On Using the F-Word

Things have been busy around here. And I dont like busy. I like lazy. If my entire life consisted of getting out of bed solely to shower and use the toilet I would be quite pleased. But things have been busy around here...and I can honestly say it has been the most blissful kind of busy.

It's a dizzying dance of kisses, cuddles, and coos...and suddenly I am in love with busy.

But with work and school and graham and studying and evie and my hoppin' social life, pumping 5 times a day has really begun to cramp my style.

Solution: Formula. Cover your ears, sensitive readers, because I'm gonna say it again.

FORMULA!

Before you go dropping an anonymous tip to www.reportaterrorist.com let me tell you - I am still pumping twice a day. Evie's diet is still about 80/20 breast milk to formula...so just go ahead and unwad those panties. I'll give you a moment.

So we are not the worst parents in the world. Maybe somewhere down there with Courtney Love, but still not quite as bad as John Phillips or Charles Manson. She is still getting breast milk... so we are not the worst.

But it does mean that we are officially slaves to the soul-sucking-price-gouging-Similac-Empire. Oh, hello there, poverty line, how did you get above me?
It also means that Evie's little baby poops are going to start smelling. This is according to the "experts" (read: people who spend their time giving moms all around the globe unnessecary anxiety and guilt. Those who preach and don't do. The crappiest people ever.) But that's a risk I'm willing to take. Plus, her poops smell pretty bad already. Like father like daughter.


Seriously: like father, exactly-identically-completely-totally-utterly like daughter. IN EVERY WAY. I don't even think she is mine. I know that I have not always had the most positive things to say about parenting...but everyone should go out right now and make babies. Because you will never know a love like it. It's totally worth it. Totally. Sore boobs, saggy belly and all.

Things That Go Bump

It doesn't take much to scare me. Scratch that; it takes absolutely nothing to scare me. Chances are, you could be telling me a funny story and I would start shaking uncontrollably in my Michael Kors boots just because it's dark out.

And my mind wanders.

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that my mind can go to such dark places. But it does. So who am I to dwell?

And you may think it could be explained away. Like: girl watches too many scary movies. Except that I don't. Not even scary commercials. When those come on I cover my ears, close my eyes, and LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALAAAAAA until Graham smacks me; signifying the commercials' end. So no, there is no explanation except that I am a weenie. A big oscar-meyer-scardy-mcweiner-face.

So imagine my sheer horror when, the first time I made my way up to my advisor's lab, I was faced with THIS:

An elevator so scary... soooo old... so absolutely terrifying that every time I am in it my internal dialogue goes something like this:

Dear God, Please don't let a face pop up in that window. Please, please, please don't be a face. Pleasedontbeaface! Pleasedontbeaface! Pleasedontbeaface! PLEASE DON'T BE A FACE!!!

If I fail out of grad school I am blaming it, solely and completely, on that elevator. And then I'll go to the Dean and complain because HOW CAN THEY EXPECT PEOPLE TO FEEL SAFE IN A SCHOOL WITH ELEVATORS LIKE THAT?!?

Happy Fall Ya'll

Now that we have gotten past the snow (oh yeah, uh huh, it SNOWS here in October...) the air is perfectly crisp and the leaves are perfectly vivid. Fall in New England is, by far, the only thing that redeems it from the harsh winters. It is beautiful; except that "beautiful" does not even begin to describe it.

Driving down the roads right now, you find yourself completely enveloped in what can only be described as the most awesome display of God's ability to paint.

So this past weekend we bundled up the little one, threw on our scarves and went for a hike.

She has really started to enjoy being put in a carrier. Thank GOD, because I was not too keen on living the rest of my life with my arms randomly falling out of their sockets in an effort to rebel against me for those three years that Evie would not let me put her down.

Add to that the fact that going on hikes is one of our favorite past times as a couple and, well, it's just really convenient that little bit likes it, too. I hope all of you out there in the blogosphere are enjoying the change of seasons as much as we are.

*pictures by the ever-talented Graham Scobey - my miniature beefcake of a man*

Procrastination

I should be finishing a paper right now. But no, I am blogging...and then? I am going to take a nap. Something about school teaches us to put things off until the very last minute. I mean, I am a good student. I have practically made a career out of being a student (scratch that, nothing practical about it -- I have ACTUALLY made a career out of being a student) and I still procrastinate.

We are taught a dance: think about work, plan to do work, put work off, nap and repeat. It is still one of my FAVORITE dances to do. I have to add that I hate it when people spell favorite with a "u". Like: favourite. Give me a break. Who are you? The Queen?

Favorite.

