Timeout!

I think I need an internet timeout. In the past two days I've perused several internet shops and come up with a wishlist that I couldn't afford even if I won the lottery, e-mailed a complete stranger after reading her blog (and looking back I'm not sure I formed coherent sentences. There should be a rule about post partum rambling somewhere. No e-mails until brain is fully functional again.). Damn Franklin Covey's website for putting up the design your own planner website thing. I have a weakness for calanders/planners/office supplies. I now am drooling over a $75 planner. $75!!! So new resolutions will be 1. no internet stores. ever. and 2. confine my weird rambling thoughts to my own blog, so if others don't care to be baraged they don't need to be.

A update: He's doing well, eating like a little piggy. I'm guesstimating he's about 6 lbs now, as he's fitting in his brothers old preemie clothes. I had to buy real bottles yesterday, as he's now drinking (on average) about two of the NICU bottles per feeding. I'm letting him pretty much feed on demand, so he's up about twice during the night and about every 2-3 hours during the day. B2 is handling his new brother *so* well. I'm amazed at how caring and considerate he has been. I expected holy hell from him, especially because I remember what *I* did when my middle brother came home. Hubby is still in Orlando. I still don't like hubby right now. On the other hand he said he got me a present, so he may have (slightly) redeemed himself. Yes I'm being childish, no I don't particularly give a shit. Here's a weird little thing I noticed today. The numb area from my section almost goes up to my belly button. Didn't you always want to know that?

ARGH!

Hubby is away for a week. The snot is at a conference, in Orlando. Snot. We won't delve into the supreme unfairness of him being in sunny Florida for a week, while I'm in freezing Ohio with a rampaging three year old and a newborn. I'm just bitter cuz I couldn't go too :P Speaking of which, you would think I'd be sleeping right now with a newborn downstairs and the three year old sleeping (peacefully?... We let him watch some Halloween shows on Disney and now he's terrified of cows and pumpkins. I'd really like to know what he's thinking sometimes. I mean I get the pumpkins, but cows?) Unfortunately I don't sleep well without hubby in the house. I get paranoid at the noises, bumps and things in the night. Which is odd in and of itself considering hubby is a weinie (sp?). I love the guy but I'm the one who is the head bug killer and noise investigator in the family, but I still get jumpy when he's not here.

In other news, I figured out that I can go part time with the aid I've been awarded already. Good because I don't have to deal with the mind bending policies of the aid office, bad because I would be taking the two ugh classes (conflict management and evolution and society.....hey they fufill LER requirements :P ) and missing the two classes I really wanted (abnormal psych, and Intro to formal logic) I wanted the logic course because 1. it gets me out of my math requirement and 2. I really liked my last Philosophy class. On the other hand, if I can't take it this semester, I might be able to get it with the same teacher I had for my last Philosophy class. I'm going to see if I can get the additional aid (with a minimum of fuss) this week, and if not.... I'll just take the two Saturday classes and they can reward me with additional money after they see our glorious tax returns next year. (Can you say woo hoo? Gooooooooood.....)

Back in the saddle again

the school saddle that is. I'm supposed to register the day before my would have been due date. I went through yesterday and picked the classes I want. I picked out 4, my usual 'full time' schedule. A part of me is filled with a sense of dread and inadequacy.... Can I really do full time classes, and have as much family time as I want, with both a 5 month old and a three year old? Another part of me knows that if I don't jump in with both feet, I might never jump. So now the million dollar question is can I convince my financial aid office that without me working we aren't making the amount of money listed on our tax return? Sounds relatively simple, but you have never dealt with my financial aid department. I think the polite way to describe them would be that they are 'special.' So if I can't convince them of the obvious, the whole idea of school is out the window. Another part of me is wondering at the wisdom of modern medicine. A. had his doctors appt., and because of his prematurity he has qualified for the RSV shots. These shots are horrendously expensive (about 1K a shot, thank G_d for insurance) and given monthly throughout the season. The doc has also recommended isolation for A. throughout the winter. A part of me wonders if this is all necessary. A. had no breathing problems while in the NICU. In fact, the only problem he presented with (other than jaundice, which full term babies are susceptible to as well) was mastering the suck/swallow/breath combo necessary for eating. I was talking to my mom, and we both agree that part of the reason that children get so sick now-a-days is the fact that most mothers tend to shrink wrap their kids from birth. Kids get sick, it's a fact of life. Then parents wonder why they get soooo sick when they start school. I will follow the doc's advice, because I don't want A. to end up back in the hospital. I just hope that my 'isolating' my son from the general populace doesn't turn around and bite him (and me) in the rear in the future.

No baby yesterday...

**Edited to add**
He's coming home!!!! After 19 days in the NICU, my baby is coming home!!! I get to go get him in t minus 8.5 hours!!! (hurry home hubby!)


No baby for me :( Spent the day crying and depressed, and now we're back in the rollercoaster again. (Kind of like back in the saddle....) The docs normally round at about 9 am, so I usually call for an update around 10ish. It's so odd. My son's been in the NICU for 2 weeks 5 days, and I've seen his doc twice. Seeing as how I'm a stay at home mom to my three year old, and it's not easy to run after a three year old with a fresh c-section (well 2 weeks 5 days old anyway....), we only go into the NICU at night when there are two parents to keep B. from turning on all the O2 vents :) So yet again we're hoping that at about 7pm our time we will be (finally!) bringing our baby boy home!

And back to our normally scheduled programming....

I'm better now :) After a much needed post partum panic attack I'm almost feeling normal. It probably has to do with the news that A. might come home today!!! He was moved to an open air crib yesterday, had his 'car-seat challenge' (he had to sit in his car seat for an hour to make sure he didn't stop breathing, he passed with flying colors), had his hep. B vaccination and has kept his temp up! He had a pretty horrible feed last night at 8, but he's allowed one bad feed a day. So as long as he fed well last night, and the doc is willing, he should come home today!!! I should know in an hour or so.....

You should be happy

I am so tired of being told how I should be feeling. "You should be happy your son just has to grow in order to come home...." "You should be happy that he has the best care..." "You should be happy you have the children you do have..." Fuck you. I am happy my son is as healthy as he is, I still want him home. I am happy he has good nurses and docs, I am still his mother and want to care for him. I am thrilled with my sons, but am still entitled to mourn the fact that I will most likely never have children again. I don't need to be told how to feel from anyone.

News

For those who don't know, my son A. was born on 9-9-04. For those doing the math that's 7 weeks early. He's doing well, weight is almost 4 lbs now, and supposedly just has to get the hang of eating and then he can come home. Will update more as time allows....

Away

I will be taking a break from computers and the internet for a while. I'll be checking e-mails for a while (or at least until grades are posted) if you need me you can reach me there.

THEY FOUND HIM!!!!

They found David!!! I'm so excited for Stacey and her family, according to the news article, he's dehydrated but doing ok!!!!

Update on David Tippen

The family has hired private scent dogs and they were able to find a scent! They followed a conclusive trial until the dogs got too tired to keep going. Hopefully this little boy will be home today!! Please, please keep Stacey and her whole family in your prayers. We need this little boy to come home.

Prayers Needed

A dear woman from my stitching communty's son is missing. Please say a prayer for this little boy. Information can be found on her website here: http://www.perlemoon.blogspot.com/ I will update as soon as I find out something further.

Insomnia part duex....

Since I don't want to go to sleep on a bad note.....Here's some good stuff :) A. is flipping regularly, sometime it feels like I'm going to give birth to the next NFL star kicker here. B. *never* kicked this hard! Hit the third trimester on Friday, and immediately here comes the heartburn!! And what brings it raging in? Chocolate. Shoot me now :) It looks like I'm heading for my first 4.0 in my limited college career. Conclusion? Either stay pregnant for the next 4-5 years, or only take two classes a semester. As I abhore being pregnant (love the babies, hate the pregnancy), and I do want to graduate within the next millenia, I think I'll settle for my 3.5ish average.... Now off to bed with me.

Insomnia Musings

What's the worst thing that you have ever done? Alternatively, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? From Random Acts of Journaling - see Meme List.

What's the worst thing I've ever done? I think the worst thing would be not being completely honest with my friends. For example, when I was in Chicago, I would choose which person I would rather hang out with and ignore the other one. I know this doesn't sound completely horrible, but in a way it's like cheating on your spouse. Say you have a really good friend who has gone out of his/her way to help you, but wants to just hang out. On the other hand you have a flashy, fair weather friend who wants to do something exciting. So you dump the friend who has been with you through thick and thin, and go for flashy non-substenence. I could chalk it up to being young, but I'd rather chalk it up to being stupid and mean spirited. I hope I've grown from that point. (I also shoplifted when I was 10, and tried pot once, unlike Clinton I did inhale and wasn't impressed)

The worst thing that ever happened to me....I was molested as a child by my best friends father. Although that was terrible, I did the worst thing to myself, I didn't tell anyone. I finally told my mom when I was 16, and my dad doesn't know to this day. In some odd way I thought I was protecting my family, when looking back this creep could have gone on to hurt so many other little girls, all because I was frightened. Ok, this was supposed to be enlightening, yet has turned out to be terribly depressing. Off to mindlessly surf....

