Sweet Yet Sour

Number 9 on the list – Broccoli

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 | Weird Things | 3 Comments

Having an organic chemistry professor for a father means that you always, without a doubt, participate in science fair every year.

My dad always helped me think of things to do for science fair and I had access to chemicals that made science fair more fun.

In 8th grade my dad and I decided that I would test to see if I could extend the life of fruit flies by combating free radicals.  Free radicals are molecules that have unpaired electrons that are thought to have a role in cell damage.  Research was just coming out about the affect that free radicals had on aging and cancer in the human body.  Certain foods and vitamins, like broccoli and Vitamin E had been touted as diminishing the number of free radicals in the body.

For the project I had four groups of fruit flies: 1. The control group being fed the usual fruit fly food; 2. A group being fed a mixture of Vitamin E and the usual fruit fly food; 3. A group being fed pureed broccoli and fruit fly food; and 4. A group being fed a mixture of BHT and fruit fly food.

BHT is the cruel joke my dad and I played on the fruit flies; BHT stands for Butylated Hydroxytoluene. BHT is used as a food preservative (check your next package of Cheetos), as well as in embalming fluid, and is actually controversial; it’s been banned in certain countries and in baby foods.  My dad of course had the ability to order this nasty stuff for me so I could feed it to the flies.

So for several months I watched the fruit flies in their test tubes for when they would lay eggs.  When they laid eggs I would put the parent fruit flies in a new test tube with a new batch of food.  This ensured that I knew exactly how long the fruit flies were living and if the experimental foods were actually extending their lives.  Most fruit flies live only for a few weeks so I could tell pretty quickly how the experiment was going.

Unfortunately for those of you who hate broccoli, it appears that your mother is right and that you need to eat your broccoli – it’s powerful stuff.

The fruit flies that lived on Vitamin E and BHT lived shorter lives than the controls.   Although this was expected for the BHT just because it’s a nasty chemical, it was a little surprising for the Vitamin E.  I suspect that it may have been the high concentration of Vitamin E that did in the fruit flies, since Vitamin E has been shown to combat free radicals in the body.

The flies that ate broccoli, on the other hand, lived for three months – long after science fair was over.  They may have even lived longer, but after the competition was done I had a hard time convincing my mom that she wanted to have test tubes of fruit flies in her house.

In the end I thought it best to end their lives peacefully, so I put a cotton ball in their test tube doused with nail polish remover and they went off to the big fruit fly sleep.

So if you want to live longer and combat cancer let me know and I’ll send you my recipe for a cheese sauce that goes really well with steamed broccoli.   I think it’s important to diminish free radicals, but who says you can’t do it with a little cheese on top?

10 Weird Things

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Weird Things | 1 Comment

After a few months of being a mom I have realized that I have sort of lost a sense of myself in amongst all of the new mom activities and the loss of my job.  Mike keeps asking me what I want to do for myself and I can’t think of anything except sleep. I am really grateful I have this blog as an outlet though, so that I can vent and keep a little of my own identity.

So, in order to remind myself that I am, outside of my Anna’s momness, an interesting person, I’ve decided to start a list of 10 interesting/weird things about myself.  These are in no particular order and I will try to post one a day until I’m done.

Do you my readers have such a list? I’d love to read it if you do!

Here’s number 10 on my list:

10. Genghis Khan – When I was 8 years old I was fascinated with spiders, especially tarantulas.  One day my parents came home from a road race in Pueblo (my parents were road runners most of my child hood) with a tarantula that they had caught on the side of the road.  They had apparently used a metal band-aid box to catch the spider and then put it in a plastic bag for me. I remember looking up at the bottom of the bag and being so excited to see those eight furry legs…  I don’t remember the reasoning, but I named the spider “Genghis Khan”.

“Genghy” as he/she (I never knew) became known, lived in a glass cage in my little desk room in the basement with some rocks, a small water dish, and the live crickets that tarantulas were supposed to eat.  Genghy was apparently pretty traumatized by the transition to living in a cage and didn’t really eat many of the crickets.  Genghy sat in the cage not moving for long periods and I was too afraid to pick the spider up, so there Genghy stayed.

