Summer's Over! Woo hoo!!

I went back to Sea World, the Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park this week after a bit of a hiatus and thought...ahhhhh.... Summer's over!

I hate Summer. I've always hated Summer. I remember as a kid—in my couple of years before year-round schooling—that while the end of the school year was pretty exciting, within a week or so I was so over Summer. By the time I got back to school, it was as if Summer had lasted four years. (And, when you think about the percentage three months is in a 6-year-old's memory, that makes some sense!)

Then year-round began, and my love-affair with the other nine months of the year hit full-swing. One-month vacations instead of three? Awesome. Three-month school periods instead of nine? Double-awesome. Family vacations in . . . Winter? Awesome times infinity!!!

Because, you see.... I hate Summer.

And here's why:

1. Too hot. (Not so much in San Diego, but still. We had a week or two when being outside all day wasn't pleasant. And that's just annoying.) (Oh, but then we'd go to my parents' and, AHHH! 95 degrees! 100 degrees! 90 degrees! No thank you. Denver.... 93 degrees! Provo.... 100 degrees!! Summer most of my life has been way too hot.)

2. Too dead. Denver was the one exception to this—it's dead the rest of the year! Haha! Seriously, it is. And then Summer comes around and everything is green and you think, ahhhh.... Why can't it be Summer all year? This was a huge paradigm shift for me: to look forward to Summer. (It was still too hot, though. :)) But California gets gorgeous through Fall and Winter—wildflowers galore—and within three days of Summer weather it's all a mass of death. Very sad.

3. TOO MANY PEOPLE. Anywhere you want to go, there are too many people! We refuse to partake. What's better crowded than uncrowded? Nothing.

So let's get this straight. Everyone else waits for Summer to do things. So they can go somewhere crowded. And bake.

Very smart, people.

We went back to some of our favorite spots this week, found quick and easy parking, walked around in the 68-degree breeze and sunshine, saw nearly no one, took a refreshing breath and thought...ahhhhhhh.... It's back! Life!

I'm starting to get majorly depressed about Seth starting school next year—despite how much I know he'll love it—for two major reasons:

1. (another bullet list :)) Full-day kindergarten! Curse working parents for the demise of half-day! I have to lose Seth for 30+ hours a week?! You kidding me? That's cruel.

2. The Traditional Calendar!!!

I don't know who to blame for that one. But I'm having a heck of a time finding a year-round school. Even the "year-round" calendars still give you two months of your vacation in the Summer, and that is not ok with us. Not ok at all.

So I guess the school and the state and the country and the universe are just going to have to be ok with the fact that we will dapple into truancy. Hahaha! Really, though. We will. Because we love our family time! When Matt is post-call with a whole weekday free, we do something as a family. And we'll be darned if we start to only do those things during . . . Summer. [Ewwwwww!!!] Or weekends! [More ewwwwww!!]

Will we ever, ever, ever go to Disneyland in the Summer? Ha! No way. (You've got to be INSANE to go to Disneyland in the Summer. Those of you who have only been in Summer: do you have any idea what you're missing? It's a completely different place on those 10-6 days. Totally fabulous. Pain-free.)

Will we ever, ever, ever take a family vacation in the Summer? Double-no!! (Nothing ruins a great place like tourists! We'll even take bad weather to not go with tourists! A post on this to follow.... :))

Will we be able to resist bringing Seth home for perfectly gorgeous Winter days at uncrowded beaches and empty tourist sites, or for two-week vacations to destinations no one else is destining...? No times infinity!!

If truancy is a crime, lock us up now! (Or just get the independent study contracts ready. :))

Don't take it too hard. We like you, school. We just like being together so much more!

And we hate Summer.

There's No Hope

I want to like fish sooooo bad. It looks absolutely delectable. The meat is such a great texture, you can flavor it all different ways, it's really good for you...!

Unfortunately, it also tastes like . . . fish! Like the way a pier smells. Like some kind of chemical is putrefying on your plate!

After a successful acclimation to spicy food (thank you, Chris, my "Spice Coach" ;)), I was determined to overcome my sensitivity to that "fishy" flavor. For years Matt was on the hunt for fish that was mild enough for me to enjoy. He'd order fish every chance he got and carefully evaluate.... Then it was either, "Nope, Auburn, this is kind of fishy." Or, if I were lucky, it was, "oh yeah, I'm sure this isn't fishy at all! You can try this one!"

So I'd try it.

Fishy. Every time.

Makes me want to puke.

Mahi mahi. Fishy. Mahi mahi encrusted with some kind of divine macadamia nut mixture. Fishy. The perfect salmon. Fishy. Halibut. Fishy. $40 fish entree. Fishy! I mean, really people. How can you stand it? Do you lick piers, too?

Eventually, Matt gave up. He'd try something and say, "you know, I could swear this doesn't have any fishiness! But you better not try it.... Sorry." :)

The nail in the coffin happened a couple years ago when Brian and Janelle drove to Denver and offered us some of their road snacks. I went for the beef jerky. Mmmm!! Beef jerkkk.... Wha...?

Tastes like FISH!!!

I started to complain. Does anyone else taste this? The beef jerky is fishy! No one believed me—thought I was crazy. I tried another bite. Ugh. Fish fish fish.

At which point, Janelle, incredulous, with a bit of "I'm in the twilight zone" in her voice, said: "Ummmm.... The bag of beef jerky was sitting next to a bottle of omega-3 supplements. Those have, uh.... Fish oil...." Hadn't come in contact—just supplements in a bottle sitting in a bag next to a sealed package of beef jerky. Could it be possible?

All these years I had wondered if the fishiness were just in my head, and now it all clicked. Why would my psyche randomly decide that beef jerky should taste like fish oil...? I started to remember all those times I had eaten something random at a restaurant and had to throw it away because it was too fishy—french fries, carrot cake?, vegetables.