The end of an era...

sorta, kinda, not really.  I have one more week left of school, and then I'm off for a semester.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself until October!  I was just hit with the stunning realization that I'm going to *miss* school.  Me.  Miss school.  I'm the girl that hated, loathed and detested school until college.  Granted I think a lot of it had to do with the social situations in high school, and the rigidity of the curriculum.  Still.  I'm going to miss school?  This just hit me, I really enjoy school.  As much as I love staying at home with my son, at three he's not the most intellectually stimulating person I've ever met.  Discussions about Mickey Mouse or trying to convince him (as he is my son, and about as stubborn as his mother) that cleaning is a good idea don't really ring my bell.  Even the classes I dread, or don't really enjoy (math anyone?) are somehow a welcome break.  I think it's because it's the one thing in my life just now that is just about me.  As selfish as it sounds, at school I am Bonnie.  I'm not a mom, a wife, or any of the other roles I hold, I'm just me.  And it's a relief.  So as of next week I get my 'summer vacation' for approximately 7-10ish weeks, and then we welcome our new son :)  I'm very excited about that.  I never thought I wanted kids when I was younger, but I can't imagine my life without my one son now.  I miss the sweet baby stage!  As much as I love the fact that my 3 year old is more independent now, I miss the sweet baby smell and cuddles and closeness of a baby.  B.  was never a 'difficult' baby, so maybe that's why I miss it so much.  He didn't really cry, or fuss.  He just wanted to be held all the time, and since he was my first I had plenty of time to do it :)  I shouldn't really complain, as my 'baby' is still only three.  As much as I rejoice in his growing up and learning new things, a part of me is panicking and thinking it is going by way too fast!  The irrational part of me is screaming that it has *not* been three years since my boy was born!  Alas, my baby is now into planes, trains and automobiles and is running from about 7 A.M till 8 or 9 at night.  He'll be joining mommy in school in just 2 years!!  (He already wants to :)  Doesn't understand why mommy gets to and he doesn't.  I guess I'm waxing reminiscent because I'm pretty sure this will be our last baby.  I'd like to leave the option for one more in the future, but I'm not sure how feasible this might be.  I'm only in the first year for my BA, and then I'm planning on graduate work as well.  If I keep having babies, I might be 90 before I get a job :)  I also got my SSA statement in the mail the other day and it made me realize that right now I'm worth more dead than alive!  Granted that might be because I'm not working at all right now, but when you can die and double your families income that's pretty sad.   So as much as I enjoy school, and know that in the end it will improve the quality of life for my family, right now it feels like a selfish indulgence.  In good news, my stepdad submitted DH's resume at his work and they called him!  Said he would probably be calling back in a couple of weeks to set up an interview.  I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's really hard.  The CFO quit at DH's current job and pulled DH aside and told him that finding another job would be a *very* good idea.  Apparently DH's boss is facing imminent bankruptcy unless he manages to win a huge contract within the next six months.  While this may not have been an ethical move on the CFO's part, I appreciate the head's up, but am a little nervous here.  Hopefully this job will come through.  Oh well enough babbling for today.

Am I a Zombie? (Philosophy)

The immature (ok hormonal) part of me wants to stamp my feet repeatedly with my fingers in my ears muttering "I know you are but what am I?"  Alas, I doubt this is a sound philosophical argument.  First, in order to answer the question I would need to disconnected why that is my first impulse.  It's my belief that I get that immediate impulse first off because of the associations I have with the word zombie.  You say zombie, I think nasty flesh dripping, brain eating automaton with no soul, personality or capability of higher understanding.  Obviously this doesn't describe me as my flesh is intact (pretty distended at this point, but not falling off), I've held a brain, but never eaten one, definitely not an automaton, and no one can accuse me of not having a personality (maybe of not having a good one, but there is one there I promise.)  So I don't fit into the *Hollywood* stereotype of a zombie, but that's not the question at hand is it?  The other reason I want to immediately dismiss the idea is because I have an ingrained belief that I am somehow special.  There can be no other replica of me whatsoever.  In fact if you believe my mom, they broke the mold when they made me :D  (whether on accident or on purpose still remains to be seen :P)  Seriously though, whether it is the product of my upbringing, the Christian religion (all unique, made in God's image, special) or some internal vanity, I have a prejudice against the idea of anything being me yet not me.  Yet again, this isn't exactly the question.  When trying to take a clear unbiased look between Peirce's view and the Calvin and Hobbe's handout, as much as I would like to take the Calvin and Hobbe's handout view (sorry don't have the name off hand, will edit and add when I find the handout)  I think this guy is having the same problem's I am.  He has an internal prejudice and is looking at some way to get out of the Peircian line of reasoning.  From our discussion in class, I couldn't find a way to distinguish myself from the Zombie persona.  If the Zombie-me has the ability to love, hate, want, like, dislike or savor experiences in exactly the way I do, then I see no way to deny the existence of a Zombie self state.  All of my attempts to do so are influenced by ingrained prejudices against the word itself, or the belief (however erroneous)  that I am a unique, superior being by fact of my consciousness.  Yet when I go to define consciousness, the synonym that pops in my head is awareness.  Is that not the first tenent of the Peircian philosophy?  So for now, I must agree with Peirce (however grudgingly that may be) until my 'superior consciousness' can figure out a way around it. 

School and such...

Some quick 'and such' stuff.... I looked at the calander and figured I am considered 'full term' on October 8th (or 10th) depending on the day you believe.  It's kind of scary how fast this is going.  A part of me is so excited to have another child and another part of me is screaming that I'm a raving lunatic and there's no way I can handle another child.  I keep trying to tell the second part it's a little late to be worrying about that but I'm not listening to me.  On the school side, I've made a semi-important decision.  As I'm on the path for a degree in Psychology, I realized this little pipe dream is completely dependant upon me getting into grad school at my current university.  You see, I'm not the bread winner of the family.  That and the fact that I do have a family and by the time I'm getting into grad school one, if not both of my sons will be in school.  It's not feasible for me to whisk the whole family to wherever I happen to get accepted.  So what I've come up with is to use my 'extra' credit hours to pick up Philosophy and criminal justice classes, and when it comes time to apply to grad school I'll apply to both the Psych programs and the Law school at the other University near me.  (the law school is actually closer to my house than my current university and is very highly rated.)  I hope by diversifying my interests (while still getting my Psych BA) I'll at least get into one of the programs.  Everyone I've discussed this with thinks I'll be an excellent lawyer (I'm not sure if I should be insulted by this...)  At this point, the only thing I care about is that I get a job that pays me buttloads of money.  (yes I just used buttloads in a sentence)  That may be the greedy capitalist side of me coming out, but tough noogies.  I've looked at the amount of student loans I've amassed in just one year of school (I could get a decent car with that!!)  and see how my family is struggling because of me doing this, and figure I might as well go for the 'big' payoff at the end.  Law or Doctor..... either one works.  There's another plus side to law school, it's only 3-4 additional years, compared to earning a masters and then a doctorate for psychology.  That and I'll still get a nifty title to add to my name =)

Hume's Problem and Psychological Experimentation (Philosophy)

Can past experiences dictate future results?  No, they can't.  The implications of this are truly terrifying.  How so you ask?  Before we get to that, let's examine how our past can not dictate the future.  To make a really crude example, just because every time I've pressed the power button on my television and it has turned on, does not mean when I press the power button tomorrow it will turn on.  To get back to why the implications of this can be terrifying, apply this to science (or as many consider it, the pseudo-science of Psychology as this will hopefully be my specialty)  First let us examine the process of Psychological Experimentation.  To begin with you need a hypothesis to test.  Let's say that drug 'a' lowers depression scores.  Next we need to set up a null hypothesis.  In this case, drug 'a' has no affect on depression scores.  Now why would we do something so silly as to set up a hypothesis that says the exact opposite of what we want to prove?!  The reason given to me in my Psychological statistics course was this...  There is no way to conclusively prove something is true (short of testing *every* applicable subject which is impossible)  For example, if you met five men with two arms, or ten, or ten thousand, does this prove that all men have two arms?  No, it doesn't.  On the other hand, you only need one man with less (or I suppose more) than two arms to disprove your hypothesis.  So the theory is, you set up a null hypothesis because if you disprove it (especially over repeated tests) there is enough confidence in the research hypothesis to implement whatever treatment your hypothesis indicates.  To use our example, you decide to test the effect of drug 'a' on depression.  After setting up your hypotheses, you choose a sample of depressed people.  You then separate your sample into a control group and a treatment group.  After administering drug 'a' to your treatment group, you retest your sample and decide there was enough statistical significance in the change to warrant releasing this drug to the public.  Now how could this be terrifying?  Because you haven't proved that this drug is helpful!!  All you have proved is that drug 'a' made a "statistically" significant improvement on a limited subset of people.  And what after all is statistical significance?  An arbitrary number decided on by a mathematician.  Enter Hume's problem.  How do we know it was the drug that made the improvement?  We don't.  They could have been having a good day, or maybe the room was painted a cheery color and it brightened them up.  We just don't know what the actual cause of the improvement is, yet because of math we will assume it's the drug.  Does this frighten anyone else?  For that matter because we only tested a limited subset of the population how do we know once this drug is introduced it won't cause suicidal impulses in anyone?  Again we don't.  The implications of Hume's problem on modern science are terrifying because for all of our experimentation, for all our rules and technology, we can never conclusively say whether or not our experiments have proved a thing.  Hmmm....who would have thought an 18th century philosopher would have found such a large flaw in modern science?  For that matter who would have thought an 18th century philosopher could help a 21st century college student understand a statistics course. 

