Zit Stickers and Other Related Matters

So today I want to talk to you about my period and how I finally got a real one. And I will probably also want to talk a little bit about my boobs. And maybe we can also discuss how nervous it makes me to see my crush at his locker. You know. Typical topics for a 12-year-old's slumber party. Even though I'm almost 30 and married with child.

Do you know what goes perfect with these topics? Zit stickers.

WHAT? You don't know zit stickers? Have you never played Girl Talk?


OK, for those not in the know, zit stickers are basically how you get punished in this very special board game for tweens. So if you weren't willing to accept a zany dare like putting an ice cube down your shirt and letting it melt or if you refused to tell the truth about which boy you would like to date then you were zit stickered. Since I was a unique (read: creepy) kind of child, I would sometimes like to wear the zit stickers just for fun around the house. Like outside of playing the game. Perhaps it was so I could then get the chance to oxycute 'em with that magical Oxy potion that the big kids got to use.

And since I'm a unique (read: creepy) kind of adult, I thought it would be best for me to tell you about my period and stuff wearing a zit sticker or two. Unlike my childhood, I found some others to wear them along with me. Since I do realize zit stickers are a little embarrassing, I made sure to put all humans in the following photos in disguises so that should these photos go viral, our identities will remain a secret.




OK, now to the point. I am officially experiencing my first period since 08/08/08. That means I went nearly TWO YEARS sans a real period (granted half of that time was due to being pregnant/post-partum). Yes, I've had a couple pseudo periods over the past few months, but those were nothing more than glorified spotting incidents and they were certainly without the actual period symptoms I'm suddenly getting reacquainted with. While I'm disappointed not to be pregnant this month and am really disliking feeling all hormonal and funky from my period, I'm actually kind of pleased with the fact that I'm a men-strooo-ating woman. Why? Well, it's because this means that I have OFFICIALLY resumed fertility while still breastfeeding three times a day. So I'm getting exactly what I wanted and I don't have to make any hard decisions about quitting/reducing breastfeeding in order to get pregnant.

And if getting my period wasn't proof enough of my body being ready to get K.U. again, I have this beautiful chart to fully convince me.This is why I love charting. It gives you all this information! The higher temperatures to the right of the red line are proof that I ovulated. My luteal phase is still a little short, but since it pretty much tripled in length from last month (3 days to 9 days), I'm not going to sweat it. You generally need a luteal phase of 10 days or more to get pregnant, and I bet I'll be there by next month.

So that's what's up with my innards. You really wanted to know all that information, right?

OK, now for that last topic. I'm ready to discuss my crush and what to say to him when I see him in study hall on Monday. Also: should I wear my Gerbaud's or my Guess jeans? French roll the jeans or not? For sure my Benetton t-shirt on top. Ooh, let's prank call him right now...

The Only Pad I'll Ever Like

It's less absorbent than some on the market, but quite sleek.

Yes, I'm talking about the Apple iPad. I don't own one, nor do I think I would ever buy one at $500-800 a pop, but I do think they are kind of nice after I finally got to try one out. Husband's work is passing one around amongst the employees to try out (why? very mysterious this "trying it out" business) and I spent some quality time with it last night. It's much smaller than I thought it would be. It's only the size of a book (I imagined it was quite a bit larger and more cumbersome). I also loved the way I could use it in bed and not have a 130° laptop burning my lap. Seems like it might be nice for a breastfeeding mama, too, during those middle of the night feedings.

Do you know what it's really perfect for? Reading blogs. I've taken to reading the full archives of a few excellent blogs lately (like this one, and this one, oh, and this one is causing mild incontinence issues because she is so funny) in an attempt to avoid the second book in the Outlander series that is sitting half-read on my bedside table (why must you be so dense and plodding Diana Gabaldon?).

Now I need your help. Can you comment with the names of a your favorite blogs? The ones you want to go back and start reading from the beginning once you find them? We have the iPad until Tuesday and I want to take full advantage. I thank you in advance for those gems you'll recommend to me.

