Moving On

I have decided to retire this blog. Since starting it, I got married, had two babies, and grappled with one nasty bout of postpartum depression. I have grown a lot and this blog no longer feels like the right place for me.

So I have started a new blog, CourtneyNovak.blogspot.com. See you there!

I'm In Love!

I'm in love with a vacuum cleaner and my god, every time we are together, I feel my heart triple in size and I want to dance and sing and giggle. 

My four month old Julian is furiously working on rolling over and his plans for global domination. He will probably be crawling in two months. You know what that means? It means I'm fucked. Totally and completely fucked. Because my three year old Pippa is a tornado who whirls around the house leaving behind a trail of glitter, graham cracker crumbs and stale Cheerios. And in two months, Julian will be crawling after Pippa and eating anything and everything  left in her wake.  

As a second time mom, I am much more relaxed with Julian than I was with Pippa. But I do not relish the idea of my baby eating petrified Cheerios off a dirty floor. So I started waging a war against dirty floors. And almost immediately, I started losing the war against dirty floors.

Until now!

A hero has arrived, from distant lands, to bolster my troops and strike fear into my enemy. Her name is the Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner, and she is glorious. 

How did I not know about cordless vacuums? I assumed that in my war against crumbs, my weapons were limited to (1) my clunky clunk of a clunker vacuum with its annoying cord, (2) my dust buster, and (3) my broom.  

I like sweeping. It's a sort of walking meditation for me. But sweeping is slow and inefficient. Especially when a thirty pound child is wrapped around your leg. 

The dust buster is in theory very helpful. In practice, it sucks. Too much bending. I spend all day bending. I bend to pick up the baby. I bend to pick up the three year old. I bend to pick up their toys. I bend to pick up my diaper bag. By 9 a.m., I have bent over so many times, I cannot bend anymore. Yet I keep bending. I'm a mom. It's part of the job description. If I bend over to use the dust buster, I am courting disaster. 

I thought nothing could help me win the war against filth. But then a matchmaker (my mom) introduced me to the new love of my life: my new cordless vacuum. Oh my new vacuum! Just typing those words makes me giddy. It is one of the best things I have ever bought. I love it so much. It is light and easy to maneuver around the house. It has the power of my clunky clunk vacuum but the grace of a swan. It is as meditative and satisfying as sweeping but as efficient as a traditional vacuum. AND IT DOES NOT HAVE A CORD. I do not have to lug it around the house because it is light and slender and oh so fair. I do not have to plug it into an outlet and then tromp back to unplug it and replug it in a different outlet when I want to clean another room. I just breeze through the house, la la la, sucking up all the dirt and glitter. 

I have heard it said that money can't buy happiness. Whoever said that has clearly never met my new cordless vacuum.

Courtney's Anti-PPD Checklist

I had postpartum depression after the birth of my first child. When I got pregnant with my second, I knew there was a strong possibility I would get it again. But I also knew that if I took certain steps, I could minimize that risk. Or, at the very least, I could have safeguards in place to keep the postpartum depression from being as severe as my 2013 edition. After lots of soul searching, I devised "Courtney's Action Plan To Kick Postpartum Depression In The Ass."

My action plan involved four parts: (1) skip breastfeeding entirely (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Try To Eek Out A Few Drops of Colostrum); (2) take Zoloft as soon as the baby left my womb; (3) hire a night nurse; and (4) keep doing all the little things that make me happy. 

I will write about the first three parts of my action plan in future blog posts. Right now, I want to tell you about my checklist. My recovery from postpartum depression involved a lot of big things - a four night stay in the hospital, Zoloft, cognitive behavioral therapy - but it also involved a lot of little things like listening to music and getting fresh air. Those little things might seem inconsequential, but they were as important to my recovery as the big ticket items.

The "little things" could also be the difference between having postpartum depression again and just experiencing regular new mommy challenges. Yet I would be exhausted and brain dead during those first postpartum weeks. I might not remember to do the little things that keep my soul happy. So I drafted Courtney's Anti-PPD Checklist, a list of all the little things that give a huge boost to my morale and mental health. I posted the list to a bulletin board in my bedroom and checked it every day.

Without further ado, I give you Courtney's Anti-PPD Checklist:  

• Fresh Air (front lawn, nature walk around the block, rocking chair on the porch)  
• Sunlight - open the blinds!
• Exercise  
• Shower
• Listen to music! 
• Get silly with Pippa - tickle her at least once a day.  
• Doodle or draw or craft or knit  
• Drink tons of water
• Write for 10 minutes by hand  
• Sing a song
• Stretch 

My Anti-PPD Checklist was incredibly helpful. It gave me a daily plan of attack. It inspired me to get outside and walk around the block even though I could barely shuffle. It reminded me that in order to take care of my children, I have to first take care of myself. I have not felt any twinges of depression or anxiety, but I'm not getting cocky. It's easy to forget to do things like take a shower or write in my journal for ten minutes when there's a baby crying for food. Yet I need to shower and write in my journal to remain the best version of myself. So even though I mostly feel wonderful and good, I am keeping the Anti-PPD Checklist tacked to a very prominent place on my bulletin board.  