So: It is still one of my favorite dances to do. Right up there with the cha-cha slide and the cabbage patch. I just cannot make myself not procrastinate. There are too many other things I would rather do. Like nap. And let me just tell you: I take the "nap when baby naps" axiom very seriously. I do not mess around.

Tumbleweed

I have this really bad habit of getting antsy when I have lived in one place for more than...oh...two years. Antsy like I have little creatures who normally live in a hill marching around in my underpinnings.

In fact, we move around so much that we have our own moving crew. And our own T-SHIRTS...and everyone knows that having your own shirts makes you legit. For reals.


And so I talk about it. And talk and talk and tallllllk. And plan. And Graham mostly looks at me like: girl's crazy. And then I talk some more.

We have lived in Connecticut for a little over a year now...so (although we still have another solid two years here) I am all bored with it and ready to go someplace new. Here are my top choices:

Los Angeles: *THUD* That was the sound of my mom hitting the ground somewhere in the Metro Atlanta area from the coronary that she had when she read that. But, I mean, Southern California is just so beautiful...and sunny...and beachy -- all of the things that I love the most. And my favorite place on the planet, Pepperdine, is there. And, well, if I ever got the opportunity to teach there it would just make me jump so high that I would be the first official Grad Student to ever orbit the earth without a space-suit.

Nashville: I lived in Nashville for a few years and it has this great balance of city and country. Plus it has the Puffy Muffin. And Baja Burrito. And Mazatlans. Mostly I would want to move there for the food. Obviously.

New York City: Everyone likes a happy spouse. And moving to Manhattan would make my husband the happiest human being on the planet. ON. THE. PLANET. Plus I have always wanted to live in a truly, truly walkable city. And the take-out options! Geeze-Louise!

Atlanta: There will always be a pretty hefty chunk of my heart traveling, in a little heart-shaped-vehicle, up and down 400 and around 285; because that is just how much I love this city. It is where I grew up and where all of my very favorite people live.

Where would you live if you could move anywhere?

October Tenth

Today is an anniversary of sorts.

Exactly one year ago: Sunday, October 10th, 2008, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. There was profuse eating of mass quantities and varieties of chocolate. There were boxes upon boxes upon boxes of tissues being used. There were lighthearted movies about childbirth being watched.

Exactly one year ago today there were seven (onetwothreefourfivesixSEVEN) pregnancy tests lined up on my bathroom counter. And one year ago today I was scouring the internet to find if there had ever been a case of seven false positives.

There had not.

It boggles my mind how much life can change in a year.

Here I am, governer of Alaska, hoping against all hope that no-one noticed the five pounds I had already gained.

Three 1/2 months along over Christmas break. We didn't know it at the time but Evie's cousin, Sophi, was already on her way, too.

About seven days late: a very pregnant, very anxious Ashley. I wish I would have listened to the dozens of people who told me to enjoy those last few weeks as a family of two (sorry, Bear: a family of three).

And here is the best surprise I have ever gotten; just hours old.

And now, FOUR months after her birth, we are remembering the day we found out we would be having a baby. Life has never been so full.

Anger Management

It may be the fact that I have a baby now... and it might be just one more thing that I can blame on my raging hormones... but I find myself, on a very regular basis, wanting to kill my dog. Like, MURDER-him-with-my-bare-hands kill him. Maybe this makes me a horrible person. It just never fails that the barking and the loud, growl-inducing-humping happen right when Evie has gone to sleep. RIGHT when I was GOING to take a nap. And, God, there are only so many times that you can pick poop up off of the floor with a smile on your face after you had just let him out for the sole purpose of deficating IN THE YARD!

But I haven't killed him yet. When the rage threatens to overtake me I look back at this picture: taken a couple of days after I brought Bearsy home (completely against my husband's wishes)...that was exactly three years ago. Life has a way of moving much too quickly, but still passing very slow. The first person to be able to explain this phenomena will, no doubt, win a Nobel Peace Prize.


But this picture, it does the trick. It has saved Bear's life on a number of occasions.

Mission: Sanitization

I have a problem that I feel ready to admit to. Ready; and willing to seek out the appropriate avenues of help if necessary.

I probably go through an entire family-sized container of these babies a week... Seriously. The way I scrub my kitchen on a nightly basis you would think that I was taking precautions against an army of Turd People whose only mode of transportation was to roll around on my counter-tops. And you know what? I'm not sorry. Granted, I may be singing a different tune on the day that I wake up to the first four layers of my epidermis PEELING off... but for now you'll get no apologies from me.

Donations to the ScobeyLysolWipe Fund can be made directly to me. Do your part, people. Do. Your. Part.