Lost. I finally have some theories.

If you don't watch Lost, or didn't watch last night's episode (Wednesday, Jan 28), then this post might not interest you. You have been warned.

I've never really blogged about Lost other than to say that it's the best show and I love it a lot, etc. But, in my opinion, last night's episode was the. best. episode. yet! I now have some theories to the show that I want to share with anyone else who reads this blog and also watches. I would love to hear your input as to whether or not these theories are possible as well as what your theories are. So this post is probably gonna be a bit disconnected, but I'll do my best. I mostly just want to put these ideas to paper so that I can come back later in the season or series to see where I may have been right and where I was wrong.

First off, we already know that the show is dealing with time travel. Some of the characters know how to travel back and forth in time. I'm not sure if it's really been revealed as to how they do that other than we know Ben had a place in his house in the Others' camp where he could travel in time and we also know that the island itself can be moved in time, which is what is happening right now. I don't understand why the island is continually jumping from time to time after Ben spun the "dial" (for lack of a better word) only one time, as far as we saw. But the fact of the matter is that it IS jumping around in time right now and we rarely know what time frame they are actually living in from one scene to the next.

On to the episode and what I discovered from watching it. I have to say that I loved the scenes with Desmond and Penny. They are the best! And when it was revealed that they named their baby Charlie I almost shed a tear. (Then I began theorizing as to whether or not it was possible that island Charlie could actually have been Desmond's son, due to all the time traveling, but I dismissed that theory. Doesn't mean that it isn't possible, I just don't think that's the case.)

We saw a young Charles Widmore on the island which atleast shed some light as to why Charles is even aware of the island as well as why he's obsessed with it. Of course it then asks the questions: how did widmore get off the island? why does he hate Ben? why does he want to go back? is he really 70 years old as an age guesstimate would lead you to believe after last night's episode?

The main theory that I've landed on after last night's episode is that the show's central character is Daniel Farraday. My theory is that Daniel is the son of Charles Widmore and the white headed lady, Ms. Hawking (I think that's her name?). She was the one from last week that Ben seems to answer to and she told him he only had 70 hours to get all the people who left the island, back to the island. My basis for Widmore being Daniel's father is due to the statement that was made several times in last night's episode and that was that Widmore financed all of Farraday's research. Why else would he do this? I feel pretty confident in saying that the woman who held Farraday at gun point while he was examining the H bomb was Ms. Hawking (his mother) 50 years ago. That's why he kept looking at her, which bothered her. It would also explain how she and Widmore "hooked up" since they were both on the island at the same time.

The reason I think Farraday is the central character is that I believe he's been researching and studying time travel for years and years, funded by Widmore. He started with lab rats and then at some point tested it on a person, which was the woman who was in the bed in a comatose state where Desmond found her when he was searching for Farraday's mother. It was said that Widmore was paying for her care and I'm sure that was because something went wrong with Farraday's experiment, so Widmore basically is paying the family off so they won't go public with what happened. Widmore decided to give Farraday a better place to do his experimenting so he founded the Dharma Initiative and sent them to a remote island where they could do the psychological experiments that Dharma conducted as a ruse to their main focus, time travel. Now the only thing that doesn't factor in is how Widmore was on the island before Farraday was even born. Or was he? With time travel, anything is possible. And that also doesn't answer the question of Richard Alpert, the man who never ages. When we saw young Widmore, Richard Alpert was the same age as we've always seen him, so had he already started time travel at that point or was he really the age that we saw him at during that time frame? And who is Richard Alpert? Why is he always there? I didn't say my theories don't have holes in them...

One more theory. I think the reason why all the Lostaways need to get back to the island is because they are each others' constants and they need to be together or they're all going to die. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but we do know that you need a constant in order to travel back and forth in time and not die, and my understanding is that a constant is someone you see in the different times you're in. In most of these characters' cases, that could only be each other.

I still don't have answers for the following: what was the smoke monster and why haven't we seen it again? why did the plane crash when it did? why did widmore try to cover up the plane crash (maybe so no one else who knows about the island would discover its location?) There's actually a multitude of questions that I still have. But I'm feeling good about this season. If we're already discovering this much information this early in the season, it's going to be a good one.

