When we're in the car and Felicity's crying and Seporah can't quite reach her, Seporah will reach over and pat Felicity's carseat and say "Iz awl rite" (It's all right).

When Seporah sees something she wants and I decide to give it to her, her response to tell me that she wants more than one is "2,3,5!"

I don't know if it'll stay that way, so I should write down that Felicity has fine bright red hair (I'm really hoping she'll stay a carrot top, don't know where it came from, Steven jokes it's a good thing the mailman is Hawaiian).

Whenever Seporah comes and sits with Felicity in her baby gym, Felicity stops crying and stays happy (if I could, I'd make Seporah stay there alllllll day).

Seporah has tried to share many things with Felicity including oranges, bread, gapes. candy and cow's milk. She usually tries to smush it into her mouth and Felicity scrunches up her face as if to say "Hey Big Sis, whatcha tryin to pull?"

Seporah hugs and kisses Felicity all the time now. I know you guys have heard the sound, but the kisses are adorable and sound like "mmmmwhaaa!"

We can't pass by a balloon without Seporah going absolutely crazy "BABOON! BABOON!" (even if she has one in her hand)

We can't take out the vacuum without Seporah going a different type of crazy "NO! NO! BYE! BYE! NO! NO! ALL DONE! ALL DONE!"

Whenever Felicity and Seporah are actually sleeping, it's sometimes hard to go to sleep because they're so cute (I have to think, ok time to sleep, both girls sleeping and if I don't sleep, I won't find them cute in a couple of hours).

Seporah's word for popcorn is "pop-pop."

When we yell really loud at Seporah because she's doing something she really, really shouldn't be doing, she makes the biggest frown ever, starts crying and hides behind the curtains in our bedroom (it's really sad and really cute and we don't yell that loud at her very often just when she really needs to stop RIGHT NOW, is that enough "reallys" in one really long run on sentence).

must not say anything good about felicity's crying or sleeping on blog, even as a footnote. it will come back to bite me. written at 4:42 am.

So there's this lady at our church who's in her 20's and she gave a talk on Mother's Day. I was really impressed with this talk, maybe because she validated what I was feeling, running around chasing a toddler while having the pregnant morning sickness. I didn't know her name, but I really thought she'd be cool to hang out with. However she didn't have any kids and I've got Seporah, who's not easy to hang around with for women who have kids. Women who don't have kids, well Seporah's an excellent form of birth control, but anyways. I never even figured out her name since she works as a leader in the teenage women's group and I'm in the women's group.

Flash forward to now. I tell every pregnant lady I know about my doula and that she was great and terrific and the best and to hire her (www.laborofloveoahu.com). This lady has become pregnant, I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks and well I'm really tired as you can tell from previous postings. Last Sunday I decided I was going to talk to her so I go to young women's and ask for the skinny pregnant lady who spoke on Mother's Day. They give me her name and tell me she's been on bedrest. Oh, I'll have to give her a call. Putting it off, putting it off.

Today I actually pick up the phone to call her, maybe chat, I know bedrest bites, a lot. "Hi, you really don't know me, I'm Märia Rushing, I'm in your ward at church, I had a baby a few weeks ago, I loved my doula, wanted to tell all the pregnant ladies I know about her, yadayada (lots of rambling)" Her very tired, hesitant response, "Um...I just had my baby yesterday." "Oh sorry, I guess you don't need a doula." Um yeah, I was embarrassed.

Well I realize it's not the first, but I thought I'd tell everyone my resolutions now anyways. Steven says he won't be telling his, I don't even know what they are.

1. 20 pounds in 6 months-I've never had a weight New Year's Resolution before, but since it's the number 1 done (and I just had daughter number 2) I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon. I think most people say 6 months because that's when swimsuit season is. That's not the case with me; this is Hawaii, I actually went swimming on Christmas Eve. Actually seeing myself in a swimsuit was probably what really influenced this resolution.

2. I'm going to write at least 1 snail mail card a week-I love to get real mail, Seporah loves to get real mail (seriously, it's like a holiday for her) and I'm sure so does everyone else. So I thought I'd spread the love. I'll tell you what though, writing a thoughtful note to one person is a lot harder than writing cynical blog posts to a number of people. So if you get an early note and you're like, this is the stupidest letter I've ever read, please realize I should get better. If you would like to get snail mail and you don't think I have your address, please email it to us at steven.rushing@gmail.com .

3. Read the Sunday School Lesson before Sunday-Since I've had 2 girls my reading material consists of other mommy blogs, comments on this blog (which I really enjoy), directions to the carseat and the book "The Happiest Baby on the Block." ***see below*** I haven't even read my magazine's I've gotten in the mail or any of the books I've bought. The scriptures are there like every 4, 5, 6, 7 days and then I'm like, where do I read. Steven's 1 of 2 Sunday School teachers, so if I get him on board I should be able to finish at least the lesson by Saturday night at 11:59.

There you have it, my New Year's Resolutions, can I make it past January 31st? We'll see, I'd say this blog makes me somewhat accountable to them. However since I doubt very many people will remember their own resolutions past January 31st, I'm not all that worried about you guys remembering mine and quizzing me on them.

*** "The Happiest Baby on the Block", I only read 4 days ago. I have been applying it's principals and I can now stop Felicity's crying in less than a minute usually. Holy cow! This actually should have a post all to it's self, but I didn't want to jinx myself the first day. I never thought I'd read a how-to-get-your-baby-to-stop-crying book but I have and I am utterly shocked it actually works! She is also starting to understand the difference between night and day and she's actually sleeping at night. True she still gets up every 3 hours to eat, but she's going back to sleep.

For all the many, many difficult parts of being the mother to 2 difficult girls under the age of 2, there are some very wonderful, magical moments. A lot of the time they happen while on Mom and Dad's bed. Seporah wakes up and comes to snuggle with us. She tucks herself in (for about 2 seconds), we play peek-a-boo, pillow fight, rough house and get lots and lots of hugs and kisses. Felicity quietly eats, looks and tolerates being squeezed and smushed as her older sister hugs and kisses her. The 4 of us bask in the warmth of each other, ahhh, those are the moments I live for. When they're both unbelievable cute and adorable, yeah that's what makes baby screaming bearable. There ARE moments that look the way Hallmark cards sound.

toothpaste
kid's toothpaste
sunscreen
bar soap
shampoo
baby liquid soap
hand sanitizer
desitin
nystatin
deodurant
lanolin
tums
raw onion
raw garlic cloves
chapstick
mascara
lotion
face foundation
room scent makers
markers
glue
dead cockroach
bird poop
Diet Pepsi

This is what you get when your toddler can climb everything and even though you've put it out of her reach, she can still get to it. It's a really good thing all adult meds have child proof lids, she hasn't figured that one out yet. I'm not sure if I should toss the adult meds, I think I should and then I get a headache from her screaming because I took away the toothpaste she climbed onto the bathroom counter to get and well, I really need the tylenol.

You'd think I'd get better results from my parenting considering I'm a pediatric nurse.

BTW I have poison control on speed dial in my cell phone.

I will second Märia's post about sleep. Here it is 5:30 and I am up with Felicity. We were both up last night until 10 with her, trying to satisfy whatever she was bellering about (Trusty's word, not mine =). Finally we decided that ONE of us was gonna have to get some sleep and so I got up with her and we hopped and swung and ate bottled breast milk until about 1115 when Felicity finally went to sleep. She was in her swing which was in the living room, and I didn't want to move it for fear of waking her up, so I went to sleep on the couch next to her swing. I slept until about 130 am when she woke up again. Well, I picked her up and took her to her mom and said "tag, your it". Thinking about it this morning with a clearer head and wider, less sleep filled eyes, I probably should have changed her first at a minimum, and perhaps could have warmed up another bottle, but I just wanted to sleep. So I gave the little one to her and am honestly not sure what Märia did or how many times she was up last night, but it was my turn again at 515 this morning. =) You know, it isn't easy typing with a baby in one's arms! But I am up to the task. Left leg is hopping up and down, left arm is falling asleep from the baby, and hands are a typing.

So um, yeah, Merry Christmas to you all! I have a renewed belief in the intrinsic value of sleep. We should transfer our monetary base to it or something. Call it the sleep standard! Ok, yeah, I know, that was an early morning bad political joke. =) Merry Christmas to all and to all a good (eyes closed sleep filled) night!

Here's one example of a typical night
8:01 Place Seporah to bed after a 30 minute bedtime routine
8:05 I go to bed after brushing my teeth for an unacceptable 15 seconds and going to the the bathroom
8:06 Felicity wakes up, and I don't mean to eat, I mean she wakes up, completely 100%
10:15 Felicity goes to sleep after eating, being changed, being rocked, screaming because Mom put her down to try to sleep after not sleeping all day because her children can not nap at the same time, getting picked back up eating again, changed again, falling asleep for 3 minutes, waking back up and then falling sleep again.
12:23 Felicity wakes up again, change, eat, cry, scream, cry, scream, cry, cry (that one's mom's), screams (op, mom's again), eat, eat, eat
4:30 Felicity asleep
6:00 Felicity awake, eat, eat, eat, scream, please sleep, eat
6:25 felicity did sleep good
6:30 Dad home from work "she went to sleep 5 minutes ago, I don't care that she's on your side of the bed, if you wake her up, you're dead, I'm going to sleep." Dad goes to computer. Mom goes to sleep
7:15 Felicity wakes up, eats and Dad takes her, Mom goes to sleep
8:30 Felicity goes to sleep, Dad goes to sleep, Mom gets up. Seporah watching movie, Mom eats breakfast, checks email, plays with Seporah and stops 3 temper tantrums (and gives a couple spankings)
9:46 Mom fills bathtub and gets in with Seporah, Seporah mostly gets clean, Mom gets shampoo in hair
9:58 Felicity starts screaming, Mom gets soap off of hair, gets out of bathtub, feeds Felicity
10:05 Seporah gets out of bathtub, finds starburst from off of computer table, gets very sticky in about 3 seconds. Mom gets halfway dressed with Felicity screaming on floor. Gets Seporah unsticky and dressed. Seporah throws huge temper tantrum because she would rather be naked and kicks toys at Felicity's head (I should probably not admit how many times that's happened, CPS may come get me)
10:20 Seporah gets a very hard spanking and placed in crib for time out
10:23 Mom, Seporah and felicity all crying, that's it, Dad gets Felicity and Mom gets the couch. I'd say it's only 9 hours, 38 minutes until bedtime, but that's sure a lie.

