1. What is your occupation??
Web designer, retailer, business owner, mother, wife

2. What color are your socks right now ??
No socks, I'm wearing flip-flops. I just got a pedicure. Yay!

3. How many kids do you have??
Two: Julian (3 years) and Adrian (7 weeks)

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Some licorice candies.

5. Can you drive a stick shift??
Yep. My first two cars were stick.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be??
Cornflower blue

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
AJ

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you??
Duh!

9. How old are you today?
Thirty-seven.

10. Favorite drink:
Arnold Palmer: half iced tea, half lemonade. I also like grapefruit soda, watered down a little.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch?
Snowboarding.

12. Have you ever dyed your hair???
Yes. Light blonde, dark ash blonde, fiery red, highlights, lowlights.

13. Favorite food?
Stone crab claws

14. What was the last movie you watched at the cinema?
A Scanner Darkly

15. Favorite travel destination?
Around Naples and Sicily. The Aeolian Islands, Capri, etc.

16. What do you do to vent anger??
Bitch, moan, complain, clean, exercise.

17. What was your favorite toy as a child?
Barbie or Monopoly

18. Most Missed Memory ?
Windsurfing in Florida, sailing there to all the little islands.

19. What is your favorite fall or spring?
Definitely Spring!

20. Hugs or kisses?
Hugs, more physical.

21. Cherries or Blueberry??
Blueberries.

22. Do you want your friends to email you back??
If they like.

23. Who is most likely to respond?
Erika or Mom

24. Do you like where you live?
Yep!

25. When was the last time you cried??
Every day for two weeks post-partum.

26. What is on the floor of your closet??
Kimonos, some ill-fitting maternity clothing, old purses and belts

27. Who is the friend you have known the longest that you are sending this to??
Not sure who will end up reading it.

28. What did you do last night??
Made burgers and salad, took a shower, gave Adrian a bath, talked to Dan, went to bed.

29. Favorite smells??
Narcissus. Gardenia. Cookies. Dan's neck. Adrian's head.

30. What inspires you??
Hearing tales of what others have done. Natural beauty.

31. What are you afraid of??
Sickness, old age, death.

32. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburger ?
Cheddar cheese.

33. Favorite dog breed??
Whippet/lab mix.

34. Number of keys on your key ring?
One. I lost my house key ages ago.

35. How many years at your current job??
I have owned The Portable Baby since June of 2005

36. Favorite day of the week?
Friday. It's so exciting....the whole weekend lies ahead, and it's a night to let loose and party.

37. How many states have you lived in?
California, Florida, Connecticut and Spain.

38. Favorite book?
Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice

39. Ever driven a Motorcycle or heavy machinery?
I rode a motorcycle for 17 years. Then I had a crash and I gave it up. Heavy machinery? I have piloted large boats before, does that count?

40. Who's your favorite NFL team???
I hate football.

41. Do you have a house phone that is NOT cordless?
No.

42. 10 inches of snow or 100 degree weather??
100 degrees.

43. What is your favorite thing to listen to?
My son Julian laughing, being told that I am loved.

Posted by msLaura at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having a ball at Scott Creek Beach, originally uploaded by mslaura.

Thanks to my friend Laura Knapp, who always takes such great photos, and who is game for spur-of-the-moment outings to wild, beautiful places with toddlers, even when they are cranky.

Posted by msLaura at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're having a huge storm here this morning. The trees are groaning and shaking and the bamboo is blowing completely sideways. I planted two redwood trees out by the street a few days ago, I hope they are doing OK. It's a nice day to stay inside cozy by the fire and relax, maybe make some Black-eyed Pea Soup with Ham.

Last night we went to a party up in San Francisco thrown by my friend/bridesmaid Brad Noble. He lives in Manhattan now, but comes back to San Francisco for the holidays every year. He has a friend, Mark, who started a company and sold it right at the peak of the tech boom. He cashed out at EXACTLY the right time. More power to him. Anyway, he bought a lovely house on Twim Peaks with a beautiful view of the city. It's something straight out of Dwell Magazine. That's where the party was held.

