The Unadventures of Tracie

Doing Everything Wrong

2011-09-29T00:34:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have days where you feel like you’re doing everything wrong? That despite your best intentions, you’re just a massive screw-up? I’ve been feeling that way lately. Feeling like I pretty much despise myself. Feeling like I do everything wrong, say everything wrong, that I’m just wrong, wrong, WRONG in every way, shape, and form.

I like to say that I don’t care what people think of me. But it’s a lie. A complete and utter lie. I want to be liked, to be loved, to be understood. The thought of someone thinking poorly of me destroys me. So I have this overwhelming urge to be perfect. Be such a great and wonderful person that no one ever thinks badly of me. That they’re never angry with me, never disappointed, never hurt, never frustrated. Guess how that’s been working out?

I know I shouldn’t be upset that I’m flawed. We all are. But I am upset. I hate that I’m selfish sometimes, that I can be lazy, unreliable, incompetent, jealous, or mean. I hate that despite my best intentions I may inadvertently hurt or annoy someone else. That I may put my foot in my mouth, let someone down, or make a huge mistake. I hate that I care so damn much. That I can’t live up to the person I want to be.

I’m so worried all the time that everyone I love in my life will leave me. That they’ll get frustrated or annoyed with my imperfections. That they’ll whisper to other people about what a screw-up I am. That they’ll just decide I am not worth it. It’s happened before; it might happen again.

I grew up insecure and needy. I thought I’d moved past that. That I liked myself for who I was. But I’ve realized it’s not completely true. I spend a better part of every day worrying about every little thing I do and say. Did that come out wrong? Is so-and-so mad at me? What did I do wrong? Are they acting distant? Do they think I’m a jerk, a liar, a fake? Did I sound judge-y or stupid? Do they think I’m rude or a bad person?

I second guess every action, every word, every thought. How could I have done that better? Why am I so stupid? Why am I such a failure? Why didn’t I do that better? Why can’t I do what I should be doing? Should, should, should. My life is full of WHYS and SHOULDS. Full of WRONG. Full of FAILURE.

And I hate myself for it.

Here’s the paradox: I accept imperfections in others. I forgive pretty easily and readily. Because no one’s perfect, right? But I cannot accept my own imperfections. I feel like I have to prove myself to everyone I meet.

When I was 19 or so I wrote “Tracie’s Theme.”¹ It goes like this:

Too much pressure caving in

Too much stress on my mind

I must confess I’m a mess inside

Why do I feel/ the need to prove?

I feel like I’m constantly proving myself.

Chorus:

How long till I fall?

How long till I break?

How long till I break/And make the biggest mistake of all?

My greatest foe/is me I know.

I can’t seem to be who you want me to be.

I will never be/Good enough for you

Still I keep on trying every single day

(Chorus)

Bridge:

I’ll keep, keep on trying

I’ll keep, keep on fighting

I’ll keep, keep on trying

I’ll keep, keep on fighting

Until I’m good enough for you

(Chorus)

Look at me, using poetry (songs are a type of poetry) again to explain my feelings. I'm like sensitive or something.

Anyway, I really struggle with this. Feeling like I'm good enough. Feeling like I deserve friendship, love, and other good things despite the fact that I'm completely imperfect. Feeling inadequate as a friend, mother, editor, wife, doula, etc. I doubt I'm the only person who feels this way. My question is how do you overcome this? How do you stop feeling like you have to prove yourself to others? How do you stop second guessing yourself? Stop stressing that everyone is analyzing every move you make and giving you a score of zero? How can I just let things...be?

^{1 My friends who know about song writing, music, music theory, and all that, please don't judge my song too harshly. I know it's not perfect and that I probably don't use meter, musical terms, etc. accurately. This was also the second song I ever wrote. The first one being laughably bad. :)}

Understanding Morgan Danger

2011-06-03T17:43:00.003-06:00

I'm so relieved I could almost cry. We've finally (though, in retrospect, we were lucky to find out as soon as we did) figured out why Morgan is the way he is. Morgan is a happy lovable child that we once worried was autistic. After undergoing a few comprehensive evaluations via Kids on the Move, we have learned that Morgan most likely has a Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), specifically he has a Sensory Modulation Disorder (SMD) that exhibits as sensory seeking. I think at this point that's it unlikely he has autism. It's still possible that he could have ADHD because the two disorders have similar symptoms (but different causes). It's also possible he has both since they do sometimes overlap. But for right now (it's too soon to tell precisely since he is very young) I feel fairly certain that Morgan is a Sensory Seeker.

Morgan is also pretty behind in his receptive (understanding) and expressive (talking) communication. Though Morgan is almost 24 months, his receptive communication is closer to a 13-month-old and his expressive an 18-month-old. (He still has the physical and problem-solving capability of a 2-year-old though!) This makes things frustrating for all three of us. But things are improving. He has a speech therapist that is now coming once a month to our home. She helps teach Austin and I strategies to improve Morgan's communication. Right now we're working on doing sign language with most of what we say. We are to say it and sign it at the same time twice. And then help Morgan to do it if he doesn't do it. It's making a difference. Morgan has learned a few new words and signs (cracker, all done, please, and more.)

Since learning about the Sensory Seeking thing and his sensory needs, I have completely changed how I view and approach my son. They call it "reframing" in the books I have been reading. As long as Morgan's "wild" behaviors are blamed on his "personality" or my parenting style, people may see the way he acts as something he or I can control. If his behaviors are "reframed" as symptoms of an underlying neurophysiological disorder, people are likely to view him differently. With reframing, Morgan will cease to be seen as a "hyperactive" "naughty" toddler in need of "more discipline" or "firm parenting" or his behaviors something he'll "grow out of" or "just a phase."

I can't tell you how relieving it is to hear that it's not all in your head. Your child really is different! And there's a reason for it! And there's things you can do to help! And your child isn't "naughty"! And you're really not a bad parent!

Sensory seeking children aren't usually discovered until the child starts to attend school. In these situations it's apparent that the child's "quirks" make them quite different from the normally developing child. I'm really, REALLY glad that we've discovered this when Morgan is so young. Because his brain is literally still developing, we can help impact how his brain develops

I have bought a few books to help me understand what we're dealing with here. Here is a little of what I've learned: (Information paraphrased or quoted from Sensational Kids)

Sensory processing refers to the way the nervous system receives sensory messages and turns them into responses. Everyone manages sensory messages daily; we respond and act upon the messages sent to us via our 5 senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

There are also 2 additional senses: proprioceptive and vestibular. We use these two senses to perceive speed, movement (are we moving or standing still? are objects moving or motionless in relation to our body? what direction are we going?), pressure (how are our muscles moving? how much force is being put on us or how much force are we exerting?), and the position of our bodies in space (are we upright or not? how do your body parts relate to one another?). Proprioception helps integrate touch and movement sensations. (It's what helps you judge the weight of a something, hold a pencil in order to write, climb stairs, etc.)

People who develop typically are able to receive messages from their senses and turn these messages into the appropriate behavioral (adaptive behavior) and physiological responses. (If you see a ball heading toward you and you don't know how to catch, you use your vision, your depth perception, perception of speed and direction, and move your body away from the ball. A person with certain types of SPD would not be able to do that without thinking about it and would likely get struck by the ball.)

People with SPD, however, are unable to organize these messages into appropriate responses, which may interfere with daily routines, activities, and behaviors. There are three different subsets of SPD: Sensory Modulation Disorder (SMD), Sensory-Based Motor Disorder (SBMD), and Sensory Discrimination Disorder (SDD).

SMD "is a problem with turning sensory messages into controlled behaviors that match the nature and intensity of the sensory information" (12). Modulation has to do with regulation of the sensory input.

From The Out-of-Sync Child: "Modulation instantly adjusts and balances the flow of sensory information into the CNS [central nervous system]. The sensory systems need to work in tandem to keep us in sync. Incoming sensations activate sensory receptors in a process called excitation. Excitation promotes connections between sensory input and behavioral input. Excitation is alerting. 'Pay attention!' the sensations insist" (57).

Excitation happens when our senses tell us we are in danger and to respond to this sensory message (sight, sound, touch, etc.) with "fight or flight." We respond to sensory messages such as enjoying the calming sensation of a rocking chair or stopping spinning in circles when we start feeling sick. It's why we freak out if we feel the sensation of what feels like a spider crawling on us. We respond to that sensation by moving and whacking, whether there is a spider there or not.

"The majority of sensations, however, are irrelevant. In a process called inhibition, our brain allows to filter out useless information and focus on what matters at the moment. Without inhibition, we would be extremely distractible, giving full attention to every sensation, useful or not" (57).

Right now as I am writing this, my fingers can feel the touch of the keys as I type, the pressure of the computer on my lap, my back pressing against the chair, the feel of the air from the ceiling fan, the sound of The Wiggles playing in the background, an airplane flying overhead outside, the pressure on my ankles as they touch crossing, my butt sinking into the chair. But except for when I'm deliberately looking for these sensations, I ignore them. They are not important sensations. They don't give me super important input I need to regulate my behavior.

"When exitation and inhibition are balanced, we can make smooth transitions to one state to another.. . Modulation determines how efficiently we self-regulate, in every aspect of our lives" (59).

So since Morgan is sensory seeking, he has a problem with modulation, in other words self-regulating his responses to the sensation stimuli and reacting to that input appropriately.

Self-regulation problems with sensory seeking:
* unusually high arousal and activity levels: always on the go, restless, fidgety, plays aimlessly, quick-tempered, excitable, impossible to sit still
* inattention: short attention span, highly distractible, disorganized, forgetful
* impulsivity: heedlessly energetic, impetuous, lack self-control

You might say this sounds like ADHD. And it IS similar.

Common behaviors in both SPD & ADHD:
* acts impulsively
* extraordinarily active
* seems disorganized
* impatient and demanding
* lacks self-control

The problems have different causes though and different treatments. It'll be more clear as Morgan ages if it's one or the other or both. (ADHD runs in Austin's family pretty strongly, as well as Autism.)

Everyone occasionally has sensory problems; for instance, I am extremely picky about the feel of socks on my feet. I will turn socks inside out so the hem doesn't bother me. Sometimes I'll refuse to wear certain socks if they don't "feel" right. The difference between these type of experiences and someone who has SPD is that sensory difficulties are chronic and disrupt everyday life (academic, social interactions, learning, relationships, movement, etc.) (The important distinction between "normal" behaviors and SPD is the frequently, intensity, and duration of the behavior.) "Children with SPD behave differently from typically developing children because their brains really are different" (13). (Another important thing is that SPD can range from mild to severe. I don't, at this point, think Morgan's is severe.)

Okay, so what is Sensory Seeking? A child who is sensory seeking has a "nearly insatiable craving for sensory experiences and actively seeks sensation, often in ways that are socially unacceptable" (28).

It's true that most children seek sensory input as part of normal development. The difference is a sensory seeker is EXTREME. Like my son.

Morgan exhibits these sensory seeking symptoms (i.e., all of them) daily and has consistently since birth:

is constantly on the move (scooting at 3 months, crawling at 5, etc.)
likes running, crashing, bashing, jumping, climbing, splashing
shows strong preference for excessive spinning, swinging, or rolling (And I do mean excessive. I don't think he would ever get tired of swinging.)
constantly touches objects or people (The touching objects thing everyone told me was just a "phase" that Morgan would grow out of. Morgan is almost 2. It's not happening. He still impulsively and compulsively goes around looking for things to touch, grab, or throw.)
takes excessive risks during play (climbing onto things, jumping off) aka "thrill seeker" (climbs onto kitchen table, rides his bike off the ottoman, dives off furniture)
prefers food with strong flavors/tastes
licks, sucks, or chews on nonfood items (Morgan constantly mouths objects [like the toilet plunger handle] still even though he should have "outgrown" that by now)
is nearly impossible to take to the movies, church, or other settings that don't allow him to move around (um...yes. Actually it's difficult to take him anywhere. He's just so into everything CONSTANTLY that it's exhausting for Austin and me to go places with him that don't have childproof boundaries)
is unable to sit still (except when watching highly engaging children's programs featuring bright colors, music, and dancing)
smells or tastes nonfood objects excessively when playing with them
gets angry or explosive when required to sit still or stop what he's doing
dumps out bins of toys or rummages through them purposelessly (I know kids do this, but the way Morgan compulsively does it is a bit disturbing)
rubs against walls and furniture (Morgan likes to turn and face the wall and touch it and kiss it when I'm changing him on the changing table. Austin and I joke he looks like he's getting ready to get a pat-down)
bumps into people
seeks visually stimulating scenes and screens for lengthy times (a la Wiggles and Backyardigans)
is attracted to shiny, spinning objects and bright, flickering lights (loved the ceiling fan as a baby)
loves crowds and noisy places
touches and feels everything in sight, running hands over furniture and walls, and handling items that other children understand are "no-nos"
intensively and impulsively seeks to touch certain surfaces and textures
touches and pushes people (he does this without malice; it definitely seems impulsive)
enjoys being messy (loves yogurt for that reason)
frequently removes socks and shoes
has high tolerance for extreme temperatures
has high pain tolerance
assumes upside-down positions (when Morgan was a baby, he would do this weird thing where he would what kind of looked like the downward dog yoga pose and then raise one arm and wave. I have a picture of it here)
deliberately bumps and crashes into objects or people
deliberately bangs head on walls, runs into walls, hits self (Morgan will randomly just start hitting himself hard on the head)
falls down on purpose
enjoys the sound of his voice (yells, screams)

A lot of children are wild sometimes, and some children are also active. A child may have a few of these behaviors. (Morgan has them all.) Again, the difference is the frequency, intensity, and duration of the behaviors. And these behaviors are constant with Morgan. I've seen firsthand the difference. Morgan is just "more." I've been told that my son is "exhausting." Don't I know it! I live with him day in and out people! It's so relieving to find out that I'm not an ill-equipped mother and that it's not my fault that I have such difficulty.

Before finding this out I really did feel inferior and that there was something wrong with me because I was having SUCH a hard time as a mother. It's true that the PPD didn't help in the first 9 months, but things have just been getting increasingly difficult (even after the PPD went away). (I'm not saying that parenting isn't hard in general. I think parenting is hard no matter who your child is or what type of parent you are.) I felt like such a failure as a parent. Austin and I seriously considered not having any more children because Morgan is just SO much. Knowing that he is different (and different isn't bad to me!) and most importantly WHY has really helped us as a family.

Sensory seeking does not affect Morgan's mental capacity. His brain may work differently, but he is smart and capable of learning. (He is quite smart actually, just not in the speaking and communication department. He is great at problem solving and learning from observation.)

Since Morgan is just a toddler it hasn't really caused that many "problems" besides people telling me I need to provide "more firm discipline" which usually means corporal punishment, which I don't, as a principle, believe is appropriate, especially for a toddler who is behind on language and communication. (Furthermore, it doesn't and WON'T work with Morgan. This is not a behavioral problem that I can "discipline" him out of.) But if he doesn't learn to self-regulate, it could lead to him being labeled as "aggressive," "troublemaker," "dangerous," "mean," "invasive." Sure it's cute when an unfamiliar toddler runs up to you and sits in your lap and starts jabbering away. It's less cute when an older child does the same thing. Same with a toddler greeting someone by pushing them down. More socially acceptable for a toddler to do that than a first-grader.

I'm glad that we've found this out now so people won't shun or negatively label my child. I've read the stories of what happens if sensory seekers aren't given appropriate outlets for their sensory seeking. These children will think they are "bad," "stupid," and suffer from low self-esteem. They may also struggle with school and thus be put at risk for getting behind academically.

The key is for Morgan to learn self-regulation. With treatment, Morgan can learn how to meet his sensory needs so he can self-regulate.Treatment will help Morgan process his senses, so they work together appropriately. If he engages in activities that provide the intensity, duration, and quality of sensory experience his brain is craving, his adaptive behavior will improve. This will help ensure future success in social interactions and at school. Treatment will also ensure a healthy self-esteem and improve family relationships.

So what do we do to help Morgan learn to self-regulate? We provide him with appropriate sensory sensations so he can get his needs met! They call this a "sensory diet." We've just started working with an occupational therapist, and I've bought these books to help. One thing we've been doing is tossing Morgan in a blanket, putting pressure on his joints and muscles, using multiple sensory input for communication (signing, eye contact, singing, touching him), and providing plenty of outlets for rough-and-tumble play. We plan to get him appropriate things to chew on (they make something called "chewy stix"), provide plenty of physical activity, get him weighted blankets and vests, and get him other appropriate toys and activities. It does make a difference. Morgan is more calm on days that I provide him with a good "sensory diet."

So our "treatment" consists of providing Morgan with relationships that accept his level of needed activity and his desire for sensory input, with an environment that encourages safe and appropriate sensory activities, and tasks for him to do that provide him with sensory input. When he gets older, we'll want to be sure we put him in a school that provides plenty of variety of sensory activities (especially physical activity).

Austin and I are optimistic. This doesn't in one bit change how we feel about our son. It just makes me understand him better and have more patience with him. I am really glad we called Kids on the Move. We are seeing improvements in his communication and his behavior. Right now we're working on improving his vocabulary, helping him understand that he can't always have instant gratification, and working to get him to stop hurting himself when he's upset.

Oh, and another clarification, we aren't trying to "fix" our son. Morgan doesn't need to be fixed. We love him for who he is, an active, happy, energetic, curious, smart boy. We just want to make sure that he can learn and grow and have healthy, happy social relationships and be in charge of his sensory needs and not the other way around. :)

Doula Certification

2011-03-09T22:50:00.001-07:00

Those of you who are my Facebook friends may have seen that I'm beginning the doula certification process. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

Becoming a doula is something I knew I wanted to do when I found out what they were, and I experienced what having one during labor was like. Basically doulas are awesome. So extremely awesome. I believe almost every woman would benefit from a doula, no matter the circumstances.

Research supports me in this declaration as well. Many studies have shown doulas to be beneficial. There was actually one published just a few months ago that found

After examining 21 trials involving over 15,000 women, the review authors found that women who received continuous support (i.e. a doula) during labor:
were more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth
were less likely to have intrapartum analgesia (i.e. an epidural)
were less likely to report dissatisfaction with their labors
had shorter labors
were more likely to give birth without cesarean, vacuum, or forceps
were less likely to have regional analgesia
were less likely to have babies with a low 5-minute Apgar score

Basically doulas increase good birth outcomes and provide great support for laboring women and their families. And it's so my calling in life.

And you're thinking great Tracie. But what's a doula?

A doula is a trained, skilled, labor support professional who helps guide mothers through their birth experience by providing emotional, physical, and informational support. The word “doula” comes from the ancient Greek term meaning “servant to mother.” A doula does not replace a doctor or midwife, and does not provide any clinical diagnosis or perform any medical procedures.

A doula:

Recognizes birth as a significant life experience.
Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a laboring woman.
Provides continuous support, practical comfort measures, and an objective viewpoint to aid in decision-making.
Complements the care provided by the woman's partner and birth attendants.
Protects and nurtures the memory of the birth experience.

You don't technically have to be certified to be a doula, but it's recommended. I decided to certify with DONA International (formerly Doulas of North America). In order to get certified I have to

Become a member of DONA (Check!)
Apply for the doula certification program (Check!)
Attend a doula workshop of at least 16 hours

This is where I am right now. Tomorrow I start my doula workshop. It's Thursday through Saturday from 9 to 5. So, yes, three full days of doula training. My curriculum is as follows:

Thursday

Registration and Introductions

Birth - A transformation

The Benefits of A Doula

The Prenatal Interview(s)

Emotional Preparation and Education

Intrapartum Support

Comfort Measures for Labors

Imagery

Friday

Review and Assessment

Second Stage Overview

AIDS and HIV Protection

Difficult Labor Management

Cesarean and VBAC Support

Newborn Care and Breastfeeding

Postpartum Nurturing

Modeling and Role Play

Affirmations and Birth Journaling

Saturday

Review and Assessment

Giving Support Through Loss

Developing Personal Style

Values Clarification

Standard of Practice

Code of Ethics

Establishing A Practice

Certification Options

Birth Journaling and Closing

I'm so excited for this I can't even tell you. I'm excited and nervous and all sorts of things. But my doula certification won't be complete after the workshop. After that I have to

4. Read 5 books on a reading list on birth, labor, doula support, breastfeeding support, and postpartum care. (There are other books there are recommended on the book list.) I've already finished most of this
5. Observe a childbirth education class of at least 12 hours.
6. Complete a breastfeeding education course.
7. Provide continuous doula service at a minimum of three births at least from the onset of active labor to birth.
8. Document each of the three births for I provide labor support by keeping a record sheet and typing a 500-700 word account of the birth.
9. Prepare a list of local resources to give to my doula clients.
10. Obtain evaluations of my doula services from at least three clients, three primary care providers, and three nurses or midwives.
11. Provide two character references.
12. Write a type written essay of 500-1000 words on the value and purpose of labor support.

Obviously this is going to take me awhile. So I'm glad I finally bit the bullet and decided to get started. Again, the excitement is paramount. I'm going to write about my certification process and why I decided I wanted to be a doula. So wish me luck and stay tuned!

Tracie's Favorite Christmas Movies!

2010-12-26T22:45:00.003-07:00

So I remembered once that Austin posted a list 3 years ago of his top ten Christmas movies and thought, you know I should do the same. So here are MY favorite Christmas movies in somewhat ascending order:

1. The Santa Clause - This is my favorite Christmas movie of all time. This movie is just quintessential Christmas to me. Santa, the holiday spirit, presents, kids, elves, snow, humor. It's got it all. I love how the elfs look like children. It could be that this movie came out when I was still young enough to consider myself a kid (1994) or it could be that it's just that good of a show.

I love this description for The Santa Clause I found on the Sun Sentinel's list of the Top 25 best Christmas movies: "It's every kid's dream: Dad could be Santa Claus. All he has to do is push the other Santa off his roof. That perfect mix of whimsy and mature laughs made this Tim Allen comedy an annual favorite. Who can forget Allen desperately trying to lose weight and shave his fast-growing beard?

The sequels you ask? We don't speak of them. Ever." (The Santa Clause came in at #4 on their list.)

Sums up my feelings. Especially about the sequels. ;)

2. Home Alone 1 & 2 - I list these two together because they're pretty much the same show. But they're both wonderful. They may be a bit silly and over-the-top and pretty unrealistic but man are they FUNNY. I don't know. I guess I'm a bit of a sadist but I still laugh my butt off every time Marv and Harry get pelted with paint cans. And the time Marv repeatedly gets hit by bricks in #2, I laugh so hard I CRY. Tear. Good times. (As a mention, Home Alone 3 is okay, but it's not a classic like the other two. And I haven't even bothered to see the fourth one. There's a fourth one you ask? Yeah.)

3. The Grinch - The first time I heard of this I was how are they going to make the classic story (and cartoon) into a full-length, live action movie? I saw it in the theater, and my opinion was meh. But then I started watching it annually around the holidays with my best friend growing up and I grew to love it...just like the Grinch grows to love Christmas and the Whos. Jim Carrey as the Grinch is just hilarious. I love his facial expressions. It's just a fun, quotable movie. I'm going to make Austin watch it one of these days so he can learn to love it too.

4. Elf - Remember back when Will Ferrell was still funny? Ah memories. This movie gets a bit cheesy at the end but I love the childlike tone of this movie. It's a funny, feel-good family movie. I just got in the mood to watch this again. :)

5. Muppet Christmas Carol - The Christmas Carol is not only one of my favorite Christmas stories, it's one of my favorite stories period. You add Muppets to the mix, and well, it's a good time for everyone. Kermit as Bob Cratchit? Michael Caine as Scrooge? Don't miss this one. It's funny, touching, and lovable. Also Muppets.

6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Yep, the original cartoon. It's just awesome. The narration by Boris Karloff (and the voice of the Grinch). The animation of the Grinch when he gets a "wonderful, awful" idea is just not to be missed. And Tony the Tiger singing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"! Childhood memories.

And that's the end of my favorite Christmas movies.

Honorable mentions:
Christmas Vacation - I remember thinking this was a funny movie but I haven't seen it since I was very young. I plan to remedy this.
Scrooged - I need to see this as an adult because I heart Bill Murray. When I was a kid, I just felt bad for him because everyone was mean to him. (I know. I missed the point. But things like that go over your head when you're 8.)
It's a Wonderful Life - I have only seen this once. I know gasp and shock. And not until I was like 14 or so. I remember thinking it was a good movie, but it doesn't scream "Chistmas!" to me. Like Austin says in his blog, "this is a good movie that takes place at Christmas." I need to see this one again.

I know what you're thinking. Where's A Christmas Story? Confession time: I don't really like the movie. Seriously. I think it's overrated. If it wasn't played all day long on Christmas every year, I don't think I'd ever even watch it. (Except it's Austin's favorite so I'll have to watch it occasionally.) I think it has amusing parts, but on the whole, I don't find it that funny or heartwarming or well-made or any of the other criteria I require for a good Christmas movie. Yes, it's iconic, but only because of the forced repetition of the movie every year and the whole "childhood memories" thing. If it was up to me, I'd choose different movies to show all day on Christmas. I know, I know BLASPHEMY. Oh well. It is what it is.

Boxes

2010-12-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

In high school I wrote the following poem:

Achieving Perfection

Always too much to do
Never enough time

Placed in a box by well-meaning family and friends--

trying to help, only making it worse--

Walls closing in

Suffocating

Trapped

This still encapsulates how I feel today. There are many themes in this short poem that apply to me and my life. But the part I want to focus on is "placed in a box by well-meaning family and friends."

