Stories of life. About everything and nothing; as told by a Chamolinaole on Saipan.
Last night I watched The Holiday. James started out watching it with me…that only lasted about 8 minutes; but I appreciate the effort. He only rents the “girly” movies for me. It was cute.
As much as I normally don’t care for Cameron Diaz, she and Jude Law were great together (but I don’t think I’ve ever been dissapointed with Jude Law).
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In other news – congratulations to Stan and Luka. You can check it out over at Steve’s blog.
Last night for dinner I made tacos for the second time in my life. Who knew how easy of a meal tacos are to make? Apparently everyone but me!
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You know you’re a parent when you and your husband spontaneously break out in song on the way to work, “ready set learn, du du du du du du, ready set play, it’s a great great day…READY SET LEARN! That’s me, I’m Paz! Du du du du du.”
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I hate when I’m wrong and buy plain bunelos thinking I’m buying banana bunelos. I don’t really know why I buy bunelos…I should just make them. My sisters recipe is the bomb!
I was watching True Life: I Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for the umpteenth time tonight. You know the guy, the crazy OCD guy? He put it best, something like, “I constantly perform rituals. Sometimes rituals come to me and I can’t explain them, but if I don’t do them I’ll feel anxious for the rest of the day.”
Is it weird that I get him? Is it weird that I have gone through many days anxious because there was some act that I felt I needed to perform but talked myself out of it? I don’t know. I think it’s in my genes. Almost all my friends who have some Chamorro blood and many in my family have these weird ‘quirks’. I have a lot of them. My daughter is already showing signs of them. I pray that they won’t consume her as she grows.
It’s pretty funny to watch my friend (and coworker) and I as we leave the office each afternoon. She often gives me a ride home so I’ll pack up my things, close up my office (cubible/workstation) and run up to her building. I’ll go through her office and close her blinds a certain way to make sure they are fully closed so that no one can peep inside. Then she’ll come by and check the window in two places to make sure it’s locked. But that messes up the blinds, so I go back and reclose the blinds. It’s pretty funny. We both understand that if we don’t do those things we’ll go home feeling unsettled. Lately, with my huge belly it’s just too much effort for me to walk through her office twice to fix the blinds. So I simply stand away from the windows and try to avert my eyes as she performs her window rituals.
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I’m nesting. I hate that term, but that’s what I’m doing. It’s when a woman nears the end of her pregnancy and goes nuts cleaning and cooking and fixing and moving and whatever else she feels she needs to do to prepare for her new baby. At least my nesting isn’t too involved. I spent most of the day on Thursday rearranging our closets and drawers and moving the bed and crib and tidying up around the room. James wasn’t pleased that I decided to move the bed by myself. But hey, he wasn’t home and it had to be done. So I did it. James did the rest of the room today. I’m going to pack our hospital bags this week because I have a feeling Jacob is coming sooner than he’s expected. I almost had a panic attack walking through Costco this morning. I mean, really, I felt like I was about to go into labor; and who would have driven me to Community Church to pick up James so he could take me to the hospital? Almost-10-year-old Mikey? 22-month old Katelyn? I don’t think so. I’d have sat my butt down right in the middle of the store and dialed 911.
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I still haven’t decided about the VBAC. The risks are different on Saipan. The risks aren’t that different – the way the risks are dealt with is different. Let’s say I go into labor and, God forbid, I end up with a uterine tear. Well, L&D is going to have to assemble the team to perform a c-section. Let’s say it’s night time. It could take up to an hour for the team to be assembled because it’s likely that none of them would be at the hospital. This means I and/or Jacob could suffer severely from the internal bleeding that would result. The worst that could happen is death. Even though the risk for a uterine tear is something like .4%, James isn’t comfortable with this risk. I can understand and I respect how he feels. I was feeling pretty good about it two weeks ago right after I talked to the doctor. But since then I’ve been feeling a lot of internal pain right around my incision site.
I wanted to have made up my mind by my next appointment, which is tomorrow. But I haven’t. I know that I want to. I’ve been praying about this, but I just don’t feel like I’ve received an answer. I kind of want to just leave it in God’s hands by scheduling a c-section on the day closest to my due date when my preferred doctor is on call. And if I go into labor before then, then I try to push this baby out. But if I don’t…then I go under the knife, again. (But I don’t know how happy the hospital would be with my ‘whatever’ attitude. -James told me he had never heard the word whatever used as often as he hears it here. Whatever, I say it all the time. Weird, because he’s from L.A. Whatever!)
