Archaeogoddess

Wherein I can say "I told you so" all I want

2012-01-25T16:50:00.000+01:00

On Sunday the DB came into the house, all worried and fretful, to tell me that there was something dripping from his car.

"It's probably just condensation," I said, "because it freezes overnight and then thaws in the morning."

No, he insisted, it was fuel!!!

But, I pointed out, that was crazy talk. It doesn't smell like fuel. The last time we had a fuel leak in a car, I could smell it from a meter away.

He insisted. He brought a paper towel soaked in the liquid in for me to sniff.

Okay, it sorta smelled like fuel, but not that strongly, it could just be random engine smell.

No, no, the DB said, it was fuel!!!

You know those arguments you have with people you love? The ones where you know you can't win, no matter what you say because they are freaking out and insist that you aren't taking them seriously and for the love of god, don't you trust them to not be idiots??? Yeah, it was one of those.

He wanted the emergency-car-peoples (AAA in the US, Falck in DK) to take the car all the way to our mechanic half-way across the country. I said, uh, shouldn't we determine if it *IS* a fuel leak first? Because I'd feel really stupid sending the car that far away if it's nothing. Because in order to get it back, we'd have to spend a weekend up at his mom's and really, who wants to do that?

Okay, maybe it wasn't the best reason, but since my MIL has been known to drive us both batshitcrazy it's a valid reason.

But but but, he argued, blah blah blah fuel leak!!!

We compromised when he finally said he could have the emergency guys come out and look at the "leak" and if they thought it was a fuel leak they could take it far far away and if it wasn't they could take it to the mechanic in the next village.

So today the Falck guy came and looked at the car. Not a fuel leak, he said.

But but but, said my dear husband (whom I love, really, I do), fuel leak!!!

Okay, said the Falck guy, I will take it to the local mechanic and if he says it's a fuel leak, I'll take the car to your mechanic, okay?

The DB agreed.

And the mechanic said: Condensation. No fuel leak.

I'm sure he managed not to make the DB feel stupid. A bit of manly "you were right to be concerned" and all that. In fact, I'm positive of this because he came home and said "thankfully, it turned out not to be a fuel leak, but just condensation" and he managed to say this without betraying any embarrassment or damaged pride, but with a touch of defiance, as if I was somehow going to challenge his proclamation.

I tried not to shout "I told you so!" But his tone was a bit "I told you so" and a bit "now, now, dear, I knew there was nothing to worry about." And well, I couldn't just let that go. I'm not that good of a wife. So I smiled beatifically and said "Well, I'm all pleased with myself. My car skills are pretty good, if I might say so. Did I not say that it was condensation? Why yes, I do believe I did!"

I'm pretty sure he would have preferred "I told you so!" and a fist pump.

Weather alert: a great wave of depressing crap will envelope the earth for all of January

2012-01-18T16:45:00.000+01:00

It's not just me.

Everywhere I turn it seems that horrible shit is happening to good people. Houses burning down, couples taking time apart, mothers having to make difficult decisions, people battling serious depression, serious serious depression, the universe conspiring to make life difficult for people, a good friend's father was in a serious accident, and dogs getting hit by cars.

You know it's all kinds of crappy when the best news you've heard in days is that the dog only has a broken pelvis.

In comparison, my life is fine. So I should be all glad and shit, right? I should just stop reading about sad things and focus on the happy happy or count my blessings or something...

Except. Well. Balls.

All of the women I've linked to above have helped me through some tough times. Their words have lifted me up when I'm down or made me laugh at something I was taking far too seriously or have gone through some of the same shit (or worse) and let me feel just *that* bit less alone. Or has just been my best doggammed friend since the dawn of time (which was in high school, in case you were wondering).

So their pain kicks me in the taco when I'm already feeling the SADs and I want to just reach out and hold them all in my arms and make it all better somehow. Why can't I employ my superpowers to protect us all from this global storm of depression? Why can't I purse my lips and blow the bullshit-crappiness away? Why don't I have the words that will make it all better?

The depression comes like a thunderstorm, rolling in off the sea. Whispers of regret and disappointment in the wind, an increase in pressure that is the very air, pressing pressing pressing until you can't breathe. Tears and shuddering sobs of thunder don't bring release. The urge to punch, bite, kick, makes me almost insufferable and only a great deal of apologizing (and one particularly understanding DB) settles the static before another charged particle sets me off again.

I try to yell at the ugly regrets that rear their heads and tell me that I've made the wrong choices in life. Obviously I could have done it all differently, made different choices, gone in a different direction. But I know that when I made my decisions I made them with the knowledge that I had AT THAT TIME and I did what I thought was best. Sure, in retrospect some of the choices were stupid (hello first marriage) and others led me down a different path that ultimately led here and not, say, to a professorship or a job as a professional archaeologist. But those other paths don't include the DB or the Spawn and I wouldn't trade either of them for another life.

But for whatever reason, knowing that this life is better, feeling like I have exactly what I want, does not keep that little voice saying "you totally could have been that other person" and "you let down 16 year old you" at bay. Despite knowing that 16 year old me also thought that Latin was a language that no one knew any more and that "rendezvous" was pronounced ren-DEZ-vuhss, I mean, let's be honest, 16 year old me was an idiot (yeah, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the American education system!) - despite all that, the storm rolls in.

So on Monday, feeling the darkness all around and trying to fight it, I employed the Furiously Happy method of dealing with shit. I turned the radio up and the Spawn and I danced like lunatics in the kitchen. Not like lunatics-in-the-kitchen, but like lunatics. We just happened to be in the kitchen. And technically, a 10 month old can not dance like a lunatic, but like a 10 month old, which is to say, she bobbed and wiggled and looked dammed cute.

And for a while, I felt light and free.

Spring and it's feeling of new beginnings can really not come too soon.

To anyone else out there feeling the sads, keep dancing, you aren't alone.

Is this what life is like for other people?

2012-01-14T13:53:00.001+01:00

I got up this morning and sent the Spawn off to daycare (that's another post) with the DB and settled in to my first morning of deadline-free bliss. [Edit: Friday! This is what you get for writing a post one day and posting it the next, without checking to make sure you haven't made dumb ass errors like this!]

I was sitting in bed, reading and drinking my coffee and it suddenly hit me.

Deadline-free bliss.

I wasn't sitting in bed, convincing myself that I needed to have an hour of relaxation before I got up and did X, Y, Z or prepared for Q, R, or S. There was no X, Y, Z, Q, R, S, or anything else for that matter! The dishes had been done the night before. I did my homework yesterday. The Spawn was going to be of playing for hours and hours. No one is coming to visit. There are no holidays coming up. I had nothing that needed to be done. Anything I could think of could just as well be put off for another day. Or two. Or ten.

So I continued to sit there, reading and drinking my coffee, and reveling in the complete lack of guilt and anxiety that normally accompanies such indulgent behavior. For once, this wasn't procrastination - this was freedom!

And then I got up and starting working on projects that I've been wanting to get to for MONTHS.

Like unpacking.

And organizing.

Sounds boring to you, but these are things that have gotten shoved aside because I've had childcare, homework, Christmas, and of course the DB's list of things he wanted to get done while he had time off. But now I had time to do them because there wasn't anything else I had to do first!

I made a corner for the Spawn. She has two bookshelves that hold her toys. Decorations will follow. (Yes, when it's something more than what it is, I'll take a picture and post it for you guys.) Some books are now in bookshelves rather than stacked on top of bookshelves. And it is becoming apparent that I have more books than space. Not that that's a big surprise. The Spawn has two bookshelves and we used two other bookshelves for kitchen things, so I'm down four bookshelves. But still, it *is* an impressive amount of books. Especially since books cost so much here that we acquire books at a much slower pace than I would if we lived in the US. And we are lacking all the books I lost in the divorce all those years ago. (Nope, I still haven't replaced them. And yes, I sometimes spend an hour looking for a book only to realize that I don't have it any more.)

http://bookshelfporn.com/

Love it! Want it!

Someday I will have enough bookshelves. I will never have enough books. But if I could keep up with enough bookshelves, I'll be a satisfied woman.

So slowly I'm working my way through the house, organizing and cleaning.

And if I can get this much done in just one day, I might just have the house in order within a year!

There will be bookshelves and boxes with labels and file cabinets with color coded tabs!

Oh, *swoon* bliss!!

(Yes, I do realize that this much joy surrounding organization suggests an illness. But you gotta admit, of all the illnesses to have, one that causes you to organize and clean is really not that bad.)

The Best and Worst of Advice

2012-01-10T16:23:00.000+01:00

Now I know that having a child is an invitation for universal, unending, unsolicited advice. What, you thought that because it’s your child, you were the expert on it? No, no no, having a child means you are an expert on other people’s children and other people are experts on your child. You cannot be the expert on your own child. It’s just not how it works. So it does seem a little silly to be complaining about the buttloads of advice we now receive, because we knew we were in for it... but come on, it’s hilarious half the time! I really must share!

So don’t think of this as a lament, think of it as a celebration of the absurd.

And if I had to narrow it down to the best and worst of advice I've gotten so far, it would be regarding my child's eating habits.

Yeah, she's not even 10 months old and already people are picking on her eating habits.

My child is an enthusiastic eater. Wait, correct that, she's enthusiastic about food. Not so much the eating of it, but the rubbing it all over the place, feeding the cat, the DB, the AG, the floor (which used to get so hungry, but thank god we had a baby, now the floor will never go hungry again!), putting some in her hair for later, in her nose for a midnight snack, and in her ears for, well, god knows when she'll eat the stuff she put in her ears... or it could be to use as ear plugs because the DB and I both snore.

But so does the cat!!

I'm such a tattle-tale.

Anyway, apart from being cute and annoying at the same time, cute because hair sticking out with mashed carrots in it is just cute and annoying because dammit I just washed the child and now it's like I dipped her in egg and rolled her in bread crumbs (I could tempura the heck out of the Spawn), I don't really have any problem with how we spend meal times.

This, however, does not stop the advice from coming in.

Best advice ever: There are clean babies and there are happy babies.

Okay, maybe it's not advice, per se, but it's a great rule to live by nonetheless. And evidenced by my furiously happy (read: not clean) child.

Worst advice ever: You should hold her arms down so she can't touch the food.

Wait, what? Are you suggesting I pin the arms of my child down so she can't a) examine the stuff I'm trying to stick in her face b) help learn to feed herself c) move? Can we talk about great ways to introduce food issues at a young age? Because I think you may be on to something here!

I'll cut the advice giver some slack, she's over 85 after all and it was a different time. But it's still the funniest awful advice I've ever heard.

Moth????

2012-01-07T11:40:00.000+01:00

My fairy name is Moth Reedwand
She plays reed pipes and sings spellbinding songs.
She lives close to caverns and stalactite grottoes.
She can only be seen when the seeker holds a four-leafed clover.
She wears dresses stitched with crystals and has deep green butterfly wings.
Get your own fairy names from The Fairy Name Generator!

And that's the first and last time I make a resolution

2012-01-04T15:59:00.000+01:00

I normally don't make New Year's resolutions. There's nothing that I want to change about myself that I put off doing or need some sort of arbitrary date to say "hey, NOW I'm going to do That Thing I Said I'd Do But Don't."

For the things I've needed to do, most of the time they came with their own deadline that was WAY more scary than some New Year's promise to myself.

But this [last] year was different.

This [last] year I spent the twilight months whining about the little pokey belly I have left over from pregnancy. It's little. It's pokey. It pokes out like I'm three months pregnant. And I'm not. I'm SO NOT. So, I'm WAY over it. Everything else about my post-pregnant body I'm totally cool with.

150 lbs (68.6 kg)? Sure.
Balloons for boobs? Both inflated and sometimes not so inflated? Sure.
Stretch marks? Whatever.
1,001 new let's-call-them-beauty-marks-and-not-moles-'kay? Fine.
Thighs to finally go with women's shorts/jeans/trousers? Oh, hell yes, thank you pregnancy!
Hips? Hey! Whoot! HIPS!! Hip hip hooray!

From the front I look like a normal woman. Heck, from the back I look like a normal woman (hello sexy butt!)! But then I turn sideways and it's all, wait, what is that? It's like I'm carrying the keg they normally hang around the neck of a St. Bernard around my waist under my shirt.

And it throws off EVERYTHING. Pants have to be big enough to go around it or low cut enough to go under it. The problem with low cut pants is plumber butt AND the waist band then acts like an underwire bra for my belly, pushing it up and out. Oh, if only men were turned on by stomach cleavage. Shirts have to be loose enough to not accentuate the belly, but shouldn't look like I'm wearing a tent. I'm still wearing a handful of maternity shirts, only a few of them I had to quit wearing because they were too tight. How messed up is that? And sweaters... well, I can't button up a single cardigan without looking like I'm going to fire off a button at some poor unsuspecting bystander.

So the belly had to go.

But when do you start something like that? If I lived in Hollywood, the answer would be "30 seconds after popping out the child" but I'm a normal gal with a normal aversion to exercise, so obviously I put it off because I needed the extra fat for lactation. Obviously.

Roll in the New Year.

"Aha!" thought I, "I will begin my exercise program as a New Year's Resolution! I will begin to work on the belly and I will not stop until it is gone or I can button a cardigan! Whichever comes first because I HATE sit-ups."

I googled a bunch of exercises aimed at toning my core (as if I'm some apple or pear and not, as I believe myself to be, an avocado). I commandeered a blanket to use as my mat. I began my exercises on January 1st and successfully did 30 kegels, 30 scrunches (or whatever you call those half sit-ups, because I'm not strong enough to do proper sit-ups) and 10 leg lifts.

I did not get a "high" from working out, as some people breathlessly tell you. "Oh, I just love a good workout!" they gush "The endorphins from 30 minutes of rapid movement is just SO FANTASTIC!"

I have never felt a rush from working out. Frankly, I think people who do are just suffering from a lack of oxygen during their exercises. That's not endorphins, you fools, it's brain cells dying at a rapid rate because you aren't breathing enough!

But anyway, there I was, doing my bit to lose a belly.

And it was all going swimmingly until yesterday when I was picking up some groceries and felt a *pop* followed by waves a pain throughout my chest. I'd dislocated a rib.

Probably because my new chest muscles are just that ripping.

Or possibly because the cough I'd developed over the last few days was nice chest rattler and every cough threatened to dislodge a lung. Maybe it loosened a rib instead.

Or maybe my body was all "exercise if for assholes" and decided to do something about it.

I don't know. All I know is that I can't lift much, bend over much, or breath deeply.

So much for my exercise regime.

So much for my New Year's Resolution.

The wind against your cheek...

2012-01-01T19:03:00.000+01:00

...was the holiday season FLYING past.

Holy Crap, what was that?

Hope your holidays were filled with laughter and light and the coming year be filled with joy and wealth (of the spirit and the pocketbook)!

California Awake

2011-12-10T13:11:00.000+01:00

The visit home (the other home, you know, the one a person grows up in) was great. The Spawn did fantastic on the flights, she took to her American family without a hitch and even came to love the dog.

The dog, meanwhile, discovered that children are not nearly so much fun as previously thought and that they follow you around the house!

The return trip was uneventful, but by-god jet-lag is worse when you have a baby and not enough time to reset your internal clocks before you go back to school or work! The problem is that our "buffer" weekend got used to go pick up a car in northern Jutland, so the Spawn slept merrily in her car seat for the drive up and back. Effectively keeping her on California time. It's been a week and she's only now sleeping until 5:30 in the morning.

And she started day care this last week. So we have no schedule as of yet, too many new things. I'm completely exhausted.

But for now, pictures!

Main Street

The creek

From the other end of town.

My home town is smack dab in the middle of Gold Country.
Remnants of the Gold Rush are everywhere.

The Bunker Hill Mine dates from the 1850's.

There is something rather romantic about
old, crumbling mines.

Compared to old, crumbling homes, which I think are
rather tragic.

The Thanksgiving spread.

We retuned to a cold, damp, dark Denmark. Our cat was thrilled to see us. He'd learned to use the cat door while we were gone, so he now could go out and come back to make sure we hadn't left again 100 times and we didn't have to keep opening and closing the door.

And now it's suddenly Christmas time and we haven't decorated yet! Or bought presents! Or finished the laundry! Holy cow!

At long last.... California

2011-11-23T23:02:00.000+01:00

It's been 4 years, but we finally made it out to visit my family in California. I've been taking some pictures, but as usual, I've forgotten to take even more.

I'll post them later, when I've uploaded them and stuff.

Meanwhile, it's a bit reverse culture shock - different baby products, different sleep systems, different weather...

The weather here is great. 'Cause, duh, it's California, man. Mostly sunny, cool to (dare I say it?) crisp. Not quite lighting-a-fire weather, but is hot-apple-cider-drinking-while-kicking-leaves weather. Points to California.

But I think I'm a duvet-convert. This sheet thing with blankets and quilts is so not working for us. I keep getting tangled up and kicking the DB. He keeps trying to throw off blankets only to pile them on me, so then I try to kick them back, and a-tangled we get. Points to Denmark. Also, I miss my huge bed. How did I ever sleep in a queen size?

Baby food here is way grosser. That came as a shock. I expected it to be better. I don't know why, maybe because there are more choices and more choices means better choices, yes/no? But the baby cereals we bought? Blah! Like newspaper! Alas, although the Spawn loves to eat newspaper, she wasn't buying it in mush form. I really miss the rice cereal from Denmark. Tastes like tapioca pudding without sugar. Quite yummy. Thankfully, she's taken to Saltine crackers and watermelon as well as bagels and sourdough bread. So we have something to entertain us her while we eat.

Then there are two things about the US that make me all unhappy in the pants.
One - every foreigner needs to buy a visa before going to the US. Every One. These must be purchased BEFORE you get to the airport. DUDE, WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? Two years ago, said the flight attendant at check in. TWO YEARS AGO?? OBVIOUSLY I DON'T FLY ENOUGH!! WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE WARN ME?

Like Orbitz, when I bought the tickets. Or American Airlines when I checked their web-pages for international travel with babies. Or ANYONE!

We had to slink off to the special counter to buy the DB a visa, getting the whole "you should have done this days ago" speech and "this is how it's been for years [you idiots]." But but but... I'm a savvy traveller! I know how many ounces and grams of liquids I'm allowed (and yes, stupid woman in Heathrow, baby food is exempted in reasonable amounts so stop your 'pre-check' bitchyness and let me advance to security) (seriously, they hired someone to 'pre-check' you before you enter security - the least they could do is teach them the rules! it was like listening to a dalek, only instead of saying "exterminate! exterminate!" it was "no liquids! no liquids!"). I know how to whip off my belt with one hand while taking my computer out of my bag with the other! I have small travel bottles of everything I need in a tidy ziplock bag! HOW CAN I NOT KNOW ABOUT A VISA???

Dammit, America!

Secondly - what the hell happened to the newspapers here!? Your broadsheets are... not broad! They're skinny! What is that all about? I feel like some incredible hulk trying to hold the newspaper. I keep opening it and ripping it in two because my arms stretch out to the normal width of a paper and the paper is just not that big. It's bad enough that half of Denmark's newspapers are now tabloid format (which means I can't even begin to take them seriously, I keep thinking I'm going to turn a page and read "President Obama is a gigantic alien baby in a man suit! says former aid"), what the hell is this all about anyway?

Dammit, America!

There's only one solution to all this... more wine tasting! Yaaaaaaay vineyards!

Three not-so-blind mice

2011-11-07T19:09:00.000+01:00

When the harvest rolled around, we were warned to keep our doors closed. Mice, fleeing the harvesters, would be all “Rats of NIHM” and take up residence inside.

Raise your hands if you had a crush on Justin.
*crickets*
Just me then?
Liars.

But the weather! Oh, the weather was glorious! Warm sun, cool soft breeze, and the smell of woodstoves, drying leaves, and freshly turned soil! How can you keep the door closed!?

The harvesters came and went and we closed up the doors and only then, after things had settled down, did we first hear it. The unmistakable sound of scratching from inside the walls. Inside the brick walls. Yeah, ponder that one for a moment. So mice had somehow gotten inside the walls of the house. Not inconceivable, this is an old house, there are bits under the eves that aren’t sealed and there are climbing vines that go up and over and there’s also the chimney, so even if we kept the doors closed, mice in the walls was probably inevitable.

But then came the rustling from the trash bag.

Now, we throw away a lot of plastic wrapping. The newspaper comes every day in a plastic bag and when it’s crumpled, it has an unfortunate tendency to unbunch and make a spooky “animal-in-the-bin” rustling and it has been known to leap out of the trash and scare the bejezus out of me.

Yup, I’ve lost my bejezus all over the kitchen floor. The floor I let my child lick. How else is she going to build up a bejezus tolerance, I ask you? They don’t put bejezus in the milk in Denmark.

Milk: Bejezus-free!

Then one day something dark scurried across the kitchen floor and up under the stove while I was sitting in the dining room, having lunch. I didn’t want to tell the DB, also known as He Who Is Scared of Rodents, but I figured honesty was a better policy.

Okay, okay, and because I knew he’d be all “OMG EEEEEEE!” and then I’d feel all manly inside.

But he was a champ. He put on his big girl pants and decided to move the stove and look behind it. I was against this, because moving a stove to look behind it will accomplish nothing other than maybe convincing the mouse to run across your feet and under something else, but the DB was adamant. I think he was expecting to see a little mouse hole in the wall.

Silly DB. I would NEVER paint my walls this color of pink!

Nope, no hole and no mouse. We’ve since found mouse droppings in the bottom of the oven, so now we know where the mouse was hiding and how he felt about being shaken in the oven for half an hour.

Not the shake 'n bake I had in mind.

The DB was frustrated. There was a mouse in his house and it was obviously mocking him!

Then one day, a rather excited husband calls me to the kitchen. “There’s something in the garbage! I think it’s the mouse!!”

I’m no idiot, so despite doubting his assertions, I am careful as I begin to remove trash from the bag. Suddenly the bag rustled. And then something moved. Gently I pulled an orange juice box out and under it was a small, plump, brown, fuzzy body with black eyes looking up at me. As mice go, it was really quite cute.

Quickly I closed up the bag and carried it outside and to the back of the property. I laid the bag down on the ground and opened it. A bit of prodding the bottom of the bag with a stick and a sudden streak of brown shot out of the top of the bag and bounded into the bushes.

I was proud of mah self.

I was even prouder when I did it again a day or two later. This was a smaller brown body with black eyes, but he or she bounded away from the trash bag with the same enthusiasm of the first mouse.

So now we had a system. And I’m sure if the third mouse had read the script, it would have worked. But OH NO, he had to be difficult. I opened the pantry door in our mudroom a few days ago and something leapt behind the beer bottles. Something brown and furry. Something with big black beady eyes.

Damn.

“Chase it outside,” the DB cried. And I tried. But have you ever tried to chase a mouse outside? When there are so many other things to run and hide under? When outside is cold and there’s no food and inside is full of warmth and fruit peels? Yeah, you’d be swimming in my coffee grounds to, you know you would.

I apologized to the DB. Not ten minutes later I walked over to the changing table (also in mudroom) to straighten it up and something jumped into the box with the diapers. Something brown and furry. Something with big black beady eyes.

I leaned over and looked inside. The smallest mouse yet looked back up at me. I reached over the box, behind him. I opened the window. Never did I take my eyes off of his eyes. I reached out and slowly tilted the box towards the open window. I used one hand to hold the box and the other to hold the diapers. A gentle shake and he spun about and leapt out the window, onto the sill and ran off. It wasn’t the back end of the garden and he’s probably right now taking up residence in the garage, but he was out of the house.

Since then we’ve had no scratches from inside the walls. Apart from the faint traces of mouse discovered in the drawer under the oven, there is no sign we had three mice living with us for a few weeks.

Certainly you’d never know if from looking at the cat. Did he once look in the direction of the scratching? Did he meow at the garbage? Did he try to get into the pantry? Nope. About as useful as a tiger skin rug. Except, unlike a rug, he tries to bite your toes if you rub him with your feet.

Should have named him “Useless.”

I love quizzes

2011-10-28T18:46:00.000+02:00

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Not much of a post

2011-10-17T18:22:00.000+02:00

Oi vey.

In the middle of the night I write brilliant posts in my head about the inequalities of the world, or assholes that need a swift kick in the taco, or silly things my child has done.

But as I sat here with an hour on my hands, a precious hour where the Spawn was being walked in her stroller by the DB, an hour where I had no laundry to fold, okay, maybe I had dishes to wash but screw them, and no pressing need to shower, I could sit down and write one of those blog posts. I just couldn't bring myself to write a single one.

A post about how people need to stop asking the childless-by-choice people when they're going to have children and going on about how "I don't want kids" is somehow not a good enough reason or deemed selfish, god only knows why, and this leads to justification, which leads to those of us with kids to justify (if only to ourselves) why we decided to have kids, and there's frankly no good reason other than "I wanted to pass along my genes and my knowledge" but because this is also deemed selfish, what you get is two groups of people yelling "you selfish bitch" at each other and really, seriously WHO THE HELL CARES? By God, if you don't want to have kids, you should be able to say, proudly, "I don't want to have kids" and people who can't accept that should be shot. Because I'm sick of hearing from each side how much better they are than the other. The only reason we find ourselves doing that is because of the assholes who keep demanding that people have some deep reasoning behind their procreative choices. GAH!