My mind flashed to that chemical-paper genetics experiment in high school biology. Mr. Jones came in with a tube of little strips of paper, gleeful. "Golding! I can't wait for you to taste this! Muwahahahahaha!!!!" Everyone gets a paper to taste. For the vast majority, the paper will taste horribly bitter. But if you happen to have two recessive genes, you'll taste nothing. We had 25 people in the class. I braced for the taste! My classmates started to moan and spit and gag and complain. I tasted . . . nothing. Out of all 25 in the class, I was the only one who could taste nothing. I chewed on that piece of paper for a while just reveling in the awesomeness that is genetics (and in the chagrin of my teacher who had been so excited to torture me :)). So cool! Genes can make you not taste a nasty chemical on a piece of paper!

So now I'm tasting fish on beef jerky and realizing.... I've got some kind of freak genetic thing that makes me taste a chemical in fish other people don't taste!

My dream died.

I also felt vindicated. :)

But the dream died....

And I'll never be able to eat fish. :-(  It's really, really, really sad.

A few weeks ago, Matt bought some Smart Balance eggs. He was so excited about them, too. They'll taste better! They're good for you! Seth eats so many eggs, and now he'll get more Omega-3s!

I made myself an egg-on-bagel sandwich and.... You guessed it!

Fish.

Are you kidding me! Eggs that taste like fish? Who could have seen that coming?! (Disgusting. I had to throw it away after a few bites because I just couldn't take it anymore.)

I don't know what they're feeding those chickens to get Omega-3s in those eggs, but the litmus test—me!—says fish is involved somewhere! I googled it to see if I were crazy. Sure enough, there were but a few souls out there asking the question: "why do my smart balance eggs taste like fish?" The world rose in revolt against them to say, wow, you're insane. But I think they're on to something...!

R.I.P. craving for fish. It's never gonna happen.

To find out or not to find out....

I just read on someone's blog (someone I don't know :)) about the really fun way they found out about the sex of their baby. They said at the last-minute, they asked the tech to write down the gender and seal it in an envelope—and right away they took the envelope to a baker and asked him to bake a cake with pink or blue frosting. They invited their families over for dinner and (with much fanfare, I'm sure) the soon-to-be-Mom got to cut into . . .

Is that fun or is that fun? If I felt like finding out along with a bunch of people, I'd wish we'd thought up this idea ourselves! Maybe at home with our own kids someday.... (How much would kids love that?!) Too cute.

Another goodie!

Seth's prayer last night:

Heavenly Father

Thank You for our things ("our hings")

I would really appreciate it ("hur-preesh-iate it") if You would come to our house to visit

Really soon

And

I'm showing You I keep my deals

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love that Seth doesn't say the same things all the time. :) And that He frequently tells God "I'd really hurpreeshiate it if . . . ." :-D You know, things like coming over for a visit. He's not a mimicker, that's for sure. Haha! (Or do I sometimes pray like that? Heavenly Father, we'd really appreciate it if Seth could get some help with his scratching so he doesn't die soon. But if he does die soon, help him be happy to live with Thee again. :))

(Showing he can keep his deals is a conversation I'd had with him the other night about why it would be a good idea to go to sleep after he had made a deal with dad for extra Legos time. ;))

The best prayer of the year was in Church a few months ago. Seth's prayers have been impressively context-specific. For probably a full year, every time he prayed at home he would start with: "Heavenly Father, please help us to have a baay-bee. Thank you for...." So when he'd volunteer in nursery at church to say the prayer for the snack, I'd brace myself for a funny situation (I worked in nursery with some other adults). But, dozens of times, he prayed only for things relevant to the nursery class, never for help having a baby. Whew!

Then he graduates to the big-kid "Primary" and I heard him pray in class a few times. It was always context-specific still—so when it was his turn to pray up at the microphone on behalf of all the kids (and bunches of teachers!) in Primary, and I was not telling anyone I was pregnant, I trusted everything would be fine.

First thing out of his mouth! In the microphone! Completely discernable!:

Heavenly Father

Thank you for our baay-bee

Please help our baby to grow

Ohhhh boy! Hahaha!

Then he goes on and on with the sweetest prayer ever:

Thank you for our moms

Thank you for our dads

Thank you for all the pretty flowers

and Thank you for the beautiful sky ("kighhh...")

Thank you for our hings

Thank you we can all be friends

Thank you that we can do hings

Thank you we can have our moms and dads

He had a few more, I just can't remember now. But do you think the cuteness and lengthiness made anyone forget that first part? Haha!

As soon as he says Amen, the chorister sitting behind me goes: "Aw! That was the sweetest prayer EVER!" And the pianist blurts out: "Cat's out of the bag! I hope you were ready!" And all the teachers and everyone else just sit there grinning at me with the funniest looks. It was hilarious. Not a bad way to tell everyone, though.... :)

Aha!

I found out the other day that there's a real reason I didn't feel the baby move until—honestly—the same day that Matt could feel her, too! (Almost 20 weeks!) Anterior placenta! (One of Matt's theories, actually.) The placenta is in the front rather than the back, and therefore acting as some kind of barricade. I'm also larger on the right side than the left! Hahaha! Which might be explained solely by the fact that she's breech and most of her body is over there. But maybe that's where the placenta is, too. I'm curious how long I'll look down and see my belly button off-center. Hehe. (No one else notices I'm lopsided, but I've been noticing since I started showing.)

I decided to dress all comfortably last week (21 1/2 weeks) and it happened to be a dress that showed off my belly, and Matt snapped some impromptu pictures. The evolution of the shot kind of amused me. :)

Yeah, um. I'm pretty sure we didn't get anything serious. I'm pretty sure that's impossible when Matt or I is taking pictures of the other.

If those were a little painful, here's something gorgeous to feast your eyes upon:

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Seth has some awesome prayers sometimes. One of his best ever was last night—after he was asleep we sat in our bedroom and laughed until it hurt!

Background: Seth scratches. Which turns mildly irritated skin into full-blown eczema. Which he scratches. Then it turns into gaping wounds. Which he scratches. Sometimes he holds off long enough to get some good scabs that are almost—almost!—healed, and we hold our breath that maybe he'll have normal ankles and knees for the first time in months. But he inevitably gets bored sometime and decides to scratch off the scabs. Sometimes he's indignant about it ("But how can it hurt me?! It feels good! Don't tell me not to scratch!"), and sometimes he's a little depressed that he hasn't mastered the self-control yet, and sometimes he's all pumped up to never scratch again. And how about wrapping him up in band-aids and wraps...? Forget about it. That just makes the area even more intriguing. We joke about putting casts on him. Haha!