I won’t care as much this time if I have another c-section. I have come to terms with it and realized that it doesn’t make me any less of a woman just because I couldn’t push my baby out on my own. I can now say “…when I gave birth…” instead of “…when Katelyn was born…” or “…when they took my baby out of me…” Imagine, back in the day, if I hadn’t have had that c-section, one or both of us wouldn’t have made it.
I hear that it’s preferred that a woman only have 3 c-sections. So the number of kids we have may be limited depending on the method of delivery of this next little one. But really, I don’t know if I want more than two kids anymore. I used to have dreams of having 9 sons. And yes, this pregnancy has been pretty tough lately, but no, that’s not why I changed my mind from wanting 9 kids to 4 kids. If we have more than 2 kids, we’d like to have 4 – two sets of two kids that are about two years apart. But I’m not sure that I want that anymore. So having a VBAC for the reason of being able to have 4 kids is now moot.
Peace out, yo!
So my sister and I went to a Stampin’ Up party today. If I had a camera I’d post some pictures of the card tote and easter card that we made. It was fun – but very stressful.
I had been wanting to go to a Stampin’ Up party for some time. It always looked like something I’d enjoy doing in my free time. I was wrong. Our demonstrator, Jill, was great – it’s just that from the beginning of our tote makin’ session I could already tell that stampin’ wasn’t for me. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it and it’s not that the stamps, papers, and accessories weren’t awesomely cute, it’s just that each movement toward completing the project caused me way too much anxiety. I stressed out about how to fold, how to cut, how to stamp, how to line up the second stamp with the first imprint…I like it, but I just can’t see myself spending money on something that’s going to cause my heart to stop because I couldn’t center the white paper on the pink paisly paper even though the paisly prints weren’t stamped on symemtrically anyway.
My sister on the other hand…I could tell this would be something she’d be enjoy and be good at. And I was right.
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In other news, my sister bought Maui his very own potty. He seemed pretty comfortable sitting on it while fully clothed. Hopefully he’ll feel the same way when it comes time to actually use it.
In other, other news, I just found out it’s going to cost 250-smackeroos to have little baby Jacob circumcised. Whaaat??
James just asked me, “what if it’s a girl?” Well, them her name will be Leah Marie and we won’t have to circumcise her.
Stranger than Fiction. Good movie. Will Ferrell is very good. I’d like to see him in more roles like that.
My favorite line in the movie is when Professor Hilbert asks Harold Crick if he’s married. Harold replies, “Was engaged to an auditor. Left me for an actuary.”
I had been repeating this line throughout the day yesterday, until James so observedly pointed out that I was the only one laughing.
I understand the concept behind the idiom “you can’t compare apples to oranges”. But the phrase itself has always bothered me. Because, yes, you can compare apples to oranges.
That’s like saying “you can’t compare analysts to auditors”. Yes, you can!
I think the phrase should be more like “you can’t compare apples to feet” or maybe “you can’t compare a wrought iron fence to basketballs”.
Wow! “Would you look at this, ’tis an elegant merry-go-round harse.” ~The fox in Mary Poppins
Thanks to the coordinated efforts of my household, Katelyn is now potty trained. The girl is amazing, she hasn’t wet her diapers at night for about a year now. And she’s only been potty training for just over three weeks and I think we’re already in the clear. I’m really thankful that I won’t have to buy diapers for two children at the same time.
It took me about 10 minutes to sign in to blogger tonight. I hate dial-up!
You know what else I hate? Crappy customer service. About two weeks ago I went to lunch at Cafe at the Park. You may recall that I had been boycotting Cafe, but that I recently decided to give it another try – if I boycott all the restaurants on Saipan that don’t perform to my standards, then I might as well hire a private chef.
I’m sorry to say that it took me THREE TIMES to finally learn my lesson, I’m never spending another penny at Cafe at the Park (unless it’s work related and I don’t have a choice). It just doesn’t make any sense that a simple greek-salad-pita-thing would take 30 minutes to make. And someone please tell me why they ruined my pita by placing it on a bed of french fries!
James ordered me a Sesame Chicken Salad from Coffee Care this evening. The chicken was nice. But they should change the name to “Sesame Chicken and Pasta with a Disgraceful Looking Cucumber and Carrot Shards”. Nothing about that dish says ’salad’. BUT they threw in two calamata olives, so I dealt with it.
