Continual State of Becoming

This is a Christmas present a friend of mine sent me a few years ago because I love filling out surveys. Previous years for comparison: 2007, 2005 2008 Year in Review Survey 1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Gave birth, became a mom and all that goes with that. Non-mom related: going to see Barak Obama at the Leesburg rally and I tried Pilates. 2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? no, but I dont make new years' resolutions 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? yes. not including myself... Bianca, Elissa, Melissa, and all my new friends from the Mom Group 4. Did anyone close to you die? yes, my friend Hank 5. What countries did you visit? again, just the U.S. 6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? at least one opportunity to sleep through the night 7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 5th because Dylan was born that day. 8. What was your bi

Last Friday I experienced a new first for myself. I went to the movies alone! It was great. I mean you dont really talk to anyone while you're at the movies, so it's not like I really need the company. I think it's just usually a social event so I always felt the need to bring people with me. But last week Twilight came out, and I was dying to see it. Unfortunately nearly everyone I know went and saw it at the midnight showing on Thursday, and that just wasn't practical for me... with a baby that wakes up about 3 times a night, I didn't want to leave matt with a screaming hungry baby that he couldn't take care of. So I had to wait. But on Friday Matt came home from work early and offered to watch the Dylan so I could go see my movie. I thought about trying to find someone to go with me, but it seemed like too much of a hassle, so I just went by myself. I think it's one of the first independent, fun things I've done post-baby (doctor's appoi

No one really warned me how about how much worrying comes with being a parent. I mean I know you worry about big and general things like "is my kid safe?" and "I hope nothing bad happens to them." But no one told me about the day to day, minute to minute obsessing over things that could be wrong with them, but in the big picture they probably aren't anything worth worrying over. For instance... from the time Dylan was 2 weeks old, until he was nearly 4 months old he had a persistent diaper rash. I went to the pediatrician numerous times to get every kind of diaper rash medication known to man (then finally stopped going when my pediatrician said "some babies just are so sensitive that they'll have rashes until they're no longer in diapers" soooo comforting), I left him out of his diaper as much as possible (no diaper = no diaper rash). And every diaper change was so stressful, I had to be careful not to wipe too hard, or use anything with s

I got tagged for a meme by Tom . This one is all about randomness, which is pretty much how my whole blog is, so this should fit right in. Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Write 6 random things about yourself. Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post. Let each person know he/she has been tagged. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. 1- I have never had a full time job. I have held multiple part time jobs at once, but never a full 40 hour salary, benefits, kinda thing. 2- The only food I absolutely will NOT eat, or eat anything that has come into contact with, is baloney. I also will not make other people baloney sandwiches because I don't want to even touch or smell it. There are other foods I don't particularly like but will still eat because I'm not really a picky eater, it's just that baloney is too disgusting. 3- I have the rights to an arrangement of a localish all girls prep school's song. I was asked

I've never really considered myself a High Energy Person. I'm not one of those people who is always perky and bubbly and on the go. On a nice sunny day I prefer staying in and reading a book or practicing piano, after a long day I need a long amount of sleep to recover, overall I have a fairly mellow disposition. Part of me used to think that meant I was a lazy person, but then a good friend of mine said that I wasn't lazy, I was just more mentally active than physically active. I really like that description of me, so I have learned to accept my low-key personality over the past few years, rather than think that if I'm not constantly on the go, something is wrong with me. That being said... taking care of a baby is very taxing on me. Dylan is constantly on the go. I feel like at this point, the older he gets, the more exhausted I'm going to be. He's not even crawling yet, but he rolls all over the place and has been getting very interested in whatever ob

Last night we had one of those moments I'll probably always remember. It was very simple. Right before we got Dylan ready for bed he was playing on the floor with this little drum toy that he loves, Matt was sitting in a chair playing guitar/harmonica, and I was nearly passed out on the couch singing along with Matt and keeping an eye on the baby. Everyone was happy and chill. Dylan was really interested in the harmonica whenever Matt played it.