So.... Last night....

First off, super cute, he catalogues for God how much we love Him. "We love you SOOOOO much. We just LOVE you. We are trying to love you as much as you love us, but you love us A LOT. I love you eighty-eighty-NINE!" :)

Then, "Thank you for our baby. Please help our baby to grow."

Then, the best part!

"Please help me to stop scratching. But if I DO scratch...and I die soon...please help me be happy to live with you again...."

HAHAHA!

HAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Matt crawled into bed laughing as much at me as at Seth, insisting "he is SO your son." That's right!

Then and Now

It's funny to be pregnant again. It just feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you know? And yet, here I am, 4.5 years later, in the middle of it all over again. In some ways I feel like it's a new experience—the memory of Seth's pregnancy having (finally! :)) faded somewhat—except that there's always this dawning recognition that, noooo, this is all oddly familiar.... Feeling a contraction again for the first time. Wow. Wow. It's all just strange.

So here's my compare-and-contrast!

Morning Sickness: About the same! General crumminess with most food feeling disgusting, but no actual puking. This pregnancy has had more lost breath and light-headedness.

PVCs: When I was pregnant with Seth, a heart condition I'd always had was hugely exacerbated. I get "skipped" beats—premature ventricular contractions. They used to happen a couple times a year and I didn't know what they were. (Elizabeth once famously noted: "Did you just have an aneurysm?!" ;)) When I was over halfway through my pregnancy with Seth, I out-of-the-blue started getting strong ones every third beat. (Instead of twice a year!) Got an EKG, found out they were benign PVCs, then dealt with the feeling of being super-nervous in the middle of a grueling physical challenge for the rest of the pregnancy (they're hugely unsettling). With this pregnancy, I don't think I even knew I was pregnant yet and the PVCs had already sped up. Haven't stopped.... Isn't it interesting?

Eyesight: Another interesting thing! My vision plummeted with Seth, and again with this one. I'm assuming it will go back to the status quo after this baby is born, like it did with Seth. We'll see!

Weight gain: I'm gaining at exactly the same rate, always weighing the same as before. To the pound! It's kind of amazing. I'm curious how long that will last.

Food cravings: With Seth I could only eat peaches and cottage cheese, whole milk, or orange juice for most of the first trimester. With this baby I've been able to eat most anything. My go-to food this time has been eggs! I have some form of egg on bread (often with cheese) just about every day. The protein is great....

My longterm craving with Seth was Oreos. No particular cravings this time around. Oh! And when I had felt the most morning-sick this time, I kept wanting Spicy Jack Quesadillas from Del Taco. I hadn't had many of those since . . . I had been morning sick with Seth! I had completely forgotten it had been my stomach-settler the first time around until Matt reminded me. Well! Nausea knows what it wants and doesn't change it's mind, I guess! Kind of funny.

Showing: I think I'm about two weeks ahead of Seth's pregnancy this time, maybe one. It seems like I'm showing at about the same rate. Everyone is still complaining about me being disappointingly small.... Sorry!

Waddling: Despite having a fairly small tummy so far, I've been waddling for weeks already! I don't think that happened with Seth until well into the third trimester. I guess my hips are already disintegrating! It's terrible! What am I going to do when I do have a major belly? Will I even be able to move? Stay tuned to find out.... [Dum-dum-DUM!]

Contractions!!: Cue more scary music!! The contractions story with Seth:

20 weeks—Felt my very first contractions. Thought it was interesting and kind of fun. It made me feel actually pregnant.

24 weeks—Contractions were coming lots of times a day. Started to be less fun....

28 weeks—Contractions every 10 minutes. Really annoying.

31 weeks—Appeared to be dilating. Admitted to the hospital. Contractions every 3 minutes. Sent home the next morning on anti-contraction drugs and ordered to bedrest for a few weeks. Oh, and did I mention the baby (Seth, that is :)) was fully engaged? Fun.

32 weeks... 33... 34...—Baby still fully engaged, contractions still every few minutes.

35 weeks—Baby still fully engaged, contractions every few minutes. I wanted to die.

36 weeks—Doctors sooo pleased I haven't had baby yet. Still fully engaged! Contractions every few minutes! I was starting to get pretty tired....

37 weeks—Nurses start finding humor in my sad, sad situation. "Hahaha! Here we were hoping to get you to 34 weeks, and now look, I bet you go overdue! Isn't that hilarious? Hahaha!" Oh, the thought! I could have died at those words!

38 weeks—Fully engaged, contractions every few minutes!!!! AAAHHHH!!

39 weeks—Thankfully, I never got to 39 weeks. Hallelujah! Oh, and did I mention the real labor only lasted four hours (first baby!), and that half of that was a deliberate slow-down...?

(When doctors ask how long my first labor was, they gasp at the four hours part. What they don't know is that I wanted to answer: "Two months. And four hours." Hehe.)

So for years now I've been fascinated to know: was it all a fluke? Would a second pregnancy go the same way? Or be even more dramatic? Or maybe a second pregnancy would be all normal...? Will a second labor be even faster, like, having the baby in the car kind of fast? Or what if a second labor is 12 hours or something? That would just be weird!

The answers so far:

12 weeks—CONTRACTIONS!!! [Dum-dum-DUMMMM!!!!!!] I. Couldn't. Believe it. Twelve weeks! Eight weeks earlier than with Seth. It was strange to feel that ol' familiar feeling over such a tiny, tiny spot instead of my entire abdomen, but there was no denying the loss of breath, the surge of "ugh", the general strangeness of the whole thing.

13 weeks—Yep. Definitely contractions. Definitely coming several times a day. Sometimes several times an hour! Sometimes back-to-back for 20 or 30 minutes!

And here I am at 21 weeks, when I had first felt the occasional contraction with Seth, and getting them all the time. Some of them are so strong they totally take my breath away. So how will the rest of this story play out...? I'm morbidly curious. I also don't want to know. I also can't help but find out! Stay tuned.

