Meh.

After the hormonal craziness of last week, I'm all about rockin' the balance this week. Trying my darndest to maintain a healthy, positive attitude while politely tolerating work, and wife-ing/ mothering with graceful aplomb. Aren't we all?

And while I am still looking into graduate school, its becoming abundantly clear that without a rich relative (don't have one) kicking the bucket and leaving me everything or hooking on the weekends (me, not the rich relative), there is no financial way of making it work. I'm trying not to be too bummed about this and I haven't given up but...Boo. I hate money.

So yeah. That's where I'm at right this moment. So -so. Not fantabulous but not in shitsville either.

How are you?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A couple of evenings ago, walking around our neighborhood:

Me: Hey Otto! Look at that dog over there! What a cute dog!

Otto: Cute Dog!

Me: We should get another dog. Would you like a dog to live at our house?

Otto: Yeah!

Me: If we got a dog, what should its name be?

Otto: (after a long pause) Snack!

So stay tuned, folks. If and when we get a new dog, there is a distinct possibility that it may be named Snack. Because DUH. Snacks are awesome.

HOLY CRAP

**Warning: If you shy away from talk of lady parts, monthly cycles or anything related, DO NOT READ FURTHER. Go check out Huff post or dick around on Twitter instead. You've been warned.**


So...my kid is 19 months old and I JUST NOW got my first period since he was born. And, wonderful Auntie Flo that I (did not) miss so much is totally KICKING MY ASS. And really? I'm a little hurt. We used to be, if not bosom buddies, at least something akin to friendly work associates- in the same boat together so might as well make the most of it. Now? She's apparently out to make my life a living hell, perhaps in retaliation for being held off so long by breastfeeding.

I've been wondering wtf is wrong with me for about a week now- last Sunday night I literally felt myself spiral down into a hog wallow of depression so fast I had emotional whiplash. By Monday, I was seriously considering putting a cease and desist on all personal hygiene and spending the rest of my days eating microwave popcorn and watching TLC. By Tuesday, I was convinced that my husband was really an assassin who's sole mission in life was to irritate me to death. On Wednesday I was entertaining thoughts of self-mutilation. (I'm only half-kidding).

And then yesterday? There she was. A rose that by any other name would be called a complete fucking pain in my ass. But at least it explained the depression, the moodiness, the bloating and oily skin and murderous rage coupled with apathetic despair I'd been feeling for 4 days.

I know that I'm lucky, by comparison. Lots of mama's get their monthly visitor much sooner after giving birth- even with exclusive breastfeeding. I think I was just so used to not seeing that little red stain that I was blindsided when it appeared, 2.5 years after the last time we saw each other. But it explains a lot and I wonder if my PMS symptoms have been a little magnified because she's been gone so long? Because I've really been feeling like I was hit by an emotional Mack truck the last few days and I don't remember feeling quite like that ever before. Hopefully my hormones will even out as my cycles establish some regularity again. One can only hope.

Man, I've been out of the loop. Welcome back, Auntie Flo. Bitch.

Fartsy

I aspire to have style. I really do. The problem is just that I wasn't born with any sort of stylish/artsy gene. Aside from a very brief "dresses-only" phase as a youngster, I am strictly a jeans, t-shirt, and chucks kind of girl. Unless I'm at work and then I add a necklace, a cardigan and maybe clogs instead of the chucks. Yeah. My hair is usually down or at its most exotic, in a ponytail.

I do, however, have a deep hunger for style, and what I like to think of as at least an appreciation for aesthetics. I am also completely jealous and in awe of those I consider to have an eye for the artsy. Because of this, there are several online places I check obsessively to feed my style addiction. And I'm always looking for more.

Some of my current artsy-style-crushes:

First up, Super Kawaii Mama-This girl has it. Style, poise, and great advice for the clueless. Her hair tutorials are really fun to watch- if only for her neat Australian accent since my hair is so different from hers, I could never pull off the styles she does. And her daily outfit updates are just so. darn. cute.

Next, there's Summer at Design is Mine-her daily design finds are always worth looking at and every time I go there, I find myself daydreaming about decorating my house in fresh, monochromatic simplicity as opposed to the hodge-podge thrift-market chic that we're rocking right now.

I just recently started checking A Beautiful Mess but I love it! The stuff here has a feminine, rock n' roll sensibility that I love. Heart.

As far as shopping goes, Rare Bird Finds totally rules. They find the cutest, weirdest, stylin'-est things out there.

And, of course, there's my Etsy addiction. Its a real problem.


So what about you? Where do you go for style on the web?

Checkin' em off.

Achievements since 6:30 am this morning:

1. Slept through alarm and missed workout. Also did not work out yesterday. Am lazy slob.

2. Noticed volcanic zit on face, one strategically placed on the center line between my nose and upper lip and fantastically painful. BONUS.

3. Remembered to dress 'nicely' for yearly worky event thingy that I have been working on for MONTHS and is finally here.

5. Somehow got screaming, willful toddler dressed, diapered and fed, no thanks to him.

6. Dropped above mentioned toddler off at daycare where he miraculously had a change of heart and was all sweetness and light and "bye-bye mama! wuv voo!".

7. Rolled eyes and may have snorted on way out of daycare.

8. Pulled off yearly worky eventy thingy that I have been working on for MONTHS. Managed to smile and thank and shake hands and not focus too much on wondering if people were staring at the now ENORMOUS zit on my face.