I think there is something about human nature that wants everything to be neatly labeled. Things are black and white. You are a Blue. This is evil. This is good. I am right. You are wrong. In a blog comment on one of the blogs I read, a commenter said on the topic of discussion (which is irrelevant to this post): "We all love simple answers. We all want guarantees. But maybe there are none." And I agree. Life is not black and white but rather multitudes and meritudes of shades of gray. And within these shades of gray are darker tones and lighter tones. Despite wanting life and the answers in it to be easy, simple, referenced, and quotable, life is just not that simple.

People are not that simple. We may think we know a person, and we can, to a degree. But people are not easily defined. We cannot be indexed and catalogued and placed into little boxes, our names stenciled on the front.

We all make boxes for each other. The more time we spend with them and the more things we learn, we add it to the box. We take things out of the box when we find that we put things in there that don't belong. Over the years, these boxes should change. Just as people change. And though I find the process of boxing people up limiting and potentially damaging, it can, with provisions, be okay. Because I understand that some people feel the need to understand others by placing them into boxes. However, the problem comes when the boxes we make for others do not reflect reality, but reflect what we want the box to look like, i.e. who we feel that person to be. What we think and want that person to be. Another problem is what if when that person changes and grows, as we all do, what if we refuse to modify that box? And what if then we claim erroneously that someone has changed in ways that they have not changed or refuse to acknowledge the ways they have changed?

But I think the most dangerous way people use boxes is when they feel that they know what that box should look like, despite anything the person may think, feel, or say.

Recently in my life I have found people becoming frustrated with me because "I've changed." To that I say, so have you. We all have. We all do. Every day changing and growing and learning. What is this life but one of change? Did we not come here for the precise purpose of changing? I am not the same person I was 2 years ago. I am not the same person that married my sweetheart 4 years ago. I am not the same person I was in college, nor in high school. I am not the person I was in junior high and I have definitely changed since elementary school. But yet, I maintain that I am still me. I am still Tracie. I am still kind, passionate, loyal, playful, and headstrong. I am still stubborn, compassionate, tenacious, silly, smart, and true. I am still cautious, deliberate, lazy, logical, efficient, patient, and a procrastinator. I have always been these things. I will always be these things. (Though I hope to improve my so-called negative qualities.) To say that I am not the "same Tracie" is on one hand true because I have changed. And I expect I will continue to do so during my time on this mortal coil. But on the other hand, it is deeply hurtful. It is a slap in the face. It shows a deep misunderstanding of who I am. It pains me to realize that I cannot be accepted for who I am. And who I am really? I'm not even really sure some days. If I cannot even fully know myself, how can anyone? How can you?

So to those who have found that who I am today does not reflect the box of me you have on your shelf, please understand that box is not me. I am standing in front of you. This is me. Please throw away that box. I have tried to tell you the deep parts of my soul only to have you misunderstand because you cannot understand. When you point to your box on the shelf and say, "But Tracie, this isn't you!" Know that I am filled to the depths of my soul with sorrow, frustration, and exasperation. Because I continue to say "you don't understand." And I know that you cannot. Because you are not me. You cannot think the way I do. You cannot know me until you can understand me. You cannot understand me until you start to listen. You are hearing what I say, but you are not listening. I understand that there is a person that you wish me to be but you don't get to decide that. You see that I am making different decisions than you would. But you are not me. You don't get to decide what is the best path for me to walk. You don't get to decide what should make me happy. What makes me happy may not be the same things that make you happy. You must accept that. I refuse to be placed in a box. I don't place myself in a box because I know that I am ever changing, ever growing. I do not know where life may take me. But know that only I get to decide which road to take, how to take it, why to take it, and why it matters. Please throw that box away. It is stifling in there and painful beyond anything you can ever know.

P.S. Know that this works both way. Know that long ago I burned the boxes I placed on my shelf. I have decided that I don't need them; they do no good for me or for anyone in my life.

Calling in Sick

2010-11-16T15:03:00.001-07:00

Well, I would've caught up on blog entries this weekend if Morgan didn't decide it was a great time for him to get sick for the first time. Poor kid. He didn't understand why his tummy hurt and throwing up scared him. It was quite the adventure involving many towels.

We're a bit worried about him because it's day 3 and he still hasn't eaten more than a couple of bits of anything. Yesterday he wouldn't eat or drink. Today fortunately he has drank some juice and Pedialyte. Still won't eat anything though. I've tried giving him lots of bland foods and stuff. Won't eat. I really hope he starts eating soon. Though I'm less worried as long as he keeps drinking.

So of course I caught the bug from Morgan. I really, really hate vomiting. Of course I don't know anyone who likes it. But I have like an aversion to it, which is bad because it's really hard for me to do it even when I really need to. So now I'm on my second sick day from work and feeling pretty much the worst I've felt since my gallbladder attacks last fall. I hope I get better very soon because I've got work to do and a son and a home and a husband to take care of.

So I'm off to go watch some TV (Pushing Daisies) and drink, hopefully, some juice.

Rambles

2010-11-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

Hi peeps! (otherwise known as the handful of friends and family that read this) I know, I know. I've already failed at my goal. But don't worry. I'm going to try to make up for it this weekend by posting lots of totally cool stuff that you'll just love for all sorts of reasons. As a warning, this post won't be that cool. I need to just write and let myself ramble on about stuff because that's how I roll yo.

I had a sleep relapse last night. Bad Tracie. But the good news is I went almost two weeks at going to bed at a more decent hour (which many of you would consider "late"). And the other good news is I regretted it so much because it became extra clear to me how sucky it is to be so tired. So no more! I WILL get better at this. Dude, there's nothing I can't do when I set my mind to it. Because, yeah, I'm that awesome.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a lot of things. About my life, my passions, my desires, my ambitions, my feelings. Just been doing a lot of the self-reflecting. It's good for what ails ya. I'll post more specifically on this later.

I want to write this down so I don't forget it. I read on some random site about breastfeeding this bumper sticker-like saying: Boobs are food, not lewd. Just love it. I'll post an eloquent post on my feelings on breastfeeding in public and how it's not an indecent act later. But I just loved that. I love things that rhyme.

Also, I miss writing. So much. I have so many thoughts in my head and things that matter to me. I also have so much I want to share. I feel like I'm suffocating keeping everything trapped inside. I need to write more.

There's so much I want to do right now that I feel like I can't. I love my job. I love being an editor, and I'm great at it. I'm so, so grateful for my job. I'm so lucky that I get to do something I love and that I get to do it from home. My job is so necessary to me and my life right now. I know I'll always be a "working mom." But I don't love working full-time. Especially since there's other stuff I want to do that I just don't have time for right now. I want to get certified as a childbirth educator and a doula. I want to teach childbirth education classes. I want to serve as a doula for women. I want to help women bring their babies into this world. So much I want to do this. I yearn for this. Have you ever wanted something so much before you almost feel like it consumes you? Being a writer or an editor is a passion of mine. But making a difference in women's lives? I've found my calling. I know that I will get to do all of this eventually but waiting for the time to be right is so difficult. Between my husband going to school full-time and working full-time and me working full-time and being a full-time mother, there just really isn't much left. I do know that now is a time of sacrifice and if I can only be patient and work hard for the next 2 years or so, I can finally start working on my dreams. And really that's not that long to wait. As long as I hold fast to my dreams, I know I can eventually make them come true. And that's all I have to say about that for now.

Getting my Zs

2010-11-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

I've written before about how I have a problem getting enough sleep. This was partially due to baby, PPD, and OCD/addictive habits. I'm happy to report that the last week I got about 7-8 hours of sleep every day. I'm still staying up later than I should, but I'm making a lot of progress. I'm hoping that I can continue to break the self-destructive habit/addiction cycle that I've been living in the last 2 years.

For those that didn't know, I couldn't make myself go to bed at a reasonably hour, even when I wanted. I would read, watch TV, or stay on the computer for hours and hours and hours. Sometimes even until dawn. Even when I wanted to go to bed, I couldn't make myself do it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't feel in control of my life. I'm very busy taking care of a toddler and working all day every day. My husband is at school or work all day and part of the night. So by the time I get time to myself I have to wait till Morgan and Austin are in bed. I think this was the cause of me staying up for hours. Me trying to feel like I had something in my life that I got to choose and control. But obviously, it was not good for me, my family, or my health. So I'm glad I'm feeling like I'm starting to gain control over my life again.

I really hope it's not a fluke, but I've been doing better lately. I think I'm starting to realize that whatever wants to keep me up can wait until the next day. I'm sure I'll still have relapses, but I'm hoping I can start having a healthier lifestyle. I'm feeling A LOT better. I have more energy and I'm happier. I can get more done. You never realize what a difference sleep makes until you don't get it (or when you start getting it).

Now I'm feeling like I can start tackling the other areas in my life that I need to work on. Here's hoping that I can continue to keep getting my much-needed Zs!

Tracie Writes Letters #1

2010-11-06T11:53:00.003-06:00

Dear jerks who smashed our pumpkins,

Halloween may be over but that still doesn't give you the right to destroy my pumpkins. I was still planning on carving it; a tradition I look forward to every year. Thanks to you, I'll have to wait until next year. At least you had some sense of decorum and didn't smash Morgan's baby pumpkin.

Upstairs neighbors, I suspect it was your kids because only your kids in this building lack common courtesy, something you have proven yourself devoid of. Thus the cigarette butts that keep landing on my balcony and you continue to lie that you "don't smoke." Yes, the cigarette butts just MAGICALLY appeared on the balcony and MYSTERIOUSLY you and your condo smell like smoke.

Wishing I had better neighbors,

Tracie

The Best Shows No One Watched

2010-11-05T21:49:00.001-06:00

Every single time I find a new show that I absolutely LOVE, I find out it was canceled way before it's time. (And yet, pure drivel like Two and a Half Men is still on the air.) This is my tribute to 5 shows that were canceled before their time.

Arrested Development. Also known as #1 reason I hate FOX. This show was brilliant and hilarious. It had a stellar ensemble cast, great writing, and well, it was just awesome in pretty much every way. One of the best comedies ever. If you haven't seen it, RUN--don't walk--to the nearest big box store and buy it. Seriously. Buy it today. You won't regret it. Let's all hope that the movie gets made.
Firefly. #2 reason I hate FOX. (Oh, and Heather, we saw this, and loved it, years ago. :) )This show was made by Joss Whedon people! Who totally rocks. (Buffy, Angel, Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse, they're all good. And I own, or will own, all of them.) So Firefly is the best sci-fi western nobody watched. Until it was on DVD. And it was so good that they made a movie (Serenity, which is also awesome). I love this show. The characters are pure gold. Mal, Wash, Zoe, Simon, River, Jayne, Book, Kaylee, Inara. This is the type of show you mourn when the end credits of the last episode rolls. They were just getting started! Every episode is great. Buy this. Watch it. Love it.
Pushing Daisies. I just started watching this a few weeks ago on Netflix. I had heard it talked about before, but I didn't know what it was about. I watched the first episode, and I was in love. I knew before the episode was over that I was going to love this show. It was like watching mini-feature films with each episode. I love the Jim Dale narration, I love the costumes, I love the whimsy, I love the dark comedy, I love the surrealism, and I love the cheesiness. I love it all. Awesome show. Watch it today and scorn the stupid producers who decided to cancel it.
Better Off Ted. One word: BRILLIANT. Started watching this recently as well. It's quick-paced and quick-witted. It has awesome writing. (Are you noticing a theme here? I like shows with good writing.) I love Veronica, played by Portia de Rossi. She's hilarious. Favorite character for sure. I also love seeing a good strong female lead, which she definitely is. I hate that producers think that people can't handle shows that move beyond the yawn boring cliches we've seen a hundred gazillion times. This show was original and sarcastic and just so different from everything I've ever seen on TV. I cry tears for this show. Canceling shows like this is why people are leaving network TV. All that's left (with a few exceptions) is vapid, crappy writing interpersed with vapid (albeit occasionally addictive) reality shows.
Dollhouse. I really liked this show. It was just getting better and made me think about what it means to be a person. Who are you really? Is it your memories, your past, your actions, your thoughts? I haven't watched season 2 yet, but I will as soon as Netflix makes it available on instant play.

So this is just a very short list with brief descriptions. I've got WOW to play people. But I wanted to keep my commitment of blogging every day for a month. So, tell me, is there a show that I've forgotten?

Weaning

2010-11-04T18:43:00.000-06:00

I have talked before about my experiences with breastfeeding. Things started getting better around 10 months, which made me happy. I looked forward to nursing Morgan for many more months. But alas, it was not to be. I'm now in a period of mourning.

Around 14 months or so, Morgan started losing interest during some of our remaining 2-3 daily nursing sessions. It was not the same as the nursing strikes that he had had at 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months in which Morgan fussed and refused to nurse consistently for a period of a few days before returning with gusto to nursing regularly, as is what normally happens with a nursing strike. It was different. He just didn't seem as interested. I realized that my milk was decreasing as I had stopped pumping and I had stopped talking my lactation supplements. I think he was getting frustrated with how little milk I had left, which just decreased my supply even more. I tried to continue nursing as I realized that I wasn't ready to quit nursing. I loved nursing for a few times a day. It was quick and easy, but I still had that bonding time with my baby. I started cutting back on nursing sessions gradually, not because I wanted to, but because I didn't want to force Morgan to nurse. I didn't want his (or my) memories to be tainted. Eventually the nursing stopped altogether. And Morgan seemed perfectly happy. There were no tears (on his part). (Many tears were shed by me.) By 15 or 15 1/2 months nursing was over.

I'm still really sad about it. Despite the obstacles, nursing filled me with a great sense of power. Feeding my baby (even if it wasn't exclusively) from my own body, my own breasts was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. But now my breasts are dry. They have gone soft. The nourishing milk they once contained is gone. Nursing was without a doubt one of the most challenging things I've done. I know I complained about it a lot. And there were times when I didn't want to do it. But now that it's gone, I know I wouldn't have done (many) things differently. Sure, I would have gotten more help and support and things like that. But I would not trade a single moment of it now. It was what it was. I'm looking forward to nursing my next child. I have hope that I won't have the same experience next time because I know what the heck I'm doing and I know what the problems are and most importantly, how, where, and when to get solutions. But even if the same thing happens again, I know I will nurse again. Because, for me, the trials and hardships were worth the effort. Every blocked milk duct, every bout of mastistis, every tear I shed at the frustration, the pain, the work....it was worth it for the memory of seeing my son "milk drunk," it was worth Morgan tenderly falling asleep in my arms, it was worth watching a frantic baby become a peaceful baby, it was worth the looks and the smiles Morgan would give me, it was worth the giggles that Morgan would produce when I would lift my shirt. In every way, it was worth it. I will remember with fondness my time with Morgan. Those are moments that no one can take away from me. I am so blessed to have had that time with my baby. And somehow he seems less of a baby to me now than a little boy. And I'm not ready for my baby to be a little boy. But that's another discussion.

So yes, I will mourn the end of the special relationship that Morgan and I shared together. It was a long, emotional, difficult, rewarding journey. But at the same time I will rejoice and count myself lucky that I got to experience that. I will remember only the good, and forget the bad. I will be proud of my accomplishments despite adversity. I will look forward to the time that I can, hopefully, have that experience again. And I will forever cherish the memories in my heart.

Why Reproduce?

2010-11-03T15:49:00.002-06:00

This is a reply-turned-post.

My coworker and friend Amanda R. asked on her blog "Why reproduce?" She wanted to know people's personal reasons for having kids. I replied and decided to post it on my blog. I ended up commenting more on general reasons than personal reasons for having kids, but here is my reply anyway:

Why Reproduce?
It's definitely not a decision to be made lightly. It's a HUGE commitment. And spending one-on-time with children, like [another commenter suggested], is a great help. Though really there is no comparison when it's your own offspring.

Why reproduce? Because my son is the greatest joy I have ever known. I don't say that lightly either as I haven't fallen in love with motherhood as my other friends did. I'm not the "traditional Mormon woman." I wanted to be a mom but it wasn't the all-out only burning passion or ambition of my life. (There are MANY things I want to do besides being a mother.) [Disclaimer: I don't think there is anything wrong with having "being a mom" as your personal ambition. Being a mom is a noble calling. Nor do I think that ALL moms have no other ambitions.] I also don't think that every woman should be a mom nor do I think that every woman should stay home. [Edited to add: I think the choice to have kids or not or to stay home or not is a personal one that every couple should make for themselves.]

So, enough rambling, why have kids? Because they're like having a little piece of God in your life. I have never understood my parents, both earthly and heavenly, as well as I do now. There is nothing more amazing or powerful than to create and bring forth life. The happiness that a child can bring compares to nothing that I have known thus far in my life.

For some people it gives them a sense of purpose. I've also heard others say having children "keeps them young." It also teaches one to be like Jesus as being a parent requires the most patience and selflessness than probably any other task.

That being said, being a parent is the hardest, most difficult, most rewarding, most challenging thing I have ever done. But hey, it's definitely WORTH IT.

Healthy Habits Challenge

2010-11-03T11:49:00.000-06:00

Pretend I posted this yesterday because it was supposed to be.

So my family is doing a 9-week "Healthy Habits" challenge. We're participating as teams and there's hopefully going to be some kind of prize at the end for the person and/or team who gets the most points. I'm pretty excited about it.

The healthy habits are

Exercising for 30 minutes
Having "self-control" (sweets, junk food, fried foods, etc.)
Drinking 64 oz. of water daily
Eating 5 daily servings of fruits and veggies
Eating 3 servings of grains (preferably whole grains)
Avoiding eating after 8 p.m.

You get points for each "habit" you complete every day. You get one freebie in each category a week. At the end of the 9 weeks, you get bonus points for each 1% of body weight you've lost.

What I like about this is it focuses on a positive goal instead of a negative goal. That is, instead of focusing on losing weight, it focuses on being healthy. Which means you could "win" and still be successful even if you don't lose much weight. The point of this is all of those are habits that will increase a person's health. It's a lot easier to check off "yes I exercise" or "yes I drank water" then to continually weigh yourself in and get frustrated when you don't see the scale moving. Of course I'm hoping this will help me lose weight over the course of the 9 weeks. But mostly I'd be happy to make all of those daily habits regardless of how much weight I lose. It'd be much better than the way I was doing before.

In the near future I'm going to write a post on health and weight and my lifelong struggle with my size. It's going to be good, so don't miss it.

How are you doing on incorporating healthy habits in your life? Are there things you could do better?

Blog Challenge

2010-11-01T22:45:00.001-06:00

I didn't blog at all in October? Dang. Oh well, that's all to be changing as I'm taking a challenge this month to blog every day. It will be quite a challenge since I rarely blog anymore. I actually have tons of stuff I want to write about but haven't been because

a. I'm not sure it's appropriate for this blog (i.e., I really want to write lots of stuff about birth, pregnancy, feminism, breastfeeding, religion, etc. In other words, the causes I'm really passionate about. Seriously, just talk to me for 5 minutes and see if one of these topics doesn't come up.)
b. I don't really have a lot of time
c. I'm lazy
d. I worry about what people will think about what I have to say. I don't worry about what they'll think of ME per se. I just worry that expressing my opinion on the things that matter to me will somehow offend them. And I hate people thinking that I think things about them that aren't true.

So what have I been up to? I've been working two full-time jobs: editor and mother. That's basically it. But in between that, in the month of October I:

Went to a family Halloween party that was awesome mostly due to my game-planning self. Though the food was also awesome. And we had a chili cook-off and I took dead last, which was disappointing but not surprising. For the record, Austin and I think mine was the best. :) Also, we dressed up as the Rubbles: Betty, Barney, and Bam Bam. Our costumes were awesome I think. Courtesy of Savers and Mom's sewing machine.
Went to the office for a Halloween potluck
Took Morgan up to the office for trick-or-treating
Held a dinner party over here for Halloween with Brett and Charlotte and Brittnee and Matt. We played more fun games. (I like games.)
That's about it I think, which is sad. We need to do more.

So get excited. You're about to get daily doses of the Tracie!

A Zoo Story

2010-09-28T20:22:00.002-06:00

Saturday our little family of three went to the zoo.

It was a disaster.

The purpose of going to the zoo was for a work gathering. In the 3 years I've worked at my job, we have never met outside of work. So I was excited to introduce my husband and son to my colleagues and coworkers.

Though we were free to visit the zoo on our own time, the department was going to meet up between 2 and 3 "at the pavilion." We had planned to get there around noon, explore the zoo for a few hours, meet up with people from work, and then go visit the Wests because it was Issac's birthday party. That is not what happened.

We instead left at around 1. According to good ol' MapQuest, it would take us about 51 minutes to get there. So I figured we would meet up with people from work first, explore the zoo for a few hours, and then head over to the Wests.

What I hadn't counted on is that MapQuest is a dirty, dirty liar. We drove around forever looking for our right turn on "Sunnyside Avenue." It was not to be found, anywhere. Stupid dirty lying MapQuest. We drove up and down the main road from the 215 exit all the way to I-80. No Sunnyside. We finally stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. Where we then found out we had to go 20 blocks down this one street and then make a turn at another place not mentioned in our directions. At 2:23 we finally pulled into the zoo. Yay. If we hurried, we could still see people.

To SAVE TIME I had printed out a map of the zoo from HOGLE ZOO'S WEBSITE. The map showed that the closest entrance to the "pavilion" was the south entrance. So instead of parking in the handicapped parking spot we found in the front of the park, we drove around to the south entrance. And then discovered that the south entrance is code for "really long hike to actually get to the zoo." So there we were, two out-of-shape, overweight adults, one with only one good leg, hustling as fast as we could while pushing a stroller with a cranky toddler.

So, finally, after a good workout, we made it to the actual park itself. Only to discover that the Hogle Zoo map was, of course, wrong. Yes, the map I had so carefully printed from the Internet, a place that can update information instantly and cost effectively, was outdated. Also, there was no bloody pavilion. We hustled this way and that, perspiring and watching the clock tick the minutes by as tensely as in a 24 episode. We asked several employees to find out that they knew absolutely nothing. We also found out there were at least TWO pavilions. Oh yay. One employee a bit more bright than the others figured that my company had meant the pavilion NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF THE PARK.

Let's just Austin and I, drenched in sweat, were ready to throttle somebody about then. The time was then 2:40. With Herculean effort, we pushed through the throngs of strollers and teenagers and meandering families and reached our final destination. (Have I mentioned how poorly designed Hogle Zoo is? Seriously, make it easier to get from one place to another.) Behold there it was, the elusive PAVILION, a mere hop, skip, and a jump away from where we could have parked had we not trusted Hogle Zoo to actually keep their website updated? I know, we expect too much.

So, we entered that pavilion at 2:51.....and 3 people I didn't know were chatting away. I grabbed a few pieces of taffy out of a bowl and sighed. I guess it wasn't a total loss. A peppermint taffy totally makes up for over 2 hours of driving, hiking, and sweating. (/Sarcasm.)

So now that we were hungry, tired, and grouchy, we decided to grab some food. My company had generously provided us with a $5 food voucher, which unfortunately didn't cover the cost of one meal. The food was $6.50 each, which with prices being as they are now really isn't too bad....if your food is edible. I had the crappiest chicken fingers and fries I've ever had. I mean we expected the food to be expensive and greasy, as is typical of these types of establishments. But we didn't expect to receive McDonald's rejects, retrieved from their dumpsters, dumped because the "food" was deemed too unacceptable to serve. Because McDonald's has standards donchaknow.

So after our "meal" we roamed around the zoo. Saw a few monkeys, elephants, and camels. That was about it. It was already almost 4. We had already seen most of the park anyway (because Hogle Zoo sucks) so we decided to leave. Plus Moby didn't seem too interested in the animals. He stared more at his own reflection and all of the people instead. You can only take so much "Moby, look at the monkey. Look! Look! Look at the monkey, Morgan!" Sigh.

Then we had to go hike back up to our car. Seriously. Hike. I was almost horizontal. It was now a zillion degrees. Then, we cranked the AC and made the uneventual trip back home.

Worst.outing.ever. Let's just say we won't be going to the zoo again for quite some time. Oh well, at least the tickets were free.

(The day wasn't a complete loss. It was saved by going over to the Wests and having fun with friends...and cake.)

Down the Rabbit Hole

2010-09-17T23:38:00.002-06:00

(Also known as the longest post you'll ever read in your life. Ye have been warned. Thanks to Amanda who finally pushed me off my butt to write about this.)

I have always wanted to be a mom, maybe not necessarily the "staying-at-home" part that some feel is a woman's calling, and some feel that's where they want and should be, but the part where I got to experience the blessing of creating and raising a little person who looked like me. Growing up, I loved kids. They were cute and fun and precious. I loved their innocence and their tenderness. Their curiosity and their trust. Children have always occupied a special place in my heart. I knew that I was destined to spend my life working with children. And so I looked forward to the day, which I knew would someday come, when I would have children of my own. I knew I would love being a mom because how could I not? Everyone around me loved being a mom. They told stories about the blessing and benefits of being a mom. They occasionally would mention how hard it was but always reaffirmed how much they loved being a mom. I always thought I would be no different. A year after getting married, I nannied for Tyler and Cheryl during my last summer of college. Taking care of their three precious little boys, I felt I was ready to be a parent. A year later, I looked with nervousness, excitement, and disbelief at my positive pregnancy test.

I had a pretty good pregnancy. I wasn't too sick, I didn't throw up that frequently, I was able to work in comfort from home most of the time, and I didn't gain that much weight until the last two months. My pregnancy, compared to many others, was easy. I took childbirth preparation classes, and I read books. I was excited and prepared to give birth. I was looking forward to, not dreading, labor. Though my labor was longer and harder than I anticipated, I worked through it and birthed my baby. But as I mentioned in My Battle with Breastfeeding, I hadn't prepared for breastfeeding. My baby was taken away from me and everything that I had hoped being a mom was going to be like was gone. At first I thought it was the normal "baby blues" that most women go through. But it was more than that. It took me several months to realize that I was going through postpartum depression (PPD). And it kicked the crap out of me.

