did she learn how to spell 'adequate'. Because she's at it again. And this one is 1000x crazier sounding than the last one.

Seriously. Would someone take away LiLo's Blackberry-ing privledges? Save this poor girl from herself. It is hard to decide what I find most amusing about this particular version, but high up on the list is the fact that she still hasn't managed to spell 'adequate' correctly, despite the fact that there are even T-shirts making fun of her about it. Also, I mean, does she even know what 'adequate' means? I don't think so. First of all, why would you encourage people to just be adequate? Just be good enough, people. You don't have to be great or anything... don't stress yourselves out. Just BE ADEQUITE. And second, a "morally/politically correct, fully adequite letter to the press". I don't really get the usage there either.

Its okay though, because she talked to Al Gore. And he totally wants to help her. And so do the Clintons. With what, I'm not totally sure. To get the media to stop bugging her, I guess? If she wants the media to stop bugging her, why doesn't she stay home and stop acting crazy. I bet that would help.

The Fug Girls want to help, at least with the editing. Hee.


*Those of you who are NOT up on your celeb gossip probably do not know that Linds has been going to AA meetings. For her drinking problem which has developed while she's not even old enough to legally drink. Ignoring the whole second 'A' there, this fact has been broadcast to the media. I also swear that I read somewhere, although I cannot find the source anymore, that her publicist said something like 'Yes, she's going to the meetings and this is a positive step. But don't be surprised when you still see her drinking because this is a process and she hasn't quite gotten to the whole sobriety part yet.'

Cast is GONE

Finally the day we have all been waiting for is HERE (well, one of the days we are waiting for anyhow). The cast is IN THE TRASH. I have a shiny new Aircast now. I get to wear this for 2-3 weeks to protect my foot, and then I'm DONE. And thankfully, this one can come off for baths or sleeping or whatever.

When they took off my cast I was a bit horrified to discover that I had also contracted leprosy sometime over these last 7 weeks. Seriously, I look like a molting reptile of some sort. Dead skin is coming off my leg in sheets. I just took a bath (both feet immersed!) and tried to get it off as best as I could, but my best was not good enough. Its still there, although it is better.

I also went to the OB this morning who said that the baby hadn't really dropped too much yet, so it doesn't look like childbirth is imminent or anything. Bummer.

Chapped lips

Over on the Consumerist, a great debate rages about lip balms and their addictive nature. I had a friend in high school who was TOTALLY addicted to Carmex. I don't know what the biological basis of this is, but I agree it is addictive.

Lots of people supported Burt's Bees lip balm as the best lip balm out there. I almost agree. I like it too. For some reason I prefer it in the little metal tub than in the tube. Application messier, but it seems like a little different product and I think it works better. I could just be making that up though.

For real lip balm action (not to mention an unbeatable price), I vote for Bag Balm. If you live in New England you can buy this at the drugstore. If you're not so lucky, you can buy it (seriously) in the horse section at Petsmart. Or I bet at some like, feed store or something. You'll notice at the top of the Bag Balm website that none of the suggested organisms to use it are people. Cows? Yes. Horses? Of course. Pets? Certainly. A big tub of it costs like, $15 tops? It will last you forever. Seriously. I have one that is like five years old and its only half empty. And my mom gave it to me partially empty. It also makes a good treatment for dry skin, in which case you'd use it quicker. But it is, hands down, the best lip balm on the planet.

I'm still here!

Yesterday everyone was surprised to see me back at work, since it seemed that the whole world had decided that the baby was coming over the weekend. Oh well. Last week I didn't really want Studs to arrive early, but once everyone started talking about it I started to get antsy. So now I'm a little tired of being pregnant.

We had come up with a name, but now I'm second guessing it. We brought a few names back into consideration this morning, so now I think there are 4 on the list. Its hard! I know many people have said they didn't decide until after the baby was born, so that makes me feel better.

Not much else is going on. Two days until cast removal!

Brian is nesting

Yesterday when I was at work, Brian called me in a mild panic.
"Are you having contractions?"
Uh, no. And where did this come from? I hadn't called him or anything, so I didn't know where he had gotten the idea that I was in labor. He said he had just been having this overwhelming feeling that Studs' arrival was imminent. He had been possessed to completely clean and reorganize his office and lab and was wanting to go home and do the same thing there. He was completely positive that I would have the baby this weekend.
Then my boss came in and said 'Uh... before you leave today please send me your figures and your paper in whatever state it is when you leave.' He was also worried that I might not be back on Monday.

Last week there was also a significant increase in the number of random people who would stop me in the hallway and say 'Well, you look like you're just about done!'

Does everyone know something that I don't? Hope not. I did get my grant application sent off yesterday (yay!) but I'd also like to finish up my paper before the baby's arrival.

Anyone else have any weird feelings when their baby was about to come?

Your celebrity gossip update

Many of my readers are not as into the celebrity gossip as I am. But what if you had to unexpectedly take a pop culture quiz? Or something? I wouldn't just leave you out in the cold. So here's a little round-up of this weeks news:

Just when I think things are starting to look up for my girl Britney, she starts to go back down again.

Divorcing K-Fed? Up!
Dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Down!
Forgetting to wear her undies when dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Even downer!
Hanging out with Paris Hilton and Linsday Lohan? As down as you can get!

In other news:
Speaking of Pamela Anderson, she and Kid Rock are getting divorced only four months after their multi-wedding extravaganza. I know! I was shocked too. Also, I really never saw the appeal of Kid Rock. Um... wifebeater and greasy hair? AND sort of pathetic looking facial hair?

Eva Longoria engaged to this guy who I totally thought she wasn't dating anymore!

We forgot about Anna Nicole Smith for a while, but then she randomly had her baby in the Bahamas, her son randomly died in her hospital room afterwards, had multiple men claiming they were the father of her new baby, became a Bahamian citizen and then got booted out of the house she was living in.

Danny DeVito went on 'The View' drunk. Which is actually hilarious. I'm sure Baba Wawa was really excited to hear all about his sexcapades in the Lincoln Bedroom. You can watch the video here.