Comments on Comments (Philosophy)

If the world was an illusion would there be any applicable laws?  I know that in my dreams what appears to be the immutable laws of nature have no hold.  For example, it's possible to fly, live in space, jump through time or any number of things all while dreaming.  So if the world were illusion (ie like a dream)  would it bed possible to have rules that (apparently) can not be changed?  In my waking state I can't time travel, or fly.  Gravity can't be changed, two plus two never equals anything but four.  To take an opposite stance, if I am not the one controlling the illusion would I be able to change the rules within said illusion?  To use a crude example of this, when I lived with my mom I was in her "world."  I did not make, nor could I change the rules of said world.  While I could make suggestions, or try to assert how I thought things should be, the ultimate decision lay with my mother, the "ruler" of the world.   The same goes with my children.  They have input, but the ultimate decision is mine.  Therefore, if life is an illusion, there could be a subset of laws controlling said illusion that we are either unaware of or simply unable to change because we do not control the illusion.  Now if life were an illusion I think I can honestly say I prefer to remain within it.  I know this illusion, while an additional reality is a complete unknown.  Which leads us to....

The Matrix

If Cypher could have made his way back into the matrix, that did NOT involve betraying his friends, would there have been a problem with it?  To answer a question with a question, can illusion ever really be an illusion once it has been exposed?  Imagine a magician.  Their very trade relies on illusions.  If you recall, there was a series a couple of years ago (I think)  where a masked magician revealed the secrets behind many of magic's classic acts.  The community of magicians in general became outraged.  Why?  Because if you take away the mystery, the magic, the illusion, than it no longer holds the same fascination as before.  To use another example, Santa Claus.  Once the illusion of Santa has been dispelled, is it ever truly possible to fully immerse oneself back into the illusion?  Not really.  We can relive the illusion of Santa in some small way through our children, but can never completely recover the sense of wonder we had before the illusion was crumbled.  No matter how Cypher made it back into the Matrix, it would be impossible for him to find what he sought.  The world wouldn't hold the "reality", the food wouldn't taste as real.  He could return, yet he would never be able to truly recapture the sense of illusion he craved.

Ruminations on the concept of the primitive...

Are some things primitive?  This seems akin to the age old argument of nature vs. Nurture.  Are some things known innately, or is all or knowledge learned (and thus explainable?)  Before we can explore nature vs. Nurture we must first look at knowledge.   Is it always possible to explain something learned, or is it possible to know something without being able to explain it?  To this question my gut reaction is to say yes, it's possible to know something without being able to explain it.  For example, there are several words that I can't define, yet I can use them in context.  On deeper examination this very example disproves my assumption.  By being able to give an example of something, or use it in context is a way of explaining something.  While this might not be satisfactory evidence to Socrates, it is a way of demonstrating knowledge.  So back to the larger question, now with the assumption that it is possible to explain all knowledge to an extent.  it would be natural to then assume that nurture would be the ruling force of the universe.  If all knowledge can be explained then it is natural to assume that everything we learn comes from explanation.  There's a problem with this though....  If everything we learn is from explanation, how do we explain instinct?  For instance, as human beings we are born with the instinctual knowledge of how to nurse.  Interesting factoid...if you place a newborn baby on his mother's stomach directly after birth, he will 'scootch' up to her breast an latch on.  Granted I have only given birth once (and was actually unconscious at the time) but in all of my research I have never seen or heard anyone giving the newborn instructions on how to accomplish this.  So by this example, some knowledge is in fact primitive, and not explainable.  This leads me to believe that there are other examples of primitive knowledge out there.  As for nature vs. Nurture, I believe that like most things in life, it is a mixture of both.  So yeas, there are primitive ideas, concepts and instincts.   The question that then occurs to me is if there is a primitive idea of something, is it possible that such ideas are subjective?  Let's take justice.  Assume justice is primitive.  Everyone knows what justice is, yet they are unable to explain it.  Is my knowledge of justice different than yours?  In a more general sense, is knowledge colored by perception?  In mathematics (or my limited grasp thereof) no.  Two plus two will always equal four no matter how I view life.  Then again if you survey people from several countries asking them if the American society is just, my bet is you would get several different answers.  Now if knowledge is primitive, yet isn't subjective, then presumably one would be able to look at something and tell you conclusively whether or not it fits the description of "just."  From this you can conclude there are multiple types of knowledge (which as we just found out, Hume agrees with).  My conclusion from this?  Yes there are primitive concepts which can be colored by subjective viewpoints because there are multiple types of knowledge.
 

Friday Five!!

First for those keeping track, baby appt went good.  HB in the 150's, I have to go on Monday for my 1 hour glucouse test (ugh) and they didn't give me the drink beforehand so I get to drink the nasty stuff and sit for an hour so they can poke me (double ugh)  Oh well =)  Now on to the Friday five!
 
1. What color ink pen do you like best?  
Black gel ink, fine point pens
 
2. Do you prefer plain paper or paper with lines (notebook paper)?  
With lines!!  I don't know, oddly I'm anal about my office supplies.  I hate to have my writing slant across the paper, hence the lines :)
 
3. What's better: books from the library, or reading online?
Library (well technically book store for me.  I love to reread my books, so owning it is actually a good investment).  There's nothing like the smell and feel of a good book (yes I'm odd, I like the smell of books.)  A 'page-turner' doesn't have the same meaning in an online book. 
 
4. Which would you rather get, e-mail or snail mail? 
both?  I love the instant communication of e-mail, yet nothing matches the excitement of opening my mail and seeing something for me that isn't asking for money!  It's kind of sad, but it's beginning to seem like snail mail is becoming a lost art.  I haven't had a good letter since my best friend got out of the military!
 
5. Do you have a paper weight on your desk?
No, but I have plenty of other 'crap' laying around to pin paper down with :) 

Random ramblings and observations...

As I'm having yet another bout of preggers insomnia, here's some of what's going on.
 
We got to see A. again last Friday.  The U/S tech said everything looks good, so that's a huge relief.  Of course, me being me I'm going to worry until the kid pops.  Which I just peeked at my blog and I realize I already said this... Yay pregnancy brain :)  I have an OB appt tomorrow at 7am... I hate those early morning appts, but at least this way DH gets to go too!  I think we're down to only three or four weeks left of school, and then it's my 'summer' vacation :)  Well at least for a couple more months till A. arrives.  DH is still looking for a better job (yes still!!)  He keeps getting turned down for college kids they can pay pennies to.  I guess in this market it doesn't pay to have experience.  Oh well only 5ish more years till I'm in grad school :)  (hopefully on an assistanceship so I can bring money in too!!)   I really need to stop watching television.  I'm so hormonal I disgust myself.  I'm crying at commercials.  Commercials!!!!  I remember when I used to be sane.  I miss that :)  B. is such a boy :)  Such a stubborn honery boy!!  I wish I knew how to get through his thick little skull.  Right now his answer to everything is why not? and he does not listen to mommy or daddy with out threat of bodily harm!!!  Please, please tell me this is a phase.  If nothing else only 15 years until he can enter the military :)  I wonder if I can preregister for that??   I think I bombed a stats test today.  It was all my fault, I should have studied this weekend, but I left it until today.  I tried studying today, but B. decided it was use mommy as a jungle gym day, and it's not exactly easy memorizing formulas while you have a 3 year old monkey hanging from your neck.  (when I say monkey I mean my child is making monkey noises, insisting I call him monkey boy and literally swinging from my neck.  No more animal channel for that little man!)  Ok, as it is almost midnight and I do have that 7 am appt I better try and sleep!

**edited to add**  I think it's a bad sign that I'm already impatient for this pregnancy to be over and I still have 15 weeks left.  Good Lord, give me strength!

Descartes

On a quick little side note....I like Descartes a little less now that I know he was responsible for the Cartesian Plane.  Bad math bad.
 
I think therefore I am
 
This statement kind of makes sense.  On one hand, it would be reasonable to assume that because you are thinking there is some sort of consiousness that *is*.  On the other hand, if you are nothing more than an illusion, or a pawn of some evil demon, how do you know that the fact that you think is enough to justify your existence?  Frankly I think the idea of a 'Light of Nature' is phooey, but I'll get into that later. 
 
Solipsism
 
Oddly enough, I've thought about this off and on since I was about 7.  I just didn't have a name before.  Do you ever get the feeling that you are the only 'real' thing out there?  I've often gotten a really odd feeling that I'm wandering around in some kind of dream where all the other people/things are nothing more than my own made up illusions.  Yet if this were a dream you would think I could imagine myself a mansion and convertible to come with it....  Do I honestly believe I am the only *real* thing here, no.  But it is interesting to think about.
 