It's October... not June or August. I dont want it to be 80-something degrees anymore. I don't want to have to use the air conditioning anymore. I don't want to have to fight off mosquitos, ants, and box elder beetles (the bugs all over our house) anymore. I want it to be cold. I'm much happier in cooler weather. We're planning on going to a farm sometime in the next week or so to get our Halloween pumpkins. I don't want to be wearing shorts while doing something Halloween-y. It's just not natural. I remember trick-or-treating when we lived in Colorado and it was snowing, when we were in New York I had to wear my jacket under my costume. That is how October should be.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/a/palinisms.htm

All morning I was trying to think of a name. For some reason I was trying to remember the name of the American composer, who lived in CT, and used to be in the insurance business... then he did all this crazy composing stuff where he would have two marching bands walking towards each other, each playing different music.... what the heck was his name. It drove me nuts all day that I couldn't remember his name. Somehow I figured out that Charles sounded right, but I kept going back to Aaron Copland, which I knew wasn't right. Then a few minutes ago it just hit me... Charles Ives. Ahhhh, i feel so much better now. Of course I have no idea why I was trying to remember his name in the first place. Oh well.

Okay, so haven't really decorated for Halloween. But the outside of my house sure is scary looking right now. I got home from Mom's group today and to my shock there were all these beetles ALL over the front of the house. Like thousands of them. I counted how many were on a window and it was well over 100. Fortunately they aren't on the side or back of the house, but still, it's so creepy. I called Orkin right away, and they can't come out until MONDAY. And I had to bitch at them to get them here that soon (they originally tried giving me next thursday). I'm really hoping by then they'll be gone. But I really hope they don't get into the house some how before then. Of course since I live in a townhouse the bugs are all over the neighbors' houses too, but ours and the other end unit seem to be the worst. I called my piano student to tell them they'd be better off coming in through the back door, but they weren't home so I'm not

Today I went to the movies with Matt and my sister, Sarah. We saw Bill Maher's new comedy/documentary Religulous . I thought it was worth seeing. Maher definitely raises some of the same issues/doubts/concerns that I have, and I never got satisfying answers for it either. At the end of the movie he says something along the lines of how certainty in religion can be dangerous, and having doubt makes you humble. I wish I had the exact quote, because I thought it was great. I'd say the movie was funny (it was, I laughed out loud frequently), but at the end the humor morphed into something more serious, and then it was a little scary. The best part was when I bought the tickets. I got carded. I mean, it's a rated R movie, so you have to be 18, but come on, really? I don't look 18?? When the guy saw my ID he was like "oh, oops... you must get carded a lot." Which is pretty true. Except I bought a bottle of wine at Giant last week and for the first time

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/97053/25-piano-men-and-women Interesting article, that considering my background, I feel obligated to post. I will agree with what the writer says before he starts listing people... Thelonius Monk should be at the top, but this list just doesn't include jazz pianists, or classical for that matter. Also glad that Billy Joel isn't in the top 10... because he irritates the crap out of me ever since he insulted people who study music, and then immediately stated that he couldn't play the music from his classical album because he's not classically trained (maybe if he had studied music that wouldnt' have been an issue for him.) I admit that I'm not familiar with some of the people on the list, but I'm a Ben Folds fan, mostly because I think he's amazing on the piano. I wish I could play like that. He always sounds like he's having fun without trying. I mean, I have fun, but it definitely doesn't sound

Ugh, just watched Sarah Palin look like an idiot for 1.5 hours. Then the commentators all RAVED about her debate skills. Ummmm, is it just me? Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought I was... but, did she actually SAY anything? I mean I know she was talking (no matter how hard I tried to block her voice), but everything she said made me think that she was answering a question at a beauty pageant. Lots of big words, smiles, but nothing of substance. It was like watching a magician... you don't notice the trick because of the misdirection. Only in the debate the misdirection was her cutesy "normal people talk" and the trick was that people fell for it. grr. It did look like she was going to pee her pants when the moderator kept asking her questions about her position on gay marriage, that was kinda entertaining. I'm just disappointed that more people didn't call her out afterwards. Oh well.