Unless your parents turned in a well-constructed essay on why you deserve to exist, as well as a balanced budget, letters of recommendation from people who can testify to their abilities to parent, you shouldn't even BE here, you planet-cluttering sprog!

A post about how shocked I was to discover that while I am at the perfect BMI number, right between too skinny and too fat, I STILL don't fit into any clothes. I know from my plus-sized friends that clothes don't fit big girls. I know from being rail-thin that clothes aren't made for the skinny (no matter how much you may whine about "only models fit these clothes," I tell you, not the clothes on the rack, nosireebob). So now at the perfect size and shape, if I still don't fit into anything, I can only come to one conclusion - clothes were not made to be worn. They are made only so that closets, chests of drawers, and wardrobes have a function. It's a plot from Ikea to sell more flat-pack furniture.

Looks a lot more insidious now, doesn't it?

A post about how the Spawn continues to teach me about life, the universe and everything. Including: Mommy can pick Mommy's nose. Baby can pick Mommy's nose. Nobody on this planet is going to pick Baby's nose! Back off bitch! I bite you! NOM NOM!

Trying to get the snot out of my child's nose is like reaching into a sink garbage disposal in a horror film.

That's not soap bubbles! It's Soap Slime from Space!!

It kills you DEAD! And leaves a nasty waxy coating on your wine glasses!

AHHHHHHHHHH!

A post about how culture shock makes friendships hard because you're all moving through the stages at different times so one day you are all Honeymoon stage and hating on the haters and then the next day you are telling the newbies to take off the damn rosy glasses and then suddenly you are over it and focusing on the important things in life, like who ate the damn After Eights because *I* sure as hell didn't get any and people are telling you that you've drunk the kool-aid and you're all, take that back or I'll cut you and then you feel like you can't even tell people that you're happy because they get all nasty and tell you that you must not be paying attention or are deluded or are naive and you start thinking deep thoughts like "misery loves company, while happiness is a solitary pursuit" and think about changing your name and leaving no forwarding address.

Or until you block me, whore

A post about teething and why did Mother Nature arm infants before they learn how to understand "NO" and "OUCH"? Mother Nature is a total bitch.

I did a Google image search for Mother Nature and the hippistaria overwhelmed me.

I feel like I'm having LSD flashbacks and I've never even DONE LSD, so how sucky is that?

In the end, I just couldn't be bothered to write those posts, or finish those posts. Maybe in part because I know that some people might read one of those posts and get offended or hurt or pissed off, even though I'm not writing about a specific person or event although I am inspired by a collection of people, events and no small part by some rather violent mommy-forums that I am SO not going to read any more. (Childless-by-choice friends - if you ever feel like the Mommies of the world are judging you, don't worry, they are saving their major judgements for the Other Mothers. Google "cry it out.") Maybe I'm too distracted because I've gotten a damn head cold, which I am sharing with the Spawn. She gets the runny nose, I get the stuffy head. Maybe it's because just one hour to be brilliant and focused is just too much pressure.

So instead I opted for this post which isn't much of a post but a series of post-lets. Which took me all damn day to write anyway.

I was going to say "post-it" but that term has already been taken.

Apparently.

Damn You Danish!!

2011-10-10T15:36:00.000+02:00

I have a really hard time with certain sounds. Vowel sounds, especially.

Danish is all about the vowels. Silent consonants they have aplenty, but not so many silent vowels. In fact, half the time Danish just sounds like a string of vowel sounds interspersed with sharp intakes of breath. It's the perfect inverse of Polish.

Not that I know much Polish, apart from some choice swears and random animals, and I couldn't spell it to save my life... but... still...

Where was I going with this?

Right, so, there are a few Danish vowels that sound exactly the same to me. Å, O, and Ø.

Danes will immediately tell you, no, they sound completely different. They sound like å, o, and ø - DUH!

I spend a lot of time apologizing and saying "I just can't hear the difference!" and the Dane keeps saying "å - o - ø" again and again and all I hear is "o - o - o" and really, I JUST DON'T HEAR IT! If the person over pronounces, THEN I can hear it, but since most Danes don't pause and over-pronounce the vowels in words, I'm often confused, or worse.

Confused because:
tog - train(s)
tåge - fog

Should someone tell me about one in the road, perhaps it would be a good idea if I know which one I should be looking out for. Presumably I would see the train... but what if it was lost in the fog??

Worse because:
hore - whore
hår - hair
høre - to hear

Sometimes I tell people I cut my whores.

Sometimes a conversation with me goes:
Them: Did you hear what I said?
AG: I whore.
Them: Over-share much?

*face/palm*

He doesn't know the half of it

2011-10-08T17:56:00.000+02:00

The other day the DB and I had... a discussion.

In the course of this... discussion... I explained that I tend to get irritated quickly but then I get over it whereas he tends to become annoyed by something slowly and then he obsesses about it. And that this irritates me.

He panicked.

Another irritating trait of his.

He was worried that I was voicing some deep-seated problem that would fester in our relationship and, if left unsolved, would somehow destroy the very fabric of our marriage. More worrisome, by far, was that I stated that I didn't see this problem as being solvable. Because that would be the end of our marriage. OH MY GOD I WANTED A DIVORCE!!

Okay, maybe he didn't get that far in his reasoning, but there was definitely panic and "what do you mean you don't think it can be solved???" Because in his world, when there are problems in a marriage you solve them and being irritated with one's spouse is obviously a problem.

Immediately I wanted to hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet.

Then I got over it.

'Cause I'm calm and collected, y'all.

I explained that we're different and that being different does not mean I'm going to divorce his ass. I mean, he eats bananas - BANANAS - and I had a baby with him. I just ask him not to kiss me after eating a banana. SO GROSS! Slimy and *gak* I think I just threw up a little in my mouth! Bananas! Did I demand he give them up? Nope. Did I say, "bring another banana in this house and I'll see you dine in Hell?" No. Did I dramatically fling the bananas from the house and ask for compensation for my mental health? No I did not, but I totally should. Ugh. SLIMY!! Bananas!

And he calmed down.

But the whole conversation left me with this surreal feeling. Like, seriously, did he think that it was a problem every time I was irritated with him? Did he really think that if we didn't discuss it or figure out how one of us could change to be less irritating our marriage would fail? Because, honestly, I want to hit him with a cast-iron skillet at least once a DAY.

And he wants to have a discussion every time? Oh hells noes! I really will take a skillet to his skull should he try that shit.

Just now he took the Spawn off my hands for a bit, so I could have a break. He then asked "okay, so what's the plan?" Plan? Uh, you take the Spawn for a bit and I sit here and have a break, that's the mofo plan! I don't care what you do with her, but I am doing SOMETHING ELSE. I'm still not sure what he wanted. I folded the clothes. I'll do dishes with him in a bit. I'll get on the sorting of the bathroom boxes at some point, just not right now. Right now I am having me a Spawn-free moment. Go away before I hit you over the head with this skillet!

But him asking about The Plan is only a little bit irritating. Having a half-hour long discussion on why I'm irritated would be VERY IRRITATING! By the time that I'm done writing this post, I'm going to be over it, so what is the point?

The point, he would say, is so that this situation doesn't happen again.

Right. Okay. Never talk to me again! Then you can't possibly say something that might irritate me! Except I'll probably be irritated by your silence! Or the way you stand! Or your breathing!!

DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? YOU CAN'T WIN! I WILL ALWAYS BE IRRITATED!! I'M IRRITABLE! IT'S PART OF MY CHARM!!!

Finger Pies

2011-10-01T18:16:00.000+02:00

At 6 months old, the Spawn has passed many well-known milestones. In no particular order: she rolls over, crawls, stands with help, smiles and makes eye contact. Recently she began using her fingers to pinch, poke, and prod things.

Okay, poking things isn't on the list like "first smile" or "first step" but it's important. Right next to bipedalism and lack of cranial ridges, manual dexterity (that amazing opposable thumb) is what separates us from the rest of the apes. So when she adeptly pinched my nipple between her thumb and index finger, I cried out with ~~pain~~ joy.

Well, at least there were tears.

She's learned that not only can she experience things by putting them in her mouth, she can also touch and feel them with her fingers. Usually right before or right after she puts the object in her mouth. This poking and scratching is how she knows something is real.

But I really wish she'd take things on faith. Like my aforementioned nipples. There is no reason to stop mid-nurse to pull back and have a good pinch and prod at my nipples. That hurts, dammit. Trust me, kid, the nipples are there, the milk is flowing, you do not need to stop and investigate the process.

She's also discovered that she can poke her finger in my belly button. This, judging by her laughter, is great fun. I'm pretty sure I've got to get better at cutting her fingernails.

For a while there, she'd nurse with her hand in her mouth - which, if you've ever tried to drink a milkshake while sucking on your fingers, you'll know is almost impossible and when successful, extraordinarily messy. Now she puts her fingers in my mouth, because maybe I want something to suck on too.

Being more dexterous has not led to more intelligent use of the fingers, however. Does she pick her own nose? Nope, I'm still doing that for her. Which is probably why she then picks my nose.

You know the saying, "you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose"? Apparently there is an addendum, "you can't pick your mom, but you can pick your mom's nose."

At some point we'll have to clarify who's nose she should be picking. And that it's very bad form to pick your mom's nose and then try to stuff that hand into your mom's mouth. Because I gave up buggers for Lent.

In 1983.

She's also started on "grown up" food. If grown ups eat spelt porridge and pureed apples. Does any one else remember baby food being mashed peas OR mashed potatoes OR mashed carrots? Because last night my child sat down to pureed corn, potatoes, and turkey. It was a full-on three-course meal inna jar!!

Of course she's gotta help me while she eats it. She grabs the spoon and helps me bring it to her mouth. I try my best to keep it upright, because she hasn't quite understood the effect gravity has on semi-solids. She also has to touch the food. To feel it and then scoop it off the spoon into her mouth. Which she then shoves her fingers into. And tries to swallow.

Try this sometime with mashed potatoes. Preferably when no one is around and assuredly NEVER in a restaurant on a date. Trust me, bad plan. Try to see how far you can shoot your spuds.

And if they land on the table in front of you, go on, give 'em a good slap or two, to speed them on their way.

Oh well, as a wise woman said to me the other day, "you can have a clean baby or a happy baby."

That said, my child is a furiously happy baby!

In which we end up with too many Volvos

2011-09-29T15:09:00.000+02:00

Or maybe you can't have too many Volvos.... I'm not really sure.

So the story began waaaay back in December of last year. When the DB wrecked my beloved silver Volvo. I say beloved, because it had automatic gear (yeah I can drive manual, but What A Faff, I'd like a free hand to hold my coffee thankyouverymuch) and a sun roof that you winched open with a crank. A CRANK! How awesome is that??? It was practically steampunk!

And I had visions of driving our child(ren) places in it. And our dog. 'Cause we'd have a dog, in this magic future with a silver Volvo in it. We even drove it off road, once, because some silly fool had forgotten to connect the road we were on with the road we WANTED to be on... so we drove through an empty field on what looked like a dirt bike course.

Don't try this at home. Your Volvo might not be so awesome as my Volvo.

This is the car that once stopped a Mercedes from rolling to certain death. It pulled a camper from Holland to Denmark through a blizzard... in summer tires.

And the DB smashed it against a tree. Okay... several trees.

He's only recently admitted that maybe he was going a little too fast for the conditions.

But one should also remember that the road is banked the wrong way. And there might have been something wrong with the car... or the tires. Definitely something wrong with the tires. Because you should totally be able to continue to drive the posted speed limit in icy conditions, right? Just because there is ice and snow all over the place doesn't mean you have to SLOW DOWN! Pfffft to that!! It was totally the CAR'S FAULT!

So with the loss of my beloved silver Volvo, we needed another one quickly. The DB found us one and we went and got it. It was rust held together with dust, but it had a turbo supercharged engine and the DB was in love.

I was glad I had my tetanus shots up to date. It was a serious amount of rust.

After the mechanic assured us that the car will not pass inspection again unless we do something to keep the car from falling apart, the DB agreed that we needed to get another car. He began to search. But nothing desirable was appearing in our price range.

We agreed that we would wait a while, it was still months and months away from the next inspection, so really there was no hurry.

And still, every night, he stayed up late and "just checked" the on-line car ads. We went to "just look" at a few cars. I pointed out once or twice that we had decided that we'd wait to buy another car. He pointed out that we were "just looking, just in case."

Of course he found one he wanted. We went and drove it and it was lovely and good and had a radio, but no special extra-charged engine. I was glad because it meant we might finally be able to drive a car that got a better gas milage (note: it only gets a better gas milage when *I* drive it, go figure). And it might mean that he'd stop looking at cars and we could stop driving all over Denmark to test drive random Volvos. And it was red. The DB was a bit put out. He wanted black. "Beggars can't be choosers," I said. "And it matches my mixer. I think I'll go for rides with my mixer. Just to show people how matchy-matchy I am."

He totally didn't get it. But what does he know? He wears black socks with his sandals.

Right, so all that was left was to sell our pile of rust.

And then the craziest thing happened.

A guy saw our ad and wanted to buy our car. But instead of buy our car with cash, he wanted to trade: his Volvo sedan, a newer model with newer parts, for our massive, gas-guzzling, lockjaw-inducing station wagon.

Obviously he was insane. Or would laugh hysterically at us when he saw the thing in real life.

But he didn't. He was a Volvo enthusiast who liked to fix up and pimp out Volvos. He'd run out of things to play with on his sedan and his growing family needed a station wagon. (Seriously, baby prams in this country are the size of small tanks and about as maneuverable.) And he loved our rusty heap. So we traded.

Suddenly we had two cars. In Denmark, that's INSANE. Thankfully we live out in the middle of nowhere, so people are a bit more forgiving of our obvious lack of priorities. But most still ask us, "oh, so which one are you selling?" and seem a bit confused when we say, "no, we're not selling either of them at this time."

Could we get by with one car? Probably. But since I'm NOT giving up my station wagon (red! radio! power locks!) and the DB prefers the sedan (Burgundy red, lacks radio but has pimped engine), I don't see how we'd ever agree which one to sell.

And that's how we ended up with two Volvos.

Less Time Than Ever

2011-09-16T17:22:00.000+02:00

I thought that having the Danish Boy home on paternity leave would mean I'd finally have time to do stuff. You know, write more blog posts, unpack boxes, sort through my clothes and get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit, go through the Spawn's clothes and pack away the stuff that's too small.

And what happened?

I have less time.

It's the projects he's got. Like chopping wood and mowing the lawn. There was moving all the boxes out of the garage into the house because the garage floods. There's picking up all the fruit that's fallen off the apple and pear trees. There's the endless agonizing over the cars.

Yes, cars. I owe you a post about how we accidently ended up with two cars. But we have two and one is "making weird noises" and "there's a weird smell" and he's convinced that we somehow got screwed even though I think we got a good deal and hey, at 11 years old, a few dents and odd noises are expected and I smell nothing. It runs. It runs great, as a matter of fact. And it has a baby-soothing radio. And you do not need to be current on your tetanus shot to be eligible for a ride in it.

Anyway, what with all this going on, I'm still doing the vast majority of baby watching and not getting the stuff I wanted to get done, done. I now need to come up with a dinner plan and go shopping. This I could have done earlier today, but I didn't realize that he was only going to start mowing the lawn at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Do I sound a little bitter? I am. I had visions of productivity. Visions, that with me going back to Danish next week, are going up in flames. Yeah, I've had a shower every day this week and today I got to sleep in, but I've got no clean clothes and the dishes are still piling up.

Someday, right? Someday we'll catch up with life?

Beaten up by a six month old

2011-09-03T20:10:00.000+02:00

Okay, I confess, she's still 10 days short of 6 months... and she just kicked my ass.

I made the mistake of getting down on the play mat with her. I forgot that down there, I no longer have the advantage. My power rests in the fact that I can stand on two legs and that frees my arms to do other things. Down there, on the floor, in my make-shift playpen (having three couches is the most brilliant idea the DB has ever had, all I needed to do was add a wall and TADA playpen) her inability to stand without support is not much of a handicap.

It began when she crawled over to me. I rolled onto my back, at least freeing my hands to try to defend myself, but babies... they're slippery.

She grabbed my hair with one hand, close to the roots, and pulled back, pinning my head to the floor. Then, with the other hand, she stuck her fingers UP MY NOSE and PULLED. When I tried to remove her hand, she dug in with her nails and put an elbow in my eye. Tears clouded my vision, but nothing softened my hearing as furious laughter erupted from my tiny conqueror.

Releasing my hair, she planted that hand in my remaining eye and relinquished my nose, only to clamp her sharp nails on my lips, pinning them together. I inhaled sweet air, wincing as it burned where her nails had left paper-cut-thin wounds, only to lose even that precious pleasure as she brought her mouth down directly over my nose and stuck her probing tongue up one of my tender nostrils.

Drool flooded my nose and I was now unable to breathe, my lips held by steel-tipped pinchers, and I began to wonder if the police would believe that my 13 lbs (6.5 kg) child could have killed me. Or if they'd charge my husband with my death, hauling the DB off to jail and leaving the Spawn to continue to kill unabated.

Suddenly she let loose my lips as she reached over my body to grasp my shirt at the shoulder. As I took a deep breath, she lifted her head, apparently finished exploring my nose and grinned down at me. Clearly, she was enjoying my plight. I began to explain, patiently, that this was a bit rough for me and we hadn't really confirmed any "safe words" so I was becoming a bit alarmed, when she lunged abruptly, thrusting her knee into my tender breast. My nipple may be well-worn leather by now, but the mammary glands are still remarkably delicate.

With that, all the air rushed back out of my body in a sudden "oh shiiiiiiiiiit" and she delivered the coup d'état - she simply took her fist out of my eye and dropped the weight of her body on my neck. It was a perfect WWE maneuver. I may have deleted all of the sports channels from our cable, but somehow she's learned how to body check.

"Garrrrrgh" was all I managed.

"Honey, do you need help?" asked the DB from downstairs, happily ignorant of the carnage above.

"Mmrph" I replied.

"Baby, don't kill Mommy" he called up the stairs as he headed back out to the garage. Plausible deniability was now his.

After he was safely outside, she lifted herself up and crowed with victory. Saliva ran down her chin and pooled on my chest. Her eyes were bright and her grin toothless. With a laugh that was only just this side of sane, she leaned down and gummed my chin. It was the wettest kiss I've ever had.

And that was it. I was defeated.

On Privacy

2011-08-29T13:06:00.000+02:00

Or maybe this post should be called “On Hypocrisy” because I just asked someone on FaceSmack to take a picture of Spawn and me off this person's wall. The very picture I’ve shared here on the Whorled Web. (What do you mean it’s “world”? Have you seen this place?) So why did it bother me so much that this picture was shared with random strangers when I’ve already shared it with random strangers?

(‘Cause you all are random and more than a few of you are really strange. I love you, but you are. Own it, weirdos!)

I mean, let’s face it; there is no such thing as privacy. Not real privacy, not any more. If you’ve ever gone on-line (and if you are reading this and just said “ha, not me” then you are not only random and strange, you are also possibly delusional and they have a cream for that), then you know how this can be so. But the thing is, there never really was such a thing as “real” privacy. There is only “perceived” privacy and that’s socially constructed.

We all live in houses/apartments/yadda yadda yadda that have windows. Pretty much anyone can look in them, using one way or another, but for the most part, we don’t. Oh, we glance, we peer when we think no one is looking, but stand and stare right at the people as they eat dinner? No, not really. And if you do, those people can call the cops and call it “invasion of privacy.” That’s because what is in the house is considered private.

But a nice garden, now that’s not so private. Everyone can stop and look and sniff the flowers, as long as you don’t go wandering around, and you should probably ask before you take cuttings, but as long as you keep it to the roses that hang out over the sidewalk, I’m not going to really get upset about it.

Walking down the street is not private at all and you can not only stare, you can make comments about my appearance and really I can’t do much about it. Other than give you the stink eye. Which I will. Big ol’ stink eye!

But really, all of these levels of privacy are social constructs. We decided as a society that the street is public and what goes on there is protected by laws that we invented. Hyenas, for example, have no first amendment. We then decided how much privacy front gardens deserved and made laws that protect what we as a society had decided were appropriate. We then invented privacy for the home, because until relatively recently, homes were shared by many and the idea of “what goes on in the home is private” would have seemed very odd to our ancestors who shared hearths. Hell, go to other countries and you’ll see completely different interpretations of privacy.

What does this all mean? It means that while the internet is the street and anything goes, my blog is my garden. You are welcome to stop and smell the flowers and I really can’t expect you not to take some cuttings now and again, so I make sure that what I put out there is, hopefully, worthwhile. I don’t use real names and I choose what images I post carefully. The CrackBook, on the other hand is my home. In order to get access, you have to ask permission to enter. Generally that suggests, to sane and rational people, that some people might, just might, consider that space to be private.

I prefer to keep the two separate - I don’t link my accounts to each other. Many of you have permission to enter both Rhymes-with-MaceHook and here, and I’d probably invite all of you into my “home” (although not in real life because it’s a total disaster at the moment, pardon my dust bunnies), I just like to keep my worlds separate, you know? And 99.99% of you totally respect that, even if you don’t agree entirely with my reasoning or where I draw the line in public and private. But when someone in my metaphorical home snatches the metaphorical bouquet of flowers from my garden off my metaphorical dinning table and sticks ‘em, with a big name tag, on a metaphorical table in a metaphorical convention center, I get a little miffed.

“Oh but I only wanted to share it with family,” I can hear the excuse now.

This is why the good Lord invented email. And attachments. And why not tell the family member to friend me, for christ’s sakes? Or hey, ASK ME if you can share the photo. I probably would have said okay. I mean, really, I’ve shared that photo with the multi-verse, so I’m certainly not ashamed of it… it’s just, well, it’s mine. To share. As I see fit.

So I don’t feel too hypocritical asking for this photo to be removed. Taking something without permission from my home is stealing. Even if it’s a cup of sugar that I totally would have given you if you had just ASKED!

Boundaries, dude, we haz them.

Ranting and Raving: On car seats

2011-08-26T11:11:00.000+02:00

Very important note: I live in Denmark where car prices are at least 180% higher because of taxes. A basic brand new Volvo station wagon, the epitome of safety, costs $30,000 in the US and $97,000 in Denmark. A more modest Ford Focus costs $17,300 in the US and $48,720 in DK. When I say we can’t afford a new car, I’m not bitching about a “mere” $10,000 investment. Car seats are also far more expensive, starting at $233 for just the seat.

I tell you it’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy between car companies and baby car seat manufacturers.

It goes like this: you have to buy a brand spanking new car seat for your baby. Why? Because of SAFETY. Old seats don’t have 5-point harnesses. The plastic of an old seat may be compromised. It may not hold up in an accident! It may have been in an accident, rendering it NO GOOD. An old car seat is worse than… than… NAZIS! You wouldn’t put your precious bundle in the arms of HITLER would you? I didn’t THINK so.

So you gotta buy a new car seat.

Only, here’s the funny bit - new car seats are designed to only go into new cars. Doubt me? Try sticking a new car seat into a 1998 Volvo station wagon, following the directions printed on the side of said seat. It doesn’t fit. You were SUPPOSED to be using an Isofix base, which cost an extra $233 (‘cause they’re sold separately in Denmark doncha know), but since you have an older car that doesn’t HAVE Isofix capabilities you are stuck trying to follow the alternative directions for LOSERS who don’t have new cars. Obviously, with the introduction of Isofix, car seat designers have decided to punish those of us who dare drive old cars because these instructions just don’t work.

I mean you CAN buckle the seat into your car… as long as you don’t actually PLAN on putting the baby in it.

The seat belt wraps around, over and under the seat. If your child is already in the chair, she’s going to be tilted and jostled while you wrestle with the belt. If you plan on putting the child in after you fit the chair in, you will need to bend and twist the baby like a balloon artist to get her in. Alas, having gotten the baby and the seat in, you discover that she’s tilted in a way that forces her to either sit straight up or slump over at the waist. Your child will have an uncomfortable ride with her head planted between her feet.

HOW IS THIS SAFE???

You can ignore the directions and find an alternative way of strapping the seat in…

BUT IS IT SAFE???

Well, if you are really worried about it, just buy a new car!

Bwahahahah!

And it doesn’t end when your child gets bigger. Oh no. A child needs to be in a car seat until age - get this - “at least age 8... preferably 12." http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/carseat2011.htm

This means that your child will finally be able to sit in the front seat a mere four years before you hand him or her the keys and say “go get mamma a box of bon bons.”

