Thinking Under Water

To Blog, or Not to Blog?

2010-04-10T20:55:00.001-07:00

I really want to blog, but I feel like I can't blog until I get photos uploaded and I can't do that until I get a memory card adapter for our camera cause it will no longer connect to our computer. Plus, I have sooooo much reading to do. So, for now...I am just complaining. I will blog as a reward after I speak to my professor about my reading I'm supposed to be doing. That happens on Thursday. That will be my reward.

Gus and his Train

2010-03-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

A while back I picked up a Thomas the Tank Engine tent/playhouse for Gus (on sale, cheap!). I put it away for a month or so, because he got an Elmo doll that day and I don't like to give him more than one new toy at a time. Gus doesn't watch the Thomas cartoons, but he loves trains - he's been riding them at the zoo ever since we moved to PDX! It's now his favorite toy - and he makes good use of it. Luckily, it folds up and stores...and we put Thomas to bed at night.

Chasing Squirrels & Birds

2010-03-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

Off to catch a squirrel!

Signing "bird"

Signing "squirrel"

Waiting for the Squirrel to arrive

More signing "squirrel" so Dad knows what's up in that tree...

Gus shines on our recent warm, sunny day...

Babies, Government, and Thomas the Train

2010-03-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

Today I held a six-month-old baby who was about the be taken from her drug abusing mother. She was teething. And she was smart and beautiful and sweet. Intensely sad. I sat with her and her two older sisters for an hour while "official people" decided what to do with them. Kinda not what I expected to be doing and it bummed me out. My mentee was bummed too. The sisters are her best friends. What can you say to kids who've spent months and years in CPS holding facilities and foster care? Just give them hope that it can be different, I guess. After they left my mentee asked me if it was usually dark or light in our house. Her mom sleeps a lot during the day. I told her we always open the blinds and have white Christmas lights hanging so our house is bright and warm. She wants to visit. At home I cuddled my boy all I could to ease the cracked feeling in my heart. I can't for the life of me understand putting anything before your child, and I don't get the appeal of drugs. Gus helped me vacuum and do a load of laundry, then we broke out his Thomas the Tank Engine playhouse tent thingy that I have been saving for the right occasion. He played in it all night, tired himself out, showed it to his daddy when the father figure came home early from rehearsal, then passed out. Good way to end the night. I want us to be a foster family when Gus is older.

Love, Life, & other quirks

2010-02-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

After several months' hiatus, I have decided to try to blog again. so, here are some updates... I am spending some time today looking for other mommy bloggers, working to connect with other women in the Portland area with whom I share common interests and activties...not the easiest thing in absence of common gathering places like churches, workplaces, etc. I am enjoying the women I have met at my mentoring sessions and in playgroups and such, but I am still trying to find my "community" here in PDX. I am confident that will happen soon...no rush, but as is the case with most things, it won't happen unless I take some initiatve. I am also tending a sweet, needy cold-having little guy. At 17 months, Gus is doing fabulously well, but he does get little colds more frequently than I would like. Guess having a toddler is like that. Poor little dude. He doesn't seem to mind, though. Speaking of Gus, well, I could fill pages about Gus. He is talking a lot - mostly unintelligle babble, but several words are consistent. More importantly, he signs a LOT. He signs for almost everything he wants and for all of his favorite things - which are animals. We learn an average of two new signs a day, mostly from http://www.lifeprint.com/. He's a big reader and he likes to watch a couple of videos. He plays with his blocks, his shape sorter, his stuffed animals his Dora chairs, his keyboard, and the pets. And us. I think we are his favorite toys, actually. We play bouncing games 10-20 times a day, and dance all the time. He is obssessed with his ABC's also. And the itsy bitsy spider. I am working on the second or three sections of my comprehensive exams for my MA in American Studies. I took forever to do the first section on Race, Ethnicity and Class Formation - knowing I had to continue through this semester anyway (one semester was not enough time - according to my advisor - who was right! - and one of my committee was on sabbatacal), my procrastination drive kicked in early last semseter and told me to take my time and then rush through these last two sections! That's how I roll! So, now I am working on the Expressive Forms section, which I will be able to finish super fast - cause it's my favorite - about how literature, film, fashion, body image, etc. represent and influence American Culture and various subcultures within it. I will be done with this section at teh end of FEB, then on to Gender and Sexuality - which is my 2nd favorite topic and one I have lots of experience researching and writing about. I will have two months to work through that, then I will be taking my exams the first 4 weekdays in May. Woo hoo!

