Elephants

Last night at 5:14 pm Kristin (my cousin) gave birth to Sierra at a whopping 6 lbs 19 inches. Both mom and baby are doing well and I'll have pictures to follow soon. Rumor has it that she's feeling a little overwhelmed. I can't imagine why, labor and delivery are a piece of cake, right? and bringing home a new born is just like having a puppy! (I'll post pictures as soon as I get my hands on some.)

Today the Animal Planet (which we let Jack watch) was having a special on elephants and because they were talking about elephant pregnancy, labor and birth I thought I'd share some helpful statistics.

Human Gestational Period: 40 weeks (9.5 months)
Elephant Gestational Period: 100 weeks (22 months)
Human Birth Weight: 7lbs 6 oz
Elephant Birth Weight: 250 lbs
Human Birth Canal: 4 inches
Elephant Birth Canal: 8 feet
Human Baby Drinks: 25 oz of milk
Elephant Baby Drinks: 640 oz of milk

Elephant babies don't sleep through the night when they're newborns either.

All I'm saying is- it's good to be human!

Behind Blue Eyes

Today Cady had us over to play. We had a perfect afternoon play date. There's something about the afternoon that makes the babies a little extra fussy and it seems like the clock sometimes runs in reverse. Cady and Lindsey to the rescue!
Jack borrowed Cady's water, because his orange cup wasn't manly enough.

Jack spent alot of time hugging and kissing the lamb.

Then he decided to immitate Kiss.

Apparently there was some discussion about who was going to be allowed in the club house. We had to have a discussion about being kind to our friends and making everyone feel included. Jack expressed some concern over the tightness of Brooks's shirt.

Snow!

Today was a snow day for Moms Group and since I spent the morning getting 'needled' Matt was forced to take the day off work because by the time I got home the roads were getting worse and it was nearly 11am! In the afternoon we took advantage of the hearty blanket of snow (I know it's not that much, but we haven't had a good snow here since 2003 so just go with it.)We layered up and headed out to play.




Jack enjoyed sitting, walking and sledding in the snow. Unlike last time, we had to bring him inside because he was getting cold and wet but he didn't look ready to stop playing anytime soon. Even after we brought him in he stood at the door and watched me shovel the sidewalk.

My First Time

This morning I went to the Acupuncturist for the first time. The doctor is an 80 year old Japanese man. He was most concerned that my husband is 2 years younger than I am and indicated that he needed to get my ::cough:: energy level up to match his.

So when I got there I filled out a lot of forms on everything from hepatitis to glaucoma and acid reflux. Then I went back to the office to talk about my symptoms. He asked some of the same questions and some different ones. He seems most interested in my mood swings, allergies and back pain (caused by tension and having a heavy boy).

When I went into the exam room I kept most of my clothes on and rolled my pants up to my knees. He felt my pulse for about 2 minutes and he kept saying things like "lung......... lung and liver............... lung, yes, lung and liver" and then he felt my abdomen and said "lung and kidney? no, lung and liver." So apparently my lungs and my liver are out of alignment.

The needles didn't really hurt some of them stung a little and some felt warm and some I could only feel when I was focusing my mind on them. What I didn't expect when he balanced me was that he didn't place the needles symmetrically on my body. My right hand had 2 and my left had 1 my left knee had 2 and my right had none. I don't know why I had assumed the needles would be placed at symmetrical points across my body.

Then he left me for about 15/20 min and I kept yawning uncontrollably and feeling really really sleepy. Then I rolled on my side (needles left in place) and he put 6 in my upper back on either side of my spine and he hooked me up to a machine that delivers an electrical pulse and that felt fantastic. After 10 minutes he had to come in and turn up the juice because I couldn't feel it anymore. My back has not felt this 'loose' since my massage last March!

I'm totally going back next week!

Explicatives

My poll about blogging and the use of explicatives created an interesting little discussion in the Fruit-Cake household. I ::ahem:: tend to be more liberal with the cursing than my dear husband which I attribute to being an English Major because as a poet we were expected and encouraged to use language in any way we could to make a point, paint a picture, create rhyme etc.

Now that Jack is paying much closer attention to what we say I've had to get creative substituting other words where I would normally drop the f-bomb or something else I wouldn't want Jack to repeat at Group. (Oh the embarrassment!)

My favorite is 'sugar plum faeries' usually said like this "SUGAR... PLUM...FAERIES."

So here is the question: What do you say? What did your parents or friends or parent's friends say?

Closet, Needles and To-Do's

Closet: The closet in the basement was basically useless with this one tiny shelf. I'm starting to feel cramped in my house so storage and anything else that helps me to streamline my life is premium.Jack, being the sensitive guy that he is, heard about my plight and hopped into action.

First he put the boards in the studs.

Then he put the shelves in.

Then he organized all our board games, books, DVD series and Matt's RPG boos (yes I said RPG books). Some of the books are stacked 3 deep! I'm so excited to have all this storage! WOO HOO!

Thanks Jack, you're my hero!

Needles: So this hormone swinging-baby-weaning thing is getting a little out of hand. I was going to go get a massage and get my hair done to see if that helped me feel better but the trouble with a massage is I only feel better for the rest of the day. Emily 3 raved about how helpful acupuncture was to her with morning sickness and all kinds of physical and emotional symptoms (I read it can even help you with your sex drive). So I found an acupuncturist in Catonsville that takes my insurance! It will only cost me $30 per session! I'm going to get a call on Monday from them because they review my intake information and check with the insurance company before scheduling my first appointment. I can't wait to see what it can do for me!

To-Do's: In addition to trying to exercise regularly I also wanted to do a CSA this year and I am psyched to report that I'm signed up for June 3-Nov 14 at Breezy Willow Farm. I get to feel good because I'm going green supporting local organic farmers. I also get the challenge of cooking with new and different fruits and veggies (which also means healthier meals). This CSA includes bread and eggs in their weekly bounty (technically eggs are every other week, but hey). So thanks Lindsey for being a fantastic guinea pig for this CSA and for giving me the scoop on all the goodies!

... and finally we are on Baby-watch because my cousin is due in just a few weeks. I can't wait to see her little girl!

...and the bean stalk

Finally Jack decides to climb. Not that I really want him to get into everything. Some of Jack's friends are much more adventurous than he is. Like his father, Jack was born 40. He's very sensible and cautious which makes for east day-to-day maintenance of things like safety, but sometimes I'd love it if he would throw caution to the wind and try to climb on something.

Apparently when electronics are involved Jack is willing to do just about anything.

This is as close as I can get to him snuggling his bear. He spent a few minutes giving 'Rosie' some love and as soon as I whip out the camera he just wants to pose.

Maybe he'll be a male model when he grows up?