Tiredness: I was bone tired with Seth. But I'm pretty sure I'm even more tired now. With Seth I couldn't stay awake the whole first trimester and then I bounced back. With this one, I was a little more functional the first trimester, but it keeps getting worse instead of getting any better. I'm exhausted.

Excitement level!: Everything felt more intense with Seth. The joy and longing for that baby were overwhelming, but so was the cloud over our heads that had formed through lots of experience of my body being terrible at this. This time everything feels more . . . calm . . . . I forget sometimes that I'm even pregnant. When I really think about it, I feel all the joy we had with Seth—but then it's more mellow somehow. More content. And even though this baby was just as hard (in many ways, much, much harder) to come by than Seth was, the reality that, "hey, Seth worked!" has really done wonders to help us feel like the other shoe is not about to drop. We're feeling so content with this little girl coming.... It just feels right.

Movement: Watched Seth bouncing around like crazy on ultrasound before he even had arms or had lost his tail. I could feel Seth rolling around at only 15 weeks! This baby? She looked fairly active in early ultrasounds, but I didn't feel her until, no joke...the same day that Matt could feel her. Haha! Is that crazy? Almost 20 weeks. And at the ultrasound last week (she may have been sleeping...?), she hardly moved at all. Very cooperative for the ultrasound tech. Versus Seth who had been swimming like a frog too quickly to get the right pictures! I can't wait to see how their temperaments compare.

Reason #842

...that we adore San Diego.

I just saw this wickedly SCARY national weather map. AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!

Note the 66 in the bottom left-hand corner. Ahhhhhhhhhhh....

List Filler-Out-er. That's me!

I was actually a little disappointed when our Census form asked for so little information and I just needed to fill out something else! So here's another list someone sent me! [This has been unfinished and unpublished a couple months now. Oops!]

1. Name three types of people who should qualify for forced labor camps:

—People who defend the rights of richer people to have better public schools. ("Kids in the slums don't care about education anyway...." AARRRGGGHHHH!!! Get thee to Siberia!)

—That's all.

2. What was the last thing you ate?
PB&J. Seriously. :) [At the time of publication: Apples 'N Cinnamon Oatmeal. Am I still a juvenile, or what?]

3. What’s a goal you have?
Always make family first! Deliberately and thoughtfully....

4. What do you think of entertainment awards shows?
For some reason I get a HUGE kick out of the Oscars. When I was a kid I LIVED for the Grammys, but now that it's not an 80's-fest I've lost interest. :)

5. How do you want to die?
In some way and time that makes sense!

6. What is your favorite vacation/get-away spot? Where will you be traveling next?
Oh man! Favorite? Hmmm . . . . London feels like home-away-from-home. If I could go anywhere right now, though, I'd probably pick Korea again. Our next travel spot is very exotic: Wisconsin! Yeppers. You heard me right. :)

[update: home from WI! It was a good trip! :)]

7. How do you pronounce “gyro?”
YEAR-oh.

8. What have you found entertaining lately?
Seth. I mean, he's always been entertaining, but he just seems to keep getting more hilarious.

9. Do you follow any blogs of nondescript people who you don't know? Why do you follow those blogs?
I "follow" some blogs of old acquaintances. It creeps me out, though, to put them in my regular Google Reader list with people I'm actually in touch with—so I have a SECOND Google Reader account that I only check every now and then. I'm curious what they're up to since, you know, I used to know them and stuff. But I just feel insane if I get a feed too frequently of their goings-on!

10. What would you use a time machine for?
Check up on our future, just to see a few things.... :)

11. What is your favorite restaurant?
Just discovered Cafe Chloe in downtown San Diego. AWESOME French food!

12. What actors should be barred from acting?
Drew Barrymore! Keanu Reeves! Jodi Foster! And any other "actor" out there who delivers every line from every "new character" the exact same way.

13. What’s the last book you read?
I'm reading Notes from Underground again, by Dostoevsky, and My Name is Asher Lev again, by Chaim Potok. Love 'em both. (It's almost ludicrous to say I love them in the same sentence, though. I mean, Dostoevsky is way better than Potok, no matter how much I love Asher Lev.)

[Postscript: Since starting this list, I've gotten busy and lost track of both books with no pick-them-back-up time in sight. Sigh.]

14. What’s the last movie you enjoyed?
Sherlock Holmes. I'm convinced I'd love anything Robert Downey, Jr. does. Brilliant.

15. Reveal something that really bothers you.
See #1. How is the country not outraged that our public schools are locally funded? (Ok, I know why—it's because richer people think they're entitled.) It's the hugest, awfulest, most despicable injustice in our society. UN—conscionable.

16. What will it say on your gravestone?
"She transformed public schools." :) (Haha! I'd love to...!)

17. Put your iPod on shuffle and list the first three songs that come up, then explain yourself:

Yellow Lights Mean Slow Down Not Speed Up (Logh)

I have never heard this song in my life! It's kind of funny, though, because yellow lights are one of the things I have a "Rule of Thumb" about. It goes like this: if you're stopped, and the light is still yellow, you chose poorly. (Because, you see, yellow doesn't actually mean "slow down"!)

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (Flaming Lips)

Another song I've never heard! This is the funny thing about iPods. :) I have dreams about my mouth disintegrating. And this is by the Flaming Lips...? Coincidence?

XIV. Die Kreuze (Schoenberg)

I'm scared.
What is this soprano doing?! Hahaha! Ah, Schoenberg....

(I can't hear Schoenberg without feeling transported back to the days of me and Matt and Chris hanging out together. :))

18. What is the biggest mistake you have ever made?
My biggest regret in life, no doubt, was disastrously assuming I'd just love spending four years at the college I picked. That was an error in judgment of epic proportions. A close #2 is not knowing the song Feeling Yourself Disintegrate by the Flaming Lips earlier. I'm enjoying it!

19. What kind of toppings do you generally request for your pizza?
Depends on the crust! Stadium Pizza: gotta have plain pineapple. Deep Dish Pizza Hut or something: pepperoni and olives must be involved. CPK: goat cheese and peppers, or the Thai pizza. I also love multi-cheese pizza when ricotta is involved. Mmmm!