BTW, I did not send out Christmas Cards.

And this post was written at 1:30 am the next night.

And last Monday I asked for 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I went to bed at 8pm, please don't wake me until midnight, there's milk in the fridge. Did I get to midnight, no, I got until 10:09. To be fair Steven was the one not asleep with the not asleep Felicity.

Go here --> www.apple.com/getamac/

When you first go clothes shopping after having a baby you should ALWAYS bring a friend. This friend will kindly and secretly rip out the size tags of all items you are trying on and repeatedly tell you how fabulous you look, "No Märia you don't look like you had a baby 5 1/2 weeks ago, in fact you look like you've never had a baby!" I didn't know this after I had Seporah and went shopping alone. I knew it this time around, but forgot it since the first incident occurred 2 years ago. Big Mistake.

3 hours, 8 stores, 8 dressing rooms, and a whole lotta clothes later, I have one shirt to show for the experience. And I didn't even have a child to blame it on, Steven had them... Well tomorrow is my 6 week check up and the treadmill is ready to be used. Now if only I had some exercise clothes to wear...

Hatched! The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood by Sloane Tanen

If you are thinking of becoming pregnant, are pregnant, or have a child 2 years old or under, buy this book! It includes 80 pages of pictures with chicks and funny captions.


 
Baby Uggs: $85.00. Bugaboo Stroller $800.00. Knowing your child is better looking than your best friend's kid: Priceless



Goodnight Moon, hello Martini

Well.. Too all my adoring fans, I say hello once again. It has been quite a while since I have put my fingerprints on the webpage, and for that I apologize profusely. I am thrilled to be an Uncle the second time, and everyone should definitely buy diapers for Seporah's big #2 coming up a couple of weeks! That is.. for Felicity ;-). I imagine Steven is probably spending an expansive amount of time trying to make his oldest handle this aspect of her life on her own. Good luck, Brother!

Well.. it's my favorite month again, and it has brought me to a mild state of anxiety. I am currently taking Humanities 101 and this Art History course is really kicking my butt. Mostly because I'm doing all 8 weeks of it in one week, thanks to conflicting Liberty University and Uncle Sam's Misguided Children (USMC.. haha I made a funny) policy. USMC states that I can not get out of a class due to field activity if they were not made aware of the class before hand (aka.. if they didn't pay for it). Liberty University states that I can not drop a class after the first 10 days OF that class. Well.. I was in Yuma for the entirety of this class, and I only logged in once... to tell my instructor that I couldn't complete the course and needed to be dropped. So.. I didn't get dropped and I'm stuck with the idea that I have to finish the course and pay for it out of pocket.. and get credit for it. Or I can not finish the course, pay for it out of pocket, and not get credit for it. So I took a week of leave and did nothing but work on it full time, and have almost completed it now, and I will pay for it out of my GI Bill... and get credit for it!

Okay.. scary thought.. There is a girl in my life. I promise, I will NOT keep you posted. I drive Maria and Steven crazy with excessive amounts of this kind of information so I will spare all of you details. But.. it is kinda nice :-). I promise... You'd all like her.

Well.. I know what you're all thinking... How much longer until you are no longer a Misguided Child.. NEVER! I will always be a Misguided Child!! But I won't be Uncle Sam's anymore come April the 15th. Four more months, and my 5 year enlistment.. is over. *cues Angelic singing*

So what's next? No idea.. :-( I could stay in California over the summer and goto a Junior College, or I could go back to Texas for the Summer and stay with dad and goto Temple College. I could go straight from here to Lynchburg, Va where I have been accepted at Liberty University, and I have to give them an answer about that by March 1st. I could goto UMHB back in Temple, or Cal State here in California. I could goto Point Loma Nazarene College, or possibly Biola..

A very distant but APPEALING idea might be to go to college with Pete in Northern Arizona.. and I really do like this idea. We could be roomates again, and the college itself seems very appealing as a central ground between Texas, and California. I could travel back and forth easily and see those I care about in both directions. I don't know.. give me advice about college.. because I don't know anything :-(


I have so many decisions to make.. I just think I'm going to vomit due to stress sometimes.. lol

Keep me in your prayers.. and I promise you will be in mine.


Jas

I have come to an important conclusion. Seporah has come to the point where she is not allowed out in public with us. Public includes restaurants, movie theaters, anywhere with breakables, the commissary (at least not until we're absolutely starving), and anywhere with breakables (oh wait did I already say that?). Some might say this is harsh. However she'll get her justice. I'm sure in her own time (like when she's 13 years old) she will come to the conclusion that we will not be allowed out in public with her.

Would you believe my not quite 2 year old can peel an orange all by herself? I was going to peel it for her, but she demanded to do it. I didn't think she would have the dexterity to do it, but hey what do I know, I'm just the mom. She did a good job too, it was nice and neat and she split it down the middle and then ate it section by section.

According to these pictures, we have 2 little angels. Yeah... right... We have 2 little devils is more like it.

Everyone's probably tired of me saying how active my babies are, but I have witnesses this time. Grandma Pam and Grandpa Russ. They have come for a visit (mostly to see Seporah and Felicity, Steven and I just come with the package). And I got an early Christmas present (probably the best present they could have come up with), family pictures. Last night, I could not fall asleep I was so worried about it, I was imagining all the havoc Seporah could wreak while Felicity screamed her head off. I wasn't far off.

Seporah's dress is older than she is. It's been hanging in the closet for when she was big enough (thanks Grandma Lynda). However, this did not impress her. Both her and Felicity found the dresses to be itchey and not made for tumbling. We tried to explain to them it wasn't time to run around and play, that it was time to sit still and smile to no avail. We thought about bribing them with french fries and cookies but Seporah's really not old enough for negotiating and we would have just had another temper tantrum. And Felicity, well I think they would have been a choking hazard. Instead there are raisins in all the pictures (or a stolen Christmas ornament off a Christmas tree) and a sleep induced Felicity.

But thanks to a 4'11" woman with too much coffee this morning and a surplus of patience (who really scared Steven), there ended up being some really cute shots. They even had a sign that said "We work on baby time, please be patient" (Insert plug for Sears Portrait Studios). We got 3 seconds of angels between the hour of devilness.

(we then paid for the few seconds when we got home and put Seporah down for her nap...she woke up with a crib full of poopies...she was laughing)

1. After a horrendous trip to the commissary, Seporah would not take a nap, leaving a tired Mommy to continue to be tired.
2. The $1500 water heater which was replaced 2 weeks before Felicity was born started tick tocking like a time bomb, making it so no one got a shower and we all smell like a mixture of sweat, breastmilk, urine, and mud.
3. A huge storm occurred last night, waking Seporah up 5 times screaming, leaving a tired Mommy and Daddy to be even more tired.
4. A tired, scared from the storm Seporah ripped her diaper to shreds to get attention, leaving the crib and nursery smelling nasty (at least there was no poopies).
5. I won $1000 off a radio show, since I'm now a stay-at-home-mom with all the time in the world to listen to radio shows and with nothing better to do.

(as a side note, the day before Steven went back to work we had this conversation):
Steven "You're ready to go back to work aren't you?"
Me "Yeah, how'd you know"
Steven "Because I'm ready, I need a break"

Chorus to the song "The Humour of the Situation" by Barenaked Ladies:
"Come on now, now
Come on now, now
Enjoy the humour of the situation
Come on now, now
Come on now, now
Enjoy the humour of the situation"

...it was even worse than the day before Thanksgiving. It was the first time out of the house with 2 babies by myself. Holy Cow. At least I fed and changed Felicity before we started.

Somehow Seporah lost one of her shoes before we made it out of the car. I decided to ignore it, she wasn't even going to be touching the ground, just the shopping cart (some mommies would say that's bad enough, but desperate times call for desperate measures).

I always use to call my friend Felice SuperMommy because she would carry both her babies and the diaper bag around. Well I reached SuperMommy stage today by carrying about 50 pounds from the car to inside the commissary between Seporah, Felicity and the diaper bag. I then found the "cool" shopping cart, the one that looks like a car and put Seporah and the diaper bag inside of it and continued to carry Felicity in a sling. Down about 40 pounds, it was much easier to shop.

Then came the I want, I want, I want. By the time we had exited the store, I had opened and Seporah had eaten banana cookies, dehydrated minifruits, prunes, strawberry gum and another lady's in line's pretzels (God bless understanding older ladies in line who don't mind sharing their pretzels with a screaming toddler).

Due to the temper tantrums, I shopped as fast as I could. I only spent $52.96, that's a record for me. Felicity only cried a little bit in the VERY long line that took about 25 minutes. All I could think was it's Monday afternoon, why are all these people shopping, I picked now so I wouldn't have to mess with the line.

When we got to the car I realized Seporah had helped me steal the pack of strawberry gum. I thought about doing the right thing and going back inside and paying for it. But instead I put the girls in the car and decided to chew a piece myself as the girls whined in the backseat.

Some of you will remember these pictures from forever and ever ago. These are of the banyan tree in front of the Honolulu Zoo in Waikiki.

Well, we had a Ron Paul picnic right there about 20 feet from the tree this last Saturday. Seporah and I went, leaving Märia and Felicity at home to get some much needed rest.

We were all set up and most of us were there (about 7 guys although some more came later) when this park guide came up to us and told us we had to take our signs down. We had some signs hanging from the tent. He said they were against some park ordinance or something. We essentially said "Show us the ordinance" and sent him on his way. Well, all this time Seporah was playing with the helium Ron Paul balloons and running in the mud and generally doing what toddlers call "having a good time".

So the park rule enforcer guy comes back with the ordinance and a police officer. We all look at the ordinance and it is absolutely obvious that it is not meant to be applied to political signs. Basically the ordinance says that if you are going to put up "commercial advertisement" like signs or fliers and so forth, you have to go through the park and pay them so much money and so forth. This is obviously meant to make sure that Kapiolani Park (the place where the banyan tree and we were) got it's cut of any sponsorships of say concerts or such things. Basically it was meant to apply to Coke and Pepsi, not Ron Paul, if that makes sense.