I might never take it down.

Courtney vs. The Neighborhood Crocodile

I can't run. 

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Let me try again.

I can run about 100 feet. While I'm running those 100 feet, it feels as if I am in grave danger of losing something important, like an arm or my entire torso.

I would like to be able to run again. Not so I can run marathons. That's just not in my DNA.  

But yesterday, I went on a walk with Pippa and Julian. Halfway through the walk, Pippa got out to collect flowers and examine sidewalk cracks and build a snowman out of leaves. As we were walking home, she shrieked, "A crocodile! Run!" She started to run and I wanted so badly to join in her game. I ran with her for the 100 feet my body could handle, but then I had to walk because it felt like my ass was going to break off. That made me sad.  

I want to lose weight and get into the best shape of my life so I can be healthy, wear the clothes I want to wear, and run away from invisible crocodiles with my preschooler. 

In early December, I decided to lose a 100 pounds. I've already lost 12 pounds, so hey, only 88 pounds to go! In the past, I have focused on smaller weight loss goals on the theory that if I thought about all the weight I need to lose, I would get depressed and give up. But I got a Fitbit, and the Fitbit App asked me for my weight loss goal, and I confessed to the entire 100 pounds. And you know what? It's inspiring to have such a big weight loss goal. Look, anyone can lose 10 pounds. I myself have done so more times than I care to remember. But 100 pounds? That's fucking inspirational. And I am going to do it because I am a bad ass. 

Right now, I'm working on the Julian pregnancy weight. Then I have to finish losing the Pippa pregnancy weight. And the newlywed weight. And then it's the forty pounds I gained after I became a lawyer. (I like to think of that as the "I hate being a lawyer and I'm so anxious I have to eat this stale cookie or my head might explode" weight.) Then, last but not least, I have to lose the ten pounds that I gained during my five week eat-all-the-pastries-in-Europe trip that happened after I took the bar exam. And then, whew, I'm done. Its like time traveling! Except instead of meeting Benjamin Franklin, I get to eat lots of kale.

As I mentioned, I have a Fitbit. Holy crap, I love that little gizmo. I have been walking 10,000 steps every day and since mid-December, have only missed my goal twice. Many nights, I have to pace around the house to hit the 10,000 mark, but it's worth it. Already, I can feel my legs getting stronger.

I am so excited to get back into shape and lose all this weight I'm schlepping around. Eighty-eight extra pounds - that's a sixth grader! I am giving a piggyback ride all day, every day to some shitty sixth-grader. Holy shit, do you know what that's doing to my knees? 

I am so ready to drop that sixth grader on his ass and let him be devoured by the crocodile roaming my neighborhood.  

These Days

• I'm working on birth announcements and thank you cards for Julian. 
• But it's tough because I lost my address book. Again.
• Man I am such a fuck-up when it comes to address books.
• And passports. Have I mentioned the time I left my passport on a train in London? And didn't realize I had lost my passport for an entire week? And then, when I went back to the train station, some beautiful soul had actually left my passport in the Lost and Found Department? 
• I should just sit down and finish the birth announcements tonight after the babies go to bed. 
• Except I won't because Nathan and I are watching Making A Murderer and we can't stop until we are done.
• Except we will stop next Monday so we can watch Bachelor.
• I'm also busy pacing the house because I have a Fitbit and I've been walking 10,000 steps every day and I'm obsessed with hitting that 10,000 mark. If I could pace and write thank you notes at the same time, I would. 
•  I can't pace and write thank you notes at the same time. Can you?
• I didn't think so.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today I am 37 years old! I think I'm supposed to feel bad about that, but I don't. My life is where I want it to be, and besides, when I turn 40, I'm throwing myself an awesome party. I'm thinking something along the lines of a bowling alley or roller skating rink... with tacos ... and maybe a magician. Basically, I want an eight-year-old's fantasy party except with booze.

I love lists and I love learning, so to celebrate my birthday, I'vecomposed a list of 37 things I want to learn in the next 37 years.