20. Who/what would you love to have complete control over?
The Match.

21. What does your ideal Saturday consist of?
My ideal Saturday is one when Matt is home (rare), and when Sunday is more than a day away (shockingly rarer ;)). I have so much to do on Sundays that Saturday gets kind of depressing....

22. What is one skill you lack completely but wish you could master with the snap of your fingers?

Whistling! Or winking. I'm not sure which I'd enjoy more, but it's so sad to me that I'm deficient in both!

23. What's something you live in constant fear of?

Being compelled to visit Provo again. Hehe. That, or birds pooping on my head. Not a constant fear, but I can't handle birds flying over my head!

24. What was the first album you listened to non-stop, over and over again?
Ah, my cassette player.... Hangin' Tough got lots of playtime. When I think about playing something over and over, though, I'm back in my freshman-year dorm room with Hillary! We'd loop Dave Matthews, or The Scarlet Pimpernel soundtrack, lots of goodies. On repeat. For hours. (Those albums are still soooo nostalgic for me! I can smell it. I can feel the air.)

25. Have you ever seen a live, wild rat? How about a dead one?
Never a live one, I don't think...? Maybe. I don't think it would have bothered me, so I wouldn't necessarily remember. But there was a dead rat on the church patio just before church yesterday! I was there early enough to have seen it but (luckily) I had used a different door.

26. What thing have you most aggressively promoted?
Reason!

27. Is there a band or musical trend you would love to see erased completely?
Nickelback.

All country music. :)

The nasally musical-theatre voice. It emerged in the late-90s. No end in sight. (I'm hopeful that Wicked will turn the tide. Galinda's got it, but it's a farce. And Elphaba is a chest-belter, no nose. Go Elphaba! Eradicate nasally heroines!)

28. If you had to describe yourself using 3 words, what would they be?
Superlatively passionate-est. ;-) Reasonable.

29. Where is the last place that you'd see yourself living?
North Korea. Inexplicably, Matt has aspirations...! :-|

But I'd be almost as loathe to live in the desert. ;)

Or in snow again (ten years—ten!–was long enough!). I haaaattttte (that was "hate" drawn out :)) living in snow. Snow is meant to be visited. Also, not tromped on or driven in, because then it's horrifyingly messy and ugly. I'll take a drive to the mountains every now and then for some ski action, enjoy the untouched gorgeousness, and go back to 65-75 degrees, clean cars and flowers, please.

30. What was the last video you enjoyed on the internet?

Does streaming count? House Hunters International. Ahhhh....

31. What is your favorite smoothie combination?
Coconut must be involved.

32. What is the worst thing that has ever happened to your car?
The first car I had—Ralph—had been spray-painted. ;)

33. What album have you been listening to most?
The Killers playlist.

Awesome recording of Tosca.

I'm very well-rounded, as you can see. Haha!

34. What clues you into a person's idiocy?
Closed-mindedness. Or fear of "different."

35. What is your favorite store to wander through?

Probably Cost Plus World Market.

The Final Three!

[Warning: this post contains words like "uterus." Just thought you might like to know. :)]

#3 – SUNBURN!!!

I'm not talking your ordinary sunburn. I'm talking the kind where you—you who just never happens to cry for pain, not ever—almost burst into tears when your dad tries gently, so so gently, to get a little bit of aloe on your back. My dad is so sweet. Whenever I (or any of my non-Jordan brothers who are as pasty white as I am :)) got a terrible sunburn, he insisted on being the only one to put aloe on since he's the only one who knows first-hand just how excruciating it is. "People think they know sunburns. They don't! But I know what you're going through!!" I felt the love. :) (Also, the pain.... ;-))

After doing this to myself several times, I'm on a lifelong quest to never let it happen again. My name is Auburn, and I accidentally get fried. I've been defried for ____ years and ____ months.

#2!—HSG :-|

Ugh. Ack. UGHHHH.... Blukja;gkjakjas;gjkjasfasdjhfhjbaw.... No one told me it might feel exactly like labor pain. "Prepare for some minor cramping from dye being inserted in your uterus." I didn't even worry about it. Cramping I can deal with. (And it was intense, and it did last the whole day, but big deal. Just cramps.) But the excruciating PAIN during the procedure was totally indescribable. I guess a lot of people don't have it very bad at all (luck of the draw—what your cervix happens to be doing on the day you get the procedure). But I still can't believe that in all that literature they gave me, no one filled me in that some women describe it as the worst pain they've ever felt. "Take some ibuprofen for possible cramping." Bah! That's all you have to say? Who cares about the darned cramping? There's a stinking clamp and inflated balloon in your cervix! [Shudder.] Horrible. I can't even describe how horrible.

#1 – Labor.

The one time I've shed tears for pain. Took me to a whole other place....

I have to admit, I always expected something would end up beating labor out for the top spot! With Seth's violent labor behind me now, here's to hoping nothing ever does. ;-)

What's been your most painful experience? Let's torture each other with awful stories!!! ;-)

Tick-tock

We're at 17 weeks today! And I still don't really feel the baby, which makes me quite possibly the first woman ever to feel her second baby weeks later than she had felt the first. (I could feel Seth rolling around—no "butterfly wings" with this kid!—at 15 weeks. That's pretty early for a first pregnancy!) This baby has been pretty squirmy for all the ultrasounds, but she's not quite as active as Seth. And here we are two whole weeks later than I had felt 4-inch-Seth tumbling around like a madman and I'm still not sure I'm feeling her. Hard to tell what's guts and what's baby when your guts are in totally new places.... Haha! Pregnancy is so incredibly strange....

Also, we haven't had an ultrasound in Three. Whole. Weeks. A full-on drought! We feel lost without them. (We keep joking about making up symptoms for my appointment this week so we can get another one. Ha! We'll see.... ;))

The REAL #4 :)

#4 — Tendon Busting!