So all my fellow Losties out there? What do you think? Are any of my theories possible? Do you have anything you want to add to them?

Lastly, I found the following video on another blog discussing Lost. I found it to be very funny, it's pretty short, so watch it when you get a chance. My favorite line is "Pregnant women and children under 12 are incapable of perspective." So true!



I seriously love this show!

The Shortest Movie Review Ever

Last night, Keith came home from work early, I burnt supper, and we all ate hotdogs.  Not sure what happened with the supper thing, but I was making a new recipe as well as boiling spaghetti noodles and mixing up cupcake batter.  Too many balls in the air and the one that came crashing down was the new sauce that was supposed to go over the noodles.  Our house stunk for several hours.  I'm sure that makes me sound like a novice, but in reality I'm a decent cook, I know how to put together a recipe, apparently I just don't know how to stir said recipe frequently enough.

Not sure how I got off track.  

Movie Review.  Focus.

Ok. Last weekend I rented the new musical "Mamma Mia", but I never got around to watching it until last night.  After you burn supper, you typically need some kind of pick-me-up, so I chose that one.  Keith was very thrilled to know we would be watching a musical, but I told him all of our normal shows were reruns so we weren't missing anything important anyway.  After the first random song was burst into, Keith gave me the "are you serious?" look and went into the garage, taking Garrett with him.  

Before I go any further, I have to say that I'm definitely a musical kind of gal.  One of my all times favorites is "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".  You can't ever go wrong with anything involving Gene Kelly, like "Singing in the Rain", either.  

But "Mamma Mia" was very disappointing.  I just knew after seeing the previews that I would love it.  Come on, who doesn't love a movie that includes "Dancing Queen"?  But this movie did not reach the caliber that a musical should, according to my standards anyway.  I'm sure Meryl Streep would love to know my assessment.  While most musicals are random songs at random moments, this movie was even more random than the norm.  I had a hard time following along with the story line and I kept watching the clock to see how much longer this movie could possibly go on.  

I have a hard time turning off a movie, even when I don't like it.  I'm not sure why, but I feel like I have to endure the entire thing in hopes that it will have some sort of redeeming quality.  This movie had 2.  One was Pierce Brosnan singing.  I never thought I would ever see a former James Bond in a musical, so that made it partially worth watching.  The second was the girl who plays Meryl Streep's daughter.  I really like that actress, she plays in the HBO show "Big Love" which I've recently become addicted to watching when the seasons are available for rent at Blockbuster.  Other than that, the story line was hard to follow, the songs were borderline ridiculous (minus Dancing Queen, which I love), and Meryl Streep did not impress me.  Though I'm not much of a Meryl Streep fan to begin with.

So that's it.  If any of you have seen it, I would love to know your thoughts.  Maybe I'm missing something here and if I were to rewatch it, I would discover a new love.  

I might be able to pencil in another viewing in a few years, or if I was stuck in bed for an indefinite period of time.

One More Week!

Exactly one week from today we will hopefully know if we're having another boy or a girl.  As Keith so eloquently put it yesterday, "You know we're having a girl because we already have all the boy stuff.  That's just how it works for accountants."  Meaning, obviously, that having a girl will cost us more money than having a boy.  I don't think he even realizes the half of it.  

While neither of us really cares one way or the other, so long as the baby is healthy, I think he's learning towards a girl whereas I'm leaning towards a boy.  One of us is bound to be right.  

We're almost done cleaning out the guest room.  All that's in there now are a few of my clothes that I currently can't wear but will have to find a spot in my closet (along with my wedding dress, I'm not sure what to do with that), 7 containers full of blankets and/or picture frames that need to find a spot in the garage or attic, and the baby crib, which will be moved to the baby's room once there's a free spot for it.  Initially I planned on painting Garrett's new room a grayish blue color because all of the walls in our house are what we call the builder's khaki color and I'm getting tired of it.  However, yesterday I was really taking a hard long in that room and decided I don't have the energy or the drive to tackle painting right now.  Keith didn't really want to change the color, so he agreed to touch up the walls and baseboards for me so atleast everything will be fresh before Garrett moves in.  Now I need to buy curtains and a curtain rod along with some poster frames and we'll be ready to start moving Garrett over.  I would like him to be completely moved in by April for a few reasons.  One would be that he will have plenty of time to adjust to the new room before a new baby will take over his old room, and two, we will have enough time to get the baby's room ready before it's born.  

