Dillierama

Breaking up is hard to do

2006-06-09T16:14:00.000-06:00

Dear Blogger,

I'm breaking up with you. We had a good run, you and me. You have been a good first blog, but I've grown, I've changed, I want more. It's not you, Blogger, it's me. I've met another service. One that is better looking and easier to use. Also, and I'm sorry to mention this publicly, but this new blog service is always up when I want it. There is nothing more frustrating than to be ready to blog and you're not "available". I will remember the good times we had Blogger, but I have moved on.

Love always,
Jamie

Five nicknames I have for Alex (and why)

2006-06-09T10:37:00.000-06:00

1) Butters - it started out with me calling him Peanut, then Peanut Butter, then Butter Ball and Buttery Bear and now... Butters

2) Ally - or Ally Bear, Ally Butt or Ally B'Gally

3) Sugar Pie - or Sugar Lips or Sugar Pot

4) Monkey - the kid is a monkey. He loves to swing around by his arms or hang upside down, he can use his feet just as well as his hands. I also call him "Monkey Butt" when he has diaper rash.

5) The Boy - because, well, he's a boy.

The things I do because I love him

2006-06-07T10:43:00.000-06:00

I’m still trying to redeem myself with John after having been so bitchy. John, being the sweetest husband alive, has already forgotten that I was bitchy and hasn’t asked even once for me to make it up to him. But my conscience keeps telling me that I was mean, so I have to be extra-special nice to him.

Yesterday I think I may have redeemed myself for any wrongdoings I’ve ever done in my life. I participated in an activity that I feel is wrong on so many levels. I put aside my squeamishness and did something with John that he’d always fantasized about. I still feel a little dirty.

I watched Deal or No Deal.

The Season Finale.

With…

Wait for it…

Special guest Celine Dion.

Oh, the humanity!!

I don’t think I can adequately express my hatred toward the game show Deal or No Deal. I hate it. Oh, I hate it bad. It makes me feel all angry and prickly inside. I end up yelling obscenities at the TV the entire time.

When a contestant is hemming and hawing about how tough it is, and they don’t know what case to pick, “maybe 17, or 3, oh, what to do, what to do!” I scream:
“JUST PICK A DAMN CASE, IT’S RANDOM! PICK A CASE, IT DOESN’T MATTER!”

When Howie Mandel is about to have the busty blonde open up the case after all the buildup of what case to pick and he says “Ok Candy, open the case…when we come back!” and points at the camera, I scream:
“HOWIE, YOU BASTARD, YOU RAT BASTARD!”

When the banker calls Howie, and he actually acts like he’s having a conversation about an offer, I scream:
“HE’S JUST TELLING HOWIE HOW GOOD HIS MOTHER WAS IN BED LAST NIGHT”

But last night I wanted to make my husband happy. Last night I offered to watch Deal or No Deal with him with minimal screaming, fully knowing that it was the season finale and Howie-no-hair-but-the-fluff-under-his-bottom-lip Mandel would stretch it as far as it could go and try to create some sort of suspense each time the show would break for Viagra ads. I knew they’d pick a contestant that would be annoyingly perky and indecisive about her case picking. What I did not know was that they’d pick Casey the perky school counselor who’d given the entire studio pink “Team Casey” towels to hold up. What I didn't know was that Casey's husband was so excited about his wife being on this stupid game show that he was in constant convulsions and all he could say was "I love you Casey" while looking like he was about to pee his pants. What I didn’t know was that they’d pick Casey, who despite her cute shoes, is a huge Celine Dion fan. I didn’t know that Howie would, on at least 3 occasions, ask Casey to serenade the banker with crappy Celine Dion songs a cappella. I did not know that they’d actually have Celine Dion participate in the show via satellite from her Las Vegas show.

By the end of the show I was exhausted from holding in all the snarky comments I could have been screaming at the TV. But it was worth it, John was happy, smiling and satisfied and really looked like he could use a cigarette. Sometimes, you just gotta take one for the team.

Project Hot Mom – Week 3

2006-06-06T17:08:00.000-06:00

So, the exercising thing is going quite well. The first week I went to Curves four times, last week I went three times and I fully intend to go four times this week. I’ve already gone twice already. I’m also still taking Alex on walks at least 3 times a week. Unfortunately, I’ve had cut out my afternoon walks at work because it’s just too hot, and I come back into the building drenched in sweat like I’ve been out pig wrestling or something.

Going to Curves is pretty much as cheesy as you’d think it would be. Chubby middle aged women with no rhythm in their matching velour sweatsuits pumping their arms as they march in place “feeling the burn”. Sometimes they’ll do special little moves, like a step kick while waving their arms around crazily. Some will do the twist. If you’re really lucky, someone will use the hula hoop in the center of the circuit. That’s always fun to watch. Admittedly, I hated it the first week. The workout is a good one, and more often than not I wake up the next day with sore muscles. But I couldn’t seem to shake the “I don’t belong here” feeling. The next week was better, I even started to see some people my age. This week I’m actually enjoying it, and I caught myself doing little dance moves on the “running in place” pad.

I haven’t been doing so well on the food front however. Yesterday was the first day I was actually successful in eating only “allowed” foods. Of course I tried to cheat. I tried to sneak a bag of peanut M&M’s into our cart at Costco, but John found it and made me take it back to the candy aisle. On my way to return the offending bag, I passed a table piled high with chocolate doughnuts. I almost cried.

I’ve weighed myself both at home and at Curves this week, but I’m not sure of my progress. My home scale says I’ve lost 6 pounds, the Curves scale says I’ve gained 1 pound. I’m inclined to believe the Curves scale because I expected to gain a little after starting a resistance training program because of the whole “muscle weighs more than fat” rule.

666

2006-06-06T08:27:00.000-06:00

All you hexakosioihexehontahexaphobics had better take a sick day today.

Debitchification

2006-06-02T10:13:00.000-06:00

I am so looking forward to Saturday. I've been a stress ball lately. Work stress, Mommy stress, Wife stress... For the last few weeks or so I've felt like I've been slowly crushed by 1000 pounds of responsibility and obligation and haven't enjoyed much of anything about my life. Which really sucks because I've got a pretty awesome life with lots to enjoy.

This week my stress has come to a head and I've reacted to it by becoming incredibly bitchy. Especailly to John, who remains the epitome of a loving and caring husband, even as I bitch at him. Last night I bitched at him about the state of our storage room (overflowing with crap) and this morning I bitched at him for not offering to pick the baby up from my mom's so that we can make it to the baseball game on time tonight. I'm not mad at John. Not at all. It's just that he's the only person who I can safely bitch at. So, the poor guy takes the brunt of my stress-bitching, and bless his heart, never bitches back.

But, I've got a plan. I'm going to spend Saturday afternoon debitching at a day spa. I've made a deposit on a 3 1/2 hour debitchification package that is guaranteed to debitchify my body and mind. I shall emerge from this debitch process a new woman, completely unbitched and happy.

At 11:00 I will begin the process with a 50 minute Swedebitch Massage. This traditional massage is perfect for relieving tension, calming the mind, soothing aching muscles, and improving flexibility while creating a profound sense of relaxation.

At 12:00 I will enjoy a 90 minute Spa Pedicure. This refreshing pedicure includes a tea tree debitch soak, callus bitch smoothing, nail shaping, exbitchiating sugar scrub, and heated foot mask. The treatment is followed with a soothing foot massage, skin softening paraffin dip, and polish.

And finally at 1:30 I will be treated to a relaxing, stress-relieving scalp massage with essential oils, stylists will create a look designed to fit my face shape, maintenance needs and new un-bitchy personality.

Five useful things John brought with him when we moved in together

2006-06-01T17:50:00.000-06:00

1) A bath mat
2) A clothes hamper
3) A dry erase board
4) One frying pan
5) Several boxes of Listerine

Batter Up!

2006-05-30T11:14:00.000-06:00

John came into the bedroom last night carrying a bunch of rubber squares he bought as part of a little kid's baseball set.

"You see, here's First Base, Second Base, Third Base and Home Plate. So, you can tell me what you're feeling like doing just by putting one of these on the bed at night"

After some clarification on what each base represented, I only knew what first base and home run were, John went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and I was left with the little stack of rubber squares in the bedroom. I decided on second base and I left it on his pillow. As I was waiting for him to come to bed, I thought how this kind of takes the spontaneity out of fooling around. Part of the fun is not knowing where it's going to go, but wouldn't you know it, he ended up stealing third anyway.

Wild Animal

2006-05-28T10:48:00.000-06:00

Five things I hated in junior high school

2006-05-26T09:01:00.002-06:00

1) Having absolutely no idea how to play basketball in gym class
2) Playing clarinet (badly) in the school band
3) Assemblies featuring Christian rock bands
4) The fact that G.G. STILL didn't like me even though I'd had a crush on him since the 2nd grade
5) The 45 minutes it took me each morning to rat and hairspray my bangs so they stood straight up like a curly wall of hair on the front of my head.

Evolution

2006-05-25T20:51:00.000-06:00

My mother has been telling me that Alex has been pulling up to standing in his crib for the last few days now. She says she puts him down for his nap, then walks by the room a few minutes later and he's standing there in his crib with a "shit eating grin" on his face looking as proud as can be. I hadn't witnessed this phenomenon myself, so frankly, I didn't really believe that we were officially in the "standing up" phase. Until today.

I put Alex down for his evening power nap and went to the bathroom. Absolutely no noise was coming from his room. It was completely silent. When I walked by no more than two minutes later, I looked in. Normally he's got his little head pressed up against the slats of his crib so I always look at the mattress first. This is what I saw:

I was confused for a minute, and started to walk out of the room when I realized... a foot! That was a foot! I went back to the room to find Alex grinning like a Cheshire Cat standing up in his crib.

The Household Mommy

2006-05-23T15:27:00.000-06:00

Just over a year ago, we found out John has some kidney problems. He was given a prescription and told to take it every day and return for a followup in a year. I took it upon myself at the time to make sure John took his medicine. I would put it on the top of his soda can every night with dinner, or give it to him with his breakfast (when he worked the overnight shift). Then I had Alex, and I decided that since I had enough to worry about with the new baby and John was a big boy, he could manage to take his pill on his own. He didn't. The other day I was teasing him about having to admit at his one year followup that he hadn't been taking his medicine.

"I'll just tell him my wife didn't take care of me"
"You're an adult, you can take care of yourself"
"But you're The Mommy"
"Yea, Alex's mommy, not your mommy"
"You're the Household Mommy"

His followup was today and he called me afterwards to report that the doctor has found blood in his urine. In otherwords, the problem has gotten worse and now he has to go in for a kidney biopsy.

I was overwhelmed with guilt for not taking care of My Honey that all I could say was "I'll give you my kidney, you can have it, I don't want it. Take it, please!" even though a kidney transplant hasn't even been mentioned. I don't like the idea of anything at all being wrong with John. He's my partner. We're in this together, whatever it is.

So after his biopsy, we'll know if he has kidney disease or something else. And as the Household Mommy, I'll make sure to give him his medication every day. I'll learn to cook and feed him healthier. I'll start a petition to make soda illegal because it's bad for your kidneys and maybe, just maybe I'll get him to exercise more. And when he complains that I'm being a nag, I can just tell him that "I'm the Household Mommy and you have to do what I say".

Project Hot Mom - Take 2

2006-05-22T14:33:00.000-06:00

When we last left Project Hot Mom, I was being tempted on a daily basis by free food at work. In my defense, though I happily (and guiltily) ate the food, I did make a point to walk (briskly of course) 45 minutes every day plus a 30 minute stroll with Alex every evening. I even started doing a 20 minute Yoga routine every day last week. I haven't lost a pound. No surprise really given that I was still eating like I normally did. So, this weekend, I took stock. I stripped to my birthday suit and took a good hard look at myself in the bathroom mirror. That strange sound you heard on Saturday? Yea that was the scream of a woman looking closely for the first time at her naked body echoing off the Wasatch Mountains. I realized that even though I'd been saying for months now that I just don't care about loosing weight, it's not really true. I'm uncomfortable in my body now. Literally uncomfortable. I see myself in the mirror doing my Yoga DVD and I'm just a pink tutu away from being a hippo from Fantasia.

So, today, I decided to take some drastic steps. Things I didn't want to do. Things that will hopefully transform me into the super hot babe I know that I am inside. I went back on the South Beach Diet and I joined Curves.