I used to run in high school. And I busted up my ankles. My coaches thought I had shinsplints: "Ice it and take ibuprofen and get out there and run." So I ran. Many, many miles (probably 100?). On a broken ankle! "Um.... Am I supposed to not be able to walk after a race?" "Shinsplints. Ice it and take ibuprofen." Gotcha. [Except I stopped trying the ice since it makes my joints swell more and gives me hives. :)] Coming down a hill in the middle of a meet, the broken ankle had finally had too much and it collapsed under me, busting up the tendons in my foot. (I finished the race! Not that I should have.... But I did! And a good time, too!)

X-rays a couple weeks later (after another meet!) gave me this memorable quote from the doctor: "She's not walking on that foot is she?" Haha! Broken ankle. Which led to the busted tendons that are actually way more painful than a broken ankle.

Because I was a complete moron and let my idiot coaches talk me into starting track before I was fully healed, then broke both ankles again, then let them talk me into track again . . . I still have destroyed ankles. (For what? For stupid high school? Ridiculous.) Every so often my ankle just folds under me again with no warning. And every couple of years, it happens to be while I'm jogging across a street or something (rather than just walking), and I tear a gazillion tendons again. It takes a good couple of months to get better.

Last time it happened, we were on vacation, trying to catch a bus back to our hotel, and Matt kept telling me on the bus ride: "uh, Auburn, I think you're in shock...." Whatever. "Auburn, you're in shock and your leg is destroyed and killing you, will you please not try to walk to the hotel...." But there was no other option...! And the bus stop had been closed for a couple days, dropping us off a quarter-mile from the hotel. Too bad I couldn't fit in Seth's stroller.... Hehe. Ah, cruddy ankles.... They make for great excitement sometimes. And fantastic pools-o-blood bruises all through a foot and up a leg.

(Kristin, remember me tearing those tendons trying to get to church in London? And you trying to insist on carrying me across the city? Haha! That was high adventure. And making me go to the hospital where they thought I was a Norman? HAHAHAHA!!!)

The PAC-∞

Now that the little gerrymandering pretending Arizona and Arizona State are along the Pacific has stretched an additional 1000 miles, it's officially time to rename the Conference. Here are a few suggestions:

Both Sides of the Continental Divide Athletic Conference, or BSCDAC.

Western Half Conference, or WHC, pronounced just like WAC but with the "hhhhhh" sound that shows up in some accents of the newly incorporated area. "W-hhhhh-at? W-hhhhhh-ere? W-hhhhhh-AC." Yes! :-D

(The biggest question is: where to put the hyphen? Hehe. Is it the Western-Half Conference or the Western Half-Conference? :))

The Oregon Trail Conference. Not only has football gone OTC, but now we can relive our favorite childhood game. Will we die in Colorado? Fork off to the Gold Rush in California? Shoot Buffalo in Boulder? (Haha!) On a side note, I've always wished Colorado fans would chant "Go Buffalo!!" instead of buffaloes. Wouldn't that be glorious?! "Buff-a-lo! Buff-a-lo!"

The MAC-∞. Montana Athletic Conference. Why not? Makes about as much sense as PAC these days. ;-)

The Circa-Idaho Conference, or CIC. Not "C" "I" "C." Cic. (Sure, it sounds like sick. That's ok.)

The Our Bluff Was Called and Now We're Stretched Too Thin Conference. We could call them Stretchy for short. "And how is the Big 12 faring against Stretchy this year...?"

The article I read about incorporating the Univ. of Utah ended with a bunch of facts why the PAC-10 would want them. "They're 6-0 in bowl appearances, etc., etc." The last line was something like, "They are also looking to gain the Salt Lake City tv market which is the 31st-largest in the nation." Which totally made me laugh. Haha! 31st? Why even bring it up? How many tv markets can you go after in sports? I can just see the board meeting now: "You know what would really pull us out of this slump? If we could just snag the 31st-largest tv market ohhhhhhhh baby! Now that would put us in business!" Boss-man, rubbing his chin: "You. I like how you think. Jones, make sure he gets a promotion. Wilson, you get that 31st-largest market however you can! I want proof positive on my desk by tomorrow or you're through, you hear me?! Through!" Thinking to himself: "When this is all over and I'm soaking in my new hot tub from the huge cash flow, we're gonna have to give our conference a new name. Or maybe just a number. 31. Yesss.... Yes!!"

Back to pain....

#4 Utah joining the PAC-∞

;)

I can't decide which is more painful: that in addition to Arizona and Arizona St. blaspheming the word "Pacific" all these years, now Colorado and Utah are compounding the problem. (Rename the conference and I'm completely satisfied. ;)) At least Texas declined! Eesh. Now that would have been stretching the Pacific WAY too far! Who will get the "Pacific" designation next? Ohio? Alabama?

While we're at it, how about San Diego St. in the SEC? Oh yeah....

Florida in the Mountain West?

Eesh. Utah and Colorado in the Pacific.... Poor Pacific. Don't worry, Pacific, I still appreciate that you're a western sliver of loveliness.

OR, (I'm abandoning my ":" up there :)) is it more painful that Utah.... UTAH! The Utes!! That they were called to a big dance leaving the Cougs behind...? Sniff! Oh the bitter, bitter pill!!! I can't swallow it, I can't!! I won't! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Oh well. I never liked the PAC-10 anyway.... ;-)

(But I did! I did! I loved you PAC-10! This glorious march up the Coast of great schools. [I was able to completely ignore that Arizona and Arizona St. were involved. Hehe.] But now.... Now! Sniff sniff. Sob!)

Pain part . . . BUZZZZZ!!!

We interrupt this series for a message from our sponsor.

In the past few years, more times than I could count, I've inadvertently said or done or posted something that made people speculate: ah, I can totally tell she's pregnant!

And you clairvoyants have always been hilariously incorrect. (Muwahahaha!)

When people are way-too-obviously inspecting my too-flat belly, or asking other people if there's any particular reason we're talking baby names (we're ALWAYS talking baby names ;)), or doing the math and figuring they just know why a lady with a 3-year-old has a doctor appointment, it brings me a substantial amount of glee to let them wonder.... Hehehe. Always with my little secret! I'm not pregnant! Hahahaha!