As for the baby's room (ie Garrett's current room) it will need to be completely repainted because toddlers are hard on their walls.  But since we're just repainting with the color that's currently on the walls, it shouldn't take as much work as a new paint color would.  

Is anybody else tired after reading all that?

Back to more important things, I'm feeling the baby move every day now.  Nothing too crazy so far, more squirming with the occasional kick or punch, but I know it will get more and more noticeable as it gets bigger in there.  The other night, Keith put his hand on my stomach, so I moved it to the hard spot where it was obvious that the baby was laying.  I pushed around on my stomach to show him that you could definitely tell that was the baby because everywhere else wasn't that hard.  He freaked out and told me to stop pushing on the baby, I was going to poke its eye out or something.  I promise I wasn't pushing hard at all.  

I can't wait to post next Monday and announce to everyone what we're having.  Hopefully it won't be too much longer after we find out that we'll also have a name chosen.  I've got a few ideas, but we haven't talked seriously about names yet, so I'll wait to share until we have the name picked.  

And I'll close with a somewhat funny story about Garrett.  On Friday night, he had his tent in the living room, so Keith said he was going into the tent to play.  Keith's leg couldn't fit in the tent, let alone his entire 6'5" body.  So he stuck his upper body into the tent and Garrett said "Daddy's stupid".  Well, atleast that's what we thought he said, but I did some quick analyzing of his sentence and determined he actually said "Daddy's too big".  I had to reassure Keith that was what Garrett said before we started in explaining that we don't call people stupid.  Thankfully we've avoided that discussion.  For now.  

Quick Change Artist

For the past few months, Garrett has dressed himself off and on. He's better at undressing than putting the clothes on, but he gives it a great try. Yesterday I had a splitting headache so we had no plans to go anywhere while I spent the majority of the day on the couch. Tylenol wasn't cutting it. So Garrett was on the lookout for something fun to do in the house.

He spent quite a bit of time playing in his room, which made me very happy. I could hear him talking to himself and his toys, but I knew there wasn't anything in his room that he could get hurt on or do major damage so I didn't check on him as often as I usually would. After awhile of playing, he came out wearing different clothes than he had on when he went in his room. I immediately recognized them as clothes he had worn earlier in the week. Once I went in his room to see exactly what he was doing, I realized that he had dumped his hamper out (which only contained about 3 days worth of clothes) and was mixing and matching the clothes in there, changing his outfit every couple of minutes. Thankfully nothing in there was truly dirty, just worn for a day and needing a washing. He had even gone so far as to change his underwear and socks. I should have known that this would probably happen because that morning, he had dressed himself in the clothes that I had laid out for him, which he has never done before. (I always lay out his outfit for the next day, the night before, when I'm putting him to bed.)

I had thought that he had gotten this clothes changing out of his system that afternoon, but apparently not. Last night, right in the middle of "Lost" (the best show ever!), Keith looks up and says "Why is Garrett's bedroom light on?" We had put him to bed before "Lost" started so that we wouldn't be interrupted. And he can't reach his light switch without using a chair, so something was going on. Of course "Lost" was right in the middle of a good scene and a commercial didn't look imminent, so I did what any pregnant woman would do, I said "Keith, can you go check on him?" He goes to Garrett's room, opens the door, and says "You need to come see this." I reluctantly got up and headed for his room (we don't have Tivo or DVR so don't ask me why I didn't just pause the TV until I was done). There Garrett sat, in the middle of his bed, completely naked, no socks, no pull up, no pj's. Those clothes were in a pile on the floor along with the clothes I had laid out for today. Apparently he had changed out of his pj's, into his school clothes, and maybe was in the middle of changing back when Keith interrupted him. He immediately started crying because I think he knew we weren't too thrilled with this. I told him that he cannot sleep without his pull up on because it would make a big mess (otherwise I really don't care what he sleeps in, as long as he has some clothes on-atleast in the winter, though I didn't tell him that.) I put his pj's back on him, minus one sock, I have no idea where it went so I told him he would have to go without that sock for the night. It wasn't going to get very cold so I knew it wasn't necessary that he have it on.

