What To Expect/Your Best Birth

When I was expecting my first baby, The Bookworm, I did what everyone does; I read What to Expect When You're Expecting.  It turns out there's a website, a mobile app, more than one verified Twitter account, a Facebook Page and a whole series of books.  If you're pregnant and enjoying the book, let me recommend that you go over to Facebook and like Heidi Murkoff's Page. She actually goes online a lot and interacts with everyone.  The most impressive thing (maybe in the world) is how much she remembers about people individually.  I mentioned once that I would like her to speak at the Air Force Base near me and months later when I commented on a completely unrelated post, she mentioned it again.  She seems to remember names and faces and stories and entire families that she's never even met, or only met once at an event full of hundreds of people.  I'm telling you, I don't know her but I love her to death.

More important, though, if you're nervous about labor or birth is a book called Your Best Birth by Rikki Lake and Abby Epstein.  You probably recognize Rikki Lake's name from TV and movies.  Yep, that's her.  In fact, there's a movie version.  It's a documentary called The Business of Being Born and it's on Netflix.  The book outlines all of your options, which is fabulous for us Americans because all they tell us is to either schedule a C-section or order the epidural before you even pee on the stick.  This book made me feel empowered (as much as that word's overuse makes me roll my eyes) and it took my nerves away.

If you go the hippie route, I suggest you check out every book Ina May Gaskin wrote.  My favorites are Spiritual Midwifery and Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding.  

For parenting advice, check out one of my older posts, here.

Me, with a month still left to go baking The Villain

 
What to Expect on Twitter:

What To Expect- https://twitter.com/WhatToExpect
WTE Pregnancy- https://twitter.com/PregnancyWTE
WTE Baby- https://twitter.com/BabyWTE
WTE Toddler- https://twitter.com/ToddlerWTE

ABBA

When I was pregnant with The Bookworm, I read somewhere that if you play a song to your tummy a zillion times, then that song will become your baby's soothing night-night song.  I have this little "Quiet Moment" song that I used to sing with my class when I taught kindergarten that's only about four lines long, and during both of my pregnancies I sang or hummed that song most of the time when I was alone, sometimes under my breath and sometimes just as loud as I could.  Thing is, when I get a new CD, that's all I want to listen to for a good long while, and when I got ABBA Gold I listened to it all through my pregnancy.

Here's the album cover.  I grabbed it from Wiki.

Then one day when The Bookworm was a few weeks old and Mama Mia came on TV, he stopped fussing and actually listened to the songs.  He also hated the car, but when I played ABBA he'd drop right off to sleep.  Even after he was a toddler, if he fought naptime all it took was about half of Dancing Queen and he was down for the count.  I simply cannot tell you how many times those Swedes saved my sanity! Now, because my kids are less than two years apart, The Villain obviously heard a lot of ABBA in utero also.  I didn't even think anything of it, but when I tried my Quiet Moment song, it once again did absolutely nothing.  ABBA once again saved the day.  I tried lots of things, too!  My guys are both named after musicians and I tried the music they were named for to no avail.  I have a list of beloved favorites, and so does my husband but those didn't work either.  It was always, only ABBA.  And I'm not talking about, "He's fussy and now he's calm."  It was instant sleep every time!  Of course, they're older now and it doesn't work anymore, but for a good three years or more, I owed a huge debt of gratitude to those four, and it's about time I finally got around to sending them a nice thank-you note!

Click here to watch my favorite ABBA song on YouTube!

Nikki Bazan (Major Superstar)

It's my sister's birthday.  She's obviously a major superstar and I can hear what you're all thinking: "What kind of movies does Nikki like?  You know her, you've GOT to tell us!"  Alright, calm down, I'll tell you.  Books and TV shows, too.  But you've got to be patient.  First, here she is relaxing at home. 

Wait, I think that's a TMZ photo...

As you can see, she likes to joke around, but please don't testify in court that I posted this picture or the judge will let her off scot free.

Anyway, back to what you wanted to know.  What does she read?  What does she watch?  Basically... not the same things as me.  She likes to read Nicholas Sparks, which is NOT my style, but I can't really say much.  I've never actually read one of his books and they might be wonderful.  I have seen The Notebook, although I never thought I'd ever mention it on this blog.  I like to keep this blog only to things that I like, and The Notebook is my #1 least favorite movie of all time.  I've given it a lot of thought, and that's what it is.  The Notebook.  So... yeah.

