October 21, 2009

PREGNANCY ADVICE

There's another pregnant Sara blogger, heh.  Congrats to her.

I started thinking about what advice I would give to another pregnant lady, and I decided to keep it generic: Listen to everyone's advice, but find your own path.

(Because I too like to invoke Chairman Mao while giving unsolicited advice.  In fact, I think he's who I turn to most for inappropriate quotes regarding pregnancy and/or graduation.)

But seriously.  An example:  Everyone I knew told me to buy under-the-belly maternity pants.  They're more modern, they have cuter styles, and they were "more comfortable."  So I did.  And they dug into me and annoyed the tar out of me.  I was always complaining about the elastic.  So one day last week, on a frustrated whim, I tried on a pair of the over-the-belly pants.  Holy cow, I was so much happier.  They don't dig in like the others.  Pants don't make me cry anymore, hooray!

I took everyone else's advice and it didn't work for me.  I'm just bummed it took me seven weeks of uncomfortable pants before I finally threw everyone else's fashion advice out the window.  I figured they knew better than I did, but it turns out they had just done what worked for them.  And apparently I am carrying way low and needed something different.

So listen to everyone and ask lots of questions, but then go with your gut.  If your gut says that you should be wearing grampa pants up to your armpits, then go for it!

And good luck.  The second trimester sucks too.

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October 20, 2009

MASSIVE FRAUD IS A SURPRISE?

On a superficial note, I just have to say how funny I think it is that the Obama administration is all in a tizzy about fraud in the elections in Afghanistan.  Our own country is over 200 years old, and we still have people squawking every election cycle about fraud (and rightfully so, because we still have people voting unjustly in every cycle).  I just think it's funny to expect Afghanistan to be this bastion of trustworthiness and ethical behavior and to be surprised when it's not.  Really, they can't talk about committing more troops until election fraud is settled?  I can't believe massive election fraud wasn't factored into the plan as a given!

And a funny (in a sad way) quote from Michael Yon:

Regarding the Afghan election, which is now headed for a runoff, the good news is that the vast majority of Afghans didn’t vote in the first place and probably are not paying much attention, since they are illiterate and mostly live in remote villages, many of which do not have radios. (That’s also a mouthful of bad news.)

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I'VE GOT 99 PROBLEMS

New Facebook status:

Sarah just calculated that her husband has been deployed for 99 days.  It's a good number for bottles of beer on the wall, but not so good for number of days being apart...

My mind is also apparently starting to play tricks on me.

I am ready to be done now, pls k thx.

Also, he is being a total John Adams and hasn't sent me one single letter.  "But we don't have outgoing mail out here" blah blah blah, like I believe that.

I'm tired of being in stores and seeing something I could give him for Christmas, and then putting it back because I realize that he won't be here for Christmas...

I'm tired of seeing myself in the mirror at night before bed and noticing how absolutely remarkable and amazing I look with my big, bare belly, and knowing he will never get to see it.  I am not trying to be lewd, but I think the hardest thing about the pregnancy so far is that my husband doesn't get to see what I look like with no clothes on.  The changes are pretty phenomenal, and I don't have anyone to share it with.

I just miss him.

I know, I know, "gold to aery thinness beat" and all, like I always say.  But I'm feeling dull and sublunary today.

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October 19, 2009

MAINSTREAM TONGUE

A very good point:

John Podhoretz once remarked that all conservatives are bilingual: We speak both conservative and liberal. Liberals are monolingual, because they can afford to be. To the Obama crowd, Fox News is a foreign tongue. The “mainstream” tongue? Well, we all grew up with it, were taught in it.

When conservatives hear liberal bias, they say, “Yeah, so? The sun rises in the east.” When liberals hear conservative bias, or even a point or bit of news uncongenial to liberals, they’re apt to say, “Eek, a mouse!”

This is the same thing that makes liberals say that Rush is probably a racist even though there's no proof.  They think they understand how we think, when they're generally pretty far off the mark.

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YAY, GIVE HIM ANOTHER PEACE PRIZE!

Finally, an Obama move I can applaud:

Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

It makes no sense to have a state law that makes something legal and a federal law that trumps it.  For me, it's a simple Tenth Amendment issue and a fight or flee issue: if you need medicinal marijuana, move to a state that offers it; if it offends you, move away.  I don't think it should be a federal law at all.

So good job, for now, of clarifying a ridiculous conflict in laws.  Let the states decide.