1. how to roller skate backwards
2. Spanish (I can speak a little but I want to be fluent)
3. another language like French or Chinese
4. the fine art of balloon animals
5. Tap dance (so jealous of my toddler who is starting her first ballet/tap class next week!)
6. the guitar
7. and the accordion
8. and the harmonica
9. basic survival skills like making a fire
10. first aid
11. human anatomy and physiology
12. US geography, including the state capitols
13. World geography because holy shit it is embarrassing how little I know
14. all the U.S. presidents in chronological order
15. the Thriller dance
16. a magic card trick that doesn't suck
17. archery
18. the night sky, especially all the constellations
19. American Sign Language (this one intimidates the hell out of me) Nope, I changed my mind. I will learn how to grill instead.
20. basic car maintenance, especially how to change a tire
21. woodworking
22. some bad ass self-defense moves
23. sewing clothes
24. canning, especially jam
25. crochet (I know enough to crochet a scarf but I want to be able to make intricate amigurami creations)
26. quilting
27. how to ride a unicycle without killing myself
28. the fundamentals of photography - I took a photography class in high school but the teacher was crap
29. botany
30. some basics about statistics and probability
31. the periodic table of elements
32. how to host a podcast (not saying I'd be good at this. But I'm curious how it's done.)
33. enough about robotics to make my own robot
34. meteorology
35. hand embroidery
36. how to make an amazing floral arrangement with cheap flowers
37. french braid - my hair and Pippa's

Happy Birthday to Me!

The Cranky Pumpkin reserves the right to revise and/or abandon this list at any time.

Life Update! Or, I had the baby and life is great

I blogged about being pregnant, and might have whined once or twice about my constant nausea, and then I never blogged about the actual baby. Oops! So let's rewind and travel back in time a few months....

At the beginning of my third trimester, my doctor warned me that the baby was big and I might need a c-section. Every time I visited my doctor, she did an ultrasound and checked the baby. And every time, the ultrasound said I was carrying a BIG baby. I did not need the ultrasound to tell me this. I could tell that compared to Pippa, this baby was huge.

My due date was November 7th. By mid-October, my doctor and I had decided I should have a c-section unless the baby arrived during the week of October 15th.

The week of October 15th came and went with nary a Braxton-Hicks contraction.

We scheduled a c-section for November 2, the earliest date my doctor felt comfortable performing an elective c-section. With Pippa, my labor started eleven days before the due date; so I was hopeful that I would not have to wait until November 2 to give birth.

I was so ready to have the baby. My first trimester morning sickness never abated. Even water made me puke. By the final weeks of the pregnancy, I was living off of bread, cheese and Gatorade. And not just any Gatorade: it had to be red fruit punch Gatorade. I drank so much damn Gatorade, I assumed the baby would come out looking like a red gummy bear.

Confession: I also wanted to give birth in late October so I could throw a Halloween-themed first birthday party.

The days passed, and I finally accepted that my baby was waiting for November to make his big entrance. At first, I was nervous about having a c-section. I delivered Pippa vaginally and worried that something would go wrong when the doctors sliced me open and removed my intestines and I would die on the operating table and leave my babies to grow up without a mother. But after a few days of imagining all sorts of horrifying deaths, I embraced the c-section. I was clearly carrying a BIG baby and I realized that if this had been an earlier era, with me giving birth in some hut in the wilderness, I would probably have died. A c-section in a hospital with an excellent doctor suddenly did not seem so scary.

On November 2, I had my c-section and Julian James arrived. He was indeed a big baby, weighing nearly ten pounds. Despite all the red fruit punch Gatorade, he did not look like a red gummy bear.

I had postpartum depression after the birth of my daughter Pippa, but I had a plan to prevent a second bout of PPD. I skipped breastfeeding entirely and started taking Zoloft a couple days after the birth. In the evenings, we sent Julian to the hospital nursery so that Nathan and I could sleep. Of course, the nurses kept waking me every few hours, but that was better than been woken by nurses AND a hungry newborn. After four nights in the hospital, we took Julian home and started using a night nurse. The night nurse was expensive but I consider it some of the best money we've ever spent. Nathan took a month of paternity leave and was a tremendous help with Pippa and Julian. When he went back to work, I felt physically, mentally and emotionally ready to stay home with a toddler and newborn.

My parents have helped a lot. They regularly pick Pippa up from preschool and take her out for lunch. I also have a babysitter twice a week for six hours. With Pippa, I felt guilty if I let anyone help me for fifteen minutes... and then I ended up in the hospital's psychiatric wing for four nights. This time, I am accepting all the help I can and I have not experienced a twinge of postpartum depression. I'm sure the Zoloft has helped plenty but I think for me, accepting help - and not feeling guilty about accepting said help - has been the biggest factor in keeping me healthy.

From the day he was born, Julian has been a fat happy baby. He is so sweet and easy-going. Now he is two months old and smiling up a big happy storm. He loves it when I tickle his chin and sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. He adores his big sister and Pippa adores him. I am so blessed and lucky to be his mama.

