Seven Pounds *SPOILER ALERT*

A few questions about this totally stupid movie (it was actually so stupid it was enjoyable :)).

• Why only save vegetarians? Did you notice? Hehe. I guess vegetarians aren't cruel. I bet that guy at the nursing home was a total meat-eater.

• HA HA HA!! They changed the color of Ezra's eyes! HA HA HA HA HA!!! What, did he have a full eyeball replacement? HAHAHAHA!

• Ok, so fierce jellyfish neurotoxins are going to make you a good organ donor, how...? Poor recipients.

• Did anyone else want to scream, "NO! DON'T! You're going to kill her!" when Will Smith decided to sleep with dying girl...? Because, seriously, he would have killed her. 

• They fell deeply, deeply in love in two weeks...? Ha ha! Ok. Whatever.

• Did this movie make you forget that Will Smith can make more than one face? That pained staring at people thing got soooooo... OLD. (He was so good in Pursuit of Happyness. And then there's this and I Am Legend...? What happened?)

• So, Will's irresponsible, flagrant texting causes the deaths of six totally random people (plus his wife, of course). And to make up for it, he's going to give life to, not totally random people, but people he can qualify as "good people." Wha...? That's kind of disgusting. 

• He promises abused lady that her boyfriend will never be able to find her, then has her promptly assume ownership of his house under her own name? Not smart, Will. Not smart.... (Beware of the sequel when boyfriend guy finds her in like, two weeks.)

• It's worth saying again: that face he kept making was ridiculous.

• What was so special about Ezra and what's-her-face getting together? Presumably there were lots of other transplant beneficiaries.... Why those two? Oh, yeah, because now she can look into his eyes once more. HA HA HA HA HA!!!

• So Will Smith wants to do something charitable for good person with the bad heart, and then makes her fall in love with him just in time for him to off himself? That wasn't very nice, Will....

• You know, he sure killed himself AWFULLY slowly for a guy who had already tipped the authorities off to his plans. I'm not thinking that would have worked out for him.... (And, again, the jellyfish was a bad enough idea that he must not have thought through this whole thing as smartly as he thought....)

• Moral of the story, then?: people with rare blood types owe it to the world to exchange their pathetic, jellyfish-fixated, guilt-ridden lives for the greater good. It's the only reasonable thing to do. What a hero. Ah, makes me feel at least as warm and fuzzy as what's-her-face looking into Ezra's Will Smith eyes. :)

(It at least got the organ-donation-is-the-only-reasonable-thing-to-do part of it right! Not that anything else went right, though. What a delightfully terrible movie! HA HA HA!)

Capitalization

What does it mean when people like to type things with no capitals? Whole emails or blog posts with no capital letters. It's gotta mean something—be connected to some kind of personality trait or attitude or something. :) 

i, for one, find it completely jarring. and i'm not sure what's most jarring.... the sentences beginning with lower-case letters, or the word i in the lower-case. unlike the sentence-openers, the word i doesn't even exist in lower-case, so it's pretty unsettling, no?

Anyway, whenever I see this strange thing, I wonder where it's coming from.... There needs to be a typing analysis science to go along with handwriting analysis! :) (The only thing I remember about handwriting analysis—other than the fact that my handwriting leans the opposite direction you'd expect, though I've forgotten what it all means—is the egocentrism that goes along with "inflated middle-zone." I notice it all the time now! Especially when people inexplicably have capital R's in the middle of lower-case letters. Inflated middle-zone. Hehe. Don't worry, if you're reading this and you do such things, I don't actually remember that you do. ;)) 

You know, reading back over my sans-capitals paragraph, I think I see a type style where double-spacing after a period in our post-typewriters-with-fixed-character-width computer world could actually be appropriate.... (That's one hot mess!)

Swine Flu

So, these days, Matt is working in the clinic with the first case that identified this new swine flu. I just think that's interesting.... 

(Also, the San Diegans with swine flu haven't been very sick at all. The kind of thing where they had a sore throat and found out later it was swine flu.... Apparently, all the U.S. cases have been very mild. I wonder why...? But the CDC is requiring swabs from any and all patients with respiratory symptoms (!!!). Whoa. That's a lot of patients to be swabbing!)

A funny conversation. :)

I thought Seth had been napping, but then he timidly opened his door (I think he knew he was supposed to not come out... :)) and from two separate rooms we had this amusing little exchange.

"Momma . . . ? I need to go pee...."

"Ok, go ahead and go by yourself and then go back to bed."

"I go in mine? Or go in yours...?" (meaning his bathroom or our bathroom)

"Go in yours."

"Yours?"

"No. Not mine."

"Not mine?"

"...Yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes, go in yours."