This morning he woke up early for some reason and started calling me to come open the door around 6:45. First off, we keep his door baby proofed so he can't get out of his room without someone letting him out, when he moves to his new room we won't do this anymore, but I didn't want to take the chance of him wandering the house at night once he started sleeping in a big bed. Secondly, my rule is that we don't get up before 7:30 unless we have to. So I called to him and said it wasn't time to get up yet. About 15 minutes later, he called back and said the sun was out and it was time to get up. I somehow managed to doze off and woke up right at 7:30, so I went to his room to let him out. He had already turned his light on (he has a little lawn chair in there that he regularly uses as a step stool) and was wearing the shirt I had laid out for today, along with yesterday's underwear and socks and a pair of random sweatpants. The shirt was backwards too. I should have taken a picture, but I was still a little tired so I didn't think about it. I told him he looked nice, but we would need to change his pants before he went to school because those didn't match. He was fine with that. He was not as ok with me turning his shirt around to face the right way, but he went with it.

Right before it was time to leave for school I told him to put his shoes on. He said his tennis shoes are dirty (they aren't) so he wanted to wear his brown shoes (which are church shoes, but they went ok with the clothes he was wearing) and I told him that was fine. Next thing I know, he's wearing one brown shoe (on the wrong foot) and one Lightning McQueen croc shoe (also on the wrong foot). I told him he needed 2 brown shoes and he needed them on the correct feet. He tried to insist that he wear the shoes just as he had them, but I put my foot down on mismatched shoes, unless it's crazy shoe day. Somehow we managed to get out the door with all the correct clothing and shoes intact.

I have a feeling this new habit doesn't bode well. I'm going to have to empty his hamper every night to keep him from trying to wear dirty clothes. Thankfully he can't access his clean clothes because they're all in his closet which is also baby proofed. But hey, if I lay out a clean outfit for him to wear, atleast I know he'll be dressed every morning. The clothes may not be facing the right direction, but atleast they'll be on his body.

And now we begin the fully independent streak.

Friends Forever

The Scene: Our toy-strewn living room (again! This time, the rest of the house is clean though.)

My mood: frustrated with the lack of cooperation in getting Garrett to pick up his toys.  My voice has been raised multiple times, and while a few toys have made their way to the appropriate places, everything is not picked up.

Garrett comes to me, lays his head on my shoulder and says "I your best friend."  

My mood: Suddenly lighter and more forgiving.

The Scene: Still as toy covered as before.

Our Weekend

This weekend wasn't quite as exciting as last weekend, but we did manage to get quite a bit done.  On Saturday morning we went out for breakfast and then did our weekly grocery shopping.  When we were eating breakfast, Keith told me that once baby #2 gets here we won't be going out to eat for awhile afterwards.  He doesn't think we can handle eating out with 2 kids, we can barely handle it with one.  This was after Garrett took his balled up straw wrapper and tossed it across the crowded room, narrowly missing another family's table.   I have no idea what he was thinking exactly, he had held it up to me and asked me what it was and when I responded that it was trash, he threw it.  As if we blithely throw trash around at our house.  Though you would have thought so a few hours later...

We came home, put away groceries and begin putting our house to right.  While I took down our Christmas decorations weeks ago, in reality they just moved from the living room to the dining room, which has been bugging me.  So I spent quite a bit of time sorting through it all, boxing everything up and taking the boxes to the garage.  I put Garrett to work picking through everything to find the ornament hooks and putting them in a ziplock baggy.  He loves doing odd jobs like that, but not picking up his toys for some reason.  Now all that's left in there is the Christmas tree.  It's too big and heavy for me to move, so I'm going to wait until Keith has a free moment to take care of it.  