Joining Curves was a very hard decision for me. It's not a traditional gym at all. It's a gym specifically for women who want to loose weight. It's an easy 30 minute workout consisting of jogging in place and using hydrolic resistance machines. You get weighed and meausred monthly, and they even have an eating program which I declined to sign up for because I've been successful on my own doing South Beach before (and their program is similar). I've hesitated joining Curves because I'd always wanted to go to a regular gym, work out on the cardio machines, do some weight training, attend a spinning or step class, just like all the other twenty-somethings that go there. But right now, the thought of stepping foot inside a traditional club with all the sweaty, tan, hard bodied gym rats, I'd be way too self conscious to really get a decent workout. I'd worry that I'm sweating to much, or breathing to hard, or my butt was jiggling too wildly as I stair-step my way to fitness. At least at Curves, I can go on my lunch hour, get a good workout in, and I won't feel like anyone there is judging me negatively. Everyone there looks basically like me. Some bigger, some smaller, some older, but really, just regular women who are trying to feel a little bit better about themselves.

Anyhow, I'm pretty excited about it. Today is the second day of phase one on South Beach and I've been a very good girl so far. I've even got John on the diet and he should help me stay on track. I'm getting weighed and measured at Curves tomorrow, and though it might make me cry, it will most certainly motivate me!

Five things you shouldn't say to your wife just before, during or right after sex

2006-05-19T14:41:00.000-06:00

1) "I really wish you'd pick up the dog shit in the backyard"
2) "Can I buy another soccer jersey?"
3) "Your boob is leaking"
4) "I haven't taken a shower in 3 days"
5) "Is this a zit on your butt?"

Tadpole

2006-05-16T14:17:00.000-06:00

Alex loves taking baths. He splashes and kicks and laughs. Usually, I'll fill up his little tub in the sink while holding him and he tries to wiggle out of my arms to jump into the tub fully clothed he's so excited about taking a bath. So naturally, I thought he' d enjoy going to a swimming pool.

I got out of work early yesterday due to a dental appointment, so I thought it would be the perfect time to introduce Alex to the joys of a public swimming pool. As luck would have it, we have a big city rec center just down the road from our house with a big indoor pool. The place is clearly made for children's water recreation in mind. It has a huge water slide on one end, a kiddie pool with a jungle gym complete with water cannons and fountains on the other. Naturally the place is packed with youngun's running, sliding, splashing, screaming...

The old me would have retreated the instant I heard the first happy little squeal from a child in the pool. I hate public pools for one reason and one reason only. Kids. John hates public pools because of kids too, but mostly because they pee in the pool. When there is even one child in a swimming pool, you have pretty much no chance of a relaxing swim. Even if it is just you and one child in an Olympic sized pool, that child will find each and every way to invade your space. If you attempt to swim in the lap lanes, the child will pretend he's a dolphin and leap over the floating lines. If you retreat to the deep end to tread water, they will dive off the side right next to you.

Since I was at the child infested public pool for the benefit of my own little tadpole, I braved the sea of children and waded into the "war zone". The kiddie pool. It was like the opening scene of a war movie. I was ducking enemy fire left and right. Kids splashing, kids shooting water cannons, kids jumping into the water from the jungle gym. I held Alex tight to my chest, trying to find a safe route to the Lazy River section of the pool. We made it, though I was completely soaked even though I wasn't yet waist deep in the water.

I lowered Ally into the water and he gave me a look of pure horror. I think he was too shocked to cry. This water was on the cool side. Not cold, but cooler than he was used to. He grabbed my neck and clung to me for dear life. I decided to lower us both into the water, seeing as how he appeared to be permanently attached to my chest at this point. He wrapped his little legs as far around me as they would go and took a handful of my upper arm in his little fist and another handful of my hair in the other and began to survey the chaos with wide eyes. I don't think he blinked for at least 5 full minutes. We floated around the Lazy River like this for at least 20 minutes. Him clinging to me like a monkey while I dodged kids going the wrong way in the "river's" path.

Around the 50th lap around the Lazy River, another kid, maybe a year old floated by us laughing and giggling with (presumably) his father. Alex looked at him, then looked at me and smiled, big. He let go of my arm and hair and tentatively splashed the water with his hands. Another smile. Bigger splashes. A giggle. then he kicked his legs. More giggles. We spent another 20 minutes in the pool with Alex splashing and letting me hold him ahead of me while floating in the Lazy River. We even went back to the "war zone" and walked under a couple of the water fountains. He had a great time, which, I guess means I'll be going back.

The things I do for this kid.

Five things I love about my mom

2006-05-12T14:13:00.000-06:00

1) She is incredibly talented and creative.

2) She hand made most of my halloween costumes when I was growing up. From a red yarn Raggedy Ann wig to a bird suit with individual blue and yellow felt feathers and webbed feet shoes.

3) She makes yummy chili

4) She came to all my riding competitions even though I know it made her sick to watch me galloping around and jumping fences on a horse.

5) The first dirty joke I ever heard was told to me by her:

Q: What did the bathtub say to the toilet?
A: "I may see as many ass holes as you do, but I don't have to take all the shit"

Happy Mother's Day Mommy Dearest! I LOVE YOU!!!

To be a mom

2006-05-10T15:02:00.000-06:00

I have always, ALWAYS wanted to be a mother. As a kid I played with baby dolls. I didn't participate in team sports, I didn't play with barbies, I didn't climb trees. I changed my dolls diapers, I took them for walks in their strollers, I tucked them each in at night with a kiss. I remember being ecstatic when my parents bought me incredibly lifelike anatomically correct twin baby dolls Trevor and Tracy. I bathed them regularly. I read them books, I took them everywhere I went.

When I married Robby, my first husband, at 17 years old, I immediately decided I wanted to have children. During our five year marriage, it never happened. Toward the end of our marriage I was being treated for infertility with hormones that made me miserable. Looking back, I am so very thankful I never had children with him. But at the time, it was the worst possible scenario.

During the time I was single and dating I think I came to terms with the possibility of never having my own children. I met John, who was no where near ready to have kids, and we dated and lived together very happily for a year and a half. Then, we got married and I began to feel the ticking (more like a gong really) of my biological clock. It sounds silly really, that at the age of 25 I was worried that I was getting too old to have babies. But based on my previous experience, I really, truly believed that we would have to get in line for the infertility buffet of hormones, injections, IVF and possibly waiting list for foreign adoptions. I was ready for the worst case scenario. I projected that if we started immediately, we'd have a child of our own in 5-7 years.

We started trying in October, by November, I was pregnant.

Then we lost the pregnancy 3 months in.

The doctor told us we could start trying to get pregnant again 6 weeks after my D&C. Six weeks came and went. We weren't ready. Six months came and went. We still weren't ready. A year later, we both felt like we were healed enough from the experience to give it another go. I got pregnant on New Year's eve 2005 while in Arizona to see Alex Smith play his last game for the University of Utah in the Fiesta Bowl. Our son, Alex Dillier was born at 9:12 am on September 25, 2005. On his due date no less. I finally became a mom and it was nothing like I thought it would be. It's better, it's worse, it's easier, it's harder, it's scarier than I ever imagined.

I love my son beyond reason. I would, without a second thought, die or kill for him. I have these intense "mama bear" instincts. It takes all my strength not to clobber the nurses when they give him his immunizations because they're hurting my baby boy. When asked what I'm doing over the weekend, I think it perfectly natural to respond "staring at my baby". He is the most beautiful, the sweetest, the most amazing human being I have ever before met. It's scary to have my heart all wrapped up in this little person. It's terrifying to know that this child, who will hate me in a few years time because I won't let him pierce his nose or hang out with the "cool kids" on a school night or buy him a certain kind of toy, or music or clothing, has such power over me. He could crush me like a bug and I'll still love him unconditionally.

It's overwhelming this responsibility I have now as a parent. I'm convinced that my son alone will change the world. I am his mom and in my eyes, this child holds all of my hopes and dreams for our future. The burden falls on me to raise him to be the sweet, compassionate and brilliant thinker I hope he becomes. I agonize over every single choice I make for him. I want so badly for his life to be filled with love and happiness and opportunities. I want it so much that I take him to a weekly Mommy and Me class where I dance around and sing like a nitwit because I've been led to believe that it will help develop his social skills.

Alex may or may not change the world. But certainly he's changed my world. I couldn't be happier, couldn't be more satisfied, couldn't be more excited for our family's future.

John asked me the other day what I wanted for my first mother's day. I've already got what I want. I am a mother. I am Alex's mother. This mother's day I want to thank Alex for giving me that opportunity. For being the sweet little boy that he is. For being my son and letting me cuddle him every morning, and for falling asleep on me just before bedtime every night. Thank you sweet boy, for smiling at me when I come to pick you up after work. You are amazing. Absolutely amazing. I love you.

Junior Loyalist

2006-05-08T10:45:00.000-06:00

We've recently purchased season tickets for Real Salt Lake. Utah's Major League Soccer team. We went to almost all of the home games last year when I was pregnant and we loved it. Alex seemed to love it too, because he would just go wild in my belly the entire game.

We were nervous taking Alex to the first game. Worried that it would be too noisy, he'd get tired and cranky. He'd be too figety to hold for two whole hours. But he really seems to love going. He doesn't watch the games so much as he loves the noisy crowd and jumping up and down on his Auntie Stephani's lap and yelling and squealing at the top of his lungs. He can also get pretty vocal when the ref makes a bad call. This is something the MLS should consider. The officiating is so bad that even a 7 month old complains.

So, since we've clearly got a soccer fan on our hands, we stood in line and signed Ally up to be a Junior Loyalist*.

*From the RSL site: The Loyalists are the preeminent RSL supporters group who want people who will STAND and SING for the DURATION of the game, show their colors, bring original flags, give our team the home field advantage, and ENERGIZE the rest of the crowd. All of this will make soccer games a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Five words I like to say

2006-05-05T16:20:00.000-06:00

Thwart
Behoove
Barak Obama (ok, so this is a person, but still, fun to say)
Jeter (Jeetah!! Yea, I know, another person)
WYSIWYG (wizziwig) What You See Is What You Get

The Dental Spa - a review

2006-05-04T13:34:00.000-06:00

I should probably begin this post with a confession. I am an Anti-Dentite. There are several professions that bring up an intense feeling of distrust in me: politicians, defense attorneys, car mechanics, salesmen, motivational speakers and dentists.

My father was a dental ceramist. He made crowns and bridges. He did beautiful work, they were pieces of art really, sculptures, and was able to charge a hefty fee for his pieces. I worked for my dad off and on during my late teens, occasionally working as his delivery girl and interacted directly with the dentists he worked with. I got to know the staff at each office and quickly came to the general conclusion that dentists are crooks. I worked briefly as a dental assistant for two different dentists when I was 19-20 and that only reinforced my hostility toward the profession.

In addition to my "professional" opinion of dentists, I also have an opinion based on being a patient. All of my teenage years were tinged with some kind of traumatic orthodontic or dental experience:

I've had a crank installed in the roof of my mouth that my parents had to crank daily to widen my upper palate. This caused excruciating headaches and nosebleeds (though it did create a nice set of cheekbones I didn't have before).
I had oral surgery to attach chains to my eye teeth to pull them into the proper position since they were growing in the wrong place. I spent at least a year with tiny chains attached to my braces and at times hanging out of my mouth when they got too long as the teeth moved down.
Moving my teeth too fast with braces caused one of my bottom teeth to turn grey and crack requiring a root canal that was done incorrectly. Twice. Apparently the dentist punched through the bottom of the root causing an abscess, which I still have, in my gums.
In an effort to "pretty up" my teeth after years upon years of orthodontic work, my dentist veneered several of my front teeth in a composite lighter than my natural tooth color, then attempted to bleach them (didn't work since my teeth aren't stained, they're just naturally yellow) causing me to walk around with patchwork teeth for several years.

(Note: I've recently come to know a very nice dentist, who is my brother-in-law's wife's father. In all my rantings about dentists, I hold Doctor Cheney apart as the one dentist I like. However, I only know him personally, I can't speak for his practice. But he is such a damn nice guy, I suspect he's a good dentist too)

That said, dentistry is a necessary evil. And I found myself in need of some dental work recently. Unsatisfied with my current dentist (who I've gone to the last 5 years solely because he was a friend of my dad's), I figured if I'm going to be paying a "doctor" outrageous sums of money for botched dentistry, well, I might as well go to a fancy schmancy office with all the cool new dental doo dads. So, I made an appointment at The Sugarhouse Dental Spa.

