Fate is stubborn

It seems like every time I have to catch a flight, something happens either at security, baggage check, or elsewhere that delays me and makes me almost miss my flight. I hate the feeling of being rushed in the airport, as the possibility of missing a flight and potentially blowing a lot of money is very stressful. Consequently, when I was in Chicago for a political science conference earlier this week, I decided to play it on the cautious side and leave for the airport three hours early. On arriving at the airport, I stretched my legs out and relaxed for about half an hour, feeling relaxed about the fact that, for the first time in a very long time, I was sitting in the terminal with plenty of time to catch my flight.

I noticed that American Airlines did not have any kiosks nearby, so I approached a Delta airlines employee about information on how I could check in. After showing her my ticket, she gave me a confused look and informed me that I was at the wrong airport.

Shoot.

I ran with all of my luggage to the train terminal, where I took a train back into the center of Chicago, switched lines, and took the route to the correct airport. I made it to my terminal with about ten minutes to spare. So, the moral of the story is: when you are in a large city that could plausibly have multiple airports, you do not necessarily take the subway line that leads to a picture of a little yellow plane at the end.

dream come true

Ooops! I accidentally published my last post too soon and didn't realize it. Here is the 2nd part to that post:
Anyway, I might as well make it known that since I was a child, I've loved seeing couples where the woman was taller than the man. It seems a telling sign of a man (and woman) who refused to accept the ridiculous gender norms of our society. I am pleased that Stephen and I now qualify to be such a couple.
Guess who else is growing in their old age?
Yup, Kumquat. He's just a little string bean that fellow. When our doctor said we could give him solids, I got pretty excited thinking of all the fat rolls that would be the result of the avocado I would mash up, but it turns out he can't even get good tasting fruit and peaches to the back of his mouth. I guess we'll have to put those fat rolls on hold.

Update on us:
I'm done grading papers and Stephen is done with finals!
Our landlord won the biggest loser contest. He may or may not have taken something that would make him a frequent visitor of the restroom. (He would have won anyway.)
Chistian got his immunizations today (a month late) and has had a bad day since.
I'm wiriting this post without contacts, so forgive me if it has errors.
I hurt my back a week ago and have been standing up much straighter since.
Here's one of my favorites of our getting fatter and fatter Kumquat:

Did I ever mention that mother instincts totally skipped me?

A more recent picture of our little fellow:

For the longest time, I've been wondering why everyone has been lying to me about their height, or have been simply measuring their height in their mother's high heels. Today a nurse measured me and I was not 6'1 as I had been told for the past 5 years of my life, but 6'3 (Granted she was much shorter than I was and asked me afterwards if that was correct, but hey who am I to question standard U.S. measurement system?)
I've thought since before I even started dating Stephen and he was simply "plaid shirt boy" that I was taller than him. It wasn't until we started dating that other people had us stand back to back and said we were the same that I started doubting my guessing-height instinct.

with his daddy

I beat anorexia

I decided after my mission in Spain that, at some point in my life, I wanted to go 48 hours without food. I figured that this was the closest that I could come to experiencing what so many others have experienced without dealing harm to my body. Lately, I've also been in a competition with "the landlord" to see who can lose the most weight in a four-month period. So, this weekend I designated Friday 4:30-Sunday 4:30 as my no-calorie time (Rachel won't let me call it a fast for such an unworthy purpose). A few observations:

The main inconvenience during the first 24 hours is the hunger and desire for food. The second 24 hours, the main culprit is lethardy and weakness. My desire for food did not increase (it might have even decreased a little bit). Additionally, the hunger pains increased only marginally.

The lethargy from hunger near the end of the 48 hours is similar to what you feel after a hard day's work on no sleep (my trip up King's Peak elicited a comparable feeling) only it's less soporific.

The second 24 hours, a set of weird (but minor) symptoms kick in. For me they included light headedness, irritible legs, and sensitive eardrums.

At the end of fast Sunday, the impulse to gorge is high, and afterwards a peaceful, content feeling comes over me as a lie sprawled out on a coach. Not so with the 48-hour fast. After gorging, the sudden rush of food in a stomach not used to it, while it feels good, comes with its own litany of symptoms. While it's better than not having food in the stomach, it comes with its own unique sense of uneasiness uncomfort.