The Story of Gus’ First Birthday

2009-08-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Gus woke early and excited. This was due in part because JJ was home, when normally he would be at work before Gus wakes. However, early for Gus is not too early, between 7:30 and 8am. JJ had gotten up in the night and placed the camcorder at hand, so Gus’ day started with JJ singing him Happy Birthday and recording it. We got ready, fed Gus and headed out the door around 10am to drive to Enchanted Forest, a fairytale-themed amusement park about 45 minutes away, outside of Salem. The hope was that Gus would nap on the way there, as he usually sleeps well in the car and he was ready for his morning nap by the time we left the house. No such luck – he whined a bit but would not go to sleep – I’ve never seen him so determined to stay awake. After a quick stop for me and JJ to grab some really bad amusement park food, we were off! We visited the Medieval Village where we saw a creepy animatronic Pinocchio, and a water show with music, lights, and water fountains that spray in time with the music and which ultimately made Gus cry (probably because it was dark in the room and the music was really loud). From there we went to a fun and bawdy kids play in the outdoor amphitheatre called Snow White and the Seven Dorks, where Gus was more interested in playing in the dirt between the seats than in the action on stage. It was a good show – JJ and I both liked it! Since we don’t get to see much theatre nowadays – Gus isn’t ready to sit through a show yet – we were excited to see the show and it was actually very funny! Next we all jumped on a little miniature train – including JJ, who had to squeeze in and hunker down in order to fit. Gus was not enjoying it at first, but as soon as the train got rolling he had fun and perked right up. We ended with a walk through Western Town – bought souvenirs at the dry goods store: a magnet, a pennant and a toy flute - and wandered through the actual “Enchanted Forest” part of the place, where all the big fairy tales are represented with little statues and houses and the like. Gus enjoyed this last bit, I think because it was all tucked away in the woods and he loves the forest – he gets all excited about trees. As we expected, Gus conked out immediately in the car on the drive home, and slept the whole way. Good thing, too, ‘cause that was the only nap he took all day! At home, Gus got more presents – Grandma B’s package of birthday goodies! He had fun all afternoon playing with his new stacking cups and chewing on the tags to his new PJ’s. We took it easy in the evening, not wanting to exhaust him, Gus and I stayed home while JJ went to Footy practice. Gus was asleep before Dad even got home! In keeping with the excitement of the day, however, Gus woke us up around 1:00am (he normally sleeps through the night) – he was wide awake and ready to go! So, JJ dragged his Daddy self out of bed and wore him down by rocking him for about a half hour, then we switched off and I got him right back to sleep, thanks be! To be continued....

2009-08-06T23:55:00.000-07:00

Here we go. It's the toddler years...oh boy! It's such a tumultuous time watching my little guy's development accelerate so that he is displaying new skills literally every day, and also challenging us more and more each day as he asserts his will and desire for independence. It's a roller coaster - one minute he is my sweet baby, needing Mommy to hold and soothe him, and the next he is a pissed off kid, throwing himself backwards in fury because I will not allow him to chew on the computer cords. Oy! One thing I know - Gus makes me think about my own behavior and the consequences of my actions more than I ever have. And he makes me want to be a better person. Motherhood has a way of exposing cracks in the the armor of self-assurance and competence that many of us have built around us. The challenge of raising a child provides me with lots of opportunities to doubt and question my knowledge and my abilities, something I don't do often in my other roles. It's humbling. But in the end, as often as I am unsure of the proper response to his behavior, or whether I am doing enough to stimulate his imagination and intellect - in the end, when I see Gus cheer, smile and clap in anticipation of a favorite story or video, or because he accomplished a new feat like putting his plastic shapes into the matching slot, or when he gently pets the cat rather than smacking her in the face and yanking her tail - that is when I breathe a sigh of relief and feel a moment of validation, of pride and of joy that I imagine most parents cherish as much as I.