So, yes, plenty of you have thought you were astutely picking up supposed "cues" from my random stories these past few years. As my blog has suffered this past little while, I've laughed to myself wondering if anyone was taking that as a cue.... :-D (Hahaha!) Cues from the silence?I haven't gone back to see the duration of the blog neglect.... But I'm guessing it was about, ohhhh.... Twelve weeks?

Which can only mean one thing! Somebody in this house has been knocked out by growing baby! (And maybe your 10th guess was a charm, and you're finally right. ;-))

To demonstrate your best skills, can you guess which household member it is? :-D

Hint: one of us is showing off a 3rd-percentile non-belly, one of us is trying to grossly accentuate a spare tire and look matronly while an iPhone bulges from scrubs, and one of us is, well, actually pregnant. ;-) Fourteen weeks and counting.

(And P.S. She's a baby girl!)

Pain continued.... :)

#6 – Tooth Sanding

THE INFERNAL HEADACHE apparently stems from tooth grinding, the fracturing of a tooth, and ensuing TMJ, which reinforces the tooth grinding, etc., etc. My dentist finally decided my tooth must be fractured when he was trying to adjust the bite by sanding it (something he's done to several of my teeth, never with any discomfort) and I—the person who will let my gums catch fire without saying anything—had to keep stopping him. It was pure torture. TORTURE! I believe now that my dentist is a bona fide torture artist.

#5 – Getting Cold

I'm allergic to cold. I'm not saying that to be dramatic! I'm really, truly allergic to cold. It's hilarious! Stick an ice cube on me and watch a hive form. Or dare to watch me get out of the pool or from the ocean—the hives all over get monstrous and fuse together and I look like a burn victim. Go with me to New York in April* (been there twice, both in April, once in the city once upstate, both the coldest I've ever, ever been) and watch my eyelids swell almost completely closed. The itchiness from the hives could make me insane, but the worst of it is the pain from my joints swelling up and all my muscles contracting. Imagine a charlie horse. Imagine it over your whole body. It's intense. And when it gets very bad, I have to warm up for a good hour or more before the full-body shaking and pain finally stops. It's so dramatic!

[*To all my LDS friends out there, "Oh How Lovely Was The Morning" and all those pictures of leaves on trees and the sun shining in "early Spring" in Palmyra, NY are lies. LIES! Oh man, it is freezing, freezing, freezing COLD. No leaf in sight. Birds chirping? Bees humming? They're half-frozen! Brrrrr!!!! FREEZING. I can't say it enough. FREEEEZZZZE.... ING. Makes Joseph even more impressive to me, going out in that cold. :)]

Pain: Part . . . Four?

I can't remember where I'm at in my Pain Series. Was the hiatus painful? Could you not wait to find out what was coming next? ;-)

I thought I'd catalogue the WORST PAINS I'VE EVER FELT!!!! [dum-dum-DUM!] Or, at least, the ones that come to mind. :)

#10 – The Antibiotic Reaction

I took Keflex. My body blew up in a pins-and-needles stinging rash. Full-blown rash lasted a good three or four days, with remnants of stinging in my limbs for a while afterward. Very exciting.

#9 – Teeth Bleaching

Got my teeth bleached (very amazing, by the way :)). They spent loads of time sealing my gums so that when they put the hardcore bleach junk on my teeth, my gums wouldn't dissolve away. They did a bad job. [Dum, dum-DUM dum!] The very edge of my gums all around all my teeth were ON FIRE!!!! Fiiiiiiiiiii-errrrrrrrr!!! (And do you think I said anything? No! I just sat there trying to cope as I started to go into shock! I'm such an idiot!)

#8 – THE INFERNAL HEADACHE

It's pretty infernal.

#7 – Chopping My Thumb with an Axe!!!

I chopped my thumb with an axe!!!!! [cue Psycho chopping theme! strings, strings, strings!] Ok, ok, truth be told, it didn't actually hurt very much.... Or at all. ;-) But it sounds awesome! I think it even happened in the same year that I sawed that same thumb with a bread knife—saw, saw, saw, saw. It was the blood that alerted me before the pain did.... Saw, saw, saw, saw.... A few sawing motions deep into my thumb.... Haha!! Ah, 10-year-olds....

Match Day!

And here we are again! I love the Match! It's just so elegant: you interview; you rank your programs in order of preference; the programs rank their applicants in order of preference; tah dah! A computer spits out everyone's best case scenario. Awesome.

We spent more than two weeks traveling around the West Coast exploring Pediatric Cardiology departments. Matt interviewed at Children's Hospital of LA, UCLA, University of Washington, Oregon Health and Science University, Stanford, UCSF, and UCSD.

And Match Day was yesterday . . . .

We're thrilled!! Woo hoo!! Got our top pick! The program is exactly what Matt is looking for. The faculty and fellows are great and fun people, the program is the right size, the patient population is ideal, the variety of cases is ideal (some hospitals get all the really rare stuff and not enough bread-and-butter, while others have the opposite problem. This hospital has just the right catchment and expertise and size to get a perfect mix!), the set-up of the department is unique...and ideal (for Matt :)). It's perfection. And as if all that weren't enough, THE Pediatric Cardiologist in the Western United States is the head of the department, and THE Electrophysiologist (the area Matt will sub-specialize in) was recruited a couple years ago. The mentoring and shoulder-rubbing couldn't be better. Couldn't be better!

Perfection!

And.... Oh yeah.... Oh yeah!!

It's here!:

That's right, folks! Staying in beautiful San Diego for years to come. How did we get so lucky? I remember looking forward to residency and just praying that the program would be good enough to justify moving to our dream place. And then it was hands down the stand-out program for Matt. (And it really has been perfect! What a blessing.) So we thanked the heavens for that amazing coincidence—ideal program in the ideal place? Seriously?—and we completely planned on a move in three years to Stanford or UCLA or UW. Because what were the chances UCSD would have the ideal Pediatric Cardiology program too...? And then it turned out to be amazing! Amazing! Even at places like Stanford, UCSF, UCLA, UW, and even when they were trying their darndest to recruit Matt, the more they were impressed by him the more it would come spilling out: "you know, you've really got the best of the best right there at UCSD [Dr. Moore and Dr. Perry are legends].... We think our program is fantastic and would treat you very well but, I hate to say it, it would be a tremendous career move to stay where you are.... Darn!!" Yep. Our thoughts exactly. UCSD has come through for us BIG TIME by being totally awesome. Thank you UCSD!

