Thank you, McDonald's Wi-Fi

I know, I know.  It's been a while since I last posted (and I left you hanging with a super lame post about an insect). Before you get on my case, let me say that I have a couple good reasons as to why I've been MIA.

The first and most uninteresting reason is that a couple weeks ago, my husband finally got mad enough at Mediacom to break up with them.  I was fine with his decision (I was tired of the inconsistent service... and his bitching about the inconsistent service), as well as the decision to start a relationship with Dish Network.  But we only signed up for them to provide us with TV....which we really only watch on game-days.  So I, Amanda, AVID BLOGGER, have been without internet at the house for a little over two weeks now.  Gay.

Secondly, I've been in various hospitals a lot over the past two weeks.  

That cyst that I told you about finally decided to become a serious problem during my "relaxing vacation" in Ft. Campbell.  (Daniel was working there temporarily, and my parents only live an hour away, so I got the great idea to visit him and take advantage of their grandparenting services.)  The plan was to spend a lot of time sleeping, eating, and perhaps even blogging.  The actual result?  I spent the majority of 72 hours throwing up, in horrible pain, and in emergency rooms.  Might I add that I spent very little time sleeping due to the pain, retching, and being in emergency rooms.

By the time I made it back to Huntsville, it was clear that the stupid cyst (which had grown from 10 centimeters to 14) needed to get the hell out of my body.  So last Tuesday, my ob-gyn performed a *joyous* surgery to remove the thing -- and my left ovary and Fallopian tube came out with it.  Lucky for me, the c-section I had with Dylan prepared me for the excruciating pain that follows having your stomach ripped open.... and at least this time, I didn't have to deal with all of the hospital "hooplah" that goes along with having a baby.  Regardless, it pretty much sucked.

Now that I have had TWO different abdominal surgeries in the month of September (the month that I am most allergic to), I know that I do not want another fall baby.  Ever.  Sneezing is the most God-awful thing everrrrrrr.  March should be much nicer to my sinuses.

Baby Dos, 15 weeks

In other news, I am enjoying a caramel frappe and french fries at McDonald's while I type this.  I had a doctor's appointment earlier today, and the the plan was to grab some Taco Bell afterwards and head to Books-a-Million on Whitesburg Drive to use their internet.  Well, I got my Taco Bell, but apparently the BAM has shut down?  Sooooo, I came here, where I was "forced" to buy even more things to consume.  

I would blame my obese tendencies on the adversity I felt radiating from employees for taking advantage of their wireless internet.  But since there was none, I guess I have to blame my fatness on the fact that I'm pregnant.

(Speaking of pregnant, here's a picture from today's ultrasound for good measure.  Baby Dos says hello!) 

Praying Mantis

I found this little guy clinging to my back porch ceiling earlier this afternoon.

I'm a fan of all walks of life (except for sharks, but they swim and kill people), so naturally, I dropped everything I was doing and took a picture.  Does it help my case if I mention that Dylan was not one of the things I dropped?

Okay so I'm probably more amazed by my finding than I "should" be.  Praying mantises are relatively easy to come by.  I just think it's cool when creatures defy gravity, which he was awfully good at.  However, he lost some 'cool points' when he stopped posing for pictures, launched himself at my face, and frantically flew away.

FREE TO BE

My Love

It is safe to say that Miss Laurin Rudolph is one of my favorite people in the world.  Not only is she (extremely) beautiful, (painfully) humble, and a fabulous friend... but she is an amazing photographer to boot.

She has been taking "serious" pictures for the better part of the last five years, and perhaps the better part of her life.  She specializes in the photography of nature, catching little moments that you and I would otherwise probably never get to see.

Check out some of her work, shown below, that I took the liberty to compile (based on pictures located in albums on her Facebook account)... starting with a few from 2007.






2008







2009

2010

Facebook started to get all weird on me as I was trying to download some of her more recent pictures.  So instead of sharing 32847 more with you, I'm stopping with a couple that she took during her summer-long stay in Alaska last year.

If you just can't get enough of the awesomeness, you're in luck!  She finally created her own Esty account this week. Please click on this link if you're interested in seeing some of her favorite pictures -- and please don't hesitate to buy one or twelve while you're at it!  Words cannot express how truly in love I am with this woman, nor how proud I am of her and her successes in life thus far.

Go ahead and believe in it.

Speaking of love, I am also happy to announce that Laurin is recently engaged to a wonderful man, Mister Stu.  I look forward to six months from tomorrow when MISS LAURIN RUDOLPH will become MRS. LAURIN SHELLEY!!!  Unfortunately, I won't get to see her wedding go down in person, due to my extremely inconvenient due date of March 18th.  Dang babies.

I was actually looking forward to being one of Laurin's bridesmaids... and even more-so, to Dylan being their ring bearer.  I am broken-hearted that I won't be there, but ohhhh soooo proud!!!!  I wish Laurin and Stu a lifetime of happiness.  

They deserve nothing less.

