8/1

I like July so much that I'm posting twice on the last day. By the time I finish writing this, though, it will be August 1st. I'm strangely happy to see this month go by. July always feels like such a long, incredibly hot month, even in climates that aren't sub-tropic.

I have a few random, depressing thoughts before I give P. a story, well, two stories actually. One involving poop and the other involving pee. It's a p & p for P. kind of night (P.S. - the onesies came and I LOVE THEM!!! They are so great, especially the cute striped ones. Thank you, thank you, thank you).

Thoughts:

1) J2 once told me that I should chane my middle name to 'silly' because I'm always joking. This has the perverse side effect of turning my initials into: B.S., which is great. I would love to have those initials and force any future editor or publisher to use those initials as my pen name. Tonight I'm feeling like changing my middle name to 'Disapointment', and I don't care how pathetic that sounds.

2) I must have some really, really bad karma to get stood up twice in one week.

3) I mean some really bad karma

4) It's so upsetting that I've stopped caring, except for the fact that I'm blogging about it, so clearly some part of me still cares. I should move on to the stories.

1st p & p story

It was Friday evening, after work. As soon as I got Zac home from daycare (side note: OMG! I picked Z. up from day care today and he was standing and playing with another boy!! I kept looking around the room for my little baby and all I saw were two toddlers) and he was screaming and screaming. He kept screaming. Food, cold objects, rocking, holding, and putting down on the floor only caused more screaming. He had covered my entire shirt in tears, saliva, and half-eaten, spit-up food. His entire face was red. Finally, he let out a giant belch and stopped crying. He had indigestion.

I decided to take the opportunity afforded to me by said giant belch to go to the video store to pick up some movies. I did not change my shirt - I didn't even snap the buttons of the crotch on his onesie. We just got in the car, looking like two shell-shocked war veterans with hundred-yard stares.

We get out the car and I decide, brilliantly I might add, that I'm goinig to be really fast inside the store and I don't want to take the time to get out the stroller. Brilliant, right? Well, I'm holding said filthy baby in my filthy arms and trying to find, "Flight of the Phoenix" because it's set in Mongolia when I feel a warm, familiar liquid in my left arm. He had pooped. Out the side of his diaper. Into my arm. Covering the side of my shirt. I couldn't put him down. I couldn't keep holding him. I had to try and 'catch' (I put that in quotations because Zac has liquidy, smelly, nasty, disgusting poop that no sane person could ever collect in their hands) the poop that I could before it fell onto the floor. I finally found the blasted movie and went to the check-out stand. Only to realize that to get my money out of my wallet, I'll have to put Zac on the counter and balance him between my chest while I fish for the bills. He left a wet, poopy mark in the exact shape of a butt-print. My new slogan for Blockbuster is: "Shit happens

2nd p & p story:

I'm in the shower with my industrious son playing in the bathroom. The bathroom connects between our two rooms. If I close the doors to the hallway, he has plenty of space to crawl back and forth in the runway of the narrowest-bathroom-God-ever-created and the two bedrooms. I had gone pee before getting in the shower and forgotten to flush (HEY! I'm from the Northwest. We're big fans of the phrase, "If it's yellow, let it mellow". All judgements about me and my hygiene need to end here).

I hear Zac playing, pushing the shower curtain away so he can see me, then crawling away, giggling. I start to smell the very distinct smell of urine. My urine.

I jump out of the shower to see my son holding a cup (a freakin' cup!!), dipping the cup into my urine, and pouring it out on the floor. I didn't know whether to be horrified or insanely proud. Not only had he found a way to open the toilet bowl lid, he went in search of a cup, found a cup, carried back to the toilet, and began using the cup to take liquid out. The fact that it was my bodily waste that was quickly smelling up the entire second floor of my apartment only dampened my enthusiasm for his endeavor.

The crazy thing is, the smell reminded me of Mongolia. I spent Saturday afternoon disinfecting the upstairs bathroom and purchased a toilet lock for the lid. My kid is a freaking genious, you know.

