Monday, January 08, 2007

Tagged left and right!

Thank you so much to everyone who posted in response to my news. It's so nice to have warm fuzzy thoughts from so many people, most of whom have never met me! My inbox was really overwhelming, in a good way. Stefaneener, writing down the birth experience was something I hadn't thought of, but I've done it now. It was pretty extraordinary, but I won't bore everyone with the gory details, I promise. Lilah is still really little, so she doesn't fit into anything I knit for her yet, except the angora baby booties, which she's quite adept at kicking off. We hadn't actually picked out a name before she was born (we were planning on doing that after Christmas...ha!), so she was Baby Girl for her first 16 hours. The funny story is that we were out of town, a two hour drive away, at my husband's parents' house for Christmas. My parents and my brother were in from California for the holidays, since it was too late in pregnancy for me to travel. It was the first time our families had been all together since our wedding. I woke up on Christmas day feeling weird and starting having contractions in the afternoon. By 5:00 p.m., they were 5 minutes apart, and I wanted to hop in the car and drive back home. However, I was persuaded that I did not want to be on the news for having a baby born on the side of the interstate on Christmas, so I went to the local hospital, where Baby Girl puttered around for hours before getting serious about being born around midnight. Both our families were together the next day to welcome her...how cool is that? We think she just wanted to meet everyone right away, and decided to come early.

Rachel, I love that I'm not the only cloth diaper nerd! I ended up going for the "potpourri" approach to cloth diapering. After a bazillion hours of research on Diaper Pin and cloth diapering forums (fora?), I settled on two kinds of one-size all-in-ones (AIOs)--Bumgenius and Mommy's Touch--for the bulk of our diapers. In theory these work from birth to potty training. Since they use the most when they're littlest, I also got FuzziBunz in the small size (not just because the name is so cute, honestly) and Chinese prefolds with Bummis Whisper Wraps. I figured if I liked the prefolds, I could always get larger sized covers when she's big enough. So far, I like them all. The FuzziBunz are too big for her little thighs, though. Matt likes the AIOs best. No major incidents that haven't involved a prematurely opened diaper (she likes to wait until the dirty diaper is off and then zing us and everything around her). They are more bulky than the disposables, but I like that there are no weird chemicals in them and I'm not filling the landfill singlehandedly. On the cloth diapering forums, there are a lot of women who sew their own diapers, but I am not crafty that way. I do want to knit some wool soakers (in fact, I planned on doing that in January while I waited for her arrival...another ha!), though.

Since this is not a baby blog, I am happy to report that there is still knitting and reading going! Writing and cooking are starting to make a comeback as well. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for blogging and such, but I hope to be able to do at least once a week.

So before the holiday craziness, Tim tagged me with a music meme (his list is very cool, no doubt much cooler than mine, and is right here.) And String Bean tagged me with the Six Weird Things meme. Since I'm a little rusty on blogging after the holidays/childbirth extravaganza, I thought I'd tackle these before returning to my usual format.

Six Weird Things About Me

1. I have webbed toes. My second and third toes on each foot are partially attached to each other. It's really very little webbing and doesn't go up very far, but it's there. It was one of the first things I checked on Baby Girl--she's got 'em, too.

2. I set my alarm for times ending in 2 or 8. So, if I need to get up around 6:00, I decide between 5:58 or 6:02.

3. I can count on one hand the number of books, movies, or television series I have failed to finish, no matter how awful. (And David Foster Wallace, you're the middle finger on that hand). I watched The X-Files to the bitter, bitter end. I *have* to get to the end, and I can't just read the last page to see how it winds up. This is why Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has been next to my bed with a bookmark on page 42 for a YEAR.

4. I get upset during nature shows when one animal eats another. It's not the violence--it's the conflicted feeling that I don't want the orca to starve, but I also don't want the seal to die. I wish nature worked more like a Disney movie.

5. I dislike Donald Trump with a bewildering intensity. When I see his piggy little eyes and stupid floppy hair on the commercials for his show, my teeth clench, my eyes narrow, and I can feel my blood pressure shoot up. I cannot explain this.

6. I eat the crust of my sandwich first, all the way around. I have done this as long as I can remember. At least when I'm at home--I try to eat like a normal person in public.

