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!

Fifty Bucks

I'm in love with Hotwire.

Matt is headed to Stanford soon for another interview. (I know! Isn't it sad that it didn't work out during our mega-trip?! We had a whole extra day in the Bay Area, too, they just couldn't do all his interviews that day.)

Stanford has made this extremely difficult to work out by:

1) Building their University in an awesome spot where all hotels are outrageously expensive. (The only things close to campus were over $250 a night.)

2) Only running their shuttle system from 6 am or later.

3) Starting his interviews at 6:20 am! (Ending at 5 pm!)

This is problematic. So he can't fly in and out in one day. He can't take the shuttle in the morning. He "can't" stay in a hotel close to campus.

So our next step is to price hotels and rental cars. Rental cars were going for, at the CHEAPEST, over $170 for less than a day. Blugh! (Whereas all his transportation would cost about two bucks if they had just scheduled his interviews late enough to come on their shuttle.)

Hotels were looking to be about $100, with public transportation BARELY feasible as long as he was willing to wander around the Bay Area at 4 in the morning. This was highly suspect, though.

Hotwire hotels were looking to be about $65, but without the benefit of knowing where they are—so still running the risk that a public transportation option wouldn't be feasible and he'd still need a rental car.

Enter Hotwire CAR+HOTEL option...!

Fifty bucks.

Say what?

Fifty bucks!!! Hotel is in Redwood City, between the airport and Stanford. Car is reserved for the day with unlimited mileage. With all taxes and everything: FIFTY BUCKS!!

I love you, Hotwire.

You got us a hotel in London last year—with a kickin' sweet breakfast every day—for $55 a night. (Cheap, nice hotels in London are impossible to find!)

You gave us lots of great places on our February trip for an average of about $45 a night.

You got us a hotel in San Francisco with FREE PARKING for $32 a night! On a nice corner. Walking distance to the good stuff. (When we went to SF a couple years ago, the hotel parking ALONE cost an unbelievable $48 a day. Free parking! Not scummy. GREAT location! $32 a night!!)

And now this.... Hotel+Car=$50.15.

You're my hero. :)

Sometimes, I'm not sure why.

Can anyone tell me why I hate—HATE—these? Why every time I see someone using one, my insides involuntarily shudder?

It's not because I'm uncomfortable seeing people nursing because I'm really not. I do think people should try to be discreet out in public, mostly just because it seems polite. But, honestly, the hilarious lady I saw at Costco a little while ago who was weaving through the crowded food court to inquire about her pizza with her shirt pulled all the way up and a huge 2 1/2-year-old only periodically breastfeeding (when he wasn't pulling completely off to look at what was going on :)) bothered me a whole lot less than seeing someone using one of these stylin' nursing covers.

But . . . why? I've thought long and hard, and I'm not sure why they disgust me so much! Anyone else have a similar response and know why? :)

Is it because it's too deliberate a cover-up? Throwing your baby's blanket over your shoulder when your baby wants to eat seems spontaneous and low-key, I guess. Fishing through your diaper bag to pull out the cover you keep with you at all times, then clipping it around your neck.... This thing designed for this purpose alone.... Is it gross to me to see so many women making too big a deal of it, or something...? Feeling that self-conscious...?

Is it because I once saw them in Target with the brand-name "Hooter Hiders?" (Now that's just WRONG! Ack!)

Is it because they're supposed to be "stylish?" That might be part of it, for sure. A fashion statement out of breastfeeding? Huh.

Is it because they LOOK LIKE AN APRON?!! I mean, come on, they look like aprons...! Now you can be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, or wearing your apron at the park to feed your baby.

Or maybe it's because I've never once been flashed by someone using a baby blanket to cover up, but I've been flashed about a gazillion times by moms trying to make sense of their apron-esque "hooter hider." :-|

Perhaps it's something else entirely. Some trauma deep in my sub-conscious.... :)

At any rate, they make me shudder. An out of proportion response, I know. But if we ever have another baby, just remember not to get me one. ;-)

Random Memories

You ever have things that you memorized as a kid and they've inexplicably stuck around in your memory...? Things you can recall with ease, even though you never think about them....

As geeks around the world were celebrating Pi Day yesterday (get it? 3.14? hehe), it reminded me again of two things:

1) I can rattle off the first 25 digits of pi.

2) I used to be able to rattle off 50! But it's gone.... Gone!

I don't know which is sadder: 1 or 2. Haha! As for #1, here goes. Observe the sad geekiness. (It's awesomer to hear it all fast and stuff, but oh well....)