Now Julian is two months old and sleeping through the night. Hallelujah! There's something very sweet and precious about feeding a newborn at 3 a.m. but there are also plenty of sweet and precious moments at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., and all the daylight hours. Sleep is a beautiful thing. Thank you, Julian, for being such a fantastic sleeper.

So that pretty much sums up the past three months. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

I (Heart) Stats

There are a lot of great things about having this blog. It's an easy and convenient creative outlet. It lets me pretend I'm a "bonified" writer. It helps me send messages to aliens in the Alphapoot System.

But the thing I love most about this blog?

The stats.

Oh my god, I love the stats. As the master of this blog, I am privy to some fun information about the readers of this blog. Don't worry, I don't know who you are. But I do know you are probably Russian. In the past week, this blog received "102 pageviews" from Russia. Now, I don't know if those pageviews all came from one avid Russian reader or 102 different readers. But I like to think that there are 102 Russians following the antics of The Cranky Pumpkin. I bet they are sipping Vodka right now and wearing big fur coats and clutching a well-read copy of Anna Karenina. Hello, Russian Readers!

My most popular post of all time is this one about Caffeine Withdrawal.  It's been viewed 2,216 times. I guess the internet is interested in caffeine withdrawal. Maybe I should start a separate blog devoted to caffeine. Except these days, I'm caffeine free, and I intend to stay that way for the rest of my life because caffeine destroys me. It turns me into an anxious, agitated, awful beast woman. So I'm officially done with caffeine. FOR-EFFIN-EVER. Which means I will not be getting rich and famous off a caffeine blog during this lifetime. Oh well.

In the past week, this post about the Hamptons was viewed 24 times. Huh. I guess people like to look at photos of my feet in the ocean? Or maybe my devoted Russian fan base is dreaming about summer? Or maybe the aliens in the Alphapoot System are planning their invasion, and they think the Hamptons are a good place to land their fleet? People, we might never know, and that's okay. No one really cares about this shit in real life.

Anyway, I guess I need to keep blogging and occasionally generate some original content so I can keep checking on my stats BECAUSE BLOG STATS ARE AWESOME.

Random List No. 1: My favorite colors

1. Emerald green

2. Apple green 

3. All other shades of green

4. Blue-green

5. Pumpkin orange but only during the fall or when I'm painting 

6. Pink when paired with the color green

7. Pink

8. Cherry red

9. Tropical waters blue 

10. Gingham. I know its not a color but it should at least be an honorary color. 

Happy New Year!

I got a new planner for 2016 and folks, this is it, this is the one. I am ready to swear eternal fidelity to this planner for the rest of time. It's the Goal Digger and I'm in love. I did not know it was possible to have these sorts of feelings about a planner, but here I am, ready to buy a ring and get down on one knee.

It has a page to list your goals for 2016.

Then another page to list your monthly mini goals.

Then, for each week, you can further list your goals.

And for each day, there's space for a To Do list.

And so much more. I could seriously write 10,000 words about the Goal Digger but I don't have the time for that. I have to go ring shopping!!!

Week 37

I am 37 weeks into what has been a difficult pregnancy and the end is at last in sight. I'm still taking anti-nausea meds and still, despite those meds, puking vigorously. For the past month, I have been having nothing but frozen yogurt for dinner because that is all I can handle.

I am huge. At my 36 week appointment, my tummy measured at 42 weeks pregnant. That feels about right. Lucky for me, I am getting tons of help with Pippa. I am able to spend most of the day in bed, resting.

I have done very little writing this pregnancy. I tried revising my memoir about postpartum depression but realized I was doing more harm than good. Pregnancy makes me very dumb and claims most of my creativity, so I put my memoir away. I'll get back to it soon enough.

But over the past few weeks, I have felt a growing desire to blog. I'm not about to get crazy and start posting photos and shit like that, but hey, here I am. Maybe I'll post another entry before the end of the year.

Eh, probably not. Don't get your hopes up.

Blood Glucose Test - Check!

A few hours ago, I crossed an important item off my prenatal checklist: the blood glucose test. This is the test that checks for gestational diabetes. You have to drink a sugary concoction and then, after waiting for an hour or two or four, your blood is drawn. The lab then checks to see how well your body handled the sugar.

For the sugar drink, the phlebotomist offered me a choice between "Orange" and "Fruit Punch" flavors. I chose Orange. The phlebotomist gave me a horrified look, so I asked which flavor is better. "Fruit punch!" she declared, so I switched my request. She brought me a plastic container filled with clear liquid. It had a funny tang. The phlebotomist told me I had five minutes to drink the entire thing. I gulped it down in less than a minute. The phlebotomist was not impressed.

