Wednesday, July 30, 2008

BAR FREE, BEACH BOUND

Just the other day, Clark observed that we never really do much celebrating when it comes to big events like birthdays or anniversaries. Well, finishing the Bar is a pretty big occasion so I decided to make a little hullabaloo out of our car (which is currently sitting in our driveway, loaded and ready to hit the road in one hour). Booker chose out the "sun" balloon for his dad. 

I can't wait to greet Clark as he leaves the convention center with all his law school buddies. While they're getting ridiculously drunk tonight, Clark gets to spend six hours in the car with his two-year-old child and hyper-pee-active, pregnant wife. Congratulations, honey!!! 

At least he'll have a slice of carrot cake from Paradise Cafe to snack on during the drive and while his fellow graduates are nursing hangovers tomorrow, Clark will be sitting on Imperial Beach reading books for FUN.  

Monday, July 28, 2008

A Cervical Update and Other Things

We haven't blogged in awhile. Clark has a good excuse- he's been studying for the Arizona Bar which begins tomorrow and ends on Wednesday night. He's been taking it pretty seriously and actually goes into his office to study from 8 until 5. I think the real reason he goes into the office to study is because his boss takes them out to lunch EVERY SINGLE DAY. Yes, Clark gets to eat for free at a variety of delicious restaurants in the company of actual adults while I have been eating leftovers at home with Booker. Fun. I'm not sure what makes me more jealous- the food or the adult conversation.

But I shouldn't complain. My dad and my sister have been visiting us here in Tucson since Saturday (they left today and it nearly broke my heart). I loved having them around, but more importantly, Booker LOVED having them around. He loved showing them his posse of stuffed animals (which are now called his "Buddies" and not his dollies, thanks to Baba's suggestion). Although this was supposed to be a relaxing weekend for my dad, I think he maintained a pretty similar schedule to what he was keeping in Baghdad. He was up at 5:30 with Booker each morning (allowing Clark and I to sleep in until a very generous 8). And he happily took orders from a nearly-two-year-old to read books, play catch and sit on his bed. Booker sure is bossy. Marie also made a great playmate and it was so fun to see Booker's face each morning when he realized that she was STILL at his house. She loaned Booker her wooden bead necklace which remained on all weekend (including in the shower and at church) and had to be removed in the dead of night. They left hours ago and Booker keeps assuring me that Baba and RieRie are either at work, school or sleeping (like his dad) and will be returning soon.

In other news, with less than 4 weeks until my due date, I've started weekly visits with my doctor. Basically, I have to pee in a cup and get my cervix checked. Under any other circumstances, getting your cervix checked (or having an internal exam) is a terribly uncomfortable and horrible procedure. But when you're hugely pregnant and dying for any indication that your baby is coming soon, you count down the days, hours, MINUTES until this awkward encounter with your doctor. Poor Clark can't come near me when I'm pregnant like this (unless he's got leftovers from his special lunch that day) and yet, I'm more than happy to spread my legs for a man I hardly know. Its totally messed up. What's even more messed up, though, is that I'm about to talk about my cervix on the internet.

I know its pretty inconsiderable, but I was thrilled to find out today that I'm 1 cm dilated and the baby is putting A LOT of pressure on my cervix. Um, I didn't need a professional to tell me that. It feels like I'm walking around with a bowling ball between my legs and you definitely don't want to know what happens when I cough/sneeze/laugh. I'm pretty happy with 1 cm, since just one week ago I was "high and closed" with nothing to speak of. I'm also happy with 1 cm because I'm pretty confident that we can go to California (to join the rest of the Proffitts who are already there) in two days and I won't be delivering on the beach or at a KOA campground. So 1 cm down, 9 to go.

And in the meantime, Clark will be kicking the Bar's butt and then we'll be decompressing on a beautiful sunny beach for a few days. I can't wait!

My dad brought Booker and Baby No Name these cute little State Department Shirts. Foreign Service Officer in the making? I think so!


Even better, though, are the Sadr City shirts that Clark and I got. How awesome is that? I bet you don't have a Sadr City shirt.