Finally, I would like you to know that yesterday, as Husband was getting ready for bed, he asked me if I liked interfacing with the iPad. Interfacing. Not, "Oh, do you like it?" or even "Is it easy to use?" Now it should be said that I have a low tolerance for the use of overly technical terms when something simpler will do. Perhaps Husband was not aware of this quirk of mine, but that is not the point. The point is that he said interface to me at 10:50 pm at night. So now Husband will be punished by me asking highly technical questions on a variety of subjects over the next couple days. Here are some examples:

• Say, Husband, what are your thoughts on the state of Bella's dentition? instead of "Do think whiny-pants is getting another tooth?"

• Now Husband, do you think it's possible that your occasional bouts of potent flatulence might be a direct result of your body's inability to effectively digest the disaccharide lactose? in place of "That cow's milk might be making you fart, yo!"

• Husband! Would you be so kind as to manually manipulate that electronic box that transmits and receives moving images? can replace "Dude! Get off the couch and change the channel on our remote-less geriatric television. House Hunters International is on!"

Interface. Pffft!

Now send me your favorite blog links!

Letters to Bella: 14 Months

Hi Chicken,

You are now 14 months old as of yesterday. Last month I decided I was going to switch to bullet points on your monthdays, but it just didn't feel right. Turns out that I feel driven to write these, well, love letters to you. I want to remember what our life is like right now and I want you to be able to picture it when you are older. It seems I want details. So here we go.

Your requisite monthly picture to go on the family blog.

See how your hair looks kind of funny? Well, that's because you have decided you would like to use hair product. Since you are an all-natural sort of baby, you chose to just use things lying around the house. Or, to be more specific, things lying around your high chair tray. In this particular picture you have some yogurt, avocado, strawberry, egg yolk, and beef tacos in there. And yes. This means we don't wash your hair everyday. All natural, remember?

You make me laugh all the time.
You do all manner of nutty things. Like you are obsessed with leaning back. You lean back on couches, people, cats, and sometimes nothing at all. Those nothing-at-all times can be a bit dramatic actually, because you sort of tumble to the floor. Thus, I try to help guide you into appropriate lean back situations.
You've also started to walk backwards, which cracks you up. You'll find that this skill isn't used frequently in life, but it should be. Maybe you can start a trend? Or at least get all the other toddlers doing it and then you can start to work on a dance performance using MJ's moves?

MJ means Micheal Jackson. Will you know about him growing up? Probably. You will likely feel meh about him the way I feel about Elvis. (You: Who's Elvis?) But on this music topic, I need to tell you that you LOVE dancing these days. You flap your arms and kick one leg and clap your hands and twist your body. It's great. We do "music appreciation" time that includes dancing most days. Sometimes when we are out in public you'll hear a song and you are moved to dance right then and there. Just last weekend you heard "Papa Don't Preach" for the first time in your life and it inspired you to boogie down right there in the women's locker room at the pool. I loved it.

You are such a good eater. You eat EVERYTHING. Including kind of spicy food that some adults won't eat. More festive foods you've had lately include vegetable curry, Chicken Tikka Masala, beef tacos, foods with raw onion and garlic in them, and foods with a strong vinegar flavor. If we put it in front of you, you'll eat it. Thank you for that! I would say your favorite food is blueberries these days. We have to cut you off well before you are ready to be done eating them. But you are still wearing to share. Here you are feeding your daddy blueberries. You are also really into making gigantic messes at each meal. Just last week I thought that I would take you to the park for a picnic, figuring you could make a huge mess there and I wouldn't have to clean it up. This was all very great in theory, but a disaster in execution. You kept running away and smearing food into the grass and then trying to eat that food off the ground and it was just exhausting. But the best/worst part of that picnic? When you sat in your little portion of food.You had total guacamole butt and I had to take your pants off.So then you were the hippie baby running around the park with no pants. Sorry about that. I'll bring back-up pants next time. Or maybe we'll wait on having more picnics with just the two of us until you are older.
Your sleep is about the same, although you've shifted to a 8 pm - 6 am schedule over the past couple weeks. You continue to nap very well during the day, but yesterday you woke up after napping only a half hour in the afternoon. Since I was sleepy, too, I brought you to our bed and you decided to snuggle into your mama and fall back asleep. So we took a nap together for the first time in a long time and it was just perfect. I love getting to snuggling with you since most of the time you are go, go, go!
You are getting to be so pretty. Your hair is wispy and really beginning to curl and your eyelashes are so long against your blue/green/hazel multi-colored eyes. Sometimes your daddy and I just gaze at you. We will try not to talk too much about being pretty and will avoid putting too much emphasis on your appearance, but we still want you to know...you are a stunning little thing.
You are picking up new words all the time and have even strung a couple words together on occasion ("More milk" and "Bye Bye, Mama"). Half of the words are only understood by us, of course. Things like "dah" for duck and "chu" for shoes and "bra beh" for brown bear. You've started doing more signs, too, which is interesting since they are for words you already say - examples would be book and duck. I think your language explosion has led you to be MUCH more interested in your books these days. You are bringing books to us to read about 20-30 times a day this past week. It's crazy!