God is Perfect and Infinite, Existence is Perfection
 
This is where I have my huge gripe with Descartes.  (Note** The following does not reflect my personal beliefs, which are just that....personal.  The following is just a reaction to the reading and my perception of Descartes' arguement.)  First of all, how do you know God is perfect?  As far as I know, everything we know about God has been handed down by man.  The Bible was written by men, every other religous text I've read was written by men.  Granted one could argue that they were 'inspired' by God, yet even with that point.  This leads to the fact that men are in fact fallible.  Even Decartes admits this.  If men are fallible, is it not possible that they made mistakes while writing down these religous notations?  Now I'm sorry, but unless Descartes had a conversation directly with God, and had it tape recorded, his arguement holds no water.  For example the evil demon mentioned earlier could have fed him that 'Light of Nature' claptrap which would throw his whole meditations out the window...  For that matter, what if God is perfect, yet is not kind or good?  Perfection does not automatically assume goodness.  In this case God could be perfectly decieving you, because he thinks that is what's good (or just because it's his idea of fun...).  I think my statement that Philosophy is the athiests religeon still holds water.  I was with Descartes until he threw God into the mixture.  It seems to me like he painted himself into a mental jail and used God as his 'get out of jail free' card...

Good Deed!

Little PSA here... Our troops are in desperate need for e-mail storage space. Many of our men and women overseas use either hotmail or yahoo accounts to keep in touch with friends and family back home, and as we all know neither of those services offers much storage for pictures etc.... Well google has started an e-mail service called Gmail, which offers 1 gig of storage space! Currently it is by invitation only. So please, if you get an invitation sign up! After signing up you will be offered invitations to pass on, at which time you can visit http://www.gmail4troops.com/ This website allows you to donate your gmail invites to the troops stationed over seas. It's a great site, and a great thing to do for the troops risking their lives. Thanks!

A Day for Humour (or humor or whatever....)

First, I had the second U/S, and A looks great! They were able to get a good shot of his spine and it looks normal. See I'm not just fat, there is a baby in there :D In other news, the need for laughter (because I've given up spelling humour) is because my darling son is in his full contrary 3 year old glory :/ His room is now carpeted in kleenex. He stole my brand new box (of course brand new, it wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't a magnitude of destruction!!) and proceeded to pull every last one out and throw em all over his room. Now he won't pick them up because they are 'pretty' sigh.... And soon there will be two....Boys are fun :D

Now I've debated posting this, but it's bothering me, it's my blog and if you don't like it don't read it... I have never seen a bunch of grown people act like immature 12 year olds than I have today. Good lord. Oh no, someone said they didn't like someone! Let's lynch her!! I'm sure everyone out there likes everybody all the time. (hint that was sarcasm) I'm also sure that if anyone had the bad taste to disagree with or dislike someone they would *never* say so (yet again sarcasm) Grow the frig up people.

**Edited to Add** I think I'm going to track down the guy who invented ice cream trucks and that annoying repeated music and hurt him. Severely....

Woo Hoo!!! (Philosophy)

I love Descartes!!! Or maybe it's just after the sheer incomprehensible wordiness of Aristotle I'm relieved I actually understand something I've been reading =) Anyway I just read Descarts 1st meditation, and here are some thought that popped up:

1. pg. 461 second column 1st paragraph: "For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than four sides. It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be subject to the suspicion of being false." Yet, the best lies are based on the truth, and are also very simple. Is this assumption logically sound?

2. pg. 461 second column, 1st full paragraph (this entire paragraph is applicable, but for the sake of brevity I'll quote only a small part): "But perhaps God has not willed that I be deceived in this way, for he is said to be supremely good. Nonetheless, if it were repugnant to his goodness to have created me such that I be deceived all the time, it would also seem foreign to that same goodness to permit me to be deceived even occasionally." Yet how is there proof of the existence of a God? Futhermore, how can you prove that is there is a God he is benevolent? The records of God are provided by man (the bible, while supposedly handed down by God, was transcribed by man), and according to these very same records man is inherently flawed! (Descartes later shows that to make this assumption was false, so far anyway =) )

3. It is like the writers of the Matrix series stole Descartes' meditation!! I also find it kind of funny to look back at my first 'philosophical musings' in light of this reading. (See entries titled Random thoughts and Random Thoughts Part II dated 6/15) Apparently, I had an affinitly with Descartes and didn't know it =)

A-HA!!! (Philosophy)

Before I get started, for those of you interested I have added my Philosophy teachers blog to the links on the right (Subject to Change) If you check it out, look for the post on Comic Books, good stuff there.

Now on to my a-ha moment :) While in class tonight, I had a true a-ha! Philosophy is the religon (sp?) of the athiest. Stick with me here... The ancient Greeks invented the 'myths' as a way to explain the world around them. Their religon provided explainations for why the seasons changed (Persephone), why there was thunder (Zues), for wars, for love, for hate etc etc etc. As human beings, we feel a need to have an explaination for the world around us. For some, religon does not fill that void. It doesn't make sense to some people that things happen because the God's willed it, or a tree is there because God put the tree there. Thusly, in order to compartmentalize the world into understandable sections, Philosophy is born. Take the four causes of Aristotle...While very very general, they offer a convenient way to neatly package the world around us. A tree's material cause is wood (or earth if you prefer), it's formal cause is to reproduce itself (or again to take another view to synthesize carbon dioxide into oxygen for the purpose of providing things with air), its efficient cause is from a seed falling on the ground or someone planting a seed, and it's final cause could be shade or reproduction or providing lumber. Because of the four causes you are able to package the world of why. In my opinion, as humans we need to know why. It almost seems built in. For example my son, who just turned three has hit the why phase (oh please let it be a phase!) For everything I tell him, his reply is why. From what I understand every child does this. So it seems that it is built into us to have a need to understand the world around us, to have compartments that let us seperate information into to help make the world a more understandable place to be in. So in a way, Philosophy can be viewed as an evolution of religon. If I don't like the way religon (the most common form of explaining why) then I can turn to Philosophy to answer my why. This would also explain why my great books professor often used philosophy to explain literature. He said that in the classical world view, God was the reason for everything. When we turned to the modern view, and 'killed' the God figure, we had to find some other way to explain things. A-Ha!!

Why I *hate* the 4th of July

Ok, so I really don't hate the holiday in and of itself. As of now, it is 11:26PM. The city fireworks were over an hour ago. Yet the people in our neighborhood are *still* setting off fireworks. And not the little itty bitty ones either. Nooooooo that would be to easy. I have explosions going off that are so loud they are literally shaking the house. I don't live in a tiny house. I'd call the cops but they are so useless in this city. Last year we tried calling when people were still setting off the big ones at 1 am. We were told it was the 4th and there was nothing they could do. What a load of crap. Besides the fact that M-80's are extremely illegal, does this city not have noise ordinance laws? I miss living in a real city. Then again this is the same police force that said that we should just leave our car doors unlocked to the theives wouldn't have to break our windows, because it's probably just kids doing it. Lovely. I feel so safe. They'd probably tell me if I'm being raped to lay there, because it would be over quicker. The biggest reason it pisses me off is it's scaring the hell out of my son!! Now do I expect the city to ban all fireworks? No, of course not. I think the city shows are beautiful, and I enjoy them. They also end at a reasonable time. Bah. I swear, as soon as we can afford it we are so moving out of the city. Build our dream house on nice secluded acerage. With no fireworks!!! End my fussy mean spoil sport rant.

general news.

Well I'm now feeling the baby move more regularly, so I'm guessing the placenta is moving (it was smack dab in the front, and I wasn't feeling anything!) It's kind of funny to notice the differences in the boys so early. A seems very reticent. Very timid kicking, if you poke my belly he runs. B was very very...prominent. Every time someone dared to poke his 'home' he was very clear he didn't like it :) When I had to go in for non stress tests with him we would have to stay twice as long because he would kick the fetal monitors so hard they couldn't get a reading! Believe me, his personality has only gotten stonger since he's been born :) Lets hope A is my quiet little peaceful boy! DH is in the hospital again, luckily this time it seems minor. They tried diagnosing him with a stroke (again, you know I'd really like to know why they keep trying to say my 29 year old husband is having strokes...) but it turns out he has a ripped tendon in his leg. Yea stroke, ripped tendon, I can see the similarities. Granted I don't have a medical degree, but one would think that common sense does not dissapear when one is bestowed. Maybe I shouldn't get my doctorate after all. I kind of like having a semi functional brain. Good news, he should be home tonight. I think that's pretty much everything for now. Hope y'all have a great holiday.

What did I get out of the Meno (Philosophy)

Hmmmnn. What did I get out of the Meno? I realized I'm not a Philosophical genius :) All kidding aside, the point that jumps immediately to the forefront of my addled brain is that it is not knowledge that makes one wise. Wisdom is a product of your willingness to keep your mind open. For example, in the Meno Socrates leads Meno in various mind bending adventures on the subject of virtue. The selection is quite long (compared to most we have read) because while Meno doesn't immediately jump to the 'correct' conclusion (if there even is one) his mind is open to the different arguements that Socrates presents. On the other hand, when Anytus enters the picture, and refuses to acknowlede any view other than his own, Socrates shuts him down rather quickly. Another example of this can be drawn from the Euthypro. Euthypro has fixed in his head that he is doing the pious act. Nothing anyone (from Socrates to his family) says can shake him of this notion. I think his abrupt departure from the dialog also shows that he is uncomfortable and unwilling to explore a different thought pattern than that which is familiar and uncomfortable. As was brought up in the lecture on Euthypro, this makes this dialog a form of a tragedy. Nothing was learned, no knowledge was gained. In a way, the Euthypro dialog was nothing but a large circle, in which they ended up right where they started. In the Meno, while they didn't define virtue, they did make progress in the thought processes, and ruled out several things that virtue *was not*. As my stats professor pointed out in regards to hypothesis testing...You only need one difference to *disprove* something, hence our psychological tests are geared towards the disproving of the null hypothesis, instead of proving our research hypothesis. So in a way I guess the Meno has helped me realize that I am not dumb because I don't know the answers, but I have promise because I'm willing to think about the different arguements presented to me. Then again, if a wise man knows how much he does not know, I could be the next Einstien :)

Plato and Aristotle (Philosophy)

As I have been lax in my journaling duties (bad Bonnie bad!!) I'm going to cover several points in this entry.