The Dental Spa is located in an nondescript brick one level office plaza, however walking into the office itself I found myself wondering if I'd just entered a trendy hair salon. Cool music was playing, it smelled like eucalyptus leaves and the lobby decor was very modern: stainless steel, contemporary art and bold colors. I was offered a beverage (not a drink, a "beverage") and I accepted a glass (not a plastic cup) of cold water dispensed from an appropriately contemporary designed water cooler. I cautiously browsed a selection of pump jars on the counter that I assumed were some kind of flavoring, for what I'm not sure. I already felt a little out of my element. Not quite cool enough to be a patient here, and I didn't want to be caught inspecting the labels of these jars making it obvious that I wasn't cool enough to already know what they were.

After filling out the requisite forms I was ushered past a massage room with a rock waterfall and into what appeared to be the larger of the exam rooms that accommodated two brand new dentist chairs and all sorts of state of the art equipment. The same cool, yet soothing music was piped into the exam room and I was treated to a groovy light show projected onto the wall. Dental assistants were bustling around cleaning instruments and disinfecting exam rooms, all in trendy street clothes. Not a set of scrubs in sight. (Which to me would be quite a bummer. I'd much rather wear scrubs to work than have to look like I just stepped out of a fashion magazine) After getting a 360 degree x-ray of my head, I was instructed to take off my rings and was offered a paraffin wax treatment for my hands which I happily accepted.

I settled into the curiously comfy dental chair, my hands in warm parrafin covered by fluffy terry cloth mittens and had my teeth cleaned and polished. The hygenist was very nice, telling me I had beautiful teeth (thanks, I get that all the time) and offering me pointers on flossing. This brings me to my only complaints from the entire experience.

The gloves she had, while very attractive (thick, textured and cobalt in color) smelled like condoms.
She had a see through suction instrument so as she was scraping and polishing, I could see all of the yucky junk being sucked out of my mouth. At times this was a very unpleasant thing.

Once the hygenist was done she called in another girl who introduced herself and announced that she would be giving me a face and neck massage. So here I am, clean polished teeth, paraffin hands, warm fluffy mittens, listening to cool music, watching a light show on the wall and having a face and neck massage with oils scented with eucalyptus and mint followed by a warmed towel face wrap. I was enjoying my trip to the dentist so much that I began to feel guilty that that it was 1:00 in the afternoon on a workday and I was at a day spa.

As soon as the warm towels were removed from my face I found my self looking into a pair of big brown eyes. Those eyes were centered on the face of a very young, couldn't be older than me, man in designer jeans and a bright green t-shirt with spiky brown hair.

"I'm Kirkland" he said
"Jamie" I replied and shook his hand
"How are you doing?"
"Great"
"Like the massage?"
"Yes, very much"
"So I'd like to look at this bump on your gums"
"huh?"
"Are you ready for your exam?"
"Yea, I'm just waiting for the dentist"
"I'm the dentist"
"You're the dentist?"
"I'm the dentist."
"Are you sure?"
"I think so"
"You're so young"
"I get that a lot"

Ok, so I felt pretty stupid, but in my defense, dentists I've known were always these cranky old men who'd been in the buisness for decades. They were friends of my dad. They were fat and bald with bad combovers. They wore long white lab coats with name tags. They weren't supposed to be my age and they certainly weren't supposed to be hip. I have to admit it was a little disconcerting to have a guy I might find myself getting drunk at a dance club with working on my teeth. But, once he whipped out his state of the art laser cavity finder, I was put at ease that he knew his way around a molar.

In the end, it was easily the most enjoyable dental experience I've ever had, and it may serve to alleviate my anti-dentite attitude. I also must admit that I'm kind of excited about the five cavities he found (the first cavities I've ever had!) because I get to go back twice to get them filled and experience the Dental Spa again.

To all who read this: SINS ABSOLVED!

2006-05-02T12:28:00.000-06:00

It was a slow day at work so I was browsing around online and I became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. You may now refer to me as Reverend Jamie.

I am now able to:

Perform marraiges, funerals, baptisms, last rites or any other sort of legal ceremony or ritual I wish to perform, except circumcision (good thing I'm opposed to that anyway huh?)
Start a church of my own
Absolve others of their sins

A day without an immigrant

2006-05-01T16:27:00.000-06:00

So today, May Day, apparently immigrants took to the streets in protest. Well, they were supposed to, or maybe they will after work... I don't know. I saw plenty of them working today, and the streets that I've so far traveled this fine work day have been pretty immigrant free. But anyway, I feel compelled to blog about my feelings on this whole immigration issue. Granted, I don't' know anything about immigration law, but that doesn't seem to stop anyone else from talking about it, why should it stop me? I just can't seem to be able to take a firm stand on either side of the issue. Here are my conflicting opinions:

1) If you are here illegally, how can you really complain about the threat of being deported. You are here illegally. If you don't want to get in trouble, come legally or don't come at all. I just don't understand the "Why would you treat us illegal immigrants as criminals" argument. Breaking the law is breaking the law. I'm willing to contend that maybe we are a bit too strict about immigration. But the law is the law. If you break it, you're a criminal. Simple as that.

2) Why would you want to come to America just to be exploited anyway? The big argument is that illegal immigrants will do the work "Americans don't want to do". Sure, they'll clean our toilets and work 20 hour days for crap pay and no benefits. But why is that ok? Most of the immigrants I come in contact with are very hard workers. Dedicated and just thrilled to be given the opportunity. I say, the more people we can get in America who are willing to work hard and be happy about it the better. Let them come. Give them opportunities! I'll bet they'd be much bigger contributors to our society than some of the lazy American born citizens I know.

3) The only real beef I have with illegal immigrants is the seeming inability they have to assimilate into our culture. While I understand that America really is just a melting pot of other cultures, and that is largely what makes us such a great society, I do feel that there are two basic things that all Americans should do: Speak English and pay taxes. I think that if you are going to live and work here, you should be required to have the ability to communicate and contribute just like the rest of us.

4) It surprises me how strongly I feel about the national anthem being translated / sung in Spanish. It is America's national anthem and our language is English. It seems reasonable to me to require it only sung in English. I'm not exactly opposed to translating the song to Spanish, but, I feel that if we're going to start singing it in other languages, we owe it to the rest of our citizens and immigrants from countries outside of Latin America to translate it to every other language spoken / understood here.

My way of enjoying Spring in a cube farm

2006-04-28T10:09:00.000-06:00

Our little Barry Bonds

2006-04-28T09:59:00.000-06:00

My child is exceptional. He does everything all the way. He doesn't just have a little bit of Eczema, he goes for the full body beakout! He doesn't just get a normal infection, he gets a resistant Staph infection. Alex is already a true overachiever!

The doctor has decided to break out the big guns. Oral steroids and a fourth round of oral antibiotics. We're only in the third day of this new attempt to control Alex's mutant Eczema, but John and I are looking forward to what this could mean for his future baseball career. Watch out Giambi and Bonds, Dillier's getting an early start!

Five TV shows that I'm addicted to

2006-04-28T09:34:00.000-06:00

1) Penn & Teller's Bullshit
2) Huff
3) South Park
4) Any program about Christianity, the Bible or first century artifacts on the History Channel
5) No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain

Now, John would argue that Oprah should be on this list, however, while I love and worship Oprah, I do not watch her show religiously. But to be fair, I do own her 20th anniversary box set and I did spend 3 whole days watching the entire thing.

Making new friends

2006-04-23T22:21:00.000-06:00

While in Saint George this weekend, Alex made a new friend, Fraya, who was about his age.

Five things that I've believed that make it depressingly clear that I'm incredibly gullible

2006-04-21T15:42:00.000-06:00

Windshield wipers take a microscopic layer off of my windshield each time they wipe making the windshield thinner and more susceptible to rock chips. This was told to me when I was 18 by my friend David.
When your right turn signal blinks too fast it means something is wrong with your engine and you need to get it checked out. My grandfather told me this when I got my first car at 16.
The basketball was invented by a man named Phillip J. Spalding who's favorite color happened to be orange. John told me this three years ago.
When my cat Beemer ran away, I called a pet psychic who told me Beemer left because he'd really rather live in a place with more trees. I was 22 years old at the time and was charged $20 for the first five minutes and $5 each additional. The conversation lasted at least a half hour, half of which she was trying to "connect" with my run away cat telepathically.
On my 21st birthday I went to a bar and got completely drunk on beer and tequila. I then climbed into a car and smoked my very first joint with my best friend and 3 guys I didn't know. The guy in the driver's seat took a drag off the joint, handed it to me and said "Happy Birthday Jamie. I'm a cop and I'm arresting you for drug use". I immediately started crying hysterically saying that my mom is going to be so disappointed in me. When I told this story to John he said "You really believed that the guy who was smoking the joint just before you was a cop about to arrest you?" Yes. Yes I did.

Black

2006-04-21T15:35:00.000-06:00

As you may or may not know, April is National Poetry Month! I can't very well let April go by without posting at least one poem on my blog. So, without further ado:

Black
By Jamie Pajares (written when I was in the 6th grade)

Black is a piano
Black is the night
Black is a dark room
with no one in sight
Black is a waffle
Burnt to a crisp
By someone who is sad
And talks with a lisp
Black is not happy
Black is just sad
And Black is the best friend
I've ever had

Aah Spring, and a boy's first experience with grass

2006-04-20T09:20:00.000-06:00

BBQ Peep

2006-04-19T16:18:00.000-06:00

Videos

2006-04-18T16:52:00.000-06:00

So I put up a Videos page at Dillier.net but it currently only has one video as a test. Can anyone see it? I have a lot more, from Alex's first food, to his first all out belly laugh, to Alex just being a cutie. I only know how to do them in Quicktime, so I don't have any Flash versions available. If no one can view it, maybe I'll look more into that. Anyhow, if you want to cruise on over and take a look, let me know if you can see Alex running his walker into my newly painted walls.

Five things I hate like poison

2006-04-14T09:10:00.000-06:00

Pickels
Donnie Osmond
Overtime and extra innings
Deal or No Deal with Howie Mandel (I don't hate Howie, I hate the show)
The Andy Milonakis show

Choices

2006-04-13T20:59:00.000-06:00

Do I want cereal?
Or do I want soda?
The cereal looks pretty yummy!
Mmmm, cereal!

Infant servitude

2006-04-13T15:42:00.000-06:00

I got an email from my mom yesterday saying that Alex took his walker to the mailbox to get the mail. My mother lives in a neighborhood with central mail boxes so it's a ways down the street. I didn't think anything of that email until I got the following email from her about 20 minutes later:

"I mean I took Alex for a walk to mailbox...no I did not make him walk his walker there and back"

This brought to mind images of my puny little 6 month old trudging up the street in his walker to fetch Grandma's mail. Which got me wondering what else does she have my baby doing while he's there? Cooking dinner, dusting... ? And how can I get him to do it for me at home?

Going backwards

2006-04-13T08:49:00.000-06:00

So I went out yesterday to buy a high chair. We have been trying to buy a high chair for several weeks now since Alex is eating solids and is too big and wiggly for his bouncy seat. We went to Target and found a great looking chair, but they didn't have any in stock. We found one on eBay and bought it, but when the woman tried to send it she found that it was cracked so she had to order a new one. We waited patiently for her to receive the new one to send to us, but when she did, it was a different color wood, which was the whole reason we wanted that one in the first place.

Finally I decided that the Universe was trying to tell me to stop being so pretentious and to just go buy a high chair already, it really doesn't matter if it matches the dining room table. So I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest one they had for $25, and you know what? The thing works great! It will revolutionize feeding as we know it. It's fantastic!

Since I saved so much in buying the el cheapo chair, I bought Alex a walker too. I had been hesitant in the past to get him a walker because we had a house with a lot of stairs and it just seemed too dangerous. But having a rambler now, it's not such a worry. Alex loves it. Th only problem is he can only go backwards, so he spent the entire evening last night backing into the wall, the entertainment center, down the hall...

Screw up

2006-04-13T08:38:00.000-06:00

If you've noticed that I keep on changing my blog template and are wondering "What the hell is she doing?" Well, I don't know what the hell I'm doing and that's the problem. I'm never satisfied when I look at my blog. I think it can look better, less generic. Then I mess with it and make it look worse. So, I think I'm going to go back to la generica templata until I know what I'm doing. Right now I know just enough to be dangerous.