3.1415926535897932384626433

If you check it and I'm wrong, don't tell me. I'd like to think my 9-year-old self that memorized that is still in there reciting it. :)

As for #2, sometimes I'm tempted to go memorize the next 25 digits again, just to rekindle that 4th-grade feeling. But it's cheating. I mean, the fun thing about remembering things for years and years is that it's somehow stuck around, not that you have something memorized. It isn't fun to know the first 50 digits of pi—it's fun to still know the first 50 digits of pi. But it's gone. Whittled away to only 25.... When I'm an old lady I'll probably only remember 3.1 . . . what's next . . . ? But I'll be pretty sure it's a remnant from 4th grade still.

Also in 4th grade (I was on fire!) I memorized the greek alphabet—all of which is still there, but when I rattle it off I realize that 4th-grader me pronounced some of those letters all, all wrong. :) And I painstakingly figured out how to say the alphabet backwards, going from Z to A in about 1.4 seconds. Or something like that.... It's still in there, too.

My other favorite random throwback—why do I still remember this?—is a preposition list from 7th grade. Aboard, about, above, across, after, against . . . it goes on and on and ON and on. It can spew out of my mouth in about 5 seconds. If I take a breath, it's gone. But if I get it all out like it's just one word? Still there...!

Isn't the brain awesome? Funky and fun. ;)

Pi Day postscript:

I got a text message from Matt today that amused me. "So, I'm all depressed now because I realized that Pi Day garnered all sorts of press, but I've seen nary a headline about the Ides of March. :( Don't geeks get any training in the classics anymore?!!!!" I had to reply that, well, I've been thinking about the Ides all day but, yes, what about the children? Happy—or Spooky—IDES, everyone! :)

Our Itinerary

Sixteen days on the road...! And here's how it's going down. :-)

Stop One:

This is definitely the low part of our trip (we really don't enjoy LA that much...), but we're gonna try to make the best of it. :) Matt spends two full days interviewing first at Children's Hospital of LA, and then at UCLA. I'll spend two full days wandering Los Angeles with Seth. Can we say the Getty?

Stop Two—The Highlight of the Trip!:

Humboldt County is the most amazing, most beautiful, most fabulous, most wonderful, most..., most..., most superlatively lovely spot in the world. Ahhhhhh.... My mind feels clear and fresh just thinking about it. (No, that's not the pot talking. ;-)) It's really unbelievably gorgeous—you have to see it to believe it's even possible. Whole forests of 300-ft, 2000-year-old trees? Amazing.

(The Sequoias further south are "larger" because they're bigger around, but they're a lot shorter. The coastal Redwoods in Humboldt County are skinnier—though lots are pretty huge, still!—and incredibly tall. And on the coast. And ancient-er. Everyone needs to see the Avenue of the Giants sometime in their life! IN...credible....)

Stop Three:

Portland is our #2 if we ever have to leave San Diego! It's lovely! Plus, Amy rocks. And we're spending practically a whole week together. YES!!! Matt interviews at OHSU this week (prettiest hospital he's ever seen...).

Stop Four:

I may have misspoke up there calling LA the low part of the trip, because we actually aren't excited at all to go to Seattle. Only a few years ago, Seattle was on our short-list of places to live—we were just sure we'd LOVE it. Then we went there.... I've never seen a place so dead and grey in my LIFE. Does that shock anyone? Do you picture Seattle how we had? Green, green, green? It's not. Too bad...! (Guess what is green, green, green, and not very far away? Portland! Portland is totally the sort of pretty we had always pictured Seattle would be.... But Seattle was downright depressing.) Anyway.... Matt will spend a full day interviewing at UW's Children's Hospital (which is actually a really cool place!), and I'll wander around with Seth trying to find some evergreens or something without freezing to death. :)

Stop Three Revisited—It's Back to Portland for Some of THIS!:

We're that good, too. Haha!

Stop Six:

Ahhhhhhhh......... Need I say more? (Matt will spend a day interviewing at UCSF. He has an interview day at Stanford, too, but we totally got unlucky with scheduling that one and he'll have to fly back next month....)

Stops 7 through ?

Then we'll make our way back down the coast via lots and lots of this:

And then it's back home to our Number One! Ahhhhh.... San Diego, we adore you. :)

Should be a fun trip! We're really looking forward to the little change in pace for a while. Satisfy the travel itch for a couple weeks...! :)

P.S. For anyone who doesn't know, the interviews are for Matt's fellowship. In June 2011 he'll finish his Pediatrics Residency, at which point he could go get a real job as a pediatrician. Except that he wants to specialize instead. So July 2011 he'll start another three years of training in Pediatric Cardiology, the interview period for which is right now. Long road.... Good thing he enjoys it!

Why I'm Happy Today

Just snagged a reservation for this room:

At this place:

In THIS greatest spot on Planet Earth!:

It's our favorite place ever. We can't wait! Two more weeks, baby!

