no longer a freak show

how do i spell releif?

M-E-D-E-L-A

I am much more equal now, but let me tell you, i pumped out 9 ounces from the right side - in 10 minutes! do you know how much 9 ounces is? thats like almost an entire can of soda. that is a whole heck of a lot of stuff.

but i used that neat trick to my advantage in the work weight loss challenge. at the first weigh in i wore big heavy boots, jeans, drank two glasses of water and made sure to be totally un-pumped. at the final weigh in i made sure to wear no shoes, light weight pants, pee a bunch and pump until empty. i came in 2nd and made $80 which added to the $200 i made for completeing a dare at the sales conference makes each of my kids able to enjoy 2.12% of one year of college. yes, i will pimp myself out for my childrens' education. i have no shame when it comes to my babies.

lop sided

so here i sit with my super stylish monster truck monster jam world tour t-shirt looking like a red-neck bad arse. this is all fine and good except that my right boob is probably about twice the size of my left and its pretty noticeable. i need to hit the lactation station but wont be able to until 11! until then i will look like a boob job gone bad and only getting worse.

the donuts are pawpi-ing

i love icecream. ver much. i had icecream prett much every day of my pregnancy and conitued that trend for quit some time after. eric likes icecream, too. in the summer time it was not uncommon for us to walk to safeway, pick out a 1/2 gallon for him and a half gallon for me, grab some plastic spoons and chow down on our walks home. yes, you read that right, 1/2 gallons. not pints. pints in our house are pointless. pints are for at work. it just wouldn't be right for me to sit at my desk with a 1/2 gallon, but a pint is acceptable in the public eye. i love donuts just about as much as i love icecream. so does eric. on our 2nd anniversary i was 8.5 months pregnant with seamus and eric got us some donuts for breakfast. we ate donuts all day and that was it. that evening we both crashed and got in a huge fight. i went and got a pedicure, eric went and got sone pizza and then everything was back to normal. donuts are good and bad for this reason. when i was pregnant with sirus they were rebuilding a shp up the road. it was an old gas station that was remodeled into a retail store but now was being remodeled into something else. we weren't sure what until one day we saw that they had mounted a giant round thing on the roof. was it a tire? was it a donut? we sure hoped it was a donut and it turned out it was a giant top pot donut. right down the street from us. we actually haven't gone there very often but man, when we do, its heaven. this morning at work they brought in like 80 boxes of krispy kreme donuts. i have been trying to cut out sugar and other bad things this past week, except for the chocolate i had on saturday and sunday and then the frostys from wendys i had on monday and tuesday, but other then those, i was doing pretty good. until those damn donuts showed up. ah, i love donuts.

on another note, check out this great email that pawpi got the other day:

Hi,
Several years ago, I stumbled upon Pawpi's picture online. Ever since then, I decided I wanted a Scottish Fold of my very own. It was hard convincing my husband. He said he didn't want "designer kitties."
After several years, we reached a compromise, and adopted 2 straight-eared Scottish Folds from a breeder. We named them Gus and Lulu, and they are a year old. But, Pawpi's name stuck, and it has become an adjective, noun, and adverb in our house. When the cats do that thing where they stand up on their back legs, we say, "oh look, they're Pawpi-ing!" When they lay on the floor on their backs, staring into space with all four paws splayed out and bellies exposed, it's "They're being Pawpis!" We even refer to them as "the Pawpis."
Once, my mom was talking to a friend of hers about our new cats. She was telling her how cute they were, but she couldn't remember the name "scottish fold" off the top of her head. For some reason, the "pawpi"
term stuck in her head, and she told her friend that the breed of cats we had were called "Pawpis."
So, just wanted to say thanks for putting Pawpi's picture online! We have certainly enjoyed her over the years, and now we love our very own Scottish Folds as well!
-Jenny

lactation station

there is a room at work that is set up specifically as the lactation station. it used to be on the 4th floor in a fairly secluded area until it was taken over by people wanting to take naps during the day and rampant rumors of work day sex started circulating. there is a couch in there, you see. that was the room i used when seamus was born. now there is a new room on the 5th floor. it has a nice lounging chair and a lamp and a clock and an old file cabinet i use to set my computer on. when i first started using this room the whole set up of it was so everything faced the door. if someone walked in they would get a good look at me milkin. so i quickly asked the other girls who use the room if i could turn it around. everyone thought that was a great idea. there is a lock on the door and you can only get in if you have a key, but you just never know. the next thing that happened was that the light bulb burned out. this happened one day as i tunred the light on. no big deal, i just went over to the switch and clicked the over head light on and went about my buisiness. this was fine and dandy until the overhead light shut off. the motion sensor for the light had been covered and i did not realize this until it was too late. that sesson was done. i have since uncovered the sensor and don't use the lamp. one day though i was sitting so still that the light turned off. this happens in my office occasionally and always freaks me out. now, i shouldn't complain because i could have to set up my lactation station in the bathroom or some other equally undesirable place, but there is one last thing that just is wierd about this room. it is located right by the creative services departnemtn and every time i come in or out of the room they all stop what they are doing and look up. i don't know how i feel about that.
at the house the bathroom tile is almost done. apparently it will be totally done by thursday. wea re going to go look and sinks and toilets today at lunch. hooray! and we are going to look at furniture, too!