Fashion show

2006-04-12T11:27:00.000-06:00

There are three women at work who's dress confuses me. Now I have to state that I am not in any way fashionable. There are three questions I ask myself when I get dressed in the morning:

1) Is it clean?
2) Does it fit?
3) Are there any visible holes, rips or is the garment otherwise in a state of disrepair?

Occasionally I ask myself whether or not I fear my boobs might pop out and injure someone, as breastfeeding has made a lot of my shirts a little on the tight side up top. But, for the most part, my wardrobe is stocked with all manner of frumpy ensembles worthy of any busy working mom/wife who is still packing some serious pregnancy weight, and I rarely worry about how I look. But for some reason, I feel free to comment and snicker behind the backs of some of the people here about what they choose to wear to work.

Working in a call center, I have the opportunity to work amongst a diverse group of people across several age groups. You can only imagine the sort of fashion show I am treated to on a daily basis.

Lately there are three different women who's fashion choices baffle me. Whereas I try to stay away from bold fashion statements, these three have made some interesting choices:

yarmulke Lady: Every day this woman comes in to work wearing mens clothing. Short sleeved white Oxford and black slacks. This is fine, I don't have a problem with that. The thing that confuses me is the sequined yarmulke she wears. Now skullcaps themselves aren't all that odd. I'm sure if I didn't live in Utah, I'd be accustomed to seeing them on people all the time. But I'd always assumed that they were worn only by Jewish men. I've never seen a woman wear one. At one point I wondered whether or not this particular person was a woman, or perhaps she's simply a transgendered Jewish man. I wondered about this so much I googled "Yarmulke" and "Woman" only to find this. Apparently women do wear yarmulke's :)
Coat girl: This bugs me to no end and I'm not sure why. This girl, maybe 18 or 19 years old, wears to work every day a big black puffy down coat. It is always zipped all the way up to her chin and she NEVER takes it off. Never. Is she wearing anything under it? Does she think it's just a big puffy zippered shirt? I don't get this.
Aaargh, the Pirate Woman: For some reason, this woman has decided to resurrect the pirate look by wearing a puffy white button up shirt, hoop earrings and a kerchief on her head. I think she liked "Pirates of the Caribbean" a little too much.

Financial Peace

2006-04-10T16:01:00.000-06:00

The summer of 2004 John and I started our "Total Money Makeover". John had bought the book by Dave Ramsey, a financial guru who, despite his blantant proclomations of "The only way to financial peace is to walk with the Prince of Peace, CHRIST JESUS!!", we became devout followers of. We read his books, we listened to his radio show and we put his advice into practice (well, except for praying to CHRIST JESUS!! to deliver us from our financial woes). We even purchased several copies of The Total Money Makeover and gave it away as gifts to friends and family.

The book outlines an easy, no nonsense way to get out of debt and stay out. I remember the first time I read the book I thought "Never have credit cards, never have a car payment and own our house free and clear? That's just crazy talk!" Reading it again I want to laugh at how simplistic it is: Pay off your debts. Don't go into debt ever again. Well, maybe it's not that simple. He describes 7 "Baby Steps" :

Save $1000 for emergencies
Pay off all debt
3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
Save for retirement
Save for children's college
Pay off home early
Build wealth and give!

Well, I'm thrilled to say that we are officially on Baby Step 4 as I finally setup my401k! Of course I then read this article today and feel sick that I haven't set it up sooner because my company matches 6%. I've been jipping myself out of 6% of my salary for the last 5 years. Ugh. Oh well, at least I'm getting it now.

In the middle of Baby Step 2 John and I felt a sudden shift in our financial life. We had extra money. Prior to that I'd spent my entire adult life living paycheck to paycheck. I didn't even know it was possible to have extra money sitting around that wasn't already spoken for. I've paid for gas in pennies found in couch cushions. I've gone grocery shopping at my parent's house. I've gotten deferrments on my student loans...

I was, and still am, surprised at how much it has changed our life. Essentially, we don't worry about money. We don't count the seconds until our checks hit the bank. It's freeing.

Dave Ramsey talks about "Getting rid of Murphy" as in Murphy's Law. And it's true. When you're broke and your car breaks down, a $200 mechanic bill feels like it's going to break you. Now, "It's just $200". Life still happens and things come up, but we barely notice them anymore.

I think the rest of the Baby Steps are going to be a lot harder in that they happen over long periods of time. We flew through the first three in 2 years. There was excitement in paying off our credit cards and seeing our emergency fund grow. The next three steps will take literally decades, and I think it will be hard to stay on track and excited over that long a period. But now, we can imagine owning our home. We can imagine sending Alex to the college of his choice without requiring him to get student loans and we can imagine retiring at a reasonable age without worring about how to live on our social security checks. And I'm so thankful that John happened upon that book. I'm glad that we figured it out now, while we're still young and can save to retire with dignity. I'm especially grateful that we've learned how to manage our money responsibly, so we can teach Alex about financial peace and he doesn't have to go through step two at all.

Tiktaalik

2006-04-07T13:39:00.000-06:00

Woo Hoo! Score one for the evolutionists! I am SO getting a Darwin fish decal for my car now.

Five nude scenes I could have gone without

2006-04-07T09:41:00.000-06:00

Basic Instinct 2 is out and all the talk is about Sharon Stone and her nude nudyness. I say, "Good for you girl!" I'm glad she's comfortable in her nudity at 40 (or 50, how old is she again?), but I for one, will not be rushing to the theater to see Sharon in all her glory. I'm no prude, but I'd just as soon stay home and watch an episode of South Park, which brings me to today's five:

Miss Chokesondick and Mr Mackey's love scene in an episode of South Park about condoms. It was animated, but oh so disturbing
Robin Williams naked in Central Park in The Fisher King. Awesome movie that could have gone without showing Robin's man-pelt. Also I could have done without watching him drag his naked butt across the grass like a dog. Makes you want to rush out and rent the DVD huh?
That ugly hairy guy running naked down the street in Sideways. I'm still a little freaked out.
Trey and Matt make it onto my list a second time with the freaky puppet porn (extended version) from Team America. It was funny, hilarious even, but I still have mixed emotions when I see it. Am I offended? Horrified? Do I want to try that later?
Geoffrey Rush's full frontal in Quills. He's brilliant, no doubt about that, and I don't think the nudity was all that gratuitous, he was playing de Sade after all, but, ew. There was also the scene in my favorite film Shine where he was jumping on a trampoline nekkid with only an overcoat, but mercifully they spared us from seeing his manhood flop about.

Decorating problems continued...

2006-04-05T10:12:00.000-06:00

So I ordered this sofa and it was delivered last night. It looks EXACTLY like this photo only it's roughly the size of a Hummer and it's the very same color as my walls. So now, I've got this giant sofa in the middle of my living room that is pretty much invisible because it blends right into the wall. It's sheer enormity makes all my other furniture look like they belong in a doll house. Somebody, please stop me from making any more decorating purchases. I suppose the good news is that I do like the gargantuan invisible sofa.

Reeses

2006-04-04T16:07:00.000-06:00

So, we bought this nice big house. We had it professionally painted. We have purchased new furniture and had artwork and photographs framed. I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of my new sofa for the living room and I have this sick feeling that I've unwittingly decorated my house like a peanut butter cup.

Everything in our living room and dining room is tan or brown. I thought I'd add some color using pillows, so what do I do? I come home with chocolate brown pillows for the chairs and sofa. The pillows do have some embroidered flowers on them, but that's hardly a bold statement of color. Then I thought I'd dress up the dining room with some colorful artwork, and ended up with black and white photos in black and white frames. About three weeks ago I got brave and purchased a bright green sofa, then fretted about it for two days before I cancelled my order to purchase a "butternut" colored sofa which, I'm afraid, is really just another shade of tan. I think I am completely design blocked. I can't make a good design decision.

I think my problem is that I don't really have a "style". I know that I like natural colors and textures. But at the same time I love clean lines and geometric patterns, not quite conteporary, not quite Asian, but definately casual, cofortable and warm. I hate floral prints, fake plants, any kind of busy patterns. I like blocks of solid color. So in attempting to put all this together, I end up with a mishmash of tan and brown peanut-buttery decorating.

Our big eater

2006-04-02T14:31:00.000-06:00

Have you ever seen anyone so enthusiastic about eating puréed green beans?

I'm underappreciated

2006-04-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

Alex is getting more and more talkative lately, trying to put vowels and constants together and is starting to sound like he's actually saying things. We know he's not, but every once in a while he'll be babbling away we'll hear something we swear is "Dadda", "Baby", "pup", "supercilious"... Anyhow, since he seems ready and willing to start speaking, John and I are now in the "name race". John tries to get him to reliably say "Daddy" and I desperately try to get him to put "Mmmm" and "Ahhh" together so I can at least hear the word "Mama" in my minds ear. It's not working and it looks like John will win by a landslide.

"Alex say Mama"
"da da da da"
"Alex, Mmmmm Aaaaa Mmmmm Aaaaa"
"dadadadadadada"
"Ally, come on, say Mama."
"Mmmmmm"
"Yes! you can do it! Come on, Mama"
"Mmmm"
"Mama, Alex, MAMA!"
"Mmmmugggglllphhhttt"
"Good try Ally, do it again, MAMA"
"Dada Dada!"
"Damn it child. I incubate you, I birth you, I feed you from my boobs and you say Dada?"

A great answer

2006-03-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

From an online interview with Penn Jillette:

Q: Is it important to speak your mind even if you are wrong?

A: Sure, that is how you find out that you are wrong. The major reason people are telling people to shut up is so [that] other people don't argue with them, so they don't have to accept the fact that they are wrong. One of the quickest ways to find out if you are wrong is to state what you believe. A lot of times, the reason that Christians, Jews and Muslims are so tolerant of one another is because they don't want to start talking about the crazy sh*t they believe. The whole idea of shutting up about what you believe is showing tolerance to other people, but I believe it's just the opposite -- I believe shutting up about what you believe is a way to stay close-minded, a way not to be busted. If you have some crazy thought and keep it in your head, there is much less chance that someone will say, "what are you, f***ing nuts?"

Five pictures I've taken this week with my new camera phone

2006-03-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

Behold, the Ugly Shoes

2006-03-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Those are interesting shoes"
"They're ugly. I know, you can say it"
"Well, they're probably really comfy"
"No, no they're not"
"Then why did you buy them?"
"I really don't know"
"Why don't you return them?"
"Well, mostly because I'm lazy"

SOLD!

2006-03-29T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it, we sold the first home we ever bought together. I have a tendency to attach a lot of emotions to homes. For some reason I associate the place that I live with all the memories and experiences I have when I lived there. Some of my favorite memories of our Lee Lane house are:

When John put our last name on our mailbox in HUGE block letters. The mailbox was always screaming DILLIER!!!
Our formal living room was completely empty for over a year. With the hardwood floors it always felt like a ballroom. John and I would dance around in there sometimes.
Pacing the family room all night long in early labor
Bringing Alex home from the hospital and watching John show him around the house "This is your living room", "This is your kitchen", "This is your bedroom"...
The time the neighbor dog got into our house and ran amuck scaring the cats and chasing Middie
Drinking wine on the patio listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio every week night (summer 2004)

There are a million other wonderful memories I have in that house. It was a great place for us to start out. I am so excited for the many, many great memories I'll have of the home we now live in.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Alex!

2006-03-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

Alex turned 6 months old this weekend and we celebrated with a half-birthday party. There was cake:

There were funny hats:

There was family and food:

Even Middie got into the spirit:

There were friends:

There was brotherly love:

There was even live music:

Five songs which I've misinterpreted the lyrics

2006-03-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

1) Secret Agent Man - "Secret Asian Man"
2) Venus - "I am your penis, I am your fire and you're my sire"
3) Blinded by the light - "Wrapped up like a douche, in the middle of the night"
4) Wanna be startin somethin - "Mama say mama saw my moccasin"
5) Bennie and the Jets - "They sell weed and it's wonderful"

Just not working out...

2006-03-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

So, this dieting thing just isn't really working for me. I wake up every morning with good intentions, but by afternoon I've already fallen off the wagon. Hard. Over the weekend I decided to just accept and love my zaftig body. I went out and bought a couple of new outfits that actually fit, and I bought something called a "body slimmer" which is really just a spandex tank top.