So I think I am a half decent dad, honestly. I was looking up every 30 seconds or so to check on Seporah while I was reading the ordinance, but I looked down, and looked up, and she was gone! She had been playing over by the banyan tree and then she was gone! No big deal at first, I try to keep my nerves down. But by the time I had walked all the way around this tree and not seen her, I was totally scared. So we ALL scattered to look for her. 20 minutes or so passed of looking. I was on my way back to the picnic area after scouring the first 2 blocks of Waikiki when Seporah's ball comes rolling out of the banyan tree followed quickly by Seporah.

Now really, I walked all the way aournd this tree, but there must have been a blind spot where she had been. I was so so scared, but happy that she had never been in any danger or anything. Really, she never had even been more than 20 feet from the picnic site. =)

Oh yeah, and the police made us take down the signs. Oppressors!

The Ensign is an monthly LDS adult magazine (there's also a teenager and children's magazine). Each month there's a Q&A section that anyone may write in and answer. Apparently one of the next magazine's questions is "I love and am grateful for my young children, but I sometimes get distracted or discouraged by the practical details of raising a family and struggle to remember what an important work it is. How can I better align gospel truths about family with my day-to-day actions and attitudes?" I don't think at the present moment I should write an answer for the question. It would be a long vent about young children right now. Tomorrow Steven is going back to work, so if I wrote it then it might be even longer.

So does anyone else have an answer? They are taking submissions until February 8, I'm hoping by that time I could have an acceptable one or at least one that they wouldn't send social services on me.

The Return of Ron Paul Balloon Girl, Swingin', Chuck E Cheese and Decorating the Christmas Tree!

This is a longer video... 16 minutes, so find a comfy place to sit before you start! =)

Edit: Actually I ended up cutting it into 3 individual movies. Enjoy!

...And Daddy would like a shepherd to watch his flock.

So our tree is up. Seporah did the bottom 2 feet. It was pretty cute, she would be all serious and meticulously put an ornament on a branch that already had 4 ornaments on it. Someone may have to redecorate the bottom 2 feet at 2 am when Seporah's not looking (hey, if I'm gonna be up anyways...).

Felicity went for her 2 week check on Monday, 8lbs 13oz and 20.5in. I guess that's pretty good, most babies lose 5-10% of their birth weight and gain it back at about the 2 week mark (Felicity lost 10.5%, she was at 7lbs 7oz at 3 days). So at 2 weeks most babies are at their birth weight. Felicity was up 9 oz, yeah!

So I know different people read this blog, I don't know everyone, but hey people visit from Brazil, Russia and China as well as all over Europe. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe they think we're funny Americans. I guess the competition isn't so tough since Seinfield and Friends retired. But anyways, if any pregnant women on the island of Oahu read this blog go here --> www.laborofloveoahu.com That's the website of my doula, Tammy Uva and she was great. What you have no idea what a doula is? Well you really need to go there then.

By my estimates, between Seporah and Felicity, we are going through 20 diapers a day. Wow... We're certainly doing our part to fill up landfills. It almost makes me want to switch to cloth diapers...I said almost. It HAS made us run out and buy a potty for Seporah though. So far we've made it so she'll sit on the potty for 5 seconds without screaming. This is progress. And she gets a sticker for it.

In other news, I can eat 6 cookies a day and still lose weight. Literally, I have come to crave carbs and Cookie Corner cookies. Usually I don't eat a lot of carbs, but I've been starving for them the past 2 weeks. I'm just like yes! Helena Bonham Carter says breastfeeding is nature's liposuction and breast augmentation. And I didn't even say anything about the pudding and Halloween candy being consumed.

Well that pretty much covers the last 2 weeks, diapers and breastfeeding. Well I suppose I could throw in a little sleep deprivation and a lot of toddler tantrums, but if you're a parent you already know that. And if you're not a parent, well you really don't know what sleep deprivation or tantrums really are. You know both of those are used as torture methods some places.

I can't believe I forgot! If you haven't read the previous post, scroll on down and read it before you read this...


Ok, so if you are still here, I take it you read the previous post. Having taken all of those arguments into consideration, and having changed my mind on all those policies, I had to search for a candidate that believed the way I have come to believe.

Vote Hillary!

(lots of sarcasm!!!)

The cliché is that having children makes you rethink life. Well, as I have always said (and been called a racist or sexist because of it) clichés, generalizations and stereotypes exist for a reason. And the reason is that they are generally true. =) This cliché is definitely true, and Seporah and Felicity are making me rethink my political leanings.

So I thought I would start off with why Ron Paul isn't the right candidate for me, and then I would go on to who I am going with now...

1. Ron Paul is against all federal forms of gun control.

If guns were as cheap and easy to get as Ron Paul would like them to be, I would have probably already put a bullet in my head. That is definitely a strike against him.

2. Ron Paul is against the war in Iraq and wants to bring our troops home immediately.

Iraq is looking better and better. The pay is really great and I hear I can't take my kids!

3. Ron Paul is against illegal immigration. He would put up a big wall!

So um... Who would nanny my kids for 13 cents an hour and jump for joy at a $5 Christmas bonus if he deports all the Illegals? Bad idea!

4. Ron Paul if all about home schooling. He rejects allowing the government to determine what and how our children learn. He is also generally for ending the Department of Education as education is not a federal issue.

Come on! You're telling me Ron Paul wants to take away free government day care 9 months out of the year? I want schools to go year round, not go away!

5. Ron Paul wants to end the Federal Income Tax and eliminate the IRS completely. We made it as a nation for well over a hundred years without any income tax he says.

Hey! You can't take away my end of the year paycheck! I have a brand new dependent to claim! What did I have these kids for anyways?

6. Ron Paul is Pro-Life.

The more kids I have, the harder I think about this...


/sarcasm

Well, life has been interesting. We are juggling Seporah and Felicity, watching movies, and playing Super Mario Brothers 3. Yeah, the one for the ORIGINAL Nintendo. Märia is playing the cow, and I am playing the diaper changer and toddler wrangler. Busy busy busy.

The movies we have seen in the last month... :

Meet the Robinsons - very good, a must see for parents and children alike.
Stardust - something of a modern fairy tale. Not modern as in set in the modern day, but modern as in not all fairys and dragons and wizards. It is a story with real meat; it has substance. As I have said before, I am far from a professional reviewer. =)
Hairspray - I actually didn't see it, but Märia laughed all the way through it. =)
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - Highly irreverent. Very very funny at parts, but the sexual humor went over the top at times.
Ratatouille - Best animated movie I have seen in a long long time. I don't know how the pulled off making a movie about rats and frenchmen that I liked, but they did! The rat wants to be a chef and he finds a talentless dish boy to help him do it. And everyone is Jewish =).
The Jane Austen Book Club - Another I didn't see. Märia made it 15 minutes into it, and turned it off. I'll take that as a "don't watch this film".

We are also watching Heroes, although we always seem to be a couple of weeks late. Well, not quite true. Märia always seems to be 2 weeks late, and I tend to be 1 week late. =) Not quite as good as Season 1, but not is all yet lost. The writer's strike will probably do it though.


So, what we've been reading. Well, this will actually just focus on what I've been reading. I just finished Invasive Procedure by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston. As far as I can tell (and I would know), this is OSC's first collaborative work. I know Aaron Johnston from his funny church articles on Nauvoo.com (an OSC domain). Basically he talks about all those things we don't talk about, like screaming babies in sacrament meeting and how we should all have little eject buttons in front of us to eject someone embarrassing themselves or us in fast and testimony meeting. So Invasive Procedure is a thriller about crazy radical genetic scientists who learn to create a virus that replaces bad cells with good cells. I am no professional reviewer, so just trust me when I say I enjoyed it. It is a good book if you are interested in genetic engineering and elite military teams that train constantly in biosuits so that they are ready to hit hot zones, kill the bad guys and neutralize viruses and other biohazards. Fun thriller, but nothing to spin your mind around.

So you want to turn your world upside down? Read The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen. This book will totally change how you think of America and what we are here for, how we were founded and why. Full disclosure: Skousen was a mormon and taught at BYU for years and years as a religion and history teacher. Don't let that scare you away if you aren't mormon. This book has NOTHING to do with a religion in particular, and only a little bit to do with religion in general. It is about the founding of our nation. From the back cover:

The Five Thousand Year Leap tells of the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Founding Fathers which they said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desired peace, prosperity, and freedom. These beliefs have made possible more progress in 200 years than was made previously in over 5,000 years.

These fundamental beliefs are shockingly unpolitically correct, but this book shows "political correctness" in its true light and history. It was a creation by communism. If you disagreed with the government, you were sent to reeducation camps until your thoughts were politically correct. But now, instead of using camps, we use tenure, shame, and other social pressures to brutalize people into ACTING politically correct regardless of what they know to be right. Funny how shame has fallen so out of favor with regards to children out of wedlock or divorced people (who deserve shame for making marriage so much harder on the rest of us) but we can shame a person for driving an SUV or praying publicly without worrying about the PC police. I completely rewatched all the debates after reading this book. And the choice is absolutely simple. We need a statesman who says he will get out of our way, not tells us what he will do for us. The 5000 Year Leap grounds your being in what government's real job is. It isn't to provide for us, or take care of us, or be the net to catch us. Ron Paul wants to get the Federal Government out of our business. I will write a long post on him later, but I am about to post some Seporah vids, and one has a Ron Paul reference, so I wanted to get that out there. Märia is still somewhat politically apathetic, but less so than she has been. =)Um, anything else? OH yeah, Super Mario Brothers 3. We will probably beat it tomorrow. Still just as fun over the last 2 weeks as it was 15 years ago. Luigi stinks! (Märia plays luigi) =)

Hey, so Steven lost his cell phone about 4 weeks ago and apparently told no one because we keep getting calls asking why he isn't returning messages and that his mailbox is now full. Sorry to those who did not know. Don't feel bad if you weren't in the loop, no one was apparently.

6 minute video. About 20 seconds of breast feeding in there (no nipple). It is amazing to see the last minute, the difference in how Seporah treats Felicity, the best part! =)

Felicity Orion Rushing
November 10, 2007
10:47AM
8lbs 4oz
20inches



So we went in because they called us in, as with Seporah. Märia had done a 24 hour urine test, and it came back high in protein. Ugh, Pre-eclampsia again. But she wasn't nearly as sick as she was last time, so it wasn't too bad. They gave us the option of going with an elective cesarian section or inducing labor. Märia decided she wanted to have Felicity vaginally, so we went for the induction! Pitocin started at 5PM on the 9th.