It was nice to see Brad, and Baby Chic was there too, and a bunch of other people who I remembered from the old wild days in SF. Brad's ex-boyfriend John was there, mixing up Cosmopolitans, and we dished and had a cocktail and watched the fireworks over the Bay at midnight, which very much impressed Julian.

Julian was a big hit, by the way. Everyone was fawning over him, and he was so good and polite and sweet and friendly. He stayed on my back in his Ergo most of the time, with a few forays down onto the floor to pet the cute Jack Russell terrier who lived there (and who would NOT stop jumping up on my new snake tattoo tights)! He took a nap in the car on the way up, so he was pretty fresh when we got there, but he stayed sweet and social all the way up until 1:30am, when we finally left. The party was winding down, Brad was in the hot tub, the stragglers were getting sloppy-drunk, and I was pooped. Waaaaay past my bedtime. We all slept late this morning.

OK, time to go make my famous whole-wheat pancakes for breakfast, and get that bean and ham soup going too.

Wow, after the intense storm we just had, right now there is not even a breath of air stirring. It's like we're in the eye of a hurricane or something. Bizarre.

Here's to health and happiness in 2006!

Posted by msLaura at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Babycenter mostly sucks as a site. I feel like their info is so sponsor-driven and mainstream. The bulletin boards drive me nuts. Back when I was pregnant I was posting there in my frenzy to research this impending motherhood thing as much as possible. There seemed to be a lot of horrifying posts from moms and moms-to-be who were boozing, drugging, on the streets, in terrifically abusive relationships, had no prenatal care, etc.

I would often write back to suggest something helpful like free/low-cost prenatal care from Planned Parenthood, or maybe if you're in an abusive relationship and have no education or money, getting pregnant isn't really a way to fix things right now and maybe birth control would be a better plan.

I got a lot of weird, fundamentalist types flaming me and threatening me with eternal burning hellfire for even mentioning PP, and a bunch of nutty Quiverfull types saying that birth control is babykilling and the more children you have, the more blessed you are. Sigh. So for my own sanity, I stopped visiting BabyCenter

But Catherine Newman's journal Bringing Up Ben and Birdy is still there, and still fabulous, so I stop by from time to time. She seems to perfectly put into words whatever vague idea or feeling about motherhood I've had floating around in the back of my brain. Plus she is one of the few writers on ANY subject who can make me absolutely belly-laugh. She has a great way of pointing out the absurdity of about 99% of our daily child-rearing activities, and how funny they can be when pointed out by someone who has been there. But she also nails the more poignant moments.

For example, the following from her most recent entry hit me right in the gut:

The kids are great, really, they're full of life, and they're testing their world, and they're fun to be with. I think I'm just weary of noise, of conflict. Or maybe I've been a little blue lately? I think it's true; I think I have been. When we were in the Brick Dwelling building of the Shaker Village, I was filled with melancholy, and I can't exactly describe it. Partly it was the beautiful simplicity of the rooms: wooden beds and chairs and tables, beautiful built-in cabinets (Do I sound like a real estate agent? See? Totally un-shakerlike.). Everything was spare, everything useful. I loved it, and it was as much like our house as a rag doll is like a Look-Up-My-Skirt Barbie, which is too bad for me.

But also it was the idea of a hundred people all living under the same roof, but as a community, not in their individual apartments. Sometimes I think that's how I really want to live. I mean, we are blessed with beautiful, close friends, we visit with them often, we share lots of meals. But often I can picture all of us grocery shopping with our kids, returning home to make dinner, and eating alone with our families. And often it's heaven on earth, this contracting of the world to the intimacy of our closest ones around the table. But sometimes it can be a little lonely, like, in the satellite picture of a neighborhood, you'd see the same woman shape in every house, bending down to brush little teeth, and all of us everywhere are doing the same thing at the same time, but alone.