Diminishing returns applies to crash weight loss. The first 24 hours I lost 5 lbs, and the second I lost 4 lbs. (and that was with cutting out water for the last 15 hours).

Overall, I'm glad that I had the experience, but I will never do it again.

Home Poem

This is a gmail chat conversation from this week during finals.

me: I'm back in the library

 

 

9 minutes

 

10:11 PM Rachel: home

poem

me: Let me finish this test

I will have a lot of closure if I can have this done by the time I get home

10:12 PM Rachel: how long will that take?

10:16 PM me: Maybe until midnight

 

 

12 minutes

 

10:29 PM Rachel: lvo

10:30 PM home poem

poem home

i need you

to no longer roam

me: lol

all right love, you need to get back to your papers

10:31 PM you're starting to lose it

but I think you're cute

Rachel: i think

I'm going to call a gnome

to get you back hom

under our dome

10:32 PM of our home

come now

holy cow

our baby is sad

because i won't nurse him back to sleep

and am just watching him

drif

t

its been a while since I've just watched him

his eyes

10:33 PM close

and then open

perhaps only one

should i nurse hime?

oh the answers

you could give if your

heart told you home

but instead tells you

10:34 PM to be a drone

in front of a computer

alone

me: Okay, I'm going to save this and put it on our blog

Rachel: oh how our child will bemoan

10:35 PM such a casual tone

when you should be home

Cousins for Christian

So our little fellow is going to have five cousins his same age between the two clans. The two most recent were just born:

Alex:


Chloe (name of my grandmother):



Aren't they adorable? I only have one cousin my same age, but Christian gets five!
He's such a lucky duck.

Us

More bedtime stories?

When I was a teenager my brother who was away at BYU Idaho sent me the book/short story The Wise Woman by George MacDonald. I was flattered at thinking my brother thought I was a wise woman, but because it had a weird cover I didn't read it for a couple years. To my chagrin, when I did read it I found that it wasn't so much a story of a wise woman, as much as two spoiled girls. I think my brother was trying to drop a hint. (MacDonald was one of C.S. Lewis' inspirations and reading MacDonald I definitely can see the similarities between the two. So if you liked Narnia, you'll probably like this.) Anyway I just read it again and perhaps because I'm a parent I noticed what great parenting techniques it had.




Another great one is The Very Persistant Gappers of Frip.
This is actually quite a good book for children or adults (we read it in one of my sociology classes).

Anyway, Happy Easter!

So Stephen and I are trying to figure out the best way for Christian (and us) to sleep. Current methods consist of one of these in our bed:

but Christian usually falls asleep nursing in my arms. Yet, the last couple nights I've been tempted to use the crib (perhaps upstairs so the landlords can take care of Kumquat, ha!) because he is waking up EVERY 10 MINUTES and nursing. However, I just read this wikipedia article about co-sleeping and figure I can manage until Christian gets back on his beautiful sleep schedule he once had at night.

sigh, I guess we'll see.

As long as we're on the topic of the things parents sometimes do, but are considered crazy for doing it, I'll mention our attempts of cloth diapering.

It hasn't been bad. We've been using Chinese prefolds with simple plastic covers, except for the two cute covers from our friend Amy. Other than a stinky leak on a dear friend earlier this week, and forgetting to put the plastic over the prefold when we were going out to eat with Stephen's grandparents (everyone wanted to hold him and he was soaking wet) it has been great! We still use disposables (thanks to the generosity of a certain Brian and Erin) when we're going to church, campus, or are just too tired. Yesterday we bought our first pack of disposable diapers ever and hope it will last us for the next four months. We're just waiting for a deal on this site to order the bigger size for Kumquat. In total for cloth diapers we've probably spent $65 for the prefolds, $12 for the plastic covers and snappis. I'm not sure what the energy bill would add up to be, but we try to hang the diapers when we're not in a hurry to help reduce that cost. My mama gave us a great diaper pail to make the whole process less stinky and more sanitary which I definitely recommend if you're going to do it.)



p.s. This is deserving of its own post, but Christian has his first Cranney cousin! We made a visit yesterday to see this handsome little fellow, and ohweee, I think he's a keeper. I'm afraid our camera was out of batteries, but hopefully we can catch a couple photos in the next few weeks.