Now, if you search online, you will find no shortage of complaints about the blood glucose test. People write about the sugar drink as if it is some foul funk concocted in the depths of hell. It's not. In college, at parties, the fraternities served "beer" and that shit tasted like some foul funk brewed in the depths of hell. But did people whine? Well, yes, but we still chugged that shit as if it might bestow immortality, fame and wealth on the drinker. I have a point I'm trying to make here, but my pregnant brain lost it. 

Pregnant ladies sometimes have to wait two or four hours before having their blood drawn. I just had to wait for one hour, which I happily spent reading.  They also sometimes need to fast before the test. My doctor just asked me to avoid sugary foods before the test and to brush my teeth without toothpaste. During the one hour between imbibing the sugar drink and having my blood drawn, I could not eat or drink. Big deal. One lousy hour. After the test, I rewarded myself with  a bagel. It was delicious. 

A lot of pregnant women complain that the sugar drink makes them feel dizzy and nauseous. I have suffered from plenty of nausea during this pregnancy, but I did not feel a twinge of nausea during the test. Maybe my stomach is weird. After all, I still puke almost every day. Maybe my body was trying to be nice: I experience excessive puking throughout pregnancy, but hey, at least I feel fine during the blood glucose test!

Now that I've checked this item off my To Do list, I feel as if I am in the pregnancy home stretch. The third trimester is just two weeks and two days away (not that I'm counting or anything). I can do this!

14.5 Weeks To Go!

I am 25 weeks pregnant, and my due date is just 14.5 weeks away - HURRAH! My body is not very good at this whole pregnancy thing, so it will be a relief to be done and have the baby in my arms. I cannot wait to eat food! For the past four and a half months, I have been living off of bread, cheese, apples and scrambled eggs. I dream about salads and vegetables and pretty much all of the rest of the food in the world. But my body cannot handle flavor. Two weeks ago, I ate a half dozen strawberries. The puking was epic. I might as well have drunk a couple of bottles of wine.

At this point, I am used to my bland boring diet and all my other fun symptoms: my superhuman sense of smell; the constant congestion; the dry eyes (I miss my contacts); and even the back pain. Yes, I am even used to the back pain. Every night, I fire up my super deluxe heating pad and then I schedule as many massages and physical therapy appointments as possible.

Earlier this month, I did have one unacceptable symptom: Insomnia. I know that the closer I get to the due date, the more I will struggle to sleep. But I am still relatively comfortable when I lie down in bed (after setting up a very elaborate pillow fort - two pillows for my feet, three for my head/back, and one on either side of my stomach). I was not cool with the second trimester insomnia, so I paid attention to what was happening, realized I was feeling physical symptoms of anxiety, and decided to cut caffeine cold turkey. You can drink up to 150 mg of caffeine each day when pregnant (and I've seen some books/websites that allow more), but I have always been ultra sensitive to caffeine. It's my Kryptonite. So I quit, dealt with a few days of withdrawal symptoms (mainly extreme fatigue), and now I feel much better and sleep fine. Sure, I get up when the baby starts playing a soccer match in my uterus, or when my bladder gets fussy, but if I go to bed at 9, I manage to get enough sleep.

I do hate how many times I have to tell Pippa "No."  "No, we can't go to the zoo."  "No, mommy can't sit on the floor."  "No, mommy can't run after you."  "No, mommy can't go outside, it's too hot." But it's all for a good cause - she's getting a baby brother - and she will not remember all of the No's and all of the afternoons spent watching The Cat in the Hat and Frozen. Besides, Child Services is not going to take her away if I let her have a popsicle for dinner. Which may or may not have happened last night.

The Dawn of a New Era

I am attempting to write this post from my local Panera.  The internet connection is a bit wonky, so we'll see how successful this endeavor is.  Pippa is not with me.  She is at preschool camp!  Today is her first day.  I stayed for the first hour and since she was happy and busy and ignoring me, I said goodbye and left. She needed two rounds of hugs and kisses, but there were no tears.

Well, she did not shed any tears. I may have gotten a little misty eyed walking to my car.

My morning sickness is basically gone - so long as I take my anti-nausea meds at night. My stomach is still very weak and can only handle a half dozen foods; but if I follow my bland diet, I don't spend the afternoon puking. Yay!

I had some back pain a few weeks ago, but I saw a physical therapist and now I'm doing great. I can't do everything I normally can do. Like standing. I can't stand for more than a couple minutes at a time. It's easier for me to move and walk around than to stand in one place. But that's fine! I'm usually moving after a toddler anyway. 

I've been spending a lot of time in the pool - swimming laps, taking a water aerobics class (fun!), and just relaxing. Being in the water feels great. I miss Zumba, but I'm loving all the pool time. Sometimes I get ambitious and think about taking swim lessons so I can master some new strokes. But not now. Not while I'm pregnant. Right now I am just doing what works for my pregnant body and I don't need some swim instructor screwing me up by insisting on proper form.  Plus I really don't have time for swim lessons. This is more of a ten year plan.