Nikki likes some TV shows that I dig, though.  Like, she recommended Supernatural to me and I'm totally loving it!  I actually started Merlin, then got distracted by Supernatural... then got distracted by Haven.  But someday I'll finish one of them.  Probably.

When I asked her what her favorite movie was, she said October Sky but listen, I grew up with her.  I can tell you her exact progression of favorite movies.  You know how kids get obsessed with one movie at a time and just watch that every day, as many times as you'll let them?  Here's the evolution of my sister's childhood:

101 Dalmatians (She wanted a Dalmatian Plantation)

The Jungle Book (She scaled back to just the Bear Necessities)

Drop Dead Fred (That's not how the pigeons do it!)

And finally... Andre.

Oh, holy crap.  Would you like to know how many times she watched Andre?  So many times that eventually it wouldn't come out of the VCR... and we barely noticed!  We just kept watching it over and over again until the tape inside the cassette finally snapped.  This is all true.  As is the fact that when she was in first grade she wrote 'I love Ryan Beeson' on a bathroom wall.  Also, if I ever go missing, she definitely did it.  But seriously, Nikki.  Don't be mad, I didn't even mention the bean! 

Love ya, Nik.  Don't kill me.

An actual non-Snapchat picture of her.  She's hilarious and gorgeous and I lover her!

Happy Birthday!

 

I got a response from SCOTT BAKULA!

Aw, crap.  I may have oversold it.  It wasn't a response as in, "hey, thanks for the wicked awesome letter you meticulously hand-wrote in your very best handwriting and sent though the actual mail, which is apparently still a thing" so much as an autographed glossy that the mail carrier bent in half regardless of the cardboard that was clearly intended to prevent her from doing that.  But it still literally made me squeal and spin like Belle with that book in the opening song of Beauty and the Beast.  Look, wouldn't you spaz out a little bit?

*Edit* Here's a link to my original post.  Duh.

The Dark Tower

This is the second of what will probably be many Stephen King related posts.  Stephen King is my favorite writer and there's plenty of material to cover, so just expect them to keep coming.  Today I'm writing about The Dark Tower, which is a seven-book series* about a gunslinger named Roland who teams up with three other people (and one pet, a billy-bumbler) to save the world... and in fact, all worlds.  They travel between parallel universes to places that are much like what we know but have moved on, to our own world and back again.  They fight dangers both magical and natural, and they become a unified group, a family, a team.  An idea very much like fate is Ka.  Ka is a wheel, you can't get off and you can't change the direction.  You can fight all you want or you can just ride along but you have to know when to do either one because Ka is a wheel that can crush you in an instant. Roland's group is called his Ka-tet.  

The whole series, via Viking Press/Schribener

First is Eddie, a drug addict who was born in the 1960s and joined the Ka-tet at age 22.  Next is Susannah, who joined the group from the 1960s as an adult who had seen a very difficult life, and whose mind contained multiple personalities.  Last in the Ka-tet is Jake, who is only a child but possesses 'the touch'.  He is very sensitive to the signs and clues that the universe shows us and he uses this intuition whenever he can.  The Man in Black is a force of evil who has been working for hundreds, if not thousands of years to balance out all the world's good.  Well, that's maybe not quite right but it's close enough to get you started.  In the quest for the Dark Tower, not everyone makes it to the end (a bit of a spoiler, but that's how King works in general so you really should've guessed that much).  If you want to find out if ANYONE  does, I guess you'd better read for yourself. 

When I started my journey to the tower with book one, I really just couldn't get into it.  Granted, I was only 9 or 10 years old, but I've had other people tell me the same thing.  If you find yourself in that situation, my advice would be reading the second book, then going back to the first one.  The second book has more action and less back story, so if you read it first, you actually ask the questions before you get them answered.  That worked for me.  There was one in the series that I didn't love, and that was Wizard and Glass.  Some people like it best though, so please don't think it isn't well- written.  It's just not my favorite part of the story.  Read it, though.  Decide for yourself.

If you try it and like it, let me know.  I'd love to hear your opinions on it, especially if it's because of my blog that you find new books that you love.  If you've already read it or tried and it wasn't your thing, let me know that too.  I love a good book discussion, especially with the new movie version being filmed as we speak.  It's an exciting time in the journey!

*I say seven books because that's what it originally was, but then later on Sai King added another book in between books 4 and 5.  Also, as you follow on the journey you'll see where a lot of his other books are either loosely related or VERY closely tied in with this series.  They stand alone just fine but whey work even better when you're one of his Constant Readers.