I put the slimmer on and realized it didn't really slim much of anything, but it did appear to smooth out my silhouette a bit, so I wore it to work. I spent the first half of my day walking around feeling pretty good about myself, but around 1:00, the slimmer turned on me. It started riding up to form a bunched up spandex ring just under my breasts. I spent the rest of the afternoon with my hands up my shirt tugging at the slimmer to pull it down to my waist. in the bathroom, while I was attempting to tuck the slimmer into my pants to hold it down, a nice old lady told me that pretty soon I'd get used to wearing temple garments and they'd just become like part of my body.

Great. Not only am I not any slimmer, now I'm being mistaken for a Mormon.

Slow Down!

2006-03-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

The baby is halfway across the caterpillar on our homepage which means my baby is almost 6 MONTHS OLD!!! It's happening too fast, this growing up business. Every single day brings something new and exciting. Just yesterday he cut his first tooth!

Saturday night he was Mr. Crabbypants. Fussing and wriggling around like crazy and he slept restlessly all night. I thought he must have been catching my cold. When he woke up Sunday morning to nurse I felt a strange scratching. I thought I was just a little sensitive, so I switched him over to the other side. Scratch, scratch, scratch... Hmmm. I felt his bottom gums with my finger to find a tiny little razor tooth breaking the surface! This made me cry. Too much too fast:

He's sleeping in his own room
He's eating solids
He's trying to get mobile (pulling his knees up under him to try to crawl)
He's sitting up on his own
I'm starting to wean him
Teeth!

Where's my wrinkly baby peanut? Didn't I just give birth to him? Wasn't it just last week that we brought him home from the hospital? The last six months have gone by lightning fast and I can barely hold on for the ride.

Our little thumb sucker

2006-03-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Friday's Five

2006-03-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Merlin's 5ives, I've decided to do a list of five things every Friday. So, without further ado:

Five guys you'd be surprised to learn that I've dated:
1) The bald Kmart pharmacist who was raised by lesbians
2) Temple garment wearing DJ who only had 7 fingers
3) Private investigator who stopped seeing me when he found out I didn't vote in the 2000 election
4) Contractor who for some reason always asked me to wear tights
5) Nerdy guy who took a picutre of me and photoshopped it to look like the Virgin Mary

Trading Spaces

2006-03-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Alex is officially sleeping in his own room now. I say "officially" today even though we technically moved him last weekend because last night was the first night that I didn't go get him from his crib in the middle of the night to sleep in bed with us. This morning I missed waking up with Alex's fuzzy head under my chin.

Five dream jobs

2006-03-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

1) An art photographer
2) An editorial writer with my own column in a widely publicized newspaper
3) A graphic designer
4) Professional organizer
5) Dog walker

Big Boy

2006-03-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

The Boy, he's growing up WAY too fast! You can't put him down without having him scooting or rolling away. He's very vocal and has better things to do these days than cuddle up in your arms and gaze into your eyes. He wants to be on the move, investingating things, touching and tasting everything. It's official. Alex isn't a baby anymore, he's a kid.

Refreshing

2006-03-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

Our anniversary on Friday was absolutely perfect. John and I are both creatures of habit and really enjoy creating traditions and routine, so it's no surprise that we have a tradition for our anniversary already only 3 years into our marriage.

It started on our first anniversary, we went to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in Salt Lake. We had a great time. A great time, with, what we quickly realized as we were wobbling out the door, a bit to much wine. In no condition to drive all the way home to Sandy, we decided to stay in a fancy hotel downtown. The Hotel Monaco was just down the street and suitably fancy so we stopped in to see if we could get a room for the night.

"Do you have a reservation?"
"no"
"Do you have luggage?"
"no"
"How long will you be staying with us?"
"just tonight"

I can imagine what the desk clerk must have thought of us, two tipsy people waltzing in off the street late at night asking for a room and having no luggage... They knew what we were up to.

Last year I was newly pregnant and our anniversary came at the height of my morning sickness. It was a miracle I made it to dinner at The Melting Pot. Knowing I wasn't in any condition to rock the Monaco, we just stayed home that year.

This year we went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to do anything at all. In the middle of a move and with a 5 month old baby, staying at home seemed like the thing to do. But we decided to go anyway, and it was definately worth it. John sprung for the most expensive bottle of Pinot Noir (my favorite wine) the restaurant carried and we got the full four course Monaco Feast. The food was fantastic and the wine even better. Not having had more than a sip of alcohol for over a year I was feeling fuzzy after only 1/2 a glass, but I pursued my goal of getting full on plowed and managed to suck down 3 full glasses of wine. The walk back to the hotel was fantastic, the crisp air, the deserted streets, holding hands... We got back to our room where I decided that our hotel provided gold fish should be named "Bob".

It was wonderful to spend one night alone, just the two of us with no worries. No thinking about the move, no work deadlines. Friday night we weren't Mommy and Daddy, we were Honey and Honey and it felt great.

Once morning came I missed The Boy like crazy, furniture needed to be moved and work deadlines loomed. But, I felt refreshed, ready to take on my life once again.

Happy Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!

2006-03-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

And then it happens to you...

2006-03-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

You see it all the time on TV. America's funniest videos or bloopers. Mom or Dad has baby up in the air, wiggling him about making the baby giggle like crazy. You're sitting there on your couch, babyless, saying to the TV "He's going to puke on you, stupid person!" Then, the inevitable happens, the baby spits up, yes, right into the parent's mouth. You're utterly grossed out, and you vow that you'll never be that dumb. And then, it happens to you.

I have now experienced the most digusting experience of my life. Parenthood has caused me to become accustomed to dealing with another person's bodily functions, I've been elbow deep in baby poo, I have baby drool all over myself all the time and I am always picking either boogers or earwax out of Alex. Last night, I experienced the worst of the worst. The quintessence of disgusting. I have had someone else's warm vomit all over my face, hair, eyes and yes, dear readers, in my mouth.

In my defense, Alex doesn't spit up often. He hadn't been fed for over an hour and I jiggle him around all the time without a speck of puke. So last night, when John was installing a dimmer switch in our bedroom and had the power off, I was trying to keep Alex happy in the dark. He was laughing and giggling as I wiggled him around in the air playing "Super Baby". It was pitch black in the room so I couldn't see him. He made no noise or indication that he was getting sick. Then suddenly, without warning, I was hit square in the face with spitup.

Ugh, I'm still grossed out!

Lost in translation

2006-02-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

So, an Indian (from India) guy came to my desk this afternoon with a tupperware of rice and a plastic spoon.

"You must try" He said, shoving the tupperware at me
"Oh, I'm full, thanks though"
"No, I made this. Try"
"It looks great, but really, I'm not hungry"
He unwrapped the spoon and scooped up some rice "really good"
He continued to gesture with the plastic spoon so I finally relented. It tasted like rice. And eggs.
"Mmm, good" I told him "Thanks for the taste"
"I make good husband" He said, put the lid on his tupperware and walked away.

Ok. That was odd.

What am I doing here?

2006-02-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

Twenty-five years ago my parents took a happy three year old me out of sunny southern California and transplanted me into the cold land of the Mormons. I've been trying to escape ever since.

Now, contrary to what many of you may think, I don't mind the Mormons. They're a little weird, sure, but hey, whatever floats your boat. I will admit however, that growing up as a "non-member" made my adolescence quite a bit harder than perhaps it had to be. It was hard for me to make friends, parents wouldn't let me play with their kids, citing my "bad influence". For the life of me I can't imagine why I would be a bad influence. I got good grades. I was nice to animals. My hobbies included piano playing, horse back riding, various arts and crafts and dance classes. I volunteered at the hospital and once at an old folks home until I had to paint a crazy lady's yellow chewed up toe nails while she peed in her bed.

I went through a bit of a bitter phase when I was about 19, a couple of missionaries showed up at the door and tried to sell me a new religion. I told them, "No thank you, I really enjoy pre-marital sex." Of course, I was married at the time, and I admit I did it just to see what they would say. It kind of backfired on me when they asked me to cook them dinner and they would tell me how to repent of my sins. I got out of it by telling them that I am looking forward to seeing how well fire and brimstone can toast a marshmallow.

Some facts you may not know about me:
- I hated Carmen on American Idol, just because she was from Utah.
- Donnie Osmand gives me the creeps. I have a visceral reaction to him. In fact I can't even watch the new Pyramid.
- I desperately want to know what a temple hat looks like

My first husband refused to even think of moving out of Utah, being that he was still attached to his mother's umbilical cord and all. I even had to turn down a lucrative job offer in Tampa, Florida because he refused to move. Of course since we've been divorced he's moved to Vegas and back and is now in the process of moving to San Francisco.

John and I share the same dream of moving to San Diego some day. We vacation there often and each and every time we spend the entire trip figuring out how we could just not go home and reason that living in a tent on the beach has got to be better than going back to Salt Lake. We always come back though, and settle back into Utah living and forget we even wanted to move until we go on vacation again.

While I was pregnant with Alex one of my fears was that he would grow up here too. He would be doomed to repeat my childhood. He'd be the odd guy out. He'd grow up without experiencing any diversity or culture. He'd join the Boy Scouts!! Oh the humanity!

But having Alex, being a mother now, I am enjoying the fact that while Salt Lake is a place of rampant conservatism, it's also a fairly safe place for my baby to live. And while I think the Mormons are strange, the worst they would do to my son is convince him to baptize dead people by proxy. When faced with the crime rates of other cities, envisioning my boy wearing temple garments isn't such a scary thought after all.

Here in Utah John and I can afford to raise our son in a nice big home with plenty of room to play. He can live in a safe neighborhood surrounded by people who will pray for our heathen family's eternal souls. He can experience trees turning in autumn and a white Christmas. John and I have good jobs here, and being such a family oriented state, the companies we work for encourage a good work / home balance. We can take time off for Alex's doctor appointments and I even have the opportunity to work from home when necessary.

Also, we have family here. I never knew how much I needed my mother until I found myself in the midst of a monster contraction that wouldn't stop while in labor with my son. My mother was earnestly rubbing my lower back, deperately hoping the pressure she was applying would ease my pain. And though the pain persisted unrelentingly, knowing that my mom was there, I knew I'd survive it, I knew I'd be ok because I knew she would do everything in her power to make it better. John has a fantastic family, some of the coolest people I've ever known, and I love that Alex is one of them. They love him so much and he will grow up to be an amazing person because he's got such a diverse family.

So while the dream is still alive in the back of my mind, I'm not feeling like a trapped animal here anymore. Finally I feel like I live in Salt Lake by choice. I look at the mountains and I know I am home.

He's stealing my ideas!

2006-02-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Last week John and I had the following exchange:

Me: "When we have the electrician come out, we should have him wire some light fixtures over the bar"
Him: "Why would we do that?"
Me: "So there can be more light in the kitchen"
Him: "There's going to be plenty of light coming from the Family room, we don't need to have more lights in the kitchen"
Me: "Wouldn't it look nice to have maybe two pendant lights over the bar like we have over the sink?"
Him: "No"

Last night John says to me:

"I just had a great idea, when the electrician comes we should have him install two of those hangy lights like we have over the sink"

Self portrait

2006-02-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

I realized the other day that all of our pictures are of just Alex or Alex and Daddy. So, we tried a self portrait... this was the best one.

Stoopid

2006-02-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

So, I walked into the bathroom at a restaurant the other day and attached to the mirror above the sink was a sign that read:

Proper handwashing procedures
1) Use soap and running water
2) Rub hands together for 20 seconds
3) Rinse hands with water
4) Dry hands thoroughly with a clean paper towel

There were little diagrams along with these instructions, just in case they weren't clear.

Are handwashing instructions really necessary? Are there really people out there slapping their forheads saying "Rinse AFTER you soap, so that's what I've been doing wrong"

Drought

2006-02-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

My boobs are desperately trying to shut down the dairy and this has caused an unbelievable amount of stress and anxiety for me. Not to mention a terrible feeling of inadequacy. Half of Alex's meals are now formula even though I'm pumping like crazy in my little storage closet at work. No matter what I do, I can't get more than 12 or 13 oz and that's only half what he eats in an afternoon while I'm gone.

