Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthing Day to Me

Tonight I held my three year old for the last time. When he wakes up in the morning, he'll be a four year old. Technically, not until 7:56 PM tomorrow, but I'm not going to make him wait until then to open his remaining presents. Today was his birthday party in the park. Half his little friends didn't show up. Hopefully that will change when he starts elementary school. But he still had a great time. The thunder storm held out until the very end of his party. We came home and I attempted to assemble a Hot Wheels trick track. I think there must be something in the "y" chromosome that makes this task a lot easier, because try as I might, I still didn't get it to work the way it's supposed to. I also discovered that I still suck at Operation, even in the shape of Spongebob. You'd think several decades plus a few years would have given me the fine motor skills to extract a wrench from a cardboard cutout patient. Good thing I never wanted to be a surgeon.

I can't believe how fast he's growing, or how far he's come. Enjoy some of my nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Birth

Three weeks

Four Months

First Birthday

Eighteen Months

Second Birthday

September 2007

Third Birthday


Today

Melancholy

My little boy is going to be four on Sunday. He's gone from a 3lb 5oz preemie to a 38lb preschooler. He had a traumatic birth. We both did. I wonder if that's why he's such a stubborn kid now. Preemies have to be stubborn, they have to be strong-willed, or they can't survive. To be so tiny, not even supposed to be out of the womb yet, and have to start fighting for your life, it has to have a long-term impact. Maybe when I'm ready to pull my hair out because he refuses to listen to me, refuses to eat anything other than chicken nuggets and turkey dogs, stands firm in his belief that he has radioactive blood and can swing into action at any moment, maybe I should stop for a moment and remember that the reason my son is alive today is because of that very strong will to have his own way. Maybe I should also remember that he gets a lot of his stubborness from me.

I always get a little melancholy around his birthday. I remember in vivid detail every moment of the terrifying day and a half before he was born. I remember being all alone the night before and the night of his birth, after my mom left. Night one- alone, hooked up to monitors, listening to my son kick and hiccup, unable to sleep, wondering what was going to happen. Night two- alone, sick on the mag drip, delusional belief that it was all a strange dream and Jacob was still safe in my belly, wishing that someone would tell me what was going on, wishing I wasn't so alone. No one should be alone after giving birth, especially after giving birth and having your baby taken off to a NICU, and not being able to see him for over 24 hours.

And here I am, four years later, still alone. At least I have my son sleeping in the next room and I know he's safe. I have family, I have friends. I love and I am loved. But I am still utterly alone.

Dead Things

"They" say bad things come in threes, right? Well, apparently dead things come that way too. This afternoon, I found a dead bird laying in the middle of my living room. I scooped it up, tossed it over the fence, and went upstairs. Two hours later, I went down and found a dead chipmunk laying on my floor, my dog Cooper looking really proud. I thanked him for his efforts at feeding me, assured him I could survive on the stuff in the freezer and pantry, then tossed it over the fence. This evening, I came out into my mom's kitchen (I live in the downstairs apartment) and found yet another dead bird. So that should be it, right? No more dead things for a while?

I'm wondering if it's some sort of freaky omen or something. I'm generally not all that superstitious, but things have been kind of off lately all over the place in my life. I've been feeling low, anxious, and sad quite a bit. I miss my grandparents more and more every day. I thought it would get better with time, but it's not. I'm scared about not having a job, stressing about money on a daily basis. I'm frustrated with my current situation and inability to figure out how to make it better. Life has gotten harder than I ever imagined it could, and I'm just trying to deal with it the best I can. Then dead things turn up all over the house. Does it have a deeper meaning? According to my superstitions book, a bird in the house means death. If it's dead though, does it mean the opposite? Of course I'm looking too much into this. It could just mean I have too many cats. I'm feeling rather melancholy though, and I've always been prone to random depression in the summer months. It's just too darn bright and cheery out.

Wii EA Sports Active Personal Trainer First Impressions

I took a survey a few months ago, and found out a few weeks ago that I qualified for the 30 Day Challenge through Ammo Marketing, which got me the game for free. Yay for free stuff! I've been waiting very anxiously. It came today, and I was to start using it right away because the challenge also started today.

So I ran home, opened the box, opened the box inside the box, put the game in, unplugged the DVD player and plugged in the Wii (only our front AV things work), turned on the Wii, updated the Wii, figured out how to put the leg band on, put the leg band back on after it fell off and got started. Five minutes later, I had my profile entered and was already cursing at the perky trainer. "You want me to do what? Run? Seriously? Why? Am I being chased by a cannibal?"

So far, the game is pretty awesome. I only had to do a twenty minute workout, and you're never doing the same thing more than maybe two minutes at a time, so in theory, it should go fast. To me and my non-exercising self, it seemed like an hour went by. My first medium intensity (this was my first mistake, by the way) workout consisted of walking/running (more running than walking, I don't think it's right that they tease you by implying that you'll actually get to walk for more than three seconds), squats, boxing (my favorite, it's always fun to hit stuff!), side lunges (see my issues with the game below), bicep curls with the resistence band, some horrible bent rowing thing, and inline skating (which I've never done with skates, so I don't know how to do it without). These exercises repeated two times. It's like a cheaper version of Curves, except not as fast paced.

Pros-
-It's cheaper than Wii Fit, but if you do have the balance board, you can use it.
-Constantly changing exercises, so I didn't get bored too fast
-Pretty good, in-depth videos that explain everything.
-A fairly complete workout
-Can just do whatever exercises you want if you don't want to take the 30 Day Challenge.

Cons-
- I wish I could put my own music in it, or that it at least had some way to choose just the stuff you want to hear beyond just choosing a genre. Overall, the music was by far the weakest part.
- That crazy nunchuck doesn't stay in the leg band right, or I'm not clear on how to put it in right (the one flaw in the video, she does it too fast and I can't see which way it's supposed to go), so the game kept telling me I wasn't doing the side lunges correctly.
-After a while, the leg band does fall down. Especially when running. Of course, I was wearing pajamas that are like two sizes too big, so the pant leg was crinkly. This could have contributed to the problem.

So far, I would reccomend this game. I'll update this when I've seen more of what the game has to offer.