A few weeks after Genghy became part of our home, one of our cats knocked over the table that held Genghy’s cage.  Besides releasing 10 noisy crickets into our basement, this event broke the glass cage and somehow cut off one of Genghy’s legs.

Now I was the owner of a traumatized 7-legged tarantula, poor thing.  We put Genghy into a new cage with some new crickets, but sadly, Genghy didn’t seem to deal well with the loss of a leg.  I’m not sure if there is such a thing as spider suicide, but one day soon after I came home to find Genghy dead in the water bowl.

We buried Genghy in a box in the backyard under a tree in the cemetery formerly reserved for cats and rabbits and that was the end of me owning a tarantula. Oh Genghy you were a lovely tarantula who sacrificed your life for the curiosity of a girl who is now afraid of spiders…

Update

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | Updates | 2 Comments

I realized today that I use the blogs of my friends to keep up with their lives.  Especially now that I am spending more time at home and less time out in the world socializing I need these easy to get updates.  And then I thought, “Well, duh, maybe I should do the same for my friends.”  We’ll see how long this lasts, but here’s what is going on these days in the Munhall house.

1. Anna is more chatty and smiley these days than she has ever been.  She’s much more fun now and a there’s a lot less crying.  Except at bedtime or naptime, when she screams through all of her bedtime stories because she does not want to go to bed.  I’m getting used to this and I simply read through the stories in the same tone of voice, despite the fact that she is yelling in my ear.   I know that as soon I get to the middle of the last story, (which is always the same – “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, by Eric Carle) she will have closed her eyes and stopped crying with resignation.  She apparently laughed last week while Mike was changing her diaper, but I missed it and she hasn’t laughed since.  She does little laugh attempts but no real laughing for me.

2.  This last Saturday we were supposed to host a “Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion” at our house.  All of our classmates, their babies and our teacher were coming.  However, on Friday it became evident that Anna was sick, and after calling and talking to our pediatrican’s nurse, we decided she has some sort of stomach virus.   So we cancelled the reunion and stocked up on pediatric electrolyte drink and hunkered down for Anna being sick.

When we do reschedule the reunion it will be exciting to see everyone and the babies (there’s twin girls, three boys and our Anna).  I’m hoping there will more than just talk of labor and delivery, but it will be fun to see how everyone else’s labor went.  I am also looking forward to talking with other women who are staying home to see how they are coping.  I have been trying desperately this week to finish decorating Anna’s room in preparation.  I’m just not a decorator, so before Anna arrived all we had was furniture in a white room.  It’s still like that, but I’m trying to get some stuff hung up so the walls aren’t bare.

3. My parents have been visiting Wyoming a lot this summer hanging out in my Aunt and Uncle’s house by Reservoir No. 1 (very original name, eh) and just relaxing.  This is the first summer that I can ever remember when my dad did not teach his usual summer Organic Chemistry class.  He’s always taught in the summer ever since we were kids so this is a big change to have him not teaching. Mom is doing really well and is finally feeling well enough to get back to quilting.  I’m hoping she will finish the two quilts she is working on for Anna sometime soon.

4. Sunday night someone got into Mike’s car and took his GPS.  They didn’t seem to take anything else, but they left a nice tarp (not a fair trade!).  When Mike got home from work on Monday night we called the Sheriff’s office to have someone come and take a report, just in case they recovered the GPS at some point.  I’m sure it was just a roving band of teenagers and there’s a good chance that the car was unlocked, but still it was a nice GPS and Mike really used it a fair amount.  The deputy that was sent out to take the report was so, how do I put this, “policeman-like”.  He had no sense of humor, and kept scolding us for possibly leaving the car unlocked.  Every other sentence he said started, “This is America, so you can leave your car unlocked if you want but…”  Oh bite me, we accidentally left the car unlocked.  I don’t think I have ever, nor will I ever, leave something unlocked thinking to myself that it’s my right as an American citizen to the pursuit of possible burglary.