But how can you argue with SAFETY? What kind of parent doesn’t want to make sure their child is safe?? Who wouldn’t expend every effort, no matter what cost, to protect their baby??? If you can’t afford to buy a new car seat every year for 12 years and a new car every 3 years well then, you shouldn’t have had a child! This isn’t the latest fashions from Baby Gap or the latest toys from Lamaze - THIS IS THE WELL-BEING OF YOUR BUNDLE OF JOY!!

Statistics back up the car and car-seat makers - putting your child in an approved and properly installed car seat has DRASTICALLY lowered the number of deaths and injuries in car accidents.

Of course, the best way to lower the numbers even more is to never put your child in a car. Abstinence, so I hear, is the only way to be 100% safe. In fact, we should just get rid of cars all together. And then we can ride about on bikes or, better yet, WALK. (Because have you seen the seats for children on the backs of bikes? UNSAFE!!) I mean, seriously, a car seat until 12?! Why don’t we just roll them in bubble wrap and unwrap them for their weddings? We can explain the facts of life as we march them up the aisle. Or they can just figure it out on their own. God forbid we tell our children about such things, it may scar them for life. They’ll have to see a therapist!

Do you think I’m going over the top here? That I’m exaggerating the pressure on parents from the AAP and other safety agencies? I’m soooooo not. Go here: http://www.safekids.org/ Have fun! Or don’t, cause it could lead to injury and NO ONE should EVER be INJURED. EVER.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating letting my child play with marbles and paring knives. Nor am I going to just chuck her in the back seat and tell her, “hang on kiddo, mommy has a ferry boat to catch!” I’m just saying that in its exuberance to make sure every child reaches 14 without a scratch (after which it’s open season on teens), society has sacrificed reason and feasibility. It places an unobtainable burden on parents below a certain tax bracket, guaranteeing they are labeled “bad parent” before they’ve even had a chance to teach their kid to open beer bottles with their pacifiers.

Now I’m pretty much okay being told I’m a bad parent because I am not sending my child to day care until she’s older, because I read “The Three Little Bears” to her instead of “Much Ado About Nothing” and because we dance to Lady Gaga rather than Mozart. Those are my choices on how to raise my child. But I am NOT okay with being told that I’m a bad parent because I can’t afford to keep my child safe. I want more than anything to keep my child safe. That my ability to do so is limited by my income PISSES ME OFF. Particularly since car companies and especially car seat designers seem to have decided to ignore the vast majority of the population that drives old, used cars and *GASP* had the audacity to breed. Children are NOT a privilege restricted to the wealthy.

So, car companies and car seat manufacturers, get your butts back into your engineering chairs and figure out a way that us normal folks can keep our children safe in our older, but still fully functioning vehicles!

Quiz!

2011-08-24T11:36:00.002+02:00

You are Red/Blue!
Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what I create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.

A Walk in the Park

2011-08-19T13:22:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I had a fussy baby. I still have a fussy baby. Turns out she has a little cold, but that's not the point. Yesterday I didn't know she was coming down with a cold - all I knew is that she Would Not Nap.

When feeding, changing, and walking to and fro no longer work, there is only one solution: a long walk.

Unable to wait for the DB to come home and take the Spawn for her long walk, it was going to be up to me.

Fine.

I can do this.

I got the baby and pram to the doctor's appointment off the island on Monday and that involved showering, breakfast, a bus ride, a ferry ride, lunch (energy bars, worth their weight in gold I tell you), appointment, another ferry boat and another bus. I can totally take the baby for a spin around the ~~block~~ wheat fields.

Only I haven't showered in a few days (okay, since Monday) and my hair is now standing up in weird ways that no amount of hair wax will contain.

That's fine, I'll wear a hat.

Can't find my hat. Any of my hats. Not even a knit cap.

Okay, a bandana!

Nope, no bandanas to be found. Nor head scarfs. What the hell, man?!

Okay, so I remember that when I was out in the garage, frantically helping the DB move cardboard boxes off the floor during the Great Flood of Last Sunday, I spied my dig box (the plastic box that contains all my dig gear) and it was totally getatable (new word, Oxford, take note!). In there should be hats, bandanas, AND head scarfs.

Baby goes into the pram, protesting wildly, and I run into the garage. I tear open the box and... okay, I see dig stuff... but not ALL the dig stuff. That must be in another box. When did I get an extra dig box? Oh, wait, 5 months in Qatar. Qatar needed a totally new dig wardrobe of long pants, loose t-shirts, and some winter gear. I stored it separately from my dear-god-what-lunatic-digs-in-the-Jordan-Valley-in-June-ME-that's-who wardrobe of short shorts, tight tank-tops, and teeny bikinis. I'd raided the Qatar box earlier for my post-pregnant tubbiness and replaced the shirts with some clothes that I'll probably never be able to get over my ass ever again... but NO HEAD COVERINGS.

Frantic screams from the garden. Frantic pawing at the clothing. Frantic scrabbling from a tower of boxes behind me.

It's the cat, who LEAPS from his perch like a drunk bird of prey, lands on a precarious pile of odds and ends rescued from the Great Flood of Last Sunday, which promptly topples over, and vanishes in a puff of fur and indignation.

I triumphantly raise my fist - I have found a head scarf! I now need to run out the back door of the garage, around the garage, and open the garage door in the front to see if the cat needs rescuing. The frantic cries from the garden continue, unabated. Note to self: cry it out - not gonna work.

I open the garage door and bits and pieces of several baby cribs slither out. The cat is sitting to one side, calmly cleaning himself. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. I prop up what I can, mindful that another good rain could result in another Great Flood and partially close the door. Note to self: tell the DB so he can check the pile later. (I totally forgot to do this, but the DB noticed it himself.)

Run back to the garden, tie scarf over head. Note to self: damn girl, it's a good thing you learned to do this on no sleep and in a cloud of mosquitos, way to prepare for life with kids!

Grab the baby pram and start shoving it through the grass towards the road.

Screaming baby.

Screaming baby has sun in her eyes.

Damn it! Drag the pram back into the yard and run into the house to find the parasol I'd discovered in the Great Flood and had set in the house to dry. Unable to find the parasol, I grab some clothespins and run back outside to fashion something out of a burp rag.

I'm very pleased with my MacGyver skills. The Spawn, not so much. Now she can't see.

Not that she could possibly have been able to see through the tears anyway, but away we go.

Push the pram back to the road and walk about 10 meters before realizing that I have to pee. Okay, fine, we turn around. The Spawn is still screaming her head off and the cat is now watching us from the front step. Obviously, we are the best entertainment in town.

Back in the garden, the baby is just not having it any more. I'm hot, sweaty, thirsty, and I have to pee.

F*ck this Sh!t

I give up, take the baby inside and check my watch.

Well, at least we are an hour closer to the DB coming home.

TMI

2011-08-16T16:11:00.000+02:00

Having children means a loss of modesty. But not like oh-I-left-it-around-here-somewhere loss. No, your modesty will be ripped from you. And it doesn't end on the labor bed. No, that's where it begins. If you think that the worst thing that could happen to you is five strangers staring down at the business end of your child's arrival... well, read on.

See, you don't give a crap about what's going on when you are at the end of labor (you do at the beginning, which is why they only bring in the big guns and all of their attendants once you are loaded up with drugs or blinded by pain). A whole troupe of dancing dogs could have come in and I couldn't have cared less. Nathan Fillion could have walked in and I wouldn't have noticed.

Shiny

But now that I'm moderately presentable these days... apart from repeatedly showing my nipples to random people (especially now that the Spawn likes to stop mid-suck to check out said random people)... I wanted to have at least some modesty back.

BWHAHAHAHAH!

I had to go for my final post-birth doctor appointment. Er, I mean, appointment relating to birth. OBVIOUSLY all doctor appointments from now on will be post-birth (ain't nobody backing up that train), but I think I'm done getting prodded for reasons DIRECTLY associated with the arrival of the Spawn.

Earlier I had two physical therapy appointments pertaining to the muscles used in pushing the Spawn out... and the less said about those two appointments, the better.

Okay, maybe just one thing - for the first appointment, in order to keep the Spawn from wigging out, I had to nurse her while I was splayed on the table having my pelvic floor stretched. All while the doctor called out, "and... squeeze... hold it hold it HOLD IT!"

Cherish your modesty, ladies, because when it's taken from you, you will miss it so.

The DB came to the next appointment so that I didn't have to juggle baby and do Kegels at the same time.

Right.

So this appointment was a gynecological check-up, which the ladies all know well.

Only this was a check-up on steroids.

Not only was I physically probed (next time, can I have the ultra-sound from the OUTSIDE, thankyouverymuch), but my life came under examination as well. I wonder if one of the nurses was in training or interning or something, because I don't usually get two to be examined. Or maybe they'd heard about the nursing incident. Or maybe they thought someone would have to hold me down when they checked for scar tissue in my rectum.

Yeah, I just put my rectum and Nathan Fillion in the same post. You are SO WELCOME INTERNET.

I think the gynecologists were very disappointed that everything was fine. The main gyno was really distrustful of every answer I gave. Even as I said "but since I'm breastfeeding, I just need to remember to drink more fluids," she'd look concerned and immediately interject with "yes, yes, but, you really need to remember to drink more fluids."

Er... that's what I just said.

And the expression on her face when I answered a particular query with "I fart sometimes when I have a big sneeze." Horror. But this horror was not because I had mentioned something so awful as passing gas, oh no. See, this means Something Is Wrong.

'Cause no one has ever farted when sneezing in the whole history of the world.

Dude, my child does that, should I get her started on Kegels before I introduce solid food? 'Cause I think that might be difficult. The DB is trying to teach her proper crawling techniques and she continues to stop and slap the floor when she gets excited. Sometimes with her face. Poor baby. Or is it that no one 'fesses up to sometimes farting while sneezing?

Be honest here. Do you blame the dog?

The DB says we should blame the baby. I'm totally down with that.

But my ~~emission~~ admission earned me 100 Kegels and 25 butt-clenches. I guess you should not treat the doctor's office like a confessional. The truth will be punished with repetitive exercises.

Speaking of repetitive exercises - I was assigned "more sex." Yes, not content to know the ins and outs of my bowels, I was grilled about my sex life. And told to have more of it.

Since I wasn't gettin' busy enough for my gyno, she concluded something was wrong with me. "I'm tired, he's tired, and when the baby's finally asleep there are so many other more important things to do. Like the dishes," is not a good enough excuse. We should be bouncing like bunnies or something. That we aren't means... "Does it hurt?" she looked at me sympathetically. And I'm really tired, so I look confused.

Does she mean my relationship? Because we're STILL a great team. Does she mean emotionally? 'Cause sometimes I don't feel very sexy and it would be nice to have a physical reminder that I am one hot mama. Oh, she means physically!

"Well, I do have problems with my knees and my back is kinda sore from lifting... "

And after a few more minutes of further embarrassing conversation, I'm assigned more sex AND erotic massage.

Thanks, but I don't *need* an erotic massage. I need a babysitter. A regular massage. And a hotel room. Then maybe we could get down and dirty at the rate the doctor prescribes.

Although, to be fair, I think if the DB and I had a babysitter, massages and a hotel room, we'd probably just use it to get 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Vacation in Denmark: Part II - Camping

2011-08-11T15:23:00.001+02:00

I like camping. I think this is what my parents had in mind when they used to pack us up in the minivan and drive us all HOURS to remote locations - instill a love of nature in our children or die trying. And it worked.

This is probably why I happily camped for 5 months in Qatar. Tents, campfires, and camaraderie.

Camping in Denmark is totally different.

If you are from the US, forget everything you know about camping.

Camping in Denmark is more properly “caravanning.”

You take your caravan to a campsite, usually near to a major city and/or highway. You park it right next to someone with a caravan exactly like yours. You put up an attached tent, doubling your living space and effectively turning the outside into the inside. You spend the next week reading a paper over coffee and ignoring the neighbors who are within arm reach. You are not allowed a fire. You are not allowed to make noise after 10. You send the kids off to bike around the campsite and swing on the swings next to the toilets while you toss back a couple of beers and plan on taking the children to the zoo. It is, I’m afraid, a little grim.

If you have time, watch this - it's hilarious!

We have a caravan that we’ve used as a second home, usually because we need to stay for a few days somewhere too far to make it to our home every night. The DB lived in it while he was doing a semester abroad in Holland. We used it when we had first moved to the island, but the DB hadn’t graduated yet so we needed to stay near his school. But now we have a baby. So the first time we had to overnight away from home, we tried out the summer home experience.

But it just wasn’t us. I keep cringing and spitting and wailing about the inequality and the environmental destruction and the DB panics about breaking something or staining something that doesn’t belong to us and costs more than we can afford to replace.

Back to the caravan it was.

But while driving north, to where we normally camped, we had an epiphany. We were in a car with a caravan! We didn’t have to “camp” next to the city or near a highway. So the DB told me to pick a campsite and I chose one as far as I could from anywhere, within reasonable driving distance to Aarhus, in the heart of the Danish lake-country just outside of Silkeborg - Skyttehusets Camping.

We still were surrounded by caravans and there was no fire pit at our spot, but the difference! Oh viva la difference… or something.

Oooooh!

There were trees and a lakeside! Families were going canoeing - parents were hanging out with their kids!! People were hiking, biking, boating and barbecuing. Although it was a long drive into the woods (lots of trails!!), campers could take one of the many passenger boats into town (any number of towns, actually). There was even an old paddleboat that could take you from the campsite to the “Sky Mountain” (the third highest point in Denmark if you don’t count the bridge) to Silkeborg.

Paddleboat!

The lakeside proper was reserved for tents, so if you are tent camping, you don’t have to stay with the rest of us caravanning sorts. For the non-car owning among us, you can take the train to Silkeborg and then the boat to the campsite, pitch your tent and enjoy the surrounding nature.

This is more like it!

You aren't camping until you look like you dressed in the dark without a mirror.
Because you dressed in the dark.
Without a mirror.

This is much more like my kind of camping. There were still too many of us in a small space, but it felt different because of the trees. The people staying there were so much more active and into their families. I missed having a campfire. There’s not much that can be done about that… except have one in our back yard.

Set up and clean up take a bit longer, especially if you put up the tent extension. This time we didn’t and therefore set up and clean up took less than 30 minutes… TOTAL. Can’t beat that!

I’d like to go back to that campsite again. But I am also looking forward to trying to find other fantastic campsites that are overlooked because caravanning-is-something-for-old-people-and-chavs.

They see us campin'... they be hatin'. Just me an' mah posse o' one, yo!
Camping Thug Life.

Vacation in Denmark: Part I - The Summer Home

2011-08-11T12:17:00.000+02:00

I am opposed to summer homes.

1) It just seems so wrong to me that some people are stuck living in poorly maintained, government-sponsored housing and others have multiple little homes scattered about the country in a land that likes to brag about how no one has too much and no one has too little.

2) They are a blight on the landscape. Often in the prettiest parts of Denmark, you round the corner and instead of the sweeping vista of the ocean or lakeside you left the confines of the city to visit, there are dozens of little houses one after the other, as far as the eye can see. Some of these “little” homes are larger than the one I live in now. Some of them have indoor swimming pools! Indoor swimming pools… next to the beach!!

3) People only stay in them for a few weekends out of the year, at most a week or two, because in addition to having a summerhouse, most Danes will also travel abroad during their 6 weeks of vacation. And due to legislation, you can’t live in them year round… unless you are retired. So any grand plan of “taking back” the best of Denmark by moving to these houses can’t be realized for some time yet.

Hate them! *spit* *spit*

So imagine the ethical quandary of borrowing one of my FIL’s summer homes (why yes, I did say “one of” and “homes” - you may join me in the spitting now) for a few days.

How can I enjoy my vacation knowing that I’m staying in a *spit* summer home??

Should I try to deflect my guilt by saying “oh, but I didn’t build it, and it would still be standing even if I didn’t stay in it” or “if no one uses it then it really is a waste of materials and environmental destruction” or “it’s cheaper than staying in a hotel” because we had to head up north for a few days and therefore had to overnight somewhere?

In the end, it really was about sucking up my pride (we be po’ and needed the free shelter) and deciding that I would try to see if I could find a bright side to this whole summer home thing. Maybe that’s also compromising my ideals… but at least I could now say I’ve tried it.

The house is nestled in the dunes up on the northwest coast. Stunning scenery.

The View.
Look, there's even someone else's summer home to look at and enjoy!

Most of the homes were hunkered down among the dunes, but the FIL’s stood proudly on one of the highest around. Gorgeous views (see above). A few of the homes had sod roofs, so they blended in with the environment. Most of the homes were grey, black, or brown - but a few were a cheeky red.

"Ours" is Baby Poop Brown... a very natural color.

The summer home had a nicer kitchen than I currently have. There was a dishwasher that I totally forgot to use until right before we left, much to the DB’s annoyance. And a nicer bathroom. A MUCH nicer bathroom. Heated floors, ya’ll. Oh, and a second bathroom that I used, just because I could. The furniture was fancier (well, we did get ours from the side of the road, so that’s not really saying much). I’m sure this was designer furniture. There was suede involved. I kept the sheets covering most of it for the duration. God forbid I get baby vomit or breast milk on something!! Three closet sized bedrooms, but I guess the idea is that you spend most of your time in a bedroom sleeping, so you really only need enough space for a bed.

All in all it was a nice, tidy house - well designed - in a spectacular location.

I would be finding bits of this dune in my shoes for the next month.

Grrrrrr.

I read in the tourist brochure that there are something like 40,000 summer homes in the area. In the little area we were, there were probably a few thousand. A few thousand; right in the dunes. Only occupied for a few days a year. Every house could be ripped out and turned into a campsite! And you wouldn’t need 40,000 campsites, so much of the land could go back to being dunes - an ecosystem that is ridiculously fragile in even the best of times! And you wouldn’t need to be rich to visit - camping is dirt cheap.

And here you find the illusive Danish Summer Home - Danicus sommerhusetus - in it's native habitat.
Notice how it hunkers down in the dunes, erecting a flagpole to indicate it's receptiveness to reproduction.

*Deep breath*

So I enjoyed my few days, pretending I was one of the many Danes who vacation this way every year. To be fair, there were some perks to this form of vacation. There was zero set up involved. It was warm and dry even when it rained. There was a lot of space and I didn’t have to go outside to go to the bathroom. Another plus was that I could put the Spawn down on the floor and not worry about her eating the grass or something. Finally, because it isn’t ours we didn’t have to do any maintenance or pay for our time there (except for the amount of electricity and water that we used… which was negligible). But it was ridiculously far from the beach - the walk about killed me, there and back. It’s also ridiculously far from everything else, so there’s not much to do other than sit in the house and look at the view. It is only accessible by car, so good luck trying to be eco-minded about your vacation. And it took forever to clean and leave because everything must be washed, vacuumed, disinfected and scrubbed.

Would I buy a summer home? NO. Even if everyone in the world had lovely place to call home AND a summer home and you could promise me that it had no impact on the ecosystem. Who the hell wants to vacation in the same spot all the time? And why the hell would you want another house to take care of? I mean, we didn’t have to do any maintenance, but we still had to clean it from top to bottom. Nice way to end a vacation.

So, no matter which way you cut it - the summer-home vacation is not for me.

The beaches of northwest Denmark are a sort of savage monotony.
Kierkegaard begins to make sense.

Done and Dusted!

2011-08-02T15:25:00.000+02:00

I passed my driver's test and am back behind the wheel... legally!

And I did the hair chop!

From long hair....

To pixie!

Why yes, we ARE just that cute!

Alas, that's not going to be the picture on my driver's license. Instead it will be a pudgy-pregnant-Archaeogoddess-direct-from-snow-storm-to-photo-chair photo taken months ago when I first started this whole crazy process. Oh if only I looked glowing in that photo, instead of sweaty. It's melting snow, dammit! I swear!!

Well, it's a forgone conclusion that you will look horrible on your driver's license, right?

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2011-07-29T16:40:00.000+02:00

It's taken a while, but after days, weeks, MONTHS even, of my bitching, whining and moping - I've finally got a hair appointment.

It's coming off, ladies and gentlemen.

Every now and again I grow my hair out, probably just to remind myself how damned annoying it is.

But during pregnancy and the first month or so of mommyhood, long hair just sort of works.

1) The hair was thicker and more glorious than ever.
2) My skin and scalp were way less oily and icky than ever.

It was the meeting of two perfect moments. Yes, for a while there, I had lots of glorious hair that could go days without being washed. I was sexy, divine!

Those days... alas... are gone.

First of all, the lovely hormones that keep your hair from falling out are gone (or the hormones that make your hair fall out are back... or... well, hell, it's different) and then all the hair that should have fallen out, falls out.

It's like Margo when they took her out of Shangri-la. (Alas there is no good image to go with that...)

I'm going bald. In parts. Okay, just in the front. And it's only noticeable when I pull my hair back.

But I have to pull my hair back all the time or it gets in my eyes. Balls.

It doesn't help that it tangles just by looking at it. I pull more hair out just trying to brush it, let alone when I try to get it up into a pony tail. Who knew that hair, nicely brushed, would knot THAT EASILY when you try to wrestle it into a band. I have broken my brush TWICE. And my hair is only just past my shoulders in length.

That's reason number 2.

Meanwhile my application to OPEC as a new member-state is going well. My skin will solve the energy crisis, as soon as I figure out how to get it off my face and into my car...

Thankfully, since I am able to take long showers every day, I can keep my skin and hair clean and healthy and...

*howling with laughter* I'm sorry *choke* Seem to have lost my poker face somewhere...

My face rivals that of a teen on prom night and my scalp... my scalp has PIMPLES, y'all! Running my fingers through my hair means... ugh, I'm not even going to go there.

Yes, I'll talk about poop and boobs and bodily functions, but there are some realms I will not enter.

I hate pimples. And they are in my hair. That's reason number three.

So the hair has to be cut off. I can wash it faster that way, getting the soap right down to the scalp. I will not need to even look at conditioner (which I can't use right now if I want my hair to even look slightly clean), and it'll dry faster without any help from me, because I don't have the time for a hair dryer.

But my child is going to lose one of her favorite toys.

I feel kinda guilty.

She uses my hair as a rope to swing from and as a chew toy. She likes to shove a whole handful in her mouth and suck on it to calm herself. And I'm going to just cut it all off. *wail* What will she play with instead?!

But that's another reason. Because she sucks on it. I try to wash my hair with only natural products, but with the amount of oil and skin build up (because I can't wash it every day), it's not getting clean. I'm using regular old shampoo again, and it works, to a certain extent, but now the ends are dry and split and she's ingesting it.

So my scalp is pimpled, the hair is oily at the base and dry and split at the ends, it's constantly tangled - even when I've brushed it, it's falling out at a prodigious rate - leaving me with thinner hair in the front - which is highlighted by my attempts to keep the stuff out of my eyes, and my child is eating it.

And to top it all off... I feel gross and hate my appearance in photos.

I don't want to be that mommy - the mommy who screams "no, don't take a picture of me!" and hides behind the baby, who won't leave the house because she's embarrassed to be seen, and who embarrasses her family by looking like a crazy homeless person.

Seize the scissors! Take it off! Take it all off!!

...before I change my mind...

Taking a moment to collect myself

2011-07-27T14:01:00.001+02:00

Downstairs my child is in her crib screaming her head off.

I should go down and soothe her, but I need a moment.

I finally got so hungry that I had to eat, so I put her in the crib and microwaved the leftover potatoes. I put butter on them, burning my finger in the process. Then I ladelled some of the sour cream over the top. Finally, as her cries reached fever pitch, I opened the cheddar cheese. Gave it the sniff test. It passed. I glanced in, it looked fine. I dumped it over the potatoes and BAM a big nasty moldy wad of cheese poured out and went SMACK into the potatoes.

Baby screaming, Mommy screaming.

I tried to get all the cheese off the potatoes.

But you know, I'd microwaved the fuckers so much that the cheese and it's mold melted all over the place.

I pondered eating it for about 30 seconds. Then dumped it in the bin.

There went lunch.

I'm so hungry. And I just wasted all the fast food I had. And because I get loopy when I'm hungry and because my hormones are still all out of whack (when will they calm the fuck down?) this is just The Most Awful Horrible Bad Thing to Ever Happen In The Whole Wide World.

I'm gonna crawl into the crib with my daughter now and cry.

*** Edit: Having FINALLY eaten, I can say that I suffer more from low-blood sugar than post-partum. In fact, the word "loopy" should be changed to "raging lunatic." Ask the DB. Ask my BFF. Feed me on demand or face the WRATH. ***

I need more than 30 minutes a day

2011-07-26T15:55:00.000+02:00

A while back I told my BFF that all I really wanted was 30 minutes to myself. But I totally waste it sleeping or showering when I get it, so what that means is…

I totally need more than 30 minutes a day. To myself. Minus a baby. And minus a husband.

Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely ADORE my child. And I suppose, the Danish Boy… but…

OMG I want some time ALONE!

Let’s take dinner.

An average dinner is one of us eating while one entertains the baby (we’ve had a rare meal or two where she entertains herself, but alas, dinnertime is also Cranky Baby time) and while I take the baby upstairs to play or something so she doesn’t fuss, the DB stands by my chair while I eat, bouncing an increasingly unhappy baby.