Some haven't been through PPD or know what it's like. Some can't understand the debilitating and crushing weight and destructive force PPD can be. Some say to "get over it." Some sympathize but don't understand. Part of the reason for not understanding is that people don't talk about it. People know that it happens. But it's not really talked about that openly. It's partially because when you go through, at least it was this way for me, it's hard to admit it's happening to you. I was ashamed of people thinking poorly of me. I was scared to death that maybe it wasn't PPD and I was just a really horrid mother and human being. Or that maybe all other women with children were made to be mothers but me. Or that I was a horribly selfish woman who didn't deserve her beautiful child. So I didn't talk about it much. And when I did talk about it, I didn't talk about it openly; I mentioned it in passing to friends and family. They knew I was depressed. But they didn't know what was going on in my head. So for those of you wondering what PPD is like, or rather what it was like for me, this is what went through my head during those rough 8-9 months: I didn't feel like "me" anymore. I felt like I had ceased to exist. I wanted to cease to exist. I wanted to run away, hide, get away. I had thoughts of jumping off the balcony or getting up in the middle in the night and leaving my family behind. I thought of (multiple) ways to kill myself. I was scared I might actually do it so I avoided anything that might tempt me to end my life. I thought the world, and Morgan, would be better off without me. I kept telling Austin to find someone else to be Morgan's mom. I kept telling myself I had made a huge mistake. I was never going to be good enough. I thought of giving Morgan up for adoption because he deserved a better mom. I hated Morgan. I loved Morgan. I hated Morgan. I hated myself. I hated myself. I thought something was seriously wrong with me. I thought that everyone was better than me. I felt massive guilt. I sobbed as sorrow and pain coursed through my body. I shook and trembled with the sobs and the pain. I cried. A lot. Mostly in the shower. I couldn't sleep. I had panic attacks, nightmares, and hallucinations. I dealt with paranoia and apathy. I hated and was envious of everyone around me who seemed to not be going through what I was. I wanted to be someone else. I wanted to die. I felt trapped, with no escape. If only I could just be anywhere but here. Just fade away.

Some people like to think my PPD was caused by the difficulty I had nursing. A few people in my life even suggested I stop nursing and switch completely to formula because it would make things easier and make me happier. I can now say that no, it didn't and it wouldn't. The more formula Morgan received, the more depressed I got (in the beginning). I was angry and I was mourning and grieving. I was in desperate need of support. I wanted so very badly to nurse my son. I was told that it was okay to not nurse, that it didn't make me a bad mom. I knew this then and I know this now. It did not change the feelings inside. And so I struggled and fought to nurse not only so Morgan could receive breast milk but because it was THAT important to me, my identity as a mother, to my self-esteem, and to my sense of accomplishment. Nobody seemed to understand what I was going through. My struggles made me feel like less of a woman. I felt like my body was failing me. I felt I was failing. IT'S NOT FAIR! I wanted to scream. (And did scream--many, many times.)

I am so grateful I did not stop nursing. I feel the amount of nursing I did get to do saved me. For one thing, studies have shown that mothers who wean early undergo physiological processes that mimic the death of a child, meaning early weaning mothers go through a hormonal process similar to mothers who have biologically lost a child. Breastfeeding has also been shown to help prevent PPD itself, or at least lessen its severity. So I very strongly believe had I stopped nursing altogether, I would've gotten worse. Maybe it would've pushed me over the edge that I was precariously hanging over. Nursing was the ONLY thing that helped me bond with Morgan.

By the way, once the PPD got better, I was able to accept the fact that nursing wasn't going to go the way I wanted it to and make do with what I could do instead of what I couldn't. I stopped feeling resentment every time I or someone else gave Morgan a bottle. I instead began cherishing my successes. As I said in my previous post, I don't feel any guilt or pain about giving Morgan bottles. I am still angry about many things, but I know I will do things differently in the future. Things will be different in the future. Because if there is one thing I know about myself it's this: if I set my mind to something, I WILL accomplish it. I nursed all the way to 12 months (and am still nursing) despite every.single.obstacle in the book. No, it wasn't exclusive and there was a lot of formula and bottles involved, but I am still a success. I am not a failure. And next time, it will be different. (Disclaimer: Only talking about myself here. No judgment applied to any other mothers who are not me and have different circumstances.)

While I was going through my depression, I attempted to write about it a few times. But they were depressing and I realized I wasn't ready to talk about it. I'm ready to talk about it now. Now that I'm finally through the dark times, I'm going to share what it felt like as I was going through it, what I thought, and how I overcame it. The things I wrote were true and painful. But I want to talk about them and let them go so I'm including excerpts from the entries I previously wrote.

Written in October 2009 (almost one year ago)

I'm currently terribly unhappy. I pretty much hate my life right now. My life is screwed up in pretty much every way.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of another gallbladder attack. An hour ago I wanted to die, but after throwing up I still want to die, just not as much. I had hoped I was better. It had been over a month since my last attack. Great considering the fact that I was having them weekly or more before. I feel like my life is out of control. I'm sleep deprived, I'm depressed, I never feel good, I'm frequently in pain, motherhood isn't what I'd thought it'd be, breastfeeding is a constant neverending struggle, my baby won't sleep, he won't eat properly, and he frequently screams at me.

Written in November

It is 3:40 in the morning. I can't make myself go to bed. I need to sleep. But I don't want to go to bed.

I pretty much hate myself right now. I hate my life. I can't honestly say I wish I were dead, but I can say that I wish I didn't exist.

Too many times lately I've thought of ending my life. The temptation is high. It would be so easy. The stress, the pain, it would all go away.

I don't want to be a mom. I don't want to live. I don't want to exist. I'm so messed up I can't even begin to start listing everything.

I'm a terrible mother. I want to kill my son sometimes. I want to run away.

I want to give up. Just give up everything. No more responsibilities. I want OUT. Out of this house. Out of this body. Out of this life.

I'm just not good enough. I want to die.

Written in December

I haven't been doing so great. It could probably be worse, but I'm just not in the best place.

As is probably obvious to all, I'm suffering from postpartum depression. It pretty much sucks. I just haven't been happy in a really really long time. I thought I'd love being a mom but as it turns out, I don't.

I don't know if it's just the sleep deprivation or the depression talking but I just don't find motherhood rewarding or enjoyable. Maybe it's the stress. Maybe it's the fact that I'm still attempting to work full-time. Maybe it's the fact that my husband is gone all the time. Maybe it's the fact that I'm inactive. Maybe it's the fact that I hate myself. Maybe it's the fact that I wish I were dead. Or at least that I were someone else.

I've tried censoring myself a bit because I don't want people to REALLY know how hard this is for me. I know many people with babies right now. I look at them and ask myself "What's wrong with me?" Maybe it's just my perception but they seem to be having an easier time than me. Everything is hard. I'm tired and worn out.

I want my old me back. I don't even know who I am anymore. My house is constantly a mess. I can't muster the energy or willpower to clean it. Really, I CAN'T. It's more than just a matter of being lazy. I can't. I feel overwhelmed by it all. I can't do this. I don't want to. I just want to leave everything behind. Call me selfish. Call me irresponsible. Call me lazy. You'd probably be right. I guess I was less suited to be a mother than I thought.

I'm not looking for pity. I guess I was just tired of keeping quiet. I felt trapped by keeping it inside.

I know I shouldn't be feeling this way. I know I should probably be saying how much I LOVE being a mom like everyone else. I'm not normal. Don't get me wrong, I love Morgan. I just don't want to be his mom.

This was really hard to write. I'm tired of lying. I'm tired of keeping things to myself. If I don't have an outlet for my feelings, I might just go crazy. I already feel halfway there.

In December, I (and Austin and my mom and my sister...) decided that something needed to be done. I made an appointment with my midwife who gave me a survey and went "yep, you're depressed. Here's a prescription for Zoloft." Though I must mention that she did highly recommend counseling as well. I mean, what else did I expect her to do for me? So I went home and didn't fill my prescription. I'm grateful for "modern medicine" and the great benefits it can have. But I also think that drugs are not the answer for everything, nor the solution to all of life's problems. There are too many people in the world who turn to drugs (legal or otherwise) to fix things. (For the record, I don't think that all people who take antidepressants or other drugs are "taking the easy way out" or any of that nonsense. For some people, antidepressants have made the world of difference and I'm glad that they exist to help those people.)

So anyway, I knew that for me, drugs were NOT the answer. (I'm not fond of dealing with potential side effects of things. And I know that antidepressants have a load of potential side effects and some people can become dependent on them. I feared becoming dependent on them more than many things at that time.) So instead, I searched for alternatives. Going to therapy would probably have been very beneficial to me. But when? where? how? I could barely make myself take a shower, there was no way I could drive somewhere to talk with someone I didn't know. Plus, the work of finding a counselor and paying money. Plus, I was kind of skeptical of it helping.

And then my sister HayLee told me to come visit her. She was seeing this person who did alternative healing. (Sorry if people think you're weird now Hay.) I made an appointment with this person and drove out to stay the weekend with Hay. At the appointment, Evelyn (the...well, I don't even know what to call her, naturopath? reflexologist?) "scanned me." She had me place my palm on a hand-shaped gold-plated pins sticking out of a plastic like board. It was connected to a computer. She then "scanned" my palm. Afterward an image appeared on the computer. It was basically an outline of the human body. There were colors surrounding the parts of the body. She then explained to me what the colors ("chakras") meant. (Basically the palm correlates to different parts of the body which is why you scan the palm.) The main things she mentioned that were "out of alignment" (that I remember the name of as this was 9 months ago) were my thyroid, my digestive system, and my hormones. I hadn't told her I was suffering from PPD or gallstones. She then suggested several homeopathic treatments ( that I could take to help. So I ordered them, desperate to try anything other than antidepressants or surgery to take out my gallbladder. I ordered a "Female Hormone Stimulant," adrenal something or the other, a digestive supplement, a cerebrum supplement, and I think something else. Sorry I don't really remember. It was a long time ago. I read up about homeopathic supplements online when I got home. And they sounded like a bunch of crap. (It's basically water, alcohol, and an extreme dilution of various herbs. They're placed in a bottle with a dropper bottle and you put a few drops in water everyday and drink it.) So, I was pretty skeptical.

While I was also there, I decided to have an "energy healing." This was to help put my chakras back in alignment. Yes, I know this sounds like a bunch of new age nonsense. But see, I do believe that our bodies radiate energy though. I think it's part of the soul. The part that was created before our bodies were created. I laid on a table similar to a massage table but without the hole for the head. And I laid on my back instead of my stomach. I closed my eyes. Evelyn then lightly touched a few parts of my body, like my ankles. I closed my eyes so I could relax so I really don't know what else she was doing. And I kid you not, I felt something besides the pressure points she was touching. (which really she barely touched. I could sense her moving around me but she only rarely touched me.) I felt warmth...and tingling. And a sense of lightness. Like floating. I also started to see colors. (And now everyone thinks Tracie has completely lost any and all credibility.) Do I realize this sounds crazy? Yes. But it's true. I stood up when she was done feeling better than I had in months.

A week later I got my "drops" and I started taking them. I started feeling better. And my gallbladder attacks stopped, just like Evelyn said they would. Everyone I know who has had gallbladder attacks has had their gallbladder out. Some were just fine, some still suffer from side effects of the surgery. I did not end up having surgery. And the gallbladder attacks are gone. Zero attacks since taking the drops.

Starting at 2 weeks postpartum, I had severe and frequent gallbladder attacks for several months. They lasted anywhere from an hour to 12 hours. They were horrific. The worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Drop to my knees, curl up in a ball, somebody shoot me pain. So much pain that stabbing me would probably feel like a relief. (This coming from someone who went through 32 hours of painful unmedicated labor.) This was much, much different than labor pain. Sure, labor was extremely difficult and extremely painful. But it was pain with a purpose. I definitely felt the pain (oh yes I did) but I could cope with it. I worked through it. Wave after wave. Ebbing and flowing. Breathing and relaxing. Pushing and pulling. I did not suffer. It was just something I experienced, something my body was made to experience. And though it was painful and extremely hard work and I got tired and cried and complained in my labor and I said, "I don't want to do this anymore" multiple times...It was still NO comparison. Gallbladder attacks were pure suffering. Nothing helped. Nothing worked. I was in so much pain I vomited over and over and over. They always happened at night and so I would be up all night. Vomiting and pacing and crying. Pleading with God to please make it stop. (Let's just say that this didn't help PPD.) I really, really did not want to have surgery, which I read what was usually done in my case of severe and frequent gallbladder attacks.

(Complications of surgery: "A minority of the population, from 5% to 40%, develop a condition called postcholecystectomy syndrome, or PCS.^[3] Symptoms can include gastrointestinal distress and persistent pain in the upper right abdomen. As many as 20% of patients develop chronic diarrhea.") Cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder) is one of the most common surgeries performed, with 2/3 of them women. About 500,000 people get them out every year in the U.S. Its commonality did not make me more eager to get it removed. Instead, it made me question why is it so necessary to have them removed? It's really hard for me to believe that every single person who has had their gallbladder removed it was necessary. Particularly since many people get it removed after just one attack where studies show that a large percentage of people who have one attack will never have one again. Anyway, I'll save my soapbox on this for another day. (One more disclaimer: Those who have chosen to have their gallbladders removed, please don't think I am judging you or whatever for your decisions. Obviously you have made a choice that worked for you and that you're hopefully happy with. I'm just sharing the results of my experiences and studies.)

So back to those drops....I took them faithfully every day. And I got better and better and better. I honestly don't know if it was a coincidence or placebo effect or what. All I know is I had severe PPD and gallbladder problems before taking them and I got better after taking them. Take from that what you will. I went from what I wrote above to this, written 3 weeks after doing the energy healing starting the drops:

Written in January (7 months after Morgan's birth)

I'm actually honestly doing much better. (Note: I didn't say I'm "over it." I don't know if I'll ever be over it and it'll be awhile until I'm healed.) I'm still EXTREMELY sleep-deprived and I know that isn't helping, but in a lot of ways I'm starting to feel more like "me" again. Basically, I'm not there yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, which I didn't think would happen.

It's been weird dealing with PPD. I haven't been mentioning it because I guess I felt a bit ashamed. And I also didn't want people to pity me. I wanted and needed support but I didn't want people to see me as a failure I guess. I also felt like no one could really understand anyway. I think people sometimes have a hard time understanding someone struggling with something that comes easy to them. For instance, will power. Since I've had the baby, I've had almost no will power to do the things I need to do. Of course, this directly relates to my depression. When you're depressed, you can't or won't do the things you need to do. And it's all a vicious cycle. You're too depressed to eat (or make yourself STOP eating) or sleep or clean your house or exercise or do anything really but then again NOT doing those things just makes you even MORE depressed.

I knew being a mom would mean a lot of sacrifices, but what I didn't realize is how HARD the sacrifices would be. Or how much I would resent it. Or the fact that I struggle with getting used to it. It makes me think sometimes that maybe I wasn't ready to be a mom after all. Because someone ready to be a mom would have no problem changing her entire life to be at the disposal of her baby. It's been hard for me. Though the depression is better and I no longer entertain thoughts of hurtling myself through the nearest window, I still haven't completely found myself. How can I be me and still be a mom? Do I have to completely let go of everything I was prebaby? Is there someway to find a compromise? How can you find peace and contentment in motherhood without losing yourself in the process? Or is that the answer? You can't be you anymore. You have to become "Mom" and say goodbye to the past. I sometimes feel like I'm in mourning. Grieving for the way things used to be: my relationship with my husband, my ability to keep a clean and organized house, my ability to sleep, eat, shower when I want to. I grieve for me. Me used to mean a BYU graduate who loves her job and is great at it. Me was someone who was occasionally lazy but could pull it all together and get things done when they needed to be. Me was someone who loved to read, cook, write, and laugh. I don't feel like there's enough time in the day anymore. I don't have time to get it all done. I feel like I'm being pulled in 18 thousand directions. And because of this, I don't know what to do, how to start. I stay in the middle, shut down, unable to accomplish anything. It's incredibly frustrating.

The above is obviously not me healed. But it's a remarkable change, I think, from the month just previous to it. I only continued to improve. The last year has been the hardest year of my life without a doubt. In the last year and a half, the following has happened: I bought a house, gave birth after a long unmedicated labor, had my baby put in special care and later develop jaundice and lose weight, had trouble nursing, moved to a new city, developed PPD, had trouble healing physically, developed gallstones, had gallbladder attacks for several months, went back to work full-time, had my husband gone until late every night with school and work, dealt with heartbreaking pain resulting from a friendship (from which though sadness remains, I feel at peace and have hope for the future), watched my husband suffer in pain and then have major surgery, took care of my husband and baby and worked all at the same time for 2 months, had a cherished friend move, and dealt (and still dealing) with a crisis of faith.

It's been an interesting journey down this rabbit hole. I'm still in wonderland and I'm not sure if or when I'll ever get back. I do feel I have recovered fully now from my PPD. I still have depressive episodes but it's not like it was before. I wish I could've and would've talked about more of this openly. I'm sure it would've only helped me recover. And I probably would've discovered I'm not as alone as I thought. And maybe I would've opened someone's eyes a little bit about what it's like and how to help those going through it. But maybe I still can. I've overcome PPD but I have not won the other battles of my life. There's still a war going on within me. I really don't know where life will take me. I can only take days as they come: one at a time.

New Stuff

2010-08-16T10:23:00.001-06:00

I've been posting a lot of "serious stuff" lately so thought I'd post some lighter stuff before I delve back into deeper matters.

First of all, Austin and I bought new couches! I got a bonus from work and we decided to use the money to get new furniture. So hello new couch and loveseat. Love, love, love them. I'd post pics but unfortunately my camera is broken. Does anyone know where I can get a Canon camera fixed? I haven't been able to take any pictures since Morgan's birthday, which means I'm missing many potential photo opportunities.

See here and here for online stock pictures of the couches. They look better in person.

Anyway, the couches are awesome. We looked all over the place, sitting in just about every couch in Utah County. Finally we found a sofa set (sofa + loveseat) at a place called I.M. Home in Provo. The couches are chocolate brown (so dark they're almost black but not) and I think faux leather but parts of them feel real. They're soft and incredibly comfortable. And did I mention they recline? I'm so happy to finally have a conversation area in my home. Now we don't have to have people sit on the floor or all in a row on the couch. We also got a new area rug which I also love. My house is finally starting to come together. Just give me another year and I'll finally have it the way I want it. And then we can have a house warming party. Two years after moving in isn't too late, is it?

My Battle with Breastfeeding

2010-08-11T20:47:00.004-06:00

*I wanted to post this when Morgan turned one to mark the reach of my goal but I didn't finish it until now.

I have always wanted to breastfeed. I knew that when I had a child it would be something that I would do.

Having an unmedicated (aka "natural") childbirth was also something I knew I wanted, for so many reasons. (Post to come on this later.) And I succeeded. Unfortunately, I spent so much time preparing for birth that I forgot to learn about breastfeeding. Ideally you wouldn't need to learn about breastfeeding. You would know how because you've seen others do it. You would've heard other people talk about it. About the challenges and the solutions. And though I've known some women who breastfed, I realized I hadn't really seen how it was done or talked about it with them. I went into it completely naive, which is so against my usual nature of study, search, and prepare. I think I figured it would be easier than I thought. I also did not know about the system put into place all around us to make breastfeeding an uphill battle. Nor how to fight it. Until it was too late.

Immediately after Morgan was born, he was placed on my chest and I attempted to have him suckle. Putting a baby immediately to the breast helps the uterus to contract, minimizing blood loss and helping the placenta to be delivered. This went okay. But Morgan was taken away from me to get routine things done (those that I had approved of anyway, like weighing and bathing) while I was getting stitched up. I regret giving the okay for this. I didn't think he would be gone for so long. I much rather wish I had just held him the entire time I lay there and waited to do things later. Eventually I got him back and my doula helped me breastfeed for the first time. It hurt but it went well. And then after having been awake for more than 48 hours and in labor for 32, I was ready to get some sleep. A well-meaning nurse convinced me to put Morgan in the nursery to "let me rest." I so regret this decision. I was awoken not too long after by the same nurse telling me Morgan's blood sugar was low and that he needed oxygen. Of course his blood sugar was low. He had been barely with me. I hadn't eaten much while in labor because I hadn't felt like eating much of the day. (Not due to hospital restrictions as one, I spent most of my labor at home and two, those restrictions are completely baseless. That's right. You heard me. The reason for not eating and drinking in labor is absolutely ridiculous. Would you ever run a marathon without eating and drinking? Of course not. Anyway, that's a post for another day.) So, of course Morgan's blood sugar was low. My blood sugar was low. And he had been separated from his mother.

Not knowing what I know now, they hooked him up to an IV and an oxygen mask. (Without my permission I must add.) Have you heard of kangaroo care? Well, anyway, it's been proven that holding a baby skin-to-skin with the mother (and breastfeeding) raises blood sugar and oxygen levels. I didn't know this then. If I did, I would have demanded to have my baby brought to me. Instead of having him hooked to wires and sensors. My baby was separated from me for the first two days of his life! It's no wonder I developed postpartum depression.

Anyway, there I was. A new mother...and my baby in a different part of the hospital. THEY told me when he was hungry. It was difficult to get there. I was so tired and it was so far away. And I couldn't walk very far the first few days because I was tired and sore and anemic. I missed a feeding or two because I just couldn't make it. And I'm angry about this. So very, very angry. It didn't have to be this way. Also, they made me give him formula because he "had to have a good feeding" to get his blood sugar up because "my milk wasn't in yet." Of course it wasn't! It takes 2-5 days normally. Do you know how big a baby's tummy is when they're born? The size of a thimble. Colostrum is more than enough to fill this up. And also, giving formula delays your milk coming in. You know what stimulates your breasts to make milk? Having the baby suckle. And suckle often. And this can't happen if you're filling the baby up with formula or separating the baby from the mom.

Part of me wants to blame myself for not knowing all this then. I knew enough not to give Morgan a bottle. (The formula was fed through a syringe and tube system, aka "finger feeding.") But I didn't know all of this. Not until later when I had already got a bad start, for which I blame the hospital. It's one reason why I'm never giving birth in a hospital again. (Unless I have complications or a high-risk pregnancy.) Yep, I said it. I'm just not. The only good thing, for me, about being in the hospital was getting regular meals. (Okay, having the nurses change the meconium diapers was nice too.) I HATED everything else. Nurses constantly coming in waking me up. My baby being taken away from me. Unsupportive nurses/doctors making callous, mocking comments. I had a midwife who supported my wishes so I didn't have to "fight the system" to have the birth I wanted. I didn't have to get an IV (No, you don't have to have an IV automatically just because you're having a baby. There are a few reasons why you'd need one. Again, more on this later.), was able to eat in labor (I ate an apple while I was laboring in the tub), and labored in the tub, but I would've liked to birth in a more upright position than I did (I was doing a sort-of-a squat in the bed but next time I'm full-on squatting). I mean, the actual labor and delivery itself wasn't too bad (again mostly because I had a supportive midwife who didn't do things out of routine). But I didn't like my postpartum time in the hospital. So birth center or home birth for me next time. (They just opened up a birth center, technically called a "birth suite" due to some legal reasons, literally down my street!)

Anyway, back to breastfeeding. It's clear Morgan and I didn't have a good start. And I didn't get good advice. I got lots and lots of (well-meaning) bad advice. And doctors that didn't listen to me. I now know that Morgan has a posterior tongue tie. It's not the traditional, more obviously seen tongue tie, but it's there. Morgan, and I, would have benefited from getting his frenum clipped. I had pain while nursing every time until Morgan was 10 months old. This was most likely caused by Morgan's posterior tongue tie. Getting his tongue clipped would've made it easier for him to draw the nipple into his mouth and suckle more efficiently. Meaning that I wouldn't have had to pump and fight to keep my supply up.

Another thing I won't be doing next time is using a pacifier for the first couple of weeks. I don't think it caused Morgan to get "nipple confusion" (really should be called "nipple preference"). But it did keep him from getting fed as often as he needed to. The use of a pacifier can keep an infant from feeding as frequently as they need to, particularly in those first few weeks because the need to suckle is so strong they will suck on a pacifier and be lulled into sleep and ignore their hunger needs. If I had known that those first few weeks would be marathon nursing sessions and that it eventually would get better, I would have powered through it instead of trying to delay his feedings. Another thing I did was cut his feedings short. Mostly due to pain. But also because I didn't want to hold him all the time. This was due to the PPD (which I'll go into more detail in another post). I had trouble bonding with Morgan and so I didn't want to hold him. I would put him down all the time or have other people hold him. Of course this wasn't helpful for establishing a milk supply. Just holding your baby skin-to-skin increases milk production (not to mention bonding).

I can’t tell you how much advice (from people around me, from online sources, from society in general) I got to “Don’t feel guilty. If breastfeeding is this hard, maybe you should give up. It seems that neither you nor he enjoys it. It seems too hard. Your depression is caused from trying to breastfeed. Just switch to formula and you’ll be happier. It’s okay to stop breastfeeding, it doesn’t make you a bad mom. Formula isn't poison you know.”

Some of these things are true and some just aren’t. As far as the guilt and the “bad mom” thing, I know this. Morgan got formula every day of his life until we switched to goat milk at 12 months. I don't feel any guilt whatsoever for the formula he did have (I did feel pain and anguish the first few months when the PPD and the nursing difficulties were the worst.). I don't feel like a failure or a bad mom. I am, however, angry that I did not get as much support as I would have liked to continue breastfeeding. It wasn't as if those around me (I'm including society in general in this) weren't supportive of breastfeeding. It just seemed to me that many were supportive only if things were going well. I absolutely feel that women need more support (and encouragement) to *continue* to breastfeed, even, nay especially, when there are struggles. Being given permission from other people and society that it’s okay to not breastfeed did not diminish my hurt and despair at my struggles. It was not what I needed or wanted. I needed and wanted solutions to my problems that didn't include stopping nursing or throwing formula my way. I didn’t want to nurse because I felt I had to. I wanted to, so very badly. If I hadn't wanted to breastfeed, I just wouldn't have. I wouldn't care what anyone else said or thought because honestly I'll do what I think is right and stick by my own decisions.

