Christina, Author at A Mommy Story

Apr 11, 2007

An Award and An Answer From The Heavens

April 11, 2007 By Christina

Woo-hoo! I got an award! The fabulous Kate from Eucalyptus Pillow (geez, I still have to look up the spelling for Eucalyptus when writing it) awarded me with a Perfect Post March ’07 award for my post about all the hatin’ on mommy bloggers that I’ve noticed lately. Thank you so much, Kate! It’s good to know others enjoyed that post.

(Although I think it was also that same post that led some troll to submit my blog’s URL to a gazillion porn and prescription drug spam blogs for linking. Classy. Ah well, as long as people can hide their identity on the internet, there will be trolls.)

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So here in town, they’re building yet another strip mall up against the giant Wal-Mart. About a month ago, we drove past and I noticed the first mall occupant was in place.

I said to Aaron, “Figures. Look at that – the first store is a check cashing place.”

“Yuck.”

“Yeah, like there aren’t four other check cashing/payroll advance scam places in a one mile radius. It must be the new way to christen a new strip mall – it’s not a real strip mall unless there’s a trashy check cashing store.”

“True.”

“Makes me wonder what other crap they will put in this new mall?”

“Dunno.” (Yeah, he clearly wasn’t as bothered by this as I was. Or he was just thinking about something else.)

“See, if they wanted to put something useful in there, we’d see a Starbucks with a drive-thru. Now that would be useful! We don’t have a Starbucks anywhere close by.”

“Yes, dear.” (clearly ignoring me now)

Well, I drove past that same Wal-Mart and strip mall today, and what did I see? The second business is now open, and it’s a Starbucks with a drive-thru.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Of course, knowing that someone up there is actually listening makes me happy, but I have to wonder about His or Her selective hearing. I mean, of all the things I ask for, I get the Starbucks?

Apparently the supreme being just loves coffee.

Filed Under: fate laughing at me Tagged With: awards

Apr 9, 2007

Because It’s Not Easter Without A Gift From Aunt Dot

April 9, 2007 By Christina

We had a quiet Easter this year. Instead of choosing to go out to eat, and dealing with the possibility of Cordy melting down in her Easter finest, it was decided to have a quiet meal at my grandmother’s house, where Cordy didn’t have to dress up, and she could run around the house all she wanted before and after the meal.

The meal was excellent, and soon afterwards Aunt Dot began handing out her goodie bags to everyone. Well, not quite everyone – this year she forgot about Aaron, but made it up to him by giving him a half-empty tray of chocolate bunnies, and then some Peeps she found in the bottom of her bag. Aaron traded one of the chocolate bunnies to another family member for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg, so he was content.

For those who are new and don’t know about Aunt Dot, you can read more here and here.

I didn’t come out too bad this year: I got my standard bag of cashews. She always gets me large containers of cashews, and usually chewy, old cashews, too. Why in the world she thinks I like cashews this much I’ll never know. I mean, sure, I like nuts as much as the next person, but a pound of cashews each holiday? Lay off the nuts. Luckily, that’s all I got, so I had less to dispose of.

Cordy’s bag contained a chocolate rose that she can’t eat (the thing is enormous and hard as a rock), a cute Little People person in an egg, and a bag of Goldfish crackers. Cordy’s eyes lit up when she saw the “fishies!”, but mine equally lit up when I saw the expiration date that proved these “fishies” were meant for the garbage bin and not her mouth. My mom distracted her with some pretzels, and all was well. I suppose I should have brought Aunt Dot’s birthday gift for Cordy with us, since it’s now the right time of year.

My mom once again won this year’s worst gift award. Last Easter she won for her expired box of cake mix. This year, however, was quite an unexpected gift. My mom has collected brown or brown and white cows for some time. She does not like black and white cows. Aunt Dot, of course, always gets her black and white cows, despite my mom telling her over and over that she only collects brown cows.

So this year, mom reaches into her bag and pulls out this:

And it moos. A lot. You barely touch the thing, and it moos at you. But wait, it gets better! Not only is it a mooing cow, it’s also a candy dispenser! Can you guess where the candy comes out?

Of course! It’s the amazing candy pooping cow! Just lift the tail to open the hatch under it, and then push down on the cow (who will moo at you, of course) to have a round candy pellet plop out into the milk can. We’re a family of candy lovers, but watching a cow poop out your candy can ruin anyone’s interest in trying the candy.

And finally, more proof that my family is now accepting of my time spent blogging came when my mom and one of my aunts were sitting in the kitchen, laughing in amazement about the candy pooping cow. They looked at me, shoved the cow into my hands and, at nearly the same time, said in a hushed voice, “You have to blog about this one.”

Filed Under: family time Tagged With: Aunt Dot

Apr 6, 2007

Breech

April 6, 2007 By Christina

This morning I had it confirmed that my second daughter is following in her big sister’s footsteps by being turned the wrong way. I think I can say for certain that we won’t be having a third child, simply because I see a tradition starting, and it’s one that I don’t want to continue.