Hot Fun in the City

2009-07-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

While the heat outside has been breaking records, Gus and I have been staying cool and having fun indoors this week. We cannot wait to get back outside to the park, the library, the zoo or just take a neighborhood walkabout. Tomorrow will be the day, especially since JJ will be home and we have plans to go here http://www.krugersfarm.com/ for a concert and picnic dinner. How fun! Meanwhile, Gus has been developing new talents on what seems like an hourly basis. I am fairly confident that a lot of this is due to the Baby Einstein First Signs video we watch once or twice a day together. He LOVES it and has begun using his hands a lot more in just the past few days. A few days ago he discovered pointing - now he points at everything he is interested in, including us, which is cute. We have lots of ET moments.

Just yesterday he began to clap his hands - really well, I might add - and now he does that all day, at whatever he thinks is fun, or just to express himself, I suppose. When he does this, he usually yells something like "nine, nine, nine!" or "aaahhhhhh!" Not sure what those mean.

He hasn't actually begun signing yet - but we think we caught him in some attempts - he does a thing with his chest that looks kind of like the sign for "bath" and a couple of times he looked like he was signing "ball" - but he could have been half-heartedly clapping. Either way - I can see the progress, so I am excited to keep signing with him.

Also in the past week - we got him some bubbles in a container that also doubles as a whistle - so he learned to blow the whistle. Then, I thought he needed to apply that skill to other things - so we broke out JJ's harmonica and he started playing that until Big Mama howled too much (because she always howls to the harmonica) and he got scared and cried. Next up - a kazoo - which we will be picking up tomorrow when we are out and about on JJ's day off. Since Gus already plays the keyboard every day and guitar regularly (not to mention listening to Pandora and dancing with Dad and Mom), I think we are meeting our goal of introducing him to music early.

On another note (teehee), everyone who knows Gus knows he loves books...but he's always been content to read a bit and move on. Not anymore. He has begun to demand the repeat read. This is how it goes: 1. He gets out his Rolie Polie Olie book that I got for him at a children's consignment store, 2. We read it to him while he absorbedly watches our fingers track the words, 3. We reach the end and close the book, 4. He cries until we begin reading it over again. This goes on until he is good and ready to be done...about 6-8 read-throughs.

So, that's what our little man is up to these days. We are having a blast. He is just about ready to start walking - which will require it's own post - I believe. In fact, I would argue that he already took his first steps - but JJ insists it was too much of a "shuffle" to count. He did that last night and then again this morning - standing and stepping side to side, then scooting one foot forward and falling on his butt.

Isn't that just like life sometimes?

Weaning on My Mind

2009-07-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

Since my breastfeeding baby boy Augustus is almost 11 months old, I have been thinking (and hearing) a lot about weaning lately. I have always intended to nurse for a year, and now that the time is approaching, I have been worrying over how/why/when to wean. One piece I read in my research claimed that the average age babies are weaned worldwide is three years...whereas in the US it is 6 months - and that's only counting the 20% of babies in the US that are breastfed in the first place.

What I have determined is to take it slow and let Gus set the pace for the most part. I have followed that policy with him throughout his babyhood thus far and it has made for a happy baby and mommy. He naps when he is ready, and eats when he is hungry. We've yet to have any problems with that arrangement - he is a great sleeper ( for which I will be eternally thankful) - and a great nurser as well as a big fan of regular food. Of course, I realize I am lucky to be able to stay home with him and provide him all my time and attention. I am thankful for that - and the sacrifices we have made to do so are more than worth it!

So - we will be nursing for a few months more - depending on how quickly Gus is ready to let go. He makes progress every day with is big boy eating - and uses nursing more as a comfort when he falls asleep or just as he wakes. It's good to see him have more independence and actually choose to eat food over nursing. We always give him bites of our food - as long as it is appropriate for his little tummy and baby taste buds! He has quite a developed palate so far - we might have a little chef on our hands! He has eaten gnocchi and various pastas, falafel, hummus, beans of all types, burger, lots of different breads (his favorite is croissant), varieties of cheese and all kinds of fruits and veggies. He hates sippy cups right now, so we got him a regular plastic cup and he loves drinking out of that - tricky for us - cause we have to hold it and make sure he doesn't overdrink! Sippy cups will keep coming back, and when he is ready to hold them himself without the requite toss onto the floor, I think he'll enjoy them more.

So, between research and instinct - I have made peace with our progress.

On the Move...