17 hours later, Felicity was born vaginally. This is the first "good" picture taken of her. I took a cell phone picture first to update you guys on that other blog, so it was the first. Märia actually cut the cord and got to hold Felicity for her first 5 minutes of life. After that they took her away and put her under the light to clean her up, suction her out and check her reflexes and such.



Märia actually snapped this picture, probably 1-2 hours into Felicity's life. We were all really exhausted. Märia really amazed me. 4 hours after giving birth her color was back, she was breast feeding and energetic. I mentioned it and she said she was tired and just working on adrenaline. But she sure had me fooled! She really looked great just a few hours later. After her C-section with Seporah she was nearly dead for like 3 days.



Here is one with Märia and Felicity just 1-2 hours after her birth. Felicity went straight to eating and then straight to sleep for nearly 8 hours with only momentary lapses into wakefulness to ask for food.



And another...



We decided to bring Seporah up to meet Felicity at 6PM (7 hours into Felicity's life). She wasn't very happy. She immediately screamed and ran into the corner and hid under a chair. She only visited for like 25 minutes before we decided it was a bad idea. So Seporah and I went out for french fries and ice cream and played at a McDonalds play place for a couple of hours before I took her back to Miss Karen's to spend the night.




















I have to tell this story though. After we came home, we put Felicity in a corner in her car seat. She was asleep. Then we brought Seporah home. Seporah was fine with Felicity as long as she was in the corner in her car seat, but as soon as she woke up and Märia got her to feed her, Seporah sprung into action. First, she screamed. Then she decided to take matters into her own hands. She picked up the biggest thing she could pick up (her tricycle) and then came running at Felicity to bash her into mush. Seriously. I was conflicted as to whether to stop her or grab a camera for this memorable moment, but I made the right choice and Felicity is still alive. =) 24 hours later, Seporah likes Felicity fine and when she walks by her, she pats her very gently on the head. =)

So Märia is pre-eclamptic again so we will probably be having a baby today. We will post pictures and text on blog.stevenrushing.com to keep you updated. The reason for the change is because we can post there from our mobile phone. Once the baby is born and we are back home everything will be moved over to here and back to normal. Pray for Märia and Felicity and everything. Please refrain from calling, we will let you know when anything happens.

I know that several of you at home have been feeling that your lives are simply not action filled like you always thought they would be. Well why not become your neighborhood/city private investigator? I mean someone has got to do it right? So here are all the ingredients required to do this:

A tree house... preferably centrally located in the center of your 1a school town.
Two mini notepads that can fit in your back pocket and a few pens.. This is for clue taking.
The complete series of the Hardee Boys.. This is ESSENTIAL! Try and have a little brother, that way this financial burden is not completely on you.
A partner/side-kick/little brother. Very convenient if it is a sibling, as when you need to compare clues you can just walk down the hallway.

Okay.. now just find some mystery to solve. A good one would be to wait til your dog disappears..

Okay, you are all ready, go have fun being a private eye!! Read More...

So I read a lot of mommy blogs, they're fun. Sometimes the only options to motherhood are to laugh or to cry, those blogs help to keep me from crying 24/7. This is a video I found on one of the blogs, the triplets are actually 3 years old now. I thought I'd post it and rewatch in when Felicity's 6 weeks old and think "Good Lord, at least there's only one of them."

Just as a side note, I HATE it when people come up and touch Seporah. It's like hello, that's not yours, get your hands off. They started when she was just itty bitty and it still goes on today, not quite as much, but it still happens and I always want to smack them. So don't touch other people's babies or kids without asking, it's just plain rude.

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Okay.. So I got to go back to Oceanside this last weekend, which was a good break from desert life and I enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time with some of the people who are close to my heart. So I was supposed to meet up with everyone at about 1 so we could all drive back together and be back here in Yuma by 6.. but the guys who took the van were two hours late, so I ended up waiting for them in the parking lot for about two hours before we finally got on the road to head back here. Now about half way between San Diego and Yuma, the van breaks down.. :-) So we sat on the side of the road for about an hour and a half waiting for theguys from Yuma to come retrieve us, and during the wait something odd happened. A state patrolman came up behind us and offered to 'PUSH' the van to the next gas station so we could wait in more safe and comfortable condtions. We give him the okay, and he put his grill to our back bumper and pushes us two maybe three miles to the next shell station. First of all, I'd like to state I've never ever heard of this happening before and am THRILLED that it did.. primarily because there happened to be Subway there :-), but also because the cars passing us were only about a foot away from the van and were going between 80 and 90. Secondly, I wonder if there are some legal liabilities if we had been hit while he pushed us.. or he accidently pushed us off the very steep embankment to our right. I imagine that there would be, which I think is why I have never heard of a policeman pushing a car to an advantageous position, rather than instantly calling a tow truck. I recently heard a story that happened on the east coast, with a doctor who witnessed a bar fight, and used a tracheotomy on the spot to save one of the combatants lives. Apparently one had crushed the other's windpipe (or something) with a pool stick. The Doctor reacted quickly, sterilized his steak knife and cut open his thoat using the head of his pen to hold the air way open. Twenty minutes later the ambulance finally arrives and those on the scene proclaimed he would have died had the doctor not acted. The man sued the doctor, not because of an infection, which there was none, but because the doctor had consumed a level of acohol, which might have put his life at risk. What in the world... who does this?! We in America need to embrace heroes like this.. men who go out of their way to help others, not stab them in the back just because we are able to. I'm kinda interested in what Maria thinks about that scenario (which I'm not sure is a real case, but I have no doubt that in America it could happen).

I went to pick up my daughter out of her crib this morning and as I opened the door I took a whiff. It smelled like poop...a lot. Occasionally it smells like poop in her room, but never this bad. And then I saw it, on the crib, on the wall, on the floor, on my baby girl, on her dollies, and on the noise maker. I am really glad Steven didn't go to work last night. Read More...

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So Steven's suppose to get 3 weeks off when Felicity's born. All I can think about that is wow, that sounds like an awesome vacation, neither Steven or I will be working for 3 weeks. I know we'll have a newborn, but there's no way we can be more sleep deprived than we already are...or at least I hope not because that would be REALLY bad.

p.s. 3 more working days for mom, yeah! Read More...

Come on, were we not cute babies? That's how come Seporah came out so gorgeous and Felicity's bond to come out as a knock out.



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So I have tickets tonight for a Fountains of Wayne concert. Steven and I bought them last month when we found out they were going to come here. I don't know what I was thinking because there is no way I'm going to a rock concert at 36 1/2 weeks at 8 at night. I'm not even going to go to a orchestra concert with padded seats at 3 in the afternoon at this point.

Yeah, we really like music, a lot, it's playing 24/7 at our house. We have 6,690 songs on our iTunes playlist and the top 12 most played songs are all by the same artist-30 Seconds to Mars. I can listen to the one CD by them over and over and over again. This morning I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep (again). I got out of bed and decided to do some mindless surfing on the internet. Apparently the CD I have is the second CD, they actually have one before that one. All I could think was, why did I not know this?

Kids, yeah, they change your music. No concerts and no unimportant music knowledge stored in your brain. Unless you count the piece of knowledge that the 5th song on the Baby Einstein CD "On the Go" is the song playing during the race scene in Baby Einstein's "Numbers Nursery." Well at least I still know what I like and it's not all from the decade I was born in.

There are many Manly things that Steven is quite good at:
1. Being a Daddy - there's this shirt that I found that says "Real Men Change Diapers," if that's true, Steven's as real as they get.
2. Being a Mr. Mom - the pictures showing the before and after carpet cleaning ought to be enough to prove that one
3. Anything with the Computer - I am so glad I don't have to pay to have someone fix the computer, I just say fix it

However, there's some Manly things that Steven's not so good at:
1. Plumbing - the kitchen sink has leaked the entire time we've lived here
2. Sports - He likes to play, but doesn't watch them on TV, which I am soooo glad for
3. Car Stuff - and that is what this post is actually going to be about

So I've been bugging Steven to do the car stuff for months, literally. You're suppose to have a safety inspection every year and the sticker on the car says it's been expired since April. Since the car needed registered this month, the safety inspection HAD to be done. It's one thing to drive the car illegally by having a safety inspection expired, you can claim ignorance due to being in the military and just really not knowing. It's another thing to drive the car illegally by having an expired registration, I think they can put you in jail for that one. And since we've been pulled over multiple times to get it fixed and our home association keeps putting notes on our windshield (why is it their business anyways), I figured it really better get done.

I had planned on having Steven fix everything sometime this month (I was anticipating Halloween, that would be October 31st, the last day possible), but I lost my driver's license sometime in the last 2 weeks (I think that Seporah threw it away) so I figured I might as well do it since I had to go to the DMV anyways. But first things first, must get the safety inspection because no one will give me anything without it done. I go to a place that looks like a junkyard, pay the $20 and say let's get it started. They check all the lights and everything and say sorry, we can't give you the sticker, you don't have a license plate on your front bumper. There's no place to put a license plate on my front bumper and I only have one anyways. Well you're just going to have to buy another set of plates and a bracket to hold it on, here's a temporary form you can use to get the license plates and thanks for the money. To the DMV I go, however, this was Saturday and it's not open, I have to go to another that's 30 miles away.

I stand in line to get a driver's license as mine is gone. Sorry ma'am, you can't get one since you lost it and such, you need to take a written test, but you can't take it here, you have to take it at the one that's closed today. Ok, well can I have a book to study Hawaii Laws. No ma'am, you have to buy them, they're sold at Borders or Barnes and Nobles. WHO ON EARTH HAS HEARD OF BUYING THE STATE LAW BOOKS? HELLO! THEY'RE SUPPOSE TO BE RIGHT THERE AT THE DMV. Fine whatever, here's $6 at Borders for the dumb book. But while I'm at the DMV, let's get the car re-registered and license plates, that'll be $158, Lord Almighty, you've got to be kidding me.

Now to the Dodge dealership to get a bracket so I can attach the license plate on the front and get a safety inspection. What do you mean parts and services are closed on Saturdays, what am I suppose to do? Back to safety inspection place, would you just sign it, look I've got 2 plates now, but they're closed. Sorry ma'am, you can go to an auto parts store down the road. To there, sorry ma'am you'll have to go to the dealership. ARGGG! Screw that, home I go.