Jersey Boys

When I was living in Germany, I got to do a LOT of traveling (no kids yet, of course).  One place I went was London, and while I was there I visited the Globe Theater, where Shakespeare worked.  I toured places that inspired Charles Dickens and I did two different Beatles walking tours.  I was going to do either Stonehenge or Platform 9 3/4 one day, then a Jack the Ripper tour at night... but when it was time to decide that morning I decided that I was keeping my pregnant butt in bed all day.  I did walking tours every day while I was there, but that last day I just went out for meals and watched the British food channel all day.  It was lovely.

 The Globe Theater

 The rooftop where The Beatles gave their last performance

Nothing relevant to the story; just beautiful London

The highlight of our trip (besides the Globe) was going to a Broadway play.  We saw Jersey Boys and let me tell you... if you haven't seen it, it's not what you expect.  It's basically a mob story (language, kids!) with music by The Four Seasons.  One of the characters is actually Joe Pesci (Yes, THAT Joe Pesci!) because he knew those guys way back then and he helped form the band.  This is all true, that's what's the coolest part of it! Well, like I said I was six months pregnant at the time so every time the music started up The Bookworm went completely NUTSO kicking and punching and twirling around in my belly.  I would say dancing, but I almost don't want to give it a positive spin.  It was pretty painful.  Even still, I couldn't help laughing.  It was really like he was dancing around in there. 

My ticket and a page from my program

In case you don't ever get the chance to see the stage show, don't worry your pretty little head.  They made a movie version, with Clint Eastwood (inexplicably) in the director seat.  I was worried that he was the wrong guy for the project, but that movie was so true to the stage show that I fell in love with it and I keep rewatching it.  I'm not the kind of person who would mind if a movie is drastically different than the original/book/play/whatever as long as it's good.  I get that movies are art and Xerox is not what artists are for.  So sure, there are a few differences between stage and screen but I promise they're all great.  Plus John Lloyd Young, who plays Frankie Valli, is one of the most attractive humans I've ever seen, particularly while singing.  Check him out, then watch the movie.  You'll love it.  Even guys, even though it's a musical.  No joke.

Here he is. *swoon*

Coming to America

One of the funniest movies of the 80s is easily Coming To America.  If you haven't seen it for a while, I suggest you go straight to Netflix and add it immediately to your list!  If you haven't seen it ever... I don't understand you.  Maybe you're just really young, or maybe you don't like Eddie Murphy... or maybe you just hate yourself and don't want to be happy.  I don't know.  Like I said, I don't understand.  I'll let you go watch it now while we all WAIT FOR YOU!

Have you really not seen it?

Okay, you've just improved your life.  Let's discuss.  Basically, Eddie Murphy and Arseniooooooooooooooooooooo Hall played every character in the movie, so there's that.  No, that's not true but they did each have four or five roles.  It's also got Darth Vader and the dad from Good Times and Samuel L Jackson in one of his 70,000 credited roles and it's so HILARIOUS!  An actual African prince trying to find a pretty American woman and make her rich for real.  I keep checking my inbox but so far they all want my credit card number.  Oh, well. 

When I was deployed to Okinawa about a decade or so ago, I had this friend who would sing at the top of his lungs to get everyone laughing and it was one of my favorite things about our crew.  Imagine a bunch of construction workers basically digging ditches all day every day and out of nowhere, "She's your QUEEEEEEEEN to-oo BEEEEEEE" as loud and as high as he could sing.  Ray Boudreaux, you're the real MVP of that deployment.  That was definitely my favorite deployment.  One day my friend caught an octopus with a shovel.  Good times.

Anyway, if you didn't watch it when I told you to or if you need a refresher, take the time now to let your Soul Glow with Mufasa and Axel Foley.  Thank me in the comments or by subscribing to the email list.  It's only polite.

Saturday Spotlight: Post Secret

Every Sunday, I go to PostSecret.com and spy on other peoples' secrets.  They make or buy a postcard, write their secret on it, then mail it anonymously to Frank Warren, who runs the website.  The story goes, he was a student doing an art project for college, and his idea was to hand out blank, self-addressed postcards for people to use for anonymous secrets.  Well, the idea was a great one, and it picked up steam until people were -very creatively sometimes- making their own to send in.  He's ended up with enough postcards to post a long list of them on his website every week and publish seven hardcover books full of the most interesting ones.  I have four of the books.