I'm not emotionally ready to stop nursing, some days I feel like I could breast feed him until he goes off to college. And maybe even then I'd come up on the weekends to feed him and do his laundry. I never thought I'd be one of those moms, you know the kind who's 7 year olds come home from school to a snack of breast milk and cookies? Though, I've always known that "breast is best" and always saw myself nursing for 6 months to a year, I never, ever thought that nursing him would be almost more for my benefit than his. Though I have to say that I believe that Alex has been so healthy because he's breast fed. Aside from the few minor things; his hernia, one little cold and most recently his eczema outbreaks, the kid is a picture of health and happiness. No ear infections, no flu... He tolerates his vaccinations perfectly with just a slight fever and a tiny bit of fussiness.

But now, not even five months old, my body has said "enough". More often than not I find myself crying my eyes out in the storage closet after I've been pumping for 15 minutes to only produce 2 oz of milk. My nipples are purple and bruised and I wonder, is it even worth it anymore? But then I come home and I nurse him before he goes to sleep and I think, "I'm not ready". Nursing him is how I am able to feel special to him. It's what makes me Mom. It's what differentiates me from his grandma, his dad, his aunts, uncle...the checker at the grocery store. Take it away and I'm just the lady who changes his diaper in the morning and puts him to bed at night. Perhaps my problem isn't so much the milk shortage but the fact that I'm working full time and how unnatural it feels to me to be away from my baby for hours and hours.

I suppose all of this will work itself out in time. But being in the thick of it now, well, I'm finding that while having Alex has by far been the best experience of my life, it is also the hardest.

A new skill

2006-02-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

I have mastered the art of true multi-tasking! I am, at this very moment simultaneously nursing my baby, reading the comics, blogging, petting my cat and chatting with John online. Hell yea, I'm good!

A sad, sad thing

2006-02-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

I have laughed out loud at every Dilbert cartoon the last two weeks. I've even been printing them and pinning them up at my desk. Today's cartoon made me realize how sad this is:

Dogbert is holding a training class for zombies and / or project managers. He tells the class that the training is the same, the only difference is that zombies get more sun. Then he says "Repeat after me: I want to calendar an on-site post cutover support review meeting."

I found this comic hysterical. I printed it out and showed everyone at the office. No one else found it more than mildly amusing. I think that I have finally reached the highest level of geekitude. Just by typing the word geekitude is a display of my total and complete transformation. I suppose it could be worse. It could be Cathy comics instead of Dilbert.

Big weekend

2006-02-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

This was a big weekend for us, we took possession of our second home, The Boy rolled over for the first time and we gave our cat away.

We tried to change all the utilities for the new place into our name on Saturday, but were unable to get the gas turned on. This meant we had no heat. In the middle of winter. We decided to tough it out and go over and prep the basement for paint anyway. It was actually colder in the house than it was outside, and it was SNOWING outside! We bought a space heater, positioned it near the bundled up 4 month old (who refused to stay bundled up), put on sweaters and began the painting process. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday painting the office and John's Manly Entertainment Room of Manliness in the freezing cold house.

Late Sunday afternoon I was standing near the fireplace and I turned around and just looked at it. A fireplace. A FIREPLACE!!! Fireplaces are for fires! Fires are for HEAT!! We've been freezing our buns off this whole weekend and neither of us even thought about lighting a damn fire for warmth. We messed with the heater, we went out and bought a space heater, we wore warm clothes, but never, not even once, did it even occur to us to light a fire. I even had a conversation on Saturday about the basement fireplace with my step father! The thing is HUGE, it's not like I just overlooked the fact that we had a fireplace. It's just to me, heat comes from heating ducts and vents and electricity and natural gas. Fireplaces are for decoration and ambiance...

Even in the freezing cold, we got the office and most of John's Man Room done and it's really looking awesome! We have a painter giving us a bid on painting the main floor, we'll need some new carpet in a couple of bedrooms, new bathroom countertops and John needs to paint his Star Wars Room, but this house is really going to be something when we're done. It's so fun to take this place and make it our own. The house is in good condition, but it really needed some TLC. We're so excited!

In other news Alex rolled over from his back to his belly for the very first time yesterday. He's been getting ready to do this for weeks now. He's been able to roll up on to his side and then kind of pivots around by kicking his legs, almost like he's breakdancing. I'll put him in his crib with his head at the head of the crib and I'll run downstairs for 2 minutes, and when I come back his head is now at the foot of his crib.

I was so excited that I got to see his first roll. Making the decision to go back to work full time has made me very sad that I'll be missing a lot of Alex's firsts. It made me so happy that he saved his first roll just for me.

The last bit of breaking news in the Dillier world is that we are now short one member of our family. Our cat Chloe has now found a new home living with John's mother. It's a decision we'd been talking about since I got pregnant last year and now that we're moving into a new house, we thought it was time to just do it. Diane was kind enough to take her in and I'm optimistic that Chloe will have a nice life with her. Diane will be able to give her more love and attention than we've been able to since the baby came and I think Chloe will fit in fine with her other animals. The best part is that since Diane has her, I can still see her often and know that she's happy and ok.

Congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Jennifer Dillier!

2006-02-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so maybe Nate didn't take her last name, but he did become an official member of the Dillier clan over the weekend. Congratulations you guys!!!

Too much HGTV, WAY too much

2006-02-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

"I want the room to have a distinctive Star Wars feel, but at the same
time, not be too obvious. I want to express a feeling of Star Wars
through wall color. I'm thinking Reddish-Orange."

"Whoa, Honey, you're not allowed to watch HGTV anymore."

The only television John and I have been watching lately is the Home and Garden channel. We're both really excited to decorate our new house, and we're trying desperately to get a sense of style by watching endless back to back episodes of Divine Design, Decorating Cents, Design Remix, Redesign, Designers Challenge, House Hunters, Get Color, Designed to Sell and Curb Appeal. While all these programs have mostly just served to make choosing a paint color for each room harder for me, it's opened up a whole new world for John who apparently has just discovered that white is not the only wall color available.

The creepin' crud

2006-01-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

Alex woke up yesterday morning literally covered head to toe in a red bumpy rash. He'd had eczema on his elbows, little bit on his chest and back the day before and we've been fighting cradle cap for weeks now, but yesterday morning was something new. The poor little guy was bright red all over and was obviously not feeling good because he was scratching at his head and whimpering. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. I called the doctor's office and took the soonest appointment they had available.

We had to go in the back doors because they didn't know if his rash would be contagious or not, and they didn't want our leper baby infecting the healthy kids in the waiting room. Alex was the only kid there that brought along an entourage. My mom and I brought him in and John left work to meet us at the doctor's office.

The first words out of his doctors mouth, before she even got all the way into the room was "Oh wow, now that's impressive!" She described his condition as a "massive outbreak of eczema" possibly brought on by some kind of allergy. She said it was the best case of eczema she'd ever seen. She's definitely a "glass is half full" kind of gal. Alex loves this doctor and he immediately stopped playing with his daddy and began flirting shamelessly with the doctor. I kept commenting that it's amazing how my baby is still the cutest thing alive, even covered head to toe in a nasty skin condition.

We were prescribed two cremes, an immune system modulator and a steriod creme to be applied twice a day, plus we need to grease him up at least once a day with another special lotion. His supplemental formula will now be the hypolallergenic Similac that apparently stinks to high heaven. We're also no longer allowed to use the sweet smelling baby soaps and baby lotions anymore.

So after he was weighed (he's beefed up to a whopping 14 pounds!) Alex spent the rest of the day yesterday being slathered with cremes and lotions and this morning he woke up looking human!

Who is this kid?

2006-01-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

There have been some pretty big changes in Alex this last week.

He has suddenly, and without warning, began wanting nearly six extra oz of food in the afternoon. This is a problem because I am not producing six extra oz of food for him. All week he's had to have one full bottle of formula per day. I tried all last week to produce more than my standard 12 oz by sqeezing in an extra pumping, after a full week of pumping every two hours, by Friday I was able to produce 13 oz. Still not enough. I have to say, I feel a bit inadequate.
Since he's been having formula, we have now entered the "stinky poop" phase of parenthood. This came on suddenly yesterday when Alex filled (and I mean FILLED) his diaper and of course it exploded everywhere. This is quite common, but this time I could barely get him changed without throwing up. It was the stinkiest, most foul smelling thing I had ever encountered. Every single diaper he had yesterday I swear you could smell from 10 miles away it was so nasty.
We figured since he's obviously man enough to clear a room with his nasty pants, that he was man enough to try eating some solid food. I mixed up a thin runny bowl of rice cereal and tried to give it to Alex who mostly just used it to soak his bib. I decided to make it a bit thicker, hoping it would stay in his mouth and he proceeded to have a grand old time spitting it at me. In the end he probably got about 2 teaspoons of it into his belly, the rest ended up all over his face and all over me. It was a fun experiment none the less. I think I'll try getting a bottle that he can drink it out of and see how that works.
He won't go to bed. Up until this week I could put him down for a nap or go to bed for the night and he would suck on his hands and talk to himself until he fell asleep. The last two nights, we put him down and he screams like he's scared of the boogey man. It's taken both John and I rocking, holding and whispering in his ear to fall asleep then we attempt the almost impossible task of putting the sleeping baby in his bed without waking up. Usually after about 3 or 4 tries, it works. Then he wakes up around 2am... After that I'm usually too tired to try to put him back in his bed so the little booger sleeps with us until morning.

Ok, maybe I'll start tomorrow...

2006-01-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

Damn Boston Deli! Damn them with their yummy sandwiches and oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies. Damn them ALL!!! It's like they knew Operation Hot Mom began today and they made a point to bring not just sandwiches, but a sandwich bar! They gave us choices of freshly sliced roast beef, turkey and ham as well as cheddar or swiss cheese that you could pile as high as you wanted on thick freshly baked wheat, honey wheat or sourdough bread. They brought cheese and potato soup. They brought salad. They brought cookies. COOKIES!!!

Clearly I have no willpower. I'll try harder tomorrow.

Operation "Hot Mom": Day 1

2006-01-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

Well, didn't get off to a good start this morning as I found myself in Carl's drive thru ordering a loaded breakfast burrito with guacamole. Then got to work to find that Boston Deli is catering lunch this afternoon. Grrr! Luckily lunch is in the other building and I can use the cold weather as incentive for me to stay here and drink my Slim Fast. Plus, that burrito is still sitting pretty heavily in my belly. I probably won't be hungry until 3:00 this afternoon, lunch will be long over by then.

So maybe the diet part of Operation Hot Mom isn't going so well, but I did wear my tall black boots with the 3 inch heels today. So, from the knees down, I'm looking pretty sexy. Of course, my hair looks a bit like Albert Einstein... Baby steps Jamie, baby steps.

Meesa called Jar Jar Binks

2006-01-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

There would be much muck running

2006-01-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

"If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck." --Brenda Ueland

I love this quote. I love the insinuation that I am so beautiful, ravishing even, that presenting my natural beauty to the world would be a danger to society for fear of causing a riot.

I haven't put much thought or effort into my exterior appearance since I was a teenager. I figure if I can't make myself presentable in 30 minutes, well, there's really not much hope that spending more time on my look will yield better results. I've never spent a lot of money on designer duds because, well, if I don't look good in a $20 sweater, what's the sense in spending $200? Interestingly, in my single days, I never had trouble getting a date so it can't be that bad.

Being married to John has spoiled me. He either truly thinks I'm beautiful or he's an amazing actor because when he says "you look fantastic" I totally believe him. The man can look at me in such a way that makes me feel like the Queen of Sheba. On our wedding day, we were standing outside our hotel in our wedding attire and a man walked by and looked at us, John said to him "Isn't she something?". John is amazing in his ability to make a chubby freckly girl with thick glasses feel like a super model.

I think it's time, however, for a complete exterior overhaul. I remember how good I felt when I was going to the gym all the time in 2004 and lost 30 pounds, I felt amazing. And when I went to John's little sister's lingerie themed bridal shower (Sidenote: I think that if any couple could have a happy marriage based soley on their cuteness, it's Jen and Nate. The cuteness is almost blinding) yesterday and seeing all the cute little frilly things she got, it made me sad that I wear boxers and John's ratty Star Wars t-shirts to bed. I've never been a lingerie kind of a girl, but maybe if I felt a little better about my appearance, I could feel less silly slinking around the bedroom in thong undies and see through tops. And how cool would it be to be the neighborhood "hot mom"? I think I'll get to work on that.