5. I had a brief conversation on Thursday with a business analyst that I used to work with at my former job.  She’s apparently working for a consulting company and said she might have some part time QA work in the next few months.   Hopefully we can work something out when the time comes.

6.  I am going a little more stir crazy that I thought I would staying home with Anna.  For the moment, she’s not very happy in her car seat for very long, and she pretty much has to stay in the car seat when we go out, unless I want to carry her and only have the use of one hand.  I feel guilty going out and making her stay in the car seat, so I have avoided going out at all.  I realize that I need to get over this and just get out, but there’s also not much you can do with a 3 month old.  I can’t really take her to the zoo or the museum and have her be excited about any of the things that she sees.  I can’t wait until she can at least go in a front pack carrier or something so that she can be out of the car seat and we can look at things together.

Until she can completely hold her head up I can’t put her in the pack, so I keep telling her to work on her neck muscles…  It’s a difficult transition moving from when I could go wherever I wanted to feeling that I need to be mindful of the baby, when she needs to eat and sleep next and how long she will be able to be in the car seat before she gets upset.

7.  I bought a sign the other day that says, “A spoiled rotten Greyhound lives here.” for our front porch.  Lately with the heat though, I doubt that Cash would think that he is spoiled.  Anna’s schedule dictates that I don’t usually have time to walk him until about 10 a.m., unless I want to walk him at 5 a.m., which I don’t.  This means that it’s pretty hot by the time we go out for the walk and even though he likes the walk, he pants all the way through.  We’re making up for it by giving him chicken jerky treats every day and every once in a while I sneak him a little cheese.

That’s all the news from here I think.  I’m off to bed for a little snooze until Anna wakes me up for a feeding…

So Sorry Gink

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

Mike’s right, Gink didn’t like people very much.  Okay, she hated people, dogs, other cats and probably Mother Teresa.  But I feel the need, since it was I who made the decision to have her put down yesterday, to make the case that I tried to give her a good life despite her nasty temperment.

I adopted Gink 10 years ago from the humane society because I lived alone, didn’t date much or have many friends and I wanted someone to talk to at home.  Having had Siamese cats all my life, I figured that I could find one that needed a home that would talk back.  She looked sweet (in the cage), she was definitely conversational, and she was 8, so I thought she might have difficulty finding a home at her age.  Her original name was Mickey, but I tossed that and named her after the cat in the “Dorrie the Little Witch” children’s books that I was read as a child.

Gink and I would sit on the couch and watch t.v. together, she would eat potato chips and the remains of my bowl of Tin Roof Sundae, and she would tell me about her day.  She was like that, it was all about her; she never asked about my day.

A few months after I got her I discovered that she had a surface ulcer on her right eye.   I spent loads of money taking her to a special eye vet every two weeks and putting eye drops into her eye.  This was the beginning of Gink’s real hatred of people – she hated that vet and the appointments became increasingly violent on Gink’s part.  When it came time to spend $900 on Gink’s eye surgery, I happily drove the 70 miles to Denver with the cat in the middle of winter.  I unhappily drove home in a blizzard with a cat that hissed and spat green stuff at me for the six hours that it took to get home in the blinding snow.

Gink and I still got along pretty well, except for a little biting, until I started to date more and got more friends.  Then she turned on me and everyone else.  I have to admit though, I did use her once to get rid of an allergic boyfriend that I wanted to break up with anyway.  He left crying, but I think it was mostly because I put Gink on the couch behind him…

When I moved in with my sister, who had two cats already, Gink’s attitude problem became even more clear.  She really didn’t like not being the only one in the house with paws, and since her previous owner had declawed her, she used her teeth to express her displeasure, biting everyone and every thing in her path.

Still, I continued to have, at least every once in a while, a cat who would nicely sit on my lap or sleep on my bed (although always directly in the middle of the bed).  But once Mike and I got married it was clear that she didn’t like Mike and wasn’t happy about the other person getting my attention.