Ever try to eat while your child makes unhappy grunts?

Damn near impossible.

I try to not be That Mom who tells the unfortunate father what to do… but COME ON, walk with the baby, talk to the baby, do something with the baby that IS NOT IN THE DINING ROOM! Let me eat in peace!

Let’s take last night.

Last night I scarf as fast as I can while he sits with the grumpy baby, across from me, so she can stare at me with plaintive eyes. “Mommy, this man will not entertain me! I’m bored! Hold me! I miss you and your funny faces!! Please?” And having Not Finished My Beer, I scooped her up and away. An HOUR later, I head back to the dinning room, cause you know, my Not Finished Beer remains to be finished and I’m thinking, maybe I can bounce the baby while drinking it, I’m multitalented. I rock. I’m THE MOMMY!

He’s read the newspaper.

The newspaper.

Dammit man, I eat in 10 minutes flat so you can take an HOUR for a leisurely meal?

ARGH!

*** To be fair, I could also write a post about how a few nights ago the DB washed all the dishes while I was trying to feed the baby to sleep and how on Saturday mornings he often takes her for long walks so I can sleep a bit longer. I kept repeating this to myself last night so that I didn’t take a frying pan to his head. He's still alive, so I guess it works. ***

I'm Home

2011-07-13T15:03:00.000+02:00

What does that mean, "I'm Home"? Where's home? What makes a home, anyway?

My friends and family would have me call California home, although I haven't lived there for over 10 years. Certainly it was "home" for a long time after I left, especially when I lived in Rhode Island. With all apologies to friends and folks living in New England - but what a great place to visit! But California is no longer my home. It's where I'm from and it's where I wouldn't mind moving back to, but it's not home.

Since I've moved away from home, I've lived in a number of places under a number of conditions. A tent in the desert, the floor of a professor's house, student housing, shared apartment, shared room, small apartment, huge house, California, Rhode Island, Denmark. I'm not the only one who has moved around a lot and lived in many different situations - Danish Boy has lived in a caravan in Holland, a kibbutz in Israel, and more apartments than I could name.

Now that we've bought a house, I can say that I do finally have a place that everyday feels more and more like my *home*. But really, "home" is best described by this song that I discovered on The Girl Who.

Speaking of music - I get all teary-eyed and squeeze the Spawn even more when listening to Pink. It has nothing to do with the above post. I just figured that while I was putting up music, I might as well throw this one in to. :-)

1001 Kisses

2011-07-09T13:12:00.000+02:00

Something happens when you have a baby. Your brain melts or something. Things that used to be important are suddenly completely unimportant and you find that you can spend five hours doing nothing but kissing your child's toes.

Now that she's four months old - things have gotten even better. She's started to "kiss" back.

I put "kiss" in quotation marks because it's somewhere between a kiss and a drool attack.

And it's probably one of the most wonderful things in the world.

She also smiles when she sees me. Not a little grin, but a full eye-squinting-gum-showing-little-bit-of-tongue smile. She laughs when I blow on her belly. She giggles when I nibble on her fingers. She gets surprised when she farts loudly.

I never thought farts were funny until now. But her shocked face is TOO FUNNY.

There is a lot of truth in the "fourth trimester" - the first three months after birth are pretty dull. Eat, sleep, poop. And cry. She was constantly gazing just over my shoulder at something that wasn't there.

At least I hope there wasn't something there.

One time I was looking in her eyes to see my reflection (the only way to see if she was looking right at me or, as usual, just past my ear) and I thought I saw something move behind me. I must have jumped two feet in the air. There was nothing behind me when I looked. But... well... I turned the lights on in the rest of the house and was jumpy for the rest of the evening.

And while I adored my little Spawn, she wasn't really all that exciting. It was hard to keep talking to her when there was absolutely no response. You begin to feel pretty stupid talking to a baby that just keeps looking at you like you are an idiot.

Why won't this woman just SHUT UP! What do you want from me?

But over the course of the last month she's turned from a newborn into a baby. She looks at me. She smiles and talks, laughs and "kisses." She's become, dare I say it, FUN!

How could you not kiss this?? Her hands and feet are slightly blurry in this photo because she was waving them around and telling me about how she's wriggled her way from one end of the crib to the other using nothing but her head and heels.

I mean, obviously the dishes aren't done and the clothes aren't folded and there is cat hair ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE, because I'm busy kissing this amazing baby!

It's Not My Fault!

2011-07-06T15:27:00.000+02:00

He talks with his mouth full!

(Normally, this would be a big "ewwww MANNERS MAN!" moment - but since having a baby, we've had to combine as many things as possible to try to get it all done. If I could figure out how to drink coffee and shower at the same time, I'd do it.)

DB: And the title was something like "sunshine and islands"...
AG: Sunshine and VIOLENCE?
DB: No - ISLANDS.
AG: I heard VIOLENCE.
DB: No, it was definitely ISLANDS.
AG: That's kinda too bad... I really like "and VIOLENCE!"
DB: Anyway...

You know what I love about our relationship? That this conversation doesn't even make him blink. He wanted to tell me about his day and NOTHING was going to get in his way... not even his wife's verbal tangents.

Almost there...

2011-07-05T14:59:00.000+02:00

Last week I passed the theory portion of the driving test that I need to take to get me a Danish driver's license.

Ja, bitches! Hvad skal du være særligt opmærksom på NU?

Translation: Yeah, ladies of questionable politeness, what should you be especially aware of now?

So, next it is driving around, taking direction in Danish, being særligt opmærksom på bicycles, pedestrians, and stray cows... hey, it's the boonies out here... and then I'll take THAT test...

And then...

Then I'll have a Danish driver's license and I'll FINALLY be able to get someone to help me with my NEMotherfuckID so I can FINALLY log into bank accounts and tax accounts. (You can only get phone help for your NemID if you have a Danish passport or a Danish driver's license... otherwise you need to rely on the very friendly, but not particularly well-trained in NemID shenanigans, Municipal Secretaries of Magic. I'm not changing my citizenship, so a-driving I will go.)

Not that I really need to be able to get the damn thing to work, since it turns out that my accountant can log into my tax accounts.

Yeah, *I* can't get my NemID to work, so *I* can't log into my account, but my accountant, who I've NEVER MET can get all the numbers he needs to find out that I didn't pay enough in taxes last year.

This is not particularly what I wanted him to find. I wanted him to find butt-loads of money owed ME. This is normally the way of things. But that dear Danish Boy of mine went and earned Too Much Money. I don't particularly feel like we're living in a higher tax bracket.

So while I may finally achieve my goal of getting a Danish driver's license - and doing the WHOLE THING IN DANISH to boot - it's not like I'm going to be getting a CAR to DRIVE at the end of it.

Thus the ongoing argument around the house - Audi, Volvo, Benz, or an Opel named Oliver... is moot.

However, I've discovered my Drag Queen name: Farlig Vejsving

Pronounced "far-lee vwhy-swing" or as we say it in America - Dangerous Curves... baby.

Actually I love saying ubeting vigepligt "oo-bee-ting vee-a-plickt" which means "unconditional right of way" or "Yield Motherfucker!" This nudges out "methamphetamines" as my new favorite thing to say, which is probably a good thing for my small child. Because the health nurse would probably be rather alarmed to hear my child pipe up with "methamphetamines mommy!" during one of our visits.

Not that my child is saying much other than "pbthaaaaaaarghl" at the moment. But really, it's a small step from there to "methamphetamines."

The word. Not the drugs. I'm pretty sure my child is many steps away from drugs.

I'm a shoe-in for Mother of The Year, I tell ya.

All About Alot

2011-06-29T14:04:00.000+02:00

You may be wondering, "how did Alot deal with the move?" or "how is Alot dealing with the baby?"

'Cause, poor Alot, you know - he thought he was moving to this big house with a doting couple and then SHAZAM he's suddenly scooped up and deposited in the middle of wheat fields in a house half the size of the one he'd so carefully chosen and there is this new screaming entity that takes up the space on Mommy that was HIS!

I call this one "Whistler's Mother and Her Cat"

Sometimes he'd even stand on my belly. However, it was too difficult to get photos while he'd do that, so you'll just have to imagine a large cat on my prodigious belly.

But now there's no belly, but there is a baby. An increasingly large and demanding baby. How would Alot deal with such a thing!?!

Boy am I glad I wore a sweater or I might have gotten chilly... oh wait...

I'd say he loves it here. He bounds about, bouncing off of our fruit trees, climbing up the side of the house and coming in the upstairs windows - even if the back door is wide open. I guess it's more fun?

He also is pretty fond of the Spawn. If she's crying, he comes running to me. This happens whether she's in her crib or in my arms. Alot hears her yell and runs to me and begins meowing. You could say that he's just begging me to shut her up. I prefer to think he's a watch cat for the baby.

Then when I'm holding her or nursing her, he cuddles up next to me and purrs. He puts up with her kicking him in the head. He loves to watch us change her. Preferably from the changing table itself, which means it can get a bit crowded up there.

The only time he's a little creeped-out by the baby is when she's on the floor, which is becoming more and more frequent. He looks at her and looks at me and it's very much like he's saying "Mom, you dropped it! You wanna pick it up or somethin'?" and then he retreats to a higher vantage point.

I'm fairly sure he'll get over it by the time she actually begins crawling.

I took this right after he dove into the wheat field across the road from my home.

I swear there was a tail visible. I just can't find it now.

Mothergroupin'

2011-06-22T15:02:00.000+02:00

I've got nothing against my Mothergroup - they are all lovely ladies and I'm going to keep on going and one of these days I'll actually host. Probably even before the moving boxes are unpacked, because, let's be honest here - some of these boxes will get unpacked about the time Spawn goes off to college and I'll be all, "shit, you need a cardboard box... let me empty this one sitting in the kitchen and give it to you... oh, that's where that went!"

Random placement of furniture is also a problem.

I do like the Mothergroup because I leave the house for something other than trying to calm a screaming child and I hear realDanish, which keeps me a-practicin', and I get to compare my child to other children the same age.

Wait, whut? You compare your child to other children? Bad mommy, no biscuit!

Sometimes comparison is a good thing. Lest we start thinking my child is the most gifted child on the planet ("Oh my god, she's found her toes! GENIUS! Call Nobel!!") or lagging ("When do babies crawl? Should my child be crawling already? Oh GOD, my child isn't CRAWLING! I've FAILED as a parent!") or mutant ("She fit in this outfit yesterday, I swear. How is it I can't get it over her head today??). I'm proud to say my child is completely normal and average. One hundred percent the most amazing creature on the planet, fer shizzle, and the cutest baby evah, but not weirdly "specialists need to be involved" different.

But let me be honest (okay, when am I not? We get some brutal honesty going on on this here blog.), there were times and still ARE times where I want to throw my coffee mug on the floor and announce that I am *not* going to be part of a Mothergroup and that's IT! The reason why is completely irrational, but let me clue you in to what I've been hearing for the past three months:

So, do you have a Mother's Group? Do they have a Mother's Group on your island? Have you joined a Mother's Group? My wife was ever so glad for her Mother's Group. Have you joined a Mother's Group?? So, are you going to your Mother's Group? I'm so glad to hear you have a Mother's Group. Have you joined a Mother's Group??? How's your Mother's Group? How nice it is that you are going to a Mother's Group! HAVE YOU JOINED A MOTHER'S GROUP?!?!

Maybe it's the rebel in me, but all this yay-mothergrouping was really turning me off to the concept. I mean, it's all a little groupthink 1984ish feeling. Joiny joiny. Meld and assimilate. It's not a Mother's Group - it's a Mothergroup.

I can't decide if this poster is for groupthink or against it.

And that results in me going, "I'll never join you!" and turning down what could be a valuable support system... not to mention meeting the mothers of my child's future classmates and friends.

If only you would choose to join the Mothersgroup -

with our combines strength we could rule this galaxy as 'Mothers with Spawns'...

But I swallowed my initial gut doubt and figured I'd give it a try. Maybe it wouldn't be so creepy as everyone was making it out to be (not that they were trying... but still... it was all so groupy). And it turned out to be...

Five women and their babies who get together for coffee and chitchat.

Strangely enough, this photo seems a bit sinister to me.

And this is just LOL.

I suppose someday we may get ambitious and go and do something bigger than hanging out in each other's kitchens... but for now it's enough for me to get us dressed, out the door, and on the bus to a different part of the island. So far the other mothers are non-judgmental and open - some are breastfeeders and some use formula, some are good at dressing their child in cute matching kit and some are just happy they got their child dressed, some are showered and tidy and some are barely awake - and no one makes an issue out of it. It's nice to see mothers getting along and supporting each other.

As long as it doesn't go all Stepford Wives-ish... cause then I'm outta there.

Not a single one of these women has mom-hair... I just can't compete.

The Boob Strikes Back

2011-06-12T12:15:00.000+02:00

So how's that breastfeeding going then?

Hey, I haven't talked about my boobs in, like, forever, man. Obviously it's time for an update.

Seriously, though, HOW DID WE FREAKING SURVIVE AS A SPECIES???

Have you ever heard of a "nursing strike"? It's where your child up and decides, You know what, ma? You can keep your stinkin' boobs to yourself, I ain't eatin' no how!

And then screams and screams and screams every time you offer the breast, sucks on every other object in a 5 mile radius, crying and begging for food - but will not suck on the one thing that will solve the dilemma. Meanwhile, engorgement happens and you end up with two huge, painful, hot (as in the temperature, although I imagine it looks pretty awesome to the loutish members of the opposite sex, damn their un-mammory-glandness), and worst of all, LEAKING, rocks on your chest.

Here's something I didn't know - milk will actually shoot out in random directions. You look into your nursing bra to check if you need to change the pad again and get shot in the face. Hello friendly fire!

Look, boob, I'm trying to keep you from getting a plugged milk duct or mastitis - which until now was something I'd only read about in All Creatures Great and Small, thanks a lot James Herriot for that, by the way - and there is no need to shoot me in the EYE!

This is how you prevent mastitis in a cow. Now you know.

I think the worst thing about a nursing strike is how unhappy bunny she is about it. Tears of rage and all that screaming and stiff body... what I call the "crucified baby" pose... it's just awful.

I went to the web to see if there was any advice - thank god for the web, by the way, it let me know that it wasn't me or my child, sometimes babies just get into a fuss like this and it's no one's fault and it's not going to kill anyone (it just feels that way) - and the advice was "try again when she's calm."

Wait... CALM?!? This child will never be calm again! This child is going to starve to death before she's calm! Number one way to calm a baby is to feed her and I can't even bloody do that! What do I DO? *panic panic panic* (Normally I'm all Cool Hand Luke about motherhood, but a nursing strike breaks my heart.)

What we have here is a failure to communicate.*

Advice: try to calm your baby by giving her a relaxing bath.

Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha *sob* ha ha ha. The only thing my child hates more on this planet than... wait, there is NOTHING on god's green earth she hates more than a bath.

Advice: try to calm your baby by going for a drive.

Oh, wait, yes, there is the strapping her into the car seat. She might hate that more than a bath.

Result:

Archaeogoddess's Advice for the Terminally Fussy Baby: Sometimes a baby is just going to "fuss" (read: scream bloody murder). But sooner or later she'll pass out from exhaustion.

I *hate* the "cry it out" technique. But it's all I can do. I hold her close and soothe her best I can and as soon as she begins to drop off to sleep, I get her in position and do a sneak boob attack. A flanking maneuver, if you will.

It works. She eats. She eats like she's never had a problem at all. In fact, she'll look up at me and give me this look like "jesus, it took you long enough!" as if I hadn't been trying to feed her every 15 minutes for the last TWO HOURS.

*Y'all have NO IDEA how long it took to get that baby into that photo without access to photoshop... just sayin'.

The most unexpected change

2011-06-10T14:02:00.000+02:00

I expected my body to be different after having a baby. I mean, I've studied enough human anatomy (usually of the long-dead kind) to know that having a baby leaves traces in YOUR VERY BONES! [insert dramatic organ music here]

("organ music" *snort* I'm punny!)

But I didn't expect my taste buds to change.

That's just messed up.

We have a great organic micro-brewery on the island. And I've been looking forward to having me a big ol' glass of Rise (pronounced Reez-ah) beer (pronounced beer) since last summer.

Only now it tastes like soap. SOAP!!

It's not the glass. After my aborted beer attempt at home, I tried some of my husband's beer at Kongesgade 34, the restaurant we frequented on Wednesday nights (until this week it had a two-for-one hamburger special on Wednesday nights so we could afford it - but give it a go if you're on the island, local organic food served there, good stuff) and the soap taste was still there.

WTF???

Even regular beer now has a slightly soapy taste. But the cheaper the beer, the less the soapy taste. I'm now doomed to cheap crap beer!! The Danish Boy is so disappointed in me. But it means he gets all the Rise beer to himself and can just buy me a case of whatever is cheapest. Damn him.

But one doesn't lose the joy of beer without getting something in return. Had you asked me a year ago how I felt about pineapple I would have said, "ugh, only in a piña colada and only if you are heavy handed with the rum... and the coconut milk... and did I mention rum?"

But guess what?

I've been eating pineapple.

I *know*! WTH! And my favorite ice creams are all nut based, like walnut or pistachio and my favorite ice cream bar is a juice bar with cream interior - chocolate doesn't even really land in the top 10! I had Chips Ahoy cookies the other day... and I liked them. Normally I would turn up my nose because of the serious lack of chocolate or even chocolate flavor, but now the lack of chocolate is in it's favor.

It's like the world is ending or something! Has hell frozen over??

I'm terrified to discover what I dislike or like next. What if I lose my deep abiding love of avocados?? Or start liking shrimp??

What if I discover I like... BANANAS???

To be fair, it wasn't like I was actually paying attention...

2011-06-08T23:15:00.000+02:00

A few days ago...

DB: We need more of that tea.

AG: What tea?

DB: The one with the tiger on it.

AG: With the what?

DB: Tiger.

AG: You mean "Bengal Spice" - the box with a tiger on it.

DB: Yeah, that. And that's what I said, "tiger."

AG: Oh, I heard "Thai girl."

DB: No, I definitely did NOT say "Thai girl." I said "tiger."

AG: Yeah, well...

Now, I was slightly distracted during the conversation, but he does have an accent and swallows his R's. Tiger and Thai girl sound completely different when *I* say them... but him... not so much.

There's probably a Thai girl behind that tiger

or possibly *in* the tiger, who looks a bit shifty to me.

(I have not received any money from Celestial Seasonings for this... but they are totally free to send me buttloads of their Chai Tea which I heart more than Bengal Spice. *hint hint* *wink wink*)

You don't have to be an asshole just because the other guy is a butthead

2011-05-21T16:04:00.000+02:00

So I don't get to write all that much these days. Half the time I'm typing one-handed anyway. But I do get to read... often while standing and swaying, holding a Very Angry Baby.

And what I'm getting out of what I've been reading is pretty much "A does B to C" and if you think B might be a bad idea, you can read about how it's all okay because C is our enemy, or at least not A, who is either us or a friend, or a guy/country/religion in a cute bunny suit. In fact, comments sections are full of people saying it's all okay to do B to C, because C does B to X,Y, and Z all the freaking time.

Now my mom once asked me if all my friends jumped off a bridge, would I jump too?

You could point out that C is not our friend, so this gem of a saying has no point, except...

If we wouldn't to do something we know to be wrong, even though all of our friends are doing it, why on Earth would we do something we know to be wrong because it's what our enemies do?

It's a really small island

2011-05-16T15:40:00.000+02:00

So a week before we moved to our new home in a small village, away from the small town that we lived in, we got a letter.

It was addressed to our new address. The one we hadn't moved to yet.

But it was delivered to our old address... where we were currently living. Without any corrections being added to the envelope.

Not only did the letter sender already know where we were moving to, but the postman also knew we hadn't moved yet and so delivered it to where we actually lived.

It's a small island.

More on driving Danishly

2011-05-06T15:42:00.000+02:00

In Denmark I have my very own parking place.

Kidding.

"Gods" is Danish for "goods" as in merchandise and other things that are transported in trucks. And it's pronounced "Gus." Stupid silent D.

So anyway, on-line practice theory test - shows me a picture of a guy loading something on the top of his car and the question is about how far off the car can something stick before you need to tie a flag to it.

What I hear:

How far can Gus hang off the back of your car without a flag?

Insert moment of confusion.

Then: ding ding ding! I remember that picture. GODS! The test man is saying GODS! Thank God!

Only now I'm hysterically laughing. Spawn, who was nursing, is being bounced all over the place (she's a trooper, she never let go of my boob. OW.) and I'm missing what the test man is saying.

Doesn't matter, I've got to be særlig opmærksom (especially aware) of Gus hanging off of cars. LOL!!

So I didn't pass...

2011-05-04T17:31:00.000+02:00

Oh well.

I missed 9 out of 25 when you are only allowed to miss 5. But I think I know which ones I got wrong. A few I didn't understand at all. No, really, the vocabulary was something I'd never heard before. I had no idea what the man was saying. So obviously I wasn't likely to get those. But I'm slightly frustrated because some of the questions were unduly complicated, unlike the practice tests where the situations depicted were much more straight forward. I've got to get back the mindset of the Danish equivalent of the US Department of Motor Vehicles where you don't think like a driver, but like an anally-retentive OCD-suffering five year old.

"I would have put on underwear under my pants, but you didn't tell me to put them on TODAY. Then you didn't tell me not to pee BEFORE I put on my pants. Therefore, it is not my fault that I peed in the car on the way to school and then mooned the principle. Really, mother, it is ALL YOUR FAULT."

It's nice to know that driver's tests are universally more complicated then they need to be and do not mean that the people who pass are good drivers, just good at thinking like that nutty 5-year old.

There was an interesting mix of people taking the exam. Most of us were fairly young. ("Most of us?" Jesus woman, you are 32, not old, but a good deal older than the five 18 year olds that were there.) There was an older guy there. And by "older" I mean in his 50s. I don't know if he'd lost his license or had just decided you were never to old to learn to drive, but it was nice to not be the oldest person there. I also didn't do the worst. That was left to a woman who missed 20. Twenty!

There were several of us who spoke Danish as a second language, but I think I was the only one who had only recently learned Danish.

I'll find out tonight what I need to do now - how much will it cost to take the test again and when I can take it again and what I should do to study more. I can pay to take all the tests on the website, but not a single picture or question there appeared in my test, which seemed to date from the 70's. They were slides for crying out loud! I really wish I could have seen the one's I missed and gotten the correct answers. It would have made it far more easy to study. As it is, I have to guess.

And until I pass, I'm forbidden from driving AT ALL in Denmark. They took my American license away.

The joke's on them, though. It expires relatively soon, so I'll be getting another one. Bwahahahah!

Positive results either way

2011-05-01T13:34:00.000+02:00

I'm taking the theory part of my Danish drivers license tomorrow.

In Danish.

Whether or not I pass, I still win.

Pass: oh hells, yes, I rock!

Fail: well, it's not like I actually speak Danish, so how can they expect me to pass the first time around! I win for every question I get right!

Meanwhile, we pick up the keys to our house today! I have a house!! I've only been able to pack up my books and other office stuff because:
A) I gotta baby, ya'll. She demands food and fresh diapers and when we're going "hands free" (i.e. in the baby carrier) she really hates it when I bend over (baby suddenly goes upside down and tries to slide out of the carrier... really not a pleasant moment for any of us) or squat (little legs get smooshed). I gotta pack when she naps.
B) I done run out of boxes. You can look at this two ways - I need less books or I need more boxes.

Trick question. Obviously I need more boxes.

I also need more bookshelves. I found more books behind other books when I emptied the bookshelf. Some I had put there to save space and some I had knocked down accidently when stuffing more books into, what turns out to be, too little space.

I've recently been promised more books if I get my ass out to the Copenhagen area.

Seriously, you can never have too many books. Only not enough room for said books.

It's May 1st or "May Day" - which in certain parts of the world is International Workers Day. There's a tent in the park across the street and a beer stand and red flags. I can see drunk communists from my backyard! And they wonder why I won't put my child out in the baby carriage unattended. Don't they know my child could catch communism???

Also hard to believe: some people will not recognize the sarcasm in the above paragraph.

As Americans are losing the right to collective bargaining - in Wisconsin they've already lost the right - perhaps we should take a moment to reflect on workers rights and raise a beer in their honor.

Or erect a large phallic symbol and get young girls to dance around it.

My new house has a flag pole - all I need are some brightly colored ribbons and a man with a goat. ('Cause all pagan rituals involve a man with a goat, dontcha know.)

I would have arranged for this to happen, but I'm busy studying for my theory test.

I'm no Anne Geddess

2011-04-19T14:49:00.000+02:00

"Send me pictures" a number of people cried.

And then *I* cried.

