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!

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*

Saturday Spotlight: Star Trek: Timelines

Remember a while back when I said I wanted to learn some stuff about RPGs?  And then remember when I didn't?  So my friend Autumn suggested that I find some online but I messed up somehow.  I did find an app called Star Trek: Timelines which I guess I mistook for that but when I figured out what it was it still looked fun, so I got it.  It's free to download and free to play but I guess it's way less frustrating if you buy Dilithuim.  That stuff apparently makes it way better, but since I'm really inexperienced I just don't know how much fun I COULD be having, so it's fine free for me.  I spend kind of a lot of time playing it and my kids actually love it too.  They used to become heartbroken when I'd try to sneak off and play without them.  They each have an old iPhone that doesn't have any service, so when I got tired of hearing them over my shoulder yelling, "play Picard, Mama!" for every mission, I put it on The Villain's phone so they could play it on there.  The Bookworm's phone was too old, so if you have a really old iPhone look out for that.  Mine's an Android so no problems there.

The Villain playing Staw Fwack on his own stinkin' phone!

The thing that's fun about it is that it mixes the timelines all up together and you could have a crew including Kirk, Picard and Sisko together.  Of course, that wouldn't be the most effective combination of skills for most missions but you could totally do it.  The frustrating part is that I'm completely new to the whole gaming universe so I don't know what anything means or how to figure out the things that I need to know to advance and all of the advice and tips online are super general about how to get started and what all the different features of the game ARE and not how to use them in the most effective ways.  Like, you'll find articles and videos that tell you how to earn and use training for your guys, but not why the yellow number won't just DISAPPEAR ALREADY! when you're done training or why you can't train anymore after a certain point.  That kind of thing.  I eventually figure things out but if I could just ask someone it would be more fun for me.  There is a message board but it's too quick for me and mostly social.  I don't dig it.  Gone and got too old, I guess. 

Oh, well.  It's still really super fun.  I love it and I recommend you try it, too.  I heard that company, Disruptor Beam, actually started with a similar game for Game of Thrones and I'm really excited to try that one.  Wish me luck!  And follow Star Trek: Timelines on Twitter for more news and stuff.  And OH MY GOSH, HOW COULD I FORGET?!?! It's voiced by John deLancie, who played Q on TNG!!!

CoastCon '16

Last weekend I went to CoastCon, just like I said I would.  I had a blast and I intended to learn a few things about gaming but it didn't really work out for me.  The first two days I was by myself and I didn't see ANYONE there that I knew, much less anyone who could show me anything about gaming.  On Sunday I planned on going to a panel called How To Learn RPGs When You're Alone With Nobody to Show You (pretty sure that's it...) but it happened to be right at noon and that was the day I brought The Bookworm with me and he needed some $4 million lunch to pick at and ultimately throw away.  My kids are rarely allowed soda, so he was definitely too preoccupied to eat.

This is my only clear picture from Sunday for some reason

I brought The Bookworm on Sunday to meet Steve Blum and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn because he's obsessed with Digimon and they do voices for the cartoon and the video game. To help him understand what that even means, I made him watch I Know That Voice, which is a documentary about voice actors that I'd seen a few months ago on Netflix.  He wasn't pleased to have to sit still watching some people do voices, or to have the magic kind of explained away, but it helped in the long run because when we got there and he saw the pictures of Guilmon and I told him the Guilmon guy was THERE... he knew enough to be excited.  

When we walked up to the table, Steve Blum could obviously guess which show this little kid was a fan of.  I say which show because he's a busy, busy guy. He's got 612 credits on IMDB for shows like Star Wars: Rebels, Cowboy Bebop, Regular Show and a zillion incarnations of Batman and X-Men.  PLUS he is in the Guiness Book of World Records for doing more video game voices than anyone else.  He's done God of War, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty... know what? Just look it up.  Here's the link.

Anyway, we walk up to the guy and he instantly goes into the voice and my kid grins like a maniac and does that insanely cute little-kid giggle.  It was the greatest!  He signed our video game (my kids and my husband play video games most of the time, so I feel like I can probably hear this dude's voice in my house at any given moment) and he was so charmed by The Bookworm that he very generously signed a couple of extra things for us.

See? Blurry.

In the course of our conversation, my little guy casually dropped the name of another Digimon he likes and the lady sitting next to Steve Blum perked up and cried, "Hey! That's me!" It was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and she did the voice for him with a big smile.  "Whatever-mon digivolve to... Something-Woman!" Clearly, I have a mind like steel trap. 

So, she does the voice, right?  And my kid FREAKS THE FRICK OUT!!! It was like all those people in the black & white footage fainting when Paul McCartney tipped his hat to them or whatever.  I couldn't even deal.  Best day ever.  Just reliving it makes me exhausted, so I'll end here and leave you with some photos I took from the rest of the Con.  Enjoy, and leave your own stories in the comments section about the time you met your favorite celebrity.

 

John Lithgow

As I mentioned the other day, my big kid is a bookworm.  So much so, that one of his birthday party themes was his favorite book, Marsupial Sue Presents: The Runaway Pancake.  I was really surprised the first time I saw that it was written by John Lithgow.  Yep, the creepy weirdo from Dexter, The Twilight Zone and 3rd Rock From The Sun.  Crazy, right? But actually, he's written a handful of kids' picture books and my favorite is The Remarkable Farkle McBride.  It's just fun.

Anyway, since this is The Bookworm's thing, I'll most likely have him draw a picture (he's to little to write a real letter) and include it and copies of the birthday pictures with whatever fan letter I end up sending to John Lithgow.  Here's how it went down: In the book, Auntie May mixes together some batter, puts it in the oven, does some housework and checks on her pancake only to find it gone. No spoilers, guys; this is all on the first page. At our party, I mixed up some batter, put it in the oven and read them the book.  Then when we went to check on our pancake, guess what? It was gone! We looked all over the house and in the backyard (especially the bouncy house), and then back to the kitchen again, where we found a DIY pancake bar and a pancake 'birthday cake'.  It was crazy fun and everyone loved it! We had a good time involving John Lithgow and no kids were frightened. True story. Here's proof.

  

The Bookworm and The Villain

It will soon become apparent that I have two kids.  They're adorable little guys and I'll have occasion to use their pictures on my blog from time to time.  I'm still a bit hesitant to post their real names, so from here on out they'll be known as The Bookworm and The Villain.  If I say The Bookworm, you'll know I mean the big one.  The Villain is the little guy.  In older pictures it's more evident which one is big because The Villain hadn't quite caught up to him yet but as the pictures get more current you can tell them apart by their hair.  The Bookworm's is short.

So yeah, okay, I was listening to Mr Hahn in Psychology class in the 11th grade.  I know how the pressures of assigned family roles can affect a small child's psyche.  But listen, my kid really IS a bookworm!  They both are, kind of.  And the little one, he legit has the exact Kylo Ren haircut, except in blond.  My husband and I discussed it on our way home from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and then a stranger mentioned it to us in a shoe store. So really... what am I supposed to do, not call him The Villain? Come on, guys.  It's out of my hands.