2009-05-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. We are relocating this month to Oregon after two years in Socal. We are so excited to leave, but also sad to be leaving behind some good friends - people who've made our time here rewarding and fun. We have learned a lot about ourselves, and our relationship, what we want from life and what we don't want. Now we are ready to begin our next journey with our new beautiful baby. Life is good.

2009-02-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know this is simply a way for me to procrastinate yet again in getting any real work done....but here I go. Actually I logged on to retrieve some of my previous posts on the books I am reading for my paper so that I could include them in my latest draft, but then I felt the need to write. So, I have been watching American Idol...online. I know many people think reality TV is trash, but I personally get a lot out of it. I love the stories of real people, even if edited for manipulative effect, better than made-up people. And I love singing...so American Idol is great for me. In any case, as I was watching I started thinking about what the show, and certain elements of it, could tell us about American culture. I think this about pretty much everything, since that's my thing. It occurred to me that Paula Abdul is a single women "of a certain age," meaning she's about middle age now, and she is constantly made fun of and demeaned on the show and off. Now, I have seen her do some crazy shit, don't get me wrong. And I saw some of her show, "Hey Paula" (or something like that). So, i know she does some cooky stuff. However...i think a lot of the reason people pick on her is because she is a single, childless, older woman....and as such she is devalued in our culture. First of all, you can't tell me there are not a LOT of stupid men out there doing and saying embarrassing things on TV, but how often do we see them? Except on the Daily Show. Every time Paula says or does anything a little off, it is front page news. Now - a lot of that is because the producers and publicists for AI MAKE SURE it is front page news. They use her to get ratings. However...this "stupid female" trend is all over in the media - think Brooke Hogan, the Miss Teen USA contestant, Sarah Palin...need I say more? You just don't see men's deficient intellects broadcast far and wide the way you do with women. People take such pleasure in women saying "dumb" things. Men, on the other hand, are often seen exercising bad judgement - think Blagojevich and Craig - but rarely blatant silly stupidity. This is NOT because men are never stupid and vacuous....the positioning of females in this light, and near exclusion of men from the same, is deliberate and tells us a lot about people's attitudes and anxieties. If this were Puritan times, Paula Abdul would be exactly the type of woman targeted as a witch...and probably executed. She violates much of what our cultures values in women - motherhood, marriage and homemaking, youth, subltety, and submission in the face of "strong" men. Paula is loud, enthusiastic, brazen, not afraid of her sexuality, strong, even pushy, and tenatious. She is a wild and crazy lady - also driven and ambitious. Some of the things that got Martha Stewart caged while men doing the same or worse than she are never punished. Just some thoughts to chew on about one of the biggest message making artifacts of our present culture, AI, and it's contribution to gender role development.

2009-02-02T19:38:00.001-08:00

I have to blog now, before I find a reason to put off writing one more day. I have spent a couple of weeks wrapped up in The Tender Bar, a memoir by J.R. Moehringer. Well, that and the readings for my classes....but those are not yet capturing my imagination. Moehringer, or "M," as I will call him here, is a master storyteller. His memoir gave me all kinds of juicy bits for my paper. He was obsessed with the idea of how to become a man. growing up without a father, he turned to the many men around him who were primarily those associated with a local bar at which his uncle bartended. He tried to learn form these men, and I suppose he did, but he ends his book concluding that his mother held the characteristics he had always associated with manhood, and was a better "man" than any "real" men he had known. I found this same observation in Datcher's book. Yet, these men still yearn for their fathers. They are still heartbroken over the lack of men in their lives. It breaks my heart to read about their raw need for their fathers' love and their constant sense of inadequacy because they do not feel they can achieve manhood without some symbolic fatherly act to bestow it upon them.

Becoming

2009-01-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

I have spent today, as I do every day - with my son. I watch each day as he changes, wakes up with a magical ability to do new things, make new sounds and generally be a different child than he was when he went to sleep the previous evening. It is beautiful, and bittersweet - emphasis on the sweet. I cherish his babyhood and the gift of this time with him. I am excited, though, to meet the child he is becoming, to greet the new Gus that wakes every day to smile up at me as though I, too, am new, and beautiful, and precious to him.