By support, I don’t mean pressure. And some women confuse the two. What’s the difference? Pressure is telling woman “You MUST breastfeed otherwise you’re a bad mother or something is wrong with you or you’re less of a woman or I’ll think less of you or you’re a failure.” Support is “If you want to continue to do this, I will support you even if it means a whole heckuva lot of work.” Support is “I will help you find ways to continue nursing.” Support is “I will watch the baby while you need to pump.” Support is “I will hold your hand as you cry and struggle.” Support is “Here are positive stories of women who struggled and who were eventually able to succeed.” Support is “Here are stories of women who struggled throughout their entire nursing relationship but didn’t regret it, loved their experience, and would absolutely do it again even though it was tough.” Support is “You are awesome, amazing, and I admire your courage and dedication.”

(I am not saying that the decision to formula feed shouldn’t also get support. I’m saying that there is too much emphasis on support to stop nursing (at least in my own experience) and not enough support in continuing.)

My overall goal was to reach at least 12 months. But I couldn't look at it that way. I needed to take it one month at a time, one day at a time, one feeding at a time. In the beginning I told myself "3 months. You can do this for 3 months." And then I reached 3 months. And then it was "You've made it this far. You can make it to 6 months." And then I made it to 6 months. The halfway point. At that point I didn't know if I could make it another six. It seemed like a very long time. But then I told myself 9 months. You can do another 3 months. And I did. 9 months came and went. And then breastfeeding finally, finally started getting easier around 10 1/2 months. I wasn't nursing full-time. But I nursed as much as I could, as often as I could. The day of Morgan's first birthday I was ecstatic. I had done it!

I think those women who have a great desire to nurse and who want and need help need to hear more than "it's okay to stop." I know I did. I think society would be better off if people stopped assuming what someone needs and just ask them. There are women who need to be told "it's okay to stop" but then there's others like me that didn't need or want that. I needed to hear "You can do it." I almost quit several times. Morgan would refuse to latch or my nipples would burn and bleed. I would say "I can't do this anymore!" But then, I would remind myself of my goal. I would seek support. I would talk to the lady I rented my pump from and she would cry with me. She would tell me what a wonderful job I was doing. She would give me suggestions. Sometimes the solutions didn't work, but just hearing someone make me feel good about what I was doing gave me the encouragement to keep going. Sometimes that's all you need to get through the rough times. Not "it's okay to stop" but "you can do it." I'm so grateful for the people in my life who did support me to continue, such as friends, family, lactation consultants, and my wonderfully supportive husband who never stopped encouraging me and being there for me.

I needed that support and encouragement. I needed to remind myself that I was doing something wonderful for me and my son. I needed it to get through the rough patches, which were frequent and continuous. Just when I would be SO ready to just stop, I would get the support I needed to continue. I would have that rare wonderful nursing moment. Just one moment, a moment where Morgan would look at me and smile. And I would feel overwhelmed by the amount of love that flooded through me. And it made it all worth it. That one moment would erase the hundreds of others of pain, boredom, anguish, despair, and tedium.

I nursed through mastistis, dermitis, blocked ducts, thrush, and sore and cracked nipples. I nursed through nursing strikes, bad latches, biting, and low milk supply. I pumped, used a supplemental nursing system (SNS), took herbal supplements, and saw lactation consultants. I did all this because I was determined to make my goal of 12 months. I was determined not to stop until I had done and tried absolutely everything possible. I would nurse as much as possible until I had no milk at all or until Morgan completely refused to latch. I don't think every woman should make the same decision I did. But I do want to say that it is possible to nurse despite struggles and obstacles.

There are many options besides stopping altogether. It doesn’t have to be all nursing or all formula. It is possible to do both. Women need to know all of their options. They need to know techniques, tips, and correct information that will increase the likelihood of their success and will help them meet their individual wants, needs, and goals. They need support and encouragement. Let's face it. For many people, breastfeeding isn't easy. And this is not the woman's fault. It is the fault of a society and culture where booby traps surround us to hinder, impair, and destroy the breastfeeding relationship. (The U.S. has abysmal breastfeeding rates.)

I do not regret my decision to continue nursing. My only regret is that I wished I had gotten help sooner. That I would have known what I know now. I did it once and I will do it again, even if means it will always hurt and it will always be difficult. Because it is that important to me. Because despite everything, the struggles, the pain, the heartbreak, the work, all of it...it was worth it.

I made my goal and beyond. At almost 14 months, Morgan nurses once or twice a day now. Usually when he wakes up in the morning and sometimes after his nap. Part of me misses nursing more and wishes Morgan would nurse more and that I had more milk. But I'm damn proud of what Morgan and I have accomplished. And when the time comes that our nursing relationship comes to an end, it will be with much sadness, despite all of the hardships. I will never regret our time together; I will always cherish it, appreciate it, and remember it with fondness.

I fought the good fight with breastfeeding. And I won.

Piece of Fiction

2010-07-22T02:08:00.001-06:00

I interrupt this message (and everything else I need to do right now, including finishing other very long, important posts and a book-long reply to an email) to post this.

This is a link to a short story on Glass of Random, written by ME.

This is the first piece of fiction I have written in 7 years. It's not polished or anything, but it's done for now. I wrote it in one night (not that impressive considering it's two pages long).

This is a HUGE DEAL to me. Why? Because I have always loved to write, as soon as I could put pen to paper and form words. I spent much of my childhood writing silly stories, plays, and poems, loving every minute of it. But I have been afraid to write for years, ever since after having a disastrous creative writing class at BYU. Since then I have been so afraid of failure that I haven't even tried to write for a long time, too long.

So this was scary and wonderful and frightening and exhilarating for me to do.

I didn't realize how very much I missed the feeling of writing until I printed it off for Austin to read and I started to cry. Yes, I cried. It's a stupid silly story and I'm sure I'll look back later and laugh hysterically at how crappy it is. But I think the light bulb in the dusty, dark attic of my heart has been turned back on. Everything is right where I left it. So it's time to pick up where I left off.

Crossroads

2010-07-13T14:01:00.000-06:00

I went to all of church on Sunday. I had many mixed feelings about being there. Overall though, I think I want to continue to go again more regularly. Though there were some things said that bothered me, I did get one nugget out of the whole thing.

In Sunday School, the teacher mentioned one thing that I thought was a good and helpful analogy. I'll paraphrase because I don't remember exactly what was said:

Going through life you should treat God as your steering wheel and not your spare tire.

They're both pretty important things to have on the journey of life. But one is a constant. Yes, you need that spare tire and it's so helpful to have. And you'd be pretty stuck without it during an emergency. But you only remember it when you need it. And once the emergency has been "fixed," the spare tire isn't relevant anymore. On the other hand, the steering wheel is something you constantly use to get where you need to go.

This is all pretty obvious stuff here, and I'm not being super eloquent. But now I've been thinking about this concept. How often in my life has God been my spare tire and not my steering wheel? Pretty often.

Lately, I haven't been using God as a spare tire or my steering wheel. I haven't blown a tire yet but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. I haven't even been guiding the steering wheel. I've been on cruise control, meandering this way and that and now I'm at a crossroads. I don't think I've taken a wrong path but the right path is also not clear. So I'm just kinda stuck here for the moment. If I keep continuing on the way I have been, I might just blow a tire or reach a dead end.

Cheesy metaphors aside, I've decided I want God back as my spare tire AND my steering wheel. I'm not happy where I currently am but I also know that I can't be exactly the person I used to be either. But maybe instead of just trying to figure this out and handle it on my own (which has gotten me exactly nowhere), maybe I should have God help me figure out where and how to get where I want to go.

So I'm putting my key in ignition, turning off cruise control, and asking God to be my steering wheel. We'll see where this takes me.

A Letter to my 21-Year-Old Self

2010-07-07T23:26:00.003-06:00

Dear 21-year-old Tracie,

In 5 years, so many things will be different that you'll hardly recognize yourself. How could 5 short years change you so much you ask? Well, just wait and see.

You may think you're an adult now. But you're not. You so still have so much to learn. 5 years from now you'll definitely KNOW you're an adult. And guess what? Though you currently feel old to high schoolers, in 5 years you'll feel old even to most people in college. But don't worry. You may be an adult but you're still the same silly, playful Tracie you've always been. No matter how old or responsible you get, you still find the fun in life.

Speaking of fun, you know that guy you're dating right now? The one you told you could never marry? The one you weren't supposed to get serious with so you could go on a mission? The one you weren't sure you could ever love like that? Yeah, you marry him. In about a year. In a summer wedding. In June. Something you said you'd never do. Needless to say, the mission didn't happen. And you have mixed feeling about it. You won't regret not going, but you often wonder what if?

I know your mind is reeling right now. Yep, you marry Austin. But don't worry because you have absolutely no regrets. He is perfect for you in every way, even if you don't know that yet. And don't worry because it is 100% confirmed to you that he is the right one for you. And you get married in the temple. So good job there! Also, you will find a second family. I know your 21-year-old self worries about finding a family to marry in that you'll be able to be yourself. But don't worry. You will be immediately accepted by Austin's family and feel loved by them all. You will, however, feel sad that so much distance separates you.

In the next 5 years you'll accomplish a lot. You'll get married in the temple. You'll graduate from BYU with a BA in English, a minor in editing, and a decent GPA. This is a major accomplishment. You will be the first woman in your family to earn a bachelor's. You'll get your first "real" post-college job as an editor working for a fast-growing online university, which will have you commute 80 miles a day up to SALT LAKE for 9 months. (You get over your fear of driving on the freeway and driving in Salt Lake.) And you'll eventually get to work from home. Awesome, right? Not to mention, you'll also have a baby and buy your first home...in the same year. Craziness!

Speaking of having a baby, it will completely change your life. Being a mom will be harder than you think. You won't love it as much as you think you will. You'll have trouble relating to other moms. You'll have difficulty breastfeeding and go through severe postpartum depression. But don't worry because you'll get through it because you are stronger than you think.

Though you struggle with being a mom, don't worry too much. You love your son, whom you name Morgan Danger. Yes, Danger really is your son's middle name. Austin talked you into it. And you can't imagine a more perfect name for him. He's the cutest, most adorable, most curious little boy ever. He makes you laugh. He makes you smile. You love him more than anything. Thinking of him makes your heart swell. You never knew you could love another person this much. He is perfect.

By the way, you'll totally reach your goal of a natural birth. Not only that, but you'll learn so much about birth and the state of the maternity care system that you'll become a birth advocate. You will read dozens of books, websites, articles, and blogs. You will subscribe to said blogs. You will create your own birth blog. It will become a passion and an obsession. You will become a verifiable birth junkie and your dreams of becoming a published writer (a dream since you were 8) will become less important to you than your desire to educate women and become a childbirth educator and a doula, a word you currently haven't heard before much less know what it means. More than a dream or goal in life, you will find YOUR MISSION.

But not everything will be peaches and roses. Unfortunately, one of your worst fears will happen. You know how you were never going to reach THAT weight again? Yeah, you pass it. Mostly due to pregnancy. But the baby weight doesn't come all off. So now you're the fattest you've ever been in your life. And you kind of hate yourself. And you miss your 21-year-old self's body A LOT. The good news is your husband will still find you unbelievably sexy. Seriously, you can't keep that man away from you. Even when you don't shower, get dressed, or do your hair or makeup. He's like in love with you or something. And this is very good for your self-esteem.

Speaking of your self-esteem, it's in a tricky place.You are more independent and more sure of who you are and what is important to you than ever before. But at 26 you are currently going through some major struggles. Your 21-year-old self occasionally struggles with making it to church and you find it boring sometimes. But by 26 you are inactive. Yeah, seriously. It doesn't happen all at once, you don't lose your testimony or get offended, but gradually your church attendance drops to practically nil. It happens at first because church is boring and so occasionally you miss a meeting or two but then you get pregnant and you get sick a lot and then church is too early or too late. And then you have a newborn and you hardly sleep and you're dealing with PPD. And then you move. And your new church keeps changing its time and location. And it gets easier and easier and easier to stay home, especially with a very active baby. Now part of you wants to get back to church and part of you is unsure. After having the baby, you change A LOT. There's some things you're just not as sure of as you were earlier in life. And there's a lot of things that don't mesh together. You're not sure how to be true to yourself and reconcile opposing viewpoints. You're still figuring it out.

Your 21-year-old self is a night owl. You love staying up late but it isn't really a big deal because you sleep in on the weekends and you still go to bed earlier when your body really needs you to. But 26-year-old self is participating in some pretty self-destructive habits. You haven't slept a full night in over a year. At first, this isn't your fault. But even after your baby starts going to bed earlier and sleeping through the night, you still can't get to bed. This is seriously problematic especially since you went back to work when your 12 weeks of maternity leave were up. Yes, you are a working mom. And you will probably be a working mom for quite some time as Austin is still in school. But you always knew you would work and be a caregiver. It's one of the reasons you went into editing, as you well know.

Your 21-year-old self loves living in Utah and can't even fathom the possibility of leaving. But, 5 years later, you'll find Utah stifling and you'll feel like a fish out of water. Yet you still won't want to leave because you love living close to your family, despite the fact that it's never been more apparent than now how different you are from them.

One of those things happens to be your political beliefs. Yes, you are interested in and follow politics now. You no longer call yourself a Republican, but neither are you a Democrat. You find both parties pretty ridiculous and divisive. You are, however, a liberal. And to you it isn't a dirty word. Though you prefer the term progressive. You have become a lot more open-minded over the last year. You have truly learned how to let people have their own beliefs, even when they differ from yours. Unfortunately, you have noticed that other people aren't so inclined.

Five years from now you will declare yourself passionate about feminism. You have always considered yourself a feminist. Even as a 11-year-old who declared, "Where in the Constitution does it say I have to wear a bra?" But only now do you truly know what it means to be a feminist. You have noticed how the patriarchal society is degrading and unfair to women (and to men). You don't believe gender essentialism, a concept you hadn't heard of at 21, to be anything more than a social theory. You are opposed to discrimination, prejudice, racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and homophobia in any form. You also have a dream that one day people will not be judged by the color of their skin (or their gender or their orientation or their political beliefs or their age or their appearance) but by the content of their character.

Your 21-year-old self doesn't have many friends. But you do have one best friend. A friend you've been friends with for years and have shared pretty much all of your life with, all the way through elementary school to college graduation. But in the next year things will slowly start to change after you both get married. Then she'll move away and you'll cry and things will change even more drastically. And by 26 you won't even know where things are with this person anymore. You will cry more about this than any other single thing in your life. And you'll feel completely helpless to do anything about it.

On a more positive note, you'll become closer friends with Brittnee and get to know Matt, who will eventually become her husband. You'll rekindle friendships with Amanda and Lechelle. You'll get to know and love Brett and Charlotte. And you'll make new friends. You'll meet Charity and James, who will eventually introduce you to Brad and Shelly and Wendy and Jake. You'll also get closer to your younger sister again, who you now talk to every few days. These will all be answers to a prayer.

So in summation, the next 5 years will be mostly good for you. You will learn a lot, accomplish a lot, and change a lot. Life won't be perfect. There will be hard times. Unfortunately your 26-year-old self doesn't have everything figured out just yet. But don't worry. I will someday.

Yours always,

26-year-old Tracie

*Got the idea for this from The Feminist Breeder, one of my favorite blogs.

Birth Blog

2010-07-06T22:24:00.001-06:00

As I mentioned before, I'm starting new blogs. The one I most want to start working on is a birth blog. But I still can't think of a title. So help me come up with a title! I need to start working on this before I drive everyone crazy talking about birth. Once I can start blogging about it, I can finally let my mind clear.

Here are some that I've thought up:

A Womb with a View (there's an ultrasound .com site with this title)
A Pregnant Pause (I really like this one but looks like there's already a .net site with this title)
Not Another Birth Blog
Mind over Labor (no blogs with this title, though there is a book with this title)
Unadventures in Laborland or Adventures in Laborland (I think I'm leaning toward one of these two.)

HayLee suggested Out of the Womb, which I like but I'm not sure quite fits.

I want this to be a blog about pregnancy, fertility, trying to conceive, labor, delivery, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, and taking care of a baby. So I need something that could fit in all of these topics. It also needs to be something I'll be able to use when I finally become a doula and childbirth educator.

So what do you think?

Oh, and hey, I'm working on several posts right now. They're long and complicated so they're taking me awhile.

An Ickname

2010-06-14T23:27:00.003-06:00

My last post was mostly serious so thus by decree this one has to be as proportionally silly as that one was serious. Because that's how I roll, ya'll.

According to my Introduction to English Language class I took in college, words change over time. (Sounds kind of obvious, doesn't it?) Some of the things we talked about are how the article "an" came to be developed, at least partially. I don't remember what the principle is called anymore, but some words used to start with "n" instead of a vowel. These included words such as norange and napron. Think about it. The Spanish word for orange is naranja. Since writing (especially spelling) came long after language did and continued to change, it slowly became "an orange" instead of "a norange." Similarly, "a napron" become "an apron." Another similar change happened. Instead of the losing the "n," some words gained an "n." Thus that is how "an ickname" of the past became "a nickname" in its current usage. I have no idea how true all of this is. I'm just taking it for granted that my professor was right. I'm probably not explaining it super clearly because this class was years and years ago and my memory sucks now. (Mom brain.)

Anyway, my friend Jake (mentioned in this post) wrote a post about nicknames for his son and I decided to write about the various "icknames" I've had during my longish short years.

Nicknames have always been important to me for some reason. It's probably because one of my chief factors (and issues) in life is I have a great inherent desire and need to be special. And nicknames were always for special people and they always got them in special ways. Having a nickname meant being unique and having people love you enough to give you one. Thus, I have always sought for nicknames and cherished many of them throughout my life.

The obvious nickname for Tracie is Trace. I hated being called Trace when I was younger. It's probably because it's an actual word, with the first meaning coming to mind being a verb meaning "to delineate, sketch." I just always think of tracing, which I always considered a cheat even though I did it anyway in the 6th grade when having to draw Greek goddesses for a class and I got all this credit for being such a "good artist." Yeah, I never told. So it didn't count as a nickname. It wasn't until I got older that I started to view it as a sign of affection instead of a lazy substitute for a nickname. So, yes, bring on the "trace," unless I don't like you in which case you're forboden.

Related to Trace is "tray" which I'm saying right now I will NOT abide by. Seriously, call me that and I won't answer. (Unless you're my little sister who does what she wants anyway and I can't get her to stop.) The reason for my hatred of this nickname is when I was a young little Mia Maid there was another girl in my class who liked to pretend to be my friend but would really say mean and hurtful things about me behind my back. She would condescendingly call me "tray" as if we were the greatest buddest buds in the world. So, yeah, don't call me that.

When I was little my dad called me Monkey and Pumpkin. I don't know why. You'll have to ask him. I guess I was his little monkey probably always squirming and jabbering away like a monkey. Pumpkin isn't super special since I think he called all of us girls that one.

In the 6th grade I had a teacher who dubbed me the Doodle Queen because I always doodled on all of my assignments. I still doodle. Come look at my papers around the house. Common doodles include my name in various formations, flowers, cartoon guys, and geometrical shapes.

In junior high I had a friend who would call me Goth just because I hated it and wrote the word Goth on every page of my yearbook. Don't ask me why. I still don't know.

Also in junior high I became known as Tracie the Destroyer. This one is embarrassing for multiple reasons. For those who don't know, I was once shy and socially awkward. I also was known for being smart. (I was voted "smartest" in 7th grader.) Being known for being smart was tremendously embarrassing to me. Who wants to be that person? You might as well pin a sign on my head in fluorescent neon screaming NERD. I'm proud of my intelligence and geekiness and nerdiness (not the same thing) now, but in junior high, it was the kiss of death. Except for one small exception. The one time people want a smart person is when it comes time for a test. In my 8th grade U.S. History class we would play a test review game. The teacher would prepare questions that would be on the exam and write the answers on the dry erase board. The board would be COVERED with words in many directions. He would then divide the class into teams. Then he would have one person from each team sit with their back facing the dry erase board. He would then ask the question and the players would race to "erase" the answer from the board. First person to do it gets a point. The incentive to winning would be the winning team would get extra credit on the exam. Part of me loved and hated this game. I loved it because it was fun. And I was good. Very good. I very rarely lost. So people would fight for me to be on their team. One person in the class dubbed me "Tracie the Destroyer." It was a strange feeling, being mortified and pleased with myself at the same time. Incidentally, in high school, the same kid ended up in a different history class with me and renewed the nickname as that teacher also played review games. After awhile though I was forbidden to play because my team always won and the class would fight about it. Again, embarrassing. And not fair! It's not my fault that I have an awesome memory (prebaby) and am good at trivia and games. Anyway, that's that story.

Another personal favorite is TLee. This one is obvious. First name Tracie, middle name Lee. Put them together and voila, TLee. I still go by this one. My brother Tyler is the first person I remember calling me this. I was probably 17 or 18 and he started calling me TLee when I was working the floor (bindery work) at my dad's printing shop. I remember I started labeling all of my timecards TLee after that. I just loved having this special name. Now if I have to give initials for nonofficial purposes (like video game scores) I always use TLee. (As a side note, I've always loved my middle name, which is the same as my mother's.)

When I was 17 I was in a play of Cinderella that was for kids who were learning how to act. It was an acting and voice and dance workshop that put on a play at the end. (This was the beginning of me breaking my shy shell. I'll tell this story someday.) Anyway, in that workshop was a boy named Trevor. And he was cute. And I liked him. And one of the happiest days of my young life was when I found out he liked me too. Since I was ugly and fat and terribly unlikable, I was shocked that someone could like me. Anyway, as my first "boyfriend"--we never kissed or went on dates or even had much of a relationship beyond "liking" each other-- he gave me the nickname of Hot Queen Babe. Hot because I was, you know, hot. And Queen because I played the part of the Queen in the play and Babe because I was a babe. It's amazing how much a silly nickname can do for the self-esteem. Moving on.

Heidi gave me the nickname of TJ because we used to watch A Night at the Roxbury which had the line "Whatever you say TJ Hooker." This was sometimes shortened to Teej. I loved this nickname too. This nickname died after Heidi dated a guy named TJ.

Then came TMAC. Heidi's family (particularly her brothers) were into sports and basketball so they dubbed me TMAC (as my maiden name is Tracie McNeil) after the NBA player Tracy McGrady. This name died after I got married though sometimes I go by Tbeck instead but it's not the same. I miss this nickname.

Now I come to my most commonly used nickname. When Austin and I started dating, he started calling me Princess which, after us mutually becoming obsessed with Homestar Runner, became Pwincess. And he is my Pwince. Yes, it's silly. But I love it. And Morgan is our Baby Pwince.

Other random nicknames include Queen of Cheese, which my friends and my mom called me. Because I'm cheesy apparently, in the corny, i.e., overly sentimental way. Why are both those words based on food? Why is food connected with sentiment? Yum. Yum. Anyway, I've also been called Captain Obvious for my penchant for stating the obvious. (If I were in a movie, I would be explication woman.) Austin sometimes calls me Queen of Random. And from time to time I've been addressed as Doubting Tracie, because I can be hesitant, skeptical, and reserved and tend to not leap before checking everything out first.

And that's my icknames in anutshell.

Fancy New Trimmings--And Being True to Myself

2010-06-12T00:21:00.003-06:00

OoooOO Look at my new blog layout! So excited about Blogger finally making things easier to customize. Now I can change it as often as I please. I'm going to try posting more frequently. I've been going through lots of different things lately. And I haven't been blogging about any of them. And I so desperately need to. Writing is a catharsis for me, a stress reliever. And since I haven't been writing, no stress has been relieved. For the Harry Potter fans, writing is my "emotional pensieve." It's so much easier to function once I just get it all out there. But instead of writing about stuff, I've been keeping it in or driving Austin crazy as he is the only person I've been really able to talk to about some things. (I've also been obsessing about certain other topics with other people as well.)

I can't sleep at night for various reasons. I have a serious sleeping disorder called "I stay up later than I should." And I should probably explain that because I know many people say they need to go bed earlier. But I'm willing to bet you're not high-fiving yourself on "progress" when you get yourself to bed at least by 2. Yes, I have a freaking problem. A very serious problem that is affecting pretty much every aspect of my life. And I don't know to fix it. "Just go to bed!" you say. It's not that simple. That's like saying to a smoker "Just quit!" Yes, I'm addicted to staying up late. I don't even want to stay up late most of the time. I even have a little voice in my head that says, "Go to bed, Tracie! Why are you still up? Just stand up and go. Just go. Just go. Do it. Stand up. Stop!" And I.......can't. I don't listen, not even to myself.

I've always been a night owl. Always. But I've always managed to get myself to bed by at least what I think are manageable hours (meaning midnight on weekdays and no later than 2 on the weekends, still averaging 7-9 hours on a regular basis). And when I've been exhausted in the past I've been able to go to bed earlier when I've needed to. Now it doesn't matter how tired I am, which is pretty much constantly. Whenever I do manage to somehow get myself to bed, I can't sleep or Morgan wakes up and keeps me up half the night anyway. So what's the use? I sometimes ask. I survive by getting as much sleep as I can on the weekends or sleeping when I get off work and Austin gets home.