Click the Link.

To anyone who saw my last post on Google Reader (which doesn't show embedded videos, apparently), go back to my actual website to watch the video. Trust me. :)

Guaranteed to Warm You Up :)

This is the most beautiful thing.... It speaks for itself, but I can't help saying, again, how amazing are children?! Look at what this boy does to all these people.... The joy he brings to their countenances! And, also, how wonderful are people? There have been so many times—with tiny things and also global tragedies such as this—when it has been so profound to me that it's human nature to help one another. We sometimes act rudely to one another and often believe mankind to be really self-serving. But when one of our fellow men needs help, you almost always see total strangers scramble to their aid. So I was touched, so much, by this beautiful little boy—and also touched to see ALL THOSE PEOPLE who came together for his sake, who rejoiced for him, who loved this total stranger.

Pain: Part Three

What is it about not feeling pain that makes me lose consciousness...? It's bizarre. The first time I told myself it was just a fluke. But when two, three, and four happened a couple weeks ago, I was properly humbled. So here are my terrible, embarrassing stories. :)

ONE.

A year ago I went to have a couple of moles checked out. The derm PA said, eh, no big deal, but do you want them removed anyway? I said, hey, why the heck not? (I figured even if they scarred it wouldn't be any bigger or more unsightly than the moles. And those things bugged. Always itching and bleeding and stuff!) So, with Seth sitting in a chair nearby, they went forward with this little surgery. Injections. I'm fine. Slicing. I'm fine. "Ok, I'm just going to cauterize this now." [Sound of rhythmic sizzling.] I'm . . . ffff . . . . BOOM.

I'm GONE.

Never felt a thing. Never realized I was psyched out. (Was I psyched out?) Thought I was totally fine.

I wake up to the nurse reassuring a wide-eyed Seth that his Mom was ok, "she just went to sleep for a little while." Poor thing! And poor me! It took a good twenty minutes to not feel that cold, clammy, nauseated, I-want-to-die feeling.

TWO.

Last week I went to get new glasses. Note to self and to the masses: Don't let good insurance dissuade you from going to JCPenney, Walmart, or LensCrafters to get your eyes checked. :) I went to a for-real place—the UCSD Shiley Eye Center—and had no clue what kind of torture chamber they'd release me to. To think I showed up hoping they wouldn't do the puff of air in my eyes! HA! Child's play! I'll take the puff any day, knowing what I know now....

So they test my eyes. Figure out my prescription. Excellent. I'd love to leave now, thank you.

But no! Suddenly, without warning, she says: "I'm going to test your eye pressure now. These are some numbing drops. They'll sting a little." Before I can protest, she's hovering over me, prying open my eyes like a torture artist, dripping little yellow drops of death at me.

Gross.

I'm really creeped out by this. Numbing drops? I don't want my eyes to be numb! That's creepy.

THEN, she assaults me with this machine that comes toward me, toward me, toward me. Closer to my eye.... AGAINST my eye...!!! Holy cow! It's pushing my eyeball!!!

"Ok. And now the other eye...."

I'm beyond creeped out now.

Wow, I'm really dealing with this like a champ, I say to myself. I'm not even trembling or crying for my mommy, or curling up into fetal position chanting my demands to be released.... Such a stud. (Truth was, I couldn't really feel a thing with those numbing drops.)

It ends. I sigh to myself relief that it's over now.

I look up to see my torturer hovering over me again. "We're just going to dilate your eyes now." [Drip. Drip.]

And . . .

I'm GONE.

Haha! Seriously. Two drops in my eyes, and that infernal clamor in the ears that says you officially cannot talk yourself into staying conscious buzzed all the way through me. And I started to dream about sitting around with some people talking about happy things.

Here's the strangest thing about fainting (anyone else with me on this?): I dreamt a slow, easy, low-key dream about a scenario that lasted a good half-hour or more, but when I woke up she said I'd been out about two seconds. Bizarre!

She left me to dilate reclined in the torture-chair, checking on me every few minutes. And a half hour later, I felt totally back to normal again.

My torture artist comes back with some kind of mirrored light. She directs me to look various places while she reflects light into my dilated eyes. One. [Ugh.... I don't feel so good.] Two. [Oh gosh, the ringing is back.] Three. This time I don't look, I put my face down, and just as I'm thinking, "oh please, not again! This is ridiculous!!" . . .

I'm GONE.

Again!

An hour-of-dreaming later (really only a few seconds) I come to, but just barely, and this time I have to try in my delirious state to talk myself out of puking. I'm successful. I also start dreaming up revenge for my torturer which, luckily for her, I was too ill to go forward with. ;-)

I feel cold and clammy all from my ears through my toes. My bones want to puke. All I want to do is curl up in bed and, I swear, sleep for two years.