So when Anna arrived it was not a surprise that the first thing that Gink did was pee in the bag that I brought home from the hospital. (There went the copy of “Eat, Pray, Love” that Rena had loaned me and that I thought I would have the time and concentration to read during and/or after labor – silly girl!)  Gink then proceeded to pee on all of the bathroom rugs, until we closed all the doors to the bedrooms.  When I talked to the vet about the problem he said, “Well, Gink has always been a ‘difficult’ cat, and this is typical of cats with behavior problems.”  But he offered no real solution, except to keep her out of the bedrooms.

Gink also increased her screaming after Anna arrived.  Generally she would stand right outside Anna’s room and scream for a long time until we told her to be quiet, which usually only lasted a few minutes.  She would start right back up again and was able several times to wake the sleeping baby.

The other day, when I left the door to Anna’s room open for only a minute while I was washing Anna’s face, Gink got in the room and peed on a baby blanket on the floor (the blanket that we won) and of course on the carpet beneath.

Fearing that eventually she would pee everywhere that smelled like baby and knowing that this would soon be the whole house, I made a plea to all of my local cat loving friends to see if anyone would take the cat.  After two weeks of waiting to see if anyone would volunteer and getting no response, I made the appointment to have Gink put down.

I’m sorry to Mike, who had to take her to the vets, since I know it wasn’t easy, which is why I made him go instead of going myself.  Before he left, I held her tightly, cried, told her how sorry I was and then put her in the carrier with some potato chips.  I hope that in cat heaven Gink gets someone to love her all to herself and that she forgives me for this, because unfortunately, Anna comes first.

Moving!

Monday, July 21st, 2008 | The Daily Special | No Comments

Mike bought dorriemunhall.com for me, so I’m moving. This is partially motivated by the fact that our old friend Dave, who hasn’t spoken to us in more than a year, owns the domains for RRC and my blog, but whatever! I can’t go into detail as to why Dave isn’t speaking to us, because I have no idea; he simply stopped returning my calls.

Anyway, sorry about the sudden move, since Dave owns the domains we didn’t know they were going to expire.  We’ve been talking about shutting down the RRC site anyway, since I won’t be doing that for a while, and buying dorriemunhall.com and this was our kick in the pants to do so.

According to Howmanyofme.com (thanks Tori!) there’s only one Dorrie Munhall in the U.S., so I don’t think anyone was clamouring for the site anyway.  At least I won’t have to worry about getting any emails from other Dorrie Munhalls wanting the rights…  Welcome to the new site!

How Not to Change A Diaper

Monday, July 14th, 2008 | Mom Stuff | 4 Comments

Parenting is a 24/7 job with no breaks and barely any sleep.  Thankfully it also has some moments of hilarity.

Even if you have experience changing diapers, the whole process is different when it’s your own child and you have not had a lot of sleep.  For the first few weeks we were both amazed at the sheer size and weight of the things we would see in Anna’s diaper, considering what a small child it was all coming from.  And we began to learn to be quick with the changing or we would regret it and have to do more clean up.

Newborn poop, just as an FYI, does not look like adult poop.  For the first few days it’s like black sticky tar, while the baby gets the stuff out that they digested in the womb.  After that, if the baby is breastfed, the diapers begin to fill with pee and this strange yellow, liquidy, seedy stuff.  Apparently breastmilk is so nutritious that the baby absorbs most of what they eat so the yellow liquid is all that’s left.

Unfortunately this liquidy stuff is an easy projectile, especially when combined with the jet fuel that is baby gas.  I think it was the second week that Anna was home when I was changing her diaper at about 5 a.m. and I felt the full brunt of this lesson.

I had just gotten the dirty diaper off when all of a sudden the poop launched out of my sweet little daughter and all over the changing pad and all over the wall.  It was as if Jackson Pollock had been in Anna’s room.  But don’t worry, it didn’t miss me either.  My pajama bottoms and my top were splattered in a 10 inch wide swath of yellow spray.  I had to laugh!  I started to clean all of this up when I realized that Mike would really want to see the damage as well.  He laughed when he saw the room and me and it was good to share the laughter with him.

It was then that we decided that we needed more than 2 changing pad covers, just in case this ever happened again.