You ability to follow simple commands has really increased, too. I can ask you to get a bib before meals and you go to your little cabinet, pick out a bib and then bring it to you high chair and wait for me to get you all set up. That's one of my favorite tricks right now. You also get things that are under the table, saving me from having to get on the floor and crawl under there myself. Very helpful, my dear.

I guess if I were to boil down this time in our lives to one sentence, it's the following: you slow me down and I thank you for that. You embody living in the moment. Just yesterday we were walking along the path near the river and I was wanting to hurry up and get home. It was hot, I was thirsty and it was almost time for your nap. Plus, we had only moved about 20 feet in the past 20 minutes. But I looked down at you and suddenly I had one of those moments where you feel removed from yourself. There you were, crouched down in a summer dress poking one chubby finger into the dirt with the sun is glinting off your curls. I could hear the wind through the trees and the birds chirping. I could hear the movement of water in the river. I could feel myself breathing. I was suddenly really aware of the moment and how lucky I am to be living this life.

But it was still hot and time for your nap so I scooped you up, gave you a kiss and brought you home. But the magic of that moment lingered in me for some time afterwards.


I love you, my
baby
toddler girl,
Mama

Neither Here nor There

• I took a series of pictures of Bella on her tip-toes recently, but when I looked at them I realized they weren't going to be as cute as I hoped. The problem? Well, the fact that it looks like I have a lint collection in that bottom drawer when really I have a couple lint rollers in there. A lint collection is almost on par with a collection of fingernail clippings or something creepy like that. I just get overzealous with my labeler sometimes (I heart you P-Touch) and end up not thinking through my word choices. Would you like to see more examples? Course you would. And my personal favorite...

• We were at the park last week and an adorable little 3-year-old boy was talking to us. At one point, he looked up at Husband and asked, "Who cut out the middle?" For a second we were confused until he gestured to his own little head of hair. Poor Husband was left trying to explain male-pattern baldness to a toddler.

• Husband, Bella and I headed to the liquor store on foot recently. We had opted against the stroller in favor of carrying Bella in the Ergo since there isn't much room inside the store, but this meant we didn't have anything to carry the alcohol back home in. I made Husband put on his backpack (against his will, I might add) so that we could put the wine and a 6-pack of beer in there. Between the dorky look of the empty backpack and his stink-face about having to wear it, I was giggling the entire walk there. Then, once we were at the store, he was stopped and had to check his backpack, which set off more giggling in me. After we made our purchases, Husband looked down at the 12 bottles of Summer Shandy he had bought in place of a 6-pack and realized it wouldn't even fit in his backpack. So he had to carry it home in his hands while wearing the empty backpack. It was awesome.

• Bella has coined her own special word for her toots. The word? Dada. Each time she lets out a toot, she calls out, "Dada!" Interestingly, this is also what she calls Husband. I'm sure there is no connection.

• On Saturday morning I was taking Bella for a walk when the sun glinted off a few coins on the sidewalk. Lo and behold someone had dropped a penny, a nickel, and a quarter. Oh lucky day! I bent over to pick up the quarter, only to find it was glued down to the sidewalk. I quickly straightened up and looked around, trying to look all casual. The last time this type of thing happened it involved frat guys and fishing line and it was very humiliating so I was fearing a repeat of that incident. Luckily, there appeared to be no one hiding in the bushes laughing at me. Those pesky kids! Why, I oughtta...

