Star Trek! birthday, women in movies [ Tuesday ♥ May 21st,2013] spacefem here's who I spent my birthday with: we shipped josie off to her grandparents so we could have date night, but kept the travel-sized one who just squeaks and snorts and snores through life, in between nursing sessions. first there was a quiet afternoon, then we went out for sushi which I can officially eat without guilt since I'm not pregnant! and I had a wonderful martini. then, the movies! we went to the big warren theater that has a cry room just in case olive was going to be upset, and brought hats to cover her ears in case it was too loud. she slept the whole time. ate twice. that was the highlight, we didn't even head to the cry room. Star Trek was okay. everyone else seems to be loving it. It failed one of my big tests for halfway decent writing: can you have a female character who's not reduced to a daughter/girlfriend/sex kitten? the first Star Trek had uhura... smart, strong, snippy with kirk when he hits on her in a bar! this Star Trek has uhura: whiny girlfriend who makes everything about "us" and can't even put on her big girl face when speaking klingon. why do writers have to do that to women? especially when there's only one main character who's female? (they tried to introduce the science officer, but she was mainly defined as the admiral's daughter... everybody's just gotta be around for a man, huh?) I mean, zoe on "firefly" had a boyfriend too but she was still a badass, she did her job without being all doe-eyed all time, she wasn't any more distracted by love than her husband was. so IT'S POSSIBLE. and it makes the whole cast of characters seem so much more three-dimensional. like you put some thought into it! when I see these big-budget movies with spectacular special effects, hot actors, and funny dialog, it ruins it for me when the female characters are the same tired boilerplate people, just there as accessories for the men, not even as thought-out as the props. well anyway, here's to the rest of the franchise, to tasha yar and klingon sisters and doctor crusher. it's good for everybody to have a big Star Trek blockbuster at least once in a decade, I hate to see it screwed up with such obviously lazy writing but it happens. [6] but lifes no story book.s But lifes no story book.

Two weeks, baby pictures, etc [ Saturday ♥ May 18th,2013] spacefem In case you're tired of cute baby photos... here's the kind of stuff Marc likes to post up, ha ha. why do newborns look like angry old men? Oh no, it's disapproving Olive: Here she is being happy. Well, actually just kinda drunk on milk since she's too little to actually be happy... full is the same thing for this age, I guess. I'm kinda bracing for impact because right around two weeks, Josie started getting super pissed off about life in general, crying for hours at night, we're talking midnight to seven angry baby marathons that were torture. Olive hasn't started that yet. In fact for several nights in a row, she just slept, with a few interruptions to eat but she'd go right back down for 2-3 hours. Last night she was up from 1-3, I watched a couple Mad Men episodes, but as long as I was holding her she wasn't mad. With Josie we had to be walking and bouncing her in a very specific way and sometimes not even that would work. Anyway that whole first experience has made me just not trust babies, they can turn on you at any time. Along those same lines, some gals from work had told me I should totally come out to lunch with them, bring the baby, they'll hold her, I'll have a nice lunch! I see right through that crap now. It doesn't work. I tried with Josie, and after ten minutes nobody felt like walking around with my baby, they were just like "Okay she wants her mom, shovel that food in Spacefem, thanks for bringing the baby around we're done now." It was awful. Deep down inside I wonder if Olive could be a different baby, a not-high-maintenance baby, but it's too early to make that call. I just know that we made it to her 2-week pediatrician appointment and did not ask the doctor where it was legal to leave the baby if we'd changed our minds. It hasn't come to that point yet. With Josie I was about to put her on craigslist by day 14. However, just like Josie, Olive is packing on the fat! Once again my body is talented, may too talented, at making milk... in fact this time I've HAD to pump a few times. The pediatrician measured Olive TWICE because he said it would be insane for her to grow 1.75 inches in two weeks, and finally we all agreed that surely the hospital got her length wrong at birth, but I think I've seen her legs get longer. She's also 15 ounces above her birthweight, which is 18 ounces above what she was as a 3-day-old and had lost a bit. She weighs 7 pounds 2 ounces now... almost the size Josie was at birth. I'm still confused about why she was born so small. The hospital even ran some extra blood tests to see if there was anything weird... she wasn't dangerously tiny, just kinda below average. I gained like 45 pounds. I thought all those biscuits and gravy were for the baby. But no, apparently I am made to over-nourish my babies only after they're out of me. That's a little more convenient anyway, I'll take it. They spend a lot more time out here anyhow. [3] but lifes no story book.s But lifes no story book.