Since then, I have generally been more speedy about changing her diapers to avoid these type of messes, but every once in a while I slip.The other night at 2:30 a.m. was the worst diaper change I have had since the wall painting incident.  I generally change Anna’s diaper in the middle of her feedings to keep her awake (breastmilk is pretty soporific so if you don’t wake the baby during the feeding the baby will be hungry again soon).

So halfway through the 2 a.m. feeding I began my usual diaper change.  I took the dirty diaper off and wondered why there was so little in the diaper since Anna had been asleep for 5 hours.  I was just opening up the new diaper when the yellow poo was launched from the launch pad.  Fortunately, there was not that much, so it stayed within the confines of the changing pad and didn’t get on Anna’s outfit.

I lifted the baby up, wiped her off, put her into her crib, changed the changing pad cover and put the baby back on the changing pad.  Some of the poop had gotten on the first new diaper, so I had to get a new one out.  I had the diaper open and my hand under her bottom when Anna decided that it was time to pee.  On me.  On the new diaper.  On the new changing pad cover.  On her outfit…

Now I have to take Anna’s outfit off, wipe her down, and put her back into the crib and it’s on to the next changing pad cover.  (We now own 5 changing pad covers and even then the next day I had to do laundry and resort to using a towel on the pad while the wash was going.) With the new changing pad cover on, I put the baby back on the pad, and get out a new diaper and a new outfit.  By now, the baby is fully awake and I know that I will now have a hard time getting her to back to sleep.

Anna, in the meantime, smiles all the way through this whole process.  She smiled when she projectile pooped, she smiled when she peed and she continues to smile and make sweet little gurgles at me every time I change her.

I was finally able to get a diaper and a new outfit on Anna without getting peed on or sprayed with baby mustard.  I took her back to the rocking chair and began the second half of the feeding.Here’s the problem, suckling gets a baby’s intestines going so they generally poop either during or after they eat.  Yep, you guessed it.  During the second half of the feeding, Anna had some more poop to get out.  This time it leaked out the side of the diaper (since she is laying on her side) and on to the blanket that I have placed on my lap for just such an occasion.  (During the first week I went through three pairs of pajama pants before I learned this trick.)

Is anyone else laughing at this point?  I was, even if it was 2:30 a.m.  This was definitely a lesson in how NOT to get through a diaper change!

Breastmilk is Free, Sort Of…

Monday, July 7th, 2008 | Mom Stuff | 7 Comments

It was a foregone conclusion for me that I would breastfeed Anna upon her arrival.  I never understood why people would opt for formula.  Breastmilk is free, always available and it looked easy.  Whoa Nelly was I wrong about the “easy” and “always available” part!  Now I know that breastmilk, while free, comes with a price.

During my eighth month of pregnancy Mike and I took a “Breastfeeding Preparation” class one Monday evening.  That day, I went to my boss and told her I needed to leave the office early to make it to the class.  Her response was, “Babies don’t suck like men, they suck hard.” Okay, thanks for the info…  (And they say that “kids” say the darnest things!  What about adults?)

My sister kept telling me that next to riding a bicycle, breastfeeding was the hardest thing she’s ever had to learn.  So I decided to take a class.  The class should prepare me, right?

In class we discussed why breastfeeding is good for both mom and baby and the physical process of when the milk comes (hormones, etc.), what it contains, etc.  We were given fake boobs (see Mike’s picture of ours here) to put into our baby doll’s mouth and we learned how to hold the baby while nursing.

After class, I felt prepared and ready for what was to come.  I knew how to hold the baby and direct it towards the boob and what breastfeeding was going to be like.

Here’s the first problem – the babies in class were fake.  They don’t move, they don’t scream and they don’t wave their little arms and legs around all while bopping their heads around like baby birds.

The second problem with class was that the fake boob and the nipple thereupon was not attached to me and my nerve cells, unlike my real boob.  The dula who taught the class kept saying “Breastfeeding should not hurt.”  This is cute, but it’s a lie.  It will hurt, at least for the first few weeks.  Anyone who tells you different has either not breastfed, does not have nerves in their nipples, or is lying to bring you into the breast feeding fold; I call these last people “breastfeeding Nazi’s” (BNs).