So I'm admitting I have a problem. At least one. Another reason I haven't been writing is because I haven't wanted to self-reflect or haven't wanted to let people know what I really think or feel. And now that I think about it, maybe that's part of the reason why I don't go to sleep at night. I haven't been honest with my feelings or haven't done or said what I really want to say and do. I know most people probably don't care about what I think or feel. And that doesn't bother me. I mean, who am I anyway that someone would listen to me? But the fact that I've been censoring myself, on my own blog, well I'm being disingenuous then. I'm so afraid what other people think of me that I'm not even honest about who I really am or what I care about in my own personal space.

And I'm thinking....that's gotta change.

So, hi, I'm Tracie. I'm a progressive LDS feminist who is passionate about many things, one of the chief being birth advocacy.

*EDIT* Another change I want to mention is that I have deleted my list of links to family and friend's personal blogs I follow. But don't worry! I still read all your blogs (if you update more than a few times a year). Just via Google Reader instead of the links that used to be here. Bu the links can still be found for anyone who used to use my links to get to other blogs. You can find the list on my profile page instead of my home page here.

Dear Austin

2010-06-01T12:54:00.001-06:00

I was still in school when Austin and I were dating. The semester we got engaged I was taking Marriage Preparation at BYU. (Highly recommend. Probably one of the best classes I've taken in my life ever.) As one of the assignments in that class, I was to write a letter to my fiance explaining why I wanted to marry him. In honor of our four-year wedding anniversary, coming up later this month, I'm posting my letter to him, written four months before we got married:

Dear Austin,

     I know that there could have been someone else for the both of us. We could have (and I guess we still could if we really wanted to) changed our minds and found someone else. But we didn’t. After fourteen months and against sometimes insurmountable odds, we are still together and going strong. I know that before we started dating I told you that I could never marry you. I was wrong. I was wrong for so many reasons. To further clarify, I would like to tell you all the many reasons why I’ve decided to marry you when I know that it could have been someone else. First and foremost, I’m marrying you because I love you. I have known love before, but it is never been as deep or as meaningful or as comfortable as it is with you. Though I know that love is not all you need to get married (despite what the Beatles say) I have always felt it important that I marry someone I truly love and not someone that another person tells me I should marry or because it’d be convenient or because I couldn’t find anyone else. So I’m glad that I’ve found someone that I can love throughout this time and for the time to come.
     A second huge reason I want to marry you is because you’re my best friend. You make me laugh like never before. You understand me. I can read your mind. I know every face, every gesture, every motion that you make. Ours is a relationship built on trust and friendship. I know that we would have never made it this far if we didn’t have the rock of friendship to build upon. It has kept us together when times have been rough. Because you are my best friend we respect each other and our respective thoughts and feelings. Being my best friend also means that you get my jokes and I understand yours. We sense things that others don’t. I enjoy being with you. I have never had as fun with another person than I do with you. I can completely and totally be myself whether I’m makeup-less, having a bad hair day, being a total spaz, being completely moody and irrational, or being silly and immature. I’ve never had that with anyone else as much as I have it with you. You let me be myself. You don’t make me afraid or frightened to reveal all my sides whether good or bad. I can share my thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears, embarrassments, bad news, good news, irrationalities, rantings, anger flashes, and stupid comments with you without fearing your reaction.
     Another reason why I want to marry you is you give me confidence. I have shared with you my hopes and my dreams and you never send them crashing down. You cheer me on. You cheer me up. You raise me higher than I could be without you. It is you that gives me the strength to keep trying, to not give up. You believe in me. You think I’m amazing. I’ve always wanted that kind of support and I’ve finally found it in you. You make me feel like I could do anything, that I could accomplish anything simply because of who I am.
     I want to marry you because I think you’re going to be a fantastic father. Kids run to you like they run to the icecream man. They trust you. They love you. Watching you with my nephews and nieces has made me look forward to the day that we can bring our children into the world. You make me feel like I could be a good mother. I want to be a good mother and bring children into this world and together raise them to be a righteous example to the world.
     These are just a few of the biggest reasons why I want to marry you. I could probably write on for pages. I want you to know that I know that you’re not perfect. And we both know that I’m not perfect. But you make me want us to become perfect together. We may both have a long way to go, but I know that together we can and we will make it. I love you, Austin. More than anyone. And I can’t wait until we can finally start our lives together.

Love you always and forever,
    Tracie

To Cut or Not to Cut?

2010-06-01T12:11:00.001-06:00

The votes are in! I will be cutting Morgan's hair soon. I'll do a post when I actually get around to doing it.
The votes were evenly divided between trimming, cutting, and waiting. I waited anyway (mostly out of laziness). Only one person thought we should let Morgan grow a mullet. It's starting to head that way, but sorry, we won't be keeping it like that. Stay tuned for pictures and a post on cutting Morgan's hair! Ooo Fun Stuff. My life is so boring. (More exciting...Morgan is almost 1!)

I hate goodbyes

2010-05-21T15:38:00.004-06:00

I hate the universe sometimes....It so often screws with me.

Once again Austin and I are having to say goodbye to friends. Over the last several years we've had many friends move away. Every time it's been hard. Every time tears were shed. Every time I hoped the friendship wouldn't die.

This time I really hope we can keep the flame of friendship burning bright.

If you would have told me a year and a half ago, I would be sad that Jake and Wendy were moving away, I wouldn't have believed you. We met at book club. It was clear right away that these were interesting people. But there was also some clashing. (Largely due to me hating Kafka. Sorry I'm still not a fan. ;) ) I actually don't remember how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way, instead of seeing differences, I started seeing similarities. We became friends. And now they're some of my favorite people in the whole world. And they're moving.

I'm happy they'll get to be with family and live in HAWAII, but......I'll miss them terribly.

Wendy in particular. I want to publicly thank her for the last several months. While she was pregnant, she came over once a week or so to help watch Morgan while I worked. I can't even begin to say what a difference she made for me. She was a friend in a time I really needed one. She listened to me talk way too much, and she made me laugh and remember who I was. I think her friendship (as well as that of my other wonderful, supportive friends; you all know who you are) really helped me push through the depths of my depression, which I still haven't written about yet on this blog. But I will, eventually.

Anyway, I've had so much fun with you guys, whether it was playing Munchkin or writer's group or getting my butt kicked in MarioKart or just talking (or debating) all night (sometimes till 3 a.m.) about every topic on earth. Thank you for caring about us and for loving our son. You guys are truly great, wonderful people. My life is better for having had known you. I will miss you. I'm not just going to ask for you to stay in touch, I'm pretty much demanding it. So there.

To a Friend

2010-04-19T15:24:00.001-06:00

The gulf between us grows day by day.

The distance between us loams larger.

I see you on your side and me on mine.

I wonder how things are going over there.

I can only guess. I don't have a direct line anymore, only binoculars.

How I so desperately miss, mourn, and grieve being on the same side.

I know I'll never be able to live on the same side again.

Too much has changed.

There will always be a divide.

But I want to build a bridge, connect our two halves.

We may live on different sides, different worlds

with different experiences, different terrains

but does that mean we can't have a connecting path?

There just needs to be one strong connection, built from one side to the other.

How I long for that bridge to be built.

But how? Can it be done?

I haven't done a proper job of starting my side.

I don't know what materials to use.

I keep searching for them, picking some up and discarding them.

I'm "in construction"

though the bridge shows no signs of being built

I'm scared to build the bridge.

What if I put everything into this and I fail?

What if you don't want a bridge?

I can only build from my side halfway to yours.

It won't stay up alone.

Every time I think of building

You don't seem to notice or care.

So I immediately cease construction.

But maybe that's because I don't see things accurately from my side.

Maybe you don't think I'm trying to build.

Maybe you think I'm only creating a false bridge or illusions of a bridge.

My worst fear is that you don't want to bridge the gap between us.

My fears are stalling construction.

I keep second guessing myself.

I'm so scared of what might happen

that nothing gets done.

Some have said I should forget about trying to visit your side.

Let the chasm forever divide us.

"You'll always have the memories of being on the same side."

But that isn't enough for me.

I know I can't make the chasm disappear.

I can't have things exactly the way they were before.

But I can stop the divide from growing.

I can build my bridge.

I'm not an engineer.

I know it won't be easy.

I'll make mistakes, miscalculate

I might have to restart a time or two

Try something different, invent new materials.

But nothing worth having comes easy.

I've decided to build my bridge

and have faith that when I'm done,

you'll be there to meet in the middle.

Things I Love About My Son

2010-03-29T19:57:00.000-06:00

His kissable cheeks (I kiss them hundreds of times a day.)
His laugh
His cuddly nature
When he sucks on my big toe (It makes me laugh.)
The way he claps his hands
His bedhead hair
The way he "talks" with me
The way he breathes fast and wheezes slightly when he's excited
His smiles: his "Cabbage Patch" smile, his "I love Mom" smile, his "Yay boobies" smile, his "I love food" smile (when I give him something he likes), his "I'm so cute" smile
The way he gets all excited when it's time to nurse
The way he jumps up and down when he's happy (and holding on to something or in his jumper)
The way he quietly whines when he's tired (It sounds like this: ehhh...ehhhh....ehhh)
His feet (I love kissing them and biting his toes...maybe that's why he bites mine)
The way he overlaps his leg over me when I'm nursing
The way he plays with his toys

Also, I'm doing a poll whether or not to cut Morgan's hair.Take it on the right.

New Blog

2010-03-09T18:10:00.001-07:00

Hi all. I'm looking for your help. I want to start a new blog (separate from this one) and I need help coming up with a blog title and a cool name. I've been wanting to blog about so many things for a while now that I didn't feel fit with "The Unadventures of Tracie." The new blog will focus on the following issues:

critiques (literature, film, TV)
advocacy
language/writing/editing
feminism/women's rights
equality/sexism
pregnancy/childbirth
culture
women/mothers
parenting/raising children
and politics (as it pertains to the above categories)

I know this sounds like a lot of different topics but they are causes/topics/issues that I am deeply passionate about. I would like this blog to be a place to distribute information, facilitate discussion, and critique pertinent issues. I need a name that would be catchy, memorable, and relevant. I also would like to create an identity for myself that may or may not be the same as the name of the blog.

I'll start this on Blogger but eventually I'd like to get my own website. I've always wanted to be a writer, and now I finally have things I want to write about. (Also, I'd like to have "guest bloggers." Let me know if you'd be interested.) I'll still write on my current blog, but I'll save it for entries of a more personal nature. On occasion I may double-post depending on the topic.

Anyway, please send me your ideas. I'm completely drawing a blank here.

Bucket List

2010-02-22T12:51:00.010-07:00

Austin and my friend Lechelle wrote bucket lists and made me think about doing the same. Without any adieu, here's my list: (italics indicate things I've already done)

Get married
Have a baby/Become a mother
Graduate from college
Become an editor
Write a book
Win a writing contest
Edit a book
Edit a fictional novel
Learn how to use Photoshop
Own a profitable website
Be interviewed by a prominent person
Win a notable award
Try out for American Idol (I don’t even care if I make it. I just want to try out.)
Audition for a stage play, preferable a musical
Get a part, preferably a starring role, in a play
Be in a commercial
Run for a small political office (like city council)
Be a contestant on a game show, preferably a winning contestant
Get challenged by Bobby Flay on “Throwdown”
Learn how to sew on a button
Visit Australia
Visit the Louvre
Go to the symphony
See an opera
See a Broadway play
Visit Italy
See the Sistine Chapel, David, the Mona Lisa, and Starry Night in person
Visit Hawaii
Sell a work of art
Use a pottery wheel
Catch a fish (in addition to that, I’d like to catch one “in the wild”)
See the sun rise
Go snorkeling (After conquering fear of drowning and learning how to swim and getting over shark anxiety)
Learn to play an instrument
Fly in a jet (not actually fly it myself, just be in one)
Swim with dolphins
See a whale
Go to the circus (preferably one with few clowns)
See an Olympic event in person (I probably missed my greatest chance in doing this already)
Open a restaurant
Visit Ireland
Find a four-leaf clover
Learn how to kickbox
Eat with chopsticks
Eat sushi
Go on a mission with Austin
See the live session of the endowment
See my boys (if I have more than one) serve a mission
See all my children married in the temple
Become a grandparent
Write an advice column
Write a letter to the editor
Write my congressman (will do this soon)
Meet a prophet
Meet the president of the United States
Be involved in an advocacy campaign
Go on a cruise
Visit Mexico
Learn another language fluently
Serve in a homeless shelter/soup kitchen
Be wealthy enough to make a sizeable donation to a library or to children’s education or fund a scholarship program
Own a freestanding house
Sing a solo
Be in a band
Be in a musical group
Visit Disneyland
Perform at Disneyland
Be a surrogate mother or adopt a child
Learn calligraphy
Climb Timpanogos
Run at least a half marathon
Ride on a train (a real one)
Visit New York
Ride a subway
Pay for a taxi
Kiss in the rain
Dance in the rain
Donate blood
DTD in a public place
Invent something useful
Go skiing
Plant a garden
Put a message in a bottle and throw it out to sea
Squish grapes for wine with my feet
Breastfeed for at least 12 months (hopefully I can add “exclusively” with the next child)
Sit in a natural hot spring
Visit the White House
Visit the Taj Mahal
Ride a camel
Go horseback riding for real (not being lead around on a pony in a circle)
Visit the Winchester House
Visit Nauvoo and Palmyra
Visit Adam-ondi-Ahman
Go on church history tour
Ride on a riverboat
Work one night at a haunted house scaring people
See the Golden Gate Bridge
See the Pyramids in Egypt
Go river rafting
See an active volcano
Write a screenplay
Record a song
Give birth naturally
Give birth in water (next time)
Get certified as a doula and practice as a doula
Get certified as a childbirth educator
Go to massage therapy school or at least take a class
Go to culinary school
Drive a waverunner
Build a photo studio in my home
Paint an oil painting
Visit Back East in the fall
See a movie at the Sundance Film Festival
Visit Hollywood
Try out for a reality TV show

Clowncare

2010-02-16T01:12:00.001-07:00

Some of you know about my clown phobia. I hate clowns. A lot. They are NOT funny. They are creepy. I have had nightmares about clowns and there's just something about their makeup'ed face that just freaks me out.

Anyway, I saw this commercial the other day and I just about died from laughing. Seriously, tears streaming down face. Two hours later still laughing thinking about it. Maybe it won't be as funny to you.I wonder if you can figure out why I find it so funny.

Tales of Mommyhood

2010-01-28T17:38:00.001-07:00

Austin left me 4 1/2 minutes worth of messages on my phone. (13 separate ones.) Reminds me when we were dating, we used to do that for fun. See how many messages we could leave. Sorry for not answering, hon. I never heard my phone ringing. I have no idea how that happened.

Morgan loves my cell phone. It's like his Holy Grail. I MUST have that phone. I will leap over tall buildings, crawl over my mom, reach with all my might, risk falling off a bed...until I make it mine! Muhahahahhahah. We have an old cell phone he can play with, and he likes that phone. But mine is the one he covets most. He most wants it when I'm talking on it. Even if I'm not holding it up to my ear and I put it on speaker. He's a funny baby.

Morgan also loves remotes and taking DVDs off the shelves. I now have entered the phase known as "my baby destroys my stuff." He got one of my Lois & Clark DVDs out of the case while I was making dinner and rubbed it across the tile floor. Yep, it's scratched beyond all recognition. This of course only took him a minute to accomplish. I can't keep him out of things all the time. And I already have to keep him cooped up all day while I work. He spends his time during the day while I work in either what Austin and I affectionately call his "cage," (a blocked off play area), his crib, or the swing. I play with him from time to time when I can and pick him up when he gets too upset. So when I'm done with work, I like to let him explore the house a bit. Why does he have to be so mobile? It's like "toys? No thanks. I'd rather explore and climb and risk hurting myself and get into things that I generally shouldn't."

He is the most persistent baby I've ever seen. He is generally a "good" baby, but he definitely isn't lazy. Since he's learned to move, he's all over the place. Constantly. He does not want to sit still. He wants to pull himself up on the entertainment center and bang on the TV (and try to eat it). I keep try giving him toys but he isn't that interested. Though today he has played a little more. He's finally learned to sit up. And he can go from sitting up to crawling. (Crawling to sitting up is a little more difficult.) He's just a little guy on the go. What happened to my little brick? He'll definitely be walking soon. Last night he cruised the couch a little bit for the first time. He's only 7 months old! I did NOT want a mobile baby this early. (He's been crawling since 5 months, rolling since 3.)

I'm exhausted. I don't recommend working and having a baby. It's a crazy life. Especially if said baby is a night owl and wakes up 6 times a night. I would totally have a love affair with sleep. When I get sleep again, it'll be all "Oh, sleep. How I've missed you. I took you for granted, baby. I'll never leave you again." So no babies for me again for a long, long, long, long time. Seriously.

Mom & Me

2010-01-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot of pictures of Morgan and me. There's a few reasons for this: one, it's usually just me and Morgan at home, two, I hate the way I look right now, and three, I'm not usually wearing clothes. I'm going to start trying to get more pictures of me and Moby.

Halloween

2010-01-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

I find it funny that it's January and I'm posting about Halloween. Well, I don't want these awesome pictures to go to waste. For Halloween this year Austin and I had three Halloween parties. One with my family (I don't have any pictures from this) and two different ones with different friends. The family party was awesome, as usual. Unfortunately Austin and I didn't dress up as we weren't ready yet. This is first year that I've ever NOT dressed up for the family party.

Then we had a party with my "book club" friends. This party consisted of eating food, watching the boys play video games, and taking turns chasing babies. Austin, Morgan, and I dressed up in a theme. See if you can guess.

If you can't tell, Austin is Han Solo, I'm Princess Leia, and Morgan is Wicket (an Ewok). My costume was very last minute. I couldn't find any Princess Leia costumes that weren't ridiculously priced, so we thrift-stored it. The skirt and turtleneck I got the same night of the party. I bought "boots" at a costume store. I used Austin's tie as a belt and did my best to make Leia's trademark buns. Austin's costume was a pair of navy blue Docker's, a shirt we cut the collar off, and another shirt we cut the collar and sleeves off to make a vest. Morgan's costume is a bear costume we got at Old Navy. Then we bought some suede material to make the hood. It turned out pretty good.

Our other Halloween party was over at Brittnee and Matt's. We played a murder mystery game that Matt wrote that was simply awesome. It was a lot of fun. Trent and Jessica watched Morgan for us while we spent a few hours amongst other adults. Thanks guys! We repeated a costume we had done from the past. We were a butterfly and a butterfly catcher.

Cornbelly's

2010-01-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging. I just haven't been posting my entries. Maybe I'll post them, but probably not. Most are too depressing to read. Anyway, I'm getting caught up.

Troy & Jen came to town in October to attend a sealing. While they were here, the family went to Cornbelly's together. It was a lot of fun. It was interesting having Morgan with us as it was at Cornbelly's the previous year that we announced our pregnancy. It was Troy & Jen's first time meeting Morgan.

A good time was had by all. And now for pictures:

Re-edit of an Old Favorite

2009-12-11T20:44:00.003-07:00

You've for sure seen this, but not like this. (And you haven't seen it (go to the link if you haven't seen it first) you should.)

Makes me laugh every dang time.

Feeling Better

2009-10-31T00:35:00.000-06:00

So thought I'd update and let everyone know I'm mostly doing better. I've just been having a rough time adjusting to parenthood. I don't handle lack of sleep well. And trying to balance work and taking care of a baby (and rarely seeing Austin) has been difficult. Not to mention my health, nursing, and loneliness issues.

One thing that's helped is I now have my friend Wendy and Charity's husband James's cousin Charlotte (say that ten time fast) helping me watch Moby for a few hours a couple times a week. It helps me make my phone calls I need to make and focus on my work. It also gives me some MUCH-NEEDED company. Sometimes I can feel a little isolated and trapped in my own house. Okay, change that to almost always. Anyway, I might post some day on my new passion: birth. I've become obsessed with learning everything about it.

Calling All Moms

2009-10-20T15:56:00.001-06:00

Why do you enjoy being a mom? Let me know. I'd like to know. And when, pray tell, is it supposed to "get better"?

Sincerely,

A person slowly going insane

P.S. I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with me.

Spring Break Trip to Arizona

2009-09-24T03:17:00.004-06:00

So I meant to post this eons ago. Here are pictures from Austin and me's trip to Arizona for our Spring Break Vacation. We went to a butterfly garden, went to Egee's, played minigolf, watched Seth play baseball, and traveled to Mesa. We visited Heather and Heidi.

On Being a Mom

2009-08-20T12:39:00.005-06:00

So I've been a mom for two whole months now. Eight weeks ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy...and my entire life changed forever.

I can definitely say it hasn't been easy. It's the most challenging thing I've ever done. Sometimes it's so difficult I wonder if it was a such a good idea.

Do I love being a mom? Not entirely. Not yet. But I think I eventually will. Once I start sleeping on a more regular basis and I adjust to changing every single thing I do. You know the things you take for granted before you have a kid? You know, like the little things. Taking a shower, going to the bathroom, eating, sleeping, basically the every day tasks that you don't even think about before. They are all about a million times more difficult with an infant. And those are just your basic living tasks. That doesn't take into account cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, working, exercising, getting dressed and ready, or having a social life. (Not to mention having just moved.) I count a day a success if I manage to eat a few meals, take a nap, and maybe take a shower. For most of my readers here, I'm preaching to the much more experienced choir.

But it's still all new to me. It's starting to get easier but I'm definitely not completely used to it yet. Though it is amazing how much you start to adapt. And some things definitely are instinctual. I know what to do to calm my baby down most of the time. I'm starting to learn what his cries mean and about his temperament. He's starting to follow a very loose routine, which is starting to make my life easier.

If I had known it was going to be this hard, would I do it again? Yes, I would. I mean, honestly there are times that I break down and just cry and tell myself I can't do this anymore, but other times I enjoy that I'm the best at taking care of my son.

Being a mom is certainly life changing. I'm having to learn to be less selfish for sure. My whole life now is taking care of my baby. I can't do whatever I want anymore. I can't just pick up and go. I can't read or do other things whenever I want. I think the tricky part of being a mom is learning how to take care of your child and yet still make time for yourself so you don't go stark raving mad. I've never had to really live by a schedule before, but I think I'm going to have to now if I'm going to survive.

The other challenging part is my changing relationship with Austin. I see him every day still, but I miss him. Right now we play tag-team to survive. We don't have all the time in the world to just spend together anymore. The other night I went to bed and realized I hadn't really talked to my husband all day. Each kiss and every moment alone is special now (and these are few and far between nowdays). Though I mourn our old relationship, being parents together is a new delight. Being together and taking care of our son has strengthened my love for my husband. Together we enjoy playing with and marveling over our beautiful baby. We still can't believe sometimes that we made him and that he's ours. Though we mourn our life prebaby sometimes, I imagine we'll eventually get to the point where we can't imagine life without our little bean.

I may not always enjoy the tedium and challenge of being a mom, but one thing is definitely certain. I love my son. I love every inch of his beautiful self. When he smiles at me or looks at me like he looks at no one else, I am filled with utter joy that he is mine and I thank God for giving him to me.

New Condo

2009-07-17T00:42:00.004-06:00

Remember how Austin posted on his blog about us buying a condo? Well, it's almost here. We close next week (if we get our Aflac money on time, if not we'll have to delay closing a few days). So we will be moving to our new place very, very soon. I can't believe we are doing this. I'm freaking out a little bit. Buying a house is such a huge step. I really hope we're not going to be in over our heads. It was just such a good time to buy right now so we had to act while opportunity was knocking.

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired so I'll write more later about our place. For now, here are some pics:

Main Bath

Bedroom (There are 2 bedrooms besides the Master Bedroom. They both look about the same.)

Tub & Shower in Master Bath

Master Bath

Master Bedroom

Kitchen

Dining Area in Kitchen

Deck (wish this was always going to be our view but they're building a town home right there)

Living Room

Laundry Room (sans washer and dryer)

Three Years and Counting

2009-07-17T00:21:00.003-06:00

For our anniversary this year Austin and I went out to dinner while his mom watched Morgan. We were gone about an hour. It was good to have some time to ourselves. I can't believe it's been three years already. This year of marriage will be very different from the rest as we start this year as a larger family.

Husband & Wife

First New Family Photo

I'm so happy to be married to Austin. He's always been a wonderful husband and now he's a wonderful father as well. I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend. He really is my perfect match. I'm looking forward to spending this year learning how to be parents together. I'm so grateful to have Austin as my partner in our new life together. Happy Anniversary sweetheart!

Mommy & Baby

2009-07-17T00:20:00.002-06:00

My Birth Story

2009-07-11T23:09:00.013-06:00

Morgan Danger

Being a new mom is difficult and time consuming. I've been meaning to write this for a while now, but I've been having trouble finding the time to do so. For those that haven't heard my birth story, here it is:

My last few weeks of pregnancy I'd been having Braxton-Hicks contractions on and off. My due date came and went with still no real sign of going into labor. Because things didn't go exactly as we planned with the condo we were trying to buy, Austin and I decided we needed to have a backup plan. So on Tuesday June 16th we went with Justin, our agent and brother-in-law, to look at other condos. While we were out with him, I started having contractions. Nothing regular or serious but definitely different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions. I called my mom and my doula when we got home from house hunting (which was around 8pm) to let them know I was in early labor. My mom predicted I'd have the baby by the next morning. If only.