Top Twenty Songs On My iTunes

This is hard. I have trouble listing "favorites" of any kind. Astrology-minded people would say this is classic Pisces wishy-washiness. I like coffee AND tea. I like cats AND dogs. But I will try, anyway. With just 20, I'm leaving out classical. I can't possibly put these in order, either, so they're just in the order they occurred to me.

1. Tori Amos, Pretty Good Year: This was the first Tori song I ever heard, so it makes the list even though it's not my current favorite of hers.

2. Regina Spektor, Fidelity: Matt and I just discovered her, and listening to her new CD, I felt like I should already know the words.

3. Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: Every album of hers after this one is depressing because it's just not as good.

4. The Cranberries, Linger: Oh, stop making fun. This song is *so* high school to me.

5. Aimee Mann, Wise Up: So I loved Magnolia. So sue me.

6. Garbage, #1 Crush: It's hard to pick one Garbage song.

7. Elton John, The Last Song: Yes, I like what Matt calls "Fogey Rock." What can I say? My parents listened to 70s music.

8. Dido, Hunter.

9. Loreena McKennitt, Dante's Prayer: Or any of her songs, really.

10. Marc Cohn, Walking in Memphis: It's not a happy song, really, but it makes me happy.

11. Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb: Lovely depressing music.

12. Collective Soul, The World I Know: See #11.

13. Bowling For Soup, Almost: I cannot account for how much I like this band. They're just fun, and balance out the lovely depressing music.

14. Aerosmith, Dream On: I do not apologize for liking Aerosmith.

15. U2, Where the Streets Have No Name: Yes, Superstar/Diplomat Bono is a little annoying, but early U2 is awesome.

16. Norah Jones, Sunrise.

17. Etta James, At Last: This was our first dance at our wedding reception.

18. David Bowie w/Queen, Under Pressure: David Bowie AND Queen? What's not to like?

19. Bree Sharp, David Duchovny: This song cracks me up. And it's catchy.

20. Billy Idol, Don't You (Forget About Me): Ah, 80s nostalgia. It's a beautiful thing.

That's it. At least for right now :)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

HOW did I NOT know you had webbed toes?!! That is so funny! Lily and Lilah both have webbed toes! :-) They should be best friends, dontcha think?

My friend (who introduced Andrew and I because we were the only people in the world she knew with webbed toes) sent me this newsclipping from People magazine several years ago. It was addressed to me aka President of the Webbed Toes Society. And the newsclipping was of Ashton Kutcher with a caption saying he has webbed toes. I was very amused by her. :-) Not sure why I felt the need to share that.

Glad to have you back to blogging!

String Bean said...

#2: Are you an even number freak, too? If I'm knitting something/creating my own pattern, I tweak just about everything possible so it's an even number. Should've put that as one of my weird things. And, unlike you, I will never set my alarm clock for a minute or two off the hour. It either has to be right on the hour or on a half hour. I usually wake up two or three mins before it goes off, too.

#4: I just love number four. :D A Disney movie. If only it was so sweet and made you tear up at the end.

I also hate Donald Trump. He's a creep.

I seriously have to knit you some baby things. I'm pretty late, eh? I'll knit you some baby booties today and a start a few other things. Today. I'm doin' it as soon as I'm done here! Promise!

Stefaneener said...

Ha! Bowling for Soup totally and utterly crack me up.

I'm back to cloth diapers with #4 -- all the rest did them. I like them very much -- just like I did before.

I can't believe how much you're doing with a wee one. I, personally, would love to read Lilah's story. And I think your family was right about that interstate Christmas thing -- although that would have been a great story for her later.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I need to know why you gravitate toward the twos and sixes. Personally, I can't deal with the alarm going off on anything but a 0 or 5 (I'm very conventional).

While I know you don't intend this to be a baby blog, I do hope we'll get to see some photos and hear some news of your little cutie! (Oh, and I'll be interested in further updates on the cloth diapers. I hope you get a couple soakers cranked out at some point -- I'm curious to know how hard they are to make!)

Rain said...

I think it's wonderful that Lilah arrived when everyone was there to welcome her.

I know what you mean about the nature programmes, it really gets me too.

Anonymous said...

Oh good, I'm not the only one who feels murderous rage when Donald Trump comes into view! :) I love your music picks. Many of these hold a place on my favorite iTune playlists.