7/31

The recap on my dating (mis)adventures:

Blind Date# 7- J1. Doesn't deserve a mention

Blind Date # 8 - S. Will mention later

Blind Date # 9- J2. Stood up

The day had finally come. I had been e-mailing, talking, and IMing with J., the deep sea diver, for six long weeks. I had been neglecting my household chores, preferring instead to get sucked into blasted IM for hours.

He had worked all night on Saturday from 6pm - 6am on Sunday, and then flown out by helicopter to Louisiana. He drove home from LA Sunday morning and arrived in Houston by mid-afternoon. He and I had been talking throughout the day on his drive back to Texas and he said that he wanted to go over to his ex-wive's house (where he used to live) to get the furniture and tools that he has stored there for over a year. He knew that she wouldn't be home, so he wanted to take the opportunity.

That made sense to me. I wasn't feeling great on Sunday afternoon anyways and I understood that he had things he was going to take care of. We made a plan that he was going to come over to my apartment, after Zac had gone to bed, to talk. Well 8pm stretched into 9pm by the time I had heard from him. He said that he had just taken a shower and was planning to leave his house to come to my place, arriving by 9:30 - 9:45pm.

Here is the crazy part: he never showed up. I frantically cleaned up my living room, tried to wipe the vomit off the couch (which Zac is using as his own personal teething apparatus), put on some decent clothes, brushed my teeth, and sat back down to wait for him to call for further directions. He never called.

I called him at 10:10 and then finally at 11:30pm, worried that maybe he had gotten in an accident or fell asleep at the wheel. I'm not sure what to think. I can't imagine that we would just blantantly make a plan with me and not show up. Then again, I can't imagine anyone doing that, but certainly people (especially those met off the internet) do that.

Another friend e-mailed me this morning to say that he tried to call me last night and couldn't get through. I'm wondering if the cell phone system was down, in which case he probably thinks that I'm a giant bitch for not answering my phone, leaving him driving around north Houston without map.

GGGGRRRRRRR.

I am both angry and insecure this morning. Is it my fault? Is it his fault? What the hell happened??

7/27-2

This is just my biased opinion that my son is really, unbelievably cute.

The working title of this video is, "The reason why we wash our hands and why NSP keeps getting sick" Hope you enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM1PHZ1C4Cc

I tried to embed the video in this post, but blogspot won't recognize the entire html. Do any techies out there know what I need to do to make it work?

7/27

Someday, I know that I will be writing posts about how hard it is now that Zac doesn't need me to wipe his butt or calm his fears. Someday, I will reminisce about how much I miss hearing his cries as I walk out of the room or see his cute face dissolve into a teary, oh-so-relieved smile when he sees me again. Someday, he will walk on his own, talk on his own, poop on his own, and maybe even have kids of his own.

That day is not today.

I love my son. That much should be obvious by the acres of archives that I'm starting to build on this site. No amount of love, though, can make up for the fact that I miss going pee by myself. I miss closing the door without hearing him scream like I just cut off his left hand. I miss gallivanting from home from the grocery store without strategically planning how I'm going to get the groceries in the apartment while still being attached at the hip to a one year-old. Occasionally, mommy needs two hands. Hell, occasionally mommy needs five hands, eight feet, and two heads. Maybe then I could finally get my living room vacuumed or take the load out of the washing machine. Maybe I could watch a full episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?" without wondering what song the people are dancing to.

My self-pity culminated yesterday evening when Zac and I were asked to leave our Weight Watchers meeting. How can you be asked to leave a place whose slogan is, "Come Join!"? WTF. The irony was driven even further home because the visiting instructor's 'message' for the evening was group support. She even drew the stupid flying-V on the white board and retold the lame Canadian geese metaphor. We get it. We're stronger as a team, supporting each other, achieving our weight loss goals. "Gooooo TEAM!" and all of that. I guess single Moms that can't leave their teething kids at home won't get picked for that team.