And this is completely unrelated, but I took this picture on one of our evening walks. Tucson can be really beautiful.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Sick Buddy

There's nothing sadder than a sick baby. They just can't fake it when they're this young. It breaks my heart. Especially that look on Booker's face right after he's thrown up all over you and he knows there's more coming and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

 The only thing close is that look on his face as he's trying hard to play with you but his heart's not in it because he feels so yucky. Its sweet that he tries, but really, the best thing to do is just call it a sick day and watch Dora until he passes out on the couch. 
Check out that droopy lip. So sad. 

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Oh, the Irony

This is classic. The Washington Post asked people to post theories as to why comments to online newspaper stories "seem to have been written by raging lunatics." All of the theories then listed in the comments, naturally, seem to have been written by raging lunatics. My favorite comment is that THEY "comment because they are sad and lonely and crave contact with others." Awesome

Monday, July 14, 2008

There may be hope yet


While we were in Mesa this past week, Joy was kind enough to babysit Booker so Marg and I could take in a movie. That's going to be harder to do in Tucson at least until we get to know the young women in the ward. We went to see Baby Mama. Marg and I both are pretty big Tina Fey fans and we weren't terribly disappointed. The love interest in the movie is a fairly bland ex-lawyer turned hippie juice bar owner played by a likeable Greg Kinnear.

I think the Kinnear character represents a new trend for lawyers in movies. Lawyers have been bad guys in stories since the pharisees. You will still see the cutthroat scumbag lawyer - he's not going anywhere. But I think we'll start to see a new, cuddlier lawyer. Of course, since the attorney has to come off as a good person, it is absolutely imperative that they no longer practice law. Once the lawyer is, well, no longer a lawyer, they become the perfect love interest. Bright, ambitious, wealthy from all that lawyering, but reformed back into humanity. Now that they've got the evil out they can move onto their better selves as purveyors of natural fruit juices or warm cookies.

The only problem with my little theory is that I can only think of two examples. Baby Mama and the Maggy Gyllenhall character on "Stranger than Fiction." I'm convinced that there are more, but I haven't been able to think of them and it's not a subject that lends itself to a google search. So if you can think of any other ex-lawyer-turned-love-interest story leave it in the comments.

Coyote


The coolest thing just happened. I was on my way home from the library, where I had just checked out the world's largest book (A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth...  will I make it through it? Who knows- its HUGE!) Anyways, I nearly hit a coyote. Yes, a coyote. On a pretty major road. I absolutely LOVE encounters with wildlife. Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to nearly hit a javelina. Tucson, you do not disappoint. 

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Home Sweet Home



Well, if iI decided to wait until everything was completely clean and organized, then I'd probably never post pictures of our new place. Our next door neighbor caught me half dressed in my underwear while I was out back taking photos of the yard. I'm so mortified. Its just too stinkin' hot to be fully dressed, but I've definitely learned my lesson. Don't hang out in your underwear in your backyard. Duh.

Some of my favorite things about this house: 
- The awesome ceiling fans. Its like sleeping in a wind tunnel and I love it! 
- The shower is big enough to contain Booker's splash messes. 
- There's a decorative javelina in the backyard!
- There's a ton of storage closets and plenty of cabinet space in the kitchen. 

One thing we're getting used to:
- Both bathrooms have sky-lights in the ceiling and they let in a ridiculous amount of light. Its like trying to sleep through a nuclear bomb in the mornings with all the light pouring in from our bathroom. 

Otherwise, we're settling in pretty well. We went to Church today and discovered we have a rather old ward. I think today wasn't a very representative Sunday because of the holiday weekend. It was quite empty. In fact, we had to leave early because nursery was cancelled and Booker was throwing a nightmare of a fit because of it. I would have LOVED 11 o'clock church 2 years ago but now that Booker naps at noon its a bit problematic. We'll figure it out. 

Saturday, July 5, 2008

!Danger!


In my recent attempts to avoid studying for the bar, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Of Love and Other Demons." Margaret loves this author for his ability to use phrases like "She had. . . a hunger in her womb that could have satisfied an entire barracks." and "she broke wind in pestilential explosions that startled the mastiffs" about the same woman. In a single paragraph.