super swimmer

this weekend was a big weekend! lots happened! on friday i met with charity for lunch and then a stroll around target. charity is getting married to chad in september and i am very excited about that.
on saturday seamus, sirus and i all went for a walk with our friend starla. starla is 19 weeks pregnant and is so cute that i can barely stand it. she has started to feel the baby move around and she is going to find out what kind of baby it is in another week or two. we walked to the u village and seamus played in the park while starla did some shopping. seamus is so fun to watch because she has so much energy and will jsut run and run and run. she was very good when it was time to go, only struggling a little bit at first but then settling into place. saturday dinner was pretty fun. sirus had his very first rice cereal. he made some funny faces but all in all it was a sucess. seamus was also very funny. her dinner was turkey, asparagus, cheese and whole wheat bread. but she decided she wanted cheerios instead and i decided that was ok. the funny part was when eric came home, i asked her to tell him what she had for dinner she rattled off all off everything that was on her plate, plus applesauce since that is what she thought sirus was having, but didn't mention the cheerios at all. she is a funny one.
i don't remember the rest of saturday.
on sunday i was all irritated and sulking because eric had been gone all day on saturday and then was going to be gone most of the day on sunday. i was mostly irritated because he was going on a two hour mountain bike ride but then when i asked when he was leaving and when he would be back it somehow turned into a 6 hour outting which in reality turned into 7.5 hours. but in the morning seamus, sirus and i met up with some friends for brunch. i had thought we were going to someone's house but really we were going to a resturant and i was all concerned how seamus would do with that. it turned out that she was really good. she sat in her chair and colored and ate her milk with a spoon and ate most of her oatmeal. she also ate 3 little packages of jelly but that turned out to be ok, too. i was so proud of her, it was a special treat to have her there. sirus slept the whole time. seamus picked out her own outfit, too. a green and white baseball shirt, pastel striped capri pants, her yellow rain boots and the 24 hour church of elvis bib. i don't know what the fascination with the bib was but she wanted to wear it, so she did.
then we went home. i had thought about taking the kids to the park but i was so tired so i didn't do it.
so instead of being lame and sulking when eric got home i decided to be more friendly and just get over it. its much easier to just get over it then to sulk.
so i headed off to swimming lessons. i was going to just pout and not go but i decided that maybe i should and i am totally glad that i did. so i get there and sign up for the beginner clinic which is what they recomended to me based on the info i told them. there were 10 people there, one of whom was in a bikini. not judging, just commenting. we did some drills and swam the width of the pool several times. it was very fun and i was learning a lot. i have to keep my head down and my butt up a little more apparently. after 45 minutes one of the instructors from the other, non-beginner group came over and asked me to join the intermediate group - the group that got to swim in the deep end and the whole length of the pool. that made me all happy and it made me feel like i was doing a good job! i was in the slow lane, but i got to do more and i found out that i have a really long way to go before i can swim 1/2 mile. but i am on my way. before i left i signed up for more of the clinics. i am so excited!