Where I am supposed to go for support? I pay the same $10 a week that every other person in that room paid to be told that I'm a success. I don't care if you have to scream over my child to make yourself heard. Welcome to my world. Do you have any idea how crazy I get after listening to him scream (in this order): at his toys, at me, at the cell phone I'm trying to have an adult conversation on, at me again, and then crumple onto the rug in a wet heap of screaming toddler? Let me tell you. It's pretty crazy. Maybe a couple of my five arms and eight legs could stay home with him while the other appendages try to lose weight.

7/26

It's one big lovefest over here at my current job. I gave my 'official' notice to my boss, and my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss. Resignation letters were floating in the wind like ragweed this morning. Even though I had given my supervisors 'unofficial' warning last week, they still seemed surprised that I actually followed through with it.

One of the most surprising parts of this whole experience, on my end, was the fact that my supervisors knew that they wouldn't be keeping me for very long. According to them, they knew that they couldn't adequately compensate me for my talent and work ethic, and they knew that I would be able to find better work for more compensation elsewhere. As my boss put it, though, he was just hoping that I wouldn't figure that out as fast as I did!

It's nice to be liked and to have my work appreciated, it's just, well - did they need to wait until I was leaving to tell me this? Maybe I would have stayed if they had given me the ability to telecommute a couple days a week instead of the 'Employee of the Month' award. I might have traded some extra income for more respect, or at least a little less disrespect. It seemed like every third day or so someone was telling me that I should expect X, or I couldn't do Y and Z because I wasn't a "Director-level position". Well, this non-director is leaving, which is making a lot of overworked directors very nervous.

7/24

Big news over here in the Not-so-Pregnant, hopefully Not-so-Poor household:

I got a new job!

A scary, good, exciting development.

The new position is at an organization that provides legal representation for victims of domestic violence. It is the same, exact job title, but with the possibility of expanding into a Director of Development position (for those of you that have any idea what that is) within the first year. It is also a substantial pay increase, which couldn't come too soon.

I'm starting in late August, giving my current job three weeks notice and then taking a week vacation. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with a week of not working, except maybe lay on my couch a lot and watch TLC.

I'm scared that I may be suffering from "the grass is always greener on the other side" problem, but as P. pointed out to me today, in this case, even if the grass isn't greener, some more money will help fertilize the pasture. I hate that everything boils down to money. I worked for the Peace Corps for 18 months and made next to nothing. Now that I have a child, I'm realizing more and more that I can't pay the rent with my belief in a cause and I can't feed Zac with righteous indignation. Trust me. I've tried.

7/23

There are two things that are cemented in my mind after this weekend: 1) My son really, really likes to be naked, especially while suffering from a heinous diaper rash and 2) I would drink much more if I lived with all the members of my immediate and extended family. The second statement is, I'm sure, a shared sentiment among other members of my family, especially when coupled with the first one.

The weekend started out with me getting sick on Thursday and my Grandma (my Mom's Mom) coming in from Seattle on Friday. The sickness has lasted all weekend and is finally starting to wane, just in time for the new week to start. Sucks. Still sucks, even though I said that back on Thursday.

I came down to my parents' house on Friday after work and realized that I managed to leave the digital camcorder at my apartment. When I woke up the second time on Saturday morning (the first being followed by a two hour nap on the couch), I drove Zac and I up to my place to grab some items I had forgotten. The 45 minute one-way journey was to give my parents and Grandma some time to clean up the house before guests arrived without a shrieking one-year old underfoot.

On the way out of my apartment complex, I was backing up out of my parking spot and realized that the strap on Zac's carseat had fallen off his shoulder. Like a good Mom, I reached back to adjust it. Like an idiot, I didn't stop the car first and continued to back up. I heard a loud smack, which signaled that my passenger's side mirror was no longer attached to the side of the car it was supposed to be attached to. It lay dangling by two electrical wires off the car door.

Zac didn't even notice. He smiled and ate another cracker, with both carseat straps firmly on his shoulders.

I started to cry. Not because I was hurt or even that I'm a complete idiot, but because I can barely pay all my bills as it is right now.