[book notes] - Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (@LeanInOrg) [ Wednesday ♥ May 15th,2013] spacefem I volunteered to read Sheryl Sandberg's book "Lean In" for my women's group at work, we have a sort of book club format where one person reads and presents what they find, and we really wanted this one on the list because it's gotten so much publicity. I was a little nervous... it took a long time to get it from the library, a hint that it might be a slow read. I'd read some critics that accused her of telling women their problems were all their fault. I don't even like facebook. But I started in anyway. And what do you know, I LOVED this book, and think Sheryl Sandberg is just like me, there were so many chapters that just put into words the unorganized thoughts I've had in the back of my mind! Just the chapter on mentorship alone is worth the price of the book, which I'll be buying because I got it back to the library ASAP for the next person. I've heard it stressed all over the place that to be successful in the workplace you need a MENTOR, had people in the women's group ask when we'd start a mentor program, match people up with senior leaders by designing some kind of eharmony for the office, and it just felt wrong to me. Well Sandberg thinks that's wrong too! You can't go up to a perfect stranger and say "Will you spend 30 minutes a week giving me career advice?" That's not a mentor, she explains, that's a therapist! No, you have to do things to stand out, senior leaders want a part to play in careers they think will BE exciting. And when I think about it, some of my favorite VPs at my company who've put me on awesome projects have made me feel like that... like I am going places, and they want to help because they're happy for me. It's an awesome feeling! And sure, they're around for advice along the way. To me a mentor was always someone who knew me well, who I could call up to bounce an idea whenever... not someone who crowned me with a tiara that glittered "you shall be mentored!" in some awkward formal ceremony. Another issue with my women's group... we survey to ask about topics they want to hear about and "work-life balance" is always near the top of the list. It drove me crazy for years... men could take a day off work with a sick kid, and it was just what they did. But if I took a day off it was WORK-LIFE BALANCE, like it had a file, it was a newsweek article, we had to discuuuuus it. It bugged me but I couldn't explain why. Well there are whole chapters in "Lean In" that bring up the fact that women are conditioned from very young ages to believe that this will be a issue, that "work-life" are on opposite ends of the scale, and Sandberg wisely notes, "Who would choose work?" Jessica Valenti even compiled an entire blog post of pictures from the media that portray Sad White Babies with Mean Feminist Mommies, showing those silly greedy overworked women who tried to "have it all" and only ended up screaming into their blackberries while their kid's milk spills onto the floor. The world says that this is what life will be for us if we try to be ambitious. Well, it's crap. No one really thinks we can "have it all", it's economically impossible... what we need to focus on is having all of what's important. When you've got a new baby, take maternity leave and totally unplug, they'll survive without you. When you want to go back to work, the kid can go to daycare, many studies have shown that they turn out just fine. Make your partner an equal partner, I've known too many women who wouldn't leave for a conference because that would mean their husbands (gasp!) would have to watch the kids ALL WEEKEND... what if something HAPPENED? Well they're not criminals, they're the men you chose to marry and make babies with. They should be able to keep their own children alive for 72 hours. There's even a whole chapter called "Don't leave before you leave" where she discusses the sad trend of women just getting out of college who already throttle back their careers because someday they want to be married with kids... and yes, I've seen it, and I've seen 23-year-olds in my women's group putting "work life balance" on the topic request list. Sandberg points out that if you're ambitious early on, you're only putting yourself in a better, more flexible, higher paying position for when you do have kids. You will really have choices. Don't look for laid-back positions with little responsibility just because sometime in the next decade someone who you haven't even met will make you pregnant. In the first chapter she poses the question, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" Afraid of being overworked, afraid of being that woman in the trope with the crying attention-starved baby, afraid of the world judging you... if you could just be awesome and show the world what your brain was capable of and what you worked hard for all those years in school, what would you stop holding back? Are there things that need to change about society? Sure! And there are things to know about society, bullshit double-standards that have been documented by researchers, that will empower us. And there's a lot we women can do as individuals in our careers. "Lean In" addresses all three as solutions to help more women into leadership careers. Reading it made me feel more ambitious, and proud to be trying to emerge as a leader at my company. It made me want to help others more and make sure I'm developing the few people in my little team. I think everyone should read this book now, this year when we're all talking about it, and just see where the ideas take us. [3] but lifes no story book.s But lifes no story book.