I went shopping for my niece’s birthday present on Friday after work. After wandering around National Office Supply for an hour, I finally bought her a Crayola Tub of Fun (really good gift for a creative 6-year old). And if I hadn’t have found that Tub of Fun, I’d have probably spent another 45 minutes wandering around piecing together some much more expensive and half-as-fun gift. I hung out with my sister and her crew for an hour and a half before picking up James. On our way home we stopped at Lollipops to pick up a gift bag and some tissue paper; and I’m sad to say, that I am thoroughly disapointed with what happened. I walked in and took all but 30 seconds to grab what I needed. But it took another 20 seconds for a clerk to pull away from her coworker and come and assist me – maybe ‘assist’ isn’t the right word. She walked over without so much as a glance in my direction, rang up the items, and stood there. When I asked her how much everthing cost, she turned and spit. out. her. betelnut. Wow. I don’t know why I bothered saying “thanks” as she handed me my change. I should have said “sorry”, sorry for bothering you at work, sorry for giving money to the store that pays your salary so you and your kids can eat, sorry that I don’t have enough money to start my own store and put that one out of business.
I don’t believe the customer is always right, but I do believe the customer is always important. Booya! Stick that in a text book McGraw-Hill.
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Would you believe that with all my years growing up on Saipan, I never visited Lau Lau Beach until today? It’s true.
I’ve also never been to Old Man By the Sea or Forbidden Island.
And only until some months ago, I had also never been to Tank Beach in Kagman. I’ve been to Marine beach, but only once. It was that night back in high school when I’m pretty sure I had a bit of alcohol poisoning.
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I’ve forgotten a lot of the movies we’ve seen recently – because forgetting is what a pregnant woman does best.
But I do remember that we saw The Promise about a month ago. I’m pretty certain that I liked it.
I know for sure that I watched The 300 last night, or maybe it was Friday night. Either way – it was good. But it ain’t rated R for nothin’, watch it when the kids are asleep – I mean, leave the kids at home.
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You know what’s embarassing? Not recognizing your boss’s wife as she and her son walk by you and wave. Matoka!
BROTHER! Booya!
That’s right – no more being asked 3 times a week by a certain someone whether I’ve found out yet if it’s a boy or girl; no more explaining that I already had an ultrasound early on and yadda, yadda, yadda; no more with the “I hope you have a boy so then it won’t matter what the next ones are”.
The Doctor said, “…and there are the testicles”.
James: I see you’re wearing underware, Maui. That’s good, Katelyn’s wearing underware too.
Maui: Do you wear underware?
James: I do. You’re going to wear underware for a long time. You’ll keep wearing underware until you’re really old, and then you’ll wear diapers again.
Maui: [pause] I’m two years old and I still use a binky!
James: Sounds like somebody’s been complaining about that.
Maui: *smile*
All the Kings Men. Don’t believe they hype, it’s a very good movie! Sean Penn is awesome in it.
About a week ago I bought Katelyn a potty seat. She has been using it a bit. But I don’t think she uses it as aggressively with her nanny as she does with me. So since I came home from work Friday evening she’s sat on the potty seat about 15 or so times. Usually she’ll ask to go “pee pee on the toilep” and James or I will stick her on the seat and in two seconds she’ll say she’s done and will reach for the toilet paper. This afternoon she said she needed to go “kaka on the toilep”, so I walked her over and sat her on the potty seat. After about two seconds she said she was done, but I told her we were going to wait until the kaka came out. And about 30 seconds later….plop, plop. Yaaaayyyy!!!
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Recently, I was told this about the host of the show Sugar Rush, “that guy’s so white he has to wear his hear in dreads so people know he’s black.”
Oh, come on, it’s all in good fun – you know it made you chuckle.
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I had a conversation with a friend once and I tried to explain an idea that another friend had. I explained that this friend almost graduated from UCLA. And my friend replied, “almost, ‘almost’ is the guy that fills my bucket with popcorn at the movie theater.”
A few days ago Katelyn insisted on standing on a table so she could look out the window and watch her Uncle Ed bushcut. She saw the gas in the tank sloshing around and asked, “that’s the water?” I said, “no, that’s gas.” Katelyn replied, “gas from Katelyn’s dagan?”
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The Heart of the Game – good documentary. The way it ended was awesome!
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I flipped the TV on to TLC a little while ago and heard Issac Mizrahi say about Johnny Depp, “…he’s not afraid to look awful; and when he looks awful – he’s gorrrgous.” That’s kinda how I feel about Brad Pitt. I’ve never been one to really care about celebrities; growing up I wasn’t into teen idols – although I can probably still sing all of Paula Abdul’s songs – “rush, rush, hurry, hurry baby come to me…I can see, I can see you get free with meeheeeee….” Brad was never anything special to me. Just some guy that most ladies went nuts over. He wasn’t even that great of an actor. Then I saw Fight Club – and he was HOT! Then I saw Snatch – and he was even HOTTER!
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“Nobody’s fault but mine, nobody’s fault but mine. If I don’t read, my soul would be lost. And it’s nobody’s fault but mine.” ~Ben Harper (or Robert Johnson)
I LOVE that song.
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