I can't afford to fix the giant crack in my windshield - that went from a ding to the Grand Canyon of windshield cracks in three days. I definitely can't afford to fix the mirror (electric, no less!). My gas tank is permanently on full because the floater is stuck inside the tank (which has a great side effect of eliminating any need to worry about whether I have enough gas to make it to any destination. No worries! I always have gas now! It's always FULL!!!). Add to that the fact that no matter how many pairs of pajamas I buy my kid, he always outgrows them faster than I can keep up. I'm seriously considering just putting him to bed naked until he hits puberty.

I don't have an answer for what I should do. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to make enough money to cover everything that I need to cover. I can tell you what I did do, though. I ate cake. Lots and lots of cake, but not as much as this guy:

Followed by some naked time, with a bow on his head:

Capped off with some Harely riding, one-year old style:

All and all, I would say that this big boy had a good birthday. Love you, Zac.

7/21-2

Well, it's now almost 10am CST and I'm feeling only marginally better. Really, I want to curl up and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, sleeping so much during the day yesterday caused me to be awake until 1am this morning. Lucky for me, the person I've been talking to recently works nights, so I was able to IM with him into the wee hours until I fell into a Nyquil-induced coma.

So, I wrote once before about J. - the off-shore diver that I might have a date with in August. He is still off the Gulf of Mexico, although I got two pieces of information wrong the first time around: 1) He doesn't pillage the Gulf for oil, as I first thought. His crew repairs broken oil lines, which are currently spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean and 2)He doesn't actually dive anymore, unless he wants to. He plans and supervises the dives.

He was in port recently in LA and I was able to talk to him on the phone. Our conversations quickly stretched into one hour and then two. Now that he is back at sea (jeez, it sounds like he's a freakin' sailor!), we can only e-mail and IM. I found out that he went to highschool near Seattle, WA (about twenty miles north of where I grew up) and went to college in CA.

Now, here is the crazy part: What are the chances that two people that grew up close together, would be living in an entirely different state, meet on the internet, and end up liking each other? I'm not saying it's fate, but it might be. Who am I to spit in the wind, just to see if it will come back and hit me in the face? Right now, I kind of feel like the Meg Ryan character in "Sleepless in Seattle," which she of course reprised in, "You've Got Mail". It's crazy to like someone that you've never met. I know that and he knows that. Doesn't change anything, though.

Fortunately, I've had enough experience with internet dating to know that you can never get your hopes up. Someone can be amazing over the phone and a complete jerk in person (see Blind Date #1). Someone can seem cool and then you find out that their favorite band is Enya, or even worse Meatloaf (see Blind Dates #4 and #5). And some guys will say and do anything to get laid, knowing full well that they aren't interested in a relationship with you. I haven't been swept off my feet yet. It will take at least a first and second date for that.

7/21

Sick.

Sicksicksicksicksicksicksick.

I hate being sick.

No one told me that motherhood would induce sickness at every opportunity.

No one told me that my beloved child would breed germs that cause me to get sick all the time. Him, I knew about. Me? Not so much.

I'm currently sitting here on my couch, at 12:10am, wishing to God I could go to sleep. Wishing I could blog about something other than how miserable I feel.

Nyquil. Oh my beloved nyquil. Please escort me to your blissful unconscious land.

Please

I'm begging you.

7/19

Going to pick up Zac at his new daycare is like stepping into a refugee camp for people under 3 feet tall. The kids all swarm around my legs and follow me around the room, possibly asking me: "Have you really been to the outside? Did you see my Mom there? Can you help me get more graham crackers?" in a baby language that only dolphins can understand.

I look down at these kids, who range in age from 1-2 years old, and I'm thankful that we can't remember anything from that time period. Who would really want to remember staying in a room all day, playing with the same plastic toy and trying to prevent a large, friendly one year-old (a.k.a. my son) from sitting on you and giving you kisses? Honestly, I think the kids are considering a mass exodus to the 3-4 year-old room where they can at least go outside in the 100 degree heat. Maybe with a makeshift shelter and a canteen of water they would survive. It's questionable though.