I am in my twentieth week of pregnancy, which means I'm a little more than halfway done. Woot woot! I'm sure there are women who adore being pregnant and want the pregnancy to last forever. I am not one of those women. I'm ready to meet my little boy and devour a big bowl of salad.

Howdy!

It's been almost two months since my last blog post but I have an excellent excuse: morning sickness. I am eighteen weeks pregnant today and finally, FINALLY, getting past the morning sickness stage. My body takes pregnancy very seriously and turns all the hormonal dials to the highest settings. I had awful morning sickness with Pippa, but I thought I could distract myself this time around. Hey, I have a toddler! How could I worry about a little nausea when she keeps me so busy?

I felt fine through Week 6 and got really cocky. This pregnancy was going to be completely different from the first! No morning sickness - yeah!

Then, during Week 7, I had an In-N-Out burger for dinner. IDIOT. I should have known I was tempting fate. That night, a little before midnight, Pippa came down with a bug and cried until I brought her into bed with me. At midnight, I had to nudge her off me so I could run to the bathroom and puke.  And puke.  And puke. I kept puking until there was nothing left to puke, and then I puked some more. I felt like death. I tried putting Pippa back in her crib but she insisted on staying by my side. By 4 a.m., I waved the white flag and Nathan took me to the ER. As soon as Pippa realized something was happening, she slid off my bed and said, "Okay! Okay!" and tried to take off her pajamas. She was very disappointed that she had to stay in her car seat while I limped my nauseated ass into the ER. She was worried about me and wanted to be helpful.

After that fun excursion, I spent as much time as possible in bed. My doctor prescribed Diclegis for the nausea. The Diclegis certainly helped, but I was still puking throughout the day. No matter how carefully or blandly I ate, I was a puke-taster. If I walked more than twenty feet, I felt a very urgent need to vomit. It was a lot of fun.

I put Pippa in day care. I was letting her watch unlimited t.v., but still, she wanted to crawl all over me and run around outside and I couldn't do it. Movement made me puke; puking made me need to puke more; and I did not want to go back to the hospital. Lucky for us, a neighbor runs a day care from her home. She lives only two blocks away from us and used to be a preschool teacher. Pippa had much more fun playing with kids than staying home all day with a nauseated momma.

Between day care, Nathan, and my parents, we survived the hellish morning sickness phase. About two weeks ago, I started to feel a little more civilized. I went to a salon and got a haircut and pedicure. That made me feel even more civilized. I was still puking, but the puking was restricted to the evening hours. A vast improvement.

Every day, I feel better. I cannot eat much. Salad is the enemy. Oh my god, I really want a big Greek salad with roasted shrimp but I know that shit will just send me back to the ER. But I can eat bread and cheese, so there's that. I can also drink water again, and for five or six weeks, water was too harsh for my stomach. I could only drink orange Gatorade. I am so glad to have water back in my life.

So anyway, that's where I've been.  

Some Rambling Thoughts on Beauty and The Beast

Pippa just went through a big Beauty and the Beast phase. Confession: I bought our new copy of Amazon for $154.  It's in the Disney "vault" so that that's the only way to get it. Yes, I'm an idiot, but after watching the ending of Frozen for the fortieth time in two weeks, I really wanted to see Beauty and the Beast. The ending of Frozen reminds me so much of Beast: main character presumably dead; long pause for us to get emotional; then the music swells; ah, love saves the day; and of course, the Disney magic, thanks to love, the spell is broken, our hero/heroine lives happily ever after.

Confession: I still get teary at the end of Beast ever damn time. Even if it's the fourth time I'm seeing the movie in two days.

But Nathan is doing his best to ruin the movie for me.

He will not call it Beauty and the Beast. He calls it "that movie that celebrates bestiality."

I guess he has a point. The Beast is a big hairy animal and Belle falls in love with him and wants to kiss his big bear face and fondle his goat horns. But it's symbolic, damnit! It's romantic!

At least Belle is a brunette with brown eyes who loves to read. Oh sure, she is a bit conceited, looking down on the members of her poor provincial town, but everyone thinks it's strange that she reads, instead of cooking and spending all day admiring Gaston's trophies. I can accept a little snobbery on Belle's part since it's in the name of women's liberation and literacy.

Beast is cranky and a little scary, but Pippa and I spend a lot of time talking about his feelings and how he could better handle them.