rain rain rain

i am in LA right now and it is RAINING. raining very hard. and its cold, i have the heat turned on in my hotel room. i got here last night and am here until wednesday evening. its a work thing. it was very sad leaving the babies on sunday. last time i came down it was only for one night and i was so looking forward to the sleep, but this time its been a bit tougher. seamus cried as i was leaving and sirus was jsut all smiles and giggles as i was heading out. i had to lug the pump on the plane and have had to leave the conference several times during the day to take care of my motherly duties. the conference is in the same hotel that i am staying in so that is convenient and at least allows me to not have to do it in the bathroom so that is a plus.
the trip has been interesting. a co-worker bumped me up to first class for the trip down, but then i shared a cab with two other co-workers from the airport to the hotel but the la marathon was going on yesterday and the finish was right in front of the hotel so the cab driver dropped us off 4 blocks away. it was about 430 in the afternoon so the people that were still finishing the marathon didn't look so good. two people actually died in the marathon which is sad and strange at the same time. the hotel is very interesting. the shower is a big glass case with a curtain on one side. if you are laying on the bed, which is on the floor, you can look into the big glass shower. you can also look at the toilet if the curtain is open. you can watch tv while in the shower or while on the pot, too. the two showers i have taken so far have actually been much better then i thought they would b e and i wish eric were here so maybe he could build one at our house. the phone in the room has 10 buttons on it, other then the standard number buttons. there is the one for the front desk, room service and wake-up, but also heaven, hell, fluffer, alibi, motivational speaker, resutuarant and housekeeping. there was a sticker on the toilet paper roll of a stick figure taking a dump. is that stick figure in peril? i don't think so, but the one on the bottom of the trash can might be. real strange.
i had to give a presenation today. to 53 people. i was very nervous - i had a dream about it the other night even. i was also worried that the weird smell i kept smelling was me and my body's reaction to having to do the first presentation i have had to do since college, but it turned out it wasn't me at all but instead the 5 gallon dish of hummus that was hanging out in the back of the room. my presentaion was at 2pm. that is the time that i normally pump. as i sat waiting to start my presenation i could feel myself filling up. i was concerned that i would start leaking all over the place in front of 53 people. but i don't normally leak and i was wearing a black sweater, so there was no mess. it started off not so great because the person who gave the presentation before me kind of messed up the projector so i was worried that i wouldn't have my visual aides. but it all got fixed and i gave my presentation and it went well. i am a very quiet person and i had asked people to make sure that if they couldn't hear me to just deal with it and to not ask any questions. after the presentation, one of the people i had said this to said they were suprised as to how well i projected and that i exuded confidence. that made me happy. thank goodness its over and now i can just hang out for the rest of the conference and miss my babies.

toenail tunnel no more

so last night i just couldn't take it anymore. i cut the little bridge off of my toe. the toenail tunnel is no longer there. it looks way grosser then it did with the little bridge there but oh well, now maybe it won't drive me crazy as much - less to pick at.

so, is it ok that i have been eating at least 1/2 a box of girl scout cookies a day? i am going to be in so much trouble when i am done nursing.

seamus makes me laugh. we had taught her some baby sign language. ok, so we didn't teach her, my mom did, but we used them with her. we only used more, eat and drink. even now that she can talk pretty well, when she gets very excited about something she will use the more sign. its pretty cute. there was a while when she would go from totally happy and content to starving as though we don't ever feed her in which she would use the eat sign while yelling "eat dinner" whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner. that too was pretty funny but she is over it now.

i was totally refreshed yesterday because sirus had only woken up once and it was at 345, so i had a nice stretch of sleep. the lady at starbucks asked how the baby was and when i told her, she told me a funny story about her mom. you will often hear about how mothers who are used to waking up several times in the night being totally freaked out the first time their new baby sleeps through, afraid to check on the baby for fear that something has happened. the starbucks lady told me that the first time one of her mother's children slept for so long, the mom threw a slipper at the baby from accross the room to wake it up before going over to the crib. funny but weird and understandable at the same time.

ya know what feels good?

i will tell you - scalding hot coffee in your eye ball at 7am. i am working on a lawsuit against my travel coffee mug because no where on it does it mention that the contents i am about to enjoy are very hot. if i would have known this i would not have poured the coffee into my eye ball and all over my face this morning. i bumped the mug against the steering wheel while i was getting into the car and splish splash next thing you know i was having a coffee facial. thank goodness i drink my coffee black, no sugar and decaf. i would have hated to see what a bunch of sugar in the raw would have done to my mascara.
on sunday we took the kids to run the st patricks day dash. it was so much fun. we got on the shuttle bus to go to the start and seamus was all in awe of what was going on. she looked all around at everyone and everything. we were the first ones on and the last ones off because we had our stroller, but as soon as the bus started to unload seamus was all about "all done bus, all done bus" and ready to go. unfortuantely i didn't take any photos of the kids in their green gear, they were awefully cute! after the dash everyone went home and took a two hour nap except for eric, he went on a 3 hour bike ride.
seamus seems to have mellowed out on the screaming a bit. instead she is singing! all of the time! it is so cute. i went out the other night and came home just after she had gone to bed and i stood outside her door and she was singing "a mommy, a daddy, a mommy, a daddy" over and over again. she sings other real songs, too, like twinkle twinkle little star, the ABCs, Where is Thumbkin and A Bushel and a Peck. She is so cute when she sings, I totally love it. I have to try to record it because its something i don't ever want to forget!