Zac's bruise on his forehead from the older woman has turned a lovely shade of green and is now progressing into a yellowish hue. It's right next to his extremely prominent mosquito bite from our walk yesterday and right above the scratch on his eye from being so tired that he tried to rip his eyelids off to get some sleep (it didn't work). I look like the best mother - ever - when I try and explain to people that while I actually don't beat him, I apparently don't do a very good job of keeping him from hurting himself or other vertically-challenged individuals.

Lately, Z. has been so cranky that I'm quite possibly losing my mind, as this post might suggest. Once I wade through the refugee camp and temporary government-in-exile headquarters set up at the intersection of the plastic stove and kitchenette toys to pick him up from daycare, he starts screaming...and screaming....and screaming. He doesn't stop until I put him in the jogging stroller that V. and M. bought be for my baby shower. Out into the bright, evening sun and blistering heat we go! He falls asleep almost immediately while I walk around several blocks, pondering how my weight loss might be attributed to sweating profusely. It appears that I don't even need to be pregnant to sweat profusely - in July - in Houston.

Once he gets back in the house, the screaming continues. Feeding him, burping him, holding him, putting him down, giving him Orajel, giving him Tylenol, bathing him, putting him a dark room and closing the door until I regain my sanity, only help a little. Please, I don't need advice - I need beer. Lots and lots of beer. Afterall, how can you figure out what is wrong with him if he doesn't know and can't tell me?

Someone might need to remind me now, though, why I thought it was a good idea to be a single Mom. Who ever heard of the 'terrible ones'?!?

7/17

Quite possibly he has a future as a professional frat boy.

"Hey man, who turned out all the lights?"

7/15

Blind Date 6.5: SJ’s Kids in the Whitelands

So, with all the family obligations and sadness, I haven’t had a chance to post about a (how do I describe this – not fun, something more like – I’m glad it didn’t kill me) experience meeting the Sarcastic Journalist’s kids. She and the Hubs were looking for a rare night out a couple of Friday’s ago and thought that a shy 12 year-old might possibly get eaten alive by her two under two. I volunteered to bring Zac over and let the three kids wrestle until the passed out on the living room floor.

First off, let me tell you that the Whitelands isn’t all that far away from where I live. It’s just far if you don’t follow directions and instead decide to go pick up more cake as a housewarming present. Getting to the cake made me over an hour late (which conveniently rhymes). By the time I found SJ’s house in the Whitelands, Zac was in total, complete meltdown mode in the backseat. I had picked him day care and driven directly out to SJ’s house. I did not pass go, I did not collect $200, I did not feed him, I did try and give him a bottle which he promptly threw across the backseat in disgust. As we say in my family, he was “not a happy camper”.

Second, SJ is NOT exaggerating about the Whitelands. I have never seen a place like that before in my life. There really is a country club and there really is a giant lake with mansions. I can’t guarantee that everyone who lives there is white, but they certainly make more money than I do, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Pulling up to her house in my crappy car with my screaming child must have shocked many of her neighbors.

I meet SJ and the Hubs and then I’m quickly introduced to Ellie (the almost 2 year-old) and Sam (the 5 month-old stud muffin, a.k.a: the most laid-back baby in the world). She and the Hubs were in a bit of a rush to get out the door and seemed surprised when I kept asking questions about where to find certain items or how to put the two of them down for bed. I joked that she must not be used to leaving her kids with someone and she gave me a long, hard look that said, “No bio-tch. I’m not. And I hope my kids eat you alive”

With little ceremony, and me kind of wondering where they went, the two of them left for the evening. The biggest surprise of the evening was how well-behaved her kids really are. Really. I’m not joking. She usually makes her kids sound like they are the devil incarnate out to suck the life force from any adult they come in contact with. As SJ told me, though, “Who would want to read about how great my kids are? Come on. That shit would be boring”. So, it was a great surprise to have Ellie cuddled up next to me on the couch, watching Barnie, with Sam doing his best to keep Zac from straddling and suffocating him.