Monday morning, to the commissary I go, we're down on food, pulled over again. Ma'am do you know you're safety inspection is expired. I better get this done today. Calling the dealership because I don't want to drive down there again. Calling the dealership again since they're not answering and it's 10:30am. calling again, and again, and again, and again, and again seven times total. Yes, I need a license plate bracket, hmm let me check, what's your model, year, VIN number. Why do you need my VIN number? Sometimes the models are different, I just wanted to check what yours was. Well why didn't you just ask for that first if you were going to look up my specific car anyways? OK, yes ma'am we have one in stock, it's $46.61 plus installation. WHAT? FOR A PIECE OF PLASTIC? And how much is installation. I don't know let me transfer you to Service....ring....ring....ring.....ring, no one's answering, screw this. STEVEN! make it so I can get the license plate on the front bumper without spending an arm and a leg.

Steven did fix it, it took $4, big screws and bolts and tiny fingers going in between the air intake holes. Good, back to safety inspection place. The guy looks at it and says "Could you have gotten the bolts any bigger?" Haha, just put the sticker on and leave me alone.

So the car's registered and has a safety inspection. I still don't have a driver's license, but after looking over the booklet and decided I didn't want to take a test, I've been out of school for too long, I'd fail it even I knew the stuff in the book. So I sent another check and various things to Washington to get me one. I'm expecting it in the next 5 weeks, I'm just hoping I don't get pulled over again. If anyone would like to take it to go get the oil changed, I would be very grateful. I'm sure we could work out a Manly exchange, like Steven'll fix your computer for you or change your kid's diaper. Read More...

Hello Hello.. I interrupt this message of parenthood with small insignficant details regarding the life of recently desert-ed, Jason Rushing.

I would like to note that there is a distinct - between Desert and the ED part of the word. This is so as not to confuse you with the idea I might have recently been broken up with, evicted, or left entirely by myself. Now you just have to wonder if I've been given a sweet, tasty treat or if I've been brought out to where there is lots of beach and lack of water. Those of you 'in the know' should easily figured out that the correct answer was actually the latter. I am currently in the Yuma Proving Grounds in the desert of Arizona. I am happily hiding away from my parent command for a month here testing out some new vehicles the Army will be using in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom 15-2. Unfortunately due to some kind of secrecy form I unwittingly signed during a medical exam earlier in my career, I can not discuss this any further.

To spend a mere second bringing you up to date I will cover July to October in a few sentences. Was late to work, and got threatened to lose my BAH. Went on vacation with Breanna and saw Ashley up in Wyoming.. stopped by and saw Julie on the way home. She's just as cute as ever. On the way there I ran the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge marathon.. and moaned and cried for days, in which Breanna made fun of me for. I went to the Rifle range and got kicked off because admin marines can't count... darn asvab waivers! Got slated to goto Yuma Sept 5th.. got canceled.. Went BACK to the rifle range and received my all time low score of Marksman, and then my date moved back to the 18th of October to goto Yuma. Was late again, they tried to take away my BAH and the CO told them where they could stick it.. and that he wished he had 20 marines like me.. OH yeah!! Then the next day was brought to Yuma and have been here ever since.

Let me tell you a story about the army guys here in yuma though, okay? :-) So I come into the tiny MWR we have here with 6 computers and a mediocre television with cable and start typing out an email on one of the computers. There is an army guy who has unplugged one of the "marine" computers and dragged the cable to the tv so he can hook up his laptop and play Lord of the Rings Online while watching tv. My SSgt sees this and goes over to yell at him only to find that he is the Company Commander of the army group here. So we lost this fight.. After about twenty minutes he comes back to put the cable back and I asked him why he didn't use the wireless router to play with his own computer.. I pointed at the wireless router being on one of the shelves. He informed me.. quite rudely.. that it wasn't working correctly and he had spent the morning trying to figure it out, but he didn't have the login information for roadrunner to be able to receive the correct domain information. I gave him what must have been a "you have no clue what you're talking about" look and hooked up the router. I then used his laptop and adjusted the settings to distribute ip address to any and all laptops who requested one (he had it set on static instead of dynamic). I pulled the cable and asked him to try and connect via wireless and see if it gave him a working ip address. He tried.. it worked.. and this is what he said...

get ready for this.. it's gonna be good..


"Ya, it's working!! That's what I like to call Joint Task Force!! You definately get the assist on this one" And puts his hand up to high-five me..

*blink* *blink*... joint task force?? the ASSIST??!!

Now I high-fived him because he's a company commander and the biggest geek I know.. more so for the first than the second.. for fear of making enemies. That's your boy, Steven :)


So ya.. I hope everyone is having a blast.. I miss you all terribly, and hope to see you soonish. and HECK no, I'm not going to Florida, Minnesota, or Okinawa for Christmas.. so don't ask!!


Jason Rushing
Supreme Jedi Emperor of the Klingon Nation, engaged to the Child-like Princess, vowed enemy of Gargamel.

(P.S. All spelling and grammar mistakes were added by steven to try and boost his branch of service's image by comparison.. )

Yeah so I am 36 weeks today! Less than a month till my due date. I'm telling Felicity anytime is fine with me. I'm like today is fine, tomorrow is fine. If you really wanna hang out till November that's fine too, but Mom's cool with now. Especially now that the only way I sleep is with the aid of tylenol and benadryl and I'm still waking up 3-6 times a night with it. I tell people I was more sleep deprived before giving birth to Seporah than after and they don't believe me. But by the time she was born I literally woke up every 45 minutes to pee, If I made it an 1 1/2 hours straight I was like yes! So I'm just not looking forward to that and I'm like dude you can come out.

Yesterday I got floated to the Pediatric Clinic at work. It was really quite nice, they really didn't need the help, they just needed an RN. So mostly I just sat all day for my title. I was like ahh, this is the life. I want the next 5 shifts to be just like this one (5 more and I'm on maternity leave). Of course, I'm glad nothing went wrong where I would have had to actually use my title. It was just nice.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm just plain rambling. It's easier to type and ramble than do actual work, like the dishes or something to that effect. I plan on rambling for the next 2 months. I'll probably say nothing important here for the next 2 months because I'm too pregnancy brain (and then new momma brain) to think of something intelligent or coherent. Good thing for spell check or you wouldn't even be able to read it probably. I kinda feel bad for Jason's friends who come looking at the blog. Instead of seeing what's happening in Southern California, they get to read about some whiny pregnant lady and they're like "what is this, did Jason give me the wrong link?" Read More...

Okies, So we bribe our daughter to learn new words. Sue us. =)

So we no longer have a still camera due to it getting knocked around....a lot, insert cute toddler fingers. But Dad did get a video camera that's meant to take quick videos for youtube. I've never been one for youtube, but it's pretty easy. Note that there are several videos in this player, when the first video is over, you can select from the others.

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I'm not exactly sure how old Seporah is in this picture, but I just thought I'd post it to show how much has changed.

1. She's sitting still-that sure doesn't happen anymore
2. The shirt she's wearing has no stains-um yeah right, I just did laundry, she's a messy girl now
3. The carpet's white-I'm now not sure what color to call the carpet
4. All the toys are not only in one room, they're in one place-mmhmm
5. She's cute as cute can be-well that one's still the same Read More...

Yeah, so today wasn't a good day at work. So I went looking for a pediatric nurse blog. I found blogs from ER nurses, labor and delivery nurses, OR nurses, student nurses, male nurses, med-surg nurses, but no pediatric nurses. I'm like man, it would just be nice to read someone else's failures and successes who knows what working on a pediatric med-surg floor was like. Read More...

Dad got a new toy:

There are times when living far away from family really sucks. Take when you're 34 weeks pregnant and tired and hungry. Now if I lived close to Grandma and Grandpa, I could drive over say feed the pregnant lady and I'd get food auto-magically, plus someone else would play with the toddler for free (when the going rate is $7/hour, it's just tough to justify getting a sitter to take a nap). Not only that but if I looked really sorry, someone might even offer to come do my dishes. Instead the house is trashed, Seporah is crawling over tired mommy and daddy and daddy is going to get Mexican pick up on a Sunday (FYI, we usually don't do that on Sunday, but I'm like, whatever just as long as it shows up and the only finger I have to lift is the one holding the fork). Read More...

Fingernail clippers all over the house are disappearing at an alarming rate. I will defend this last pair. I put it down on the dresser next to the bed. I blink. I blink again. They are gone. The Clipper Culprit has struck again!

I will catch her. Suspect: 3 foot 1 inch blonde female, about 28 lbs. Cute, when she wants to be. She denies it of course, but I will catch her.

First step, find another pair of Fingernail clippers. This is a failure, and I am forced to head to the local hardware store and purchase a new pair. I put them down on the foot of the bed, and wait. I go around the corner of the room, and I wait. Ahh, there she is. The Clipper Culprit waddles in, and grabs them. She looks around to see if she is being watched. I look away. She finds the nearest drawer and hides them under some clothes, looking around the whole while. Busted!
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1. Go Surfing-I have lived on this island for over a year and a half, but with a newborn and pregnancy and everything else, I just haven't gone. However I am going to go this summer. Because you just can't live in Hawaii for 3 years and not try surfing at least once (well, Steven has no intention of trying, but that's him).

2. Get My Wisdom Teeth Removed-they really should have come out a long time ago but didn't. I actually had an appointment for it last April, but then I was pregnant and well they won't pull them on a preggo lady. So the plan is this January.

3. Get My Tonsils Removed-they really, really should have come out a long time ago but didn't. I'm planning on May.

4. Breastfeed for a Year-would have maybe done this with Seporah, but I stopped when I got stuck with a dirty needle for fear that I'd give her something.

5. Learn to Make a Quiche-I really love them and I just haven't found a restaurant around here that makes them, so I'm just going to have to learn to make it. I checked out some recipes but haven't found one I like, so if someone has a favorite quiche recipe they use send it my way.

6. Go Camping on the Beach-we've been saying we were going to do this forever, but haven't. It looks like this may be the first one I'm actually doing, this Tuesday in fact (that's actually why I decided to make the list, because there's so much you think hey I'm gonna do that and don't, like EMP and The Space Needle in Seattle, I never went to either and I lived there for 11 years, hello?).