Four months

2006-01-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Happy four month birthday my sweet little sugar bean! Of course this means that you're now too old for me to blame you for that extra 20 pounds I'm still lugging around on my butt. I love you sweet pea, you've enhanced my life into full-on technicolor. Life would no longer be bearable without your smile, your cute little hands and your adorable belly laugh.

Is there anyone creepier than Little Richard? Anyone??

2006-01-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Hair

2006-01-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

John decided to shave his beard off the other day. This made me sad. I love furry John face. That and if he shaves in the morning he has sandpaper face by night time and it makes it very uncomfortable to kiss him.

Last night I teased him saying that when we get ready to paint our new house, we don't need to buy sandpaper, we can just sand the walls with his cheeks. To which he replied, "Hey we can use your legs too!"

Touché

Inspections

2006-01-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

So, we made the offer, they countered, we accepted and now we're less than two weeks away from closing on the new place. This afternoon we're meeting a home inspector at the house to make sure there are no major problems with it, also a termite inspection and a test for something called Radon gas. I am just beside myself with excitement about this house. It's about 1200 sq feet bigger than our current home and it's only got one staircase to the basement rather than the three we have to deal with now. It needs paint throughout and I'd really like to get new countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms, but otherwise, it's a real nice place and I think it will really work for us.

The new house is actually so big that we're going to have to buy some more furniture to fill it up. Maybe this is why I'm excited. I LOVE furniture shopping and it's not something I get to do often.

The poop, its... it's EVERYWHERE!!!

2006-01-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the average baby diaper can not handle the ferocity and sheer quantity of my son's mighty Dillier poop. I should have expected as much, he's his father's son. Alex has continued to blow out his diapers on a daily basis. Often multiple times during the day. My mother, the creative genius that she is, has begun to retrofit Alex's diapers with an extra layer of blow out protection using panty liners. All this and he's still solely breast fed. God help us when he starts eating solids.

My Dad

2006-01-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

When my dad was sick, I would sit up at night watching him breathe and just wish it would stop. I would wish as hard as I could that his life would end and he wouldn't have to suffer anymore. One morning, it did stop and nothing could have ever prepared me for that intense feeling of loss and guilt.

Whenever life is going great for me, I seem to miss my dad more than normal. Now is one of those times. I am happily married, successfully employed and have a gorgeous healthy, happy son. I can imagine my dad just beaming with pride and happiness that his baby girl is doing well.

Not having any religious faith or belief in the afterlife makes death quite a bit harder to handle. I wish I could know that I'd see him again, or feel like he's somehow watching over me. Instead I try to live in the knowledge that my dad loved me as much as a father can love a daughter during his lifetime. This morning I called Alex "Sugar pot" and it made me remember when my dad called me that. All I can do is keep him in my heart and live in a way that keeps his memory alive.

In the end, this is a post just to say I miss my dad. I am lucky that I had him in my life. I am lucky that he loved me like he did. I'm lucky that I experienced that so I can give it back to my son.

House hunting

2006-01-15T16:28:00.000-07:00

John and I have been on the hunt for a new house the last couple of weeks. We have a great realtor who we've used before and he has previewed about 20 properties for us, of those properties we've looked at seven. This weekend we walked through two of those properties for a second time and we've made our decision to make an offer on one of them tomorrow. I'm really excited! This house has everything we both want and it's in a neighborhood I'm already real familiar with. It's about two blocks away from the elementry school I went to. I love the idea of Alex growing up basically where I did and going to the schools I went to. I hope they accept our offer!

Express your love for me in an interpretive dance

2006-01-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

It took John a pretty long time to tell me that he loves me. I only think that because we were already living together before he actually said the words "I love you" and you'd think that should be established prior to co-habitation. He would say things like "I am happy with you" or "I really care about you" and my personal favorite "Just because I don't say I love you doesn't mean I don't".

These days he says it all the time, and just to make sure it doesn't get old, I'll ask him to spice it up by saying silly things like:

"Tell me how much you love me"

"Create a new word in an unknown language to fully describe your feelings for me"

"Tell me how much you love me in Haiku"

"Express to me your love in an interpretive dance"

And you know what? He does it, each and every time. No matter how silly or downright weird my request is, John will express his love to me in any way I ask of him. Most of the time I end up laughing hysterically and that's really the point.

Family Fued with Richard Kaaaaaaaaaaaaarn

2006-01-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

The question: Something that will always cause an arguement in a relationship

"Money"
"Religion"
"Sex"
"Household chores"
"When someone is supposed to clean the dog shit up but never does"
"When someone leaves dirty cereal cups in the sink"
"That's where they belong"
"They belong in the dishwasher"
"Your dog stinks"
"You stink"
"Not as much as the dog"
"Wait a minute, did we just have a fight?"
"I don't know"
"I love you?"
"I love you."

Gaaahhh!

2006-01-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

I am having one of those mornings. Something is just "off" with the day and I can't quite get back "on".

Alex woke up at 4:30am instead of 3am which you'd think would be a good thing, but it actually presents a couple of problems. 1) He's trained me to automatically wake up at 3am, so I do, even though he's still asleep. Then I can't get back to sleep. 2) His eating at 4:30am throws off his eating for the whole day. He wasn't hungry enough yet for his 6am feeding so I tried at 6:30am, no luck and then at 6:45am and got him to take basically a snack. Then I had to leave for work which presented problem 3) since I spent all morning trying to get him to take a 6am feeding, I didn't get myself ready in time and ended up late. This conflicts with problem number 2 because since he's now off schedule, I don't know when he'll take his last bottle which means he could potentially be hungry before I get home to nurse him since I may have to stay late here at work because I was late getting in.
When I got here to work the coffee machine was not working. This should be illegal. All businesses should have a working coffee machine at all times. I tried to get a cold coffee drink out of the vending machine, but it wouldn't take my $5 bill. I tried to get change out of the change machine but it wouldn't take my bill either. I finally drove up to 7-11, but they were out of the small coffee cups, I had to put my coffee in a 32 oz slurpee cup. My coffee ended up tasting like wax.
I somehow got locked out of my office email account and I keep all of my appointments in my outlook calendar. I have no idea when any of my meetings are. Not to mention I have an email addiction and I'm kind of getting a little twitchy from withdrawl. I can't get my password reset because the entire tech department is at MacWorld until next week. I'm trying real hard not to panic, I'm a little afraid of what might happen to me if I really can't get into my email until next week. I don't know how to exist without email.

New Year Resolutions

2006-01-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

It's not too late to make my new year resolutions. In fact, this may be a good time to do it since I usually forget about most new year resolutions after the first week of January, so I'm already ahead of other years :)

The obligatory "loose weight" resolution. I think this year will be 30 lbs. Just to get me back to pre-Alex shape
Fully support and encourage my husband's hobbies. Normally I'm complaining that he's watching too much football, or there are too many Star Wars figures around the house or he's murdering ducks... This year I want to be the epitome of a supportive and loving wife. I will watch more sports and actually attempt to remember the rules. I will not refer to his action figures as "tiny plastic dolls" and I'll try not to squirm too much when he brings home his stuffed duck. I may even take another try at eating one. Maybe.
Start a mommy-and-me hobby or activity with Alex. I'm thinking maybe a swimming class or arts and crafts or music. Maybe even baby yoga. Something fun that he and I can do together.
Everyone should have at least one financial goal. I want to finish Dave Ramsey's baby step #2 - the debt snowball - pay off all debts but the mortgage.
I believe in having two financial goals. Start making money outside of my job. This year we're going to try having a rental property. If that goes well, maybe we'll try a flip in 2007.

Celine, this does not mean I've forgiven you for the Titanic song.

2006-01-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

I was late to work this morning because of all things, a Celine Dion song.

I should first mention that I am not a Celine Dion fan. I think she is the most overrated performer of our time. And what was with that Titanic song that wouldn't go away?

Anyhow, I was driving along when a Celine Dion song began playing on the radio. My natural instinct was to change the station, but I happend to be turning a corner and drinking a Slim Fast at the time and I didn't have a free hand to change the station. In that short amount of time I realized that Celine Dion was singing a song about her son. I was done in when I heard the lyrics:

When it was dark now there's light

Where there was pain now's there's joy

Where there was weakness I found my strength

All in the eyes of a boy

My eyes welled up with tears and I began sobbing uncontrollably. I had to pull over for fear of getting into a wreck. Pre-Alex I would have thought those were the cheesiest lyrics ever written. But now, post-Alex, I get it. I totally and completely get it. And Celine was now my soul sister. I understood her, she understood me, we were one with understanding how our baby boys changed our lives.

He likes me, he really likes me!

2006-01-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the weekend trying to make Alex laugh. Blowing rasberries on his tummy, holding him upside down, dancing around the house like a crazed lunatic... Anything to hear that laugh. He only just started laughing a couple of weeks ago, and I tell you the second you hear it, you want more. It's like heroin.

John's better at making him laugh than I am. Apparently they have the same sense of humor as neither John nor Alex really think I'm all that funny. But this weekend, Alex laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. We had a great time together. Being with him is starting to be more enjoyable. Not that I didn't enjoy it before, because I really, really did. But now, we can play, and "talk" and laugh together.

I really love that kid.

So, I married a duck hunter...

2006-01-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

John was out duck hunting again with his father and brother this weekend, and seemed pretty disappointed to learn that this would be the last trip of the season. I, on the other hand, was quite happy that no more ducks or geese would loose their lives due to my husband. I can't quite accept the fact that I am now married to a hunter. I didn't marry a hunter, so I'm a little confused as to how this could have happened. I am not a fan of hunting. I don't believe that I could kill any kind of animal for sport. In fact, I have a hard time killing insects. I lived quite happily with a colony of ants who moved into my bathroom for several months until they decided to move into my sofa, at which point I doused the sofa with Raid. I still feel guilty.

I've tried to just pretend that John is simply out bonding with his father on these weekends. The one time he killed a goose however, I found myself face to face with undeniable evidence that my husband is a killer. I tried the goose, and quickly decided that goose, and duck, are an aquired taste that would not likely be aquired by me.

I was informed yesterday that he will be having his latest kill stuffed and mounted. This brought back a flood of memories to when I was at the home of my ex-husband's uncle who was an avid hunter. He had a "room of death" in the basement that was filled, literally, wall to wall with heads, horns, and full bodies of previously live animals. I was frozen in the doorway. Utterly creeped out. It was like a Nature program put on pause. Each animal's face in a frozen expression of anger. Teeth bared, claws up and ready to strike. Even the badger-looking animal was posed as though ready for a vicious badger attack. It was at this point in my visit, around the time I was turning green, that my ex-husband's cousin decided to remove the tounge from the dead and ferocious looking fox and chase me around the house with it. I finally excaped into another room of the basement and collapsed in a heap. When my ex-husband found me and turned on the light to the room I looked up to find the room lined in animal pelts and skins. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. When John and I were looking at houses a few years ago, we looked at one next door and identical to the one we eventually purchased. The only reason I didn't buy it? Stuffed buffalo head on the wall. I walked in the front door, saw this HUGE black furry head hanging from the wall with it's dead glass eyes starting at me and I don't even remember the rest of the walkthrough.

It's one thing to kill an animal and eat it, or turn it into a leather sofa. It's quite another to mount the dead animal on your wall as a decoration. At least if you're wearing it as a jacket it doesn't look like it's a dead animal. It's not like I'm going to run off and join PETA or anything, I just think that if you're going to kill an animal you should at least give it some dignity and not use it as a wall hanging. But what other people want to do in the interior design of their own homes is not for me to dictate.

I told John when he started all this hunting business that there was NO WAY I would be happy about having dead animals in our house. He told me that he wasn't happy with having live animals in our house. I countered with the fact that I had the live animals BEFORE we got married, this hunting stuff is new.

In the end I'm going to loose. He'll hang his stuffed bird on the wall and I won't have anything to say about it because it's his house too. But I told him yesterday, and I'll say it now in front of witnesses, that while I may tolerate a dead bird, under no circumstances will I live under the same roof as a dead furry animal. Never, no way, no how. Absolutely no.

I want to support my husband in anything he wants to do. Spend all of our savings on going to the Super Bowl? Sure! Sell our house and move to Skywalker Ranch? No problem! Have plastic surgery to look like Spock? Hey, pointy ears are cute! I love him. I want him to be happy. Apparently, duck hunting makes him happy. That makes me happy. But bringing the dead duck home and hanging it in our living room? A girl has to set some limits. So, he'll hang it in the basement.