9. Made it back to the relative safety of my office where I will now count the minutes until happy hour.

What have you accomplished today?

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

I know I've been quiet this week. There's no reason particularly, other than that I am a mom who works full time, is trying to complete an LLL leadership application and am suddenly considering graduate school? I know. I am officially, completely insane. And really, those aren't excuses anyway.

So here, for your Friday blog reading pleasure are some truly random thoughts and updates from the land of the Officially Certifiable:

1. Tweetdeck is awesome.

2. The weather here is now completely fucking with us and honestly? I can take a joke as well as the next gal but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Stop it with the fucking snow already.

3. I'm preparing a fluffy, superfluous post about style envy. Heh.

4. In the land of Otto, things are moving fast and furious. He knows SO MANY WORDS and now is able to construct small simple sentences, such as "Mama go night-night?" and "Don't like it!" and "Daddy sleeping?" He's also officially entered the stage of testing limits. He runs from us, refuses to get dressed/put on shoes/brush teeth etc. and disagrees with us as much as he possibly can. However, he is still pretty easily distract-able and there's not much he won't do for an apple slice or some outside playtime. So that's good.

He's also VERY into hugs, kisses, and tickling. As in, he tickles us with his fat little fingers while screeching "TEEEEEEEKLE! TEEEEEEEKLE!" at the top of his lungs. Its pretty adorable as long as its not four o'clock in the morning. Ahem.


Tonight I get to look forward to going out to eat for a friends birthday and then a nice quiet weekend at home, during which I will hopefully make progress on my garden and LLL pursuits. If you celebrate the holiday I hope its a good one- and if you're a heathen like myself then I hope its a good one too. Not playing favorites here. Nope.

I'll leave you with a gratuitous kid pic. Because I love you.

Soapbox- On Breastfeeding and why I'm NOT a militant Lactivist. But then kind of am.

If it's possible for a La Leche League meeting to get raucous, last night's was. All kinds of keeeeerazy lactating women and offspring laughing hysterically after one woman told a story about how their male OB/GYN was totally fine delivering a baby out of her hoo-hah, but got all embarrassed and uncomfortable when he walked in on the new momma and baby pair learning to breastfeed. "I mean," she said, "he'd just spent hours being face to face with my vagin@!" Cackling laughter ensued and we're really lucky that it didn't go downhill from that. Much.

So I may have mentioned that I have decided to work towards accreditation as a LLL leader. I should also mention that I am NOT a militant-lactivist-crazy -WHATEVER preconceived notion people may or may not have about LLL members (granted, sometimes these impressions are sadly deserved.) Rather, I simply come from a place where breastfeeding my kid is one of the coolest things I have ever done. And I'm really proud of my accomplishment of nursing him and working full time. And I want to help other Mommas do the same if they are so inclined. And I find this shit interesting.

Granted, I do believe that if more women (especially in my part of the country) really took the time to do the research and talk to people like myself, they might incline towards breastfeeding more. There seems to be a general assumption (among the women I know) that breastfeeding is 1)difficult 2) inconvenient and 3) even distasteful, somehow.

Now everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I just want to share my own experience in that breastfeeding was a challenge in the beginning. I won't deny that. There was a definite learning curve for both me and the kiddo. We were both new at this! But as the days turned into weeks and we got to know each other, something happened. It got easy. Real easy. Ridiculously easy. And convenient.

Picture this: your -let's say- 4 month old is hungry. Wailing and flailing and threatening-to-spontaneously-combust hungry. You can either :

a) put said kid down, walk to kitchen, get bottle out of cupboard, mix formula and water in bottle, shake, pick kid back up and stick bottle in his mouth

or

b) lift up your shirt.

Yeah.

And this 'lift up your shirt' thing works (practically) ANYWHERE. ANYTIME. The milk is always there. The perfect temperature. It costs NO MONEY. Get my drift?

I will grant you, however, that working full-time and breastfeeding is a whole different animal. Pumping kind of sucks. But, for me personally, it was a commitment I was willing to make because I really wanted my baby to have breast milk. And, honestly? After a while I kind of looked forward to my pumping sessions. I'd download a podcast and have 15 minutes to myself twice a day. I can think of worse things. And once it all became routine, it was just that...our routine. We got used to it. And the last time I pumped at work it was actually a little bittersweet. Those moments had turned into not only a break for me, but a way of feeling connected to my baby - I was doing something for him that NO ONE ELSE could do. And even though we didn't get to be together during the day, I was still taking care of him by making sure he had the best possible food to eat.


The distasteful argument is harder to combat, of course. Our culture is a little effed up when it comes to the sexualization of women and the function that those fun bags were actually designed for. The only way to rebut this argument, other than working to make breastfeeding a more publicly acceptable activity, I think is to cite the benefits of nursing to both baby and momma, pass the woman a hooter-hider and hope for the best.


I, of course realize that there are instances where breastfeeding is not possible for whatever reason. And I respect that. I am not at all about making mommas feel guilty. There is already WAY TOO MUCH in parenting that will make you feel guilty. Formula is not the devil. I'm just interested in being there for people that want to breastfeed as much as I did but need a little extra support. LLL has been an awesome source of support for me and I want to give some of that back to others.

But then, I read an article like this: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-03-baby-formula-chemical_N.htm and wonder if those militant lactivists have a place out there too.