7. Get a Real Family Picture-We never got a real one with the three of us and I kept saying we should, but we didn't. However we're getting one with the four of us. I'd also like to get Seporah, Felicity and I all white dresses and get a mommy/daughter picture. When Felicity is a little older and more photogenic, I was thinking around Easter, plus little white Easter dresses are oh so cute.

8. Put My Hair in a Ponytail-true I've done this before, but not in years, it's been too short. I haven't cut it since last October and I figured 12 months would give me enough time to grow it out for a ponytail, alas that is not the case. Some of my hair is long enough for it, but most of it isn't, it's really layered, there's a good 6 inches between the shortest and longest layers due to the way it's grown, hopefully in the next 12 months it'll be long enough, if it's not, I swear it's getting chopped off.

9. Learn to Juggle 2 Babies, Full Time Work and a Husband in the Military-yeah, um, no explanation needed.

10. Start Potty Training Seporah-becauses 2 kids in diapers is expensive and annoying. Read More...

So I have a slight dilemma, I am going to have 2 little girls, which means I need "Big Sister/ Little Sister" T-shirts. However I don't want them to just say big sister and little sister, I want them to be humorous. So I need some ideas, cause the ones I'm coming up with are kinda lame, ie:

Boss
Grunt

Why?
Because?

I'm the smart one.
That's what she thinks.

You may be the princess, but I'm the queen ~The Big Sister
You may be the queen, but I rule the throne ~The Little Sister Read More...

So Steven says I gripe too much about my work, so here I am listing the positives about my work (and there are a lot). I may not have huge flexibility with maternity leave, but as for my schedule, I have serious amounts of flexibility. After Felicity's born, I will work full time and not work Sundays, that just doesn't happen in a hospital position and the only reason I can get it to happen is because I work in a military hospital and they make the soldiers work every Sunday. I like my job and the people I work with with (for the most part), that should be reason enough really since there are so many people who hate their jobs. I get paid good money, I may have to pay a lot for babysitting and such, but I know plenty of women who work and essentially their whole paycheck goes to babysitting or daycare. I don't get called off unless I want to, another really good thing, when I worked in Georgia, I'd sign up for a 40 hour week and sometimes only work 16 hours because of patient census being too low, and when you need the money, that's not cool. Because I work 12 hour shifts, I only have to work 6 days in a 2 week period to be full time, most people have to work 10, I guess this goes along with flexibility, but it's really nice with babies and kids. I work in a great place, I'd take my daughter's there if I had to, the hospital in Georgia I wouldn't have, it was bad. Occasionally (not very often but sometimes), I get to go to work and I get paid to color or play board games with kids (this one may or may not work because some people go to work and surf the internet or play games on the computer all day long). When I go back to work I'll have not only have a hospital grade breast pump at my disposal, but a breastmilk fridge to store breastmilk in (I may not have the time to pump some days, ouch, but it's there, at least I won't have to pump in the bathroom).

BTW, I think the reason why I write pessimistic blogs is because they turn out funnier usually, plus I think positive ones all sound like I'm bragging, but while we're on a happy-life-is-grand blog I thought I'd tell a cute story that happened yesterday. The past couple months I've been craving mint Mentos, yeah it's weird. Seporah has come to know what the package looks like and she loves them. Well I took a package out yesterday to take with me to work and Seporah saw. She reached up her hand and said "Peas, peas!" (she can't quite say please correctly, it's totally cute). I really didn't want to share, but if you'd seen how cute she was, you would have given her what ever she asked for. So I held up one finger and said, "All right you can have one, but only one." She held up two fingers and said "TWO!" Read More...

So I know I've griped about maternity leave before, but I'm gonna do it again. Yeah, maternal health sucks in this country and maternity leave sucks as well. Do you know Ethiopia has a better maternity leave plan than we do? ETHIOPIA?!?! They get 90 days paid leave, we only get 12 weeks unpaid. And you know what, I don't even get that cause I work in a military hospital and all military people get 6 weeks off. So they're like you want 6 weeks right, and I'm like NO, anyways it ends up being 10 1/2 weeks. But depending on when Felicity decides to show up it could be when she's 6 weeks old. I mean at 6 weeks most infants still wake up 4 times a night. Imagine waking up 4 times a night for 30 minutes each and then going to work a 12 hour shift (and that's on your feet all day, where a lot of times your customers, ie parents and patients, expect you to wait on them hand and foot). Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Everyone needs to pray for me that Felicity is born between November 2-12, I'd really like November 5th if anyone wants an exact date to pray for (she'd be 10 weeks old when I went back to work then). Oh and no c-section, because I have no desire to recover from major abdominal surgery, care for a newborn and go back to work seriously sleep deprived. Read More...

Whenever you go onto a military base or post, there is this sign that says how many days it's been since that base's last fatal accident. I'm not exactly sure why they post this, it's not talking about the "War in Iraq." No what those signs are talking about is the last time some stupid 18 year old brand new single soldier got really drunk and crashed his vehicle into a wall and killed himself. Now if the post makes it to 100 days, all the soldier's get a holiday for not being stupid (actually Steven doesn't because he has shift work, but that's besides the point). In the 6+ years I've seen these signs I don't think I've ever seen it go above about 120. What happens a lot is the soldiers get their holiday at 100 days and then they do something stupid during that point and it goes all the way back down to 0. The lowest I've seen was 11 days, where it promptly went back to 0. You might think I'm sadistic, but everytime I see this sign go back to 0 I start laughing. All I can think is good, one more stupid soldier down, only about 500,000 to go.

This last time however, the sign didn't go back to 0 at 11 or 120, no it just keeps on going up. Yesterday, I looked and it was at 320! You might think it's because soldiers are getting smarter, but no unfortunately they're not, they're just all being sent overseas. Holy cow, I keep wondering what would actually happen if it reaches 365, a whole year without a stupid soldier killing themselves on base. Maybe the base would get a whole week holiday (that should cause the number to go back to 0 at least once). Read More...

Daddy had just gotten home from work this morning and needed to sleep. So Seporah and I went to Wal-mart. Seporah was having a difficult time staying in the cart (she always does, she just wants to be a-moving). I took her out and we just went walking around. A friend I knew from church said hi and we chatted for a couple of minutes and then I turned around and there was no Seporah. I looked and looked, especially in the clothes carts because she likes to play in those, but I couldn't find her. I was like oh no, I don't even know what to do. I stopped some employee and she said to go to customer service. So I went to customer service and totally interrupted an employee and customer at the desk (for which I got nasty looks). The lady said what's her name, we'll overhead page her. "No, no, she's 1 1/2, she won't answer to it! She's in a blue shirt and khaki shorts!" Then some guy came up and said there was a girl in McDonald's. I ran over there and sure enough there she was eating animal crackers like nothing was the matter, I think she was also asking for some french fries. So she's alive and well. Needless to say it was significantly more traumatic for me than her. Read More...

So my last 12 hour shift until after Felicity's born turned into a 13 hour shift with no lunch break and only 3 potty breaks. I was hungry, thirsty, physically and mentally tired and felt like my belly and legs were going to fall off. I got home and went to pick up Seporah from the sitter's. She was so excited ad I got a Hi! Hi! Hi! Then a great big hug and 3 kisses. The sitter got a Bye! Bye! Bye! and hand waves. It's really cool to be a toddler's best friend sometimes. Read More...

So as I get more and more pregnant, I get more and more uncomfortable and about the only place I don't feel like I'm gonna fall apart is the water. We end up going to the pool everyday, it's way easier than the beach and bigger than the bathtub. One thing I don't particularly care for is the swim diapers. Now you can't put babies in regular diapers when swimming, one because it's against the rules most places but mostly because two, diapers in water get really nasty, they hold all the pool water, get huge and weigh about 3 pounds in the first 10 seconds and if they pop, well you're in for a nasty pool clean up with all that diaper cotton floating everywhere.

So we have to buy these swim diapers that don't come cheap. It's a package with 11 in them that cost $7. Ouch, and when you're going swimming everyday that's a double ouch. But the real kicker is they don't hold in urine, that's right there's lotsa baby urine in the pool (as well as kid and probably adult urine). They're really for holding in poop, usually you only go swimming for 30-60minutes anyways and in that timeframe babies don't usually poop. So you've spent all that money for nothing. I don't think before the last week that Seporah has used them (meaning pooped in them) but twice and it's not because we don't swim either.

Now I don't know what is going through my daughter's head, maybe she's getting ready for potty training and she decided the pool was the best place to go, but in the last week she has pooped 3 times in these swim diapers. Yuck, and poopie swim diapers are about the grossest thing to clean up because it gets all runny from the water. And you have to pull apart the sides and let this runny poopie mess go everywhere, we usually hold her over a trash can. This is just another example of the things you don't know anything about before you have kids. It's pretty gross. I hope you didn't read this post while eating breakfast. Read More...

I often say if I were President I'd make 9 out of 10 fast food restaurants go away. Steven's reading over my shoulder and saying that's stupid government involvement, but oh well, I like my government involved. I say having so many fast food restaurants takes away valuable tax money. So many fast food restaurants helps increase the obesity rate in America, increasing the many, many health problems of Americans, using up tax money to pay for treatments that these Americans caused themselves, which is why I'll probably never work with adults in nursing, they cause their own health issues. But anyways I'm getting off topic.

When I say 9 out of 10 fast food restaurants, people look at me funny and say, why not all of them. To which I say that fast food actually does have a purpose sometimes. Last night was one of those times. I had worked all day and hardly eaten anything (not good at 7 months pregnant) and Steven had literally been awake 36 hours working. Yeah we were both starving and Wendy's drive through sounded pretty good. I got a loaded baked potato, a caesar salad and a chocolate frosty. It was good. And as I was eating it, all I could think was this is so wrong. It's kinda like a vegetarian who goes and has a piece of chicken. Read More...

I assumed, like probably most people, that breastfeeding in public has become more and more accepted by the general public as time as gone on and people have become less clothed. However I was wrong actually. Our society has grown less tolerant of breastfeeding public as formula companies has increased their hold on people's minds that bottle feeding is better and Barbie and others have sexualized the breasts in the public's eyes. In movies if women are breastfeeding during historical times they are covered up, but come on it's the movies, that's not really the way it was. You can look at older photographs to realize that women breastfeed whenever and wherever they pleased because it was indeed normal and natural.

Besides breastfeeding with a blanket is truly hot and uncomfortable and the kid's gonna bat it away anyways because they're suffocating under it.