epidural vs. natural birth: here are my reviews, now do whatever you want [ Tuesday ♥ May 14th,2013] spacefem I said I'd write this comparison entry if I lived through a week and some hiding side effect of the epidural didn't kill me, so yay, I made it! I've now had two babies, one without any medication in labor and one with an epidural. And I can honestly say that if were to go for a third (which I won't, Marc says no way!) that I... have no idea what I'd do. So that's my answer for the perfect birth plan: whatever. Here are some things I do know: Those natural birth techniques really do help with managing painful contractions. With Josie it was lamaze breathing and counting that helped me ride out each one. With Olive the pain was different, constant back labor and the contractions felt a lot worse, so the bradley method of "stick to this position, don't move, and relax every muscle in your body" helped the most. So even between natural birth methods there's no perfect one. But it helps to be familiar with some, take a class, read a book, practice. With both my births the vast majority of the hours of labor happened at home. Home is a nice place to be in labor... no one is poking you, the lights are dim, you can be on your bed or couch or floor and nobody cares. Having those natural birth techniques in your pocket helps you stay at home longer, on nobody's timeline, free to do whatever you want. Then you go to the hospital and either get the epidural or don't. With my first, I was more exhausted than in pain and I knew the epidural wouldn't make anything over faster, so what's the point? I pushed the baby out, tore some skin, didn't care. There was so much going on I barely noticed that stuff, it was like rock climbing for hours until my muscles shook and having some little bird peck off my toenail, at that point I was like "whatever". With my second, the back labor was so intense and constant I wanted OUT so I opted for the epidural. Getting it was not that big a deal, and after ten minutes or so I couldn't feel the pain anymore. I will say that with my first I could tell when I was in transition, when the contractions were longer and closer together, I knew about where I was at in terms of progress. With the epidural? No idea. I just laid around and listened to the heartbeat on the monitor and had nurses check my dilation. So when they say natural birth lets you "experience childbirth" they're right... you're a lot more in tune with the pace of things and where your body is at on the timeline. The baby is born, and then there's the afterwards part... and this is where it gets weird, and they didn't really tell us about this in childbirth class. I was told that "when you hold your baby you just don't care about anything else in the world!" Well, with my first birth, I CARED. I was getting stitches and had a tear towards the front of my lady bits in an "area with lots of nerves that's sort of hard to numb"... they tried locals, but I felt lots of really awful things and mostly just remember wanting to be someplace else. With my second, the placenta didn't detach correctly, I'm not sure what all went on but there were injections, lots of external rubbing, and finally they just had to manually detach it... I'm not sure how this would have gone with local anesthetic. Since I had an epidural, I didn't feel anything. I required a catheter after both births, the first because I couldn't walk with the epidural in, the second because I was too swollen to empty my own bladder. Getting a catheter with an epidural is nothing. Getting one without the epidural is absolutely awful. In both cases they removed the catheter after my bladder was empty, and a short few hours later I could pee on my own. With both births, I was unable to get out of bed. The first birth I tried but blacked out, the second my legs were numb for about 4-6 hours, and still felt weird after that but they did have me get up and go to the bathroom. In either case I did not feel like jumping up and running a marathon. Lots of epidural advocates bring up the fact that birth is calmer when you can't feel anything, and they're right but I don't really care too much about that. Natural birth advocates say it's unnecessary and keeps you from experiencing the amazing power of childbirth, and they're right too, that feeling that you're along for the ride is kinda cool, but again I'm not sure it's worth considering. They also warn you about gobs of side effects, some real and some theoretical. The more theoretical ones are that medication slows labor down, that it interferes with your brain's ability to pace out the birth, that your baby is born drugged out and won't