I'm not explaining this right. I think that sometimes it can feel a little lonely, that's all. In the infirmary at the Shaker Village they had an enormous cradle to comfort ill adults. Maybe that's what I want. I want to say, 'Come over, after your kids are asleep. I'll rock you here in this cradle for a while." And then maybe you could rock me.

I have had the same image of each little house with a woman-shape, doing the same kid-centered tasks all alone. Cleaning the kitchen, making dinner, all alone. True, maybe it would be a drag to have other people around all the time, but then again, maybe not. Because this job is hard, and that's one thing. But to be hard and LONELY, that's another thing.

A village, yes...that would definitely be nice at times.

Posted by msLaura at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our dear friend John is moving to Portland today, so we had a going away party last night at Thea Restaurant. So sad to see him go, but it gives us a good reason to road trip up to Portland! And he has a good reason for going: true love.

Wow, Dan and I went out TWICE in one week sans bebe. We are ANIMALS.

Posted by msLaura at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our Fourth of July party was a big success. Dan and I got to see friends that we've been missing for too long. Julian played with his cousins all afternoon and was in seventh heaven.

Between Julian and my hostessing duties I had a horrible case of ADD though. As soon as someone started to tell me a story, I had either a whining child or a guest need to attend to. I was choring like a fool for most of the day, but I did get a few moments of chatting and catching up every now and then. When J needed Mama time I would hold him for five minutes and then put him on my back. That worked pretty well. Within a short time he would be recharged and ready to go off and play again.

Julian was very good and stayed dry in his shorts all afternoon while playing with his cousins. Dan and I took him to pee a couple of times, but he held it for several hours in between with no problem.

My friend Hilary flew in from Sydney and arrived just before the party. She spent the night, so we got to have a nice chat about all kinds of excellent topics over breakfast this morning. She's just starting off on a two-month trip through the US, Canada and Europe. I'm jealous. I'm itching to go off on another trip, but since we just got our backyard remodel finished *yesterday* we'll be enjoying the good life here at home for a while. We've got a badminton court set up in the front yard, and our bocce ball court in back. Let the Summer Games begin!

Posted by msLaura at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everything is going just swimmingly. No more funky bad mood for me. Julian is loads of fun and developing like lightning. His birthday is next Sunday the 13th. Dan and I are getting along just fine. The weather has been sunny and beautiful, well...except for today. We are making good progress on getting the house in order, only a few boxes left to unpack. And my bamboo is being installed tomorrow!

Today is the first day for Julian's babysitter Ashley. So far it's great, Julian's attitude seems to be, "Wow, thanks for getting me my very own girl to play with!" He is out there talking up a storm to her, showing her his toys, etc. Ahhh, I finally have time to update my journal, and if I still have time I'm going to take a nice long hot shower and shave my legs. Maybe I'll even get a chance to put moisturizer on my poor dry scaly body! Woohoo!

No more crawling all over at night for our boy. Maybe he has just been extra tired lately, but now once he lays down, he's DOWN. So I suppose that was just a phase. Just when some behavior freaks me out and I think it will last forever, then it goes away.

Julian is just tons of fun right now. I'm having a ball with him and I'm so damn glad to be home with him at this point in time. I think part of it is that I know that I will be getting a little break from 24/7 baby care on a regular basis, so I appreciate the time I have with him much more. The littlest things make such a huge difference. If I know that I can take a long hot shower or compose an email or talk on the phone uninterrupted on Wednesday at 3:00pm when Ashley comes over, then that just makes life wonderful and my patience increases a thousandfold the rest of the time. Wow, that was a good decision. Yes!

Yesterday I was playing with Julian in his room and Bugs came in from outside. He had been out there for a while, so I said, "Puppy, your ears are cold!" and Julian said "They are?" and I said, "Yeah, they are!" Then a major double-take... "Wait, WHAT did you just say?" Of course, there was no repeating it, but I swear he asked me that clear as day and Dan was even there to hear the whole thing. Too funny.

Two other cute and fairly amazing things from yesterday...