Now to work on teasing apart inter- and intra-state commerce...starting in Montana...

UPDATE:

But a very good point is made by Wesley Smith...

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October 18, 2009

HAVE YOU EVER LISTENED TO A WORD HE'S SAID?

David Frum is absolutely wrong.  I would bet anything you'd ask of me that Glenn Beck would rather be penniless than to sell out on his values and principles.  I would guarantee it.  Frum is dead wrong, which makes me wonder if he's ever even listened to Beck in the first place.

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October 15, 2009

HALFWAY THERE



I love looking pregnant.  I never want to look normal again.  You can have the aches and pains, but let me keep the tummy.  I take great delight in the fact that I crossed through hell to get here, but at least I make a cute pregnant lady.  I deserve for luck to be on my side for once, right?  I have been amazed that strangers have had the guts to ask me when my baby is due; either they are really brave or I look so obviously pregnant that they feel safe in asking.  I'd like to believe the latter. 

I am halfway there.

Whenever you call the hospital, a recording says that if you are less than 20 weeks pregnant, you should go to the ER in an emergency.  If you are more than 20 weeks, you head straight to Labor and Delivery.

Should something go wrong, I have crossed the threshold from "having a miscarriage" to "delivering a baby."  It's both a daunting and a wonderful milestone.

Most of the time, I don't worry about that.  At least not now that she's started wiggling where I can feel it.  It wasn't as wow as I expected it to be, because I guess I expected a hard kick instead of little stretches and rumbles.  But when I really think about it, it is a fun feeling.  And it's like a secret: I can be doing stuff with my mom and then say, "She's been kicking this whole time," and my mom gets this wonderful look on her face like I told her I was pregnant for the first time all over again.  That's been fun.

Still, the worry is always in the back of my mind.  Every time I buy something, I imagine it sitting in the garage collecting dust like all the other things I've bought over the years.  I bought a crib and mattress this week, and part of me just chalks it up as money wasted because I cannot really see this all working out in the end.  Surely there will never really be a baby in this house.

Sometimes I catch sight of myself in the mirror when I'm getting ready for bed, and I "discover" that I'm pregnant.  It hits me, that I have this belly and that for most people it means that they will be having a baby soon.  But I still kinda think of it as something that happens to "most people," not me.

She has a name, and yet I never use it.  She is only "the baby."

And I don't know when it will feel real.  I should tour Labor and Delivery.  I should take one of the parenting classes.  I should work on a birth plan.  I should consider a doula in case my husband doesn't get home in time.  But I do none of these things because they still seem pointless. 

It's hard to explain, that I am enjoying the pregnancy while simultaneously doubting that it will ever actually result in a living baby.

I've taken a lot of guff for being too ready to have a baby, which is why I find all this so funny: I've been ready for a theoretical baby for ten years but I am still not ready for this real one inside of me.  People get wide-eyed when I say that I bought college-themed onesies way back when my husband and I were just dating, knowing that someday a baby would root for our alma maters.  We bought a mosaic to hang on baby's wall when we were on our cruise in 2005, long before we were ever thinking of having a baby.  And I bought an art print of a mother and baby bird even before I ever met my husband.  I have been ready for this moment for as long as I can remember.  And now we have a nursery, an honest-to-goodness nursery, and all these things are in it.  But still...

When will I stop waiting for the other shoe to drop?  I just want to feel like a normal happy person instead of leaving the tags on everything "just in case."

This post turned out far more morose than I thought it would be...

And while I'm writing this, I realized that I sort of cling to this sorrow.  I think part of me is resisting being a "normal happy person."  I still carry the pain of the three lost babies, but to the stranger on the street, I look like any other pregnant Army wife.  And once I have the baby, I am just like any other mom.  But I don't feel like a regular old first-time mom.  Now that I look like everyone else in the Babies R Us, I feel like I want to wear a sign that says "Trust me, it was much harder to get to this point than you think." 

I haven't figured out yet how to separate the happiness of this baby from the sadness of the others without feeling like I am turning my back on the others and also myself.  I haven't figured out how to get over my past, and most of the time I am not really sure I want to.  I don't want to dwell on it, but I don't want to move on and forget it either.