Can Virtue Be Taught?

As a parent, I think so. I like to think that teaching virtue is a main component of my job. If you take the Socratic view of having to define virtue first, I might just be a failure at that job. I honestly have no earth shattering ideas about what virtue is. The off the cuff response would be virtue is the act of being a good person. Being kind, caring, honest. The obvious flaw in this definition is that these are all aspects of virtue, yet none of them define virtue as a whole. This leads into the next topic:

What is Piety?

Again, no earth shattering ideas here. I run into the same problem as with virtue. I can explain aspects of piety (or at least what *my* conceptualization of piety, which may be entirely different from the Greeks) I think the true tragedy of the Euthypro (the source of the piety discussion) is that it is my belief that Socrates couldn't use the discussion of piety to save himself. Even if he had come up with an answer, as we read in the Apology the combination of Socrates' own arrogance and the various levels of prosecution made it a foregone conclusion that he would be convicted. The main thing that I got out of Plato was that there are true forms of every concept surronding us. Love, hate, justice, piety etc all have a 'form' we percieve and a true form. The pursuit of knowledge, is the pursuit of the true form. It seemed that our discussions in class got caught up in the 'earthly' forms (our limited perception of the true forms) The question that I came up with is, is it possible to assertain the true nature of something by using pure logic? As a human being, is it possible to completely disregard our sensory input to gain the knowledge of the true form. I think as human beings, we are sensory creatures. Therefore to try and figure something out using pure logic, seems to be highly unlikely.

Is Philosophy Dangerous

In a word, yes. In Socrates' case, it was fatal. From my understanding, Philosophy is the art of learning to think in different ways. In and of itself this doesn't sound threatening. If you look at it from a purely practical standpoint, the study of Philosophy could get you so caught up in the what and whys behind everything that you cease to function as a productive member of society. In a class I took last semester (Great Books II) our teacher said the problem with introspection is that too much could lead to madness. Now in this case he was referring to self examination. For example, if you spend all your time focusing on yourself, and the different aspects of your personality, you can drive yourself mad. Humans as a whole are contradictory creatures. We love and we hate, we are nice and mean, we are tender and we hurt. Whether one admits it or not, we are all multiple personalities. The personality we show depends on who we are surrounded by. And if thinking about the contradictions inherent in being a human being can drive one mad, imagine contemplating the contradictions inherent in the universe!! Nature can be beautiful and ugly, peaceful and terrifying. Another reason that Philosophy strikes me as dangerous, is that it makes you question the status quo. Again I don't neccesarily think this is bad in and of itself. Yet as I pointed out in class, enough people think differently than the norm, the norm changes. This is very threatening to the people in 'power', and ultimately I believe this is why Socrates was put to death. The charge of corrupting the young was more the Athenian government's way of protecting the status quo of their society. (Kind of ironic when you realize that Aristotle's 'student' Alexander the Great was the one to destroy the Athenian democracy)

Aristotle

Honestly, I didn't understand one bit of the dialog until after class tonight. After the discussion, it made sense (mostly). The only thing that has 'popped' for me so far (hopefully the next readings wont be so hard to get through) is that it's interesting to see the beginnings of hypothesis testing. The fact that I'm currently taking a Quantitative Methods course, and just last night we went over how we set up our testing procedures, then tonight while discussing Aristotle's typical procedure for his treaties, the similarities are striking. To know that the beginnings of the scientific method were from Aristotle just amazes me!

Bored....

I am so bored. No particular reason, as I have plenty to do, I just don't wanna. (How's that for an example of maturity) I don't have anyting new to read for Philosophy, I'm avoiding my Quantitative Methods homework (even though the teacher is awesome, I don't think anyone can make math exciting) My husband thinks math's exciting, but he's a geek :) In fact he was bored this morning so he made me my very own message board (even though I told him I'd be using this blog for my class) Geek is really a broad term though. I consider myself a geek, it's just with books and reading and the internet in general. DH is a math and computer geek. My quantitative methods teacher is a self professed stats geek. I never really thought of it before but there are subdivisions of geek :) I wonder if there's an ultimate geek somewhere? The supreme geek to whom all must bow down to...

My baby turns three on Monday :( It seems like just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital. I miss my little baby boy! He's turning into a 'big boy' now. Doesn't want cuddles, always playing with his trucks. This boy sleeps with a metal truck. He still has little boy moments, they are just getting fewer and fewer. <> It was bound to happen :)

Short note...

I've changed my template, this one seems to be a little easier to read. My Philosophy teacher o.k'd the use of this blog for my project, so what I will do is start seperating my posts in the title, by putting philosophy in parenthesis. Hopefully this will make it easier for both my teacher (who I doubt wants to wade through my facinating pregnancy tales) and anyone else who happens to pop by :) Thanks for your patience in this experiment 'o mine!

Socrates.

While searching on line I found this site: http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm (sorry it's not clickable) I was actually trying to see if Socrates was the one who died by drinking hemlock, but this site looks like it has tons of useful information on Philosophy in general...

Meno by Plato

What is virtue? Honestly, I don't know. Much like Meno, I can come up with *examples* of a virtue, but I am unable to define it as a whole. It pisses me off :) On my way home from class tonight, I was thinking (dangerous, I know) that I think one of the points that Socrates is trying to make in this dialog is that the answer is not as important as the journey to the answer. It was pointed out that this dialog illustrates the Socratic method of teaching. What I was thinking is that Socrates (or more technically, Plato as he is the one who wrote this) places immense value on the *process* with which one comes up with an answer. This may in part be due to the fact that he believed that we don't learn things, we remember them. If that's true then none of my past selves ever took a math class. Overall, I did come to like the story. Specifically, Anytus was an interesting character. I think what made it truely interesting was his interaction with Socrates, knowing that Anytus would be the one to prosecute him.

U/S

baby looks good :) we have to go back in three weeks because the baby would only show us one side, and they want a good look at both sides of the spine, but she said that was just a precaution. Babe was very stubborn, crossed legs, even tried using a hand to cover the goods. With the help of a very patient U/S technician we were able to see that it's a BOY!!!!! I'm so thrilled!!

One last post!

Ok, last you'll hear from me today, I promise!! My big ultrasound is tomorrow, hopefully we will find out if the bean is a little boy or girl!! I had my first phone conversation with a TWBBer :) Awesome girl, we seem to have tons in common and we're both babblers!!

I had my first night of stats class tonight. It got off to a kind of rocky start. It said it was in Kent Hall, so I go there and the building is closed for construction!! So I go to the building next door, find nothing. In a last ditch effort, I have Will drive me around to the other side and find out they finally opened a new part. So after being late (I hope it didn't piss the teacher off), I got in on the lecture, and it was all pretty comprehensible. Luckily this teacher also seemed excited about his subject. I'll take an excited animated teacher any day! I think that's about it, I'll post an update on the ultrasound tomorrow if we find out anything.

Princess Bride

Courtesy of Prinn's blog (perle moon see side bar as I seem to be inept at inserting links into the text) I love this movie!!!!!!



Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

adding some more time wasters courtesy of Prinn :D

B	Brilliant
O	Old
N	Nerdy
N	Nice
I	Insane
E	Emotional

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com
**excuse me, but old?!?! Insane maybe, but definitely not old...

Random thoughts part two...

OK....It's kind of sad when you can tie yourself into mental knots... Anyway I was continuing to thing about perception vs. reality (can you tell this is bugging me). On a completely hypothetical tangent, how do we know we are real? I think therefore I am. Is that enough of a qualifier? How do I know I'm not a dream of a God figure sitting on some mountain top (think Zues) who is having a great 'ole belly laugh at this dream of his pondering reality.

I started reading Meno by Plato last night. I'm not too far into it, but from what I've gotten they are looking to define virtue. Is virtue simply one thing that can be a blanket term applied to everything? Is there one virtue that is more virtuous then any of the others? We were told to focus on the characters first. Honestly I don't think Meno isn't intelligent, probably because I can identify with with all of his points. I also get frustrated with circular arguements, which is what they seem to be having up until this point. Socrates...Maybe he was operating on a different plane of understanding than the rest of us mere mortals. I can understand how his arguements when broken down into shape and color, but when he jumps back to virtue, I'm right there with Meno. Hopefully this will clear up as I finish the story.

Random Thoughts.

I have figured out the problem with taking night classes. I go to class, come home, and my mind is buzzing so hard I can't shut it off!! So forgive me if this is rambling and disjointed folks, I'm a little tired here.