Julian woke up late after we had been out at his Uncle Mike's birthday party the night before. He woke up at 6:00am to pee, but fell asleep in my arms as soon as he finished tinkling. That was repeated at 7:30am, he fell right back asleep while still being held over the toilet.

After a little bit of playing we had a third pee in the toilet and a nice big poop. WHILE he was on the toilet, he started making a hand sign that looked VERY much like the sign that I have been using for potty. Then he looked up at me. I was flabbergasted, but I managed to make the hand sign and say "Potty". He looked at my hand, then when I finished making the sign he grabbed it, like he wanted to see it again. I made it again, and then HE made a baby version with his hand. It was so incredible!

Julian peed in the toilet several more times yesterday, and then when we had friends and family over to watch the Super Bowl later on, he suddenly started making the hand sign. Dan saw it and called me over. I made the sign back to J and he put his arms out to come to me. I took him into the bathroom and held him over the toilet and he sat there very nicely, as though he had to pee. (Normally if he doesn't have to go he will fuss and cry and squirm away from the toilet to let me know.) We sat there for a while, and he didn't pee, but he didn't try to get off either. I was just so happy, I didn't even care. If he signs potty and wants to just sit there very once in a while, that's fine with me. As long as we're communicating. That was so freakin' cool. I hope it wasn't just a fluke. I don't think so. He seems to have all kinds of potty awareness all of a sudden. Right on! It's so fantastic that the potty training AND the signing is paying off. See, I *told* you I'm not crazy!

Oh, another cool thing...when I was about 8 months pregnant with Julian I took Dan to a prenatal yoga class. It was supposed to be a partner class, and it was fun, but Dan twisted his back doing one of the moves. It was bad for him but kind of comedy at the same time. Here were all the pregnant walrus-like women doing yoga, and the strong handsome non-pregnant guy gets a sports injury.

There was a vaguely Scandinavian woman next to me, past her due date. She was taking that one yoga class to try to bring on labor. I really liked her, she was friendly and laid back, and we talked a bit during and after class. She was a doula and also having a home birth. I thought it was kind of sad that I had met someone cool and would probably never see her again, since we didn't exchange numbers or anything, and she was about to have her baby.

Well, fast-forward to yesterday. What a day already, I know! But just wait...

So Dan and I had gone to our local park with Julian and Bugs, played, had a good time. We were walking home and I had a sudden urge to go down a different street from the way that we usually came. Halfway down that street I saw a dog off-leash and coming towards us. His people were out in the street as well, so I called to them that Bugs wasn't too friendly and could they call their dog over? They did, and when we got closer I explained that he had been attacked by an off-leash dog recently and was pretty weird around other dogs.

One thing led to another and we ended up talking to the dog's owners, who were a nice couple playing outside with their two kids, one of whom was only 2 months older than Julian. We were talking and talking, and then when the woman mentioned having a home birth it all came back to me. I said, "Hey, did you take prenatal yoga at X place?" And we cracked up because she remembered Dan twisting his back trying to do the yoga pose. It was her! And that baby was the baby she was waiting for, and Julian was, well, he was Julian, and it was all just too crazy. So we exchanged numbers and we'll probably hang out this Friday with the babes. Isn't that something? A year later I run into her walking in my neighborhood by random chance. What if we hadn't walked down that street? What if they had been inside? What if the dogs hadn't been there to spark a conversation? Fate is really weird. Oh, and she's *Norwegian*!

Damn, it's 4:45 pm already. Guess I had a lot to say. No shower time for me today, boohoo. Those two hours flew by! Well, I spent the first 45 minutes getting Ashley situated. Not like she needed it, but it makes *me* feel better. I guess everything went fine. I hear Julian getting his fuss on a little, but not much. It's the fussy time of day for him, but he and Ashley are reading books right now, so no problem.

Gotta go get dinner planned in the last ten minutes of babysitting. Ciao!

