Etc.

Sep 5, 2011

Labor

In honor of Labor Day, I thought I’d re-visit a post from way back in 2008. (Original post is here.)

And as you might guess (well, at least as you fellow moms might guess), it’s about labor, so any male readers should just go ahead and close their browser windows. There’s nothing gross or too detailed here, but still… I know this might not be your cup of tea.

Here we go:

How long were your labors?

C. (now age 12): 6 hours
L. (now age 5): 4 hours.

Don’t hate me because I have short labors.

For both, I’m counting labor as starting when it became clear that this was indeed going to be it. I fear if I had another one, I’d end up giving birth at home, since if the pattern continued, we’d be looking at a 2-hour labor. Yikes!

How did you know you were in labor?

For C. — I’d had a weird feeling all day, but that evening, contractions got “serious” and then my water broke and everything became incredibly painful. There was no longer any doubt; off to the hospital we went.

For L. — sharp pains woke me up around 11 p.m. I wasn’t sure if they were really contractions (they felt very different from the ones I’d had with C.) until I realized they were coming every 5 minutes. Yep, this was labor.

Where did you deliver?

A hospital with a very nice Maternity Floor. Large, comfy rooms, wonderful nurses, and epidurals on hand.

Drugs?

Oh yes. Definitely.

In fact, if they made a “home epidural kit,” I would have started the drug flow myself before leaving home. There was never any question that I’d be an Epidural Girl. My tolerance for pain is what I would call, “Low.”

With L., things were happening so quickly that I was afraid we wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time to get things started. In fact, by the time I made it up to the Labor/Delivery area, I’m pretty sure all I was ~~babbling~~ saying was: “I’m in labor. I need an epidural. I’m in labor. I need an epidural. Excuse me, did you hear me? I need an epidural now.”

Fortunately, we made it, but we really were just in time. Whew!

C-section?

No, not for either. We did have some scary moments with L., though. His heart rate was dropping during labor and we found out later the cord had been wrapped around his neck twice. But in the end, a c-section wasn’t needed.

Who delivered?

My wonderful doctor. The same doctor delivered both of my boys, and he really is great. He has this ability to keep things light-hearted throughout the process while still bossing me around (“C’mon, Katrina. You need to push for real this time.” As if I was just practicing the other times.)

We also had fantastic nurses for both deliveries. I firmly believe that supportive, helpful, compassionate nurses make all the difference in a labor experience, and we were blessed to be surrounded by those kinds of nurses both times.

Feel like playing along? Share your story in the comments, or leave a link to your post in a comment so I can come check out your answers!

Filed Under: Etc. 1 Comment

Sep 1, 2011

Unsent letters

written by katrina · 10 Comments

Dear Load of Laundry,

I’m sorry. I left you in the dryer way too long and you have become hopelessly wrinkled. Sadly, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Far from it.

I often completely forget about you and your relatives as you sit patiently in the dryer — clean, dry, and warm — awaiting the moment when I will rescue you, fold you, and put you away. Instead, I’m reading or surfing the Internet or sipping coffee or making dinner. Not thinking about laundry. And there you sit.

You know what’s even worse? I’m not going to iron you. Those parts of you that are salvageable, I’ll hang up and hope for the best. The rest of you might find yourselves back in the dryer for a quick refresher. And I’ll try not to forget you this time.

Regretfully,
A deficient laundress

***

Dear Paper,

Where do you come from? I don’t mean in some abstract “how-is-paper-made-from-trees” kind of way. I mean in the very concrete “where in the world does all this paper in my house come from” kind of way.

Oh, I know, I have two kids. One of them brings home piles of paper from school. The other is eternally drawing, coloring, writing, cutting, pasting and otherwise using paper and littering it about the house.

But still. Paper. Try to contain yourself. How about you just stay on the coffee table and not encroach on any other flat surface in my home? Deal?

Warmly,
A woman who is not afraid to use her shredder

***

Dear Deer,

As a general rule, I have nothing against you and your kin. I love to watch you grazing in the fields. Your fawns are always adorable. And I haven’t caught you eating the plants in my garden (yet).

But next time you see me driving down the road, do me a favor. Please stay in the woods. Kindly do not run into my car and then gallop off into the darkness like you did Monday night. My checkbook and my insurance adjuster just don’t appreciate that kind of behavior.