My son appears to really, really like other babies. I mean, “Zac-get-off-of-him-before-he-can’t-breathe,” likes other babies. The whole evening I spent pulling Zac off Sam, who was strapped into his bouncy seat like a turkey around Thanksgiving time in the eyes of my son. Zac wanted to kiss him, hug him, and rub his boy belly all over Sam’s face.

I felt like the best caregiver in the history of the world when I had all three kids under two down for bed at 8:30pm. Zac was in Sam’s crib. Ellie was in her “big girl” bed. Sam was (should I really admit this?) on the floor in his parents’ bedroom. On his stomach. On a blanket. I went in to turn him over and save myself the embarrassment of admitting that I really had killed her youngest child. Sam woke up and started crying. Then Zac woke up and started crying. The two of them were like dueling banjos for the next hour-and-a-half until I finally admitted defeat and called SJ and the Hubs home.

Any woman with multiples now has my utmost respect. I must be out of my freaking mind for ever entertaining the thought of having another child.

7/13

This post could be labeled, "Frustration". I haven't been this frustrated and annoyed in over three months. Can anyone remember what I decided to do three months ago? Well, kudos to those that remember I started Seasonel, the birth control pill that regulates your hormones so you only get your period every three months.

It is the end of the three months. My period is making me a tired, cranky, emotional, vulnerable mess. My insecurity increases exponentially in response to fatigue. I have no idea what chemical changes in my body actually cause that, I just know that I shouldn't handle loaded fire arms during "this time of the (three) months".

Did I mention that Zac has cut two front teeth and I haven't slept more than six hours any day this week?

As he was crying yesterday- mouth opened wide in a gigantic scream, lungs bellowing, tears rolling down his cheeks - I saw that he has two front teeth that have broken the skin. It appears that he will have the same tooth structure as his Mom and perhaps be called "Beaver" until he gets braces in his teenage years. The FOB is 1/2 English, and has horrible teeth as well.

It also appears that the little guy will have the same track record in love as his Mom. Yesterday, at daycare, he was sitting next to an older, cute Hispanic girl (maybe around 1 1/2 - 2 years old). The daycare provider said that he was leaning over "to give her kisses" and reached out "to touch her head". She moved away at the last moment and he fell flat on his head. When I arrived to pick him up, the girl's Mom was holding her, the daycare provider was holding Zac, trying to fill out an injury form. He had a huge knot on his forehead and bruise spreading down around his eye. The kid was still smiling. It's times like that that I'm not really convinced that he came from my uterus.

Then I realized that he was still reaching for the little girl.

Take it from me, Zac, older women will only break your heart. Keep your hands to yourself.

7/10

You know I got in trouble for this photo, don't you? Thank God it was before the days of digital cameras when my petulance would have been immediately noticed. No, I got an eye roll and a huge sigh when the photograph was developed.

That is my Grandma G. on the left, then me, my Mom, and my sister. I'm not really sure why we appear to be standing on the side of a freeway, all I can tell you is that we were in Canada, at the 1988 EXPO, and something had made me very, very mad.

I think this expression has been on my face for most, if not all, of the past weekend. Zac and I finally made it back to Houston after an exhausting four days. He didn't understand why he was castigated to a corner of the hotel room with an uncomfortable crib. I didn't understand why he needed to cry for 45 minutes everytime I tried to put him down for a nap or bedtime. He decided to try out his new standing skills by standing up in his crib, rattling the metal bars, and screaming as loud as his one year-old body could manage. It was an impressive sight to say the least.

The funeral itself was a small service at my Grandma's church, about an hour east of Pittsburgh. Not much has changed in that town since my Dad grew up there. My uncle has never lived more than five miles away from the hospital where he was born. My aunt made the move to Pittsburgh, but traveled frequently back to the town to see my Grandma with her husband and two children. Somehow the young, female pastor managed to say, "in the green Lutheran Book of Worship" at least ten times during the service, as if we needed to be reminded of the color or name of the book we were holding and following along in.