"Go in mine...? Ok. I'll go in yours."

(Hehe, I think he wanted to go in ours all along. :))

Sorry, my old abodes. Again....

Why Spring snow always made me cry even more than Winter snow:

Oh, the sadness!!

Need an Immune System Boost?

So Matt was working with some "Vitamin D expert" last week, and came home analyzing my life for me. :) Apparently, Vitamin D is the key to happiness. Hehe. I don't know all the little scientific details, but those of you interested might enjoy a bit of research—Vitamin D is supposed to be hugely beneficial to immune health. And it all made sense to Matt that I was an extraordinarily healthy person all my life until . . . my first Winter in Provo. And then my immune system tanked. Big time. Is the timing a coincidence? Hmmm.... All my life I'm outside practically all day long, and I'm healthy, and then there's no sun and I'm a disaster...? Anyone else have a similar pattern...?

And I guess my milk addiction couldn't get me very far. I'm probably getting these numbers wrong (check back for when Matt corrects me and I change them :)), but it was something like 150 units of Vitamin D in a glass of milk, while 10-15 minutes out in the sunshine gets you 15,000. Anyway, so on top of our current sunshine time, we're going on a Vitamin D-3 supplement experiment! I'll let you know how it goes. (Supposedly, it wouldn't be effective short-term, but in a couple months should start to make life even better. We'll see! :))

If this turns out awesome, I might just forgive Matt for getting hot glue all over the ironing board. ;-) 

(I was going to make curtains today, but the hot glue is a little intimidating!)

Natural Birth

There's a childbirth tag going around that I've almost filled out (since, you know, I'm enamored with forms :)), but I keep getting hung-up on a pet-peeve and end up wanting to write about it instead. :) My pet peeve rears its ultra-silly head in two questions on this tag:

1) c-section or natural?

2) drugs or natural?

To human beings everywhere, I've got to insist we were all born naturally! If you think having drugs makes it unnatural, then so do all your other unnatural resources. Maybe for the true "natural" birth you should go all primitive (as some societies in corners of this world still do...). I've heard of places where a woman will just disappear off into the wilderness and return hours or days later after giving birth by herself into a little hole she dug by a tree. Problem with a birth that "natural," though, is how frequently she has to return with no baby.... (Or doesn't return at all.) I don't recommend it. Not with our great resources available to give your baby a decidedly better chance.

And how is a c-section unnatural? Ha! Last I checked, there's still a real-live person growing in another real-live person. Sounds natural to me. Maybe if they went in with a robot doctor to extract a robot baby.... That might be venturing into unnatural territory.

I propose different questions. C-section or vaginal? Yes, that requires you use the word vaginal. It's very childbirthy, though. Even natural sounding. :) 

And as for the drugs question, how about "your pain required drugs, your pain didn't require drugs, or you were clever and used drugs to preempt pain entirely?" News flash, world: childbirth causes all sorts of types and intensities of pain. It's not predictable like stubbing your toe or something. The conversation as to whether everyone should or should not use drugs—or which route allows a more "beautiful" or "natural" experience—is totally irrelevant and off-the-mark. Even ridiculous. I've known people who have had an array of experiences even just on their own—who have had a drug-free labor that was also relatively pain-free and beautiful, another labor that threatened to destroy their soul for pain, another labor that was glorious because an epidural allowed them to enjoy the process and feel connected to their baby, another where pain-relief made them feel less connected—not to mention the differences between people. I can say, just from my one experience, there was nothing beautiful or natural or earthy or lovely about the few hours that labor was ripping my soul apart. (You know when multiple nurses—independent of each other—come in to fix the monitor they think is broken because they've never seen such contractions, and look at each other in disbelief when it isn't broken, and say things to you like "I've never seen contractions like this! You're a contractions machine!" that you're not in a good place.... ;)) Want to know when childbirth felt natural and mother-y and touchy-feely happy? When they were able to reduce my pain to something halfway manageable! I kind of feel like I experienced two kinds of labors in one shot. And, still, I can't say what I'd do next, because I don't know what it will be like. Maybe I'll get lucky and have more "normal" contractions, or even "easy" contractions, and can avoid the whole gross thing in the spine (UGH!! a miracle... but UGH!!). :) One thing I'd love to avoid, but never would allow myself to forego, is being in a hospital tethered to an IV and fetal monitor. No matter how wonderfully comfortable I would be without all that (I hate hospitals and IVs and monitors...), I'm such a huge believer in giving my baby the best chance. I think I'd even have qualms about delivering in a hospital without a NICU.... Here's this baby with no power to take care of itself—totally helpless. It's all up to the parent to give that baby the best chance, even if they have to sacrifice some small comforts. It's comforts . . . versus life. No-brainer for me. So give me that IV (I never realized until Seth came how important it is to have an open line for emergency drugs! I thought the saline thing was totally stupid until I heard Matt explain how critical it is to get that line when you know you can, and then ended up needing emergency pitocin myself to not hemorrhage...), and give me that monitor (which can save a baby's life... like Seth's...), and for the love of God (really...), give me that hospital with trained professionals who can do amazing things like take a baby (Seth) who would have died at home, and resuscitate him to near-perfection in moments (and actual-perfection in days... :)). Birth has always been natural and it still is, however it happens. :) And while there are many things we could do to further improve childbirth medical practices (malpractice reform! Ob/Gyn has an insane lawsuit threat that ties doctors' hands.... Midwives [if they know to use IVs] in a hospital-setting have a valuable place, too), the fact that we're so much better at keeping everyone involved alive now is a miracle we should never take for granted. Or, for heaven's sake, insult with the definition "unnatural."