There’s a whole bunch of things that the BNs do not tell you.  I’m here, my fellow women, to give you the truth, because I know you can handle the truth and I know that you want the truth.These truths about breastfeeding are as follows:

1. Breastfeeding will hurt.  There’s just no way around it.  There’s a lot of nerves in those nipples and my boss was right, babies suck as if you are the thickest milkshake on the planet and there’s a chunk of strawberry stuck in the straw.  For weeks, I would literally cry myself when the baby began to cry for her feeding, and would then curse from the pain when she finally got latched on and started eating.  This will make you want to stop breastfeeding altogether and go the formula route.  If you hang in there though, it gets better.  Fortunately, once you and the baby get the hang of things, it stops hurting and in the meantime, there’s cooling pads, lanolin and drugs (Ibuprofin is your friend).

2.  The baby, who will be desperately hungry, moves, a lot.  This, along with the fact that both you and the baby are not versed in the correct manner of how to do things will make this whole process frustrating for everyone.  The poor baby is trying it’s best to get some food, but it’s not sure how to get the milk that it can smell somewhere near it’s nose.  In order to get the milk in the baby you need to somehow wrestle the baby so that you can pin the arms and legs that are flailing wildly, while trying to control the baby’s bobbling head, and if you have been taught correctly, you also have to somehow grab and hold your boob at the same time.

During this you are also supposed to be holding the baby correctly, and if you listen to the BN that was my in-hospital lactation consultant, you can’t use a pillow to support you or the baby.  Apparently no one is supposed to be comfortable during this process.  Trust me ladies, screw that crap, use a pillow, and if possible the hands of anyone in the room to get that baby to stop moving and into a semi head lock onto your boob.

3. You will need to buy lanolin for yourself and you will need to use it often – your nipples will thank you.  This stuff works to keep those poor tender nipples from becoming too painful.  Although I am frankly a little puzzled as to how someone figured out that lanolin works on this area. Did the thought process go something like this: “Hmm, my nipples really hurt.  Perhaps I should go over there and rub myself on that there greasy sheep…”?  And if this is true, were the Scottish the only ones who breastfeed comfortably until this information spread?

4. There is not one, but many holes in your nipple for the expressing of milk.  Until I saw this for myself, I was under the impression that the milk just came out in a huge stream like water out of a fire hose.  Wrong! There are multiple holes, and sometimes they all go at once (which looks like something like a sprinkler head) or they’ll switch off and on.  Some squirt up, some squirt down and some squirt straight out.  I have no idea what the biological advantage is to this set up, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.  It does however make you briefly feel like a circus freak until you hear from other women that this is normal.

5.  You will need an entirely new set of shirts to accommodate your new status as a breastfeeding mom.  The purpose of this new wardrobe will be to optimize the time it takes to get ready for a feeding, while having enough pattern and texture to hide the milk that you leak and conceal your constantly perky nipples.  I myself spent a trip to Ross with my sister pulling down on the V-necks of shirts, saying things like “I don’t think I can my boobs out quick enough in this one.”  Imagine that!  I spent almost my entire life trying to keep the boobs in my shirt (although with my size this wasn’t a huge problem), only to come to a point where I can think of nothing but whether or not they will be easily accessible.

You will leak milk all over yourself.  Accept this and simply buy shirts in patterns and dark colors where the wetness will not be so visible.  I myself took Anna and the dog out on a walk once and had a lovely conversation with a neighbor only to discover that I had spent the entire conversation with a huge (and very obvious) circular stain on each boob.  Nursing pads help, but sometimes when there’s a lot of milk, they are no use at all.

6. The milk is not always available.  It takes a little coaxing and then the milk will start to flow.  This is called “let-down”.  Sometimes, I can get let-down as soon as I hear the baby cry, when I hear other babies cry, and sometimes when I even just think about the baby.  Once let-down does it’s thing, the milk starts flowing whether there is a baby there to drink it or not.  Just last night I was getting out of the shower, thought about Anna briefly and then had to rush back into the shower and stand there until the milk stopped squirting out.  And then I had to take another shower to get all the milk washed off.  And then there was the other day when I was in a movie theater listening to the “Don’t make your own soundtrack” message before the movie and there was a baby crying in amidst the noise…

7. You will at times feel like a milk cow.  During the first few weeks when all the baby does is pee, poop and eat, you will feel like you are Bessy the cow with no other purpose than to express milk.  Thankfully, once the baby starts to smile at you and interact, your cow feeling will go away.