I had my first Philosophy class last night. Surprisingly, I think I'm going to like it! The teacher is *very* animated. I'm so glad, because it is always much more fun to sit through a 2 1/2 hour class with a teacher who is excited about his material. Now if I can manage to wrap my pregnant, hormone ridden brain around what he is saying I should enjoy it. I almost wish I had waited until I came back in the spring to take this class. As I have told both my husband and mother many times, pregnancy makes me dumb. This blog also might be changing it's face relatively soon. We are able to choose one of two options for grading in this class. The first is more traditional. You have a couple of papers, midterm, final. The second is by journaling. We can choose to do this by various means, one of which is blogging. The only drawback I can see to the second option is that it would constitute 75% of my grade. It makes me nervous to put 'all my eggs in one basket.' On the other hand, I would have plenty opportunity for feedback (blog being submitted weekly, many more chances for the teacher to tell me I'm screwing up!) Both my DH and my mom think I should choose the second option. I think it's because they both think I'm this tremendous writer waiting to burst out. I think they both are predispositioned to unwarrented flattery seeing as how one gave birth to me, and the other married me. I think I'm going to try it, just because I like my thoughts to be more free flowing, and I think this option will provide that. (let's hope the teacher doesn't have a problem with babbling :) ) If you don't want to read my thoughts on Philosophy, the class ends at the beginning of August. We'll be back to my regularly scheduled whining then! Then again this all might be hypothetical seeing as how I don't know if he will let me use an existing blog, or if he would like me to start a new one :) In any case I think I will muse for a little bit on something he wrote in his blog...

"There is a difference between appearence and reality." This statement is deceptively simple. Unfortunately for me I have the suspicion that a majority of Philosophy is deceptively simple. The teacher brought up an interesting point in class. If you stick something in water (he used the example of a spear) it looks bent. Obviously, it is not. When you stick your arm in water it does not bend. So there, appearance and reality are two totally different things. That could also be said about the internet. Many of us have blogged or discussed how much of the internet is real. For all you know, I could be a 400 lb trucker named Bubba who gets kicks out of pretending to be a 25 year old pregnant woman. I guess the point that gets me is how do I know what is reality and what is just appearance? Is reality subjective? For instance, the September 11th attacks. I was living in Michigan at the time, no where near them. I have only seen what happened on T.V. I didn't lose anyone I knew personally. I had family in the military that I feared for, but they are both fine. So are the attacks less 'real' for me, than someone that experienced them directly? Or for that matter, how do I know that they ever happened? Television is as bad as the internet in that it is so easy to just fall into believing everything you see without actually having proof (Don't get your shorts in a knot people, I do believe they happened, I do believe they were horrible. This is hypothetical.) Think about the movie Wag The Dog info here It would be completely possible to do this in the television age! Not saying it would be easy, but possible. So where is the line between appearance and reality, and who is to say that your reality is any more valid than mine. I don't think I have any of the answers yet. Of course I've only had one night of class :)

Hot...

I'm so hot....and not in a 'woo hoo look at that hot momma' way, more like 'ick look at that sweaty frumpy mess' way :) I never understood referring to pregnancy as having a bun in the oven until I was pregnant during the summer. After that I swore, the next baby I had, I would be pregnant in the winter. See how well that worked out? =) So my next 'absolute vow' is the next home we live in will have central air, it will also be kept at 65. If the others don't like it, they can wear sweaters!!! Not that I'm being overly dramatic or anything (no not me!!!)

Books

I meant to add yesterday (got sidetracked :) ) that my online book club started again!! Technically, not mine, but I belong to it. It got sidetracked for a while, lots of new babies being born. Guess that's a hazard of belonging to a bookclub centered on Mommies. We're reading Bouidica: Drawing Down The Eagle by Manda Scott. So far, I love it. Of course I love the history of that particular region, as well of stories of strong women. From what I've been able to find out, this is the first in a quartet of books. Only two have been released so far. Now if I can get DH to move the couch out so I can get to reading again, I'll find out if I want to read the others :) I have a bad habit of setting whatever I'm reading on the back of the couch, especially bad now as I'm not allowed to *move* the couch :P

In other book news, I'm sooooo excited. I found a book that I vaguely remembered reading when I was young (7 or 8) I loved the book then, and have no clue where it had gone to . I wasn't sure of the title or anything and I found it again!! It's called The Ordinary Princess. Very cute story, and I figure something that has managed to stick in my addled brain for this long, is something I should have around :)

Life or something like it....

DH is home! He's been home since last week, I just haven't been in a blogging mood. He was in a lot of pain for the first few days. Now he seems to be doing great! I haven't seen him take one of the mega pain pills he was perscribed and he's finally been able to eat something besides bread and broth! In baby news, 1 week 6 days till the big U/S. The appointment is at 7 in the morning, so I have to get up by five so I can drink a gallon of liquid of my choice and have it finished by an hour before the appointment. I think they do this as some kind of pregnant woman torture :) In super good news the AFP test came back 'completely negative' in the words of my nurse!! For those who aren't familiar with the test, it is the Alpha Fetal Protien test, used to find the odds of your baby having either downs syndrom or spina bifida (and possibly other things). With DS, the test came back with a high rate for Spina Bifida (where basically a section of the spine is not enclosed). It led to tons of stress, genetic counseling and an in depth U/S. And it was wrong :) DS is now a perfectly healthy (albeit honrey) almost three year old. My mom had her 50th birthday yesterday :) A part of me is kind of sad. The older she gets, the closer I am to loosing her. I know 50 isn't *old*, but she's not exactly healthy either... Smoking, drinking etc. I've tried to talk to her, but I'm in a somewhat akward position in that she is my mom. I've made it very clear I want my babies to know her, a chance I didn't get with my grandma. I for once am going to try and think positive!

DH

As some of you know DH is in the hospital. He has been diagnosed with Pancreatitus, I am so very thankful that we caught it early and he should have a quick full recovery. DH has had high cholesterol since he was about 9. Like the medical mystery that he is, nothing has put a dent in it! Apparently this is what caused the Pancreatitus and hopefully with the help of meds and time he should come home in a couple of days :)

Reading

With finally being on vacation (for a month at least :) ) I've been able to return to my first love, reading. I actually read two books this weekend! The first was Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Much like Mists of Avalon, I found it hard to be absorbed in the beginning, but after a while I couldn't put it down! I love Greek Mythology, so this fit right in. The second book was Quilters Legacy (don't remember the author off hand). I also loved this book. I found the flashbacks to what had actually gone on during the making of the Eleanor's quilts just facinating. It gives me an additional sense of purpose with my stitching. In addition to doing something I enjoy, I am leaving a piece of my life behind. Very neat. Now off to go through my book stash to find something new to read :)

May Prenatal Appointment

I had my May prenatal today with the new Dr. From first impressions, I love love love this Dr.!! She explained everything to me, confirmed my risk for VBAC (I have a 1% chance of my scar rupturing, I think I can deal with that), and she spent plenty of time with me to make sure I had no questions. That and they offer very early morning appointments so DH can come too. I got to hear the heartbeat (154) and my next appt is June 16th for my 'big' ultrasound. I really hope this baby is more cooperative than Boo was :)

I just realized that it's been a while since I've done an update on life in general (and I'm avoiding a paper **gasp** isn't that a shocker???) so here goes. School is well.....school. Like I've said before, ever since finding out about this pregnancy I just haven't been able to concentrate on it. Let's just say I won't be making the dean's list this semester :/. B. is doing great. He is the typical two year old terror. Ever since the finger cutting incident, he has turned into the biggest hypocondriac. :) Anyone who will sit still for two minutes has to hear about his 'owie' It's cute, but boy is he milking it for all it's worth! DH and I are doing well (thanks to those who were asking about it.) I think a majority of the arguements were do to him freaking out about the idea of a new baby. Luckily he has come around and is very excited (still hoping for daddy's little girl) We are hoping to do a mini vacation in the beginning of June. We are thinking of going to either Gettysburg or back to Chicago so I can show him were I grew up (and I can get some of that great food I've been craving!) In baby news, everything seems to be going fine. My next appointment is May 11, with the new OB's and I think I've felt the bub moving!! I say I think because it seems insanely early, but then again I've heard that you recognize it earlier with your second child. I've also 'popped' I feel huge (and it doesn't make it any better that I know I'm going to keep growing!) I told DH that I remembered being this big when I had B! oh well, par for the course as they say. The kitties are doing good, although mr. Vlad is working his way to an early death. There must be something in the air because the little poop takes every chance he gets to shoot out the door like a bolt of lightening. It doesn't help that we have a very independant (and inattentive!) two year old who doesn't pay attention to the kitties when he opens the door. I think that's about everything, so back to the paper I go!

Since the archives are down at Friday Five (and WG used the one I used last week so I can't copy hers :) ) I'll do the stitchers five for the week!
1. Which do you prefer, Kits or Charts?
Charts!

2. Why?
I hate, hate, hate sorting the thread. It is almost never in any dicernable order. I would much rather get to stitching than try and figure out the difference between forty different types of blue.

3. How do you organise your materials before you stitch
Not very well :) I have the floss boxes and bobbined floss, but I'm trying to get into the DMC stitchbow system, with one project at a time kitted up and stitching it.

4. Do you do anything to the sides of your fabric before starting?
I don't do anything, my LNS serges the edges for me, and I've fallen in love with Silkweaver (got my first piece this week!!!)