It was around midnight that night that my contractions started to be regular. They were about ten to fifteen minutes apart. I tried to sleep but couldn't relax. I let Austin get some sleep while I tried to distract myself. I stayed up burning CDs to listen to for when my labor got stronger and watched Tenth Kingdom. Around 3am I called my doula, Liz, to let her know that my contractions were about five to ten minutes apart but that I was still doing okay coping on my own. At 5am I woke Austin up and called her again to let her know I was ready for her to come help me. Around 6 Liz showed up and we started using coping measures. It's hard to talk about the next part of the day as it all blended together after awhile. We tried lots of different things to get through my contractions. I went on a few walks, supporting myself on Austin during contractions. I took several baths. I spent several hours rocking on my birthing ball listening to the music I had burned. I really liked listening to my music. It was very helpful. I would often "get into a zone" which made it a lot easier to get through my contractions. Austin and Liz spent their time massaging me and putting pressure on my back. I didn't know it at the time but Morgan was posterior, which made it so I had really bad back labor. I drank bottle after bottle of Propel to stay hydrated and I tried to eat when I could, which wasn't that much. I lay down on my bed trying to sleep several times but was unable to do more than enter a somewhat relaxed state. At 8 in the morning we called my midwife to let her know I was in labor and we were thinking of going to the hospital but she suggested we wait until my contractions were longer. (My contractions at that point were 2 to 3 minutes apart but only about 30 to 45 seconds long.) I became discouraged at that point and my labor slowed down for a while. So the day wore on. Austin and Liz doing all they could to ease my pain and help me cope. I kept trying new positions and new methods. The things that helped the best were for someone to push on my back and/or knees while I breathed or blew raspberries. Austin and Liz kept a "hot sock" on my back to help with the pain and used a tennis ball to put pressure on my back. As the contractions got stronger I started to vocalize, moaning in a low tone. Finally around 6pm we decided to start packing up for the hospital as my contractions were getting stronger and longer.

I got into my room where I they did my mandatory 20 minute electronic fetal monitoring. I was also checked where I found out I was dilated to 4 centimeters and I was 70% effaced. I had been in labor 19 hours at this point. I wore my own gown and I refused the IV as I preferred to self-hydrate. I got into the tub at that point and stayed there for an hour or so (The hospital has one large room with a tub for those doing natural births). Around 9pm I was checked again and discovered I was at 7 centimeters and 90% effaced. I spent my transition rocking on my ball and having people put pressure on my knees and back. The contractions were getting stronger and longer and much closer together at this point. I started to feel slight pushy urges. I was checked again and found to be almost fully dilated and I was fully effaced. My midwife tried to manually turn Morgan (as he was still posterior) and accidentally broke my water. I tried doing maneuvers myself to help Morgan turn. I started pushing as I felt the urges. I went to the bathroom and pushed for a while before returning. We then were ready for the pushing stage. I first tried pushing on my hands and knees. My midwife then suggested a squatting position. The bed was able to be put into a position that made it like a throne. I was sitting on the edge of the bed like a chair while I had people on either side of me supporting my arms. I pushed and the head started coming out. They encouraged me to reach down and feel from time to time. I was so ready to get him out at this point as I had been in labor for over 24 hours and I hadn't slept for over 48.

Not too long later I pushed his head out and then the rest of his body and my son was born Thursday June 18th at 1:46 am after 26 hours of labor. Austin was crying as they put Morgan on my chest. I was in awe at this point. I couldn't believe he was here. He was slippery and warm and slimy. As I held him he pooped on my hands and I didn't care. My baby was here. I tried putting him to the breast to suckle as I knew that would help my uterus to contract. I think I was pretty much in shock. I couldn't believe he was finally here. I was completely exhausted but I had done it! I brought my son into this world. I held him for a while as my midwife started to stitch me up. I hadn't gotten an episotomy (or needed one) but I tore internally. They took the baby away to do their routine things (except for the things that I had requested NOT be done such as the ointment for the eyes, the vitamin K shot, or the Hepatitis B. I had done research and decided they were unnecessary.) Austin stayed with the baby while I lay in bed waiting to get stitched up. It took two hours and was extremely painful. I let them give me a shot for the pain (which really didn't do anything) as my baby was now out. My midwife had to call an OBGYN in to help stitch me as I had one complicated tear that was really hard to reach.

Me pushing being supported

Austin cutting the umbilical cord

The least graphic pictures of me holding Morgan immediately after birth

When they were finally done, I was ready to go take a shower and get cleaned up. I wanted to take pictures with my family. Unfortunately, when I tried to stand up, I passed out. (Not too surprising as I lost a lot of blood, I was hungry, and I hadn't slept for over 48 hours.) Austin said that within seconds there were several more nurses to help as they caught me and I started shaking. Several seconds later I came to. I was a bit confused as I had thought I had been sleeping and then remembered that I was in the hospital. They put oxygen on me and settled me into bed. They decided I shouldn't move at this point so a bunch of nurses came and helped me into a clean gown and changed my bedding (with me still in it). I ate some food and tried to sleep. A little while later I needed to go to the bathroom but was unable still to walk so a nurse put in a catheter and removed it. A nurse convinced us to let Morgan go to the nursery for a few hours while we tried to sleep. While he was in there, he turned blue and they discovered he still had fluid in his lungs so he was moved to special care. His lungs were pumped out, and they put him on oxygen and an IV because he had low blood sugar. This naturally made Austin and I sad and concerned about our son. Because of me passing out and Morgan having to go to special care, we never did get to take the pictures I wanted to.

Morgan in special care

Pictures of me holding Morgan in special care

Family members holding Morgan in special care

The next couple of days consisted of me trying to sleep (unsuccessfully), trying to go to the bathroom, trying to walk, and trying to breastfeed. I wore my own gowns and own bathrobe while I was there. Family and friends came and visited us. We went to special care frequently for me to nurse and to visit our son. I really enjoyed my experience at Timpanogos hospital. They were respectful and considerate of our wishes and plans. Nobody fought us on any of our requests. Everyone was supportive and simply wonderful. My labor was really long, really painful, and really hard but it was also a really empowering, really positive, and really wonderful experience. I don't regret one minute of it. I'd do it again. After going through this, I feel like I can do anything.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T20:42:00.002-06:00

Today is a very special Father's Day. Today my husband celebrates Father's Day for the first time as an actual father. It's only been three days and already Austin is such an amazing father.

Morgan loves being held by his daddy and sucking on his finger. I am just so impressed with how Austin loves his son. I married a wonderful man, and he's going to be such a wonderful father.

I'd like to make a shoutout to my own father. Fahja has been such a great dad to me. I'll always be my daddy's little girl no matter how old I get. He's been supportive over the years and always ready with a hug. I know I can always count on my dad. He's never let me down, and I know he never will. I didn't get to see him this year on Father's Day as I was at home with my brand new baby. So since I didn't get to say it before, I'll say it now: Happy Fahja's Day!

Saying Goodbye to One Experience

2009-06-21T16:25:00.002-06:00

Well, I did it. I made it through my first pregnancy. I still feel like I'm dreaming a bit. All the waiting is finally over. I'm a mommy.

I'm SO glad to not be pregnant anymore, but a bit sad too surprisingly.

Things I will miss about being pregnant:

1. Feeling my baby move around inside of me - from the first little flips, to the kicks, to the rolling from side to side
2. Feeling more feminine and more of a woman than I've ever felt before
3. Playing the pregnant card (of course now I can play the "I just had a baby" card.)
4. Not trying to lose weight or worrying too much about weight in general
5. Relating to all the other pregnant women out there
6. Having people ask me how I'm feeling

Things I will NOT miss about being pregnant:

1. Morning sickness, nausea, vomiting
2. Not being able to eat certain foods
3. Charlie horses, leg cramps, back cramps
4. headaches, bloating, heartburn
5. Going pee every hour or more
6. Not being able to get out of bed or bend over
7. Getting exhausted from standing
8. Wearing the same six shirts
9. Swollen feet, ankles, and nose
10. Answering the same questions over and over (When are you due? What are you having?)
11. Dealing with pushy salespeople at Motherhood Maternity

I've already felt a few gas bubbles that felt like a baby and then I had to tell myself that it wasn't my baby anymore. My belly feels so empty. But holding my baby in my arms is much, much better.

D-day

2009-06-10T15:58:00.005-06:00

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. You'll be happy to know that I'm feeling MUCH better today. The combination of a good night's sleep, seeing my mom, getting the house cleaned (thanks Mom), seeing my doula, and receiving calls and comments of encouragement has made all the difference.

From everyone I've talked to, it's pretty normal to be wavering between two extremes at this point. (My extremes being "totally ready" and "freaking out.")

So D-day is today. And I'm not surprised that Morgan's not here yet. I really didn't think he was coming early. I'm thinking he may make his appearance sometime later this week. If not, I'm willing to bet he won't be any later than the end of next week. We'll see if "mother's intuition" pays off this time.

I'm enjoying my leave from work. I'm still home most of the time, but it's nice to not feel like there's something I'm "supposed" to be doing. No deadlines, no meetings. It's relaxing. We're pretty much done with everything. I just need to pack my hospital bag and finish up a few things. Other than that, it's just a waiting game at this point. I'm just trying to relax. I have a few projects I'm working on to keep me busy. I plan to get caught up on blogging. I'm playing my guitar. I'm practicing my pain-coping/relaxation techniques. I finally dropped my wedding pictures off to be developed. (Yep, three years after the fact.) I'll be putting them in an album later this week. If anyone else is bored during the day, you're welcome to come join me.

As an update to my search for Crocs, I still haven't found a pair. I've now added three more stores to my list. (Yes, Heather, I went to Sports Authority. Nada.) There were some at Parks, but none in my size. (They were either 4-5 or 12-13.) They were getting rid of the last of their Crocs and had no plans on getting more. I should have bought a pair two years ago I guess. They are still available online, but they're more money then I'm willing to spend. Plus, I hate not being able to try on shoes before I buy. Oh well. I guess I'll just try to survive until my feet stop swelling and then I'll buy all new cute shoes. (I really need new shoes, but I don't want to buy any right now because I have no idea what size my feet will be postpartum.)

I'll keep everyone posted. Since I've got the time, I'll probably be blogging more frequently. So check back often.

UPDATE: After looking everywhere, I managed to find a pair of Crocs. Of course, I wasn't looking for them at the time. Austin and I were getting produce at Sunflower Market. And lo and behold, Crocs...in my size. So this adventure is now over since I bought a lime green pair.

The Final Countdown

2009-06-09T15:31:00.003-06:00

With one day to go till my estimated due date, I'm currently a nervous wreck. The last several days my mood and feelings have been all over the place. One minute I feel confident and prepared. The next I feel totally intimidated and scared out of my mind. Yesterday was good. I felt ready to go. Last night I couldn't sleep and now I'm tired and feeling totally overwhelmed.

I hate this not knowing when. The whole "this could happen any second" IS not good for my relaxation. I'm so worried that I'm going to go into labor tired and unprepared. And with my whole goal to have a natural birth, I'm worried that if I'm not in optimum condition, my goal will go down the toilet. And that will depress me.

I've spent MONTHS preparing for this upcoming day. And it's all one big question mark. Can I really do this? Really? Part of me is SO ready to have this all over but the other part is petrified about the unknown, even with my months of preparation. I don't know if I'm ready to have a baby yet. I really want Morgan to get here, but I'm really overwhelmed. Will I be able to handle a newborn? Am I ready for my life to change FOREVER? Am I going to totally fall apart?

I want my baby, but I don't know if I'm ready yet. At least not this second. Yesterday I felt totally ready. But now I'm so tired and drained and fatigued. My hips hurt. My back hurts. I feel like I could burst into tears any second. (And so I do.) I don't know if I want to do this anymore. Lol.

I HATE how everyone keeps telling me to rest right now because I'll never get sleep again. It's really discouraging. "Enjoy life now because the rest of your life will suck." It's not a very positive or encouraging message. Please tell me the joys of having a newborn, not the sucky parts. Because I don't know if I can do this with everyone telling me how hard it's going to be. I already realize it's probably going to be really hard. It doesn't make me look forward to it. I need to hear that I can do this, that it is doable. That I won't be totally miserable. Otherwise I don't know if I can or want to do this. Stupid pregnancy hormones. I hate this back and forthness that I'm feeling. I feel like I'm going crazy. Please tell me I'm not the only one to feel like this.

Anyway, other than that, I'm doing okay and holding in there. One minute at a time.

Finding Footwear

2009-05-28T14:11:00.002-06:00

So I'm pregnant. And my feet are huge and swollen. And shoes are uncomfortable. So I decided to buy my first pair of Crocs (or at least imitation brand of them). I've shunned these shoes for several years now. Everyone had told me they were comfortable, but let's face it, they're not the cutest footwear. They used to be everywhere and on everyone. So now that I had finally decided to get a pair, they are NOWHERE to be found. Seriously. I have now looked at Walmart, Target, and Payless. I can find some for men and tons for kids, but NONE for women. I somehow missed the craze.

So now that I NEED these shoes, I can't find a single pair. I don't know if the search is worth since I only have a few weeks till the baby anyway; however, I have heard that your feet can swell postpartum as well. So can anyone tell me where I can find a pair of these shoes?

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T16:01:00.003-06:00

This is an interesting day for me. This is the first time that I can kind of celebrate Mother's Day. Morgan's still in my tummy, but to me, he's my baby already. I love my baby, and I'm sure I'll love being a mom once he finally gets here.

I wanted to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in my life. I have to first and foremost thank my own mother who brought me into this world. I am so lucky to have such an awesome mom. She loves me, and I love her. What more could you ask for from a mom? I am so grateful for my mom. I can't imagine anyone else who would've been better. She's such an amazing example to me. I'm appreciative of everything she has done for me. I wouldn't be the person I am today without my mom.

I'm so glad to have such a wonderful mother-in-law. I'm so lucky to have married a man who had such a great mother and did such a great job raising him. I always wanted to marry into a family in which I could feel a part of. The Beckstroms have been this family. I felt like a member of the family from the beginning. From the first time I met Alice, I knew I would be happy in this family. I truly gained a second mom. (You can never have too many moms in your life.)

Happy Mother's Day to all my grandmothers out there. Whether they are my grandparents by blood or marriage, they are all wonderful, wonderful people. And I love them.

Happy Mother's Day to all my sisters/sisters-in-law. You are all such great examples of mothers to me. I'm so happy to have you in my life.

Happy Mother's Day to my friends. I love watching you be a mom and realize that I can do it too. :)

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I think the mothers of the world can and do make a difference.

Big Belly

2009-04-18T17:02:00.002-06:00

30 weeks

So when I did my pregnancy post I forgot to mention a few things. One is I have now joined the Belly Stretch Mark Club. About a week ago I had just got out of the shower and looked in the mirror, and lo and behold, there it was. That purple little devil. I know it shouldn’t really matter. I’m already covered in stretch marks all over the rest of my body due to my constant fluctuating sizes growing up. But my belly was the ONE place I didn’t have any. But that has now changed. I have since gotten another one since then and I will probably get much more. I guess I should be more vigilant about applying my cocoa butter cream.

Other “fun” pregnancy changes: My stomach is now hairy and dry. I’ve never been a very hairy person, but I have dark, ugly hairs residing on my belly now, as well as itchy, dry skin that likes to flake off every once in a while. My breasts are getting bigger and saggier by the minute. (Austin doesn’t mind the size change, but I do.) I really can’t imagine them getting any bigger but I’ve been told that they will. One of the most frustrating things about being pregnant has been losing my mind. I have always prided myself on my excellent memory and my ability to multi-task. I’ve always been able to get anything done efficiently (once I decided I wanted to). But no longer. Now I’m a scatterbrained mess. I can’t remember things. I can’t focus or concentrate. Things that were once easy are now difficult and it takes me twice as long to do anything. I’m hoping that postpartum my brain will return. I sorely miss it.

I’m now wearing maternity garments. For anyone who wants to know, I like them. I highly recommend getting at least the bottoms. Just be careful to get the right size. The maternity tops are okay, but they’re kinda huge on me. Mostly because I have a small torso, and they don’t make “petite” maternity tops. I wish I had gotten some a month earlier because my other garments were starting to cut into me and it was extremely uncomfortable.

I wanted to briefly record some events that occurred during my pregnancy. Four weeks ago I went in to do my glucose test. Not fun. I haven’t felt that sick since the first trimester. The drink tasted like a flat, sugary, watery orange soda, which made me nauseous. When I went to get my blood drawn, I almost threw up. And then I almost fainted due to the loss of blood. Fortunately I had brought snacks. As soon as she was done, I immediately grabbed a snack and started eating. I kept my head between my knees and didn’t stand up. I stayed there for about fifteen minutes, after which I started feeling better. Later that night I had to go back to the hospital to get my Rhogam shot. I’m RH– which means that if my baby is RH+ (which is highly likely), my body will start producing antibodies and reject future babies. The shot is supposed to prevent my body from making these antibodies. I had to get one then and I’ll have to get another one when the baby is born. I HATE getting shots more than anything, but this time I was pleasantly surprised. She was done before I even knew she had given me the shot. It didn’t hurt. The glucose test was MUCH worse than getting the shot.

I was relieved to find out from the test results that I’m not anemic and I don’t have diabetes. That was a relief. I was really, really worried about the diabetes. I have a high risk factor of getting it due to my family history and what-not. I also have a family history of high blood pressure, which I’ve fortunately also been able to avoid thus far in my pregnancy. I’ve been trying to avoid any and all complications, especially since I really want to have a natural childbirth and having any complications (even common ones) will make that more difficult.

Sleeping and moving around and getting stuff done has gotten a lot harder in the last few weeks. My back hurts a lot. And my hips hurt when I sleep. I’ve also been getting leg cramps and Charlie horses. I’m always tired these days. I’m going to try getting more sleep and more exercise and see if that helps. Though I’ve heard that the last few months suck no matter what you do.

My next post on pregnancy will cover my birthing classes (which are awesome) and my desire to have a natural childbirth. Stay tuned.

Here are some pics of me in my Easter maternity dress:

"Thanks that was fun. Don't forget. No regrets. Except maybe one."

2009-04-18T16:17:00.006-06:00

On February 24, 2009, I learned what it felt like to be a Beatles fan on April 10, 1970. This is the day that I learned that Steven Page was leaving the Barenaked Ladies to go solo. The news devastated me. BNL has been my favorite band for about five or so years now. Of course I heard their hit singles during the nineties while growing up. I was familiar with “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” and “If I had a Million Dollars.” I didn’t realize at the time that they were all the same band. It was Heidi who first led me to realize I loved this band. She made me a few mix CDs with various BNL songs on them. When I realized I loved the songs and they were all the same band, I decided to buy their Greatest Hits album. I loved that so much that I bought their first album, Gordon. After that, it was all history as they say. Subsequently I bought and loved the rest of their albums. In 2003 when they released a new album (Everything to Everyone) I listened to it obsessively. Then I heard they were coming to town. As I didn’t want to go to a concert by myself, I begged anyone and everyone I knew to come with me. My brother Tyler, being a casual fan, agreed. In March of 2003 we went to their concert.

It was one of the best nights of my life.

I was amazed at how they sounded even better live. Not only was their music great, they were funny and entertaining. I jumped up and down like a maniac. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I sang along. I almost hyperventilated due to the excitement.

After that, I continued to be a huge fan. I tried converting everyone I knew to them. I was successful with a few, including my now-husband Austin. (He actually knows the words better than I do to lots of their songs.)

In 2007 Austin and I were able to go see them in concert. Though I was able to contain my excitement a little better this time, it was still an awesome concert. They just kept getting better and better.

If all you know is their hit singles, you should really listen to more of their work. I like their singles, but I love the rest of their work more. (I promise the rest of their stuff is simply AWESOME if you give it a chance.) They can write really silly lyrics (“Another Postcard”), introspective lyrics (“War on Drugs”), moving lyrics (“When I Fall”), witty, wordplay-filled lyrics (“A”), sad lyrics (“Powder Blue”), story-filled lyrics (“Old Apartment”) and bitingly political lyrics (“Fun & Games). Basically they’re brilliant. You just don’t get lyrics like these just anywhere or from just anyone:

“You can shine like silver all you want but you’re just aluminum”
--"Aluminum"

“I'm a public embarrassment/I'm a bottle of diet poison
I'm a walking advertisement/For everything I never meant
And everything I never meant to be”
--“Bull in a China Shop”

“When you die they make a list of every love you never kissed/Of each regret and each mistake/Every choice you'll fail to make
Oh well...”
--“Next Time”

“Friend, this shouldn't be the way things end/But then, a break is just around the bend.
And when you tell me as I leave/You're scared you'll never see my face again
Well, I'm not sure it's the truth/You don't think I can love you/But I can and I will and I do”
--“I Can I Will I Do”

“Don't call me a zero/I'm gonna be a hero
Like Phil Esposito or the Kennedys

I'll be incorporated/And I'll be imitated
And overrated, but that doesn't bother me”
--“Celebrity”

“I wax poetic as you’re waxing your legs”
--“Blame It on Me”

“I climb the walls of my mind just like I’m climbing/On the jungle gym.
I am more than content with the/State of mind I am in.
Cause I am crazy just like you.”
--“Crazy”

“When you walked in, I said with a grin/That we were just talking about you
We all had to lie because you would cry/If you knew we were laughing at you”
--“Humour of the Situation”

Okay, I could post much, much more. They have about 200 songs. Anyway, they’re brilliant.

So, why am I so sad about Steve leaving? Well, he was the cofounder and cofrontsman of the group. He wrote or cowrote a majority of the songs. He also sang at least half of them. I love Steve’s voice. It’s distinctive and strong. I can’t imagine anyone else singing his songs. To me, him and his voice were the heart and soul of Barenaked Ladies. I’ve always preferred “Steve songs” to “Ed songs.” Not only that but he was a major presence in the live shows. The live shows have always been about the banter between Ed and Steve. They played off each other and brought excitement to everything they did. I can't imagine "If I Had a Million Dollars" without him. That song was and will always be Ed and Steve's duet. Losing Steve is like losing John Lennon. (In an interesting side-note, there have been some rumors that Steve’s new girlfriend is partly to blame. Extra ironic considering the band’s early hit song “Be My Yoko Ono” in which Steve sings “If I were John and you were Yoko I would gladly give up musical genius. Just to have you as my very own personal Venus.”) Though John and Paul were both talented separately, together they were brilliant. It was their partnership that made the Beatles so great. They pushed each other to be better. BNL is the same way. What is Ed without Steve or Steve without Ed? The band has decided to continue on as a four-man group, but it will never be the same. I love the other members of the band, but let’s face it…losing Steve is a huge blow. The Barenaked Ladies that I fell in love with and obsessed over the last several years will never be the same. And for that, I can’t help but mourn. (“It took me a year to believe it was over. It took me two more to get over the loss.”)

Why I Love Susan Boyle

2009-04-17T18:34:00.003-06:00

For those who haven't been following the news or the viral video, Susan Boyle is a 47-year-old woman from a teeny town in Scotland. She is one of this year's contestants on Britain's Got Talent.

I discovered the viral video via a news article online. I watched it and discovered why, only a few days later, the video has reached 21 million views.

The video introduces us to Susan, a plump, unattractive, poorly dressed woman who admits she sings to her cat and has never been kissed. She walks out on stage and within seconds the audience, and the judges, have already made up their mind about her. They cynically wait for her to make a fool of herself. But Susan refuses to be shaken. With her witty remarks and refusal to let others get to her, Susan displays great self-confidence and what can only be called moxie. They may judge her, but she believes in herself.

And then Susan begins to sing....and out comes one of the most beautiful voices I've heard in a long time. Almost instantly, the audience is on their feet. As she sings about dreams, you find yourself believing with her. You know she knows what she's singing as she pours her soul out with her voice. The emotion reaches out through cyberspace and touches your heart.

Some may ask, "why is this video so popular?" or say "This isn't the most amazing voice I've ever heard." It's not about the singing people (though the singing, though not entirely "perfect," is spectacular). It's about how people in this world take one look at somebody and judge what he or she is worth. She couldn't be a good singer because she didn't look like somebody who could sing. It only takes a few seconds to be judge, jury, and executioner these days.

Susan Boyle reminded me that EVERYONE is incredible in some way, whether they can sing, dance, give a good speech, make a good cake, be a good friend, whatever. You don't need to be beautiful, well-packaged, perfectly proportioned, or well-groomed to be incredible. You don't need to be what people call "normal." No one is normal. We are all uniquely gifted spirits. We all have something to offer. Just because we don't look or seem the part does not mean that we too are not worth something. The next time you think about judging someone else, especially for appearances, remind yourself that that person is incredible too. You may not know what or how makes that person incredible, but it's there. Within each of us of us "ordinary" people is the power to be extraordinary.

Susan Boyle dared to take a risk, to believe in herself, despite her age, appearance, or lifestyle. With her genuine spirit and charming attitude, she showed the world that yes, she too has something to give and yes, she too is incredible. She won over the audience and the judges and, in the process, won over my heart. And that's why I love Susan Boyle.

This blew me away

2009-04-16T22:31:00.004-06:00

Watch this video. If you don't feel something, you're dead inside...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Absolutely amazing! (I've watched it three times now. Gets better every time.)

Pregnancy

2009-04-11T15:40:00.009-06:00

Though I've talked about being pregnant a lot, I haven't really blogged that much about it. With only 60 days till my due date, I wanted to do a post about my experiences being pregnant thus far. If you don't want to read about it, feel free to skip this post.

6 weeks

First Trimester
I've already written about how I found out I was pregnant and how we initially told everyone. In the beginning I was excited and nervous and couldn't really believe I was actually pregnant. I felt pretty good in the first few weeks, besides the sore breasts. Around 8 weeks or so, morning sickness hit. It felt worse than any nausea I had heretofore experienced. I learned quickly to not get up too fast and eat frequently. I ate crackers and sucked ginger mints. (By the way, I hate crackers now.) I did not throw up very much. Mostly because I will do ANYTHING to avoid throwing up. I'm not one of those people who will throw up and get it over with. I'll try to make it go away. I found that following these rules were very helpful in preventing vomiting:
1. Never eat anything that doesn't sound good.
2. If something that was tasting good all of the sudden stops tasting good, stop eating IMMEDIATELY. (Even if it means spitting out food instead of swallowing it.)
3. Never get hungry.
4. Eat as soon as you get up.
5. Eat in the middle of the night if you need to. Never go to bed hungry.
6. Sleep and don't move around as much as possible.
7. Keep food near the bed and don't get up quickly.