The ultrasound tech found her head right away, well above my belly button, and like her earlier ultrasound months ago, she still has her feet up by her face most of the time. She flexed one leg a few times during the ultrasound, just to give me a kick, but then brought it right back to her head, demonstrating her Cirque du Soleil worthy flexibility.

We also know from this ultrasound that she’s likely to be a big kid. She’s estimated to be 5.5 pounds and 19.8″ long already, and I still have 7 weeks left. The tech asked if there was any way my due date could be off – no, I remember that cycle pretty clearly, and it was a perfect 28 day cycle. Of course, these kinds of estimates can be off by a lot, so I’m not putting a lot of faith in those numbers.

It was noted, however, that there is still plenty of space in there to give this baby a chance to turn. And the tech recommended a chiropractor she had heard of that has amazing success in convincing breech babies to turn head down using something known as the Webster technique. She said she has sent several of her clients to this doctor, and most have had success. That’s a good enough recommendation for me at this point.

I was relieved to get a glimpse at this baby and see that she is healthy and growing well. And that was what I tried to focus on when leaving the ultrasound office, because knowing she’s breech was really disappointing. I had wanted and planned for a natural birth with my first, but for her safety had to choose the c-section route. And now baby #2 is also breech and putting a damper on my hopes for a VBAC. Seriously, a 3% or less chance each time – with my ability to beat the odds, I can’t decide if that means I should try my luck in Vegas or not.

I feel like my body is faulty and I’m unable to carry a baby in the proper position. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution perfected how our babies are carried in our bodies and born, and somehow my body is the throwback. Sure, I probably shouldn’t blame my body, but it’s no less crazy than blaming the baby for not following the plan, or blaming my husband for bad genetics, since he was breech also.

There’s still time, and I’m planning on trying any safe measure to get her turned. At this point I think I’ll start offering her a car when she’s 16, or maybe a pony, if she’d just turn around.

Here are two pictures from the ultrasound today. The uneven area near her mouth on the left is the umbilical cord floating in front of her face.

Hey, how’s it going?

Rubbing her eye

Filed Under: fate laughing at me, pregnancy

Apr 4, 2007

Interview Time

April 4, 2007 By Christina

After a week, I’ve finally managed to make time to answer the interview questions Mrs. Chicky sent to me. The rules of the game are simple: if you haven’t played yet and want to be interviewed, make sure I have your e-mail address and let me know you want to play, and I’ll send you five questions of your very own to answer.

Without further ado:

1. What is your dream job?
Oh, this is a tough one. I’ve worked a lot of different jobs in my life: fast food, retail, library aide, graduate assistant teacher, daycare worker, web designer, online course developer, student advisor, writer, etc. And now I’m back in school for nursing. I think my dream job would be something where I’m constantly learning new things.

Clearly I’ve made several job changes over the years, many of which required new skill sets. I think I will be happy with nursing, because there are so many different fields within it to pursue – clinical nursing (and the variety of specialties therein), research nurse, community nurse, insurance nurse, home health nurse, etc. I could even go on for more school to become a nurse practitioner. For now, I think I’d like to pursue labor and delivery nursing.

2. What is the one thing that makes you the most angry?
People who intentionally hurt others, especially the ones who do it for fun and remain anonymous. I’ve never understood that darker side of human nature that drives some people to derive pleasure from hurting someone else. These people are completely lacking in compassion and have no ability to see beyond themselves and their own feelings, which is sad, because they are missing out on so much in life. And in return they bring so much pain to others, sometimes affecting the entire life of a person all in the name of “fun”.

It’s like they think life is one big video game created just for them, and everyone else on the planet is simply a lifeless being here for their amusement. It’s people like that who make me wish I had the power to touch them and make them suddenly feel the pain of everyone they’ve ever hurt, all at once.

3. Who do you think is Anna Nicole’s Baby Daddy?
The baby is totally a clone, with no father at all. Or possibly an alien baby. Or maybe an alien clone…yeah, that could work.

4. Finish this sentence: “Thank God I’m ________” (and elaborate)
…nearly finished with this pregnancy! Seriously, I’m thrilled to be welcoming another little person into the family, but I want my body back! I want a nice big glass of wine, and no restrictions on how much tuna salad I can eat. I want to roll over in bed at night without it requiring a 5 point turn taking longer than 15 seconds. I want to sleep with only one pillow again, instead of three at my head for heartburn and one giant body pillow slowly pushing Aaron out of the bed. And I want to play with Cordy again without having to constantly tell her, “No, you can’t lean on mommy’s belly like that. No, you can’t push mommy there.”

5. If you had your choice for your children, would you send them to public school or private school?
It would depend on where we’re living. If we’re at our current house, I’d prefer private school, because our public school system is one of the worst in the area. If we move to one of several places we have considered, I’d probably be all for public school, since the school systems are pretty good. Although the lure of a Montessori school is a strong one, too. However, we’re poor, so unless the school sucks, public school is always the first choice!

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Many of you noticed the new blog design – is it not fantabulous? All praise Izzy and her magical design prowess for the new look!