'Cause seriously, it was hard enough to get a picture of my pregnant belly (the DB *did* finally take some photos, which are of course now lost somewhere on his computer leaving me with only my lame attempts) and now I'm supposed to photograph this tiny wriggling baby? One handed, or course, because she will just Not Stay Still. Honestly, I ask her to smile and hold that pose and she sticks her hand in her mouth or bursts into tears or makes a monkey face. WORK WITH ME CHILD!!

This is not my child, but they share the same hairdresser.

And then suddenly she'll smile.

But the minute I hold the shiny silver box up to my face, she loses the cute "oh, I'm going to lay here and smile and coo at you" face. It's remarkable. I have an adorable child, but you'd never know it from the photographs. And when I finally get a good shot and I crow with joy, I then discover that the flash didn't go or the auto focus chose the floor or my foot to focus on. Turns out I am a lousy photographer.

The Last Belly Shot - taken a few days before popping

I gotta work on my aim...

It's out of focus, but seriously, it's the best picture I have taken so far!!

I can take great pictures of inanimate objects. I'm even pretty good at cats. Sleeping cats, at least.

But I am lousy, awful, terrible, and just plain bad at photographing people.

"That's my girl!"

2011-04-12T14:48:00.000+02:00

We are intensely proud of our little girl. Of course, at this point, there is very little that we can be proud of, because it's not like she does a whole lot. She eats, sleeps, poops, and stares up at us with this "I cannot believe that of all the parents in the world, I got stuck with these two bozos" look, right before she launches into what we call "Very Angry Baby."

"Very Angry Baby" is a performance art piece involving red face, arched back, and an enviable lung capacity.

But while other people are impressed with the Spawn's full head of hair (it's straight like mine, but dark blond, like the DB's) and strong neck muscles (all the better to head-bang into the soft and bouncy boobies, my dear), we are a impressed by something slightly different.

I'm proud to say, my girl can burp like her mother.

It's an impressive, full-bellied belch that rips forth from her tiny body like an angry volcano demanding a virgin sacrifice.

BUUUUURP-ARUUGHA!

"That's my girl!" I proudly proclaim, much to the DB's disgust (he's grossed out by burps and has spent the last 8 years unsuccessfully trying to get me to tone it down). "Better up than down," I tell him. But it seems he disagrees. Surprisingly, because I never knew he felt this way, the DB is far more proud of her farts. The more explosive, reverberating, and involving poop, the better.

Last week, while I was attempting to bathe a Very Angry Baby, she managed to shoot poop out of her little bottom a full 30 centimeters across the bathroom floor to nail my leg, and the DB was ecstatic. "That's my girl!" he crowed.

And when I was changing her just the other day and she managed to get me IN THE FACE, his glee and pride could not have been bigger.

So imagine my satisfaction this weekend when, after her bath, she got the DB well and good, with a force and quantity so strong that it not only covered his pants, it soaked though to his underwear. He stripped and finished dressing the Spawn before bringing her to me for the ~~reloading~~ ~~refilling~~ feeding.

AG: Oh my!
DB: *hands the babe over* ???
AG: Did you forget something when you got dressed today?
DB: *looks down* ???
AG: Didn't you have pants on earlier today? And you know, underwear?
DB: *sighs* She got me.
AG: *laughs so hard it's difficult to keep the boob in the baby*

A day later she tried to get him again. He's learned a trick, though. It's grab the baby's arms and get her to sit up, so the ~~firing mechanism~~ butt is pointed down. So the next day, she tried to surprise him by letting rip not once, but multiple times during the change. The DB went through a stack of clothes and cloth diapers (which we use to cover the changing pad for this very reason). But he remained poop free. Much to the Spawn's dismay.

The DB remains proud, however, of his daughter's achievements.

I only hope he stays this proud when we get to potty-training.

Boob Wars

2011-04-07T15:24:00.000+02:00

This post is NOT about the ongoing ~~battle~~ debate over breastfeeding in public. Nor is it about pornography or topless bathing or whether or not nipples are the line between tasteful and ZOMG BOOBS!

This is about a war I have with the Spawn. Over my breasts.

***NOTE: This post may cause some to clutch their chest or squirm in pain/embarrassment/discomfort. It involves nipples, blood, and an imaginary gospel choir. You have been warned.***

*I* happen to view my glorious mammaries (oh, yes, the engorgement has served me well) as miracles of modern milk production (does anyone else feel like bursting into a Gilbert and Sullivan sing-a-long? Oh, that’s just me? Right, carry on then…).

The Spawn sees them as her bestest playthings eveh! What great drums, they are! Hear the change in tone as she slaps them when they are full and when they are empty! Need to wear down those baby nails? Here, just scratch at my breasts, sooner or later that pesky nail will catch on my skin - better that than the soft baby cheeks! And don’t get me started on the fun you can have with NIPPLES!!

To paraphrase my husband: Babies are really sneaky.

The Spawn lulled us into a false sense of security. Those first 24 hours were so EASY! She nursed straight away! She nursed quietly and calmly, with great dignity. She slept easily and gave all the right cues so that we knew when to change her diaper and when to cuddle her close.

Lies. All lies.

Soon we learned that I’d birthed a piranha. No, worse, I’d birthed a vampire.

My child bites.

And worse than that, she has a little vacuum of a mouth that can Hoover mammary tissue out though the teat.

I began to bleed when I nursed. Not just a little bit, but full on dark red blood. Once, in a desperate act to keep my child from drinking my blood, I rushed to grab some paper tissues from the bedside table. During that 5-second dash, I bled down my chest, into my pants, dripped a trail across the floor (from the directionality of the drops, we conclude the victim was alive and hobbling at the time of the blood loss) and soaked the paper I grabbed. My child looked up at me with blood all over her face and down the front of her onsie and squawked,

“Feed me Seymour!”

Or something.

Now before leaving the hospital, everyone and their supervisor had a look at my feeding techniques. This is because Evolution Failed. Apparently. See, the story goes, we aren’t born knowing how to nurse and it must be taught. How we survived as a species for 4 million years before the arrival of the Lactation Consultant, I’ll never know, but there it is folks - Babies R Stoopid.

I’m getting the place where I may pop the next person in the kisser who says the word “latch” to me.

“You just need to have the right latch.”

“Wait until the baby opens her mouth wide, then bring her to the breast, and you will have the perfect latch!”

“You will notice with the perfect latch, there will be no pain.”

BULLSHIT!

First of all, most of those women, looking at my darling succubus, cooed “oh, she has a great latch!” and then when I said, “Oh, but it hurts” they replied, “yes, it does hurt, but that will pass. You just need to toughen up. And make sure you have a good latch. It won’t hurt if you have a good latch.”

M’kay.

So a week later the midwife comes by and checks me out. We do the nursing before the judge and the midwife proclaims, “what a nice latch!” And I bring up the pain. And the bleeding. The copious copious bleeding. My husband points out the biting. The midwife watches the nursing a bit more. I think she sees the way I bite my lip and hum loudly that this is not the uterus-shrinking pain that I was supposed to feel (did I? Who knows, my nipples were being sawed off by Gummy McSpawnsen!) nor the let-down tingly pain (which brings me to point 2 - God is NOT a Woman because WHO ON EARTH THINKS BREAST PAIN IS A GOOD DESIGN COMPONENT?). She suggested a nipple shield and then went and fetched one for me.

If I may bring in my imaginary gospel choir for a moment…

PRAISE JESUS WE HAVE BEEN DELIVERED FROM THE DARKNESS AND THE END TIMES!

Hey, did *YOU* know that breastfeeding wasn’t supposed to cause that much pain and suffering after the first week? I cried for HOURS afterwards. Tears of joy. Of sweet, sweet relief! Feeding my child would no longer be a trial and I would no longer dread that small gaping mouth.*

*Except at 3 in the morning when momma has to pee REAL BAD. That shit still sucks balls.

So now we had the pain wrapped up. There was just that pesky bleeding.

Did you know that if you feed your child bloody milk, they don’t poop the right color of poop? True story. And not pooping the right color is A Big Worry to midwife-y sorts.

Now we’re at a week and a half old and I’m sitting in front of another midwife (because I’ve got a new goal of showing my nipples to every health care practitioner in Denmark) for the baby’s hearing test and yet we are again discussing latch and nipples. It was a fair enough question; I had just bled all over her office. “But,” I proudly pointed out, “it doesn’t hurt any more.”

She looked slightly ill. What? Do not all women bleed profusely from the nipples at this stage? THEY DON’T?? Please lord, don’t tell me it’s the latch…

She sends me to another nurse who also looks at my mangled nipples in horror. “Didn’t they give you something to put on your nipples?” she asked. “They told me to use breast milk and air dry,” I say, thinking about the $10 salve I’d bought in the chemists that was languishing on my shelf (I hadn’t had time to google the ingredients so I didn’t know if it would be harmful if ingested or not). The nurse hurried off and brought back a little jar of what we think is lanolin.

LORD WE THANK YOU FOR SAVING US NO GOOD SINNERS! HALLELUJAH!

Oops, please pardon the imaginary gospel choir; they get a bit over excited.

OVER EXCITED FOR JESUS!

Zip it!

Ahem, anyway, that lanolin was AMAZING! I healed right up. And this was very good because I’d been trying to wear woolen nursing pads and the damn things kept sticking to my wounds. The nurse suggested I flip the pads over and use the silk side instead.

Bloody nursing pads need to come with a damn instruction manual. “In case of copious bleeding, try using the flip side, the silky side, instead. Oh, and get yourself some lanolin, girl, cause DAMN!”

And within another week, I was healed.

HEALED!

I’m now working on weaning the Spawn (and my nipples) off the nipple shield. So far there has been pain, but no blood.

Of course this would be easier if she hadn’t decided that the correct latch was for sissies. What are you supposed to do with a child who decides that nursing is best accomplished by opening the mouth wide and going “haaaaaaaaaaa” while waving her head back and forth over the nipple WITHOUT SUCKING?? “I’m sorry,” I holler over her screams of hunger, “but that’s not how the milk will get in your belly!” And then, just as I ‘bring the baby to the breast’ she shoves BOTH HANDS into her mouth. Forget the part about babies not being born knowing how to nurse, this child is actively participating in Darwinism, only she’s trying to win the Darwin Awards.

But when she’s got both hands in the mouth and is beet red from screaming and has this look of complete and utter ANGER on her face - “why won’t these DAMN HANDS give me MILK!?” I find myself laughing. Sometimes ‘Angry Baby’ is just FUNNY.

This is not the Spawn. This baby is not nearly angry enough.

A Birth Story

2011-04-01T15:50:00.000+02:00

How did it get to be April Fool's Day? Thankfully, I'm so out of it I haven't noticed it and so far have missed all the great pranks that people keep talking about.

Since I have a few minutes while my child sleeps on my belly (slowly deflating, but still quite "bowl full of jello-licious" - that whole "you won't be able to get back into your pre-pregnancy clothes right away" is BULLSHIT, they should write "you'll be wearing your maternity clothes for WEEKS afterwards, lard butt, so don't even pretend you'll be wearing even 'comfy' clothes on the way home from the hospital, you'll be wearing whatever you wore IN"), I'm going to write up the birth story. Apologies in advance for any dangling modifiers or odd word usage and/or order - I have a baby on my lap so I can't see the keyboard and my boobs are slowly becoming engorged... and that shit hurts, okay?

Friday, March 11th, 9:15 pm. Week 38 + 6 days. My water broke, right after we sat down for dinner. That was a bit of a surprise. I expected contractions FIRST. But there were no contractions, other than the Braxton-Hicks that are completely normal, but not very helpful. The midwife suggested that we try to get some sleep and talk again in the morning. It was a pretty long night. I kept waking up with more water gushing out and one or two big contractions that made me think that things were underway… but morning came and the Spawn was still snug in my belly.

We’ve called everyone on my side of the family - or at least tried, since my poor mother kept not being near a phone when something happened. We called the DBs mom, who decided to come down and help out.

Looking back on this, the DB and I decided that next time, we are SO not calling anyone until things are much further along. This is because...

Saturday, March 12th, week 39 - nothing happened. We went to the midwife who suggested we go to the big hospital in Svendborg. My dreams of a natural birth were slipping away. I had to start active labor before the last ferry boat left or I was going to go to the hospital to get induced.

So we waited all Saturday for contractions and they started at 7:30 or so in the evening and we figured she was on her way so we didn’t go to Svendborg, instead we went to the local hospital. Ooooh, those were some good contractions. They gave me some morphine to take the edge off the pain and it was so good I fell asleep and the contractions stopped. Boy was the DB not impressed.

***Note: at this point in telling the story, many listeners have gotten very upset about the morphine. While morphine has been known to slow down labor, it is still listed as a drug that can be used in labor, provided that the midwife or doctor doesn't think that birth will occur in the next 3 or 4 hours. Maybe the midwife gave me to strong of a dose or maybe the labor was not nearly as active as we thought. Maybe the morphine had something to do with aborting the labor or maybe it had nothing to do with it. Either way, morphine is still AWESOME and I highly recommend it... for pain. But maybe not labor. But for pain, oh heck yes!***

So the next morning, March 13^th, week 39 + 1 day, we caught the ferry to Svendborg. We got a ride in the ambulance, which was quite comfortable. Once we arrived, things progressed pretty quickly. Because the water had broken so long ago, I needed to have penicillin, so I was hooked up to a bag right away. About half an hour later they asked if I had any allergies to medication... like, you know, penicillin. We all had a good laugh about that one.

***Note: if you have an allergy to any medication, mention it up front when you go to a Danish doctor or hospital or maybe just have it tattooed on your arm, because in a slightly stressful situation, like where you go in to have a baby 48 hours after your water is broken on the same weekend that half of Denmark decides to have babies and every midwife is called in and there aren't enough assistants SHIT GETS CRAZY.***

Then they also needed to monitor the baby, so I had a big fat belly-band for her heart rate and one for the contractions. Which weren’t happening. I had visions of an upcoming C-section. I really really wanted to get this baby out (SORRY MEN) vaginally. But before they hooked me up to the “drip” - the drug that would induce contractions, the midwife asked if I’d like an enema.

Now I'd read about the chances of me pooping during labor and it put me off. Alas, I was already pregnant and you can't "tag back" pregnancy, so I was totally down for an enema anyway AND THEN I read a blog post just a few days before where women who had just given birth were discussing how awful that first poop was after labor and I thought, "if I can put that off as long as possible, I'll gladly shoot salt-water up my butt!" Why, yes, kind midwife lady, I *will* take that enema! Make mine a double!

That kick-started contractions.

Seriously. I had a heck of a time getting off the toilet. Mercy.

Over the next two hours I went from 1 to 3 centimeters dilated and it hurt so bad that I could only cry BETWEEN contractions. I was trying to roll with the pain, but my god, that was just awful. I moaned like Tarzan and sobbed like a baby. I could barely breathe, so when the midwife looked at me, face full of concern, and asked if I wanted something stronger than the laughing gas (which was SO NOT WORKING) I said, YES!!

So I opted for the epidural. I hadn’t wanted to do an epidural, I’d wanted to be all natural and glorious, but MY GOD THE PAIN! They kept me on a low dose, so I could still get on my feet (this is because the baby was “sunny side up” instead of “over easy” and they wanted me on my hands and knees to encourage her to flip - but she didn’t, my stubborn girl) but it took the edge off. I was able to stand on my own, I could feel my legs and my belly wasn't numb, so it wasn't that crazy. Also, despite all the wires and tubes now running down into me, I was surprisingly mobile. Even if it required two people to help me roll over by holding all the wires and tubes out of my way.

They also put me on the “drip” because this child needed to be OUT, I was still gushing water, so there was a desire to move things along before it got REALLY COMPLICATED. Two hours later and I was at 7 centimeters and just a little while after that I got to 10 and entered Transition.

The midwife really wanted the Spawn to roll over, but she wasn't listening and the second time I was on my hands and knees I was screaming into the pillow with every fiber of my being and that was IT. I rolled back over and between gasps told the midwife I was NOT going to do THAT AGAIN. They could go on and cut the baby out of me, but I was NOT going to get in that position again.

Around about this time I have a hard time remembering what happened next. I’m afraid the reason why was the pain. It was terrifically awful. The DB was a champ, he pitched in and helped in a way that I don’t think either of us really intended. I had wanted him to hold my hand and say encouraging things while labor continued. I really did not want him down there at the business end of things. Something like that could be a bit traumatic and *I* didn't want to watch it happening, so why force him to watch it?

Oh well, I'm sure he's blocked it from his mind. At least the really gruesome bits.

Anyway, as the pain progressed, DB held my right leg (you may hear me complain about this leg later in life, I think he wrenched it… it’s certainly not been the same since) and ran about getting me drinks of apple juice and water, and drying me off with a towel. I think he grew two extra sets of arms to do all of this at once. But it means he had a front row seat in the birth of our child.

During the final stages, the midwife, the assistant midwife, and a doctor were all in the room with us. As the DB pointed out later, it was a bit worrisome that a doctor was there. The doc said "well, I don't really have anything better to do" but now that we know how many other women were giving birth that day, it suggests that there was some worry that I'd have to be rushed off for surgery.

So there we were. The assistant held my left leg, DB held my right, the midwife encouraged me, and the doctor was on stand-by. And I pushed and pushed and screamed and screamed and then pushed some more.

I’m proud to say that I pushed her head out all on my own. Then the doctor had to reach in and pull her the rest of the way out. I think her shoulders had gotten stuck. And although they say there is no such thing as a dry birth, because even if the water breaks in advance, the mother’s body continues to create amniotic fluid, I cry BULLSHIT! It felt like she was covered in sandpaper. The DB said the Spawn was pretty dry upon removal. I barely remember a thing. I think I glanced down once when they said the head was out, because I didn't believe it and I was determined to finish pushing out this child. I saw her just after she was pulled out, before they hurried her over to the warming table to check her out. The DB followed her, just as I'd asked him to do, but probably because he was so worried, and not because of any request of mine. Despite being warned that babies are blue and often limp directly after birth, he did have a bit of a panic. But then she grabbed on to his finger and let out a terrific yell. And the DB cried. I was mostly relieved. I’d finally gotten her out, she was fine and the pain was finally OVER!

She nursed almost immediately. And pooped. I had to get stitches because I did have some considerable tearing of my perineum. I even tore my sphincter muscle slightly. And why yes, that first poop after labor SUCKS, even with (SORRY EVERYONE) stool softeners.

If we do this again, I'm opting for NOT having my water break two days in advance and for a doctor with smaller hands. Sweet Jesus.

But as I look down at her, not quite three weeks old, sleeping on my chest, it was worth it. She is just perfect.

And now for the news you've all been waiting for...

2011-03-27T16:45:00.000+02:00

On the 13th of March, weighing 3270 grams (7 lbs, 3.35 oz) and at 51 centimeters (20 inches) long...

The Archaeospawn Arrived!

Momma and baby are fine - and we're starting to get into the swing of things. Most of the family visits have finished, so I'll either have more time to post because I'm not cooking large meals and presenting my child to all and sundry or less time because My God, she never stops eating! On the plus side, it means she may grow into her newborn clothes. I birthed me a tiny child. Believe me, though, she didn't FEEL tiny on the way out. However, that's another story.

Alas, I didn't go into labor yesterday...

2011-03-11T11:33:00.000+01:00

So I had to take my Danish test.

This test was not the Last Danish Test, as in the one that I will have to take before I am free (FREE!) to be as lousy at Danish as I want to be. This was the test that comes right before That One. This one is the test that I took only 5 weeks after passing the previous Danish test, which was passed in a very Hail Mary Pass kind of way.

Which means I am fairly confident that I bombed it.

The tests are usually broken up into timed sections on writing, listening, reading comprehension and speaking. One of my listening sections was about a dentist. I needed to listen to what was said and answer some of the questions. One of the questions was something about what was great about his school. I think. (Oh yeah, you always know you're going to do well on a test when you realize you don't actually understand the questions being asked.)

Anyway, I heard "comrade-ship" and "girls" - only now that I'm thinking about it... the word for "girls" is "piger" and there may be a Danish word for "peer" that is, well, pronounced "peer" which sounds to me like "piger" (the word for girls, remember) and that what he SAID was "I liked my classmates and peers" not "I liked my classmates and the girls."

Alas, the interpretation of that answer then colored ALL of my other answers. 'Cause this dentist sounded like a JERK. I mean, WHO THE HELL SAYS THEY LIKED THE CHICKS AT THEIR SCHOOL?? (Apart from every self-proclaimed red-blooded male. [Public Service Announcement: if they actually call themselves a "red-blooded male" just save yourself some time and trouble, pour your drink over their head, hit them with your purse and GO HOME].) Swear to god, after that I heard that answer, I heard that he liked owning his own clinic because he got to be the boss and he made lots of money. The Ass! Nevermind that the first answer I had given for that section ("Why does he like being a dentist?") was "he likes being able to help people who are in pain."

Poor dentist. One misheard word and he goes from being a sympathetic character to my new nemesis.

Of course, I'm also biased having been subjected to a rather brutal dental cleaning recently. It wouldn't have been so bad had I been to the dentist some time in the previous 5 years and had I not been 9 months pregnant (swollen gums - because EVERYTHING swells when you are pregnant - leads to copious bleeding). Note: the dentist had to grudgingly admit that considering I was pregnant and hadn't had my teeth cleaned in 5 years... they looked fine and there were no cavities. HA!

But the "piger" vs. "peer" error just highlights yet again the problem I have with Danish. I just don't hear the difference between some words. All those extra letters... and yet you don't pronounce half of the alphabet anyway and the other half ALL SOUND THE SAME!

On Wednesday in driver's ed I made a rather humorous mistake during the practice test. I heard "should you turn on your headlights when there is a train?" And I answered "no" because, uh, duh. But it didn't stick out as a completely stupid question because some of the questions on the practice test ARE incredibly stupid - "you see a girl on a bike in your lane, what should you do? Should you speed up? Should you pass her when it is safe to do so? Should you slow down and follow her?" Dude, you should TOTALLY slow down and follow her home and then honk and shout "hey baby, what's your star sign!!" Wait, that wasn't an option? Damn.

Anyway, the question was ACTUALLY "should you turn on your headlights when there is fog?" The answer, in case you were wondering, is YES!

Word for "train" = tog (pronounced toe)
Word for "fog" = tåge (pronounced toeh)

So the conversation during the answer part of the test went like this:
Drivers Ed Teacher: (in danish) Don't you turn on your lights when there's fog?
AG: (in danglish) No, of course not, that would be dumb.
DET: ???
DB: pssst...(in english) Fog... we're talking about FOG!
AG: (in english) FOG?!? Oh, I thought the test said "Train"!
Class laughs, DB face/palms, I feel slightly vindicated because you do NOT turn on your headlights when you see a train, so really I was correct. I WIN Y'ALL!
AG: (in english, under her breath to the DB) Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that - I haven't learned the word for fog yet!

At least this error made some form of sense. A few weeks ago I missed a question (thank GOD this one occurred at home) because I heard "bamse" which means "teddy bear" instead of "bramser" which means "brakes." Honestly, had I thought about it for a minute I'm sure I could have figured that out, because in a residential area "should you be prepared to use your teddy bear" really doesn't have ANY place in a driving test. A test for pedophiles yes, but not for drivers.

Then again, this is DENMARK, it's all foreign and stuff. Maybe that's just how they roll. I mean, they think applesauce is a dessert, for crying out loud. Eight YEARS and suddenly that stupid applesauce dessert people have been forcing on me makes sense now. You put applesauce in a bowl, sprinkle toasted oatmeal on top and then squirt some whipped cream on top of that and then serve it to the American and call it "apple cake" and then wonder why she looks confused and then confusedly ask her "don't you eat apples in America?" Seriously, maybe this is a country where you need to be prepared to use your teddy bear when you drive through a residential area. Danish children tend to be suicidal maniacs running about in the street, perhaps rolling down your window and throwing a teddy bear in their general direction would distract them and you could drive away at faster than 5 mph. And, by the way, OF COURSE WE EAT APPLES YOU IDIOTS! WE DON'T SAY "AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE" FOR NOTHING!!! But we eat applesauce with lunch or dinner. As a side dish. Yeah, crazy. Like a fox.

Slowly I've learned that all the good food in Denmark is considered a dessert and you can only eat it after dinner. Pancakes, æbleskiver, applesauce, pastries (like the ones Americans call "danishes"), and anything with fruit in it (other than yogurt, but only if the yogurt comes with the fruit already in it, if you add fruit, you may be making a dessert). I often see Danes eating oranges as a dessert and to me, that's just balmy. But then I've seen Danes eat potato chips (crisps to the Brits) as a side dish at dinner, along side a fine piece of roasted pork loin. Yes, potato chips/crisps counted as the "vegetable" - not that all Danes see the point of having a vegetable with a meal. Sometimes it's like the bloody Atkins diet around here.

So I've learned not to question the ways of the natives (the answer is always "but that's how we do it in Denmark" so really, why bother asking any more) which makes figuring out the driving laws sometimes a bit more complicated. Especially when you hear either "garble garble garble garble" or you know, the wrong damn word that just happens to sound EXACTLY the same as another word.