I credit these rules (and perhaps good luck) to keeping my vomiting to a minimum. I still felt nauseated most days. Some were worse than others. Thinking about this again, I am SO glad to not feel this way anymore. (Morning sickness was pretty much gone by 20 weeks.) One of the times I did throw up were because I broke rules number 1 and 2. I was eating a tuna fish sandwich that I didn't really want to eat but there wasn't anything else to eat. It started making me sick but I kept eating. That is until the urge to puke came upon me so suddenly I pretty much got it all over the place. Poor Austin. He was such a trooper. He cleaned most of it up. Even after I kept repeatedly throwing up. I loved tuna fish, but I have not touched the stuff since and don't know if I'll ever be able to again. Speaking of food changes, I have also lost my love of broccoli, which I sorely miss. I have always LOVED broccoli, but have not been able to enjoy it during my pregnancy. It tastes extremely bitter to me. I'm hoping this will return when this is all over. I have also not been able to eat string cheese. Other food cravings have included, at various times, hamburgers, fries, apples, oranges, ice cream/frozen yogurt, chocolate, fruit snacks, Fruit Loops, and Frosty floats. I liked oranges all right before my pregnancy, but now I LOVE them. I eat at least one every day.

I also broke out like CRAZY in the first trimester. ALL OVER MY BODY. I even got a zit on my stomach. It was awful, and I hated it. My hair was also falling out. Other than these things and morning sickness and feeling bloated and extremely tired, I don't remember much else about the first trimester. Our first prenatal visit we didn't get to hear the heartbeat, but we did get to see our little boy (then known as Squiggle) in an ultrasound. We did hear the heartbeat at my 10 week appointment. It was seriously the best sound (except for the fact that I trouble paying attention to and enjoying it due to my midwife stabbing my abdomen with the Doppler). It was the first time that pregnancy started feeling more real, especially for Austin. Around 12 weeks of pregnancy, I stopped doing the "elastic hairband trick" to keep my pants on and bought a few pairs of maternity pants. Those lasted until I bought my nice maternity jeans (that I'm still wearing) around 16 weeks.

24 weeks

Second Trimester
I really wish I could go back to the second trimester. This was the best time. Morning sickness went away, and I started getting rounder and actually looking pregnant instead of fat. My energy was returning, for the most part. Near the beginning of the second trimester, I got the stomach flu, which was absolutely horrendous. At first we just thought it was morning sickness, but I couldn't stop throwing up. I couldn't even keep water down. Austin gave me a blessing, and we called a nurse around 5 in the morning and asked what I should do. (We were worried about me being dehydrated and hurting the baby.) Austin was totally freaking out. He wanted me to go to the hospital. I'm glad we waited. (I wanted to wait a few more hours to see if I could keep water down.) After 17 hours or so of continuous vomiting, I finally was able to keep a few ounces of water down. The rest of the day I was on liquids only. By the following day, I was able to eat a few solids (mostly toast and the like). By day three, I was able to mostly eat normally again. I spent the entire weekend sick. It was awful. Probably the worst I've felt in my life. Stomach flu is always nasty; it's worse when you're pregnant.

Besides this unpleasant experience, second trimester was awesome. We had our 20 week ultrasound and found out we were having a boy! We decided on the name Morgan and have been calling him that since. My hair stopped falling out and my skin cleared up, for the most part. One of the best parts was feeling the baby move for the first time. It was around 22 weeks or so (which was later than I wanted to start feeling him) and I was sitting at the computer when all of the sudden I felt this little "flip" feeling in my stomach. I stopped what I was doing and asked myself, "Was that the baby?" A few seconds later, it happened again. I then realized that it was NOT gas but was in fact the baby. I was so happy to finally feel him. Those first movements were so awesome. They felt like little bubbles doing flips in my stomach. These little flips have steadily gotten stronger. They became big kicks. Now the kicks are starting to die down and I'm starting to feel bigger movements. It's such a strange and wonderful feeling. I think I'm going to miss feeling him move when it's all over, despite the fact that he loves to move the most when I'm trying to sleep.

28 weeks

Third Trimester
I am now in my third trimester. I can hardly believe it. I swear I'm getting bigger every day. The change from 20 weeks to 24 weeks and 24 weeks to 28 weeks was incredible. I'm just getting bigger and rounder. And with that comes the ability to no longer easily pick things up. I also get exhausted quite quickly. I have to rest frequently when doing anything. My back and joints hurt. I get heartburn. My arms and legs fall asleep easily. I get leg cramps. I toss and turn at night a lot. It's so hard to get comfortable. It's starting to take me longer to get out of bed and it's more of an effort. I feel "full" all the time, but not from eating. I get up several times at night to go to the bathroom. I feel pressure on my bladder and pelvic area from time to time. My hands, ankles, and feet have swollen slightly.

I'm really getting to the point that I'm ready to be done with all this. I'm SO looking forward to not being pregnant anymore. Though 2 months is not a long time, I have a feeling it's going to go both extremely slow and extremely fast. Austin and I still have so much to do. We are totally not ready to have this baby yet. (As far as preparation goes.) We started childbirth education classes last week and I'm loving them so far. We're going to Birthing From Within classes. It's a 6 week course. We met once a week for three hours. It focuses on more than just teaching information (which I've mostly picked up by reading more books on pregnancy and labor than you'd care to know). We also learn to become emotionally prepared to have a baby. More on this later.

I thought I would have had more mood swings than I've had being pregnant. Though I've had a few major breakdowns due to feelings of being overwhelmed with everything and I've been a bit more snappy than usual, I haven't been too bad. I've kept my irrational lashing out and crying to a bare minimum. We'll see what happens in the next few months though.

At 30 weeks we got to see a sneak peek at Morgan (which you've all seen on Austin's blog by now). It was pretty cool. I'm glad we did that, though I wish the baby looked more like me. He looks all Austin for now, but we'll see what happens when he finally graces us with his appearance.

So this is it for now I guess. I'll post more about the last third of my pregnancy as it happens. I can't believe it's almost over. I can't wait to finally hold my baby in my arms.

(More preggo pics to come... I really meant to take pictures every month, but...I didn't. Thus the jump from 6 weeks to 24 weeks lol)

I didn't start the fire...

2009-04-04T15:56:00.003-06:00

But I did burn the bread. I have now become my mother's daughter. My whole life growing up my mom has been pretty much incapable of NOT burning garlic bread, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. We've always, good-naturedly, teased her for this.

About a month ago Austin was craving garlic bread. I make excellent garlic bread. Butter, real garlic, spices, and crispy crust. We were both looking forward to the bread. However, due to my pregnant scatterbrainedness, I promptly forgot about the bread. I jumped up when I smelled smoke coming from the oven. To our despair, I had burned the bread almost beyond edibility. But I didn't let this stop me. Wanting to salvage the bread, I scooped out the middle of the pieces and savored what precious little there was to eat.

Mom, I will no longer tease you for burning the bread.

Tag

2009-04-03T11:07:00.005-06:00

Yep, I know I've been horrible at blogging lately. Fear not. I have like 6 posts or so in the works that will hopefully come soon. For now, I'll do this tag to give you something to read.

8 Item Tag...You're it now! Here are the rules: 1) Post rules on your blog 2) Answer the six '8' items 3) Let each person know by leaving them a comment.

8 favorite TV shows:
1. LOST
2. American Idol (my guilty pleasure)
3. Lois & Clark
4. Friends
5. Scrubs
6. Psych
7. The Office
8. Arrested Development

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Worked
2. Went to my first birth class
3. cleaned the kitchen
4. watched The Office
5. finished reading Interview with the Vampire
6. and that's it

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Conference weekend
2. blogging
3. Austin and I's birthdays
4. Morgan
5. possibly buying a condo
6. finishing a freelance project I've been working on
7. not being pregnant anymore
8. Austin being done with school (still awhile to go on this one)

8 Favorite restaurants:
1. Cheesecake Factory
2. Macaroni Grill
3. Outback
4. Wingers
5. Red Robin
6. California Pizza Kitchen
7. Biagi's
8. TGI Friday's

8 Things on my wish list:
1. For this baby to come soon and be healthy
2. For me to recover quickly and lose the baby weight
3. To get into a condo
4. For Austin and I both to publish something
5. For Austin to graduate and get a job doing something he enjoys while making enough money for me to quit working
6. For my family to be happy and healthy
7. To become a better person
8. To travel and see the things I want to see (works of art, architecture, natural and man-made wonders)

8 People I Tag:
1. Mom
2. Charity
3. Anina
4. Jen
5. Cheryl
6. HayLee
7. Amanda
8. Jessica

(and anyone else who wants to do it)

Happy Birthday Charity!

2009-02-26T16:22:00.008-07:00

This is a brief shout-out to Charity, who recently turned 25!

Happy Birthday!

Here we are at lunch: (Not the best picture of us by any means. But, hey, it was self-taken since we couldn't flag someone down to take it.)

And here is her birthday party: (the picture of her blowing out candles unfortunately did not turn out.) (There were other people there as well but we didn't take any other pictures.)

Popcorn Popping on an Electric Stove

2009-02-26T15:54:00.009-07:00

I love popcorn. It is one of the best treats ever invented. I am perfectly capable of devouring enormous quantities of popcorn single-handedly.

I blame my mom.

She is also a popcorn fiend.

But this isn't about her.

This is about fluffy, buttery popcorn and all of its marvelous wonderousness. My life has been forever changed.

So I'm not a complete idiot. I was perfectly aware that not all popcorn comes from little paper bags cooked via "the popcorn button" in the microwave. I mean, I had heard of air poppers.

What I didn't know is that it was entirely possible to cook popcorn YOURSELF...ON THE STOVE. Thanks goes to Charity who shared this little piece of wisdom with me.

A few weeks ago Austin and I went over to Charity and James' to watch a French postapocalyptic film about cannibals called Delicatessen. (Verdict: Weird, but interesting. And the French are weird.) Anyway, being the good host that she is, Charity had made some homemade popcorn that was absolutely delicious. Seriously. Best. popcorn. EVER. I was shocked to learn she had made it entirely herself. "It's easy," she insisted. "I must know how this was done!" I declared.

And she told me.

Flash forward a few weeks later. I got a massive craving at like midnight on a weekday to make popcorn....Only to discover that popcorn does not have an indeterminable shelflife. Since Austin and I were married, we had kept popcorn kernels in a cute ceramic jar aptly labeled "POPCORN." I opened this jar to discover green, moldly kernels. Apparently, two years wrecks havoc on corn kernels kept in ceramic jars. In dismay, I threw out my kernels, determined to try again soon.

The next time we went grocery shopping, I joyously bought a bag of kernels. Shortly thereafter I, Tracie, "Homemade Popcorn Virgin," attempted to pop my own corn.

Holding and shaking the pan, I giggled and delighted like a child learning the joys of riding a swing for the first time. Every pop!pop!pop! filled me with utter joy and wonderment. Afterwards, I melted butter and poured that (along with a smidgen of salt) on my popcorn. It was the best thing I have ever tasted.

My life has been ruined now, however. I will never be able to enjoy microwave popcorn again. (Particularly not the horrible, tasteless, bland, generic crap that Walmart now sells instead of the respectable ACT II.)

For those of you who have not yet experienced this wonder, do yourself a favor and pop your own corn today. Your taste buds will thank you.

Superbowl

2009-02-26T15:35:00.014-07:00

Lots of food for me to eat

What, you say? This was a month ago? Well, poppycocks. Deal with it.

Austin and I had a fun Superbowl Sunday. We went over to Tyler's where we each made our own individual pizzas. (Ty, your white sauce rocked. Send me the recipe and the pizza dough recipe STAT.) To show you how important the game was to me, I cannot now remember who even played. I do remember that it was a pretty exciting game to watch. One of the best in a while. Though I still don't really care for sports all that much. I enjoyed Bruce Springsteen's Halftime show and the super-cool-3D-commercial-product-promoting commercial break. (Lol, actually it was fun watching stuff in 3D at home.)

Before the game was over we headed over to Jan Beckstrom's (Austin's first cousin once removed) house and visited with Justin (his second cousin slash best friend). A good time was had by all.

And here are pics to prove these things happened: (Except the second part. I have no pictures of that.)

Mason getting messy eating a chocolate strawberry. Notice his cast. He had just broken his arm. :(

Grandpa & Tyson

Justin looking very attractive

Cheryl, Mason, & Sophie

HayLee & Preston

All the yummy ingredients

Tay making his pizza

Two very attractive people making pizzas

Yummy pizzas cooking

I would ask how your Superbowl Sunday was, but it was so, like, forever ago that it would be, like, totally stupid to even ask.

(Special mention goes to Mom who actually took most of these pictures. :) )

Boy Oh Boy

2009-02-02T16:54:00.011-07:00

Austin and I recently went in for our twenty-week ultrasound. I was really nervous for several reasons. Like other obsessive, neurotic (or otherwise normal) people, I constantly worry about the health of my baby. Am I getting enough nutrients? Is the baby growing? Does our baby have some weird birth defect? Has our baby stopped growing? Am I going to lose the baby? These fears have been compounded upon due to the fact that I have not yet felt the baby move. :( (Still stressing about this one as I am coming upon 22 weeks here.) I was also nervous because we were finally going to find out the sex. Though I (and many others) have been convinced it's a boy from the beginning, I was a bit anxious to discover for sure.

It was SO relieving to see our little baby. There were two arms, two legs, toes, fingers, a belly, head, back, spine, brain, heart, and other organs. I can't begin to relate the relief that it looked like a baby (albeit a very small one) instead of a mutant. Since many of you know that I really wanted a girl, I was curious to know what my reaction would be when/if I found it was a boy. When the technician announced that it was positively a boy my first reaction was "tell us something we don't know." But secondly, and most importantly, I realized I really didn't care that I wasn't having a girl. I was having a boy! My boy! I was having a son. And then I began to cry. It didn't matter anymore that I wouldn't be buying ribbons or bows. I'm going to be a mom. I've realized for months that I'm having a baby but this was the first time it really hit me that I'm going to be a mom. The mom of a little boy. And he's going to be MY boy. (And he's going to be SO cute. :) ) Anyway, after the relievement of hearing that our baby is totally healthy and normal and he has no abnormalities, it was finally time to spread the good news!

Austin called his parents right away and let them he was having a son. I wanted to tell my family in person, but it would have to wait a day because Austin had evening classes the day we found out. This meant I had to keep the news on the downlow and try to keep it from leaking on facebook. This also gave me a day to figure out how I was going to tell my family. After searching online for a while for ideas, which was mostly fruitless, I came upon the idea to use cupcakes. I bought vanilla cake and frosting and dyed the cake batter blue. The frosting I divided in half, dying half pink and half blue. So the insides of the cupcakes were blue and I frosted half the cupcakes with pink frosting and the other half with blue. The idea was that they were to pick by frosting color what they thought I was having and then bite into to discover what it really was. But I thought this was a bit too simple so I also decided to write a poem. I couldn't let the family think Trent was the only one who knew how to write a clever riddle! (Backstory: Trent wrote a riddle about what they were naming his first daughter for the family to solve.) Anyway, I wrote this poem:

in june I will come to join
the McNeil family, true.
now i ask the question:
am i pink or am i blue?

Ask me many questions,
for i will never tell you lies.
i will be a Beckstrom;
this is no surprise.

Others may ponder,
am i daddy's girl or mama's guy?
you'll just have to keep on asking:
am i an x or a Y?

if you are stumped
and no more suspense you can take,
go ahead and take a bite
out of my delicious cupcakes.

Can you solve it?

Hint: Look for the capital letters.

Solution: The capital letters spell out IM A BOY

I actually was surprised that no one deduced the actual solution. (Though many were suspect that the Y was capitalized when the X wasn't.) I had everyone bite into the cupcakes at the same time and everyone discovered the blue cake! Yay! I was having a boy!

Here is our ultrasound pictures. We also got a DVD but it only recorded half of the actual ultrasound, which means it doesn't include the best shots or the shot where we discovered it was a boy. So, I'm glad we at least got a picture of it.

I'm having a little boy! We can't wait till June to meet you!

New Year

2009-02-02T15:32:00.007-07:00

It is now February. But that doesn't mean I can't make New Year's resolutions anymore. In fact, I hope that we all constantly make and strive to meet goals all year, not just at the beginning.

I wanted to briefly give an account of my New Year's Eve. The McNeil family (and some on Cheryl's side) had a lovely party over at Tyler and Cheryl's. There was good food and good company. Austin and I (and by that I mean me) planned some games. They were well-received. It was good to see a group of adults laughing that hard. Highlights include Austin miming giving an elephant a bath and my dad screeching out "Baby, if you love me, won't you please, please smile."

At midnight we had the countdown and Austin and I kissed:

We then had some brief, but really cool, albeit illegal fireworks courtesy of Tyler.

The next day we spent some time with Heidi, Aaron, and Will, and then went out to dinner to Red Robin with Brittnee and Matt. The day after this I started throwing up and then didn't stop. I thought it was pregnancy-related at first until I realized it wouldn't stop and I couldn't keep anything down, not even water. Austin was really worried about me and the baby. We thought I may have to go to the hospital to get rehydrated. Fortunately, after about 18 hours (and a blessing and many prayers) I was able to keep some water down. Several hours later I was able to keep other liquids down. I was then on a liquid diet for another day or so. Apparently I picked up the stomach flu somewhere. Poor Austin also caught it eventually, though he recovered faster than I did. This was how we started out the New Year. :)

And now for my resolutions:

1. Establish my priorities. Make time for what's important and get rid of the things that are not. Specifically, I want to start making it to all my Church meetings and make time for daily scripture study, weekly FHE, and monthly temple attendance.
2. Organize my home and prepare for the baby. This includes getting rid of stuff I don't need, getting the stuff I do need, and making any other preparations.
3. Exercise, eat well, and take care of me and baby.

That's about it for now. I hope to make other goals later this year. It's very weird to be pregnant because this is the first year EVER in my life that I haven't made a goal to lose weight. I've struggled with my weight since I was about ten (except for like a two-year period between the ages of 19-21). It's weird to see the scale going up and be okay with it. I will soon be heavier than I have ever been in my entire life, even when I was overweight in high school. I know all of this is necessary weight, but it's still a little difficult on my psyche when you've spent your life trying not to be overweight and working so hard to see the scale get lower. It's strange to think I've ranged in size SEVEN different dress sizes since I've reached my full growth.

I hope I will be able to lose baby-weight when the time comes. Not because I'm obsessed with being thin (because I've never been obsessed with "thinness" itself), but because I'm obsessed with finally being healthy and happy. I'm not fully happy being overweight nor am I fully healthy. And with my family history, being overweight is not going to make things easier. I ironically wasn't happiest at my thinnest either (which some people said was too thin). It was also way too difficult to stay that thin. Staying that thin meant eating next to nothing and getting several hours of exercise a day. Too much work. I was happiest at the weight considered "healthy" for my height. I wasn't a stick or perfectly toned. I still had a small belly roll at this time, but I felt good and I looked good and I could do what I wanted to do with my body. And that what real health is about. It isn't about the number or the size but how you feel in your own skin and being able to do what you enjoy doing without hinderance. It's about your heart, your lungs, and all of your body being able to work the way they're supposed to. And to do all this you don't need to have the society-depicted "perfect" body. But that's just my two cents.

Happy belated New Year everyone!

Modge Podge

2009-01-27T23:42:00.012-07:00

This is going to be a lot of random things in a single post. Because I said so. First of all, here was our Christmas tree. Yes, I know it's the end of January. But here it is anyway. Admire it.

Next, look at this gorgeous sunset I was lucky enough to get a picture of: (This was sometime in December.)
And now a funny picture of Austin trying to deflate the air mattress in Texas: (it would've been funnier if I could've gotten my camera out sooner)

Next, here is pictures of me and my haircut: (Note: I am not photogenic. It looks better in person.) (Thanks again Hay for cutting it. I love it.)

Okay, stay tuned. I'm going to post about New Years and my resolutions. (Better late than never as I always say.)

Best & Worst of 2008

2009-01-07T13:47:00.010-07:00

Another year has come and gone. By the raise of hands, how many thought 2008 went by extraordinarily fast? It was definitely an interesting year. It was the year of record high gas prices and oddly low gas prices, rising tensions in the Middle East, proposition 8, housing market crashes, stock market crashes, economic recession, and bailouts. The year Bill Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft, Michael Phelps became an American hero, and Barack Obama was elected the first Black president. 2008 saw the death of Presidents Hinckley and Faust, Heath Ledger, Charlton Heston, Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Crichton, George Carlin, and Paul Newman among others. I said goodbye to my Great Grandma McNeil and Austin’s Great Aunt Mary Ellen. I said hello to new friendships, a new niece, and the summer sensation of Dr. Horrible. Dear friends moved away. Jobs were lost and found. Yes, it seems change was the big theme of 2008.

Thinking about all of the many things that happened last year led me to a desire to recap my own experiences with 2008. Without further ado, I present to you my Best and Worst of 2008. I’ll start with the Worst as I always find it easier to deal with the bad to find the good rather than the other way around. Plus, it’s always good to end on a positive note.

Worst of 2008:
My heater doesn’t work during the winter and I freeze.
It costs $500 to fix it.
I hate the snow. It snows the end of March.
Heidi and Aaron move away. (Good for them, bad for us.)
Brett & Charlotte move away. (Good for them, bad for us.)
Austin loses his job.
Austin car breaks down and we have to get rid of it.
I make a huge, tiny mistake.
I get an eye infection.

Best of 2008:
We buy a mattress topper
We fix my heater.
I get LOST
We go to Texas for President’s Day Weekend and Christmas.
Heidi has her baby, William Aaron.
We celebrate our birthdays.
We become friends with Charity and James.
We go on vacation to Vegas.
Austin finds a new, better job.
Brittnee and Matt get married.
I work out every day for a few months.
I get a raise and start working from home.
Austin and I write a play.
We go camping with the Wests.
We celebrate our two-year anniversary with a trip to the spa.
Lily is born.
Tyler and Cheryl treat us to Chef's Table for watching their kids.
Austin gets two stories published in a college journal.
We get pregnant!
We discover Thriving Ivory.
Halloween!
Thanksgiving!
We join a book club.

The Rest:
We make tin foil dinners with the Wests.
I get my wisdom teeth taken out.
We go to a college reunion and Summerfest.
We go to Thanksgiving Point.
We visit with the Beckstroms.
We go to a rodeo.
I babysit my nephews for a few days.
We go to a haunted house with Brittnee and Matt.

I now look forward to 2009. The year we welcome our first child into the world! May this year be as good, if not better, than the last.

Christmas Vacation

2009-01-02T13:24:00.005-07:00

Christmas has come and gone but you get to read about it again. This year Austin and I went to Texas to spend Christmas with his family. I was excited to see his family but also felt a bit strange about being away from my family on Christmas for the first time ever.

We flew out on the 21st after Austin had finished his finals. (He did pretty well. Way to go baby!) My parents generously drove us to the airport, and we arrived in plenty of time. There were no complications or setbacks. It was actually quite empty for this time of year. We had a relaxing time while we were there. The week consisted of visiting with family, including both sets of grandparents who came and left at different times; playing Shanghai (I won twice.); watching Psych (a funny TV show friends have been trying to get us to see forever); seeing Alice perform in The Messiah (which was much longer than I thought it was. Apparently there’s more to it than the Hallelujah Chorus); visiting Brett and Laurie and their twin girls (Austin’s friends from childhood); going to Cici’s Pizza with Ammon & Lynette & co. (where Lynette won 2 prizes from the crane game after zealously spending quarters); going to the mall (where I bought Sephora eyeshadow with Christmas money); going to dinner at a Mexican joint (where I got delicious taquitos); going to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (which was pretty cool; we saw almost everything in a few hours. I particularly liked the impressionist and expressionist painting I saw, especially Matisse); and enjoying Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (I also spent much time staying up and sleeping in. I read two whole books while I was there.)

Christmas Day in the Beckstrom family consisted of getting up early, eating breakfast (including Alice’s famous egg dish that was made by Austin this year), and having the missionaries over. I received many wonderful gifts from Austin this year including Firefly (the complete series, which isn’t much as it got cancelled), The Prydain Chronicles (a book series with 5 volumes that I read and loved as a kid and continue to love as an adult. If you haven’t read them, I suggest doing so.); a guidebook to the Prydain Chronicles; a book containing short stories about Prydain; Legend (80s fantasy movie with Tom Cruise); The Black Cauldron (old Disney movie loosely based on one of the books in the Prydain series which I have actually never seen); jewelry; small tape recorder (so I can record my thoughts and my songs); Tiny Toons (which I received as an early present); new slippers; Coco (Colbie Caillat CD); and a new DS game Professor Layton and the Curious Village (which I have already almost beat).

From Ammon and Lynette I received Girls and Boys (Ingrid Michaelson CD) and Kirby Super Star Ultra game for the DS (which is a port of the game I loved on the SNES system). From Alice and Mark I received a Wii (to be shared with Austin); a ladybug swaddler for Squiggle; and a rocker/glider that I get to pick out for the nursery. We also received money from his grandparents, an appreciated gift. (Some of this money went to my new wonderful eyeshadow.)

Thanks to my Beckstrom (and Valantine) relatives for the Christmas gifts! They were all wonderful! (And thanks to my husband who always spoils me.)

Austin and I were glad to spend time with his family, particularly Ammon & Lynette (and kids) whom we haven’t seen in a long time and won’t see again for a while. We much appreciate Austin’s dad for flying us out there so we could spend time with the family. We enjoyed our stay very much and will miss you all until we can see you again!