• 99% of the time I want to end my posts with the following:

Love,
The Mothership

I know it's not right, but it's what my heart is telling me to do. And now you know the truth.

Love,
The Mothership

The Time I Got a $70 Pedicure

Remember back in May when I told you that Husband gave me the gift of a night away in a hotel + spa services of my choice for my Mother's Day gift? Well I finally cashed in on that last night, and hoo-boy! was it nice. It was such a perfect gift for me: alone time in a nice, quiet place where I could catch up on rest, eat without cooking or feeding a wee one (or cleaning up afterwards!), read blogs and books, and take bubble baths. I know that some people don't really require alone time in their lives, but I crave it. This is not to say that I was in total solitude. I probably communicated with Husband in some way (via texts and a phone call) about 10 times in a 17 hour period. But it was on my terms. I was able to send a quick, "TTYL!" and do my own thing whenever I wanted. It was a co-dependent-person-who-seeks-alone-time's dream. Here is a summary of my little adventure.

I had already had a really good morning and had managed to squeeze in both a run with Bella in the jogging stroller and then a yoga class. I can relax better if I exercise first. Around 2pm, I got ready to go. My plan was to walk there since the hotel was just over the bridge in downtown Minneapolis. I had to bring an obscene amount for one night away because of the boobs (i.e. I needed my pump). So here I'm wearing a backpack like a total dork, along with my camera and pump bag. I look awesome, obviously.I really did wear the Chaco sandals. FOR REAL. Believe me! You won't believe me. I've cried Chaco-wolf one too many times.

I stayed at the Grand Hotel, which is about 1.5 miles from our house. Isn't that ridiculous, but kind of fabulous to stay in a hotel so close to home and yet so far?

This hotel is located right next to this sky scraper, which I could always see from my dorm window freshman year. Husband gave me a budget of $200 to spend on my night and I found a room here for just $120, which seemed really cheap by nice-hotel-in-downtown-Minneapolis standards. I pretty much picked this hotel because they have a sushi restaurant inside of it where I could get my dinner. It's all about the raw fish for me. That and the fact that my room had a soaking tub complete with a TV. That sounded kind of fancy.

Hotel Lobby

My room

This is the American version of DON'T DRINK THE WATER! (This $9 bottle of water is foreshadowing of what is to come...or perhaps the title of this blog post negates the need for any foreshadowing, eh?)

I had a pedicure scheduled at the spa so I changed out of my sweaty tourist get-up into a summery dress and flip-flops. Now I will force you to look at two awkward self-portraits.



The pedicure was nice, but nothing special. I kind of didn't want to talk to the pedicure lady due to my anti-social and rude nature, but luckily we only chatted for the first half of the pedicure. The second half allowed me to catch up on the very classy Star magazine. I also flipped through a Cosmo for the first time in 10 years or something and was HORRIFIED at both the writing and the sex tips. There was a sex tip in there that involved, well, using your PHLEGM basically and I...I don't know what is wrong with the world. Has that magazine always been that shocking? My mind was reeling from the phlegm thing just as the pedicure was finished and then I headed up to pay. I pretty much fell over from shock when she was that it was $70. SEVENTY DOLLARS. Like, only 30 dollars under one hundred dollars. Many! Many! Dollars! Plus I always tip 20% in these situations (is that right? too much?) so it came to $84. GAAAAAAH. I had expected something in the $35-40 range before tip because there was a sign that said, "Pedicures starting at $35". It was my bad for not checking first, but still. $70. Why are my toes not covered in Swarovski crystals, I ask you?

I got back up to my room, and tried to admire my million dollar toes, but was feeling all icky about the cost.

You're welcome for making the foot picture small.

