Convo

I swear this just happened. 2 minutes ago.

Dallin: So are you going to have a baby tonight?

Katie: Um...I don't know. It's possible!

D: Do we need to go for a walk or something?

K: (...)Would you like me to have the baby tonight?

D: Well, it's gotta be either tonight or Wednesday.

K: Wednesday?

D: Yeah, Monday and Tuesday are pretty busy.

***Side note: I'm pretty sure he was at least partially serious about this. Side note over.***

K: Oh. Well, what do you think?

D: Up to you!

K: You want me to decide whether or not we have a baby tonight?

D: Yeah, I guess. Are we going to eat?

K: Not if we're going to put me into labor.

D: Hm. Well, whatever!


You should know that I've been having fairly regular and frequent contractions for the past couple of days. You should also know that today was my last day of student teaching. Which means I'm done with (the hard part of) school. Hip hip freaking hooray.

So...I guess only time will tell if we decide to have our baby tonight. I'd probably rather have her decide on her own, but you know...whatever.

Love you, Dallin. Hurry home.

3 is a magic number

Yes, it is. It's a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby. Yes, they did. They had three-ee-ee in the family. And that's a magic number.

And then they decided that it wasn't magic enough so they got pregnant again so they could have another baby. Yes, they did.

Aaaaand my connection to Schoolhouse Rock is officially dead.

True, we are working on our family of 4, but currently, 3 is my magic number.

3 weeks + 3 days left. Dilated to a 3 (you know, in case you care about...that. I love giving people an uncomfortable amount of information). Also, 80% effaced, but my goodness, that has nothing to do with the number 3, so why bring it up?

Honestly, I'm not surprised that I'm dilated. I was at a 4 with Maddy for a few weeks. And I've been having contractions for a while now. They're just not regular or super uncomfortable (emphasis on super).

And you are now updated on the status of my pregnancy. Awesome!

Sing it with me now! "3, 6, 9...12, 15, 18...21, 24, 27...30" (best Schoolhouse Rock, btw)

Short hair days are here again

About 5 days ago, I decided I wanted to chop my hair off.

When I decide I want to cut my hair, I want to cut my hair RIGHT AWAY. It was very hard for me to not run out and stop at the first salon I saw and get a haircut. True story.

To avoid ridicule (not to mention a rash decision) I somehow held out for a few days. I debated cutting my hair, knowing (knowing) that I would want it long again before too long.

But the more I looked at pictures of cute, short hairstyles...
and the more I came to realize just how hot 115 degrees actually is...
and the more I thought about how much time I don't want to spend styling my hair every morning (first for student teaching and then with two kids)...
the more I realized...

I wanted short hair. Coveted it, really. And since coveting isn't healthy for anyone, well, I found a salon that had good reviews on Yelp (p.s. Do you use Yelp? Please start. Thanks.), found out they took walk-ins, and walked in before I could change my mind.

I'm so so glad I did.



It feels so good. It's amazing.

It's the shortest I've ever gone with my hair. I contemplated something even shorter for a while, but then decided I should see how I feel about "short" before committing to "super short."

I'm loving it for now! Hopefully it will be a while before I start longing for long, luscious locks. Maybe once the temperature drops below 100.

So you know, like, November.

My morning

It's pretty unusual for Madelyn to wake up before 9. And it's not unusual at all for her to sleep until 10:30 or 11.

So you can imagine my surprise at 5:50 this morning when she was done sleeping.

I'll admit, I was upset. I was super tired and getting up that early totally made me cranky. I let her lay in bed with me and watch Blue's Clues while I went in and out of sleep.

After maybe an hour of that, I decided my attitude needed to change. After all, I have a lot (a LOT) of things I need to do today, so what would be the harm in getting up early? Maddy and I could run errands this morning, she could take a nap this afternoon while I cleaned the house, and all would be fine and dandy.

So, armed with my new attitude, I let Maddy shower with me (our stairs make me too nervous to let her run around while I shower), got her dressed and ready, and then set her down so I could do my hair.

Since I didn't wash my hair, it took me about 15 minutes. I came downstairs and found Maddy fast asleep on the couch.

So I guess it's time to rearrange my day again.

*Sigh*

Is it too much to ask?!

I never mastered the whole "nursing in public" thing with Maddy. In fact, I never even came close to mastering it.

It's not that I'm weirded out about BFing in public. I'm totally not...you know, as long as you're pretty much covered up and stuff. There were plenty of times when I would have loved to just be able to whip out that cover and do my thing at a family party or in the mall or wherever. But I really don't think Maddy liked being under a cover very much. She would always, always fuss. And fussing, I think, automatically sets off this thing in new moms that is like "OHMYGOSH my baby is fussing and everyone is listening and they are all totally annoyed and they probably think I'm a terrible mom and..." you know. Plus, I didn't really have a nursing friendly wardrobe, and was pretty much too cheap and lazy to hunt down and buy cute nursing tops, so I was never really able to figure out the "mechanics" of nursing in public. And trying (which I did) ended up stressing me out.

And so it was that I began pumping. I got into this really groovy routine once Maddy girl was able to sleep without being fed in the middle of the night: I'd pump a bottle (or two, when she was still little and didn't eat so much at one time) right before bed, so I wouldn't *cough*leak*cough* all over my bed, and then we'd have a bottle to take with us on our travels the next day.