The most touching part of the week came when we watched an amazing video of my Grandma performing a flapper dance routine for a Mom-Daughter tea at her Lutheran Church. It was one of those videos where I expected her to speak directly into the camera at the beginning and announce, "If you are watching this, then I have passed from this Earth onto a better place because there is no way in Hell that you should be watching this if I'm still alive". Oh, it was so good to see her in her youth (at 70!), kicking, dancing, lip-synching, and playing to the crowd.

That is what I will remember about her. Well, that and the really good chocolate-covered peanut butter balls that she always sent us at Christmas.

7/03

When I first found out that I was pregnant, sitting in a Planned Parenthood examining room in early fall 2005, my whole body started vibrating and all I heard was a loud humming sound in my ears. It was like in the movies when the main character stops hearing what the person sitting across from them is saying, but they can see their mouth moving and forming words.

As the weeks and then months went by, I started feeling the changes in my body progress. A deeper, primal sense of understanding began to dawn on me. If I had to put it into words, it might sound something like: "Women throughout history have gone through these same changes, felt what you are feeling, and have been just as excited and scared as you are." I imagined women in Elizabethian robes, pregnant and round, wondering what their little ones would look like. I tried to imagine women in the time before we started wearing clothes and using fire to cook, fiercely protecting her swollen belly from predators.

My experience connected me to the line of women going back beyond any timeframe that I could even contemplate.

I imagined my mother, pregnant with me.

I imagined her mother.

And the mother before that and then, again, before that.

All of us connected through our bodies that produced the spirits and minds of those that would come after us. Early in the morning on July 8th, before the doctor decided to retrieve Zac through the road less traveled under my belly button, I suddenly understood how women could die in childbirth. My body was in pain, even with an epidural. I was afraid and tired. Zac couldn't descend into my birth canal. For all practical purposes, he was stuck, as was I. Before the practice of medicine, before Ob-Gyns, C-sections, and intensive care units, both he and I might have died that morning.

We didn't. We continue on.

The memory of Zac's birth and my part in the continuation of the generations is what I keep thinking about as I try to understand and grapple with the death of my Grandma.

My Dad's Mom, Freida, died early this morning. Although no one has told me what from exactly, I know that she refused to go to the hospital for pneumonia late last week. She slipped into a coma this weekend and passed away surrounded by most of her family. My Dad and Mom flew separately to be with my Dad's family today and Zac and I will be going on Wednesday for the funeral.

Every kid should be so lucky to have someone like my Grandma G. We talked once a week to her on the phone, even though as kids my sister and I never, ever had anything to say. She baked us our favorite cookies, breads, and chocolate during the holidays and marked every occasion with a card and a $5 or $10 bill. I saw her infrequently growing up - our family didn't have a lot of money and her health rapidly declined in my junior high and high school years. She lost some of her mobility, but I swear that woman never lost her fight. She would say that she wasn't too old to give us (usually my Dad) a good whippin' if we (or he) mouthed off to her. When you asked her how she was feeling, even in the nursing home she hated, she would answer: "Still kicking. It's better than the alternative." She could beat the pants off of a whole room full of seniors at Bingo, laughing while she told you the story and how lucky she was.

Last week I got a birthday card for Zac from Grandma G., written in my Uncle's handwriting. He had even included a $5 bill and as soon as I opened it, I started to cry. That she would be facing so much, yet still remember her "little man and her dolly" was too much for me.

I'm going to miss her and the little reminders that she loved us all so well.

7/02

It has been much too long since I've posted pictures of the Z-man. The countdown to his birthday is on - 6 days until he turns the big 1.

Here is a fairly recent picture of him, taken at my apartment:


And I just found this one of him and my Dad, this time from the front:



Then there is the requisite, "happy baby" photo:



"Ahhhh... I'm so happy it hurts. I hope that all of you that have to go to work on July 3rd can be this happy!!!! " Just kidding.