Posted by msLaura at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Julian's latest stats from his 9-month checkup:

• Weight: 19 pounds, 11 ounces (40th percentile)


• Height: 28.5 inches (50th percentile)


• Head circumference: 46.25 centimeters (60th percentile)

I am trying to make sure he eats more, mostly because in daycare he ate *sooooo* much and with me he doesn't seem interested. In the course of a single day at daycare with Madi he would eat two 4oz. jars of baby food, a whole banana, 10-20 organic Cheerios-type cereal O's, eight ounces of pumped breastmilk, and then I would come and nurse him at lunch, so add another 4-5 ounces of milk on top of that.

With me he will eat the cereal O's and maybe half a jar of food, a few bites of banana, maybe some avocado. He's just not interested. I'm trying to nurse him more, but he's not so interested in that during the day. I think I just have to do it more frequently. He's so busy lately that he just wants to eat on the go and then get back to his job, which is learning to crawl and pull up and explore as fast as possible. Oh, and he also makes up for it by nursing all freakin' night long. Which is OK. It makes sense. Just sometimes my back or hips hurt and I'd love to be able to stretch out and sleep in different positions besides the old side-nursing standby...curled up on my side with one arm outstretched above his head.

Still, this stage certainly won't last forever...someday he'll be independent and I'll be wishing that he still wanted to snuggle with me like this. It is incredible waking up to his sweet smiling little face first thing every morning. He's so full of love, and so happy to see me. He pats me and smiles like crazy, and talks to me until I wake up. When I open my eyes he acts like it's the greatest thing in the world. His mama is awake! Hooray! We go potty, and then we play in bed for a while, then it's time to go downstairs for breakfast and playtime and maybe a little Sesame Street every now and then.

The last week has been incredible. A week ago Julian did very slow, hesitant crawling (with lots of forward/backward rocking) and could *barely* pull himself up. This week he crawls quite fast, he sees an object and makes a beeline for it, leaving me to eat his dust. He can crawl while holding a toy in his hand. He can pull himself up on just about anything, and he stands with just one arm holding on. He can also sit back down by himself, which I think is great.

I wrote last week about how Julian holds onto the headboard of the bed while I crawl up to him and nibble his thigh, which makes him *squeeeeeeeal* with excitement, especially if I announce beforehand that I am coming over to eat him. Well, last night I was laying down watching him pull himself up on the headboard, sit down, pull up, sit down, pull up...and then as he was standing there he looked at me with a big grin on his face and reached down with one hand to pat his knee. Then he looked at me again, grinning, and patted his knee one more time. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, so *I* patted his knee the same way he had, and he squealed a little bit.

Aha! This funny baby wanted me to come and nibble his leg while he was standing up holding the headboard. "OK Mama...I'll stand up here and then YOU pretend to come and eat me and I'LL pretend to be really really scared!" Sure enough, I moved back a little bit and then came towards him saying, "I'm coming to eat up this delicious little standing-up baby! Grrrrrr! Give me a piece of that cute chubby thigh! Mmmmmmm!", and before I even got within a foot of him he was laughing and squealing like crazy, pretending to be scared. It was SOOOOOOO funny, we were both in hysterics. Not only is he a very funny baby, but also a very effective communicator!

He can also get out of his bouncy chair by himself. He leans forward, puts his feet down, holds on to the chair, and then plops himself down on the floor into a crawling position and takes off. We don't use the bouncy chair too much anymore, but when he is too tired to play, but not tired enough to sleep, it still works just great. He still loves to bounce himself, especially if a Baby Einstein video is playing.

I'm worried about TV. He doesn't watch TV every single day, but most days he watches half an hour of Sesame Street or a half-hour Baby Einstein video. He's really not supposed to watch any TV at all, but it gives me some breathing room, and when he is tired and crabby but not sleeping it relaxes him. I'm much more worried about him watching TV commercials than I am about him watching Baby Einstein or Sesame Street. He doesn't see too many of those, mostly just if the TV is on during the weekend, if Dan is watching football or something like that. But commercials....they have psychologists working to figure out how to best manipulate people into buying products, or thinking they need X to be socially accepted. Children's' commercials are even worse. How are little baby and kid brains supposed to compete with adult psychologists who are trying frantically to manipulate them? I think Tivo is a great product anyway, but if I can eliminate all the commercials when watching TV, then Tivo is definitely worth every penny. Something to look into.