The Passion of Gay Cowboys

2006-01-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

It's disappointing to me that Utah can still make the news by doing stupid things like this and make us look like a state full of narrow minded, homophobic simpletons. Apparently Jordan Commons has decided not to show Brokeback Mountain, the "gay cowboy" film that is generating lots of Oscar buzz this year.

Now I can't say that I really wanted to see the movie anyway. Normally, if I'm going to watch a cowboy movie, I'd watch it for the cute cowboy butts, not to see the cute cowboy butts struggling with romantic feelings for each other. That just ruins the gratuitous, yet sexy cowboy butt moments for me. But now, I want to see the movie. I want to see it to find out what is so offensive about it that they pull it from their theater.

Here in Utah, it doesn't take much for someone to get offended. They're offended by sex and profanity the most it seems, but violence? Violence is ok. I mean, they showed Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" in the IMAX theater no less and that was just one big long freaky movie showing Jim Caviesel's body being turned into hamburger. Utahn's lined up for hours to see it. Some people brought THEIR CHILDREN to the showing I went to. So apparently, it's ok to see a man being beat with barbed chains for two hours then nailed to a cross, but not a couple of kissing cowboys? I'm sorry, I don't get it. Perhaps they're afraid that watching Brokeback Mountain will turn them gay. Why are they not afraid of turning into the Messiah by watching The Passion? I don't know.

Nursing and pumping and pumping and nursing...

2006-01-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

This was my first week of being at the office full time 8-5. This also happens to be the week that Alex decided that he wants to resume his 3am feeding that he dropped a couple of weeks ago. I'm finding out that being a working mother who is still nursing is harder than I thought it would be. My whole day revolves around either nursing or pumping which isn't much different than before I went to work only that now I spend a good amount of time lactating in a storage room and washing out my pump in the bathroom in between meetings and deadlines. Not to mention the fact that my milk production is low this week, undoubtedly due to stress and missing my baby. A woman here at work likened it to a man having to give a sperm sample. I have to set the mood by thinking about Alex, looking at his pictures, then collect the product in a sterile container and worry about "insufficient sample size". But a man doesn't have to do it at 9:00, 12:00 and 3:00 every single day. I am looking forward to the weekend when I can be in the comfort of my own home and nurse my beautiful little baby all day long instead of having it sucked out of my boobs by a breast pump.

Even though it's harder than expected, it's still absolutely worth it. I'm not anywhere near ready to wean him. I need to nurse now for my own emotional well being. It helps me to still feel like Mom even though I don't get to spend the whole day with him and the time I do spend with him is rushed or he's fussy. To still be able to bond with him while nursing is what keeps me from crying every morning when I have to hand him over so I can go to work. To know that even when I'm at work, he's still drinking expressed milk. It makes me still feel close to him. In a small and somewhat silly way, he still gets a part of me when I'm not there. There will come a time in the all too soon future when I will have to wean him and when that happens, I'll have to bring several boxes of tissues to work with me I'm sure.

The good, the bad and the ugly

2006-01-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

My sister in law got engaged over the holidays and that got me thinking about sex. You see, here in Utah, not only do they not live together before they marry, they don't even have sex before they marry, which to me is just insanity, but there ya go.

I can't imagine having my first time be on my wedding night. Oh god, that would be just awful. All that waiting, all that anticipation and when it finally happens, you hardly knew it happened at all if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, you are also bleeding, sore and sadly disappointed.

I suppose it is possible to be so madly in love with such a wonderful guy that not only is he wonderfully gentle and you're wonderfully lubricated, he also has such amazing control that on his very first time he is able to last long enough for you to climax first... I'm sorry, I can't keep that up, it's just too unbelieveable. But I'll bet that is what many a virgin hopes for on her wedding night.

I guess it doesn't matter in the end anyway because sooner or later they'll figure out how eachother's parts work and with practice it'll get better. It'll get great if they practice enough :)

And marraige isn't all about sex anyway. It's about being the best of friends, feeling like "home" to eachother. It's about feeling comfortable enough to share a bathroom after you both ate bad Mexican food. It's about thinking he's the sexiest guy in the world even if he hasn't showered in four days and he's picking his nose. It's about him thinking your boobs are fantastic even though you've been nursing a baby for 3 months and they're just not the same anymore. And knowing that he'll still think your boobs are fantastic when they're swinging down by your knees. To me, marriage is knowing the good, the bad and the ugly about eachother and loving eachother more for it.

Funerals

2006-01-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

A co-worker's wife passed away unexpectedly last week. He was actually the man who hired me here and had been my boss for a few years. His wife was in her early 30's and I had met her on several different occasions, one time she and I ended up at the same nail salon by chance and had a very nice conversation for about an hour while we both had manicures. I liked her and I've been just sick about her death since I heard about it. Today is her funeral and I can't go. I can't go because I can't do funerals. I've been blessed in my life to not have to go to many, but occasionally someone will pass away and I'll feel compelled to attend the services and I regret it each and every time. This is one such funeral that the calling to attend is very strong, most of my co-workers are going and they've invited me to come along, and though I feel in my heart I should go to offer my condolences to her family, my body will not move from my chair.

Even though I didn't know her very well and couldn't really call her a friend, her passing haunts me in a way I can't quite explain. The fact that a young woman could die. Just die. Be there one minute and the next, not. There was no car accident, no lingering illness. My understanding is she had a headache that was apparently a brain aneurysm and died in the car on the way to the hospital. She had a husband and a son who is too young to now be without his mother.

I think part of my aversion to funerals stems from my lack of belief in the afterlife. In my world, when people die they are gone, only existing in memories and pictures. But at funerals, they talk about "She's in a better place" or "God called her home" and those kind of statements offer no comfort to me.

I never know what to say to the grieving family who's pain is so raw and I feel angry that they are expected to parade their grief in front of any shmoe who decides to show up. I can't help but feel that this pain is too deep, too personal for me to see in my one time boss. I want to spare him the excruciatingly hard task of trying to hold it together while yet another person tells him they're sorry for his loss. I am not a close friend or a relative, and though my heart aches for him and their son, I don't believe that my being there, my personal and heartfelt "I'm so sorry" will be of any additional comfort to them right now. So I stay here, at work, and I think about how the world lost a good person and I weep for the pain and loss I know her husband and son will feel every day.

...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2006-01-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

We celebrated the New Year with an makeshift party consisting of me, John, Alex and two of John's buddies, James and Felipe. The original plan was to attend an actual New Year celebration at John's dad's house, but the evil virus that had it's way with my body last week has now taken up residence in my son and we thought it best to keep him home in hopes of getting him better. He's still pretty sick today, coughing, sneezing and having boogers run out of his nose, but I think he's getting better. He doesn't have a fever anymore and he's eating ok.

I have high hopes for the coming year. 2005 turned out fantastic, I see no reason to expect anything less from 2006.

Day three - still sick

2005-12-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

I ended up in bed most of the day yesterday again with body aches, coughing and a fever of 104. I actually felt worse yesterday than I had on Monday. I went to bed last night feeling like my head was on fire and I woke up in the middle of the night soaking wet in a puddle of sweat and freezing. By morning I had so much chest congestion I literally couldn't breathe.

Alex woke up crying this morning at 5:30 which is very unusual for him. Normally he'll sleep until at least 6 or 7 and suck on his hands. He also had a pretty nasty sounding cough. So it looks like my poor little boy is getting the nasty flu too. I sent him to my mother's for the day hoping that both of us could get some rest and feel better. Mom can take care of him better than I can in my condition. Calling his doctor made me feel better about nursing him. I was worried I was basically feeding him flu germs. Turns out, nursing him is just fine. I just need to make sure he doesn't get a fever, loss of appetite or a really bad cough.

So, I'm spending the day in bed with my laptop, Oprah DVD's, a humidifier, OJ, and slathered in vicks vaporub. John's out duck hunting today and I'm really worried that he'll come down with the nasty flu while he's away from home. Nothing is worse than getting sick when you're out of town.

Someone gave me the flu for Christmas

2005-12-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

I was bed ridden all day yesterday with my very first case of the flu that was not the stomach variety. My whole body was so achy. My muscles ached, my joints ached, my skin was hyper sensitive... even my hair hurt! It started with a real bad cough and headache in the morning, turning into vertigo by the afternoon and by the evening it was tapping all of my energy just to get up to change or feed the baby. I had a fever, but felt chilled... Ugh. It was terrible. I tried to call my doctor to see what I could take to make me feel better and to ask if nursing the baby was a good idea, but the office was closed. So, I toughed it out with no medicine and just hoped for the best as I nursed. Finally around 11pm I decided to take a pain pill that I got from the hospital after I had Alex because I was hurting so bad I couldn't sleep. I figured it would work it's way out of my system before he had to nurse again this morning.

This morning I feel better. Still have the cough and headache, and my body still aches, but I'm mobile and I think I'm on the mend. I just hope I didn't give it to Alex or John.

And now back to real life...

2005-12-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Phew, Christmas is over! It was a wild and crazy day, fun and all, but I'm glad that all the hullaballoo is over and we can now settle down into real life again. This also means I have no more "can't go on a diet yet because..." excuses. I've been able to go over a year without dieting:

November 2004: "I can't diet because it's Thanksgiving"
Result: Gain 5 pounds

December 2004 - New Year 2005: "I can't diet because it's Christmas / New Year / I'm on vacation"
Result: Gain 10 pounds

January 2005: "I can't diet because I'm pregnant"
Result: Gain 60 pounds

September 2005: "I can't diet because I just had a baby"
Result: Loose 30 pounds

October 2005: "I can't diet because it's my birthday"
Result: Loose 5 pounds

November 2005: "I can't diet because it's Thanksgiving"
Result: Loose 5 pounds

December 2005: "I can't diet because it's Christmas"
Result: Gain 5 pounds

But now, I can diet. I really need to start taking advantage of the calories I'm burning from nursing. I've been able to loose 35 pounds while basically sitting on my butt and eating whatever I want. Next month Alex will start on solids, which means I'll be nursing less which means, I've really got to get my diet underway or I'll blow up like a zepplin. Plus John got me this groovy new scale that measures my body fat and can keep a record of my weigh ins and tell me how close I am to my goal weight. Also, I think my sister-in-law got engaged last night. I don't want to look like the Stay Puft Marshmellow woman at her wedding.

Miscellaneous non-denominational holiday rantings...

2005-12-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

Alex has already given me two presents this week.

1) He dropped his 4am feeding so now I get to sleep in until 6am
2) He giggled at me for the first time

Since he will be officially 3 months old tomorrow, we took him to get his 3 month pictures done at the mall. I can't imagine what possessed me to drag my husband and child to the mall two days before Christmas. But I did. The place was a mad house. People everywhere. At Kiddie Kandids I couldn't tell what kids went with what parents because it seemed that every single girl was wearing the same little red velvet dress with a fluffy white collar and all the boys were wearing red sweater vests. I suppose they could have all been a part of the same family, after all, this is Utah.

When it was finally our turn, Alex refused to smile for the camera. When John or I was holding him, he was all smiles, but the minute they posed him for a picture, he was Mister Serious. We have two shots where we kind of got a half-smile, but that's the best they could do. Though, I don't blame him for not smiling. I wouldn't have smiled either if some strange lady was practically screaming "Oh, there he is" "Smile Alex" and "Gooda Badda Boodie Bah" in a high pitched voice in my face. I swear in a couple of the pictures he has a look like "Lady, you're one crazy broad".

So after 3 hours, $75 and a peanut butter brownie from Mrs. Field's later we escaped from the mall to our nice quiet home. Of course about an hour later I decided that I had to go out and buy frames for my new pictures, so I braved the crowds again and went to Target. The section where they keep the photo frames had been thoroughly picked over yet there were still several shoppers circling the remains like vultures. Everything was either the wrong size or damaged so I ended up coming home empty handed. Well not completely, I did manage to snag the last gallon jug of egg nog.

Toward the end of the night we decided to put together Alex's present. We had gotten him an activity center that turns into a "walk behind". I love this kid stuff, almost everything can morph into something else, kind of like transformers. It came in such a huge box I assumed it was pretty much put together, but when John emptied out the box, it actually came in about 1500 pieces. I immediately had a flash-forward of holidays to come where we spend the entire night before putting together toys. It turned out great though and Alex got to work drooling on it right away.