(blankets added by Steven)




1898, no blanket there

circa 1930s, no blanket there

no blanket here

1936, no blanket

And of course, WWJD? He'd breastfeed without a blanket over his head. Read More...

Ok, here is what I do before a pt test, normally. 3 days prior, I start watching what I eat. I spend roughly an hour in the sauna, sweating off weight, in half hour increments. 2 days prior I eat VERY little, cut back my water consumption by perhaps half, and spend another hour in the sauna, again in half hour increments. I also take a double dose of laxatives before I go to bed, and coat myself in Preparation H and wrap my abdomen in cellophane. The next morning (day before the pt test) I wake up, take the cellophane off (water weight just washing off of me, this REALLY works) and deal with the consequences of the nights laxative. I then take more laxative. =) 2 hours today in the sauna (these are all approximates). No food today whatsoever. (click through to read the rest) Read More...

What does government do better than the private sector? Honestly. Think about it. First thing that will come to mind is probably the military. But come on... I really doubt that the conflict in Iraq would still be going on if a private sector business with half of the resources and half of the manpower had been allowed to fight the war, free of the constraints of Washington politics, political correctness and illogical rules of engagement. But I am starting this off incorrectly. Click Read More... to finish this rant. Read More...

I went to work yesterday and saw a friend (who's in the military) back on her second day from maternity leave. I asked how she was, holy cow. She spent 4 weeks in the ICU and then she still had to come back after 6 weeks, she tried to extend or to use her leave time, but the military wouldn't let her. Hello? What? No one knew about this either, I asked and they're all like no way. If we'd known we would have at least visited, I mean we work in the same hospital. Yeah so the US is ranked 40th for maternal morbidity and mortality, Sweden is number 1. Women in Sweden also get maternity leave for up to a year there and 6 months of it is fully paid. I keep telling Steven we're moving there.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427256/?GT1=10252 Read More...

Well, it has happened; I did not ask for it but it sucks nonetheless...

I went to see a sport's medicine doctor for a pain that I have been having and found that I chipped a bone in my left foot. The x-ray was interesting in that the bone chip was sticking in the Achilles' tendon and causing my a lot of discomfort when I walked, jogged, or ran. It is also difficult to drive a standard transmission when you cannot move your ankle.

Oh well, the remedy is to keep my foot in a boot-type cast for four weeks to see if it heals on its own. If not, I guess I will be looking at some minor surgery to remove the chip.

Of course, all of this is playing havoc with my desire to go out and run. And, I just signed up for a 1/2 marathon on Sept 29th. Maybe I will run it anyway...after all, that is six weeks away.

Love to you all, Grandpa Russ Read More...

Both these elevator rides actually happened on Monday. I work on the 7th floor, I'm really pregnant, I need to go to the 2nd floor, the 1st floor and the 4th floor usually about 8 times in a 12 hour shift. There is no way I am walking that many stairs.



So I was 27 and a half weeks on Monday and riding in an elevator with an anxious man who's getting off on the 5th floor. I said "oh did you just have a baby?" Because the 5th floor is the mother baby floor. His response was "No, my wife's 27 weeks and the baby's trying to come early." You have to understand I don't really look pregnant in scrubs, they hide a lot and even if I did, this man was far to anxious and self-involved at that moment to realize I was. But all I could think was his wife and I were both 27 weeks and I sure wasn't ready for a baby to come. I mean I am, I'm sick of being pregnant and waiting but I really don't want a premie baby, I want a healthy 9 1/2 pound girl. It kinda made me apprehensive and grateful and scared all at once.


The other ride was with a man and a woman employee. The man said "I haven't seen you in a while, how are you doing?" Woman: "It's my first day back." Man: "Oh did you go on leave." Woman: "No I just got back from maternity leave." Ah-ha, another woman I was glad I wasn't. Yeah, the first day back from maternity leave sucks. Remember going back after summer break and you're a little rusty, you're excited to see everyone again but you'd prefer to play in the sunshine. It's like that except you're the only one who's rusty, you're still sleep deprived and you'd rather play with your little sunshine baby. Read More...

So I'm at work a couple of weeks ago discussing about a baby with failure to thrive with some co-workers (failure to thrive means VERY small baby who's lacking developmentally). One co-worker says something to the effect that formula feeding is better than breastfeeding and another co-worker says don't say that in front of Märia, she's entirely pro-breastfeeding. I went on to state the benefits of breastfeeding and why it was significantly better. It seemed kind of strange to me though, before I had Seporah I knew breast was best and I even knew quite a few reasons why, but that's about as much as I knew about it, I don't think I ever would have been known as a lactivist (lactation or breastfeeding activist). I don't think I ever would have discussed it, it wasn't the most interesting subject in my opinion. I've now read just about every website known to man about it (and boy are there a LOT), read 10 or so books on the matter (with at least 300 others in circulation and waiting to be read) and discussed boobie juice (I think that's the best term, makes me laugh) with literally hundreds of women (most of them helping moms get latched on and such in the pediatric ward). I could tell you just about anything you ever wanted to know about breastfeeding. Seporah and I only breastfed for 4 1/2 months, I thought I knew about breastfeeding before hand, but I never had a clue. Read More...

From Erica:

Jacob Burton Smith is finally here!! He was born Saturday, August 11th at 7:28 pm at St. Luke's. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 inches long. We came home last night from the hosptial and are very glad to be home with big sister Hailey!! We are all doing very well, but tired. Here are some photos.
  
love-Andrew, Erica and Hailey Read More...

When I was pregnant with Seporah I learned that the number one consumed vegetable by children was french fries (as well as adults). I was shocked to say the least. First off potatoes aren't a vegetable, they're a starch. And second off, hello? How many french fries does anyone need, let alone children who's taste buds are unadulterated. Plus they really aren't that good. I said I would never, ever give my daughter french fries, at least until she was in kindergarden or something. I've seen quite a few 9 month olds who chow down on the soft salty french fries that come from McDonald's. Seporah made it to about 14 months, when I was heaving up chunks everyday in the toilet due to the very, very small Felicity. Steven would come home and I'd tell her to take her, take her anywhere, I don't care, just let me be. I wasn't feeding Seporah as much because I couldn't handle the smell of anything, so Steven took her to get french fries, well she loves them, a lot. It's mildly annoying how much she loves them, we drive past a fast food joint and she smells them and she starts whining for french fries. I always tell her no (and Dad tells her yes when I'm not around). Read More...

Seporah is a crazy monkey, really. We have always been excited to have a kid that really enjoys helping around the house and cleaning up. When we do clothes she brings them to us, and she understands (and has for a long time) where dirty clothes go and where trash goes. She helps take out the "Seporah sized trash" when I take out the big kitchen trash and she puts it in the garbage chute all by herself. But here is where the OCD kicks in. She pushes on the garbage chute until it closes, even though it is spring loaded to close.

Once when we were eating out we got this little wooden cow with holes in it's back to hold crayons. She pulled the crayons out one at a time, and when she wanted another, she would put the first one back in the hole. We were of course used to this behavior, but Märia's uncle Bob said that this was very peculiar for a 16 month old. And since then, we have noticed all the other little things. Her drawers have a "seat belt" that keep her from strewing the contents everywhere. If we open them to get something for her, she isn't interested in ANYTHING until the "seat belt" is closed again and she can't access it! Trash most definitely goes in the trash can. Doors, drawers and cabinets must be shut. And here is the one that convinced me it was far beyond normal.

She pulled out the milk carton asking for milk. I got her some and put it back. And she wasn't happy. I didn't know what was wrong, but she noticed something that was just wrong. So I let her into the fridge to tell me what she wanted. She kept trying to close the milk carton! You know, those half gallon milk cartons? Well, after they have been opened, they never close to where they look brand new. And that was driving her crazy! She kept trying to close it over and over again. And it never could close closer than say an 8th of an inch. Just not good enough for my little OCD girl. =)

I hope I never have to put my little girl in the monkey house, but Märia tells me to look at the silver lining. We probably won't have a hard time getting her to keep her room clean! Read More...

I haven't updated in too long, which is normally when I update! Um, Jason posted a great post on our marathon experience in California, but he left out that small part about how he motivated and pushed me, and seriously laid back so as to finish with me. As proof, he just ran the San Francisco Marathon in 4:40 (we ran ours in 5:38). Congratulations to Jason!

I have spent quite a bit of time recently fighting scammers online. I really hate scammers, who prey on trusting (or ignorant) web shoppers and steal their money. One of the scammers was sending out email that looked like it was from ebay and sent you to a webpage that looked like it was from ebay. It was hosted on a yahoo hosted domain and I contacted Yahoo and got them yanked. I actually tracked them to the middle of Russia and got a call from an FBI rep. It was actually pretty cool.

The second was a CraigsList scam, where people were attempting to have people Western Union them money for computers that they would never get. It was quite a complex setup actually. I tracked them to a guy in Virginia and when I called him up to yell at him and such he played stupid. Well, he was stupid, or computer stupid at least. Just an older guy who had scammers pull his name out of a phone book and register domains under his name and address. I really felt bad for him. So then I contacted his hoster (who happened to be Microsoft Live) and instructed them about the scam, and about how I had talked to the person the domains were registered to and that his identity had been stolen and he wanted them out of his name immediately. So they got shut down by Microsoft and the guy seemed to be grateful.

So that is pretty much been my last couple of weeks. =) Stay tuned for cool stuff from Jason and me. =)

Did you know if you type "c-section" in Google's images pages the most popular picture is Britney Spears climbing out of a car without underwear where you can see her faint c-section scar? Most are edited with a heart or a kitty or an "oops" covering her so it's "decent." Did you also know that in the year 2005 (when Seporah was born) 30.9% of babies were born via c-section? That's essentially 1 in 3 babies. The WHO recommends the c-section rate be no more than 15%, but because of a lot of factors mostly fear of litigation and malpractice rates as well as the preferring of physicians to practice 9-to-5, our country's not listening. When you think about it, that's a lot of women running around with a laughing smiling face scar on their abdomen. A lot of women unhappy about their bodies. Of course in our culture of photo shopped images of perfect women, can any woman really get through life without some animosity towards their bodies wether they have scars or not. So it's not so much the scars but the robbing of the entrance into motherhood. I get a daily reminder or that when ever I get dressed, it's pretty ugly, every single day. Read More...