In the latest work news, I got my job back. Yes, for the second time I managed to talk my way out of getting laid off. Not because I have a silver tongue or anything, but because in both cases I have been wrongfully let go, and management is apparently smoking crack instead of making logical decisions. When I was told the news face-to-face I launched into a diatribe about how our customers were going to sue Resumix when they found out they couldn't make changes to their job boards anymore. Big-time breach of contract. Not like they haven't been told that before, but I guess they just weren't listening.

Anyway, there were a lot more lies and BS flying around, so I contacted HR and told them what was up, how Yahoo! was risking a mass of customer lawsuits when all they had to do was keep me around for a while to take care of change requests. I mean, I only work part-time for cryin' out loud...I'm cheap! Our fabulous HR rep managed to get me my job back for at least the next six months, so I'm officially employed again. Well, I'm waiting for the reinstatement letter, but it's supposedly forthcoming. The best part is that there's almost no one in the office anymore, so no reason for me to ever show up. I'll just check my email every day, and if there's work to be done, I'll do it from home. I don't need to pay for daycare anymore, so I might actually have a little bit of spending money to get my hair colored and cut.

It's a bit weird not going to work anymore, I have to admit. I love being home with Julian, especially right now when he is changing and growing so unbelievably fast. But sometimes I don't talk to an adult all day. Even if Dan is home, he is very busy working. Julian only takes one nap now, so all the rest of the day I am playing with him, watching him, bathing him, feeding him, cooking/cleaning while trying to keep him entertained, or taking him and the dog for a walk. It is great, but at the same time it gets lonely. And it is so nonstop...I feel like I get nothing done. I do get a lot done when I think about it, I mean, we eat home-cooked meals most of the time, wear clean clothes, and the kitchen is usually clean, plus Julian is happy and healthy and not festering in his own waste or anything. It's just that I wish I could have something to show for myself at the end of the day besides a clean, tired, healthy baby, a walked dog and a mostly clean house. Look, I wove this basket today! You know, something tangible like that.

I feel like what I do is so unrecognized and so abstract, plus when people ask how I'm doing or what I'm up to, it just doesn't sound impressive to give the very long list of chores I did that day. It makes me sound like some kind of scullery maid. I'm pretty sure that I'm just looking at this the wrong way, but that's what it feels like. I could say, "I did these 125 chores today, and I also nurse the baby all night long, wake up several times a night to make sure he's warm and covered, and get up with him at 6:15am and start it all over again", but that doesn't get me any respect at all. If I wove a basket though, people would think that's an achievement. "Wow, cool! How long have you been basket-weaving?"

Plus, as I said, it gets lonely. I'm choring nonstop all day, and sometimes I just wish I could have a mom friend living next door, you know...to have tea with, blow off some steam, watch the babies play. I do go to playgroup once a week, but lately it's all about the babies and the moms don't talk that much. What talking there is, I can't relate to. It's all about weaning, letting your baby cry it out at night, the struggle of changing poopy diapers. I'm not planning on weaning Julian anytime soon, I don't let him cry it out, and I don't change poopy diapers because he does 99% of his pooping in the toilet. Which just outlines how different my style is...the World Health Organization recommends 2 years minimum of breastfeeding, Julian sleeps with me in bed (not in a crib by himself) and then there's the whole potty training thing...which I feel like I'm slacking on lately, but then I realize that we almost never *have* any poopy diapers, and listening to everyone else we're WAY ahead of the game.

Oh well, big ups and downs. If I just had a bit more companionship on a regular basis, I think everything would be ducky. When I think about it, my life is pretty great, I just feel a bit isolated, that's all. I know plenty of like-minded moms online, but in the real world I don't know very many. Maybe I'll put an ad on Craig's List or something. There are a lot of things that I want to do with Julian, I just wish that we had another mom and baby pair to do them *with*.