At any rate, I'm going to make sure that I have my headlights on at all times, just in case of trains or fog (and the numbers two and twelve which ALSO happen to sound the same as "train") AND I'm going to start carrying spare teddy bears because YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL in residential areas.

Food hits and misses

2011-03-09T14:50:00.000+01:00

Maybe it's because I'm pregnant, but I have been taking it really personally when a recipe just does not work out.

Tears and temper tantrums, people.

Tears because I've ruined, RUINED, a meal. Temper tantrums because, dammit, the DB is going to eat what I've served and STOP COMPLAINING because I'M PREGNANT you ASS, MAKE YOUR OWN FOOD IF THIS IS NOT UP TO PAR!!

Last night I made pancakes (part of living in another country that totally obsesses about traditions means that you tend to suddenly develop a passion for your own and Shrove Tuesday is Pancake Tuesday, Episcopalians and Anglicans will totally back me up here). The pancakes were FINE. It's just... well, it's not MY fault that maple syrup comes in such little jars here. And can only be purchased at certain stores. When they happen to have it in stock. And that we also ran out of jam. But you know what? HONEY works pretty damn good. And it's also not my fault if you are not completely stuffed after eating four plate sized pancakes because that's a damn lot of pancakes y'all. And that we ran out of orange juice because I've developed a NEED for more vitamin C. But, HEY ISN'T IT GREAT THAT YOU CAN TOTALLY MICROWAVE RISOTTO!!?? And 11 year old Late Harvest Chardonnay isn't THAT crazy of a pairing. Sorry that we were out of Champagne.

Okay, it wasn't my best meal ever. It was also NOT the worst.

Previously, in the Archaeogoddess kitchen, were several weeks of When-will-I-find-a-good-chicken-masala-recipe-and-stop-trying-to-killing-us-all.

First there was All Recipes' Chicken Tikka Masala with over 1,200 reviews and 4 1/2 stars - almost 26,000 people have saved this recipe!! So of course I'm going to make it and slavishly stick to the recipe - it's obviously Just That Good. Note to self (and everyone else) - READ THE REVIEWS FIRST! Because they will tell you, right off the bat, to leave out ALL THE SALT. This recipe calls for 4 teaspoons of salt in the marinade and 3 teaspoons of salt in the sauce itself. Even if you reduce the salt by a bit IT STILL COMES OUT WICKED SALTY. In fact, it's diarrhea-inducing salty. So no more than 1/4 tsp in the marinade and 1/4 tsp in the sauce!! When we're braver we'll try this one again. Without the salt.

Then there was a Chicken Masala recipe that I'm not going to link to. But know this: if a masala recipe has ONLY curry and turmeric as spices then it is NOT A MASALA. It's a CURRY and a damn bland one at that. Perfect for Danish palates (the DB insisted it wasn't bad) but simply horrible if you've, you know, ever actually eaten Indian food at an Indian restaurant and expect your food to taste of something other than yellow. I flat out refused to eat the leftovers of this one.

So it was with great relief when I made a FANTASTIC meal the other night. Sauteed mushrooms, bacon and lentils - OH MY! This recipe was still good even though I brilliantly forgot to buy lemons and had to use the fake lemon juice I keep in the fridge for emergencies and instant-buttermilk-making. I also made a few adjustments of my own.

I fry up bacon bits by cutting the bacon into chuncks and THEN frying it, this sometimes results in bacon clumps rather than bits, but you know what, I'm okay with that
I dumped the bacon clumps and the rendered fat and everything into the lentils before serving
I mixed the parsley into the lentils before serving (oh and it wasn't flat leaf parsley... I can't get FLAT leaf parsley right now, so EXCUSE ME recipe tyrants!)
I minced the garlic and then left it in because who the hell removes GARLIC from a dish?? Hell, next time I may add MORE garlic
I served the mix over a bed of mixed greens and then drizzled olive oil and a few drops of lemon juice over the whole shebang and it was AWESOME
I served this with a side of cornbread as one reviewer suggested and that was a FANTASTIC pairing for some strange reason

Reheating the left overs was a snap - just dump it in a pan and re-fry it for a bit. Or turn the heat down low and put a lid on it. You should probably not do what I did which was to put a lid on it and turn the heat to HIGH because "oh, that'll make it heat up faster" but even slightly, uh, burnt, it STILL tasted really good.

I had gobs of mushrooms left over, because, well, I did, okay? And so I whipped up a Jamie Oliver mushroom risotto. I have a real love-hate relationship with Mr. Oliver. On one hand, he turns out a great dish and is all about getting people to eat better. On the other hand, I do NOT live somewhere with a weekly farmers market with veggies from around the world, nor do I live near a fish mongers, nor does my local butcher know anything about the weird cuts of meat you, Essex boy, are constantly suggesting. So it is NOT in fact, much cheaper to eat the Hipster Oliver Way because I don't live in LONDON, nor am I Upper Middle Class, so I's po' and in order to make your fine food, J.O., I have become the Queen of Substitutions.

Grød ris instead of that fancy Aborio stuff, they are both short grained rices with a hefty price difference
used button mushrooms - sorry dude, but that's what I had, judge me and I'll give you a hair cut with my vegetable peeler
dried thyme and fresh curly leaf parsley CAUSE THAT'S HOW I ROLL
still forgetting to buy lemons... used bottled lemon juice... now out of lemon juice AND HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE BISCUITS NOW??

And you know what? It still tasted good. And when the DB microwaved it last night to fluff out his pancake-for-dinner meal, he enjoyed it! HA! *fist pump*

Party like it's... wait, what year is it again??

2011-03-07T13:58:00.000+01:00

The theme song for this post is brought to you by Jimi Hendrix.

So I'm taking driver's ed (because 16 years of exceptional driving experience in a variety of weather, countries, and vehicles and a spotless record means NOTHING to Denmark) and trying to memorize foreign vocabulary and listening to Nirvana Unplugged.

Suddenly it's like 1994 around here.

Except I do not remember being nine months pregnant in high school. In fact, I think I weighed about half of what I currently weigh. And rocked green corduroy pants, orange flannel and t-shirts with such witty sayings as "Cat Wants In/Cat Wants Out" with associated cartoon. I suppose I could still wear such things and claim I was being "ironic" and then get shot for being a hipster. Worse things could happen. I could be trying to wear leggings and over-sized sweaters with large belts...

Only I'm struggling with the NemID nonsense (hey, got the DB at home for a few hours, best try to make use of his expansive Danish vocabulary while I can) and the circle of ridiculousness is right out of 1984.

I feel like I should be dancing the Time Warp... but that takes me back to 1975 and I wasn't actually BORN then. (If you are confused about this "Time Warp" thing, click on the link. Not that you'll understand better afterwards, because The Rocky Horror Picture Show never did make any sense, but hey Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick [you may remember him as the Mayor in "Spin City" - oh yeah, THAT GUY] and Tim Curry in women's underwear!)

And I swear I keep letting the cat IN but not OUT, leading me to ponder the existence of some spacial-temporal anomaly which is magically letting the cat out and sucking digital signatures out of my computer (or wherever digital signatures are kept - I suspect in Pia Kjærsgaard's underwear drawer) faster than the Borgerservice can type them in.

Oh for the good old days, when you immigrated by showing up in some port, being checked for lice and TB and then released to the hounds. Or even better, when you showed up in some port and stuck swords and axes into the natives until they paid you to stick swords and axes into someone else, usually their neighbor. Remind me to change my ring tone to "Flight of the Valkyries" and to pick up a horned helmet from the museum gift shop before I take my driver's test.

Hvad skal du særlig opmærksom til, bitches?

(What should you pay particular attention to, oh driver's education student?)

What Not To Say To a Pregnant Woman

2011-03-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

These are the ones I personally hate hearing…

1. Enjoy eating everything you want!

Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahahaha! Obviously you’ve never been pregnant. The list of food that you MUST NOT EAT or you will KILL YOUR BABY is long and pretty much includes something you absolutely love.

Raw or undercooked meat (kiss Carpaccio and sushi good-bye and expect to order all your steaks and hamburgers “well done” *spit*)
Deli meat - including hot dogs (kiss lunch goodbye)
Fish with mercury or exposed to environmental pollutants (i.e. any fish that once swam in an ocean, lake, or river)
Smoked fish (like there was any fish left for you to eat anyway)
Raw or undercooked shellfish (cooking shellfish doesn’t prevent algae-based bacteria from proliferating, so most of the time they ask you to just avoid shellfish entirely… just in case)
Raw or undercooked eggs (this includes fried eggs, over-easy eggs, soft-boiled eggs, poached eggs, and scrambled eggs that aren’t completely dry and horrid)
Soft cheeses (except American cheese, which isn’t actually cheese)
Pate (actually anything with liver in it, including, surprisingly enough, liver)
Anything with caffeine
Alcohol
Vitamin A - you need it every other day but too much will KILL YOUR BABY
Cut your fat by 30%
Cut your cholesterol
Make sure you get enough fat and cholesterol because you need them to absorb the vitamins
You must still get lots of folic acid, calcium, and iron and you can’t get enough of it by eating because we’ve cut all the main sources of vitamins and minerals out of your diet - so take big fat vitamins!

So exactly how am I supposed to enjoy eating when everything I like to eat has been taken off the “acceptable” food list? I have to read the packaging, obsess over food choices, and try to work a balanced diet around restrictions and availability…

Or you know, throw my hands up in the air and ask: what the hell are French, Italian and Japanese women eating, then? And then eat whatever I want.

The corollary to #1 is: don’t tell me what I shouldn’t eat, because I will fucking cut you, bitch.

2. Enjoy sleeping while you can, because you’ll miss it after the baby’s born.

WHO IS SLEEPING NOW?? FIND ME THE COMFORTABLY SLEEPING PREGNANT WOMAN!! Multiple trips to the bathroom (and getting out of bed is NO walk in the park), acid reflux, restless legs, cramps, Braxton-Hicks, kicking baby, rhinitis, numb hands, HUGE BELLY keeping me from rolling into any other position, yeah, I’m sleeping like a goddamned princess here.

3. You’re not fat; you’re pregnant.

You did NOT just contradict a pregnant woman, did you? DID YOU?? I’ve put on 50 lbs (25 kgs) in the last 9 months. I can’t reach my feet. I can’t even SEE my feet. I’ve out grown all my normal clothes and half of my maternity wear. If I wanted to wear a skirt, I’d need to rub talcum powder between my thighs. They stick and won’t rub past each other, thus limiting my ability to actually move myself without the obviously pregnant waddle. I get winded walking up the gentlest incline; so don’t even talk to me about stairs. My hips POP OUT OF ALIGNMENT and my knees have a nasty tendency to give when I squat. I’m SO SORRY if I’m offending the sensibilities of the fat people (“oh, *sob* poor us, we’re fat, you have no right to be calling yourself fat, you don’t understand what it’s like to be fat”) but I bet you put on those extra pounds SLOWLY, over time, giving your muscles, bones, and closet time to adjust for inflation and I bet your fat doesn’t kick you in the middle of the night either.

The proper response to a pregnant woman who bemoans her fatness is to say “thankfully it’s mostly baby and water, so this too shall pass.” Because what a fat pregnant woman needs to hear is validation of her feelings and a reminder that it’s temporary. Telling us we look great is also nice, even if we know you're lying.

4. In English “Was it planned?” or in Danish “Er du glæde for det?” (are you happy about it)

No, the motherfucking Archangel Gabriel came to me and told me God raped me in the night and implanted the Savior of all Mankind, that he’ll take on the sins of the world and be sacrificed by being nailed to a goddamned tree all because he told people to get along with one another and pay their damn taxes because the Romans gave us roads, peace, and hygiene. And I for one am Quite Pissed Off About It.

Seriously people - dumbest questions EVER. Everyone is going to say “yes” no matter what and now the pregnant chick is wondering what kind of cheap whore do you take her for. THANKS A LOT!

5. Are you still pregnant?

No, I had the baby and now I’m just wearing a pillow around my middle for shits and grins.

6. Are you getting exercise? You should be exercising. [Insert discussion of the benefits of exercise and what will happen to me if I don’t.]

So remember the part where my hips pop out of alignment? And my knees have gone… well, they’ve gone somewhere and they left no forwarding address, although I think it was Fiji. For all I know they took my feet, I haven’t seen them in a while either. Point being, exercise is limited to standing up, getting up from lying down (both are gargantuan achievements, y’all), and going up the stairs. Spend all day on my feet, walking and moving about and I’ll be flat on my back in tears by 8 pm. I was fine until about 10 lbs ago. At that point my weight got ahead of my ability to build new muscles and the muscles I have are pretty taxed. How about this, then, I’m still moving. How’s that for ya? Would you like to tell me how many poops I should be doing a day too?

7. You can’t do X with a baby!!

Oh, damn, now you’ve done it. Like waving a red flag in front of a bull. You’ve done told me I can’t do something. Now I have to do it to prove you wrong. Trying to appeal to my husband to “make me see sense” is not going to help. He’s probably going to start plotting how we can accomplish X as soon as humanly possible.

8. How are you feeling?

I know I’m being slightly bitchy here. I can’t say that I particularly “hate” this question; it’s just that I get asked it so many times a day. And the answer is: I feel like crap. “But you look great!” or “[Insert unsolicited advice]” follows and then I’m stuck standing or sitting while the person with the great intentions tries to make me feel better. You wanna make me feel better? Carry this damn thing for me while I go take a nap, some asshole has been telling me I should be getting my rest now before the baby comes.

9. Once you are holding that precious baby in your arms you will totally forget how miserable you were.

That may be. HOWEVER, I’m pregnant NOW. I’m not holding a baby, I’m holding my breath because I think I may belch, fart, and possibly dribble a bit of GOD KNOWS WHAT NOW into my panties in the next 30 seconds. Yes, some day we may all look back on this and laugh… but “some day” is not happening fast enough for me.

10. [In response to seeing someone trying to manage a screaming child] And that’s what you have to look forward to!

OH YAY! THAT’S WHY WE GOT OURSELVES INTO THIS!! You know what, just go away.

Thoughts from the left field...

2011-03-01T20:15:00.000+01:00

So taking a quick break from pregnancy madness...

Yes, I'm still pregnant. Please stop asking me that!

I'm at 37 weeks.

Why, thank you, I also think I'm huge.

No, it's not twins.

Yes, I'm aware I could go 2 weeks over.

Thanks for pointing out that I look amazing. Though your shock that I'm still pregnant kinda takes the joy out of your observation. Can we talk about something else now? 'K thanks.

One of my favorite "movies" is actually the mini-series "Band of Brothers." I have a mild to medium sized obsession with the European theatre of war in WWII and I don't know if you remember me talking about it a bit WAAAAAY back in 2009 in this post, which I just re-read and found very funny, if I do say so m'self, so if you want to wander off and give it a good read, just go on ahead and then come back. Or not. No pressure.

Anywaaaaay, DR1 is showing "The Pacific" right now. It's not as good as "Band of Brothers" which is more documentary feeling and includes interviews with the guys who really had been there and done that, but it's good for showing how freaking awful the Pacific theatre of war really was. And seriously, it was AWFUL. Why we decided to go back to fight in the tropics two more times in the twentieth century is beyond me... 'Course now it's the "in" thing to be fighting in the desert. Can we swap to arctic battles, a la Hoth for a while, just to mix it up some? It would give our submarine captains something to do, at any rate.

Both of my grandfathers served in the Pacific. As far as I know, neither were in Guadalcanal or Midway or Iwo Jima. But neither really talked about their experiences very much and we kids were not encouraged to ask either. Now it's too late because they've both passed away... but I also don't think I'd feel comfortable asking them about something that might have been repressed for a reason. Towards the end, one of my grandfathers did randomly start telling stories about the war, about arresting Japanese soldiers hidden in caves, but it was all a bit garbled, Gramps being a bit off by that stage.

But the point being, I had relatives that served. (My dad, for the record, was drafted but got a medical discharge, for which we are all eternally grateful. My dad and Vietnam would just not have got on well, I'm sure of it.) And so I asked my DB what his grandparents were doing, you know, while living under the Nazi thumb and all.

The answer: nothing. Just doing their thing. Making shoes and whatever the other one did (totally blanked on that one, my bad). And I had a bit of a mind-boggle. For the record: there were Danes who sabotaged the train tracks and kept goods from supplying the German army, who made their way to England to volunteer for the war, who smuggled Jews to Sweden, who resisted in various ways - who were right and proper heroes. But there were far more who didn't really do anything other than what they had been doing before the war. Only now with more Nazis.

Back to the mind-boggle.

Part of my historical narrative or what-have-you growing up was that Europe totally sucked in WWII and we Americans had to come in and pull everyone's butts out of the fire. But then you "get educated" and learn that really, America helped a great deal, but we should downplay that bit and spend some time pointing out the plucky Brits, daring French, and stalwart Belgians who were a huge part of the victory. Oh, and we should sort of tip our hats to the Russians, but only after pointing out that Stalin was a big dick and we hate him lots, the commie bastard, but thanks for distracting Hitler even if it meant shooting your own people IN THE BACK, jerk. And now it's a full pendulum swing back again - my grandparents were getting shot at so yours could MAKE SHOES?? *boggle*

The DB is mighty embarrassed, to tell the truth. We had a good long discussion about the role of the military in DK and how it is perceived by the average Dane (an embarrassment and something only homicidal freaks do). My husband was one of the "lucky" few to get drafted and he hated his boot camp and opted for the civil service as fast as he could. Strangely enough, it's all the American war dramas he's watched that have given him a different view of the military in Denmark. (Lord knows his boot camp was a PR disaster. He was trained "in case someone invaded Denmark." Who's going to invade Denmark, the DB asked. "Never you mind!" shouted the drill sergeant, "now go crawl in the mud with your out-dated rifle!") He's still pretty embarrassed by the Danish Military Might, it's small and managed to get involved in the wrong wars, but now he sees it more as a tool that can be used for good, if the higher ups weren't a bunch of asshats. He wonders what he would have done if he'd lived in Denmark in WWII. He also wonders what it would be like to live somewhere were the military is a source of nationalist (although my conservative friends would prefer me to say "patriotic") pride and what would it be like to have all of your friends signing up to go off to war. (He'd like to think that he would have resist if he lived in DK, but isn't sure he'd have known what to do, but is fairly confident he would have signed up with his friends if he'd lived in the US.)

Me, I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to *not* have seen pictures of my grandfathers in uniform. Just about everyone I know from the US had at least one relative who has served in one war (or "armed conflict") or another. My hometown newspaper covers deployments, medals, and graduations of "local" troops. Conversely, I imagine that it was a lot easier in Denmark to protest the war in Afghanistan and Iraq than it was in the US (to all those assholes who rolled down their windows to yell at us to get behind the Commander and Chief, I just wanna say I TOLD YOU SO! *pbth*). Yeah, you should have tried to be a pacifist in New England after 9/11 - that was not exactly easy, y'all. So glad that thousands of people had to die before I was proved right. *Sigh*

Like many Americans, I'm torn between the support I have for the men and women who voluntarily sign up to put their lives on the line for a noble concept and the disgust I have for the men and women who send those brave souls into pointless conflicts. I'm as proud of my grandfathers and their generation for going to war as I am of those who fought to bring our troops home from Vietnam. I will carry placards and partake in sit-ins to promote peace, but I will totally blow your fucking head off if you lay a hand on my family.

It's not Veterans Day, or Memorial Day, or the 5th of May (Denmark's liberation day) - but go on, hug a veteran. You know you want to.

Ready or Not...

2011-02-26T20:25:00.000+01:00

“So,” asked a friend over dinner recently, “are you ready to be parents?”

The DB began, “well, we have the stroller…”

I added, “and the car seat.”

“We’ve got the crib.” “Oh yes, certainly. And plenty of diapers.” “Well, for the first week. But we need to get wipes.” “We’ve got lots of clothes.” “Tons.” “And linens for the bed and duvet covers for both the little and the big duvet...”

“Yes,” said our friend. “I see you are very prepared. But I meant was, well, are you ready to be parents.”

“We knew what you meant,” the DB replied, as we looked at each other across the table and exchanged some nervous laughter. “There’s just not any good answer for that.”

Durr, say those of you who aren’t parents, the answer is either yes or no, hello? You are SO not ready to be parents!

Those of you with kids know; the answer really is way too complicated to be answered over a casual dinner.

I have not read every child-care book on the planet, nor have I an advanced degree in Child Development (thank god, parents who have degrees in Child Development seem to always be slightly more neurotic and anxious about their kids than the rest of us poor uneducated slobs) and even if I did, I still don’t think I’d be confident in saying “why OF COURSE I’m ready! Silly bugger, now pass the whiskey, I need to get very drunk.”

That isn’t to say I haven’t paid attention during “Nanny 911” or “Supernanny” or other shows that put one right off of having kids (seriously, what is it with these people, not only are they horrible parents, but they managed to breed three or more times before the little monsters turned on them - what were you thinking, that you’d just keep popping them out until you got a nice one??). Or haven’t discussed various parenting situations with the DB. But I don’t think that there is such a thing as “ready” as if it’s a black or white, yes or no, kind of thing. “Ready” is a three-dimensional cloud in which certain areas you may be prepared for and others you may not which total up to your “readiness” but may be in a completely different vector than someone else’s “readiness” and neither of these results is better or worse than the other.

Sorry for the random mathy imagery, I watch a lot of National Geographic Channel.

So I can say that I have the physical accoutrements of “readiness” - the crib, the baby bath, the iddle biddy stripy socky-wockies (dude, what is it about pregnancy that makes one completely nuts over baby FEET? Seriously, it’s like I’ve developed a tiny foot fetish and my preference is for stripped socks that I can barely fit over my thumb.), I’ve read up on the basics of baby care, I know how to change a diaper, and I completely understand the mechanics of breastfeeding.

But actually doing it… well, that’s another story.

How will I function with the upcoming sleep deprivation? What if breastfeeding turns out to be even more difficult than I can handle? What if the Spawn is a particularly fussy baby? How will I handle the overpowering emotions that are part hormones and part exhaustion and part iddle biddy stripy socky-wocky madness? Besides, how on earth are you supposed to be ready for having a whole new human being of your very own? The big eyes looking up at you? The little hand that grasps your finger with THAT GRIP?

If you say you can be prepared for all of that, and a million and ten things you haven’t thought of yet, I call you a dirty filthy liar and I’m a gonna cut you (sorry, hormones).

But you know what, you aren’t supposed to be. I mean, in real life, not what you read on the internet or in a book. Although, to be fair to the internet and the books, they pretty much lay out “you have no idea what’s about to hit you, you sad sack of cellulite” because there isn’t anyway to be ready and all you can do is hold on to your big girl pants and roll with the punches.

The DB and I are ready to roll. And I am certainly wearing big girl pants.

Shampoo shenanigans and stuff

2011-02-21T13:25:00.000+01:00

How is it that my husband can go through shampoo so fast?

A quick aside for more information - my husband has a skin allergy that renders him completely scaly and pimply and gross from regular soaps. (I'm sure he's going to just LOVE that I told you all about his eczema.) *I* (insert preening) figured it out and found him a soap that he could use as well as a shampoo and conditioner. But that left us with all the other soaps and shampoos that we'd bought in our mad attempt to cure him and I've been steadily using them up, one after another, for the last two years.

You'd think I'd be done or that we must have had a MOUNTAIN of soaps and shampoos going at the time. And I'm starting to think that your assumptions must be right, because DAMN I am *still* working on that last bottle of regular shampoo and I am no closer to getting rid of the two half bottles of Head & Shoulders (copyright trademarked blah blah blah) than I was a few years ago.

Part of the problem is that when I go off on excavation I can't take the HUGE bottles of shampoo and soap I have sitting in the shower and so buy smaller bottles to start me off and then I get stuck buying more while I'm abroad and then I bring it home and now I've got TWO bottles to finish instead of one.

You could suggest that I throw it away... but that goes against every fiber of my being. Obviously, $20 worth of shampoo, soap, conditioner etc. is not going to bankrupt me... but a very large chunk of my soul wants to scream "it's not like we're rolling in cash, either, sweetheart" and I just can't do it. I also keep left-over pasta (you can re-heat it by dropping it into boiling water for 30 seconds and you'd never notice that it was older than newly made pasta) and my husband will not throw away the tube of toothpaste until he's absolutely sure he's gotten the last bit of toothpaste out. Usually this results in less and less toothpaste actually getting on his toothbrush, until I point out, "uh, honey, I don't think there actually *is* any toothpaste on your toothbrush" and he sheepishly admits that maybe, just maybe, he's gotten all the toothpaste out... at least all the toothpaste that can be gotten out without resorting to surgery. If he didn't know that I'd kill him dead, I'm sure he'd use my nail scissors to gut the tube for that last little bit.