5. What do you do with the leftovers when your done?
put in back in my ever growing pile of stash (bad TWBB enablers, Bad!!!!!)

Well in an effort to get away from the constantly baby oriented blog, I have decided to look up something interesting I have seen on other blogs: The Friday Five....As there isn't a new one posted, I will start with an archive from April 12, 2002...

1. What is your favorite restaurant and why?
Leona's (a Chicago based pseudo Italian restaurant) They have the best triple cheese garlic bread, and a wicked garlic chicken. If you love garlic, and don't mind the ability to kill vampires by simply breathing on them, I highly recommend it!

2. What fast food restaurant are you partial to?
Arby's, it's not your typical rubberized burger. That and I'm a sucker for curly fries.

3. What are your standards and rules for tipping?
I usually start at $2, even for crappy service. I will go upwards of 20% or higher for good service. As a former waitress, I have a guilt complex for not leaving anything, even if service is horrible. I also had a waitress chase after me demanding why I didn't leave a tip (the one time the service sucked so bad I couldn't see tipping at all) and the confrontationally challenged person that I am is terrified of that happening again.

4. Do you usually order an appetizer and/or dessert?
appetizer - yes, dessert - very rarely

5. What do you usually order to drink at a restaurant?
soda (coke if they have it...)

Yay!!! I got a lot of financial aid money for the summer. That combined with the fact that I had to drop 2 of my 3 classes (daycare fell through) means we can get everything that I wanted for the baby!! We didn't need a whole lot because I hoarded everything from DS. We do need some big ticket items though, mainly the crib. DS shook his until it fell apart, hence him being in a toddler bed at 18 months. This also means if it's a girl, I can get all the little frilly pink clothes my heart desires. I'm thrilled! In other news, I'm dumping my Dr. The last appointment was both disappointing and frightening. First off, they were totally not supportive of my choice of a VBAC. Now I'm all for having a c-section if it is *medically* necessary. If it will save my baby I will do it in a heartbeat. I will not have major surgery (and don't kid yourself, that is exactly what it is.) for the sake of convenience, be it mine or the Dr.s. I have no delusions about a vaginal birth being painless, but I've been through a c-section and the recovery blows. Now that I have a two year old to care for, and that DH is a contractor (meaning no paid leave when baby arrives) I have no clue how I would swing watching a newborn and a toddler. The second thing was that the nurse tried to find the heartbeat, gave up after about ten seconds and was looking way too low. They found DS's HB much higher, at the same time. It's scary not to hear it, and to know I won't have another chance for a month all because the nurse was either too rushed or too incompetent to do it correctly. The final straw, and the one that frightened me the most, was that they gave me a hepatitis B vaccination, telling me it was perfectly safe. #1, I don't have hepatitis b, I was tested and it was negative. #2, I don't have *any* of the risk factors for getting it, and finally I did the research when I got home, and while there is no evidence yet that it is harmful to the fetus it is still in the testing stages!! How dare you tell me something is perfectly safe, when in fact it is in the middle of the testing stages and for all I know my kid could pop out with 3 arms and a mouth on it's rear!!! Granted some of this (maybe most) is pregnancy induced hysteria. Yet under the best of conditions I don't appreciate being lied to or patronized. So I've made an appointment with another group and am hoping they are both more supportive of my choices, and more interactive with their patients. It looks promising so far, they have the only nice medical receptionist I have ever met.

I'm sorry to anyone that still reads this, first trimester exhaustion has hit me full force. I hate this feeling of total lethargy. Ugh. Well I had my first pregnancy related emergency room visit. The baby is fine, I'm just paranoid. I had a 'threatened miscarriage' with my son last pregnancy (which basically meant I was bleeding and they couldn't figure out why) so if I think anything is wrong I go get seen. My Dr. was closed, so I went to the ER. Good news is we got another US, and it looks like a baby now! This pregnancy seems to be taking so much longer than DS's. Oh well. I'm back on a stitching kick. My (step)dad asked me to stitch a tribute to Jaime (see below) I am so honored. I ordered my first piece of hand dyed fabric for it, and while waiting for supplies I restarted TW's Fantasy Sampler (for the third time!!) The first time I had the fabric turned the wrong way, and didn't figure it out till I had a good chunk done, so in lieu of frogging I started again. The second time my lovely 2 year old grabbed it with spegetti hands. You can never get spegetti stains out. :P I told DH if something happens to this one, I'll take it as a sign from God that it wasn't meant to be :P Bad school news, I have completely lost my drive in school, good news I only have about 5 weeks left. I just want to nest and prepare for baby, not write silly papers that won't matter in the grand scheme of things beyond school. I have 1 summer class (was going to do three) I think with a break from this semester, I can handle one class. It's beginning spanish, and I took that in high school, so hopefully it will come back to me once I'm doing it every day. I have to take something rediculous like 12-14 hours of a foriegn language, so I figured I might as well take one I'm semi familiar with. Well I think that's all for now.

My husband did the most romantic thing this weekend. He kidnapped me! Ok, that sounds a little odd. For once we threw caution to the wind, said screw the expense, and we took a road trip. We drove to PA, and rented a hotel. DS was so excited to go swimming. He just kicked his legs like he was going to run across the water! I can tell he's going to be a fish, just like mommy! I don't think I have ever seen him so excited =) It was nice to get away from all the worries and crunches of home life, if only for a day. In other news, my stepdads dog had to be put to sleep =( He was so devastated. My stepdad has never had kids, so Jaime was like his daughter. It wasn't a surprise, she had been going downhill for a while. That doesn't ease the hurt any. So, if anyone out there is the praying sort, please say one for my stepdad and Jaime. Jaime, you will be missed.

I had my first ultrasound!! Beautiful baby (ok looks like a tadpole at this point, but I'm hormonal and I say it's beautiful) HB 163 beats per minute! I'm so relieved.

I

I had my first Dr. appt. yesterday. It went well, was very very long though. Good news, I get an ultrasound on Monday!! Bad news, I may have to have a repeat c-section. I really would rather VBAC, but I guess for safety reasons they won't let me unless they can get my records from my old Dr. (in another state...) phooie. All in all I'm doing great. Been really tired, no morning sickness tho. I have only found one food aversion (tuna). We have names all picked out!! Well dinner calls :) Hopefully I will be able to post more often!

Well I have my first Dr.'s appointment today. It's not really a Dr. appointment, it's a pregnancy confirmation appointment. Apparently my insurance isn't sure that I can manage peeing on a stick all by myself :P I've been awful crampy lately so paranoid me went out and bought another test and sure enough the pregnancy line came up nice and dark, but the control line was barely there...I told my mom I think that means I'm really pregnant, but barely human :D I'm really trying to enjoy this pregnancy b/c Dh and I have pretty much decided that if it's a girl it will be our last. I might convince him to try one more time if it's a boy, but that's a big maybe. It's kind of hard to enjoy at this point b/c I'm just getting all the yuk stuff now. Oh well :)

	Bedtime Bear You are usually asleep on the job but that's okay because your job is to make sure everyone gets enough sleep! You're shy and sweet...when you are actually awake! Getting sleepy already?
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

Ok I think a major reason I got this is b/c I'm pregnant and exhausted......:P Oh and I blabbed already :) Oh well

Holy Cow!!! I have such big ginourmous news....Kind of ironic considering my last post :D I'm preggers!!! I'm so scared and elated all wrapped into one. Now I'm only about 5 weeks (4 weeks 5 days) and for all the TWBBers out there I am going to post, I'm just going to try (note the word try here!) to wait till I'm a little further along. We are looking at a due date of November 1, although I went two weeks early with DS. Funny thing, If I go two weeks early for this one, I'll have the baby on my birthday :) Yay!!!! What I'm planning to do with school is take classes over the summer, and take the fall off. Hopefull I'll go back in the spring of next year! The baby will be about three months old then. I really want a baby girl :) I made a joke to DH that if it's a girl and I have to have another c-section I can tell the doc to just tie the tubes while he's in there =) I'm just soooooooo excited!!!!

Woo Hoo!!! I got a B- on my paper/presentation for Dr. Intimidation!!! And he's letting me rewrite if I want to improve on that. Color me relieved =D (I need WG's green grinny for this one!!!) I talked with him after class tonight and told him that part of my problem is that I've never had to deal with the in depth analysis of literature before. I'm used to reading something and taking it at pretty much face value. This interpreting everyline for some deep earth shattering meaning is confuzzling the heck out of me. DS got his stitches out on Tuesday. His finger looks pretty good, although there might be a scar. On the other hand he had double hernia surgery a year ago and you can barely see the scars from that. How I wish I had his skin! I was telling my mom today I wish I could find my biological clock and kill it. I have been wanting another baby so bad I can taste it. Now is *not* the time to have one! That and I'm pretty sure we would need medical intervention...DH and I have opposite blood types (pos & neg), and he was told that he couldn't father children. (Hence DS being a complete surprise!!!) Does any of this stop me from wanting another one? Nope. :P So I drive myself crazy monthly. I hate hormones. I was a little surprised by the quiz results (see below) yet it's mostly true. Except I don't have an accent...(at least I don't think midwesterners have one.) and I really don't have an affinity for straw hats....I haven't worn one since I was about a year old =) O.K. nuff babbling (I got a B!!!)

Found this on Lorna's blog....