I hope you’re as okay as you seemed to be, but we’ll get along much better if you stay off the road when I am on the road.

Thanks,
Reluctant deductible-payer

Filed Under: Etc. 10 Comments

Jun 15, 2011

Tea is not for me (yet)

written by katrina · 20 Comments

One of my most favorite parts of each morning is that special time when I turn on the Keurig, brew a mug of awesomeness, stir in the requisite amounts of cream and sugar, and sip my way into coffee delight. It doesn’t matter how hot it is outside — I still want my mug of warm coffee in the morning.

Not only does the caffeine help me navigate my morning (and yes, I admit, I appreciate a little caffeine boost each day), but I genuinely enjoy my coffee. It’s comforting, familiar, yummy.

Coffee is my friend.

Tea? Um…not so much.

It’s not that I dislike tea. It’s just that tea doesn’t deliver the same level of enjoyment.

However, I want to like tea. Really, I do.

I don’t want it to replace my daily coffee ritual (oh, forbid it!). I just think tea might be a good supplement. I can imagine a mid-afternoon visit over a cup of tea, or a soothing non-caffeinated herbal tea to end my day.

But here’s the problem: I can’t find a type or flavor of tea that I enjoy without copious amounts of sugar.

[Though I'm not from the south, I admit to loving the sweet tea the south produces. But sweet tea is one of those luxuries I only indulge in occasionally. In a perfect world, I'd love to be able to enjoy a non-sweet tea on a regular basis.]

I’ve been making my way through the teas made for my Keurig. I’ve tried English Breakfast Tea (bleh), Earl Grey (meh), Lemon Zinger (so-so), Sleepytime (passable). But even with these, in order to fully enjoy them, I find myself stirring in too much sugar.

My most recent purchase (back to traditional tea bags) was this:

Chocolate Hazelnut Tea? Yes, that’s what I thought too. But I figured — hey, if they can actually make tea taste like chocolate, I am so in.

The verdict? Undecided.

I mean, it’s “fine.” An oh-so-slight hint of chocolate and nuttiness. But still very tea-ish. I’m not giving up on it yet, but it didn’t quite live up to my (likely overblown) expectations.

I don’t know, maybe it’s hopeless. Yes, I use both cream and sugar in my coffee (but considerably less than I used to use), so maybe it’s unrealistic to think I’d find a tea that I enjoy with little-to-nothing in the way of additives. But that won’t stop me from continuing my search.

I have my eye on a peppermint tea that might just hit the spot…

Are you a tea drinker? what’s your personal favorite?

Filed Under: Etc. 20 Comments

Jan 5, 2011

The geekiness, it goes way back

written by katrina · 6 Comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you may have picked up on the fact that I’m a bit of a geek.

I like (okay, really like) gadgets, I have a secret desire to learn some form of computer programming, and I’ve read books like Numbers Freak and The Glamour of Grammar during reading challenges. I even enjoy the occasional video game.

I’m okay with it, though. I came to grips a long time ago with the fact that I’m kind of geeky.

But lately, it got me thinking…

When did this geekiness begin?

I was definitely already a geek in high school. (For one thing, I actually liked school. And not just the socializing; school itself. See? Geek.) So we have to go back further than that.

After pondering and pondering, I came to the conclusion that the roots of my geekiness lie in the ownership of one particular object.

I think I was in fourth grade or so. And I don’t remember how or when I got it. A birthday? Christmas? Spending some of my allowance money?

I don’t know. All I know is that I had one of these:

Yes, a Rubik’s Cube.

But owning a Rubik’s cube wasn’t really so special back then. It seemed like everyone was using study halls and bus rides to spin the colorful tiles of this puzzling cube. I was certainly not alone.

In fact, just like my classmates, I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get all the mixed-up colors to behave and to go to their proper spots. But no matter how how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with six solid-colored sides. Oh, I could get two or three. But then everything started getting messed up.

So I did what I always do when I want to fix something:

I bought a book.

Don’t ask me where I got it, because I don’t remember. But I was soon the proud owner of a Solutions Book for the Rubik’s Cube.

This solutions book (which, if I remember correctly, was more like a magazine) took every possible scenario and told the reader how to work with it in order to fully solve the Rubik’s Cube.

