Spring Break!

Alright! The hubby is on spring break (me to incidentally), but my classes are fun book club like classes and writing workshops. His classes are a little more intense. I was hoping we could go somewhere beach like for the vacation, as was Bella, but the hubby really just wants some time at home relaxing and doing nothing. I figure a few days of that and he may be bored enough to head to Florida with me :). I've got plans this week anyhow. Tommorow is baby story time at the Library, and Wednesday is mommy-baby yoga. I'd rather go out of town at the beginning of the week but the end, but what can you do. The hubby needs a break. My idea of a break is sipping Pina Coladas on a beach somewhere, while the baby plays with sand in her cute cute swim suite and ordering room service for two to three days, his is sitting at home and sleeping in. Poor guy, Pharmacy School must suck really bad for you to be exhausted enough to skip the beach.

So I've been home hanging out on the couch with the hubby. I watched a few movies over the weekend because we had free blockbuster rentals. I watched Bride Wars, which was actually pretty terrible, Speak, which was good, but sad, and Where the Wild Things Are, which should have been called where the sad things are. Seriously, the movie was a sad sad depressing movie. The English Major in me loved it, full of symbolism and artistic stuff, and pretty music and visuals, but the people were sad. I know Max was dealing with anger in the book, but such depression?

I also read another amazon freebie called Primitive, which was about crazy hippies who kidnap a model and make her live in their green cult place and use the publicity to tell the people of the earth about the danger of methane.

It was exciting, but gruesomely descriptive, and personally I'm tired of hearing about the environment. I do my part to be green, but seriously, stop shoving it down my throat you know? Use all the money that's been poured into preaching about how we're the worst things that have happened to the earth and go save a rainforest somewhere. Just dial it down a notch is all.

So hopefully later this week I will be on a beach somewhere enjoying the ocean. Wish me luck.

Out of Town

Sorry for the non-updates, this has been a crazy week. Replies to all comments and new blog postings will continue next Wednesday, after we all get back in town. Thanks guys!

Pulled

Bella is home recovering from her first road trip. We had a great time. We left Sunday morning, and when we passed through Atlanta visited my friends baby shower.
They had a nice baby shower, I'm talking champaign, (which of course I couldn't drink :( ) different types of cheese, little mini bagels with salmon and cream cheese on them, and exquisite decorations.
And there my husband and I were in our travel-comfie clothes, with a baby who was not enjoying being out in her car seat while the car wasn't moving.
Still, we had fun. These people were our neighbors at our last apartment (my favorite place I've ever lived) and we actually made friends with their fifteen year old son first, and then his dad, then his mother. They're great people, lot's of fun to talk to, and I've missed them so much. I'm glad we went, and I think their son was happy to have someone to talk to. :)
So we visited, and gave our gift, and then out the door we went to drive another two hours to go to Columbus. We were supposed to drop by my mil's house and say hello before proceeding to my Aunts house, where we would be staying the week, but instead stayed at my Mil's for the night. We were just to tired to do anymore driving. Even though it was only 8:00 at night, the twenty minute drive to my aunts was just too much, and if we were tired, Bella was exausted.
She handled it like a champ though. She cuddled with her grandmother, and her (step? how do you say this? we've got to figure it out before she can talk, he's a great guy, but my husband doesn't call him dad or anything, he was too old before they got married, so what should my daughter call him?) grandfather, and her uncles coo'd over her. (Still too nervous to hold her, lol)
We watched "Up" (saddest movie ever, btw) and went to sleep.
When we woke the next morning, we ran some errands, ate lunch with some friends, and visited my Mil during her lunch break, so she could show off the baby to her friends and co-workers.
My aunt wanted us to stay for dinner (makes perfect sense to me, right?) my husband wanted to go to my mil's after she got off work at 6:00, and hang out until we went home to go to sleep. "She wants to see her grand daughter." Was his reasoning.
Yeah... we see her once a month, I haven't spent time with my family in a year. Hmm..
To be fair, my mil seems to get the road goes both ways thing and visits us frequently, but this week wasn't supposed to be about visiting her, it was supposed to be about visiting my side of the family. We're seeing her in about two weeks when we go to her home town to visit with her parents, and siblings.
We decided to eat at my Aunts, and head into Columbus after dinner. My brother came for dinner, and we had a great time. When it came time to go to Columbus though, my husband decided it would be better to visit tommorow, because it was getting late (it was about 7:30, but we would want to be in by 10:00 so we weren't bothering my family by coming in late).
Problem is my grandmother was coming in the next day, and we wanted to spend time with her, and the next day my mom came in, and then his family left for thanksgiving on Thursday.
Anyhow, between seeing my relatives, getting everything ready for thanksgiving, and the fact that my mil got off at 6:00 each night, which left a small window to visit, we didn't see her again while we were in town.
Note: She is not upset, I mean she was dissapointed to not see Bella, but she understood. My husband felt terrible though, and that irritates me.
Why did he commit to seeing them beyond that one night we stayed at their place? I asked him not to, because I knew this could happen, but when his mother asked if we would drop by again while we were in town, and I said we would try but it was a pretty busy week, he cut in and said we would make it down here sometime before Thursday, not for long of course, but we would be back.
That put pressure on, and each day we tried to find time, and felt terrible when we couldn't. Had we just said from the get go, "we'll stay with you a night, and eat lunch with you, but after that we're visiting with her relatives who drove or flew to be here that she hasn't seen in a year, and have never met the baby," everything would have been fine. We could have just ended with that lunch and been done with it.
I hate this, I can't wait until our families don't live in the same town anymore. My mothers moved, my brother is moving to Atlanta, and my Aunt and Uncle are moving back to New York. Then when we visit, there isn't any pressure to make rounds, no hurt feelings, just visit, and go.
I won't even have to choose about Holidays. His family is Jehovah's (sp?) witness (my dh wasn't raised as a witness, I'm not sure when my mil converted, it was before he met me, but it sounded recent then) so they don't do holidays. As long as we visit during breaks at some point we should be fine.
But no more of this trying to appease everyone in one trip thing, either someones going to get their feelings hurt, or I'm going to spend the whole trip stressed, or both!