Then Gaston dies and I just say "Oh no, he fell" and hope Pippa is not traumatized. Why is there so much death in the Disney movies? Why do I have to tell Pippa that Anna's parents got a boo boo and then promise I'm not going to get a boo boo? I feel like these movies are so emotionally rich - but maybe they could be a little less rich in the "parents dying and orphaning their babies" department?

I know I'm the 874,283rd person to observe this, but why do the parents always have to die in the Disney movies?  For fuck's sake, we are the ones paying for the movie tickets, stuffed animals, stickers, lunch boxes, backpacks, costumes, Disneyland mortgages, bankruptcy bullshit, can we at least be celebrated? Or at least allowed to live??? What is the message we are sending our kids?  Hey, kids, you can have loving parents and a boring life; or, you can have DEAD PARENTS and lots of fun awesome adventures! 

So according to Disney, only orphans have amazing lives? But if we were all orphans, then who the fuck would refinance the house to pay for a trip to Disneyland????

Questions Raised By Pippa's Favorite TV Programs

• Where are Max and Ruby's parents? We see grown-up rabbits all the time, including their grandma, but nary a glimpse of their parents. Have they been abandoned? Is Ruby raising Max? Should someone alert bunny welfare services?
• I have other questions, so many questions, but I am so g.d. tired I cannot remember them.
• I do remember some questions I have about Pippa's favorite movies, but since the title of this post refers to TV Programs, I'll save those questions for another post.
• No, I'm not going to change the title of this post. I'm too g.d. tired.
• Good night.

Climb Out of Darkness - Team Pasadena!

Last year, I participated in Climb Out of Darkness, the world's largest event rising awareness about perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.  I went on a local hike, and I did it alone, and it was such an awesome way to celebrate how far I had come since I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression.  I blogged about it here. In that blog post, I vowed to organize Team Pasadena for the 2015 event.

Guess what? I am! I am the Leader/Sherpa for Team Pasadena for the Third Annual Climb Out Of Darkness. We are hiking on Saturday, June 20, 2015. I haven't pick the exact time, but it will be 9ish - civilized, but early enough to beat the heat.

Do you want to donate to my fundraiser campaign?  Click here and then click the donate button.

Do you want to join the team? Click here and then click the register button. You do NOT have to do any fundraising to participate in the climb. You just have to register. I am choosing between a few Pasadena hikes right now, because I want something easy enough for toddlers. The hike I went on last year was beautiful and inspiring - and had about 38 good places for a toddler to die. So this year's hike will be beautiful and inspiring, minus the toddler death traps.

Do you want to join a team but need something a little more local? Go here to check out the map of all the awesome hikes.

Warning: this is my first post about the hike. There will be others. I have so much to tell you. And thank you in advance to my readers who have already donate - you are rock stars.

Cellphone Chronicles; Or, Why I Broke Up With My iPhone

I used to have an iPhone. It served me well. I assumed I would always be an iPhone person.

Then I had Pippa, and Pippa became obsessed with destroying the iPhone. I could have kept the phone away from her, but there's a Sesame Street app that keeps her very happy in emergency situations. I bought a fancy protective case, but it felt clumsy and cumbersome. So I adopted the following strategy: when Pippa threw the iPhone as hard as she could, I pretended that the iPhone was indestructible. 

This strategy did not work.

After a bunch of toddler abuse, my iPhone was cracked and losing little metal chunks at an alarming rate. It was no longer an iPhone. It was a zombIephone. I took it to the Apple store, but the repair quote was too steep for my taste. I was not going to pay $200 to repair a screen that Pippa might break again in a week. 

I was using Verizon, so I went to the Verizon store to procure a new phone. The salesman told me I qualified for a free iPhone and a free tablet - yay - but my old plan was no longer available. I would have to upgrade to a new plan that would cost a lovely $150/month - and by the way, there were data limits.  More money for less data? What the what? 

I had nine months left on my contract.  I asked the salesman what would happen if I terminated early.  He said I would be charged a $200 early termination fee.

Interesting.

I confess: the "free" tablet was tempting. Verizon knew what it was doing. When the salesman offered me the free tablet, I felt as if I had won the lottery on Christmas. He left me alone to crunch the numbers (translation: go pee) and I played with the tablets on display. Oh, so tempting. My life would be perfect if only I had a free tablet...

Then I remembered I already have a Kindle Fire and I did not want/need another tablet. What I wanted was a new, lightweight laptop with an actual keyboard. Not some shitty free tablet. 

I left the Verizon store, went home, and researched my options.  A few days later, I went to Best Buy and a lovely saleswoman (who did not work on commission) showed me an Android that cost about $70. I looked it over. It was much better than I expected. I thought I was going to get a barebones flip phone that might be able to send text messages. This phone seemed even better than my iPhone. I bought it.