Redundancy

I HAVE THE MOST HANDSOME BOYFRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

SOCIALISM

Before I get into a few of the (non-mathematical) reasons that I believe socialism will never work... do me a favor and check out this link:  WHY SOCIALISM FAILS

I'm pretty sure the story is fictional-- albeit hypothetically accurate.  The text to the right of the story was written by a man named Chris, and I think it's worth reading.  The first two paragraphs alone make some good points:

"America used to be about equal opportunity, not the equal redistribution of wealth. The second you have a government which concerns itself with wealth redistribution is the second your government turns into a tool of corporate conquest and privilege [...] 

Freedom on the other hand means a completely voluntarist society in which all services are provided by the free market based off actual demand. To put it another way, imagine if no one payed any taxes and there was no warfare/welfare state wasting trillions ... The society would be easily 5-10 times wealthier overall. The poor would be making 100k a year and we'd hear socialists griping even then about the evils of capitalism because the rich are making 100 billion."

I haven't been alive for very long, so I definitely can't pinpoint the time during which the economy became just another "system" for our dear representatives to manipulate.  Knowing that a bunch of lawyers politicians are in Congress right now deciding what new laws and taxes will "get our country on the right track" makes me more nauseous than my pregnancy hormones.  As a society, we have been conditioned to think that Congressional intervention is the answer for everything... when in actuality, it's barely the answer for anything.  It's extremely problematic that many of us think that these lawyers, who have been writing bad laws for over a century, will come anywhere close to taxing an economy appropriately.  How many business classes has the average Congressman taken, I wonder?

Not only are our lawmakers in over their heads, but true Socialism is impossible to force upon a society of people in the first place.  It is definitely impossible to force upon an economy of people.   And as population increases, the more definite it is that Socialism will fail.  

In order for Socialism to be successful, it has to spontaneously manifest itself after a huge awakening among all of mankind.  It will "just happen" after we are already living in Utopia.  Only then will we love our neighbors just as much as we love and trust ourselves, our friends, and our families.  

Even the most generous people I know don't love their "neighbors" (i.e. the person next door; a stranger in Wyoming) as much as they love themselves or their families.  I mean, I consider myself a pretty generous person.... but, when the world ends...  the truth is that Daniel, Dylan, and I will be sharing our last roll of toilet paper with ourselves, and not with you.  That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

SIX REASONS I KNOW HUMANS AREN'T READY TO BE "SOCIALISTS"

1. I feel elated when someone lets me merge ahead of them on the highway. 

2. At Six Flags, I gotta get all crazy just to keep teenage line-cutters from taking advantage of me.

3. Two words: The Titanic.

4. There is almost always pee on the seat in a woman's public restroom.  WHO SQUATS IN A BATHROOM BECAUSE THEY DON'T TRUST OTHER PEOPLE'S ASSES, AND THEN LEAVES THEIR OWN PEE ON THE G.D. SEAT?  A lot of women, apparently.  And plenty of times, there is also excrement in left behind in the bowl... even when the toilet works just fine.

5. If we were on a plane that crashed in the freezing cold Andes mountains, and I eventually died, you would eat my corpse to survive.

6.  All homes and cars come have locks in the doors as a standard feature.  I think it has something to do with humans not trusting each other.

I thought these were interesting.  They sound kind of creepy, but they're not so bad.
I wonder how "society" would enforce these commandments?  Do cowards go socialist Hell?

Sidewalk Chalk

When it comes to having children, be forewarned that it is inevitable that you will need lots of sidewalk chalk.  I may be generalizing, but Dylan loves the stuff.  I spend the majority of our waking hours scribbling outside with him, and I spend the rest of my time guarding the back door to make sure none of it makes its way inside.  I doubt any good would come from our walls and furniture resembling our exterior walls and furniture...

The Terrible Almost-Twos

Today, I decided to be proactive and finally order some invitations for an impending 2nd birthday party for you-know-who.  I can sit here and simply tell you that my attempt to get a "happy" picture for Dylan's cards failed miserably....

OR,

I can let some pictures speak for themselves!!!

According to Dylan, I am to blame for all of the crying because:
1) I was taking pictures instead of pulling him around on his tricycle.
2) I expected a 23-month-old (who hates his picture being taken) to cooperate during a photo shoot in the first place.

Silly mom, pics are for kids!
And babies.  And weddings.  And nature.  NOT TODDLERS.

I will never again expect my easy-going, happy son to look easy-going or happy in pictures.  (To be fair to the dude-- I did manage to capture few moments where he looks awfully handsome.  Even with the 'tude.)

Garfunkel & Oates

I can't help it.  I like 'em.

Thing 2

At my first ob-gyn appointment for this pregnancy, I had an ultrasound to find the baby & to peep around my internal reproductive parts.  They successfully found the baby, as you can see below.  They also found a relatively large cyst close to my left ovary.  Such a finding is apparently normal enough for me to not be a total freak; yet troublesome enough for my doctor to want to check in on it.

The particularly dark cloud?  The cyst could rupture and hurt really bad.  The particularly silver lining?  I GET TO HAVE ULTRASOUNDS UNTIL THE THING GOES AWAY!!!