It worked really well, except:

1) I didn't really like the bottles (and Dallin really didn't like them)
2) I didn't really like the pump, especially after several months of use when its performance began to go downhill.

So now, faced once again with the prospect of pumping (I do plan on trying BFing under a cover again, but hey, who knows?), I am in the market for a new pump and new bottles.

And I don't think what I want exists.

What I want in a bottle:

-not made of a zillion parts (or, you know, more than...3? 4?)-
-doesn't have to be put together in a very specific way to avoid leakage-
-probably good for colic and stuff, just in case-
-options, in terms of milk flow, size, etc.-
-no nipple confusion-

What I want in a breast pump:

-not a million dollars-
-electric (single or double, doesn't matter)-
-works well (doesn't have to move mountains or anything...I just want it to work!)-

And then comes the truly tricky part...

I want to be able to pump right into the bottles so I'm not pouring milk back and forth, washing extra containers, etc.

This system does not exist. I'm fairly certain.

You cannot find a decent pump and decent bottles that were made for each other. WHY THE HECK NOT?

Medela makes good pumps, but they are crazy expensive, and their bottles don't get great reviews.

Lansinoh makes what looks like a great pump, but they have no feeding bottles - only storage bottles.

Evenflo and Playtex make good looking bottles, but no decent pumps.

Avent is what we used before.


So tell me - does this ideal of mine exist? Am I putting too much faith in online reviews (is something actually good even though most people don't like it)? Should I just get what I want from both categories even if they don't "work" together and just suck it up with the pouring and the washing and what not?

And could switching to Geico really save us 15% or more on car insurance?

These are the things that will keep me up tonight.

35 Things: June Update

Well, here we are. The end of our month of seeing each other daily. Who knows when you're going to hear from me again?

I'll be honest: I don't. Hopefully within the next few days.

So hey, let's update you on how I'm did with my 35 things list in June, shall we?

I've done my meal plan, and my monthly cookie, and my act of service.

I've also *almost* finished one measly book this month. Seriously, self? One?! And only *almost?* I am ashamed.

The book I've *almost* read is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I really, really like this book. I won't give it a final rating yet, since I'm not quite done, but I'm thinking it's in the 4 1/2 star range. I'll probably finish it tomorrow. I love the writing style. It's very unique and full of character without being super weird or modern. And the story is moving and powerful. I kinda love it.

I also completed:

21. Throw a party. Flag Day party! It was epic.

28. Write one blog post every day for a month. If you haven't realized yet that I've done this...uh, where have you been?

I know, I wanted to finish the nursery this month too, but it just didn't happen. I'm making progress on it, but not quite done. Maybe next month.

Well, I guess that's it. Thanks for sticking with me this month. You guys rock, as if you didn't already know.

Today

Did you like my wonderful spouse's wonderful post yesterday? I think my second favorite part was the flashing red title. It proves that he's a computer nerd, which, as we all know is super cool. My first favorite part was the sweet stuff he said, of course. Most of it was undeserved, but I guess that proves that I've fooled him into thinking I'm actually worth praising. My third favorite part was simply the fact that he wrote my post for yesterday. It was nice to have a little break (no offense, blog).

Don't ask me why I listed my top 3 favorite things in that odd order. I dance to the beat of my own drum, or whatever that overused expression is.



Anyway, today, I discovered a few things. Allow me to share:


1. I don't want Dallin's riding of motorcycles to become a hobby. Does this require more explanation? I guess what you need to know is that:

a. Dallin rides a motorcycle to and from work nowadays.

b. This was allowed because a motorcycle was a cheap and convenient alternative to a second car

c. Today, Dallin and his Dad rented Harley's and went "cruising."

d. I don't like "c" because it makes motorcycle riding seem like a hobby rather than a convenient, temporary alternative to a second car

e. The end.


2. I don't like turkeys. I like to eat turkey, but I don't like actual turkeys. They are ugly and always look grumpy and seem generally twitchy, which freaks me out.




3. If I pull my hair into a tight enough bun, it will make my head hurt even after I take out said bun.


4. I need to have good chocolate constantly available to me, in the form of Milky Ways, Mounds, or Chips Ahoy. Why I haven't internalized this lesson yet is beyond me.


5. I'm going to be pushing it to read ONE book this month. ONE. That's so sad. Especially since I've been on vacation for the past almost week. What kind of vacation doesn't allow time for leisure reading? Mine, I guess.


6. I'm not very good at Pinterest. I forget to pin things, and I forget to look back at what I've pinned. This makes using Pinterest completely pointless for me. Note to self: use PInterest correctly. It has a high potential for greatness.


7. I've been generally disappointed with my blogging performance during this month of daily blogging. It definitely hasn't been how I imagined and planned it. Oh well, you're still reading, right?



Wow, 7 lessons in one day. If I keep this up, I'll know everything in no time.

(p.s. This post was definitely written on the right day (Wednesday), I promise you. But Blogger was being silly and refused to let me publish it. I put it on Facebook, if you want proof, but really, you should just trust me. Trust is important for relationships.)