And maybe that's why I can't cut any tags off.  It's not really that I think this baby will die, because I truthfully don't really think she will.  Or at least I don't have any reason to think she will.  Instead, I think I resist because it means accepting a new identity and shedding the old one, which is proving hard for me.  Now I am just another pregnant Army wife and will soon be just another Army wife dragging a stroller around.  My belly is a sign of great things, but it's also the end of the person I have been for the past three years.  And even though I've hated that person, I don't know how to not be her anymore.

I don't know how to move on and just be happy and just be a mom without constantly feeling like I need to explain everything.  When people ask if this is my first baby, I just need to answer Yes instead of feeling like I need to unload the whole story.  Because right now, the story's still in me and it still feels like a big part of who I am.

And I wonder when it won't...when I'll just feel like this is my baby and we are a regular family like everyone else.

I guess I have 20 more weeks to figure it out.

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October 13, 2009

A NEW SPOUSEBUZZ POST

Last week I got to explain to my relatives how important it is for us to keep living our lives while our husbands are deployed.

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THE GOODISTS

Via CVG, an article on why Pres Obama was the perfect Nobel pick.

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October 12, 2009

BOOK LIST IV

I hit George Bush's total for 2008, so now I am racing to catch Rove.  I also got lazy about writing my reviews as soon as I finished the book, hence some of the short ones.

40)  Misunderestimated  (Bill Sammon)
In honor of passing Pres Bush's book total for 2008, I read a book about him.  A good book.  I really liked this.

39)  The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression  (Amity Shlaes)
The book was a bit dense and slow going, but I enjoyed parts of it a lot, especially the chapter on Andrew Mellon's art collection.

38)  A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
AirForceWife lent me this book, and I read it very quickly and cried all through the last segment.  It was a good, though horrifying, story.

37)  The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy  (Vicky Iovine)
I got a few laughs out of this book, learned some things, and especially appreciated the chapter on what to pack to take to the hospital.  It also saddened me to keep reading about all the things a husband should be doing during a pregnancy...

36)  The Quest for Cosmic Justice  (Thomas Sowell)
I didn't realize this was a collection of speeches when Leofwende recommended it, but it was good...as Sowell always is.

35)  Class 11: Inside the COA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class  (TJ Waters)
I really enjoyed this book and thought it was super interesting, but I am still shocked that he was allowed to write it.  I learned many things that I supposed I wouldn't be allowed to learn about the CIA.

34)  Bold Fresh Piece Of Humanity  (Bill O'Reilly)
My mom wanted this book for Christmas, so she brought it back so I could read it.  I have never been the biggest O'Reilly fan, but this book rounded out his personality for me and made him more of a complete character than just his show does.

33)  Showdown  (Larry Elder)
Larry Elder always challenges me to think more libertarian.

32)  Takedown  (Brad Thor)
Another good one, as usual.  I especially liked the idea of inventing a second attack on the US after 9/11.  And I love Jack Rutledge as president.

31)  A Red State of Mind  (Nancy French)
I have known about this book for a long time, and Nancy French has even commented here a couple of times, but I just finally got around to reading it.  I thought it was charming as all get-out.  And if I ever thought I was irritated by Kerry voters in 2004...

Previous Lists:
21-30
11-20
1-10

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October 11, 2009

HE WON WHAT?

While at my grandmother's, I had dial-up for a few days.  And then, we exhausted her monthly usage.  Take a moment and turn your mental clock back waaay to when you paid per minute and only got a certain number of hours per month.  On dial-up.  Oy.  We knocked it out in no time flat.  So come Wednesday morning, I had no more internet for the week.

Friday my husband called and said that he didn't have access either, though for a sadder reason than I.  He then said that he thought a buddy was pulling his leg by saying that Pres Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I was at the lunch table with several relatives.  I could've asked them if they'd heard about this news, but honestly, I thought it was too absurd to repeat out loud.  I would've felt more serious asking, "Hey, have you guys heard that some people see Elvis at 7-11?"  I mean, I just thought it was too stupid to repeat.

Really.

I hung up the phone and everyone at the table wondered what my husband had asked me about.  So I had to say it.

And then found out it was true.

Let me repeat for emphasis: I thought the mere fact of asking my relatives if Pres Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize was too embarrassing.

Imagine my embarrassment when I found out he did.

Man, I missed a good day to be on the internet.  I hear people had mad jokes.

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October 03, 2009

PLAYING SPACEMAN

I'm leaving today to check off some more states on my list.  I'm headed to visit my grandparents for a week.  They have dial-up, so I probably won't be around much.