I have had two ultrasounds so far, at seven and eleven weeks preggers.  (For pregnancy virgins, this actually means five and nine weeks post-conception.  Pregnancy math is weird.)

It's hard to see what's going on in these pictures, so I'm just gonna tell you a little bit about babies.

At seven weeks, a baby has a tiny mouth hole; a tongue; nostrils; ear indentations; and open, irisless eyes.  The baby's arm and leg buds are forming, and the umbilical cord is visible. Both hemispheres of the baby's brain are forming, and its liver is churning out red blood cells.  The baby is 10,000 times the size it was at conception, or about the size of a Tic Tac.

At eleven weeks, all of the baby's vital organs are formed and functioning.  Baby's ears assume their proper place on the head.  The fingernails and toenails are forming, and the testes or ovaries have completely formed.  The baby is now about 2 inches crown-to-rump, and weighs about 1/3 of an ounce.   The baby's head is nearly as big as the rest of his body.

I got rather lucky for the second ultrasound.  I had two girls doing it, one of which was training on the machine... and she threw it into 3D mode for good measure!!  The picture scanned really bright, but I still think it's cool.

THAT'S A WHOLE HUMAN AND IT HAS ONLY BEEN ALIVE FOR 9 WEEKS!!!

Believe in birth!  :)

BELLY: Week 13

Well, I ditched my lame first trimester this week -- and started a blog! -- which means that there is no better time to start tracking the growth of my uterus. (By 'uterus' I mean belly, of course.  I just like being as accurate and creepy as possible.)

So here are a couple of pics of my fetus & me hanging out earlier this morning.
I thought I was being all clever with the sign.... until I took the picture.  Okay so maybe I'm lacking just a small amount of common sense.  The bar is lowered for blondes, right?

I don't think I was this big until 20 weeks with Dylan...
12 weeks, 2 days

Rather than draw a whole new sign and take a whole new mirror-picture (both of which were SO COMPLICATED to do), I'm once again taking the lazy route and "enjoying" my amateur mistake.

The pictures should get better with practice (which is definitely happening), a fancy camera (hopefully happening), and that surge of "second trimester energy" (a girl can dream!).   I'm just happy to be 'showing' already. And I'm suuuuuper excited the kicks, the punches, and the elevated bowling skills that I'll be experiencing soon!  [I'm serious about the bowling skills, btw.  I broke 200 for the only time when I was 7 months pregnant.]

LIBERTARIANISM

I'm breaking the ice by delving into one of the more taboo topics I have to chose from -- POLITICS!!!

Perhaps I can get through this segment without hurling, yelling, or crying.  But it is more than likely that I'll do at least one of the three.  You know, because I'm pregnant?!  Not because I'm outrageously passionate about politics.  Crying over politics... that would be silly........

Let me start by mentioning that I voted for the old guy in the 2008 election.  Yep, sure did.  I voted for him not I was much of a Republican, nor I because I hate black people... no, no, no.  I voted for John because of his military experience [I have a (well-deserved!) soft spot for soldiers].  I also voted for him because I strongly believe in both conservative fiscal policy and rights for all unborn babies.
OKAY, OKAY- and I because I thought Sarah Palin was hot.

No matter my voting record, I am much more of a "textbook" Libertarian (fiscal conservative, social liberal) than a Republican or a Democrat.  ULTIMATELY, I think that our current two-party democratic system is bologna.  And instead of letting it fester and rot, I'd like to try to fix it, so long as 'fixing' it doesn't involve raising taxes.

(I'll save the details of my opinions about "taxes" for my impending posts on Economics, which I suppose is my true forte.)

Rather than going on on my own pro-Libertarianism rant, I'm gonna take the lazy way out and....

COMPILE A LIST OF SOME OF MY FAVORITE POLITICAL QUOTES TO DATE:

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too."

SOMERSET MAUGHAM

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."

TATICUS

"Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and destroys itself.  There never was a democracy that didn't commit suicide."

JOHN ADAMS

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue?  It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."
EDMUND BURKE

"The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."

RONALD REAGAN

"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."
KAHLIL GIBRAN

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

GOETHE




And now I'm gonna sit back and let that marinate.

Thing 1

Dylan, 21 months old

He thinks he's a stud; I don't discourage him.

SHE MADE ME DO IT

The birth of this blog has nothing to do with me, and it has everything to do the birth of my dear friend, Jessica Jones, 25 years ago!

Last week, she insisted that I am pregnant (and/or entertaining) enough to blog about my pregnancy... and, perhaps... other entertaining things?  I beg to differ; I'm no Heather Armstrong.  BUT, like I said -- even though this blog has a lot to do with me -- the birth of this blog has nothing to do with me.

SOOOO, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESSICA!
Here is my cheap-ass, self-absorbed gift to you for surviving a quarter of a century!!
:) :) :)

If you happen to be the kind of person who doesn't care to hear a pregnant woman share her random thoughts and experiences involving the reproduction of humans, economics, psychology, politics, religion, extraterrestrials, and/or the consumption of all that is food.....  I suggest you stop reading now.

'Caaause IT'S ABOUT TO GET CRAZY UP IN HERE.