While I was working on this project, he was busy cleaning and organizing our room.  We have a nice filing cabinet, but I rarely file papers properly, so he was working on that along with sorting through a lot of other miscellaneous things cluttering up the bar in our kitchen and the floor of our guest bedroom turned junk room turned eventual new bedroom for Garrett.  I had just finished my project and sat down for a break when my in-laws walked in our back door.  I heard the door open (Keith had been outside working in the garage) and Keith said "The house isn't very clean right now."  My in-laws are very sweet, but I think the majority of women out there wouldn't be too thrilled at the idea of their in-laws seeing their house in the state that mine was in at that moment.  Yes, my dining room was clean (with the exception of a 7 foot Christmas tree laying in pieces in the floor), but my kitchen was littered with non perishable groceries that hadn't been put away, along with some dirty dishes.  But that's nothing compared to the toy store that had exploded in our living room in the first few hours of the morning.  We typically have Garrett pick up all his toys every night before bed and we don't normally allow him to get out a million and one toys at the same time, but since Keith and I were both occupied with our own projects, Garrett took on a project as well, which was to see how many toys would completely fill the floor in our living room.  

And there I sat on the couch while my house was a veritable pigsty.  Oh, and did I mention that my mother in law cleans homes as a side job to earn extra money?  She's the type of cleaner who gets on her hands and knees to wipe down the baseboards.  You could probably eat off the floor under her washing machine.  I'm sure she was extremely proud of me when she walked in our house that morning.  Of course I apologized several times for the state of the house and she was extremely understanding, but I still hate for people to see my house in disarray like that.  

It was right around lunchtime when they got to our house and they were hungry.  Since we weren't prepared for company, we all went out to lunch.  They visited at our house for a few hours and then went home.  We attempted to do more cleaning before calling it a day.  After putting Garrett to bed we watched "Eagle Eye".  It was a good movie, especially if you like government conspiracies, as Keith pointed out.  

Sunday morning we headed to church and attempted worship service with Garrett.  He was fairly good, though he refuses to whisper for some reason.  After church we came back home and just had sandwiches for lunch after which we resumed our cleaning from the day before.  We managed to get the kitchen back to normal, one bathroom cleaned, and quite a bit boxed up from our former guest room.  

After all this cleaning, I've discovered that I'm getting far enough along in my pregnancy to have some intense pelvic pain after being on my feet a lot, especially when that's combined with some lifting and walking back and forth from room to room.  I remember this pain with my first pregnancy, but don't remember experiencing it this soon.  I'm still feeling the after effects today.  So I'll have to space my cleaning out a little each day rather than forcing it all in a one or two day spree.

On a side note:  Garrett's latest from this weekend (besides throwing trash at strangers) is that he now says "I'm gonna spank you" and swats at us.  When he first said it, he completely caught me off guard and the situation it was used in was pretty funny, so, unfortunately, I laughed.  Rookie mistake.  And we've been paying for it the last couple of days.  

Thoughts? Anyone?

As I get closer and closer to D-day, I'm thinking more and more about a situation that I'm not completely decided on.

I've mentioned before that I had postpartum depression (PPD) after Garrett was born, though I didn't realize it till after the fact.  I've talked to my doctor about the PPD and what he would recommend I do this go around.  He recommended meds if I was interested and gave me three options: 1)start taking the meds now, 2)start taking the meds a month before I'm due, 3)start taking them after the baby is born.  He said option 3 was the least recommended because it can take a couple of months before the medicine starts working.  

My first question is, should I worry that because I suffered with PPD with my first baby, it will automatically happen with the second one?  I've heard of many women who had it with one pregnancy and not the other.  So I know it's not a given that I will deal with it again.  Should I play it safe and take medicine anyway "just in case"?  Would there be some sort of strange side effect that maybe isn't typically a problem with these meds but would affect me, that would potentially be worse than PPD?  