Today was a rough day. I think I may need to give my Mommy Group a break. The timing just kills Dylan. He pretty much missed all of his naps, skipped a feeding, and was plain MISERABLE by about 3:00. I kept trying to get him to take a nap when we got home, but he just would not have it. Then I started to get cranky myself, so we had to put in a call to Daddy and have him come home early. There's no way I would have made it through my piano lesson with Dylan in the mood he was in. This makes the 3rd week in a row that we've had a really rough Thursday. I keep trying to tell myself that one day of a miserable baby is worth the opportunity for adult interaction for myself, but it's starting to make me miserable as well, so I think we may skip for a while and see if he does better. After I called matt though I took him on a 45 min walk to cool down (and luckily got back in time to prep for my lesson before my student got here), and then Dylan was a lot happier. Matt

So yesterday I basically stayed home all day. Matt took Dylan out a couple times which gave me a chance to relax, sleep, take a shower, all that good stuff. Then later in the day we painted an accent wall in our living room (I say "we" but really matt did all the painting. I did tape things for him first though). Today I've only left the house to run to the post office and drop off some packages. I'm starting to go a little stir crazy now. I think Dylan is too. There's only so much time he can spend in his jumperoo. Right now he's watching the end of Ice Age. I know you aren't supposed to really let babies watch TV, but he loves it so much. So he usually gets to watch a few minutes here and there. But our typical day pretty much goes like this: Wake up and play with his crib mobile for 15 minutes, while I contemplate the fact that I need to get up. Then he'll play on a blanket with his toys for a few minutes while I check my email. Next we

The other day I was driving home from my parent's house, Dylan was fortunately sleeping in the back of the car, there was nothing good on the radio, and I was sick to death of the CDs in the car, so I decided to play my Classical Music Game. I'm not sure if I've written about this before (it's possible), but I like to turn on the classical stations in the middle of a song and try to guess the composer. So I found a song that was bearable to listen to (the other classical station had a clarinet concerto on... gag me). And after listening to it for a few minutes I had it narrowed down to some kind of Romantic composer from Eastern Europe who took a lot of their material from folk tunes. I guessed Bella Bartok as the composer, but found out when it was over that it was actually Dvorjak. So close. I hate it when I'm wrong. But at least I was able to get the characteristics correct. It would have sucked if it turned out to be a Baroque composer from England. Any

In 2000: The Patriots win their first Super Bowl (technically they won it in 2001, but it was for the 2000 season). Also in 2000: Matt and I started dating. In 2004: The Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years, breaking the Curse of the Bambino. Also in 2004: Matt and I got married. In 2008: The Celtics win the NBA Championship after being the second worst team in the NBA in 2007. Also in 2008: Dylan is born. Coincidence? Or are the milestones between Matt and I the best thing to ever happen to New England sports teams? We're trying to figure out what we need to do in order to get the Bruins to win the Stanley Cup next.

I realize it's been a while since I've posted. But I have a good excuse. Dylan keeps me busy most of the day, and once I put him down for the night I am pretty much ready for bed myself. So needless to say, I've let my blog go for a while. But I think I'm at the point where I'm ready to start posting again... though I'm not sure if anyone will read this anymore.

Current favorite thing to eat-- a Reuben from Arby's. Nice soft rye bread, good sauerkraut (yes, I like sauerkraut, I was born in Germany after all), and just enough meat. yum. Eve is also a fan, she appreciates the leftovers... what a spoiled dog. Speaking of being born in germany... a few weeks ago I went to the Birthing Inn to fill out paperwork ahead of time (so I dont have to fill it out while I'm in labor). And they had me fill out some information for the birth certificate while I was there. I purposely left the baby's name blank because I felt like if I filled out that part of it, I'd be counting my chickens before they hatched. But I also had to fill out where matt and I were born. Me- Germany, Matt- North Dakota. Just seems weird to me for some reason. Maybe because I dont think I'll ever really believe that Matt was born in ND (since he spent the rest of his life on the east coast). On St Patrick's Day my uncle asked what percentage of me is