I start to dream about being in my bed and realize she's saying something to me. The fogginess of her words, and the way in which I come upon them halfway through makes me half-realize (a half-realization is all my brain could muster at that point :)) that I had actually lost consciousness a third time. I think. I'm not entirely sure.

It's all pretty foggy. :)

As I start to very, very slowww...ly feel a bit better, she starts plying me with crackers and water. Because, in a torture chamber, that's all you can count on for food: crackers and water. Am I right? :) She expresses concern that I'm hypoglycemic. I'm too tired to say, "Lady, didn't you go to medical school? I know as well as you do—or should—that 'low blood sugar' among non-insulin-shooters doesn't really exist." I just laugh inside and eat some cracker. Oh yes. I can feel my mythically low blood sugar popping right back up.

Then she postulates, "Maybe it's White Coat Syndrome," to which I replied, "Well, my husband's a doctor, so let's hope it's not that!" She thought that was the funniest thing she'd heard in years. :)

My torturer finally leaves the room and I try—oh how I try!—to send Matt a text message. But I can't see! Haha! I'm typing, typing . . . . And thinking with much internal laughter, "how pathetic! I can't stay conscious! And I can't even type an SOS to Matt! I'm dyin' over here!!"

The text didn't go through. Figures. (Can you expect a Torture Operation to have cell phone reception?) When it came through an hour too late, it looked like this: Save me i keep passing out'misery.

Hahahaha!! We had a good laugh over it. I only wish he had gotten that while he sat at the computer filling out application forms and thinking I should be getting home from my uneventful eye appointment any second. Haha! Oh man. It kills me.

When I'm finally feeling like I can stand up again—in spite of my bones still wanting to puke, and my numb, dilated eyes making my head want to explode through my sockets—she comes back to . . . finish the job. You kidding me? What is wrong with her? Is she really that concerned that I might have some hidden glaucoma she had missed? My goodness. Let me free! Let me free!!

I survived. I picked out my glasses. In my determination to never, ever, not ever get my eyes checked again, I spent what felt like a gazillion dollars on nice frames and lenses when an hour before I had planned on spending about nothing. :) I felt pretty good about that.

THREE.

Remember the moles? One of them turned out to not be entirely removed and has also scarred more than I like. Since it's still itchy as well as unsightly, I had a plastic surgeon finish the job the other day. (Doesn't it sound marvelously scintillating to say, "I got plastic surgery"? Haha!) I didn't think I'd be psyched out, but man! I just don't know myself anymore!!

I jokingly considered asking him to not numb anything since I apparently only lose consciousness from not feeling pain, while I'm a stoic with superhuman powers when it comes to feeling torture. But Matt had a better solution . . . .

I took Sudafed ahead of time to reduce my vagal response.

And . . . ?

It worked like a charm! :) Let's hope this madness has ended. Eesh!

Fun Seth Quotes Lately

It's one of my great sorrows that of the 30 times a day I think, "You've GOT to remember that one to tell Matt later!," I only actually remember Seth's goodie quotes every once in a while. Here are some of my recent favorites before I forget. I wish I could remember them all!

Returning from Sea World with my parents, asking repeatedly how much longer until they would get back to his house (he had a new lunchbox he couldn't wait to show me :)), he finally sighed and said softly: 

[sigh] It's just so hard for a little boy to wait for his momma....

After trying to convince himself he's a big boy now:
I can't DO it.... I can't be big like my dad. I just don't know how to get taller...!

A bedtime negotiation between Seth and Matt:
—It's time to go to bed.
—How about, in tennnnn.... minutes...?
—Sure, you can stay up for ten minutes, but then there won't be any time for stories. OR...you can go to bed right now and have three stories.
—How about.... Five minutes and two stories. [hahaha!!]

Morning conversation between me and Seth:
—What do you want for breakfast?
—How about.... Waffles! [For about the tenth meal-request in a row!]
—Wow, you really love waffles, don't you?
—[clearly disappointed in me] MOM, I don't LOVE waffles. I LIKE waffles. You can't love waffles....

After proudly, excitedly handing me a part from a VCR he dismantled a couple weeks earlier:
Look! [Grinning wildly.] I got a capacitor for you, Momma!

[Haha! So that's what it was...? I really would have had no idea!]

A few days later:
Ah! Here's a little, tiny hard-drive for you, Mom! It's real cool!

And tonight:
—Do you know what this is called, Mom?
—A wrench?
—Yep. A wrench! Do you know what kind of wrench it is?
—Um.... No. [There are different kinds of wrenches?]
—It's . . . a . . . HEX wrench. And THIS is a . . . another hex wrench. Wait, let me get my drill bit....