You're Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

by Mark Twain

With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black
and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less
it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time
understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your
adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Thanks Angi and WG for your comments =) I was in the midst of a pity party :P.

We got a second car!! Ok, kind of =) My mom got a new car, and the dealership wasn't going to give her anything for her old car so she gave it to us. That makes me feel bunches better :) DH went on a cleaning rampage last night. I think I may have to hurt him. The problem is that he is a minimalist. He likes very uncluttered spaces, clean lines. I am the complete opposite. I like lots of things crowded around me. I like them to be neat, but I like them there. It feels cozy to me. Well in his cleaning "fit" he completely rearranged the living room, all trying to make the room look bigger! Now it doesn't help that we both want cigarettes badly, and have been snapping at eachother all weekend... I tried explaining that the only way to make the room look bigger would be to remove some furniture and he is *not* getting rid of my comfy furniture. Silly man. That and he keeps trying to move my stash!!! I have about six kitted projects in a basket he keeps trying to shove into our spare room. He seems to think I only need to have one project out at a time...(he also seems to think that I need to finish something before buying anything else, little does he know). Well DS wants me to play so off I go =)

Ok, so I've been disappointed thinking that no one reads my blog. In a way that's fine because it's a catharsis for me, in another way it feels kind of crappy because it seems like no one cares. I also know I tend to be paranoid about stuff like this because I've always been the invisible girl. Oh well. I did my presentation. It did not go as well as I hoped. This was mainly my fault because I pushed it off until it was due, which happened to be the day that DS hurt his finger. I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. I'm still disappointed because I really wanted to impress my teacher. He is a great guy and his opinion means a lot to me. I have to expand on the presentation for a paper due on Tuesday. I'm just going to buckle down and pray I do better =) It seems that all the people I'm closest to have been hiding things from me because they "don't want to upset me" It seems a little silly. I'm not made of glass. If I get upset, I'll get over it, that's the way life works. For instance, yesterday DH had a really rough day at work (kind of an ongoing situation, boss is a real jerk and takes it out on DH b/c he knows DH can't afford to quit.) He doesn't call me to talk about it because he's afraid I'll get upset. Money is really tight right now, and we are slowly starting to get in a semi-comfortable position from when he got laid off 3 years ago. Now he called my mom to talk about it, which is great! DH is a foster child, so I'm thrilled he's 'adopted' my mom and feels comfortable talking to her. I wish he would do the same for me. My mom also told me today that she had a job offer in Texas. She turned it down, but didn't want to tell me about it until she knew for sure what was happening, again so I wouldn't be upset. Now yea it would suck if she moved. We moved here so DS would be close to grandma, and they are the only people we know here. On the other hand, if that's what they needed to do, again that's life. It seems almost like they don't trust me. I am far from being made of glass =) I'm trying Flylady (again) for the 4 billionth time. My inherently skeptical nature just does not let me believe that shining my sink will lead to a friendly clutter free abode. I need a brain transplant =) Well it's late and I'm starting to mistype everything so to bed I go!

:(~~~~

I'm such a bad mommy :( My poor baby cut his finger, badly. We were in the kitchen and I turned my back and he grabbed a butcher knife. Not just any old knife but a big old butcher knife. So a trip to the ER and two stitches later we're back home. (you say two stitches is no big deal, he's two, his fingers aren't that big). I feel awful...

Argh!

Why is it that whenever I sit down to write something, I get writers wall? I have been trying to write a commentary on Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, I know what I want to say and I can't get it out. I'm also trying to quit smoking and the only thing that is going through my head is "I want a cigarette" DH is also trying to quit, and we had a huge fight this morning. So what do I do? I get cigarettes, and now I hate myself for it. It's one of those head banging against a wall problems.

It's been a while.

Well it has been a while since I've written :) Things of note...DH and I had our 3rd anniversary. It's funny but it doesn't feel like just 3 years. In some ways it feels like he has always been around. It's kind of the same with my son, it just feels like he's always been a part of my life...We aren't really doing anything for the anniversary, we don't really have the money so we are just having a family night :) The upside is that this Saturday is one of the universities scheduled "off weekend" so I don't have to go to school tomorrow :) In semi ucky news I have done our taxes. We made way more than I thought we did so I'm just hoping it doesn't affect my financial aid. Hey if nothing else I can hawk us up to our eyebrows in loans :D There are 4 good sized hospitals right around were I live not to mention all the other towns/clinics near us so chances are I'll get a good job quickly after I graduate. I'm loving my Great Books class. The professor formerly known as Dr. Intimidation is amazing. Don't get me wrong...I'm still petrified about doing my presentation, but the professor is awesome. He makes me think, and see things in a different light. I come out of his class feeling alive! I also come out of his class and babble for about 2 hours at my husband, but he doesn't mind and loves that I'm excited so hey :) It bothers me about the other students though. They are sitting in class and complaining about *everything*! This course isn't what they expected, they don't understand it, they don't like the readings blah blah blah. I guess maybe because I went back later in life, and am paying for it myself I'm a little more laid back about it. I know college isn't the end of the world, and one class is not going to ruin my life....I dunno, they just seem awful whiny ;)

Back to the bump and grind...

Well after a couple of eventful days weatherwise, we are back to normal. I actually had class tonight, and had my first quiz. I know I missed at least one question (hopefully that's it!) I have started reading the Mitford series by Jan Karon. I've been seeing 'blips' on this series for over a year now, so I figured I would try it out. It seems like sometimes the universe keeps pointing things out to me repeatedly until I pay attention (this book is one of them!) I first noticed it being reviewed on Good Morning America, then it was recommended on a readers group I belong to, then I saw it mentioned in a couple of blogs and so on and so forth. So I give into the universe and maybe it will quiet down for a while :) DS was acting oddly today...He barely ate, and slept from about 4:30 on. He doesn't have a fever, so I'm hoping it was maybe just a blah day. (Do two year olds have blah days?) I'm really really ready for spring. I'm just getting all discombobulated (I love that word :) ) I have no motivation for anything. I don't want to clean, read, do homework. If I could get away with it I would meld with my recliner till March. For instance, am I trying to decipher tonights Stats lecture? Nope I'm sitting here typing for you good people. In stitching news, I am almost finished with my first project of 2004. You can see what it should look like here: Twinkle It's really cute, and reminds me of one of my online friends :) Well I think I've put off homework long enough!

Colors..

Saw this on Prinn's blog, I got blue =)

BLUE You give your love and friendship unconditionaly. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

Secrets...

I've got one!! and I'm about to burst I want to tell someone so badly, but that would ruin it!!ARGHHH!

The Time Has Come....

The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes- and ships- and sealing wax-
Of cabbages- and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot-
And whether pigs have wings."

I love this poem, and Lewis Carrol :) It fits my mood tonight. I'm in a very "Alice In Wonderland" mood. I have seen several stitchers entries on the state of the union, and all I've got to say is bah. I liked Prinn's notion best (see Perle Moon) in that she has her opinion and it's not worth arguing over...I agree. I have my opinion and no one is going to change that. Nope not going to publish it here, cuz I don't even want to discuss it. =)

In other news =) a stitcher from the TWBB really made my night tonight. It seems kind of silly that something as simple as an e-mail can perk up my day. She said she really respected all that I'm juggling right now (which almost made me laugh considering how much she has on her plate!!) It came at just the right time, because I was starting to get down about how chaotic my life is. Deep down I know school is worth it, I really love going. It makes me feel alive to be fed all of this information. I have this niggling little voice that sits in the back of my head giving me doubts, making me second guess myself. Luckily, I have a *very* supportive husband, and all of the people on the TWBB are incredibly supportive!

I had my stats class tonight, I think I'm going to hurt my teacher :P The last class she had, she went very fast (which I love!) This class, she went sooooo slow I had to fight to stay awake. Now this is the meek little mouse teacher, so she is either finally getting comfortable with this class, or someone complained about the lightning fast pace. A part of me disagrees with it if someone complained. This is college, if you can't meet the standards you shouldn't be there. It sounds kind of harsh to put it that way, but I always thought that once you reached college the days of classes being taught to the lowest commondenominatorr were over. You could either do it, or you couldn't. I don't mean to sound cruel here. The last thing I want is to imply I'm superior to anyone. I probably just have a skewed view of higher education =) Completely possible as my views are always slightly off, it's part of my charm darn it!

I'd like to ponder the joys of my two year old for a moment =) He polyurethaned my monitor today. How did he get polyurethane you ask? Well my husband does wood burning, and uses an oil based polyurethane to protect the results. He had a work area set up in our dining room (which we never use as a dining room, long story) The dining room is onlyaccessiblee when I'm in the kitchen, we keep it blocked off at all other times. Well my too smart for his own good son, snuck in the dining room while I was fixing dinner, stole the polyurethane (in a spray can) and snuck upstairs to the den. I went searching when the house got quiet (always a sign of trouble with a toddler) and wah lah....schellacked monitors. Moral of the story folks....Rubbingalcoholl does remove oil based polyurethanes from monitors.... Thank you Wendy =) We got the boys hair cut this weekend and he looks so much older!! It amazes me how much he has grown. A part of me is so proud of the big boy he is becoming, and another part of me wants to keep him my baby forever. Oh well the joys of being amommye. Well I better run, as DH wants my computer (yay *I* have the good puter now =) )