I plan to ask my grandmother umpteen more questions about birthing and raising 13 children in the 1950s and 60s.

(Rats, I can't embed this.)

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ROOSEVELT'S WAGER

A great paragraph from my book The Forgotten Man.  I think it applies to today just as easily, and I think it captures my frustration with why the system is not what I believe it should be:

But the critics had another reason to be loud -- their own frustration at the genius of Roosevelt's wager.  Roosevelt, they saw, had understood something that the Republicans had not.  The contest now was not Democrat versus Republican but rather this classical republic versus the classical democracy.  Government was less a representative republic than it had once been, more directly controlled by the people.  The change had started back in the 1910s with the constitutional amendment to permit the electorate to pick senators directly, rather than through their state legislatures.  Suffrage for women had accelerated it.  And the Depression had accelerated it again -- people who might not have had an interest in government before now found that hunger concentrated their minds.  Instead of asking what government was doing on behalf of the general welfare, voters were asking in a very democratic way what Roosevelt was doing for them.

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October 02, 2009

ALMOST HALFWAY THERE

I had a doctor appointment today.  I thought it was just a regular appointment, but it turns out it was my Type II ultrasound.  Wow, that was the first time that a medical snafu has turned into a fun surprise instead of me wanting to set someone on fire.

I am so used to early ultrasounds, seeing a teeny blob in a big uterus.  My first reaction was how big she was.  My second was how developed she is.

She looks great.



She had the hiccups and was clapping her hands and rubbing her face.
And everything is perfect: normal heart, normal spine, normal piggy toes.

She's jammed in there so snug...why can't I feel her yet?

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"SPOIL THE IMAGE OF SUCCESS"

Krauthammer:

On September 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president in the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.

Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium-enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.

Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports Le Monde, Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later — in Pittsburgh. I’ve got nothing against Pittsburgh (site of the G-20 summit), but a stacked-with-world-leaders Security Council chamber, it is not.

Why forgo the opportunity? Because Obama wanted the Security Council meeting to be about his own dream of a nuclear-free world. The president, reports the New York Times, citing “White House officials,” did not want to â€œdilute” his disarmament resolution “by diverting to Iran.”

Diversion? It’s the most serious security issue in the world. A diversion from what? From a worthless U.N. disarmament resolution?

Yes. And from Obama’s star turn as planetary visionary: “The administration told the French,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “that it didn’t want to ‘spoil the image of success’ for Mr. Obama’s debut at the U.N.”

"Spoil the image of success."  Not real success, but the image.

Our president is a narcissist. 

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September 30, 2009

RAPE-RAPE

Whoopi Goldberg is facing a fierce backlash after saying that film director Roman Polanski didn't commit "rape-rape" when he had unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. Goldberg, star of The Color Purple and Sister Act, said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape."

Really.  What else does the article go on to say?

His victim, Samantha Gailey, told a grand jury that the director had plied her with champagne and drugs and taken nude pictures of her in a hot tub during a fashion shoot. Polanski then had sexual intercourse with her despite her resistance and requests to be taken home, she said.

Whew.  I'm glad I now understand the difference between rape and rape-rape.

So which one did Cameron Diaz mean that Bush would legalize?  Real rape or the "I'm famous so I can do whatever I want" rape?

Hollywood is completely nuts.

Awesome quote by John Nolte:

If his unspeakable deed doesn’t meet the standard, what exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin?

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KEEPING GUARD

I was so touched to see that WifeUnit and her husband brought the little ewok I made to watch over their new son in the hospital.  And that the ewok donned a hazmat suit to join baby in his incubator.


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September 29, 2009

KANGAROO SWEATER

I got my first homemade baby gift the other day.  The Girl made an adorable baby sweater, one with a kangaroo pouch!  So cute.  And right around the same day, MaryIndiana sent a little kangaroo.  And, voila...


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I THOUGHT IT WAS A SANDWICH, NOT ICE CREAM

Steyn: Dog-Feces Ice Cream
A great summary of the farce at the UN last week.

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HER OWN EGGS

Mind boggling factoid of the week: if you’re going to have a little girl, her ovaries have already produced millions of primordial egg cells, which, within a few weeks, will develop into actual eggs!

And I have the joy of knowing that at this very moment, my little girl is growing perfectly normal eggs.  That one day she should be able to have a baby of her own without the problems I faced.

It's such a relief.

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