I was ecstatic.

I analyzed the scenarios, I studied the solutions, and I put them into practice.

Ta-da! I solved the Rubik’s cube (with some help, admittedly)! I had six solid-colored sides. Yay, geeky me!

But was that enough for 9- or 10-year-old Katrina? Oh no.

I don’t remember setting out to consciously do this, but… I memorized the solution book. Maybe I just solved my own cube too many times, I don’t know. But before long, all the tips and tricks had moved from the solutions book to my brain.

And I became the Official Rubik’s Cube Solver for my friends.

Kids would hand me their cubes at school for me to work on in my spare moments. I spent bus-rides home spinning and twisting cubes into obedience for their owners. No starting point was too messy for me, no tile scenario too difficult.

I was the Rubik’s Cube Master.

And that, my friends, is where I believe my geekiness was born. Or at least, that’s where it started to come out of its shell.

I was far more interested in solving the Rubik’s Cube than in playing with dolls or picking out barrettes for my hair.

And today, though I appreciate a good pair of jeans, I’m still more intrigued by Apple’s latest offerings than by news from the fashion world. I just can’t escape it: I’m somewhat of a geek. But I’m cool with that. And at least now, I have some idea of when it started.

Filed Under: Etc., Geekiness 6 Comments

Jan 1, 2011

The In-Between Parts Have Been Delightful

written by katrina · 7 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone!

I should be taking a nap right now, because honestly, this holiday season has been one of the most exhausting ever. But instead, I decided that my poor blog needed an update. But since my brain is only functioning in fits and starts, I don’t think I can come up with more than a somewhat-random list. So here you go…

1. Remember that sense of peace I mentioned I had? I’m pretty sure that peace came straight from God, and that He was preparing me for the fact that Christmas and its surrounding days were not going to go at all as I planned.

2. I told you that my preschooler had a stomach bug. But he seemed to be recovered a couple days before Christmas. So I spent one day making snacks for school teachers, and another day baking and getting ready to host my family for Christmas Eve. That was good — I felt like I accomplished something.

3. Christmas Eve was a nice, if busy, day. Family, food, gifts, church… but the preschooler seemed to be just a bit off. No enough for anyone else to notice, but I did. I wondered if he was beginning a relapse.

4. Christmas Day was — for the most part — delightful. We opened gifts, enjoyed our traditional Christmas Morning French Toast, and visited Chad’s family later in the day. All was well…until Christmas night.

5. Christmas night found me struck down with what I like to affectionately call The Horrendous Stomach Plague of 2010. I will not give you any details, because that would just be mean. But I will tell you that for a good 24 hours, I was sick, sick, sick. It was bad. In fact, I lost six pounds in two days — not exactly a “healthy rate of weight loss.”

6. I spent all of the day after Christmas confined to my bedroom and bathroom while Chad took care of the kids.

7. Chad also made himself a nice little germ-free bachelor pad in the basement, where he lived for three days in order to avoid as many as the Plague Germs as possible. Also, we went through many, many ounces of instant hand sanitizer.

8. I finally left my bed on Monday morning, only to spend the day on the living room couch. AND…my twelve-year-old woke up at 3:30 a.m. Monday…also struck with the Stomach Plague.

9. By Thursday, we were all feeling significantly better. I had disinfected bathrooms, changed sheets, and used ~~one million~~ lots of Clorox wipes around the house. But I have to say, this is a very lingering disease. There’s no more yucky-ness (thankfully!), but we are still tired and have reduced appetites and are not really ourselves. The plague has truly been horrendous.

10. Still, we managed to rouse ourselves to go to a movie Thursday evening (Tangled), and to have a fun night of boardgames and movies on Friday. C and I even made it until midnight. Well…I might have dozed just a bit between the hours of 11:00 and 12:00.

11. Today is a do-nothing day. I am tired and it is rainy and we are all feeling rather lazy. Which is just fine. I think we need a day devoted to relaxation and recovery before “real life” kicks in again next week.

12. I do have to admit that I’m looking forward to getting back to real life. The in-between parts of the holidays were wonderful — the parts where we weren’t getting sick or being sick or recovering from being sick. But I’m ready for a little bit of boredom. It sounds very inviting.

But before I sign off, I just want to publicly wish my husband a