I've been using my Android for seven months now, and I love it. It only has one drawback: I can't use it to record and email long videos of Pippa to my family. Videos are limited to 16 seconds. But this drawback has forced me to use a digital camera for videos, and the digital camera takes much better videos than my iPhone ever did. So the drawback is actually an advantage.  

For a service provider, I decided to stick with Verizon. I make monthly payments. No contract, no lien on my soul. For $45, I get a month's worth of unlimited talk and text, plus 500mb of data. For another $20, I get an additional 3GB of data.

Math is not my strong suit, but let's do a little anyway. I had nine months left with my Verizon contract. At $120/month, that was more than $1000 for the privilege of using a broken iPhone. Since my iPhone had one foot in the electronic grave, that was not an option. (Unless I wanted to pay at least $700 for a new iPhone - eff that.) So to stick with Apple, I would have had to take the "free" iPhone and pay $150/month for the next twenty-four months and that's ... $3600.

Instead, I paid $200 to escape the shitty Verizon contract.  $70 more for my new phone.  (After seven months of hard use, it's still in excellent almost-new condition.) And instead of $150/month, I pay a measly $65/month to use my phone.  Over the course of two years, I will pay $1830 to use my phone. That includes the Verizon cancellation fee.

So let's see... $3600 for an iPhone versus $1830 for a phone that I love even more. Even if I have to replace my Android every six months, the iPhone is still about $1600 more expensive.

I don't know about you, but there are a lot of things that I can do with $1600. When I ditched my iPhone, I was worried I might regret that decision. I worried in vain. My cheap Android is awesome.

My Not-Yet Aquarium

I want an aquarium. Badly. I have wanted an aquarium for years - decades! - but I always hesitated. Where would I put it? What would I do when I went out of town? What if the fish were from another planet and they hypnotized me and sent me on a mission to steal the Hope Diamond? (Because everyone knows intergalactic fish are obsessed with the Hope Diamond.)

Despite these legitimate concerns, a couple of months ago, I finally decided it was time for my aquarium. It would be a goldfish aquarium. I bought a book about goldfish at the pet store. (Pippa and I often stop by the pet store to admire the animals, especially the canines at doggie day care. I was glad to finally engage in a little commerce with a place that gives us so much joy. They should really sell snacks. For people. We're not eating the dog snacks.)

Did you know that if given enough space to thrive, goldfish are actually quite big? So big, that if you have a large 29 gallon aquarium, you should only keep two goldfish? Did you know it's cruel to keep goldfish in a bowl? That goldfish actually live for years and years but when trapped in a bowl, they suffer and sicken and die very premature deaths?

I had no idea! I had goldfish as a child. I don't remember their names, but my brother always named his fish "Frankie." Oh, our poor tortured fish! And then, I had goldfish in college - Chunk and Eloise, and Marty and Doc - oh, my poor goldfish babies! I'm sorry!

(In college, I wrote an op-ed column for the student paper, and one of those columns was about my goldfish. And that post can be read right here. Yes, I have always been lame but I think we all already knew that.)

I decided we would NOT have a goldfish aquarium. Sure, we could have a tank with two fish, but that seems lame. The whole point of a tank is to have little schools of fish darting around, getting up to all sorts of crazy shit. Two goldfish = no crazy shit.

So I bought a book about freshwater aquariums. It is an excellent book. If anyone wants an aquarium, they should read this book first. After reading it, I wanted my aquarium even more.

But not yet.

Here's what I learned about aquariums: if you are going to have one, you have to do it right. You can't half-ass it with a 5 gallon novelty tank with a big replica of the Eiffel Tower and clean the water every few months. You have to get a big rectangular tank, at least 29 gallons, but 50 gal. is much better. Then you need to put that tank on a proper tank stand, because a filled tank is too heavy for a standard bookcase. You have to change the water regularly and frequently to keep your fish as healthy and happy as possible. (I suppose, if you are the sort of person who tortures squirrels and microwaves cats, then you don't need to change the water.) And if you are going to be changing the water regularly, you need to position the tank close to a sink. But the tank does not belong in a kitchen or against an outside wall or near a main door...

Above all, I learned there is nowhere to put a respectable tank in the Cranky Pumpkin household. Except the guest room. Where no one would ever see the fish. Except for overnight guests. Which, in the past year, have included the following: (1) my mother-in-law, and (2) no one else. I suppose my mother-in-law might enjoy the fish, but then again, I don't actually know that. She might hate fish. she might be nursing a secret fish phobia. If I put an aquarium in the guest room, she might stay up all night with a harpoon to guard herself. Or, she might think the aquarium makes an annoying bubbling sound.

Long story short, the aquarium is not happening anytime soon, but I am not giving up the dream. Someday! In the meantime, I may accidentally buy a hamster during one of our frequent pet store trips.