6 more days until my due date... but who knows when the baby will actually come. Since I'm not working anymore, I have had a lot of time to catch up on some reading. Last week I read my first Nora Roberts novel. She's so popular (and writes for adults, which I've been trying to get into) that I decided to give it a try and see what all the fuss was about. I read Tears of the Moon, it's a romance set in Ireland... guy and girl grow up together... guy sees girl as tomboy, girl has crush on guy, eventually guy falls in love with girl... they all live happily ever after. I'm not sure what the conflict was. But overall I'd have to say that most of the teen novels I've read are more interesting and real (even the ones about vampires had more realistic characters). So I think that will probably be my last Nora Roberts book. I also read another adult book... Tales From the Crib. It's the follow up book to Notes From the Underbelly, which I read last summ

Yep... I'm still pregnant. Only 11 days left until my due date. Which seems like an eternity to me right now. The good news is that I just came back from a dr appt and they told me that I'm already 2 cm dialated. Not that that means I'm in labor, but at least I know my body is aware of the fact that it's close to time. According to the doctor I was also having a contraction while she was listening to the baby's heartbeat, but I didn't feel anything, so maybe I'll be one of those lucky few people whose labor isn't entirely agonizing (though either way I'm still planning on getting an epidural, so it really doesn't matter). In all honesty though the last few weeks haven't been as physically uncomfortable as I thought. Other than it being nearly impossible to bend over and not being able to stay on my feet for too long, I've been feeling fairly normal. Sometimes I even forget that my stomach sticks out further than the rest of my bod

After finding a "You know you're a pianist when..." list on a friend's page, I stumbled across a "You know you're a music major when..." The music major list applied much more to me than the pianist one did (mostly because I'm not all that hot at piano, but I'm sure if you were, that list would apply to you). So I thought I'd share some of my favorites, because they are really dead on. At first I thought that all college majors had their weirdnesses, but since my sister is taking a music class to fulfill one of her Gen Ed requirements she has pointed out to me that it's strange to see people walking around the halls singing really loudly to themselves. Really? Not everyone does that? Anyway... here they are... ...you've ever had to sing to yourself in class to understand the point the teacher was trying to make. ... someone's cell phone goes off in class and people try to name the interval, including the professor. (can'

Okay, so I'm officially 34 days away from my due date of March 31. Not that the due date means anything since technically giving birth anywhere between the 37th and 42nd week is normal. Unfortunately most first time pregnancies go at about the 41 week mark, so that's what I'm expecting. But if anyone wants to take a guess at my delivery details feel free... here's my prediction: Delivery Date: April 5th at around 1 pm Baby's size 7 lbs. 8 oz. But I'm really hoping that I'll go long before then. In fact my main concern was not going before the Wilco show, but since that's behind me now, I'm pretty much ready to get this kid out of me.

This past weekend, Matt and I made a quick overnight trip up to Philadelphia. Our main purpose for going was to see Wilco in concert. Matt got us third row seats back in December before they announced they were coming to DC again (though this venue was probably better than the DC one since you had assigned seats, versus General Admission... I hate having to fight for a good spot). But it also gave us a chance to go away... just the two of us... one last time before the baby is here. Because who knows when we'll be able to do that again. Anyway, I'm not really sure how much I've talked about how critical I can be when it comes to seeing bands live, so I'm going to do that now. I hold bands and musicians up to a very high standard when I go and see them perform. I have several expectations for any show, and when they aren't met, I am very disappointed and typically will decide not to see that band live again. So here are some of my requirements: This probably

Last night I had a dream that had something to do with the Virginia primaries. Mostly that just tells me that I've been watching too much Daily Show and Colbert Report because I dont really watch the news or follow politics at all. Last night was the first time this year that both shows had their writers back... in all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. First of all I was disappointed that the Colbert Report didn't do the Word of the Day segment. I thought that had been cut specifically due to lack of writers, but they didnt bring it back yesterday. Hopefully they will soon. Speaking of these shows, I think last week one of them had this Stanford professor on. He was there to promote his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil . According to the author of the book his title comes from the story about how after God made man and told Lucifer to obey man, Lucifer stood up to God and showed him that man was not a perfect being and therefore should