Unless you are like me and you watch “Dirty Jobs” frequently.  There was an episode a few weeks ago where the host, Mike Rowe, went to a dairy farm and into the “milking room”.  The farmer started talking about how they get the cows to achieve “let-down” and I started to really feel for the cows.  The worst part was when they showed Mike how to get the hair off of the cows’ nipples.  Apparently it’s for hygienic reasons; they need to get all the hair off the cow nipples since the hair gets dirty and could contaminate the milk.  Anyway, the process to get the hair off is to fire up a torch and pass it quickly and closely to the cow nipples to singe the hair off.

Great! Now I have to go find a lighter…

Mom Hair

Monday, July 7th, 2008 | Mom Stuff | 3 Comments

Now that I am a mom, I had to drag my hair kicking and screaming with me.

For a long time I have had long hair.  It’s been nice, but I can’t deal with it anymore.  My hair, although fine, is heavy.  With the summer heat and the fact that somedays I don’t have time to shower and thus, my hair gets oily, I made the decision to kick the long hair to the curb.

I went to see my lovely hair dresser, whom I hadn’t seen since I was 8 months pregnant.  I showed her lots of pictures of Anna and then we got down to the business of cutting my hair.  She gave me a lovely short little bob, with layers, and at the end pronounced, “Now you have Mom hair.”

Crap.  I didn’t really want my hair to say ” I am a mom”.  Does this mean that when I go out in public people will look at me and say, “She must be a mom, she has Mom Hair”?

Oh well, I guess I’ll deal with Mom Hair.  It’s short and off my neck, which is cooler during the summer.   Here’s a picture, which was taken the day of the cut.

This is probably the last time it will look this nice, since it involves a round brush and dryer to get to this stage.  If I don’t have time to shower, when I am going to have time to dry and primp my hair?

The End of Dog Racing in Colorado

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | The Daily Special | 1 Comment

Last Saturday, June 28th, was the last day of live Greyhound racing at the only remaining dog track in Colorado, Mile High Racing.  Apparently this was due to the track owners not bringing in enough money during the winter season to justify having dog racing during the winter months.  Dog owners were asked to race the dogs from April to September only, and dog owners refused, since the dogs need to be fed and housed all year long – which is costly.

Unfortunately, this means that there will be a huge amount of dogs that need homes.  The organization that we got Cash through (Colorado Greyhound Adoption) is estimating at least 200 dogs that will need to be adopted, if not more.   And not to be dramatic here, but if the owners cannot find homes or other race tracks in other states to race their dogs at, the dogs will be euthanized.

I’m not exactly sure how to feel about the end of racing in Colorado.  On the one hand, I don’t get the impression that the dog’s lives while they race is that great and so I think it’s good that there is a chance for many dogs to have a better life.  On the other hand, it seems like a huge task to get hundreds of dogs adopted, so I fear that many will go unwanted.

If you want a great, calm, well-behaved dog, I believe now that there is no better breed than the Greyhound.  Seriously, look at our sweet dog:

Isn’t Cash cute? Before he met us, he lived in a concrete kennel for so long that his hind quarters and chest still don’t have hair.  Before he met us, he didn’t know about things like dog treats, toys, glass doors, stairs or how to live in a house.

Everyday we are glad that we rescued him. Everyday, we are glad that we got this large, but sweet and good dog. He’s not a guard dog, but that’s not what we wanted.  Mike wanted a large dog, like a Rottweiler, and I wanted something that I could control. We compromised, and we know we made the right choice.

For centuries, these dogs were revered and only royalty were allowed to keep them.  Racing of them began a long time ago in Egypt and spread into Europe; it’s been called the “Sport of Queens”, because the dogs were kept and raced by female royalty.  (Hunting is the sport of kings.)