Vacation and New Moon

I'm so excited to go on vacation next week! My husband and I are heading home for the holidays starting tommorow, and coming home next Sunday. I won't be able to blog there, but I'll have tons to write about when I get home.

What should I bring for the baby? I know I need to pack pretty much all of her clothes, because she has leaky diapers (We tries huggies little snugglers... super cute, they match her winnie the pooh nursery, but they leak pretty much every time you use them, even doubled up. The walmart brand parents choice leaks semi-frequently, the only brand I've never had a leak with is Pampers, but I still need to try Luvs)

and I need to bring her blankets, a towel and washcloth, her swadler, her sling, and maybe her bouncer. Should I bring her wipe warmer? She kind of hates cold wipes. She doesn't play with toys yet, not really, so I think I'm safe there, she's never needed gas medicine, or baby Tylenol, but she may while we're out of town, so I should bring those just to be safe, and of course her car seat, but is there something essential I'm forgetting? How about it mom's? What do you have to take when you leave town with a six week old?

Anyone sick of hearing about Twilight feel free to tune out now, you won't be missing anything else

One thing I'm going to do when I go down there is hang out with some friends for a girls night, and see New Moon. I'm embarrassed, I've spent the last year bashing that series, and now I sort of want to see it in theaters. Unlike most English majors, I don't have an issue with Stephenie Meyers writing, I'm not much of a literary snob. I mean as far as creative writing goes, she's sort of the desired outcome right? I wouldn't mind selling one of my stories, and making millions, I just know it's not likely to happen.

I read her books, the plots were interesting, nothing special, but I did read all four books, which means it was interesting enough to stick with, and more importantly generate three more sales. I also think her characters were very realistic.

The problem is that they realistically reminded me of people I just don't like very much.

To clarify, my daughter is named Isabella, it's a family name, she is NOT named for Bella Swan. Bella reminds me of this girl I knew in High School, she wasn't anything special, just shy and quiet, and so it seemed like she attracted every eligible guy in a hundred foot radius, not because she was pretty (just average, which isn't bad, I'm just average myself on a good day) but because they could insert whatever personality they wanted into her and she wouldn't speak up to object.

When asked these three different guys liked her for three different sets of personality traits, about sixty percent of which she didn't have. Everyone assumed she was smart, but she wasn't in particular, and she and I talked on more than one occasion about how frustrated she was that everyone kept putting all of these labels and expectations on her just because she didn't speak up to prove them wrong or ask otherwise. My friend was a doormat, and she was well aware of it.

Of course as it happened any guy I ever liked fell for her, and so I was very jealous, and then she started dating this guy I was best friends with and really liked but knew I would never date, our relationship was completely platonic, we never dated, and I still talk to him all the time, but because we never dated I still kind of wonder what if? I know "what if" we didn't date because he's sort of like my brother, or at least a very well liked cousin. It would be gross. Anyhow, she cheated on him with this other guy I liked, and broke my best friends heart, and really insulted me. It was all very immature, and dramatic, and I'm so glad I've outgrown that stage of life.

So that's pretty much who I see Bella Swan as, unfair maybe, but has anyone ever known anyone like that? The quiet pretty girl that everyone thinks is so smart?

One thing I found interesting is I liked Bella more in Midnight Sun, when told from Edward's perspective. Maybe if he could read her mind he wouldn't like her either?

What bothers me the most about the series is that Bella thinks of herself as a smart and independent woman, when really she's about as passive and doormat like as they come. She's book smart, she listens to classical music, but she is completely dependent on her boyfriend, or at least on having a boy around to lean on. The correct response to a boy sneaking into your room without you knowing to watch you sleep, following you, being incredibly over protective of you, threatening to kill you and following you is to let your dad the chief of police know about him. Edward is obsessively controlling, and is constantly making her feel inferior, and she lets him, and that makes me angry. It's a terrible message to send you young adult women everywhere, they have an extremely unhealthy relationship, and Bella lies and manipulates her way into it, and doesn't care who she hurts so long as she gets her way. There is nothing positive about Bella Swan.

Don't get me wrong, I like the books, and like I said, they portray a certain kind of person very realistically, and that person does tend to think of themself as strong and independent, and never sees the danger in being used as a doormat by their borderline abusive controlling boy friends (to clarify, Edward does not at all remind me of my very good guy friend,) but will kids reading it see the difference?

Maybe I shouldn't worry about it, if these books are still popular when Bella hits a good age to read them I'll talk to her about positive and negative relationships, but it's not like Beauty and the Beast was in a much better one.

In fiction we like controlling men who are constantly having to rescue us, my favorite couple as a kid was Sailor Moon and Darien, in literature it was Julian and Jenny from the Forbidden Games series, it took me about a week into my dating life to realize that the men who attract me on screen or in books would make me so incredibly angry in real life that I wouldn't be able to stand in the same room with them, it took me maybe another week to realize that arguments weren't romantic, despite chick flicks that imply otherwise, so I'd never be compatible with those types of guys. Even on the rare occasion I've fought with my husband I can honestly promise you we have never stopped yelling and begun passionately kissing each other, hell no, we're lucky if we can stand to be in the same room with each other until we've cooled way way off.

Ah well, chick flicks are still fun to watch