Austin and I returned home very late Sunday night (actually it’s more accurate to say very early Monday morning). Once again, security was easy to get through. We did have a half hour boarding delay that caused us to be a little late getting in. My parents picked us up and drove us back home. Thanks Mom & Dad for the ride. We really appreciate it.

My parents generously offered to let us come over for dinner Monday night. This was much appreciated as we had no food in the house. After a delicious dinner (taco salad for me, just tacos for Austin), we opened some presents from my parents. My parents got us this great utility vacuum with several attachable hoses. I was excited for this as it will be perfect to clean our car! I have already thought of several uses I want to put it to. Mom also got me some fuzzy socks and nice perfume. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Austin and I were very spoiled this year as we also received presents from Troy and Jen (who got us two new fun games: Othello and Tri-Ominos); HayLee (who got me a great pair of comfy slippers); and Brittnee and Matt (who got us Partini, a party game I’ve been wanting to try out). Thanks everyone!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. Since I’ve already had the pleasure of reading all about your Christmases, it sounds like you all did.

I am a Marilyn

2008-12-05T14:41:00.004-07:00

Got this off Jen's blog. :)

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Marilyn!

You are a Marilyn -- "I am affectionate and skeptical."

Marilyns are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

* Be direct and clear
* Listen to me carefully
* Don't judge me for my anxiety
* Work things through with me
* Reassure me that everything is OK between us
* Laugh and make jokes with me
* Gently push me toward new experiences
* Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a Marilyn

* being committed and faithful to family and friends
* being responsible and hardworking
* being compassionate toward others
* having intellect and wit
* being a nonconformist
* confronting danger bravely
* being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a Marilyn

* the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind
* procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself
* fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of
* exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger
* wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right
* being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

Marilyns as Children Often

* are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn
* are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger
* form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent
* look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel
* are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

Marilyns as Parents

* are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty
* are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence
* worry more than most that their children will get hurt
* sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Nine Month Flu

2008-12-04T15:18:00.007-07:00

So now that word is out I wanted to share my experiences thus far. If it's TMI for you, just skim. Austin and I had decided last year that August 2008 was when we'd start trying to get pregnant. I went off the pill end of June and we crossed our fingers. I took a test end of August. Negative. End of September I was getting really anxious as I had a few possible signs that I was pregnant but I've had that in the past and I'm pretty neurotic. I was supposed to wait until October 5th to take the test, but I was getting curious. I had to know. We had an early test left over from the month before so I decided to take it, not expecting anything really as it was really early but I just couldn't wait any longer. So on October 2nd (which was a Thursday) I took the test and lo and behold two pink lines. But one was really faint. So then I was uncertain. Was I or wasn't I? I im'ed Austin over gchat and let him know that I might be pregnant and told him what happened. (In retrospect I wish I would have told him in a grander way.) I spent all day freaking out, but we decided we'd wait a few days to take another test.

On Friday night Austin and I went and bought more tests. Saturday morning I took another test, which also showed two lines, though the second one was again really faint. Then I read online about chemical pregnancies, which is when you have an early miscarriage but the test shows you're still pregnant for a while. So I freaked about that until Austin calmed me down. Sunday I took another test. Still positive. That's when we started talking about telling my family. We wanted to wait until we were further along to tell family (according to my dates I was only 4 1/2 weeks pregnant) but Heather was coming into town on October 5th, which means almost the whole family would be here and that doesn't happen often. So we decided to tell them Monday night because most of the family would be together to go to the corn maze. I called HayLee and Troy (and spouses) to tell them I was pregnant as they wouldn't be at the corn maze. I also told Taylor early as I couldn't keep the knowledge to myself. Keeping a secret this big was incredibly difficult.

Austin and I had a great idea on how to tell the family. We would do a group picture at the corn maze with Austin taking the picture. Austin would say "Say cheese" and then take another one saying "Say Tracie's pregnant!" that way we could get a picture of everyone's reaction. Let me just say how much of a bundle of nerves Austin and I were that night. We wanted to take a picture when we first got there but no one else did. So the family went through the corn maze and then started to play around on the many things there were to do. I thought I'd have a heart attack from trying to appear nonchalant. I didn't want to act excited because then everyone would ask "What are you excited about?" Every time people kept putting off taking the picture Austin and I freaked out a little inside. I just wanted to get it over with! So finally we took the picture. (after everyone asking "Why don't we find someone to take the picture so Austin can be in it?" etc.) When Austin asked everyone to say Tracie's pregnant. Everyone said it and was like, "what?", "Is this a joke?", "are you guys serious?" It's a common joke in my family to joke that you're pregnant. Even my parents still occasionally make this joke. "We've got an announcement. I'm pregnant." So people have a hard time telling when they're serious.

Everyone looked at me and was confused because I wasn't smiling. I was still trying not to smile and seem excited. But when they asked I replied that yes, it was true. Then everyone freaked and shouted and ran to me giving me hugs. Here's the pics Austin took.
Say Cheese!

Say Tracie's Pregnant!
Notice the grin on my dad's face. It's adorable. My mom is running to hug me. Trent and Jess are discussing how exciting it is that Lily will have a cousin close to her age. Everyone else is staring at me. I especially love the looks on Cheryl, Tyler, and Taylor's faces on the right.

Can I tell how relieving it was to finally have the family (at least my side) know? Whew. I'm glad I pulled off the surprise. I almost spilled the beans multiple times.

The next day we told Austin's family. Austin called Ammon and Lynette. For his parents, we decided to call them over Skype. We were chatting casually and then Austin told his mom that I had bought a new shirt and asked if she wanted to see it. Strolling up to the webcam I showed my "new" shirt which actually was a normal T-shirt with a sign that said BABY with an arrow pointing to my tummy. It took his mom a second but then she was super excited and grabbed Austin's dad and brothers. Everyone was excited, which was the reaction we wanted.

We told grandparents a little later and some people found out through the grapevine. We wanted to keep it mostly in the family until I was at least 12 weeks and until I told my work. Since we told work last Tuesday and I'm now 13 weeks, we are now telling everyone. Austin and I are both extremely excited.

For those who want to know what being pregnant has been like for me this far, let's just say it hasn't been all fun and games, as those who have been pregnant can attest. Once the excitement of finding out faded, reality (and morning sickness) hit. I've had morning sickness (really "all day sickness") on and off every day since about 6 weeks. I've had cramps, pains, headaches, and heartburn. I've thrown up a few times. I've gagged and dry heaved. Eating is a chore. Nothing ever sounds good but I know I must eat or the nausea gets much, much worse. I've had food "cravings." But I think this is really a misnomer as it isn't so much a craving as it's the only thing that sounds so good to eat while everything else makes you sick to think about. My sense of smell has been heightened. It's almost like another sense because I've never smelt things so strongly before. I feel fat as my jeans are tight and my shirts show my gut. I don't look pregnant yet but I do look like my belly has put on weight. Can't wait till it rounds a bit more so I look pregnant instead of chubby. My breasts have doubled I swear and I can't fit comfortably in my bra, thus I've been wearing my sports bra for now. Besides the nausea, the fatigue has been the worst. I've never been so tired in my life. However, despite everything, I wouldn't trade any of it. I love my little Squiggle.

Austin and I named the baby Sqiggle as we needed something to call it besides "it." And it looks like a Squiggle anyway. We got to see our baby for the first time a few weeks ago on an ultrasound as the Doppler could not pick up a heartbeat. I have a retroverted uterus (meaning it tilts toward my back instead of toward the pelvis), making the heartbeat harder to pick up. It was so great to see it confirmed onscreen that there is a baby inside of me and it is alive. We could see the flicker of the heartbeat. The midwife told me at first she thought it was twins but then discounted it. Though there was an unidentified mass near Squiggle. It bothered Austin that she couldn't tell us what it was. Oh well. Maybe we'll find out soon. I go in for my second prenatal appointment next week and we hope to finally hear the heartbeat. I constantly worry that my baby is dead or not growing.

That's one thing I've learned about pregnancy. It's just tons of worries. I worry about the health of the baby. Am I eating enough? Am I eating too much? Am I going to cause my baby to have a birth defect? Am I going to miscarry? Then there's all the fears about labor, delivery, and taking care of a baby. Will I be a good mom? Will I figure out how to take care of a baby? Will we have enough room for the baby? Will I be able to work and take care of the baby? Then I worry about work and insurance and FMLA and taking care of Austin and just everything really. It's just incredibly stressful and overwhelming. I'm so excited to have this baby. But I'm also really scared. It doesn't help that the hormones are on the overdrive.

Anyway, I look forward to what the next six months will bring me and Austin. Whatever happens, I know that things will probably work out for the best. I'm just going to take it one day at a time and enjoy the journey along the way. Thank you everyone for all your support!

Giving Thanks

2008-12-04T14:57:00.005-07:00

I'm grateful for many things this year. I'd like to say thanks to all the many friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances in my life. Earlier this year I wrote posts specifically thanking people in my life. I still mean everything I said then. You can read (or reread as the case may be) my thanks here, here, and here.

This year I'm thankful for...

* my husband who really does so much for me and is my strength
* my family members, on both sides
* my friends, especially the new ones I've recently made
* the gospel
* my Savior
* my job
* Austin's job
* a home that keeps us warm and provides shelter
* a sense of humor

and

* my upcoming bundle of joy due June 12th. I know most of you already knew. The cat's out of the bag. Austin and I are now telling the world. (Which means I finally get to blog about it)

You can go to Austin's blog to see a picture of our little Squiggle. He/she is a little bigger than that now as that was 4 weeks ago.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-12-04T14:34:00.005-07:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone once again. Though I took my camera to every event, I did not take any pictures. So you'll have to settle for words only. Austin and I had a great Thanksgiving. He wrote all about it for the most part, so I'll just sum up from my point of view.

The night before Thanksgiving Austin and I went over to my parent's as Troy, Jen, and family were there. They had decided to surprise us all. It was a wonderful surprise. That night was spent making pies (mostly by Mom) and singing karaoke.

Next day was all about food, food, and more food. We made my oh-so-famous cranberry sauce and pumpkin cheesecake and headed over to my parents. Mom's homemade rolls were excellent as always. The turkey was good as were the mashed potatoes. The gravy was absolutely superb, as was my cranberry sauce that I didn't personally eat. Everyone was there except for the Powells (who a lot of us had visited last Thanksgiving). Grandma and Grandpa McNeil also joined us this year. More karaoke was sung. Settlers of Catan was played. And many, many pies were eaten. My mom makes the best pumpkin pie (for reals). And I tried like 6 different pies. Austin and I played the Xbox for a bit and said reluctant goodbyes to Troy, Jen, Maddie, and Eric. Then Austin and I headed home to prepare for Black Friday. The plan was to go to bed, Austin get up at 4am to go to Kohl's, and then have him pick me up at 5am to go to Walmart. Then go shopping for a bit and go back to sleep. Things didn' t quite go that way.

Austin decided to stay up. I stayed in bed but couldn't sleep. You can read Austin's account for what we bought. After he got back from Kohl's we headed to Walmart which was absolute CHAOS. I've never seen such a crowd of people in such a small place. I had the distinct feeling of being a salmon trying to swim upriver. We didn't get anything we had intended to get as we were mostly there for cheap DVDs. But since no one told me that they were in the grocery aisle (!) by the time I fought my way to the electronics section, discovered they weren't there, and made it to the actual location, all the good ones were gone. Alas. But I did get a fuzzy hoodie for $8 that I love. By this time I was getting extremely nauseous as I was tired and hungry. W got home around 6am. By 8am I finally fell asleep out of pure and utter exhaustion. We slept till 1pm and then got up: sleep-deprived, hungry, and tired.

We headed over to my parent's house for the traditional Day-After-Thanksgiving Turkey Soup that my dad makes every year. It was good. As were the accompanying rolls and more pie we scarfed down. Austin and I played games the rest of the night: Scene It on Trent's Xbox and Settlers of Catan with Jessica.

Saturday night we went over to Austin's maternal grandparents' house. Dinner and company were grand, as always. Grandpa Valantine makes excellent turkey. Austin's cousin Cameron had tagged along for the ride up and played MarioKart and Mario Party with Austin when we got back home. I joined in after napping for an hour.

Sunday we went over to Austin's Uncle Jim's house. We ate delicious boneless ribs and mashed potatoes before going over to visit Austin's great uncle for his birthday. Then it was time for brownies and icecream, compliments of Betty Crocker and Dryer's. After all the food Austin and I went home to rest and digest. It was several days of happy gourging and being thankful. We had lots of fun with all friends and family we got to see over the break. It was nice to have a brief vacation from work. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.

Halloweeny Fun

2008-11-11T15:18:00.048-07:00

I'm updating so you can all stop sending me dirty looks through cyberspace. I love Halloween. And yes I know that Thanksgiving is now approaching (a holiday I also love) but I'm writing about Halloween now so those of you sick of it will just have to deal with it.

I had two costumes this year. One for work and one for the family/friend Halloween parties. I decided on my work costume because of a conversation Charity and I had one day. We were discussing one day how we hated the term "comma nazi" because it has such a negative and derogatory connotation. So we decided to come up with a replacement. I decided that "comma ninja" was a much better alternative as one, ninjas kick the butt out of Nazis and two, it was a more accurate description. I approach editing in a subtle kick-butt approach, hi-yahing extra commas or karate chopping abused apostrophes. Like ninjas in the night, Charity and I sneak in and edit. Okay, so editors are nerdy. But most of you already knew that, so let's move on.

So thus Charity and I decided to dress up as Comma Ninjas for work. When the time came, it was just me as the lone Comma Ninja in the office, but I hold no ill will towards Charity as one, her costume as Zelda was freakin' awesome and two, I'm cool like that. So here I am in my ninja glory. Complete with comma. Watch out or I'll ninja your commas away...

So every year I try to have Austin and I dress up as a themed couple. This year we were originally going to be Morticia and Gomez but then borrowed an idea from Charity and decided to be Westley and Buttercup from Princess Bride instead. It was a fun costume though everyone kept thinking Austin was Zorro.

Ever year my family does a Halloween dinner. This year was no exception. We showed up at my parent's house where some of my family was gathered. Dinner was fantastic as usual: homemade chili, rolls, and fruit. There was also orange Tang-flavored juice carbonated through the use of dry ice. I love dry ice. It's fun. No Halloween party is complete without it. Here are pictures of people at the party:

Preston as Batman

Westley & Buttercup

Closeup of Westley & Buttercup

Taylor as Capt. Jack Sparrow

My crazy parents

Tyler as a tourist

Jess as a blonde

The boys as Capt. Jack Sparrow:

I think he's using Bonnetti's Defense

On the actual day of Halloween Westley and I went over to Brittnee and Matt's house. I had made pumpkin cheesecake (which was pretty freakin' awesome if I do say so myself) and there was candy and "blood" punch (aka Kool-aid) and muddy buddies and other treats. As an icebreaker game, Austin and I had written Halloween/scary characters on index cards and placed them on people's backs. People then had to guess who they were through yes and no questions. I ended up being the Joker, Austin was Van Helsing, Brittnee was Dracula, Matt was the Bride of Frankenstein, Bethany was the Wicked Witch of the West, and her husband Dane was the Phantom of the Opera. We then each read a "scary" story that we had brought. Everyone had brought a different kind of story so that was fun. Austin recited a poem he had partially memorized. Then we played a hybrid version of Halloween Cranium. We each wrote down a scene from a scary movie and then we had to pick out what we had to do with the scene. (use clay, act it out, charades, etc.) I think I won this game and we got Battle of the Sexes two-player cardgame. Yay for prizes.

Then we started a round robin of storytelling. Someone started a story and then we each had to take a turn continuing the story. The first story started about a guy that had hired a hitman to kill his best friend so he could have his girlfriend. It ended with the guy being a vampire who had hired the hitman because the hitman was the last in the line of werewolf hunters and the girl (who was indeed a werewolf) ate him.

The second story was about a bus driver who killed a witch and was scared to death by a strange cat. His wife then went insane and tried to kill him but he was already dead. Turns out it was a love story in the end with both of them dead and happy living on the moon or something like that.

Anyway, it was hilarious. If you'd have been there, you would've agreed.

Bethany and Dane then had to leave and so the rest of settled down (with the addition of one of Brittnee's guy friends) to watch The Orphanage, a scary movie in Spanish with English subtitles. It was pretty creepy and sad but not in a "you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life" way. It was scary in the way The Sixth Sense is scary. Anyway, it was a great Halloweeny time for all.

I almost forgot. This year Austin and I also finally carved pumpkins together for the first time. You have no idea how much I had to beg and plead Austin to get a pumpkin. It took forever to convince him it'd be fun to carve pumpkins. In the three + years we've been together we have never carved pumpkins and I felt like a part of my childhood was missing. I love traditions, and I love carving pumpkins. You're never too old to enjoy being a kid. Anyway here's some pics of the process:

Scooping out

Austin being weird as usual.

Completed products:
Austin's

Tracie's

And that is me finally updating. I hope everyone is happy. :)

"Tracie needs....."

2008-10-20T14:44:00.003-06:00

So I saw this months and months ago and I planned to do it but I didn’t. So anyway, according to my search on Google, these are things that I supposedly need. (Do a search with your name and needs in quotations.)

Tracie needs...
.....to be pushed (I usually manage quite well on my own.)
.....a date (always)
.....to bite some chumps (Now where do I find some chumps?)
.....a dress (a pretty one that fits me and isn’t expensive)
.....a tumble (I think I’ve taken enough tumbles as it is, thank you.)
.....a breakthrough (hmmm....still waiting...)
.....to go to chuckle school (Awesome! I would love to go to Chuckle School.)
.....to take a vacation (Don’t we all?)
.....to lose the bad hair (Bah! I didn’t think it was that bad!)
.....needs help, but can she be saved in time? (This is the question)
.....a reality check (constantly)
.....a chuckle right now (always)
.....to pull the stick out of her gluteus maximus and relax (I’m quite relaxed now but sometimes this is true of me)
.....to win the lottery (yes, yes, I do.)

These were some of the best ones out of five pages of Google searching. Some made me scratch my head (bite chumps?) while others were just funny (pull the stick out of her gluteus maximus and relax). So what, according to the World Wide Web, do you need?

Fall has Fallen

2008-10-13T19:20:00.006-06:00

I love fall. It is my favorite season by far. I love it when it cools down and there's the slightest twinge of crispness in the air. The air smells crisper, cleaner. The sky showcases beautiful sunsets. And all the leaves in the mountain change color. I have many fond memories of going up the canyon to see nature's paintbrush. Everywhere gold, red, green, brown, yellow, and orange. I think Utah is at its most beautiful when the mountains display a master's palette of autumn colors. Recently Austin and I went up with my mom, dad, and my younger brother to see the leaves before they started falling off and dying. We went probably a week too late to see it in its full splendor, but it was still quite beautiful. Here are some of the pics I (and Austin) took:

Alas, fall has fallen and now the seedlings of winter are on their way! It's already snowing! It's going to be a long, cold winter. :( If it were up to me, winter would last exactly 1 1/2 months. Beginning of December to middle of January. It's unfortunate that my two favorite seasons are also the shortest!

Avocado Cookies

2008-10-03T18:54:00.004-06:00

Don’t these look yummy? They were. They absolutely were. A few weeks ago Tyler informed me that he had learned from the infallible Alton Brown that you could substitute avocado for butter and shortening when baking. Since I’m always on the lookout to make unhealthy treats a little bit healthier, I decided to try this idea out. So with Austin as my partner-in-cooking I set out to reinvent Mom’s chocolate chip cookies. I replaced all of the shortening and two-thirds of the butter with pureed avocado (I didn’t have enough avocado, otherwise I would’ve done all avocado.) It was quite the interesting concoction: green, wet, sticky, and a bit stretchy. I had to experiment with the cooking times quite a bit to get them so they were cooked on the inside and outside without burning but the final result was delicious. The cookies looked different but besides the slightly different texture, they tasted almost exactly the same. I will try this again. Project Status: Success!

The Struggle That Is Being Tracie

2008-09-17T20:29:00.006-06:00

I write more blog posts than you think I do. In fact, I've written so many things, not just blog posts, it's amazing. But where is all this text you ask? In my head. Yes, it is a fact that if there were an invention that would somehow convert thoughts to text I would have many writings attributed to my name. Why is this? Well, because I'm most creative and can write the best when, ironically, I'm not trying to write. Say for instance, right before I go to sleep. I wrote a whole page of a novel yesterday before going to sleep, but it doesn't exist anywhere besides in my own brain. And even that has gotten fuzzy.

It drives me crazy that I can write out whole ideas, plots, concepts, articles, witticisms, etc. in my head and yet when I sit down to write I draw a big blank. My creativity is drowning in my own brain where it can't escape and will never live among the concrete things we call the written word. Today while I was resting, I wrote 3 blog posts that you may or may not ever get the occasion to read. See for me, I'm too frustrated by the time I actually get a pen or a keyboard to actually write out my thoughts. It's just too much work. And by that time, the pretty thoughts have all flickered out and died a disparaging death. Things flow so much better in my head. Like a ballet of words, complete with perfect punctuation and the most appropriate clever expression of thought. If I could only easily get what's IN my head OUT, I would be a much happier person.

I beg of someone to help me in my valiant goals. The first person that can make this invention a reality, I vow to share a part of the proceeds from the money I make from the words I can finally get down on paper. Any takers?

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-12T11:50:00.003-06:00

For those that haven't heard, Hurricane Ike is coming up on the Texan coast. Most of Houston and Galveston is being evacuated. Those not required to evacuate are hunkering down in their homes with emergency supplies. Austin's family is in Houston. I ask my family and friends to please keep them in your prayers for the next few days.

EDIT: The storm has now passed and Austin's family are gratefully safe. :)

A Quest for Wisdom

2008-09-06T12:23:00.005-06:00

Yesterday I had the much fun experience of getting my wisdom teeth out. I've been dreading getting this done for months and months. I was extremely nervous and almost backed out a few times. I called HayLee the night before to get some reassurance that everything would be okay. And it was. It really wasn't that bad. I got up yesterday morning, ate breakfast (on Hay's recommendation), and drove to the dentist. I picked the movie Hitch to watch, and they got me set up on the nitrous oxide (a.k.a. laughing gas). The gas really helped to calm down my racing heart. Dr. Pincock came in and swabbed me with the bubblegum-ish numbifier stuff. I then got several shots, which frankly were probably the worst part of the whole thing. I got good and numb and then Dr. Pincock yanked out my three wisdom teeth (two on bottom, one on the top left). It was over before I knew it. I couldn't believe it was so fast. After going through it, I don't know why people would want to be put under. It really wasn't that bad. I felt a little pressure, but no pain (besides a little pinch from the shots). The worst part was getting numbed up.

Afterward my mouth was completely numb and full of gauze. Austin picked me up and I tried to communicate with him. I couldn't talk yet as my mouth (and tongue) were still numb. So I tried to use sign to communicate with him. But Austin doesn't know that much. It was pretty funny (and frustrating). Once home Austin made me some jello and went back to work for a while. I myself worked for a few hours until Austin came home with my percosets. I took half of one and stopped working when I started feeling dizzy and nauseous. Fortunately, the jello was done by this time so I swallowed it down and lay on the couch, which helped with the nausea. Austin then stayed home from work so he could take care of me. We watched Friends season 10 all night, only stopping so Austin could pick me up some soup from Zupa's for dinner and of course my all-cherised FroYo.

This morning I'm feeling pretty good. I just rinsed with some salt water (absolutely disgusting) and took another half of a percoset. There is almost no swelling in my cheeks (no chipmunk for me!) as I took the dentist's recommendation to apply hot and cold compresses on and off last night. Now my only concern is avoiding dry socket. It's almost impossible to not do some sort of spitting or sucking motion. So this weekend Austin and I are taking it easy as I recover and await the time that I can once again eat solids.

Adventures in Babysitting

2008-09-05T11:26:00.004-06:00

The last three days Austin and I tried our hand at parenting as we watched our nephews Tyson, Preston, and Mason while their parents were away on a cruise. I thought I would sum up my experiences in list format:
Number of times I was woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming child: 2
Number of times I changed soiled bed sheets: 1
Number of times I changed soiled clothing: 3
Number of times I drew bubble baths: 3
Number of sandwiches made: 8
Number of times I helped kids with homework: 5
Number of times I was asked for permission to play the computer or my Nintendo DS: 87
Number of times I said the phrase “be nice”: 212
Number of times I was walked in on while going to the bathroom or showering: 5
Number of times I walked/ran to the school: 6
Number of hours of sleep on average per night: 5
Number of times I was woken up before my alarm went off: every day
Number in minutes of time spent with Austin in the 3-day period: 20
Number in minutes of time to myself in the 3-day period: 40
Number of hours spent working: 32
Number of hours on conference call: 4
Number of times I was interrupted during said conference call: 12
Number of times I solved disputes: 10
Number of times I soothed a crying child: 15
Number of times I saw the kids “group hug”: 1
Number of hugs given/received: 32
Number of kisses given/received: 25
Number of “I love you’s”: 30
Number of kids I will miss despite the utter exhaustion: 3

So this experience taught me a few things: Being a mom is extremely hard and exhausting. Parenting is something I would NEVER want to do by myself. Working full-time and juggling three kids is difficult. I don’t know how Cheryl does it every day. I learned that I do have it in me to be a good mom. I really do think I can do it. (Though I have decided that, if possible, I would prefer to not work full-time.) I have also decided that I am extremely glad that you don’t start out with three young children at once.

I will miss the boys but I’m glad to be back home. I really wish I hadn’t had to work the whole time so I could’ve spent more time playing and having fun with them rather than taking care of them, working, making dinner, cleaning up, and then getting them ready for bed. Austin and I will just have to have them spend the night sometime so we can have some good aunt/nephew bonding fun time. :)