The Silence of American Immigrants

2009-01-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

I just finished reviewing Luis Rodriguez's "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." It got me thinking about the fact that so many of the stories I am reading have the thread of immigrant parents who do not communicate well with their American born children. This is always commented upon and seems more prevalent among the fathers than mothers. The fathers are referred to as "a man of few words," and "stoic," and almost universally do not offer much in the way of advice or even bother to speak much to their children. There is the obvious language barrier in some cases, as with Ben Fong-Torres' Chinese parents and the Spanish speaking parents of both Luis and Richard Rodriguez. However, even in the households of immigrants for whom English is not a problem, communication with children still seems to be lacking. This bears more investigation.

Life is what happens when you are making other plans...

2009-01-15T19:02:00.000-08:00

I am thinking of the saying, "Life is what happens when you are making other plans." How true that is. OK, that's quite an obvious statement, but it really is so true. I just watched Marley and Me, which is about a man and his dog, and it inspired me to wonder aloud why men (at least all the men I've known) have such a hard time accepting and being happy with life when it deters from the plan they made for themselves. So many men I have spoken to have a vision for what they want their life to be - and, of course, reality rarely matches that dream. I never understood why young men seemed so reluctant to be "sidetracked" from their goals - as if life was a sidetrack and would prevent them from accomplishing something else. JJ suggested that it is because men are taught that they must have a plan from a very young age, so it is difficult to let go of that when life happens. This makes great sense to me. Of course, the same can be true for women, but not to the extent that these sorts of expectations are placed on men in our patriarchal culture. Men are taught they must achieve, be something...which really means they must achieve monetary or professional "success." Women, on the other hand, are freer to let life happen - now that we have won our freedom after centuries of being the second sex. So, yes, we still fight for full equality, but on the other hand we are not pressured to achieve the way men are. I guess what I'm saying is that boys are pressured too much while girls have very little expectations placed on them - both situations can be equally harmful. I hope to raise my son (and if I were to have a girl the same would be true) with the notion that he can and probably will "be" several different people throughout his lifetime. That a career does not define him. That money is only a necessity in our culture, not something to be coveted or bragged about. That he is free to love whom he chooses when he chooses - regardless of whether the timing or the person is "right." That his father and I will be his biggest supporters whatever he does. That happiness is possible, and he deserves it. That the world is hard, but life does not have to be. That love is more important than anything else in the universe, and the more you put out there, the more you get back.

Memoir as a New Form

2009-01-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

One of the secondary sources I am consulting, Memoir and Memoirist, posits that memoir, as it exists now, is a relatively new form of autobiography. He explains that only since the 1980's has it become common to focus on one particular part of one's life, or one experience, and write a whole book on it. Prior to that time, autobiographies were primarily a life story, beginning to end (time written). Other than that, there were autobiographical essays, which were close to memoirs. Another common book form was the confessional or religious autobiography, which was a life story that focused on the internal rather than the external. This is another key that distinguishes memoir from traditional autobiography - the focus on the internal. The who and why and how, versus the what and when. Thus, when I look at the seeming increase in memoirs or "internal stories" written by men in the late twentieth century - it could be more of a general shift in the literary form, rather than a shift in the way men write in general. Or, it could be, and likely is, a combination of both. With the societal shifts that took place after the 60s - the civil rights movement, second wave feminism, and Vietnam - men became more introspective. They began to wonder whether, like women, they too should look at their lives and ask whether they were happy, whether they had other options - or were they simply doing what they thought they should? The result was that a great many men, those that determined the dominant ideology, were able to reject many forms of masculinity that required them to privilege the outer over the inner self.

Famous Builder

2009-01-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

So, I am now in the midst of Famous Builder, a memoir by Paul Lisicky. In many ways it is similar to The Bill From My Father, so it came as no surprise that Lisicky is friends with Bernard Cooper (that book's author). It looks, from the acknowledgements and author notes, that they both taught at Antioch in LA. I will have to do more research on each of them if I include their books in my final paper. I am sure to include at least Cooper's. While similar, I find Lisicky's narrative interesting for the way it depicts not only his own relationship with his father, but his father's relationship with his older brother, who "raised" him after their father died. As with many of the memoirs I have read, the issue of first-generation American children dealing with immigrant parents is prevalent and a significant factor in shaping Paul's father and his life choices. In Famous Builder, the elder Lisicky is the first generation American, and deals with the pressure of separating (psychologically) from his family and their working-class, immigrant ways as he makes his way through college, earns two graduate degrees, and becomes a middle-class, suburban professional. In the book, a neighborhood of row houses Philadelphia represents the working-class, immigrant existence -a development in New Jersey called Cherry Hill represents the middle class life Paul's father achieved. Even though he gained the "American Dream" through hard work and know-how, traits normally held in high esteem in the US, the Lisickys, especially the older brother who took on the father role at a young age, are resentful of Paul's father. At least, that is how Paul perceives it. Of course, it is impossible to know how the family really thought or felt - we can only know what the author tells us (this is the tricky part of analyzing memoir). This part of the story is more of a class issue than one of cultural inheritance. It is not uncommon for families to resent the child who "makes good," even if that was their goal all along.