We joke about it. We laugh over how he scrapes the last of the toothpaste out of the lid and I add water to the last of the soap dispenser to make sure we get EVERY LAST BUBBLE. We laugh at my propensity to empty hotels of their soaps (hey, they're going to throw it away anyway, I'm just saving them the trouble) and his practically invisible socks (so thin that one of these days a load will go into the wash and NEVER RETURN!). Sometimes we'll throw away the leftover pasta (but only if it's not enough to make a meal of the next day and NEVER if there is leftover sauce) because we aren't REALLY that poor. I mean, there was The Month Of Cabbage a few years back. *That* was poor. We can afford organic eggs now.

But. Still.

Why does my husband have to go through shampoo so fast??

It really boggles my mind. He's got far less hair than I do. And SOAP! Okay, he's bigger than I am. Or was. Because at this point, we weigh about the same amount and I'm pretty sure I've caught up with him in overall surface area AND YET it has taken me four months to go through a little bottle of soap, during which time he's gone through THREE bottles that are THREE TIMES the size of my little bottle. WHAT IS HE DOING IN THERE?? I've been in the bathroom when he showers. I know he turns off the water, like a good environmentally contentious young man, to soap up, so I know he's not rinsing it off faster than he can slap it on.

But I'm starting to have the suspicion that he's possibly forgetting that he's washed and he's repeating himself in the shower. Like he enters some time-loop and keeps repeating the same motions again and again, only time is not repeating, it's continually moving forwards and the soap is simply getting used up.

Evidence:
1) He takes twice as long in the shower than I do.

I'm a woman. We're designed by nature to take longer in the shower and yet I take 10 minutes (okay, it's inching up to 20 because I can't bend over or stand on one leg for very long, so reaching the soap on the lower shelf and getting my legs up high enough to be scrubbed takes some slow careful maneuvers, if it wasn't so utterly grotesque it might be considered performance art - but his showers have also gotten proportionally longer). I'm in the bathroom when he's showering three days out of the week and I know that he spends the entire time in there lathering and scrubbing (I tend to spend the majority of my time rinsing) and seriously, it should not take that long UNLESS HE IS WASHING EVERY PART THREE TIMES WITH VAST QUANTITIES OF SOAP!!

2) He has no memory of what he's doing in the shower.

Conversation from a few weeks ago -
DB: (in the shower) Um, so, baby, can I ask you something?
AG: Yeah...
DB: Water seems to be getting into the soap and it makes it really watery and hard to use and so, um, if you could, you know, remember, to... uh, close the lid, you know, after, uh, you... uh, use it... that would be, um, really great...
AG: Honey, I don't *use* your soap, remember?
(Pause)
DB: Oh, so I guess it's me then.
AG: Gotta be.

And since then, 9 times out of 10 when I get into the shower, I end up closing his soap because HE STILL FORGETS TO DO IT.

So there, if he's washing himself and then forgetting that he's washed himself, this could in fact lead to the kind of shower loop that increases soap and shampoo usage to the point where I'm buying him a new bottle of soap from the organic shop every two weeks. They must think I've got a particularly large family that all uses the same bottle of soap. I've bought them out of their stock. I've got to go in there and ask them to restock, please, because we're about to be out again and I wasn't able to get any more on the mainland (having, I think, possibly bought THEM all out of this soap too). Really, at this point, I ought to call the manufacturer and ask to purchase a case because we go through it so bloody fast.

Or really, I should make the DB do it because he's the one using it all up. The soapy beast.

A momentous week

2011-02-19T15:23:00.000+01:00

No, I didn't give birth... *sigh*

But we bought a house!!

Correction: my husband bought a house, I am forbidden from owning property because I'm a dirty foreigner on a temporary residency visa.

There is some logic to this - every time there's a war, Germany invades Denmark (usually right after Poland), today Germans *love* to holiday in Denmark (why, y'all have the ALPS fer fecks sake??!!) and there is a worry that the Germans would buy up Denmark given the chance - after all OBVIOUSLY the Danes have SOMETHING the Germans want because THEY KEEP COMING BACK!

There must be ways around this rule, I know a Polish couple that just bought a house on my island, so maybe the law is limited to dirty foreigners on temporary residency visas AND Germans.

So yeah, there will need to be some lawyering to get it all worked out so that if the DB dies (God Forbid) the house will pass to the Spawn and I'll be executor or something.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF THIS POST! THE POINT OF THIS POST IS THAT WE'VE BOUGHT A MOTHERFREAKING HOUSE Y'ALL!!

Before you jump in and say "welcome to the wild world of home ownership" let me remind you that we (DB) own an apartment in Aarhus, which we rent out rooms in, making us not only homeowners, but landlords. Believe me when I tell you I keep a close eye on interest rates and inflation.

Unless you are my accountant, you're probably getting bored with this discussion. "So, this new house - what up?" you ask.

It's on the western side of the island, in a little village we came across a long while back that we fell in love with. We've been trying to figure out how to move there since we settled on the island, but most of the houses for sale were WAY out of our price range. We shopped around looking at places that were in our price range and they ran from "OH DEAR GOD I think I need another tetanus booster" to "JESUS H CHRIST we should just burn this down and start over!" We looked around outside our "happy zone" - going as far as to look at a "parcelhus" (think 1970's ranch-style in the US... aka hideous) in Marstal. That was a sad sad day. Things overheard at the parcelhus:
"Hey, if you stand here, in the corner of the lot, you can almost see the ocean... there, just on the other side of the breeze-block mother-in-law cottage..."
"Well, we certainly wouldn't have to worry about lawn maintenance, I could trim this with your electric razor."
"I suppose we should be glad it comes with A tree."

But this is a small island. Tell one person you're looking for a house and people begin to call YOU with homes for sale. That's how my husband heard about this house. We went out and saw it several times. It was perfect, nothing has to be done before moving in. We didn't say to each other "well, we can live with it for now" (although I did say that about the kitchen... but I say that about most kitchens) and after a bit of discussion we could get it for within our price range.

It has the most gorgeous view over the landscape. There's a bit of ocean, but mostly it's fields and wooded areas. We're surrounded by farmland, being just outside the village itself, so yes, we'll get that wonderful manure smell several times a year, but we'll also get an ever changing seasonal view.

It's a two bedroom house, with two floors, but only one bathroom and alas, I'm losing my bathtub. We're going to get creative on the upper floor - it's a huge room and I cannot abide wasted space (why do Danes make a huge open space and then fill it with multiple sitting areas... how many hygge zones do you need?), so we're going to build a master bedroom up there using bookshelves for walls (this is what happens when you watch too many home improvement shows) and turn one of the bedrooms on the ground floor into a guest bedroom. The back yard has several fruit trees and lavender and wisteria (hands down my favorite plants) and a lawn that is large enough but hopefully not too large. There will be space to grow as well, if we decide to keep adding on to the family.

I'm awfully excited about this house! I can't wait to be able to hang pictures on the walls again (without thinking... hmmmm, will this mean I have to paint the whole room when we move out or just this wall...) and decide randomly to paint a room cerulean blue JUST BECAUSE I CAN. I'm also relieved because this means when the Spawn gets a hold of my markers and decorates the wall, I can say, "ah, well, I'm sure Dad will be VERY PROUD" instead of "OMG THE DEPOSIT!!" Spawn will be able to run about in the backyard, whooping and hollering and not disturb the neighbors. Nor will Spawn disturb anyone other than Mom and Dad with the indoor roller skating or "Puttin' on the Ritz" routine (which the baby is practicing RIGHT NOW in my uterus).

You probably won't get any more photos until we move in, sometime in mid-May. I'm not going to post pictures of the previous owners things, that's her stuff and I think she should have some privacy.

It would be so much worse if I lived in Haiti... no, wait, it would be warm there!

2011-02-14T15:26:00.000+01:00

We're having a horrific storm at the moment. It's all wind. Nothing but wind. But it's pulling tiles off of roofs (not mine, thank you Mr. Whoever Laid the Tiles, but boy am I glad I don't live just down the street) so it's not your normal-every-day-gee-you-complain-about-the-weather-too-much kind of wind. And it's cold. It's probably trying to snow, but the snow is getting blown horizontally and is probably landing in Munich. I've been watching people walk their dogs and have never been so grateful to have a cat instead as I do today. However, having a cat isn't without it's drawbacks.

Alot: Meow!
AG: You do *not* want to go out in this cat.
Alot: MEOW!
AG: You're going to regret this.
Alot: Meow MEOW meow!
AG: *opens door* (both AG and Alot are smacked in the face by incredible winds at freezing temperature) Okay, there's outside! Go and do your thing!
Alot: Meow? *turns tail and runs under table*
AG: That's what I thought.

Ten minutes later.

Alot: Meeeeooooowwwwrrrr!
AG: You know, we have a litter box.
Alot: Ooooowwwwr!
AG: You're going to be so pissed when you want back in and I've gone off to the pharmacy and there's no one home!
Alot: Mrrrrrrr!
AG: Okay *opens door* (repeat of the wind-in-the-face, both are practically blown back into the house, doors slam five rooms away)
Alot: *full body shiver* *darts out and down the stairs and under the deck*
AG: I'll give you 10 minutes and then I'm going to the pharmacy.

Time's up.

No cat.

Well, gotta run, these antacids won't buy themselves.

It's not the distance

2011-02-10T16:07:00.000+01:00

Okay, it *totally is* the distance.

I know it's not that far. Because in a pre-pregnant state I can walk there in under 20 minutes, so it's probably only a kilometer - which is less than a mile. In fact, it's probably only a quarter mile 'cause it's like three New York blocks or something. That's like once around the track (this refers to my high school which has a track that is a quarter mile round - I'm telling you this because it occurred to me y'all might not have gone to my high school). It's not that far.

Except I've already walked it once today.

And I'm carrying a small angry beast inside of me, one that is head-butting my cervix and clawing at my uterus with its little hands and kicking my diaphragm with its little feet.

The "it" I must walk to is the citizen service at the county/city hall.

Because of this NemID thing that I've talked about.

The borgerservice (citizen service) is only open when a virgin slaughters a unicorn during the second full moon of the month (or you know, M, Tu, Th, F from 9-12 [possibly] and Th afternoons from 2:30 to some unknown time). I thought it opened on Thursday at 1:30, so I walked up there after Danish class. But NO, *I* was thinking of the pharmacy, which also closes for a lengthy lunch break at the same time that everyone else takes a lunch break and runs out to buy things in the pharmacy. I was an hour early. So I went home, totally forgetting to write down when the blasted place is open. That's okay, I has the intertoobs! I tried to see when the opening hours are by going to the website. But the page that gives you times and phone numbers is ERROR 404, which means it's been eaten by a bear, so I'm just going to have to take my butt up there again to see if it's open now.

Frak that! I figure... it's cold. It's going to snow. I am going to drive.

Only I can't get the car unlocked.

*hangs head and sobs quietly in the car port*

Back inside. Ring to husband to complain about the inequity of life.

Get hung up on because DB is in an interview.

Try to blame the cat. Fail miserably.

I tried to psyche myself up "come on girl, it's not far, just walk slowly and steadily and you'll get there and you'll deal with this crap and it'll be out of your hair and you'll be so proud of yourself and then you can go back to the pharmacy, which will be open and you can buy cotton swabs and more of that genius antacid and then waddle home and you can even take a bath or something equally awesome."

But my hips are done for the day. And the Spawn hasn't stopped moving for about an hour (sleep DAMN YOU). And I am not walking up there if there is the slightest chance it will be closed because I just don't think I could take that kind of rejection.

Just about everyone on the planet has bigger problems than me today... however, I think I'm just going to curl up here on the couch, cover my head with a blanket and throw myself a little pity party for one.

... and with that, the Danish Boy began to panic

2011-02-08T19:07:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I wonder if the Spawn is aware that the ultrasound tech said my due date is March 19th.

I ask, because I think the Spawn dropped today. About half way through Danish class.

Last night Spawn was all up in my business, kicking my stomach, shoving my uterus into my lungs and causing me to wake gasping for air. I had a completely random dream in which I went into labor and gave birth. On March 23rd.

God I don't want to wait until March 23rd. Even February 23rd sounds far away!

So anyway, there I am in Danish class and the Spawn is kicking and wriggling and suddenly I cannot sit comfortably. I had this total flashback to when I wore short sexy little skirts (don't worry Mom, it didn't last very long and I was over 18) and it was so very important to keep your knees together when sitting down. Because at that moment, "knees together" was not going to happen my friends. I was trying my best to keep each leg as far away from my belly as possible. And it was getting harder and harder to do. Having my legs at the 90 degrees angle needed to sit in a chair was practically impossible. I leaned back as far as I could but it just seemed that my belly had dropped down between my legs. Forget worrying about the baby falling out (as some women describe it), I was worried my belly was going to end up falling out of my pelvis and hanging down by my knees. HOW CAN YOU BIRTH A BABY THAT ISN'T IN YOUR PELVIS???

Now, having the Spawn drop, I was kinda hoping that I'd be able to breathe again. This hasn't really been the case so far. What has happened is that I seem to be getting kicked in new places, which is kinda nice, because maybe the bruises will heal. (I swear I have uterine bruises, y'all. You can't see them, but DAMN I have little spots that HURT!) But I still have the problem - how am I going to sit
- at the dining table?
- at my desk?
- on the toilet?

And how much longer does this mean I have to go? pleasedon'tsaysixweekspleasedon'tsaysixweeks Because supposedly I have six weeks to go. Unless... we go by my original reckoning... which would make my due date March 10th... and that would be only a little over four weeks and that has GOT to be better than SIX. And then if Spawn decides to come early, it's not too shockingly early... I mean, if Spawn came next week, then I'd only be three weeks early!

I think I might just start working on some of the methods suggested to bring about labor. I'm already eating spicy food. Perhaps I'll bring up the other method with the DB tonight over dinner...

The Good News is, You're Normal. The Bad News is, This is Normal

2011-02-07T15:28:00.000+01:00

I got caught up in other things and never got around to telling you about my midwife visit.

I'm fine. I'm normal. I'm so normal, it's practically abnormal.

I got a bit of a patronizing smile over the weight thing, but once I explained that I was concerned because I'm also bloated and my hands are hurting, she realized that I was listing some of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia and took me very seriously. My blood pressure is normal for a woman at my stage of pregnancy, I lack protein in my urine (sorry about that, that was possibly too much information?), and the weight gain is not really that severe, nor was it really sudden. However, she told me to call her if the swelling got worse, because that could indicate something's going on and she's rather have me checked out again than wait until I start having convulsions.

So this weight thing - all over the internet and in all the baby books it says "a woman should gain between 25 and 35 pounds in the course of a healthy pregnancy." They should all be shot. I now know gobs of women who are gaining/have gained far more than that and it hasn't resulted in any problems whatsoever.

Despite the evilness of the internet, I had to return there for information because this pain in my fingers... sometimes numbness... had me a bit concerned and I wondered, WTF. It wasn't really mentioned in my books, apart from one of the signs of pre-eclampsia, but I had noticed some women talking about pain like this in late pregnancy, so I was wondering if it was normal. (This procedure of checking first, calling midwife in a panic second has so far worked very well. A shocking number of rather disgusting bodily behaviors are completely normal during pregnancy.)

When you type "pain numbness pregnancy" into Google, you totally expect to find:
OMG - You are Dying and So Is Your Baby
Here's A List of Terrible Diseases You Have and So Does Your Baby
Call 911
Check Out This MILF Action!!!

Instead I got:
Boring, We All Get This
So Normal, Your Child Should Be Called Norm Al or Norma Al
Did You Seriously Think Pregnancy Was Easy and Pain Free?
Check Out This MILF Action!!!

Advice on handling the pain ranged from taking Tylenol PM to not sleeping on my side, because that can compress nerves and things.

Which leads me to a bit of a rant... I can't sleep on my back because I'll compress some major nerve and artery and kill myself and/or my baby and I can't sleep on my side because I'll lose all use of one or both arms and I can't sleep on my stomach because, DUH, I'm pregnant... exactly how am I supposed to sleep, oh wise Internet People??? I can't sleep flat because of acid reflux, I need to keep my feet elevated and now possibly my arms elevated, so basically I need to elevate everything but the baby above my heart. Can I get myself shot into space for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy? 'Cause it sounds like the only way to solve these problems is to be in zero G.

I mentioned the acid reflux to the midwife, who immediately wrote the name of an antacid on a slip of paper. BEST FREAKING DRUG EVER! Right there in the information packet included in the medication (what, don't you read those? You totally should, you learn some of the darnedest things about half lives and chemical reactions) it said SAFE FOR PREGNANT AND NURSING WOMEN. I'm really sick of "like all medications, contact your physician before taking this medication if you are pregnant or nursing." And they work! Oh, how they work! I still can't lay completely flat, because whatever is in my stomach will come up, but I can lay mostly flat and I'm not getting heart burn or acid reflux. Genius! They don't taste half bad either. And I can keep eating chili, barbeque, Indian, and anything deriving from the cuisine from south of the Mason-Dixon line, because recommended meal plans for pregnant women are so bloody dull.

Look, I'm fat, I waddle, I'm retaining water and I'm leaking strange fluids from strange places, I can't go for long walks without needing a (rather large) bush to pee behind, I can't go on amusement park rides (although I think I'm going to ask my husband to let me stand on the front of the shopping cart like a hood ornament next time we go shopping), I can't get drunk and dance with abandon - do not tell me that I have to eat the most boring food on the planet at the same time!

Though this does beg the question: are jalapeños a fruit or a vegetable?

I'm tired, so don't expect this post to be linear, let alone grammatically correct

2011-02-02T22:32:00.000+01:00

The brain has been churning out some doozies lately. Mostly the "oh my god there's a ghost standing next to your bed NO DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES IT'LL TOTALLY KILL YOU IF YOU OPEN YOUR EYES!" variety. 'Night terrors,' my mom calls them. Last night I was trying to help a talking lab mouse come up with a plan to defeat the evil wizard who had transmogrified him (I guess you had to be there) when something grabbed my shoulders and dragged me, backwards, through the wall and down a dark well. I could smell the dank air, I could feel the wind rushing past my face, and all the blood was rushing from my head towards my feet because I was moving That Fast. I think it was a well. I was a little preoccupied to ask what manner of architecture I was falling through at the time.

As I was plunging towards god-knows what, all I could think of was "if you hit the ground in your dream you will DIE and if your peacefully sleeping husband doesn't wake in time, SO WILL THE BABY!" and I flipped myself around in that dream and began clawing at the air trying to either stop falling or wake up. I don't think I've ever struggled so hard in a dream before. I was crying, I could feel the tears on my face - complete and utter gibbering panic.

I'm shocked that I didn't wake with a kick or a scream. I hadn't actually been crying in my sleep either, because my eyes were dry. And I hadn't flailed about. Apparently I was completely silent and still because my husband continued to sleep peacefully next to me, and since he wakes up if I so much as roll over, the exertions in my dream had to be completely in my head.

Trying to get to sleep after that was pretty near impossible. I kindly let the DB continue sleeping. But then he was a bit of an ass (in my humble opinion) this morning, so we'll see if I'm so freaking nice TONIGHT!

And today hasn't really been my day. Danish went really well, so that's something to hold on to. But yet again I'm having trouble with my Nem-ID, the brilliant idea somebody came up with that ties all of your accounts, both government (like your tax info) and private (like your bank account), to one 9 digit number and a randomly generated four digit code that needs a special card to find the random 6 digit response.

Previously on Life in The-Land-Where-We-Fix-Things-That-Aren't-Broken: I was sent a Nem-ID by my bank. It arrived when I wasn't here. It got mislaid. I got another Nem-ID. The bank had on record that I had one Nem-ID, let's call it #A, the government that I had another, we'll call that #B. Got bank to transfer my account from #A to #B. Used #B to do important things like check taxes and paystubs. Happiness and joy all around.

Got mail today from the Nem-ID-issuing-peoples that they've blocked my Nem-ID because it isn't being used. Called them up. They tell me that they've blocked #A oh, and that bank is using #B, so I need to call the bank and get them to transfer account to #A. Which they've blocked. Did I mention they blocked #A, the number they *want* me to transfer accounts to? I say, I don't use #A, I use #B, I don't want to use #A, I want to keep using #B, that's the number I had signed up to use to check taxes and paystubs. Ah, says the man, but we changed your account to #A. Well, I say, change it back. We can't, says the man, unless you have a Danish passport or Danish driver's license. You gotta be fucking kidding me, I say, I haven't either of those things. I'm 100% foreign. Ah, well, the man says, then you probably don't need to use the civic/government services that require you to use Nem-ID. Ah, no, I say, I do in fact need to be able to check my taxes and my paystubs, both of which are civic/government services WHICH IS WHY I GOT #B IN THE FIRST PLACE. Oh dear, says the man, this is awkward, you'll have to go to the citizen services in your local city hall and ask them to change #A to #B. Brilliant, I say, because I got #B from them in the first place and made sure they had set my civic/government accounts to that number and I certainly never asked them to change it to #A so why is it now changed, I ask you, because *I* didn't do it. I'm afraid I don't know, said the man, and all I can say is that I'm really really sorry that you are getting bounced around like this. You're telling me, I say, this is the least NEM (nem means "easy") thing I've ever had to do in Denmark! [Insert pleasantries] End Call.

Nem-ID is NOT EASY. Taking the bus is easier. And I have serious issues trying to take the right bus in the right direction in this country. THAT'S HOW NOT EASY THIS NEM-ID IS! And I'm pretty sick and tired of telling you all about it, cause it's boring.

Most of the time I can solve my problems with one phone call. Or an email. It's a pretty small country. But it is also highly dependent on it's overburdened bureaucracy and it seems that for every time it tries to make things more streamlined or simple, it actually doubles the amount of work and the number of complications that can arise. But hey, at least now my tax information is SAFE. 'Cause you know that thieves love nothing better than to see what exemptions you've signed up for and how much is in your retirement account. And thank god my bank account is safe. It's a continual problem, all my American accounts are constantly being hacked and... wait... no they haven't. Heck, my bank calls me if they think I've been hacked, meaning I've gotten some middle of the night calls because they think I'm in the US and that some whack job is running around some weird land called "Denmark" using my cards.

The only improvement is that it got rid of the digital signature that was wedded to your personal computer, meaning you couldn't check your bank account from just any computer without 20 extra passwords and account numbers. Except of course, if you used a Mac because the digital signature wasn't always compatible with the OS or internet program you used (say, if you refused to put Internet Explorer on your computer because IE is the DEVIL) so it didn't matter if you had signed up for a digital signature because it didn't freaking work.

Meanwhile I called up this pathology clinic in Odense because they are pestering me about having a pap-smear because YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE from irregular cells, often caused by HPV, even though they aren't CANCER, but can lead to CANCER. AND YOU CAN DIE FROM CANCER YOU KNOW. I gave them a ring because, dude, I'm pregnant, pap-smears are not really the best plan for me at this time. The nurse lady agreed and then said, how about three months from now? Three months? Seriously? I won't be done [TMI] oozing bloody bits by then [/TMI]. I may have started my first post-spawn [TMI] menstruation [/TMI] but really, I DO NOT WANT YOU GOING UP IN THERE RIGHT AFTER I PUSHED SOMETHING THAT LARGE OUT. So she'll send me a letter again at a later date. How lovely. God knows that when I wanted a damn exam I had to stomp my feet to get one, now they're all HAVE A SMEAR! GO ON! HAVEAFEAKINGSMEARTODAY!

Sigh.

On the plus side, the DB has found a driving school that I can go to, so I can get the damn Danish drivers license and ~~play with the Nem-ID people~~ drive a car legally in this country.

Maybe it's pregnancy irritability or maybe it's you, ya smug bitch

2011-01-29T15:57:00.001+01:00

I was sent a link to this blog: Teresa Strasser on Teresa Strasser entitled "Formula isn't poison" and as I read it I found myself getting more and more irritated. By the end I was going to reach through my computer screen and slap the woman.

WHY?

At a fundamental level she's saying what I believe: breastfeeding *is* better, but sometimes it just doesn't work for mother or baby and a mother should be able to decide to do one or the other as long as it results in happy and healthy mom and happy and healthy baby, without people judging her.

So here's a woman who breastfed for months, finally switching to formula completely when it became apparent that she just couldn't breast feed any more. And I'm a gonna cut the chick!

WHY?

It is pregnancy irritability? Am I actually a terrible person who tries not to judge, but then totally does?? I agonized over this post. At first I didn't want to write it. After all, I'm still pre-baby, I have no idea how breastfeeding is going to go! Who am I to talk? And the last thing anybody needs is another irritated mommy-blogger bashing another mother!

So I read the article again. ARGH! *stomping about* I am so bloody IRRITATED BY THIS WOMAN! Then I read the comments. Maybe that would help get my usual "hey, lay off the mom, you horrible women"-juices flowing. Well, FAIL to that, but it did finally clue me in to what was pissing me off.

I think commenter #8 put it best:

Breastfeed, don't breastfeed. Just don't feel smug about either decision.

And that's the problem. This entire post if filled with smugness, from beginning to end. I hate smug.

First, she's still going to a breastfeeding group, even though she's no longer breastfeeding. It's a support group for women who breastfeed, for Christ's sake, when you whip out the bottle of formula and start feeding your child, OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO LOOK AT YOU WEIRD! It's like going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and cracking open a Pabst Blue Ribbon (it's a cheap American beer).