So, thank you, to all our moms. Who gave birth to us naturally. :)

A Shocking Confession.

I have a deep, dark secret. It may spoil my reputation as a loving mother and child advocate forever. But I'm going to let it out anyway. I... hate... (and I mean hate) ... bathtime. [Boo! Boo!! Throw tomatoes on her!] I know, I know! Bathtime is supposed to be one of the joys of child care. But to me, all I experience is a back that wants to break—souring my good humor over things like tremendous splashes of bubbles everywhere. Is there any task more uncomfortable? Bending over a bathtub, scrubbing a kid...? Ugh. It kills me. I detest it. I've always hated it—and having my own cute kid did nothing to lighten my feelings. :) (Even though he IS really cute in the bath! I can appreciate with a little distance.... :))

Luckily for me, or maybe because of me, Seth has always loved the shower. I don't think we gave him a single bath as a baby (no cute pictures of a baby screaming in their little bathtub... darn :)). But, ah, shower time was so pleasant! He loved to just lay on someone's chest with the water on his back, and I would nap with him in the tub until the hot water ran out. Nice, too, that in the shower the poor baby never has to feel cold (though I realize some babies love the bath anyway...). I miss baby-shower time! (That was years ago now! Wow.... It'll be fun to have another one someday and do some of the fun baby stuff all over again.) Anyway, I was just thinking of this again when Seth was, unusually, asking for a bath today and I thought, HA! Not a chance.... Not until Dad gets home, at least. :)

Ugly Dogs

Ha ha! A few days ago we were playing at one of the small playgrounds on Mission Bay Park. Well, Seth was. We followed him around talking about how funny he is. :) It was that awesome hour before sunset—which is now late enough in the day that people actually get home from work to enjoy it—and there were tons of people jogging and biking and walking their dogs. Seth was loving all the dogs! And people were so nice—they'd stop when they'd hear him yell "dog!" from across the path, and let him catch up for a few moments to play with their pet. After having lots of fun petting several dogs, he started just acknowledging them while he ran around.... He's throwing sticks, he's dancing, he's spinning in circles, he's jumping or running—and whenever he passed a dog he'd just say "hi, Dog!" and keep on with what he was doing. He said hi to about a gazillion dogs (probably 20 :)) that way. Until he passed by this:

Ha ha! Now, this story would be so much better if I had the perfect pictures to show you, but I trust you get the gist.... He passes by this ugly creature (seriously, how can anyone stand to look at that every day? And take care of it...? :)) and says, "Hi, Cat!" 

Ha ha!! The looks on the owners' faces! We were dying. Matt said (not to the owners :)), "well, that's when you know something has gone seriously wrong in your species...." Seth was too busy rolling across the grass to notice he had said anything unusual. :) (A side note: he learned how to roll down hills recently, and loves it so much that now he'll drop on grass anywhere to "roll down." Which is hilarious when it's not a hill, and he's working so hard to just roll across, all the while maintaining a conversation with one of us. "How are you doing, Dad?" [roll, roll, roll] Fine, how are YOU doing, Seth? "FUN. I'm rolling down the grass." [roll, roll] :))

So anyway, we thought we had our blog post for the day. But then.... THEN!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! He's running along the path singing a song or something, and something like this walks by:

I say "walks" but I really mean "struts." This little pooch was freshly groomed. The lady walking it was coming straight from a salon or something, and was herself strutting. Poochie had a cute little bow on the top of her head that made her long hair stick out, and a perky little hairy tail. It was a silly little sight. And Seth.... He ran by, stopped dead in his tracks just long enough to say, matter-of-factly but with a happy little sound of surprise: "Oh! A rooster." And off he went again...! 

Ha ha! I'm not sure if the lady heard him because we were laughing too hard to notice. :)