The book begins with a young girl who is bitten by a rabid dog. Since I was reading late at night, my mind began to wander a little bit. What if Booker or unborn spawn #2 were bitten by a rabid squirrel or something, and didn't tell me about it? How bad would the symptoms have to get before I took him to the hospital? Would he still be treatable at that point? What if he gets Leukemia? How would I handle that? Our family has been remarkably healthy to this point (knock on wood)- but kids die all the time. Does our run of 33 healthy kids mean that we're due for some sort of tragedy, or can we stretch it to 36? Or 45? I began to sweat a little bit in our perfectly air conditioned home with our industrial strength ceiling fan.

One of the challenges of being a parent is confronting the infinite number of ways that THINGS can go terribly WRONG. Car accidents, lead paint, heights, choking hazards, genetic illnesses, industrial poisons, cell phone radiation, global warming, Walmart, water, pedophiles, psychopaths, mountain lions, scorpions, lions, tigers, bears . . . Oh My. The list can go on forever.

If I actually took the time to really worry about it all I would be absolutely worthless - even more so than I am already. I remember Rebecca saying once that if they're going to die, it's their time to die, and there's nothing you can do about it. I don't think she completely embraces that ideology, (she completed and locked her pool fence), but the point is a valid one to an extent. It's that nugget of truth behind the cliche that you can't be so worried about how they are going to die that you don't let them, and yourself, live.

Even with that minor epiphany, I did a little bit of research to make myself feel better. It turns out the mortality rates for kids under 14 in the US is about 8 in 1000. That works out to mean that we'd have to expand to 125 kids under 14 before we start really tempting fate. That seems unlikely. Dad's motorcycle accident might also work in our favor from an odds standpoint, not to mention all those families that just seem cursed with major calamities involving multiple fatalities in short time frames. I realize that this might make me a terrible human being, but from now on whenever I hear one of those stories it will have the positive connotation of meaning that our odds just get that much better. On the other hand, rabies is still untreatable once symptoms start showing up, and as the last sentence affirms, Karma doesn't owe me any favors. On that note, I'm going to go hug Booker and shop for life insurance policies. . .

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Fragile


I was talking to my sister today and we both seem to be in the same sort of funk. I think it has to do with this particular time of the year. When we were kids, we always moved in the summertime. This meant saying goodbye to our best friends, boyfriends, homes, schools, everything and moving to a new and sometimes unusual country. As teenage girls, it was the most traumatizing and life-changing thing ever and I'm sure my poor dad bore the brunt of it. Looking back, though, we always adapted quickly and transitioned into our new lives pretty easily. 

But that transition period sucks. And that's where I am right now... halfway between my old home and my new one. I wake up and feel like I'm in a hotel. Worse- I wake up at five a.m. and feel like I'm in a hotel because Booker is also struggling with being uprooted. He's resorted to calling Clark and I by our first names and throwing tantrums over the silliest things. Poor kid. He hates us right now and is constantly asking to go to "Addie's house" or "Zanya's house." 

What I hate most about moving is that you're forced to confront all your stuff. There's no avoiding it. I'm surrounded by years and years of junk and I just want to throw it all away. I see all my mismatched, hand-me down furniture and I wish my house could look like a magazine spread instead of something from D.I. But then I put it all together and somehow I don't mind that my kitchen chairs don't match the dining table or that there are scratches on the coffee table. Call it complacency... I'm just glad to have somewhere to eat and rest my feet. 

This move has also been difficult because I didn't realize how much we relied on my mother-in-law's stuff. Its been such an incredible blessing to be able to live in her house and use her furniture/appliances/you-name-it while she's serving her mission. Now that we've moved out, I miss the things I took for granted, like having a night stand and lots of book shelf space. As someone who has always inherited other people's old furniture, I'm suddenly outraged at the cost of buying a new (or even used) dresser/bed frame/chairs/etc. Furniture is DANG expensive. I'm so annoyed! I've been scouting craigslist like a hawk lately for a good deal. I've definitely been spoiled by free furniture from family. 

Anyways, this house is slowly beginning to feel like home but there's a long way to go. I'll post some pictures once everything is in its right place. In the meantime, enjoy a video courtesy of Radiohead.