Believe me when you are thinking,

"Listen, you crazy mamas, it's not all about the breastfeeding. I'm sure you can bond with your babies in lots of ways that don't involve turning your lives inside out just to make sure you never expose your baby to an ounce of formula. It's not poison."

They can see it on your face, and you know what, they don't appreciate it. They've decided to try to breastfeed through the problems and challenges, they do not need you sashaying in and acting all superior. You even say you are! You say you go to these meetings,

Maybe just to kill time, but maybe also to feel better about the formula thing because these moms look downright miserable. In the end, instead of feeling inferior, I just feel relieved.

That, right there? Smugness. Insufferable smugness. That has earned you one bitch-slap.

The second comes with this line,

The dark secret for me is that I had to work.

Oh my god, someone call the Pope, a woman had to work so she just couldn't breastfeed any more. I'm sorry Teresa, but you are not the world's first working mom. Other women do it. Work is not the reason you couldn't breastfeed any more. It may have contributed, but citing work as the "dark secret" is ignoring all the women who work full-time and pump as well as all the SAHMs for whom breastfeeding just didn't work out. Especially since it turns out you were only working 4 hours a day. I mean, good lord, where did you find the time to have a child?! Call Ripley's Believe it or Not, call the Guinness Book of World Records, let's get this story out on the wire! This earns you bitch-slap number two.

Then we have this,

I'm angry that the unintended consequence of this well-meaning "breast is best" movement is to guilt working moms into nursing on demand, all the time, all night long, for six months or until most jobs won't want you back. The accidental message is that if you don't press the pause button on every aspect of your life to nurse your baby, you are the worst thing in the world: a bad mom.

I'm with you on the unintentional "breast is best" guilt that leaves women stressed out, freaked out, and babies unhappy and in some cases, starving. I'm also with you against the "pause every aspect of your life to nurse your baby or be a Bad Mom" trolls. But uh, "for six months or until most jobs won't want you back"? Honey, wake up and look at the nation around you, most women do not have six months maternity leave.

"Actual paid "maternity leave" — while the norm in every other developed country — is unusual in the United States, although some enlightened companies do offer new parents paid time off, up to six weeks in some cases." Babycenter.com on maternity leave in the US

Nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of the best employers for working mothers provide four or fewer weeks of paid maternity leave, and half (52 percent) provide six weeks or less, according to an Institute for Women’s Policy Research analysis of data provided by Working Mother Media, Inc., publisher of Working Mother magazine. Institute for Women's Policy Research

Heck, the New York Times ran an article today about The Fight for Paid Maternity Leave.

Oh, but maybe these nursing moms have saved up money so they can take unpaid leave?

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires certain employers to allow eligible workers to take up to 12 weeks unpaid, job-protected leave each year. Columbia University Clearninghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth & Family Policies

So, six months, Teresa? You are living in a fantasy world. The "Breast is Best" tigers may also be living in a fantasy world, where all women have the freedom to breastfeed for six months, but a shocking amount of moms manage it with breast pumps and bathroom stalls for even longer.

Teresa, I'M NOT SAYING YOU ARE A BAD MOM! I'm just saying that you cannot use work as your shield in your fight for formula feeding. You profess several times how much you just loved nursing and how you

... did feel like a natural woman. At the pediatrician, I felt like a rock star. Around formula-feeding moms, I felt a potent mixture of superiority and pity.

Mayhaps this was a case of the lady doth protest too much? Or are you just kind of a smug bitch? Because you seem to feel superior whether you are breastfeeding or formula feeding!

Get off your high horse, look deep inside. Why did you stop breastfeeding? And then tell it like it is and stand up for that reason. Women will support you for that, as long as it's honest. Anyone who doesn't can go kiss your ass.

And for the love of GOD, stop going to breastfeeding groups! If you are lonely or guilty, like you say, form your own group of formula feeding women who support each other in their choices!

Finally, I find that you blame working on your book "Exploiting My Baby" which has now been optioned by Sony as the reason why you feel like you might be neglecting your child ABSOLUTELY FREAKING HILARIOUS! Seriously, do you not see the irony? 'Cause I'm shrieking with laughter over here.

***EDIT: For a woman who is not going to breastfeed and who I support whole-heartedly, read this blog post on Babble.com. Monica has thought long and hard about it and researched and decided that she's going to do what's best for her as well as her baby. She's extremely open and honest about it, not the least bit smug, and I wish her all the best. Read those comments.

This post could have been entitled: "Call Sir Mix-a-Lot, Baby's got Back" but instead will be called "Ugly Bags of Mostly Water"

2011-01-25T12:55:00.000+01:00

How typical! I was going to write a post about how I'm not really so upset about the weight gain because I've always wanted a butt and boobs and rounded limbs and then I went from this...

Only more tan and even bigger boobs.

To this...

Only slightly less purple... and bigger boobs.

This is due to water retention and I can see where it would be very uncomfortable to be this bloated during the summer. Only, doesn't water expand when it gets cold? I'm fairly sure of this. Please, god, don't let it get any colder, I'll pop like an over-filled water balloon!

Tying my shoes is practically impossible. Not only can I barely bend over to reach the foot I've placed ON A STEP-LADDER for easy access (try bending a hot dog 90 degrees) but my fat little fingers can barely grasp the shoelaces. It's like I've lost all control over my hands! Today I went to pick up my coffee mug and spilled coffee all over the kitchen. The coffee got INTO one of the cabinets and all of my mixing bowls. Now that's talent, folks. Taking my Danish test today was agonizing - it was an hour of writing. Seriously, when did they start making pencils so damn skinny?

And then there's my butt. Ah, oh round and juicy rump, how I wanted you! How I strived to find jeans that gave you shape when you had none! How I wished that one day my husband could pat you and not be stabbed by my pelvic bones! And, oh joy! You arrived one night, overnight express! I went to bed, using pillows to keep my hip bones from grinding into the mattress pad and woke to find a comfortable seat upon which to sit! Frabjous day, callooh callay! Soon the bruising I had sustained from sitting on a less-than ample rear would fade and I would... wait... what is that? And that? DEAR GOD I HAVE STRETCH MARKS ON MY ASS! How the? What the?

Well thank the gods I was never planning on taking up nude bathing.

And I can rule out squatting any more, at least for any longer than it takes for me to retrieve whatever I've dropped on the floor. From the moment I bend my legs past the 90 degree mark, circulation is completely cut off. Longer than 5 seconds and I need to be able to grab something to haul myself out of the squatting position. If there's nothing to grab, someone needs to rescue me or I have to stretch out on the ground, wait for circulation to clear my legs and begin the roly-poly process of getting to my feet. The cat, bless his evil little soul, thinks this means I want to play with him. Ever have a cat gnawing on your head while you flail helplessly on the ground like an upturned turtle? I do NOT recommend it.

"I'm so going to jump down and bite your ankles. See, I'm half way down.

I just gotta rest here a minute. Conserve my strength. But then I'm totally going to bite your ankles, fatso."

My back continues to hold. I think this is directly due to the amount of pick axing I've done in my life and possibly the overly filled backpack I've carried for the last 25 years. (Lockers require you to remember your combination and after the fifth time of going to the office to ask for it, I just began to carry my whole academic life wherever I went.) But my knees are reminding me that pushing wheelbarrows for years is NOT the way to build up joint strength and I think my ankles and feet are in negotiations to unionize. I expect a walk-out any day.

Not that I blame them, my weight is insane. I really do think that the scale is having some fun at my expense. There's no way I can be 80 kg (176 lbs)! The DB only weighs 84 kg (185 lbs)! With 8 weeks still to go, I expect I'll pass his weight. To give you an idea of what my poor feet, ankles, and knees are putting up with - 8 years ago I weighed 52 kg (115 lbs), dripping wet and holding a gallon of water, 8 months ago I weighed 60 kg (132 lbs), 8 days ago I weighed 78 kg (171 lbs) and now I weigh 80 kg (176 lbs).

***The number 8 seems to be the magic number here. Any numerologists in the house? What does that mean!?!***

I have a midwife appointment tomorrow. Half of me is worried she'll flip out over my weight and put me on a diet and half of me is worried that she won't blink an eye and tell me I'll gain another 8-10 kg (17-22 lbs) before the 19th of March. At which point I'm going to need a forklift to get out of bed and pulley rig to get me off the toilet.

Decorating the nursery

2011-01-24T17:55:00.000+01:00

Before you get all excited and start going on about looking forward to the pictures, may I point out that I've been pregnant for 32 weeks and I've managed ONE picture of my pregnant self. ONE. Taken with my ipod, by myself, because my husband keeps filling up the memory card on the camera with pictures of water towers and little old men who are celebrating their 90th birthdays and it hasn't really occurred to him that he should document this important time in his unborn child's life EVEN THOUGH I'VE REPEATEDLY ASKED HIM TO.

Spawn, when you want to know why there aren't many pictures of you in Mommy's tummy - it's all your father's fault. BET YOU'RE SORRY NOW, HUSBAND OF MINE!

Anyway, the moral of the story is: pictures??? You're kidding me right? And of what? The crib?

When I say "decorating" I'm not talking about painting or hanging pictures or curtains. We (because, dude, I'm 32 weeks pregnant, I can barely move myself, let alone furniture without assistance) took the spare mattresses from one room to another. The DB then vacuumed and washed the floor and we assembled the crib.

Over the months we've accumulated three cribs from various sources, only not nearly enough screws to fit them together. So we bodged one together.

"Wait a minute!" the collective gasp goes up from the audience, "Did you just say you 'bodged' - as in 'Junkyard Wars-hold things together with duct tape-bodged?"

Really, y'all, do you honestly think we'd use DUCT TAPE? It's not exactly non-toxic and you can totally chew through it. (Don't ask me how I know about that.) I'd never allow my husband to hold together the crib with duct tape.

We used those plastic hand-cuff thingys.

Plastic hand-cuffs, good enough for Cocaine King-pin, good enough for my baby's crib, yo.

Alright, I'm pulling your chain. A little bit. We had most of the screws we needed for one and found two longer screws that worked (to the point where the DB has declared we can't move because we can't disassemble the crib and we can't fit it through the door so we're going to have to stay put) and then were only two screws short so we used the cuffs. It's sturdy. It's very very sturdy.

We then went though the mountain of baby things we've been given or have borrowed in order to find out what we have and what we need.

Here's a good question: how do you know what you NEED? I mean, how many diapers should I have on hand? How many onesies does one need? What sizes should you have? When do you stop shopping!?

I ended up using the Consumer Reports newborn checklist. I'm kinda a CR junkie.

The good news is that we had almost all the large items. The bad news is that most of what you need for a new baby is pretty boring and as the DB put it "I guess they're just no fun to buy." But I've got some very cute outfits that will fit the Spawn a year from now. So lets hope for some snow in 12 months, okay? I've got about 8 knit caps, so I'm hoping the Spawn has four heads, but no booties, so I'm also hoping the Spawn hasn't got any feet.

From the used section of the classified-ads we purchased a "week-end" bed (a sort of foldable travel bed that also doubles as a play-pen) and a baby monitor. DB was ready to buy a used breast pump but I was a little *ugh* and so we passed on that one. I'll buy a brand new one, thankyouverymuch. I reassigned a set of drawers from our walk-in closet and we packed the pram, the pram insert (aka "lift" - we don't have these in the US), the diaper bag, and the soft-strap carrier into the closet and out of the way.

We still have to get the linens and a good amount of clothing to buy, not to mention all the nursing kit-and-caboodle. We may get a mobile or a picture or two for the walls, although since we are renting we are loathe to put holes into anything. I'm going to see if I can do something about the curtains, the current ones are pretty grim.

This is NOT our nursery.

Sweet Jesus, someone save the poor child from this French Rococo nightmare.

Next week the DB has Monday off, so we'll be able to sail to the mainland with a list in hand. We'll hit the second-hand baby clothes shop (if I was a long heavy baby and my husband was a long heavy baby, can we assume that it is more likely that Spawn will be longer heavier baby and should we purchase onesies accordingly?), BabySam (like a Babies R Us), and Ikea.

Oh Ikea... I luv you! You make it okay to live in a land that lacks the Wal-Mart and the Targét.

Anything you had or wished you had when you had a baby?

One time I dreamt I had borrowed a friend's car and wrecked it. When I told her about my dream, she was all "dude, you wrecked my car!?" and I said "dude, you don't have a car, you don't even have a license to drive!" and she was all "but it's the principle of the matter - you wrecked my freakin' car man!"

2011-01-22T17:17:00.000+01:00

So back when I was on anti-depressants all those years ago, I used to have whacked out dreams. I mean those dreams where you wake up and you aren't terrified, or crying, or anything, just staring up at the ceiling going "dude, what was *that*?" For the most part these ended with the mind and mood altering drugs, but every now and again I get some real doozies. They can be divided into two groups: airport dreams and WTF dreams.

I've figured out the airport dreams. Because I fear flying and I hate being late and I really do worry a great deal about missing flights, when I'm anxious I tend to dream that I'm running through an airport trying to catch my flight. These dreams usually end with me running across the tarmac because the plane has left the gate and for some reason airport security never sees this as a problem. I wake up covered in sweat and exhausted. I used to get them quite often when I was writing my dissertation, but now I only get them right before I fly somewhere, and I'm so blasé about the whole thing I usually just let them run to the end, wake up, take a drink of water, roll over and fall right back asleep. What I can't figure out is why the airports are always designed like something out of the 1970s - orange carpet, brown fabric on the walls and chandeliers made of aluminum rods and glass balls. (Why, yes, I do dream this dream so often I now pay more attention to the details out of sheer boredom.)

The others, classified WTF, are called that for a very good reason. I once had a dream where I was standing beside the children's slide in my kindergarden playground. Kittens were sliding down the slide. If they hit the ground at the end of the slide, they died. I was trying to stop them by placing my arms across the slide to block their descent, but I couldn't catch them all. They just kept tumbling down the slide. I tried reasoning with them and begging them, "please don't slide down the slide!" But they just kept coming! Now, when you wake up, you ask the obvious questions like "where did these kittens come from?" and "why did they die as soon as they touched the ground?" and "why couldn't I just go around to the slide's ladder and stop the damn kittens from getting UP on the slide in the first place?" and they are all good questions, but if you've ever had one of these dreams, you know that logical thought does not apply while you're dreaming.

I mention all this because it's very rare for me to have such weird dreams these days, but I guess the pregnancy hormones and the inability to stay in a deep sleep (due to acid-reflux and an exercising Spawn) means that I may be enjoying some interesting subconscious weirdness for the last 8 weeks of my pregnancy.

Last night's dream went like this:

I was walking through a darkened suburbia, where the houses were set relatively far back from the road and there were a lot of trees and no street lights. I was wearing high-heels, a short tank-top blouse, and carrying a purse but I wasn't wearing any pants (trousers for the Brits - I was wearing underwear, thank you very much). The ground was very unsteady, like I was drunk or had been drugged and the horizon kept tilting and I was staggering about, in and out of the street, and on and off people's lawns.

I knew was trying to walk back to my campsite, where I had a little caravan. To get there I had to climb over a wooded ridge and I was worried that the drunk who slept in the woods would wake up as I stumbled through the brush and attack me. He didn't, I made it safely over the hill and into the campsite.

Only I couldn't remember where my caravan was. Sigh.

I started walking in one direction and then changed my mind and walked in the other and then I found my car. (This would be the car I drove as a high school student - a '72 Chevelle.) Since I had my keys and my purse, I considered driving the car to a hotel, where I could shower and sleep, but then realized that I didn't want to try to check in because I wasn't wearing any pants and people would ask questions and I just really didn't know what had happened to my pants, I just wasn't wearing them any more. But right before I decided to sleep in my car, it occurred to me that if my car was here, then the caravan couldn't be to far away.

By now the sun was rising and it was getting light enough to see the trees and open meadows of the campsite. It wasn't anywhere I've ever been (well, in real life, in my dream it was very familiar because this is where I was camping, duh). I walked down the road and, sure enough, came upon the campsite. Where everyone was out watching the sunrise.

Apparently I was camping with a group. This wasn't in the least bit strange, it just sort of slotted itself into my dream, "oh yeah, that's right, everyone is going to be awake now."

My family was there (minus my sister) along with my best friend, my husband, and my ex (who's very presence is my brain's way of saying, "by the way, this is a nightmare, in case you didn't know") - all sitting in folding chairs, looking east, and drinking coffee.

My caravan was not in the circle of caravans.

I walked up and everyone looked at me and started laughing and asking what I'd done with my pants and saying "oh, look what the cat dragged in!" etc. I was pretty tired at this point, I had been wandering for quite some time after all, so I asked where my caravan was, because I really just wanted to go to bed. Everyone started looking at each other, all shifty and uncomfortable, like they didn't want to tell me and it was going to be an unpleasant subject.

"Well," I asked, "where is it?"

"Well, when you didn't come back," someone said "we let your sister take it."

"Where did she take it?"

Shrugs all around. People begin going back to looking at the sunrise and remarking on how nice everything was. I was pretty pissed off, but since no one would talk to me anymore, I called up my sister on my cell phone.

"Hey, where are you and why have you taken my camper?"

"Well, you didn't need it."

"Yeah, but I need it now. I want to go to sleep."

"Not my problem."

"Please, KT..."

"Whatever." And she hung up on me.

So there I was, shivering in the early morning, without pants, surrounded by people who just didn't give a crap about what had happened to me and were all much more interested in talking about how beautiful the sunrise was and how nice it was to be camping. All I wanted to do was lay down, but there was just nowhere to go. No offer of a place to lay down, pants, or even a cup of freaking coffee! Then they wanted me to take a photo of all of them having a great time. I angled the camera to include the space where my caravan *should* have gone and everyone leaned in towards each other for the picture, grinning and holding up coffee mugs.

And that's when I woke up. What a sucky dream!

I told the DB about the dream while he was in the shower and when he got out he gave me a huge, rather damp, hug. I figure the dream was about some fear that no one actually gives a crap about me or loves me. Thankfully, when fully awake, I know that that's not true, I have a long list of people who care and who give a crap about me and who would be worried sick if I didn't come home one night or if I showed up in the morning without pants and a dazed expression.

So seriously, subconscious, WTF?

I'm not blind... I just don't always look where I'm going...

2011-01-18T19:05:00.000+01:00

Dudes, I totally almost walked into a tree on the way to the supermarket.

No joke!

I was walking along.... doo-dee doo-dee doo *TREE*!

And I gave it a good long look, 'cause you know, maybe it had stepped out in front of me without looking both ways and once it saw that I had the right of way, it being a sideWALK and all, it would politely retreat to the park.

Nope. The tree stood resolutely in my path.

So I'm all, "look, man, I'm pregnant. You might not be able to tell under this massive parka, which is probably why people look at me funny all the time. I mean, you know, I'm all walking like a damn penguin but I have little skinny legs and then there's this huge parka and how are people gonna know, you know? So I'm telling ya, I'm pregnant, and that means you gotta give me some space. Or I'm a-gonna end up walking in the street and that's just crazy dangerous for a fat pregnant chick."

And I swear the tree proceeded to LOOM.

So I walked in the gutter. Freakin' tree. No respect.

See this?

This is a bunch of assholes just waiting to jump in front of your car.

This Break Was Brought To You By: Alot

2011-01-18T15:46:00.000+01:00

If I type this very fast, maybe I can get a post out before the cat wakes up.

Wait, "cat"? Shouldn't that read "baby" or something?

Yeah, let me explain.

Alot is going through a needy patch at the moment. I mean, if he's in the house he must be touching me or I must be touching him. If I fail to provide adequate attention, plaintive meowing and getting where he shouldn't ensues.

Alot: (jumps up on table)
AG: Argh, you know you aren't supposed to be up on the table!
Alot: (flings self down and rolls over) I'm not "up" on the table! Look, I'm lying down! I'm "lying down" on the table!
AG: Come on, get off the table.
Alot: No! I'll be good! See, I'm asleep! (closes eyes and grips the table cloth with all claws) *PURRRR*

So I scoop the cat up and immediately he's cuddling in my arms and rubbing his head under my chin.
Alot: Oh, I love you! How much I love to be held by you!! *PURRRRRR* (grips sweater with claws, presses body close)

The easiest solution, I've found, is to give in. We sit on the couch and I lean back so he's resting on top of my belly (by which I mean, he's really sitting on the shelf that the Spawn has created for my dining pleasure) and I pet him and watch TV. It's a good excuse to put my feet up for half an hour, but it means less surfing the web, I can't man-handle computer and cat into the living room at the same time.

Eventually he gets too warm and moves off of me before going into a deep sleep. This is when I get up and sneak out of the living room and back to the internet. He's getting more clever though. Now he drapes part of himself over me, or lays next me in a way that keeps me from getting up without disturbing him. Because then we can repeat the process.

Alot: *MEOW* Wait! *MEOW* Where are you going? *MEOW* Take me with you! *MEOW* Are you going to do something with the computer? (runs ahead, jumps up on the table and lays on the computer) 'S okay, I'm here, we can still be together! *PURRR*
AG: (face/palm)

My husband watched this process today and asked, "what does he think he is, a baby?" or maybe he asked "what is he going to do once we have a baby?" I'm not entirely sure because the cat was purring too loudly in my ear.

Spawn seems to find the whole thing a means of entertainment. If the cat pushes on my belly with his feet, Spawn is sure to push back. Sometimes Alot gives me this look like, "excuse me, could you not move your belly so much, I'm trying to sleep here!" and I have to tell him, "look, man, it's not me, it's Spawn. Take it up with Spawn in two months, okay?"

It's probably a good thing I'm going to give birth to an octopus. I think there is going to be an epic battle for my lap and my child will start off the underdog, lacking in size and claws, but having little fists and feet of steel. And if Alot's solution to the "Mom is paying attention to the computer when she should be paying attention to me" problem is anything to go on, Spawn is going to get laid on a lot.

Help, I've swallowed an octopus!

2011-01-13T17:43:00.000+01:00

It must be an octopus. I mean, there is NO WAY the child in my stomach has only two arms and two legs.

If I was having twins I would assume that there was a wrestling match going on - but with only one little person in there... WTF??

I'm pleased to report that my child has all of the expected appendages and has working joints. At least I'm pretty sure those were elbows and knees that joined in the fun. Because if those weren't elbows and knees as well as hands and feet, well... I may be giving birth to an octopus. Only not a soft and squishy octopus. One with wildly kicking feet. And flailing arms. That head-butts.

I'm getting head-butted in the cervix.

You know where I never expected to get head-butted?

In. The. Cervix.

All this flailing about sets off Braxton-Hicks contractions, which of course aren't painful, but are very distracting.

Funny story about these contractions. See, I get them all the freaking time but I didn't think they were contractions per se, I was describing them as "uterine flexes" because it felt like my uterus was sort-of flexing, like when you are standing in line at the supermarket and you flex your butt cheeks or your leg muscles to keep blood flowing and give yourself something to think about other strangling than the alcoholic in front of you who is paying for his cheap vodka with very small change - one coin dug out of his pocket at a time.

What, you don't flex your butt cheeks while queuing? Alrighty then, moving on!

Then one day in my 22nd or 23rd week I was reading up on labor and figured I should google Braxton-Hicks to find out how they would feel so that I wouldn't mistake them for real contractions in a few months. Because, as the book assured me, I was probably going to mistake this false labor for the real thing and that this was OK, it happens to us all, you gibbering idiot. LOL on me, "uterine flexes" are Braxton-Hicks contractions. Color me silly! I have several every day, but it never occurred to me that this was something other women panic about and run off to the hospital shrieking about going into early labor.

Not that I want crazy painful labor pains or anything, but I kinda hope early labor is a bit more apparent, otherwise I'm going to end up giving birth in the shower on accident because I didn't notice.

***BTW, I'm totally joking here - you don't have to tell me that I will notice and that there will be pain and all kinds of other delightful surprises because I'm well aware. I'm just being facetious.***

So anyway, two hours of kicking, punching, head butting and intermittent contractions later, I was feeling quite nauseous (surprising facts about pregnancy #43, having your insides bounced around will make you just as nauseous as if you were driving on a winding road, so take *that* Inner Ear and suck on it). Then the Spawn got the hiccups.

"HA!" I thought, "serves you right, you fetal asshole!" I hate hiccups, but the great thing about fetal hiccups is that they are rhythmic and pack far less of a punch than, say, A PUNCH.

Alas, the Spawn seems to take after Mommy in regards to hiccups. I'll get, like, five, and then be done. Same with Spawn. So five or so hiccups later we were back to the flailing and the contractions.

"Your child," I announced to the DB, "is an asshole." And for a few moments my husband tried to reason with my belly. But like cats and children, fetuses are jerks.

But I'll get the Spawn back. Oh yes I will! In under 10 weeks, I'm a gonna give birth to this thing, whether it wants to come out OR NOT! Cry all you want, Spawn, you ain't going back in! I WIN!