rewarding bad behavior

to reward seamus for all of her screaming we are going to take her to disneyland. i am so excited. at first eric didn't want to go but i was going to take seamus with or without him. he has since decided that he will come with us, thank goodness because i don't know how i would have done on my own. the trip is booked, plane tickets bought and hotel reservations made, all for the first week of may. did i mention that i am so excited? sirus will stay here with grandma. he should have fun i think, but it will be strange not having him with us. i wonder if seamus will mention it?

here are some new photos.

everyone has an animal towel. seamus is a grey kitty just like seamus mccat. she gets very upset if she takes a bath and has to use a non-kitty towel.

sirus has an elephant towel. he is very cute when he is all cuddled up in it!

this is from the very first outing in the new double stroller. seamus was screaming about something so that is why her eyes are closed. screaming is much more effective if you have your eyes closed and can't see that that the screaming is getting you no where. except for possibly disneyland

sirus has whispy blonde hair! he also has a left pupil that is always just a little bit bigger then the right one.

easter bunny in training!

seamus about to eat sirus.

sirus looks very concerned but very cute at the same time. i love that he has a little bit of drool on his chin!

terrible twos

so now that seamus is better she thinks that she needs to scream every waking second of the day. not just lets be loud screaming but full on, 100%, all out, bright red face screaming with the occasional laying on the floor with her head in her hands -either face down or face up depending on her mood. we were at the craft store yesterday and she started screaming and she didn't realize the floor was hard there so when she layed down and threw her head back it went wack, which of course led to more screaming, but who could tell the difference.
i am trying to convince eric that we should take her to disney land in march. he is suposed to tell me today if he wants to go or not, but with all of this screaming i don't think he will want to go, at least not with her.
she screams about wanting a bottle instead of a cup, wanting the red cup instead of the orange, wanting a straw instead of the sippy lid, wanting neither a straw nor a lid, wanting oatmeal, wanting oatmeal RIGHT NOW, the oatmeal is too hot, wanting raisins, wanting to wear her blue jammies instead of the green ones, wanting her diaper changed, not wanting her diaper changed, wanting you to follow her upstairs, wanting a pencil, changing her mind and wanting a pen instead, wanting crayons instead, wanting markers instead, wanting to be held, wanting to be put down, wanting hugs, not wanting hugs.
IT IS CONSTANT SCREAMING

toe update

i wanted to give a quick update on my feet. the pain and swelling are gone and we have been taking the family jogs about every other day without any issues so far - hooray! my toe on the other hand is a bit fascinating. as you may remember i stubbed it on the stove and it peeled all the way back. we bandaged it up and it seemed to have connected itself back. well, apparrently it didn't really. i am going to try to take a photo of what it has become because it is so amazing, but essentially it connected itself back on the sides but not in the middle. while growing, it has been growing up as well as out - so you can actually see through my toe nail, like its a little bridge. i am tempted to pull a piece of yarn through it and make some toe jewelry for it and i am also tempted to cut it totally away but i am afraid of what that might do. anyway, its amazing, let me tell you and if i do cut it away or if it falls off on its own i will put it in the altoid box on my desk with all of the other tan colored mystery items that ones lived on geminder's monitor.

the baby seamus, part 2

so it looks as though the baby seamus is finally feeling better. she had me very worried there for a while. she was just so weak and wouldn't eat anything. it looks like she is getting some molars in, too so that might be contributing to the eating thing. yesterday she was definitly much better and the night before she was well enough to run away from eric when he tried to get her into a diaper. sirus has a cough now but we think he is ok although he is now really getting the hang of the rolling over thing. he rolled over for the first time back in december but then would only do it occasionally but not he will do it all the time. last night when we went in to check on him before bed he had rolled onto his belly and scooted down so his legs were hanging out of the crib. we pulled him out and rolled him onto his back but this morning he was back on his belly. he is so funny. we took the kids on the family job last night. sirus is so funny during it. he keeps his eyes wide open and looks all around. seamus is content since she gets a blanket, too. its been so much fun!

the baby seamus

oh, poor baby seamus! she is sick! it is so sad to see her this way. this is the first time she has been sick to the point of throwing up. she can't eat or drink anything without it coming back out a few minutes later. she just lays there asking for water to drink but even if we just give her the tiniest of sips she throws it up. she is so tired and weak that she will walk a few steps then lay on the floor and fall asleep. she went to the doctor yesterday and he said she should be feeling better today so lets keep our fingers crossed that not only does she feel better but also that sirus doesn't wind up getting sick, too.