I texted Husband about the price debacle and he told me to relax, that it was OK. I decided to forgo room service the next morning in favor of Starbucks to make up the difference and that helped me feel a bit better. But I was still left with a funky feeling for the next couple hours. It was similar to how I felt on my honeymoon, which took place at a luxury resort in Mexico. It's like I have such high expectations of relaxing and just immediately feeling like perfection, and when reality doesn't match it I get all angsty. So then I put pressure on myself to RELAX NOW and it's certainly not easy to RELAX NOW when your brain is being all bossy about it. I end up feeling irritated with myself for being a spaz and it's all very annoying. Does anyone else experience this on vacations? Maybe it's a special feeling reserved for the fussy pants set? Anyway, I told myself to get over myself and be cool, reeeeal cool (this was done West-Side-Story style, complete with finger snapping). I got myself some dinner, too, since low blood sugar is never a good thing for me.

When I returned from getting my take-out, the maid was in the room doing turn-down service. The only good part of turn-down service is the chocolates. Other than the chocolates, that service makes me nervous. Go away, maid! Stop touching my bed!

Once I ate dinner I decided to indulge in some cerebral reading while taking a bath.

The rest of the night was mine to read, watch crappy TV, and read blogs on the computer. I fell asleep just after 10 PM and slept for a glorious 8.5 hours in a row until I awoke 6:40 AM. The 6:40 AM was certainly not on purpose.

The rest of the morning was more reading and lounging and by 10:30 AM I was feeling rested and rejuvenated and invited Husband and Bella to come visit me so we could go to the pool together. Bella was really happy to see me, which was sweet. She also clung to me like a little crab for the rest of the morning. Remember when I was sort of wanting her to have separation anxiety? My wish has been granted and, um, it's not so fun. Good old life.

Bella is working on her Blue Steel look at the pool here. Pretty good, don't you think?

So that was my adventure. Husband asked if I would do it again and while it was so nice to get away, I don't know if I would want to spend $200 in that way again. It's hard for me to justify that amount of money for a hotel stay and a pedicure. But, then again, I am feeling so much more ready and willing to tackle the day-to-day duties right now. So who knows. Maybe I will want to do it again. One thing we are going to try in the future is to occasionally (once a month, maybe?) give each other really long "breaks" on the weekend where one parent is pretty much in charge and the other parent can do their thing. I am going to encourage Husband to try that out next weekend so he can get his chance to relax, too.

Thank you, Husband, for your great Mother's Day gift!!

On Being a Grown Up

Before Husband and I were married, or actually, before Husband and I were even engaged, we took out life insurance policies. Like big-ish policies that would allow us not to worry about the mortgage should one of us die. That type of intense fiscal responsibility is all Husband; I'm decent with money, but it's nothing compared with Husband's money skillz.

In some ways, getting a life insurance policy together was a bigger deal than getting engaged. Because to me, the life insurance policy was a pretty darn good indication that we would be Together 4Ever. It was almost an exciting thing to do and I was eager to tell close friends and family about it. Getting engaged was practically anti-climatic. Practically. Getting engaged was shiny and involved champagne, at least. (Kidding, Husband. Yay! Getting engaged was fun!)

So, anyway, we were all on top of the life insurance policy. Right at the same time - this was 2006 - we put "get wills" on our to-do list. That particular item sat on our to-do list, or really, it was copied from one to-do list to the next for FOUR YEARS. It's one of those things you know you should do, but you really, really don't want to do. Ugh.

Guess what we finally did this morning? We met with our lawyer and signed our Last Will and Testaments. What a relief. Yes, it was kind of awful to make the necessary decisions, but it was the right thing to do. And it's all done now. DONE!

And since going to a v. important meeting meant I got to dig out my trusty old J. Crew pencil skirt, I made Husband take a picture. I did go for the comfortable Chaco sandals this time, since it wasn't a date.
I wonder if my sister-in-law thinks I make Husband take a picture of me everyday, since every time she comes over to baby-sit I make Husband take a snap or two.

Why do you have that funny look on your face? What's that? It was weird of me to wear Chacos with a pencil skirt? What?

Oh, people. I DID IT AGAIN! I didn't really wear the Chacos. But you were actually worried this time since I went on and started talking about something else, right? Here is what I really wore.
Promise I won't do that joke any more.

Or at least anymore this week.