Not too much has been going on lately. I had my baby shower a few weeks ago (click here for some pics). That was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we aren't quite ready for all the baby stuff to be in our house, so it's still all sitting in my mother-in-laws dining room. Matt plans on painting the baby's room this weekend, so I'm hoping that once that is done we'll be able to start moving baby stuff in. As far as the pregnancy goes, everything is a-ok. I'm starting to have trouble sleeping though. It seems like I'm destined to wake up in the middle of the night for about 2 hours. And it's really hard to move around. Yesterday I spent about an hour and a half screwing a new shoe rack together. It probably wouldn't have taken that long if I were able to bend over and move around easier, but instead I had to sit on the floor and move the rack around me. My back was in agony by the time I was done, but I was determined to put it together myself. Ot

Another reason to love General Hospital: Sometimes if an actor's contract runs up and they dont renew it, instead of getting rid of the character, the show will just replace him/her with a new actor. When the new actor first appears, there's a voice over that says "The role of Carly will now be played by so-and-so." Sometimes they do this too when an actor is just on vacation, it's like having a sub. At first I'm always pissed off when they replace people, but eventually you get used to the new person. I imagine it does make things difficult when they want to do flashbacks, because they dont want to bounce around to all the different versions of one character, so it kinda limits how far back in time they can go. But here is why I bring this up. Tomorrow they are adding a new character to the show. The thing is that the actress portraying the new character used to be the original Carly a LOOONG time ago. Now she's coming back, to play someone differe

I went over to my parent's house for dinner tonight. My dad made home-made pizza, which he hasn't done in a really long time. When we were younger he used to make pizza every Sunday night. I think it began when he told my mom, after she had a surgery, that he would cook one dinner for every staple she got to close up the incisions... thinking there would only be a few. But then it turned out that there were tons (I dont know the exact number, but it's way more than you'd expect). So the Sunday Pizza night tradition was born. So while we were all eating pizza we also watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. One of the women on Wheel of Fortune bothered me. She solved one puzzle when she only had $400 and there were plenty of letters left on the board. Then when she earned $10,000 and it was a prize puzzle (meaning they give a secret surprise to whoever wins the puzzle), she kept spinning even though she obviously knew the puzzle (since she was picking letters like

I was just reading up on Month 7 in the What to Expect When You're Expecting book and I came across a section about pregnancy related dreams. I found this interesting because I have definitely had some very odd pregnancy related dreams, and none of the other pregnant women I know seem to have them (okay, so I only know 2 other pregnant people). Anyway... towards the beginning of the pregnancy I used to dream about tornadoes a lot. We would all be at home (me, matt, and the dog), and all of a sudden there would be a tornado warning, and I'd look out the window and I could see it coming. And Matt would be like "I dont know what to do" so I'd run through the house real quick and open all the windows (so the pressure change wouldnt cause them to explode-- I think I remember learning that the year I lived in Kansas and we had tornado drills at school), and then I would drag matt and the dog into the basement bathroom (because it's the closest thing we've go

No rhyme or reason to anything in this post: When I was singing in choirs (for church and school), I learned a bunch of things about language that I never really paid attention to before. For example, people have a naturally tendency to pronounce "want you" as "wan-chew." Which is a big no-no when singing. But now whenever I'm listening to the radio and I hear someone say "wan-chew" instead of making the effort to clearly annunciate, it totally stands out, and kinda bothers me. Another interesting choir-language observation concerns the word "the." I never realized before that sometimes people pronounce it like "thuh" especially before a word that starts with a consonant, and sometimes you pronounce it "thee," especially before a word beginning with a vowel. In choir that was pretty much the rule (totally unknown to me before), but I've started noticing it while people are speaking too. But if someone would have