For a long time, many veterinary practices would keep a Greyhound on staff because they are so docile that they are easy to use for blood donations.

We have never had a problem with Cash and our cats, Anna or our pesky 2 year-old nephew.  One of the cats took a swipe at him in the first few days and he’s never been near them since.  Adoption organizations always test the dogs for cat friendliness and will tell you if the dog thinks cats are prey.

We have also never had a problem with Cash and other dogs.  Except once, when a Husky tried to mount him at the dog park, and he turned and growled, but really, who wouldn’t?

When I heard that the track was closing, I called Mike and we discussed getting another Greyhound.  I think for the moment, with Anna here, we simply can’t, but we would love to do so in the future.  These dogs are so easy that many people we meet have multiple Greyhounds.  Mike and I always discuss that if we win the lottery, our dream is to get a big ranch and adopt lots of Greyhounds.

So I am asking you, my readers, to spread the word about the track closing.  This is a wonderful dog breed; if you want to try one out, most organizations have foster programs to acclimate the dogs to living in a home (there is some house training involved) so you can easily volunteer to do as such.  Most dogs available for adoption will spend several weeks in a foster home and so they will come to you house trained.

They really are great dogs, just come meet ours if you want proof!

Sex in the City (Spoilers)

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | The Daily Special | No Comments

Whoohoo! I finally got to see Sex in the City. Jen, Ellebee and I must be the last women in their thirties in America to see this movie. (I put “spoilers” in the title of this entry, but really, I am the last person to see the movie, so I doubt it will matter.)

On Wednesday, Ellebee and Jen graciously met me out here in the way far away boonie burbs to see Sex in the City.  Mike babysat the munchkin and it was the first time I had left her for more than an hour.   I was really worried and nervous about how they would both do, and then on the way to the theater I thought, “If she cries, it won’t kill her, and that’s the only bad thing that’s going to happen while I’m away.”

So I relaxed and went to Walgreens, where I spent $6 total on king size packages of Whoppers, Junior Mints, Goobers, and plain and peanut M&M’s.  This is why I carry the big purse – so that I can shove all that stuff in there and no one will know… And seriously, what a deal, six packages of candy for $6!  I paid more for the bottle of water at the theater than I did for all that candy.

Anyway, it was nice to escape again into the lives of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha.  The fashion is always amazing, as is the idea that somehow Carrie’s tiny apartment has enough closet space to fit all those designer clothes and shoes.

I have never, nor will I ever, be able to identify with the ladies in the show.  There have been moments though, when things happen to me that remind me of certain episodes or lines.  Lately, I think often of the episode when Miranda is breastfeeding Brady while Carrie is visiting and says something like, “Look at how huge my nipples have gotten.”   I too, have been amazed of late how huge my nipples are; they’re probably two or three times their original size.

Oh, that was probably too much information there…

Identifying with the characters in Sex in the City is not the point, at least for me.  It’s a fairy tale of sorts and I have always loved fairy tales.  There was even a fairy tale wedding, with a princess dress and a wedding in a library.  (I too, like Carrie, love the smell of library books.  I also love the noise of that crisp plastic they put on some of them.  Weird, I know!)

I personally would have gone for the Vera Wang wedding dress, but certainly, the Vivian Westwood was beautiful.  And honestly, I heard “Vivian Westwood” before they pulled out the dress and was surprised that it wasn’t garishly ugly with a plaid bustier.

Seeing the movie does however make me sad that I have not yet visited NYC.  During one of the scenes I was such a small town bumpkin that I had to lean over to Laura and ask, “Is that in Central Park?”  Dork!

How is it possible that Carrie could have doubted that Big loved her when he built her that beautiful closet?  I mean, come on! That closet is every woman’s dream – and she doubted his love for her?

I did love the introduction of Louise, who was wonderful, although I felt there could have been more character development.  But it was a 2 hour 15 minute movie, so at the end I stopped caring about character development and started really needing to go to the bathroom.  That’s what I get for spending all the money I saved on buying candy at Walgreens on a $7.00 bottle of water that I finished before the previews ended…