Anyway, I'm a true and proper grown up now with a will and everything. I encourage all you other parent-types or parent-types-to-be to get yours done ASAP, too, if you haven't already. You'll feel so much better for having done it. That I really can promise.

Cheap Date Night in Minneapolis

Last night, Husband and I had our first date night since early April. It was sorely needed as Husband and I have been getting on each other's nerves lately. Too many household tips being tossed about, which eventually leads to one of us yelling, "YOU BOTHER ME!", to which the other replies, "YOU BOTHER ME!" So, yes. Date night. Good.

Husband was ready to leave right when he got home from work (Husband's sister was watching Bella), but I begged him to let me actually shower and get ready rather than go in my post-run state. He grudgingly agreed. I yelled, "YOU BOTHER ME!" and he replied, "YOU BOTHER ME!" It was really sweet.

Here I am all ready. You know those fugly new Chaco sandals I got? They were a perfect choice for the evening!
ZOMG, I kid, I kid! (That was just for you, Lindsey.) And, for the record, I was purposely trying to look gross in that picture. No, I actually decided to wear my Spanish stripper shoes for the first time. I figured I'm young and fun and (maybe) soon-to-be-pregnant so now is my chance.

Unfortch, wearing Spanish stripper shoes made me feel like a Spanish stripper and that isn't such a nice thing for a girl like me. I have a body type that quickly looks hoochie mama and this pushed it over the edge. Plus I was so Amazonian compared to Husband. So, uh, fashion fail. But, on the other hand, not as big of a fashion fail as those Chacos would have been. Sadly, I was not trying to look gross in this picture. I simply am gross sometimes. But it's Husband's fault. He takes 20 years to take a picture and by that time my semi-natural pose has gone to pot and I, yet again, look like a tool. This is highly bothersome.

Now for the actual date night. We went to Red Stag in NE Minneapolis for Cheap Date Night and I highly recommend it. You get two entrees (you pick from two choices), a bottle of wine, and dessert for only $32. Plus, Red Stag features local and organic foods and you know how I love that.

Assorted bread and bean-butter dip.

Salad (this cost extra at $3 per salad...I don't think we would get that again.)

Wine.

Pot Roast - Yum. So good.

Zucchini Risotto - one of the best dishes I've ever had in my life. Seriously.

Almond cake of some sort. This was not so good, but - hey - it's dessert so I ate the whole thing.

I was delighted by having a choice of still or sparkling water. You turn your coaster to whichever side you prefer. Sparkling for me, still for (boring) Husband.
So we had a lovely meal and reconnected and were never once compelled to yell, "YOU BOTHER ME!", so I think it was a raging success. Besides, how could you not feel all dreamy and romantic sitting across from a man who looks like this...
Heh. OK, perhaps he actually looks more like this:

After dinner we decided to go to the park and play with my camera. After a quick stop at home to change my shoes (I opted for my ugliest and oldest and most beloved pink, sparkly flip flops), we headed over to Boom Island Park.

People, we had so. much. fun. When was the last time you goofed around at a park?

Check out my vertical.

Husband shimmied up there and I was all, "Husband! Be careful! How will you get down?"

Had I climbed up there I was have gotten stuck at the top and the fire department would have had to get involved. Husband, being part ape, simply shimmied down.

Swings. Not so comfortable for the birthing-hipped set.
Does that make it sound like Husband has birthing hips? Cause he doesn't. He has the hips of a young, sleek colt. Or, um, maybe just man hips. And by man hips I mean not curvy. Maybe I meant to say no hips. He is hipless. GAH. Will stop typing now.

Now before you look at this next picture I want you to begin to quietly hum the theme song from Children of the Corn. (Don't worry, your office mates will like it.) Now are you ready?

Eek! Not photoshopped at all, which is the creepy part.

I think we got ourselves a new Facebook profile picture here.

Anyway, yay for date night. Husband and I had such a great time and will probably enjoy a full 24 hours - maybe even 36 - before we commence the "YOU BOTHER ME!" yelling once more.

I am really fighting the urge to put a THE END at the end of this long photo essay. I cannot fight it anymore. So...

THE END.