breastfeed... since I got mine so late, I guess I can't judge that much. Both babies nursed immediately. For me, the worst side effect of the epidural was that adhesive residue left on my back from the edges of the tape. It was kinda hard to wash off. I think my conclusion is that it's good to have a natural birth plan so you can labor independently, ride out contractions, know where you're at. And maybe your injuries won't be as bad as mine and the repair work won't be all that noticeable. But there's no way to predict that, so I'm back to my "flip a coin" conclusion. Sure it's great to avoid extra medical procedures when you can, but I wouldn't skip the epidural just out of fear of side effects, I wouldn't recommend any action taken out of fear. Birth has side effects. I guess I just feel like you can do a lot of labor and childbirth without an epidural, but it's very nice for when the going gets tough, and it's definitely nice for the after-effects of birth. So study up on natural birth, then do whatever the hell you want. I won't judge either way. You will find women on both sides who LOVE natural birth, and who LOVE epidurals, and I'm just not gonna pick a side. [10] but lifes no story book.s But lifes no story book.

day 10 for spacebaby 2, preschool for spacebaby 1 [ Monday ♥ May 13th,2013] spacefem Olive is ten days old and doing great. The past two nights she's slept, with interruptions for eating of course. But I am bracing for impact because I know around 10-14 days, Josie started getting crazy. There were the 12-7am screaming fests, the 24 hour cluster feedings, the general anger that I think lasted until she was about two months old... or three years old, depending on who you ask, she's still not exactly a laid-back kid. But anyway here's Olive, remember this quilt? Marc's been tackling the scary room in the basement lately, reorganizing, getting things in clear boxes on shelves. I think this was mostly inspired by our adventures in trying to find our baby stuff. All those little clothes and simple toys were in there, somewhere, put away very lovingly, surrounded by stuff that was not put away quite so lovingly like empty boxes and the dreaded "we never did unpack this when we moved in" category. We got Josie enrolled in a preschool for next year. We looked at three, because we woke up in April and realized we needed to do this and I was eight months pregnant, in fact I had the baby on the day that our last appointment was scheduled. Lucky for us childbirth was no big deal this time and we just rescheduled for the next week. After reviewing a few places we figured out what was sort of important to us in a preschool: 1) Plenty of evidence that the kids just get to play, nothing too structured, maybe a little circle time but a flexible curriculum and interactivity. 2) Rooms decorated with mostly kid art and some natural elements. Extra bonus points for every actual animal they had in the room. Seriously, this is kinda what it came down to... at least have an ant farm. 3) Low cost. I had a few friends from out of town tell us we just had to look at montessori schools, but I didn't see a reason to spend $450 a month on a preschool when there are plenty of nice places for $150 a month. She's three years old, it's not like she needs some miracle teacher to reach out and inspire her to become the astronaut or future president inside her NOW. 4) That said, I did want the teachers to at least have four year degrees in some early childhood field. 5) Security, or at least someone watching the door. 6) Close to the house. Same argument as #3. 7) Some mention of awareness of Wichita kindergarten requirements was nice. We also checked for clean bathrooms but they all had that. I didn't care too much when they talked about field trips since Josie's been to the zoo plenty of times. One place had a really nice room for 3-year-olds, but due to enrollement overflow they opened a second room that was not impressive at all I thought. So yup, in the fall she's off to preschool. One thing about Olive, she has made Josie look HUGE to me. I used to think Josie was so small and delicate, tiny fingers and toes, short, weak. Now I suddenly see her as a kid in every sense of the word. She gets herself food and drinks of water, she can break things with her strength and needs to hold back every once in a while, her feet and hands look like mine only a little smaller. She observes and remembers things. I'm still worried about her, sure, but it's different now, and this preschool thing just isn't blowing my mind at all. She'll do great. [7] but lifes no story book.s But lifes no story book.

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