Wooooooooooooo Hooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

(Also! ALSO! Amy just moved here! Oh, the fabulousness never stops. :-D)

Mother's Day

I think Mother's Day is really, really weird. Not the idea of it—the idea is awesome! And not the cuteness of little kids singing songs for their moms, crafting chunky presents and making sketchy breakfasts. That's all awesome, too. I love it!

Mostly it's that all the homage paid to moms ends up sounding totally LAME. The "Mother's Day" sacrament meeting at my church is always one of the worst of the year, if you ask me. And not just because a worship service is held hostage by homage to people (that's a whole post in and of itself). Let's just pretend there's nothing dreadful about dedicating a worship service to Mother's Day instead of worship. Even then, the message you get is really, really lame! If I didn't know better, I'd think that the great thing about my job as a mom is that . . . my kids will get meals every day and laundry done because of my great sacrifice. Wow. Awesome. :-|

Year after year, same thing. Youth get up and give talks: "Why I love my mom. Sometimes it really bugs me that she tells me what to do, but then I had to make dinner for everyone and it was really hard. My mom is awesome. I'm so lucky she gave up all the other things she could do so that she can be home and cook for us and clean for us, and do all these hard, thankless things. Thank you, Mom."

:-|

Then women get up and say: "Being a mom is sometimes the most boring thing in the world. And sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world. Most days, I feel like the house is falling apart, the kids are running wild, and it's all I can do to just get dinner on the table. But then one of them touches my heart and I realize, this is the best job in the world, and I'm so glad I was righteous enough to have lots and lots of children and stay home to take care of them."

:-|

So what I'm getting from this is, wow, moms are really boring out their lives to be moms and especially to be stay-at-home moms. But they're irreplaceable—no one can put dinner on the table like mom can.

Interesting.

[Disclaimer: these were not synopses of the talks this time. They're generalizations of lots of talks I've heard over the years. :)]

Year after year, this lame meeting reminds of two things I really want out of life:

1) To thoroughly enjoy my kids. Every day.

2) To have the kind of relationship with them where they value a gazillion things over and above the chores I do. In fact, I'd like for them to not even think about the chores as part of my job description.

If my kid ever gets up to give a Mother's Day tribute, I hope with all hope it doesn't occur to him to pay tribute to my excellent housekeeping skills. Don't get me wrong—I do hope to be able to get my kids good dinners every day, and to keep up with the laundry, and have a house of order, and manage my kids' schedules well! But when my kid is asked to think about, "what makes your mom awesome," I'll cry my brains out if his heart doesn't melt, and he doesn't think about all the intangibles. I want him to feel overwhelmed by love. I hope he'd be able to say: my mom makes me feel loved; she makes me feel unafraid; she helps me to have faith, and to trust in the love my Heavenly Father has for me; she helps me to not fear the world; she helps me to have confidence in things that matter; she'll skip making dinner in order to play a game with me, and she'll let the laundry build up so we can go to the park together. ;-) 

And if I am ever asked to extol the virtues of motherhood, I hope with all hope that I will have planned and managed my life well enough to be able to say, honestly, "being a mom is the funnest, most fulfilling, least boring, most enjoyable thing ever!" Because it is. 

I saw this episode of Oprah a while ago that was supposed to be a tribute to mothers, but ended up just being a bunch of moms complaining about how thankless and boring and difficult it is to be a mom—and everyone saying "you moms have the best and hardest job in the world! And you also need to take time for your own interests because being a mom will steal your identity!" Boo. 

I'm a woman with a gazillion interests and a few talents that have definitely gone by the wayside these past few years. I love to read. Not lame books. GOOD books. The Brothers Karamazov has been staring at me for four years, begging me to read it. Instead, I've read things like Marley and Me. Boo! It's easy. I can read it in 10-minute chunks while I get in some exercise. My frazzled brain and unrelenting schedule can handle the Twilights and the Marley and Me's and The Time Traveler's Wifes of the world. Blugh. Whatever. Diverting, but lame. If I weren't a mom, I'd still be devouring Dostoevsky, Hugo, Camus, Tolstoy, Dickens, etc., etc. But good books are mostly a thing of the past for now. I love theatre. You might think I still do that all the time if you've noticed the times I've mentioned we saw something. But three or four shows a year doesn't cut it for this theatre-lover. :) Sans-child, we'd be season-ticket holders to the San Diego Opera, the Globe Theatre, the San Diego Symphony . . . . We'd be headed up to L.A. for things. We'd have seen about a dozen performances on our med-school mega-vacation . . . . Theatre feels mostly cut out of my life. We've only been skiing three or four times since Seth was born. We've adjusted all our travel so Seth could be with us (it's awesome to travel with a kid, by the way!). And I don't have the graduate degree I was dying to get, nor do I have the job I'm excited to train for one day. One might think I've "lost my identity." But I have always believed the Savior—and now have found proof, not just faith!—that one who saves his life will lose it, but one who loses his life will find it. What greater opportunity is there in all the world to "lose your life" than to your child? What greater built-in way to practice this than parenthood? I truly believe nothing can be more satisfying, more fulfilling, more enjoyable than parenthood!

Is it always easy? No, it really isn't. But I can honestly say that it's never boring (how can a close relationship with one of your favorite people in the world be boring? :)), and it's never dissatisfying. It's the best thing ever. It's enjoyable. It is!

So here's to mothers. Not because you do the chores and harp on morals, crafting impressive kids and clean homes. Here's to you because the mother–child relationship is one of the most sacred in all the universe; because moms can give children a haven of love and comfort and joy; because children can make a mother whole. 

And here's to everyone out there who misses your mother or who longs to be a mother, but cannot. I was thinking of you on Mother's Day . . . . 

Naptime

Seth is in his room for naptime, singing himself a variety of songs. Just now I heard a great rendition of the ABC song:

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV . . . W, X, don't ever sing with me againnnnn...." Followed by raucous laughter.

He cracks himself up!