OK, on that note I'm going to spend some time with Dan before going to bed.

Posted by msLaura at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dan and I went to go see comedian Harland Williams at the San Jose Improv on Saturday night. That guy is *hilarious*, and the two opening comedians were hilarious as well. I get discount tickets to the Improv through Yahoo!, so we have seen some really funny comedians there. We had seen Harland Williams on Comedy Central quite a few times and liked him, but he was actually much funnier in person. Dan and I were roaring with laughter.

We saw some friends in line out front, a couple whom we met at a baby shower last year. The wife is 3.5 months pregnant and just getting over her morning sickness. So glad I never had that! Anyway, they were teasing me about how I shouldn't laugh TOO hard during the show, and the wife said, "I can't believe you're out seeing a comedy show! I thought during those last few weeks you can usually barely even move around, but you're out and you seem fine!"

I instantly had this image of myself as Jabba the Hut, huge and immobile, tucked away in my lair urping up slime, eating bonbons, and waiting for the baby to be born. Ewwww. Glad I've been keeping active...although it's not *always* the most appealing thing to go for an hour-long walk every day when it's cold and blustery outside.

It occurred to me as we were leaving the show that we are going to have a baby soon (newsflash!) and won't be able to just head out and go see comedy shows on a whim for a while. Kind of a bummer, I guess. But it didn't bother me that much. Those kinds of restrictions used to be *all* I would think about when I thought about having kids, which I guess is why I'm 34 years old and just now having my first baby. I don't know, it doesn't really worry me anymore. I don't worry about feeling trapped or tied down. Hell, we take the dog everywhere with us...at least babies are allowed into restaurants and stores.

Posted by msLaura at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laying low all day today and recuperating from Dog Trauma Day yesterday. Dan and I were dogsitting my dear friend Brad's dog Dexter. We took the dogs on a great off-leash dog walk by Los Gatos Creek, and in the midst of the sniffing and gopher-hole digging and chasing, Dexter somehow slipped away in the blink of an eye. Horrible. Such a nightmare.

I knew he couldn't have gone far, because we had seen him digging next to Bugs by the creek just a minute previously. You can only go forwards or backwards on the Creek Trail, as there is creek on one side and a big fence on the other. So Dan took one direction and I took the other. I immediately ran into a family that said that they had seen Dexter with a blonde woman who was looking for his owners. They had just passed her, so I took off running, and ran for about a quarter of a mile. NOT a good idea when nearly nine months pregnant! I finally realized that it was crazy for me to be running, and I couldn't even see anyone on the trail ahead of me, so I slowed it down to a brisk walk.

I searched and called out Dexter's name for another half an hour, making a complete loop around the area where we had been walking, but no Dexter and no woman. I went back and got Dan, then HE ran around like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man calling out for Dexter and looking for the woman, but no luck. Dexter had tags on with Brad's New York phone number, so we gave up walking around after more than two hours, went home and made some flyers, went BACK and posted them up, and by that time I was barely able to walk, having already done the running thing and then walked at least several miles that day. It felt like my pelvis had shattered into several pieces. We just hoped and prayed that the woman would call Brad and Dexter was safe. In the meantime we were both just devastated. Nothing worse than losing your dog, unless it's losing someone ELSE'S dog. Ugh. Dan and I barely said one word to one another, we were so stressed out and miserable, and not only that, but it was our first wedding anniversary that day.

All ended well though. The woman's husband called Brad and left a phone number, so we were able to go pick up Dexter. They lived *right* off the trail, I don't know why those fools didn't stick around for more than two seconds after they found him. Idiots. But at least we got him back. No more running for me though, I can still barely walk. I must have strained something pretty badly. There is a cartilage seam down the front of your pelvis and it starts to get *very* soft in pregnant women right around this time, in preparation for the baby to come. I really hope I didn't tear it or do anything severe.

Posted by msLaura at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)