The Bill From My Father

2009-01-12T17:52:00.001-08:00

So, I have not actually posted on here yet, since the first day, because I have not had time. I am currently working on a paper and occupied with various activities associated with being a mom and a student. It just occurred to me, though, while I was doing some business in the bathroom, that I could use this blog as a way to explore some of my thoughts on the paper I am writing...sort of a public rough draft - in pieces. This will hopefully inspire me to 1) write on my blog, and 2) actually get some good work done on my paper (I am a master procrastinator). I can find a million things to do in order to avoid writing a paper, even though I love the process...there's just something about the pressure of a deadline that gets my juices going, and since this paper is technically not due until May, I am inclined to put it off. The reason I cannot afford to do that this time is because I will shortly be starting school again and will have another research paper along with a TA position in which I will have to grade assignments and prepare a lecture at the end of the semester. So, I really need to get this paper done! Gus, the baby boy living in my house, takes up enough time that I only have short spurts in which to write, so it's imperative that I get crackin! That said, here I go....I am re-reading The Bill From My Father, by Bernard Cooper, which I read last summer, but on which I took no notes at the time. This time, I am reading it for inclusion in my paper on memoirs written by American men at the turn of the 21st century (approx 1988-present). Preliminarily, I find Cooper's style to be self-effacing, almost apologetic. He is clearly wary of his father - even scared of him at times. His father is a demanding, eccentric, hard-headed ex-lawyer. Cooper is supposed to be writing a book about his father's life, but he winds up writing about his relationship with his father - which is good for me as that is the topic I am addressing in my paper - men's relationships with their fathers as told in their memoirs. Cooper is sort of in awe of his father, and longs for his father's approval, which is more of a common theme than anything else in the stories I am reading. However, he doesn't really like his dad that much, His dad is not really a good guy. He's selfish,philandering, conniving, and narcissistic. The guy has some major personality issues. Cooper wants badly to understand his father, but he doesn't get very far. His dad withholds the deepest, most real parts of himself from his son. It is not clear to me why this is so, but it is also one of the most common elements of these memoirs. I will keep exploring. Gus is calling, so ttfn!

Flickr

2008-12-23T11:02:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

My life as a blogger...

2008-12-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

I am finally starting a blog - something I have been threatening to do for months, but have simply not had the time. Now that I have somewhat of a break (as much as I can with a 4 month old and a research paper to get started on), I am beginnning my life as a blogger. Yea! This blog will simply document the day-to-day goings on of my life as a new mom, graduate student, life partner, and human. I will be doing much of my posting while holding my baby boy, Gus, who has already begun teething. I will make every attempt - but no promises - to avoid typos and poor grammar. I will not be posting daily, but simply as time and inclination allow. That said...as I sit here holding a sleeping Gus and pecking at the keyboard....today we went to Gus' 4mo. well baby exam. He received his first vaccination, and handled it superbly! I am, as always, so proud. We are following a very cautious alternative vaccination plan, since I am not one to trust big drug companies or government regulatory agencies, so only one shot per visit, per month. Whew! Glad the first one is done and I can breathe a little easier in the fture.

At the doctor, we found out that little Gus is 26 inches long and weighs 19lbs. Big boy. He is growing so fast!

That is the news of the day. I am now signing off to go eat some soy ice cream...yum! Obviously, you can see this blog will be full of riveting drama and side splitting humor. :>)

PPS-I was listening to the radio on the way home and heard an interesting bit on Pastor Rick Warren (who will be giving Obama's inaugural invocation). He spoke at a conference to a large group of Muslims - who claimed to be "really impressed" at how open-minded he is, and Melissa Etheridge, who sang at the event, ate dinner with him and later commented that she was impressed with him as well. So - I am curious about how this issue will turn out.