One is actually signed.  Frank Warren did a thing on Facebook once, where if you like & share or whatever, he'd pick one name at random and send an autographed book and a real actual secret that he received in the mail.  I won!

So, go on.  Give me something to look at next Sunday.  Make a postcard and send it to:

Post Secret

13345 Copper Ridge Rd

Germantown, MD

20874-3454 

Or, if you want you can even send a donation.  He gives the money to a suicide hotline called HopeLine and they've raised over a million dollars so far.  True story.  They also do art exhibits (I've been to one) and he does speaking engagements.  Check out the website, you'll see.  Here's a link.  ----->  This here.

But maybe prescreen before you bring the kids, okay?  It's sometimes very heavy.

Nurse Jackie

Look, Edie Falco is a national treasure, okay?  She's been on two of my favorite shows ever and she is an absolutely amazing actor.  She played Carmella Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos (rated very R) and the title role on Nurse Jackie (almost equally likely to scar a kid for life; NO KIDS).  She's won Golden Globes and Emmys and zillions of awards, and she deserves them all, plus MORE... in fact, if I ever meet her she can also have my lunch money.  Not that she needs it.  But whatever.

Okay, so here's Nurse Jackie in a nutshell:  A crew of hugely talented actors portray the real-life workings of an NYC emergency room.  It's kind of like Scrubs, if all the characters were Dr. Cox.  So, dark and cynical and funny and horrific all at once.  But they can cuss and show boobs and stuff.  You know.  Showtime stuff.  Anyway, it's all finished now and you can marathon it on Netflix.  It's really good.

M*A*S*H

Man, I've been putting this one off for a long time.  I've been supposed to post it for a few weeks in a row, and now that I'm finally doing it, it was supposed to go up about 3 hours ago.  The problem with writing about my favorite show is that I don't know where to start or what to include.  There's a really neat story that I have about Quantum Leap, for instance, that couldn't be included when I wrote about that show because it was already pretty long and I didn't want to lose you. But M*A*S*H... that show has been with me at every stage of my life.  The characters are my friends now that I'm older and they were my educators when I was younger.  The show started before I was born, so for me there's no such thing as life before Hawkeye.  Who would want that, anyway?

Okay, so let me help you out if you're not familiar with the show, or if you haven't seen it since the 80's.  M.A.S.H. is an Army acronym that stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.  During the Korean War (which lasted 8 FEWER years than the TV show), doctors were drafted to work in those hospitals in war zones alongside regular volunteer Army personnel.  The show is a portrayal of how that kind of situation may have played out.  It covers the horrors of war, social injustices that were perpetrated by Americans and affected Americans, Koreans and everyone else, and the camaraderie that can only be built from tragedy.  Through all that, there were only a few episodes that were not complete comedy.  The thing about good comedy is that even though they're jokes, they can really make you think.  You can pay attention and learn about things you'd maybe rather not think about in a way that feels more comfortable and safe in your head.

I feel like I should warn you, in case you're headed over to Netflix right away, though.  The pilot is actually a feature-length movie, and none of the actors return for the show, except for Gary Burghoff, who plays Radar.  Radar, by the way?  Awesome.  So adorable and funny and sweet, just the exact opposite of everyone else in the war.  My favorite episodes are from seasons six through eight, when there's a magic combination of Radar, Colonel Potter, BJ and Charles.  I love every season, and there's never one where they jump the shark but those seasons are just the best to me. 

Season 7 (I clearly don't own this)

There's only one actor who is in every single episode of the show, and that's Alan Alda.  He wasn't in the movie, of course; Hawkeye was played by Donald Sutherland in the movie.  Alan Alda is an incredibly talented actor, though, who also co-wrote and/or directed some of the episodes.  He's got an autobiography called Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned, which is completely hilarious and includes stories of his childhood on the Vaudeville circuit with his parents!  I recommend it.  I actually have plenty more recommendations and stories for you and I may get to them later, but I know I've used up a lot of your time today.  I hope you'll go watch or re-watch M*A*S*H on Netflix today (or online elsewhere... or on DVD if you're like me and have all the seasons already) and read Alan Alda's book.  Or all of his books.  There's more than one.  And I hope you love those guys (and the girls: Hot Lips and Nurse Kellye) as much as I do! 

I found this one here, a must-read for M*A*S*H fans!