Well everyone, it's been quite a while since I have posted anything, so I felt that I needed to make myself known again. I have about two months to cover, so I'll start at the beginning and hopefully you all won't be asleep by paragraph two.

Well, work is going okay. Nothing really exciting is going on, just working hard at doing... nothing. I have been negatively counseled twice in the last two months over things that normally go by with a minor scolding. I showed up to Physical Training one morning without shaving and once I was about a minute and a half late. The former of these two offenses would normally be a very bad thing, except it was PT and not work.. One could argue they are one and the same, but such is really not the case. I shave when I shower.. a habit I developed from my father, and naturally I would not shower prior to going to get sweaty, because I'm going to shower afterwards. This makes perfect sense to me, though apparently... I'm in a minority as I was punished for this action. The second one is completely understandable, though it's a rather unsaid rule that you should receive a warning if you haven't made showing up late an issue prior. So.. One more goof up in the next two months, and I'm looking at administrative action against me. Nothing that bugs me in the slightest, mind you.. since I have already received my good conduct medal, and am realistically 8 months away from FREEDOM. (I need all of you to scream this as if you were William Wallace at your screens as you read this.. I did) Read More...

Yep that's right, we are seriously going to outnumber Dad! I thought I'd be disappointed if it wasn't a boy, but actually I'm pretty excited. I still don't know what I'm going to do with my blue layette, whoever has a boy next is going to be in luck. More than a little worried about when Seporah and the new one are teenagers, they are going to get in so much trouble together. But I don't have to worry about circumcision or getting shot in the eye or how much mud can fit inside jean pockets. We can all go shopping and get pedicures and maybe I'll even learn to french braid. So far though, I've got to do all the sex talks, I think that's unfair, Steven should have to do one. Maybe I'll make him do the drugs and alcohol talks.

We're really working on explaining to Seporah about the new baby. I thought she had it down because when I asked where the baby was she would come up and point to my belly. However apparently she doesn't because when Steven asked her where the baby was, she pointed to his tummy. And then this week Seporah and I went to the aquarium with a friend and her 4month old baby. I said "Look at baby Tosh, we have to be gentle with baby Tosh, etc." She looked at baby Tosh and said "Doll."
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Heya! The new webpage is live and there are a couple of things we should go over. =)

First of all, there is now a way for everyone else to submit news to Rushing Around. Jason and I originally envisioned Rushing Around as being a place where all our families could keep in touch, submit photos and news and articles and the like. Obviously that hasn't happened and that is really ok. Märia and I and Jason keep the blogs coming in, and Russ comments and we are all happy. =) Read More...

Well, I guess this post is aimed mostly at Russ, but hey, whatever. I haven't posted nearly as much as I should recently. I have been really bugged by comment spam on this blog, and I just get so tired of wading through it. Wordpress (the software that runs this site) is a great system, but it seems spam comments just seem to get through. Read More...

So I was thinking about when we go to Washington in December and I said "Hey, we should go to the Melting Pot!" This is a really good fondue place for those who don't know. It's fun, you go with friends and eat fondue together. It's also kinda nicer, so I asked Steven if he thought Seporah would be mature enough to go. He said, "No, Seporah's a little Russell." Anyone who knew Russell as a child (or heard the many stories ;) knows exactly what he meant. Read More...

We all went to the water park today and had a lot of fun. We went in the little kids pool with little slides, water guns, sprinklers and other such children's swim stuff. It was also packed with, you guessed it, kids and their parents. Now Seporah is a very active, very social toddler. She loves to talk and she loves to be the center of attention. Read More...

If you ask any mom with young children what they consider a good day, most will respond with something along the lines "I got a shower sometime in the last 24 hours and I ate more than leftover cheerios." Before I had Seporah I took ridiculously long baths. Sometimes 2 or 3 a day. They were a way to wind down. I had an arrangement of bubble baths, bath salts, bath cubes, a bath pillow for goodness sakes. Read More...

Warning: this really is about weight and babies, it could get really boring if you don't care about this. But well, I'm a mom of a 17month old, it's geneticly encoded in me to worry. End of Warning.

I'm a pediatric nurse, I've seen quite a few underweight babies, and also some on the overweight size. My thoughts always were if a baby's underweight according to the growth charts check out Mom and Dad first to see if they're 5'1" or if the baby's truly underweight or just smaller. And big babies, well the bigger the better. As long as parents weren't feeding them steak and potatoes at 3 months, I was cool with that. Read More...

I do not vote.

Nope, I sure don't. My father's not very proud of that, but there you go. When I tell people this they smile and say, "Well at least you didn't vote for _____." Why you may ask do I not vote, is it because I don't really care and don't have an opinion, well yes partly that. But the real reason, is no one gives it to you straight. Steven likes to listen to Glenn Beck and Dr. Laura Love and a few other people who I can't remember their names. He listens to them because they're just about as conservative as he is and he agrees with them about 98% of the time. Read More...

It has been a work in progress for a long time.  Basically life has just been too busy and I always take on too many projects.  But I completed the new SeporahsCrib tonight.  There is still a little fixing up to be done here and there, but the blog is kind of going now.  We will try to make sure Seporah keeps it updated.  =)

Email Seporah at Seporah@SeporahsCrib.com!


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I just loved it!

"There are many reasons to shift away from fossil fuels, and we will do so in the next century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon- conservation programs, or the interminable yammering of fearmongers. So far as I know, nobody had to ban horse transport in the early twentieth century." Michael Crichton, State of Fear Read More...

You know that whole covet commandment? Thou shalt not covet your neighbors wife and all that? It really has little to do with adultery or theft, and everything to do with being content. I always thought of coveting as only being bad insomuch as it led to worse sins (such as the above two), but that simply isn't what it is about.

It is about priorities. About choosing to live within your means. About being happy with what we have. About being grateful.

La la la. Cheese Cheese.
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Today I bought kid cuisines for my daughter...Yeah, there is just no energy in me to cook. I think they're worse than a McDonald's Happy Meal, and there's no toy to justify the high fat and calorie content. Read More...

You may remember the the analogies for the atom given in your 5th grade science class. It was often either a piece of paper with a dot in the middle or a football stadium with a football in the middle. You remember the football or the dot represented the nucleus, and then flies spinning around the stadium would represent the electrons. See, scientifically the atom is 99.99999% empty space. And yet we are all made up of atoms. I can feel things. Everything is made up of atoms. And ALL atoms are almost completely "empty". Read More...

Well, Everyone.. It's been ENTIRELY too long since you have heard from me, and I figured I'd tell you a bit of a human tale. See Fairy Tales are highly exagerated, fictional stories about real people that the fairies happen to respect, love, or hate. Fairies are quite destinctly the worst liars ever. This is a human tale, it is mildly exagerated (for comical use only of course), truthful story about someone in which the author is well versed with. In this particular case, the author and main character is myself, so please bare with me as fairy tales, for all their heros and glamour, are much more entertaining :-). CLICK READ MORE TO READ IT ALL! Read More...

Seporah's gonna be a BIG sister. We're like 5 weeks along and expecting little Oren (feeling boy vibes) in the middle of November. Read More...

As many of you have read on my blog, I recently completed the 8 mile Great Aloha Run. You can read about my experience there, but to be succinct, crossing the finish line with 20,000 other people was absolutely amazing. It literally had me waxing poetic! (ok, so the poem was a requirement of my creative writing class, and NO, you can't read it=) But seriously though, There is nothing quite like running with so many people, and finishing the race. Read More...

Well since we no longer update Seporah's Crib, just too much to do, I thought I'd give an update on Seporah's many words. First is the words she says and then how they sound: Read More...

But it was fun all the same.

Today I ran the Great Aloha Run. It starts at Aloha Tower and goes to Aloha Stadium, and is 8.13 miles (although I am not sure if they count the part where you run all the way around the stadium=). Read More...

Hey everybody! Well it's Sunday afternoon in Iraq, about 4:04 pm and the weather out here has been really windy and coldish. I say coldish because it's not really "cold" it's in the lower 60's. I'm sitting here and listening to Big Dismal. Wow, guys.. such a great band. It's a slow day really, though I got to talk on Aim for a lot of it. We're pretty close to coming home now, just a little more time.

Okay, well after a moment of back thought I realize now that I have very little of literal consequence to report, thought my days has been filled with GREAT emotional events. I figure, if you don't mind terribly I'd tell you about the marathon. I completed it! I finished in 4 hours and 35 minutes. The course for a normal marathon is flat and straight, but the course we had, had slants and rocks, off road, on road.. lol. Read More...

I read Lonnie‚Äôs very first posting today and thought I would follow in his footsteps by posting an entry, too. Just remember Lonnie, spring is on the way.¶

Pam and I (Märia‚Äôs mom and dad) just returned from our first-ever cruise. We celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary by doing a 7-day eastern Caribbean cruise. We visited Nassau (Bahamas), St Thomas (US Virgin Islands), and St Martens (Netherlands Antilles). While in our various ports of call we went snorkeling on a coral reef, mountain bike riding, and snorkeling on three ship wrecks. We also enjoyed some of the best food anywhere; we both gained 10 pounds to attest to the quality and quantity of the food.

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Well, this is my first post here so bear with me. I never quite know what to say since my life is so much more boring than everyone elses. I go to work and come home and go to work again. So exciting!!

We have a major new task occuring at work. There is a new program coming on line at work. It will have major changes in how TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) will conduct business. As Extraditions Unit leader, I have been responsible for working with the programmers and helping them to understand how we conduct business so that they can implement our business model into the new program. Believe me, they have picked my brain and I hope I gave them enough information to make a good new model for us. Tomorrow, I get to demonstrate it and train my unit on the new program. Won't that be fun - NOT!! I hope it goes well tomorrow Read More...

lol this won't be another post like the last one. Well, it's been a bit since I posted, so I figured I'd drop another line to let you guys know that I'm still alive and kicking. Well, alot of people have been breaking their laptops lately so i've been pretty busy out troubleshooting and keeping everyone's connection up. You'd be amazed the problems I see. "it won't turn on!" (it's not plugged in) "I can't recieve emails!" (they have it in 'offline mode') "what's my login name?" (it's your first.last name?!! how can you forget your name?!!) AHHHHHH. Read More...

We're off to the big island for a couple of days (YEAH!!!) So we probably won't be as accessable. Hope everyone's New Year is going well.
Märia Read More...