Obviously I'm not even to the point of dealing with the doctor's 3 recommendations with the meds.  I've definitely ruled out #1.  I don't see the point of being on any medicine right now when I don't need it right now.  Option 3 bothers me some simply because if I do have to deal with this again, I don't want to wait 2 months before the meds kick in.  

Keith and I have discussed this already.  He's anti medicine in general.  Since we've been married I've finally managed to convince him to take a tylenol when he has a headache, or cold medicine when he has a cold.  He doesn't love the fact that I'm on a daily, prescription thyroid medicine, which isn't a big deal and is also necessary.  So he obviously doesn't like any option that would have me taking a medicine.  However, it's not a point of contention for us and, should I choose to take antidepressants, he won't question me or my decision.  

I feel like some of my PPD with Garrett was mostly environmental.  I went from teaching school to being at home full time (for my 8 week maternity leave) with a new baby that I ultimately knew little about taking care of.  Obviously I knew the basics of feeding, diapering, etc, but little else.  I felt very isolated and alone during that time.  I certainly don't relish those feelings again.  However, other than adding an additional child to our house (which is obviously HUGE), there will be minimal changes this go around.  I will have much more of an idea of what to expect in dealing with a newborn, I'm already a stay at home mom, so there won't be a huge change to my day to day schedule (other than the nighttime feedings which I haven't done in 3 years).  And the big plus, at least right now in my mind, is that Garrett will be here, someone to talk to and interact with on a minute by minute basis, during the day when Keith is at work.  That may sound strange to even say that, but I don't think I will feel those isolated feelings simply because I'll have my own little chatterbox filling my time.  Those are just some of the thoughts that I've been having.

So you can see my predicament.  Now I'm turning to my friends to hear what you think about it.  Obviously this will be a decision I will make based on a lot of different things, but I would love to hear your thoughts on PPD and antidepressants.  If you've had any experience with either (or you personally know someone who has) I would love to hear about it.  

I Can't Believe I Forgot This!

On Saturday night, after heading to bed, but before going to sleep, I watched some SNL.  I normally never watch it unless they have a host or musical guest that I adore and, let's face it, there aren't many of those.  

Neal Patrick Harris was the host this past Saturday.  If you are a fan of NPH and/or "Doogie Howser, MD", you have to watch the following if you didn't catch it Saturday night.  Probably the funniest SNL skit I've seen in a while.  But I'm pretty particular. 

I'm having problems getting it to embed the YouTube link *kicks blogger hard*, so just click here to view.

Weekend Recap

On Saturday morning we got up and did a few loads of laundry.  We had a birthday party to attend at noon and I had no clean pants to wear.  We cleaned the house, got ready and headed off to the birthday party.  Our friends' son turned 4 and he had a fireman themed party.  They always have excellent food at their parties because the mom works for the company that owns Chili's so we had chicken crispers, egg rolls, buffalo wings, not to mention the steak and chicken they grilled for fajitas and yummy, homemade queso dip.  Good food always equals a good party.  

After a couple of hours at the party, we headed home to get Keith and Garrett ready for their little excursion.  Keith loaded up his guns, ammo and various other hunting accoutrements while I packed the clothes and things they would both need for an overnight trip.  Garrett loaded down a bag with the toys needed to entertain a 3 year old.  I tried to explain to Garrett what was going to happen, since this is his first time being with Daddy and not Momma overnight.  Keith has business trips that he takes, sometimes for an entire week, so Garrett is somewhat accustomed to not seeing Daddy for a few days, but he always sees me everyday, so I knew it might be a little different for him.

After they left, I posted my last blog post and then headed to the movies.  I did see "Twilight" and there was quite a few more people seeing it than I had expected.  That movie has been out for awhile so I had hoped it would be a small crowd.  The overwhelming majority of the movie watchers were obviously teenaged girls.  And with teen girls comes nonstop chatter.  Thankfully where I sat, there weren't any around me, but about 10 minutes into the movie, a couple came down from the back of the theater and sat beside me.  I heard the guy say "Maybe it will be quieter down here."  He was one of two guys in the entire theater, but he seemed to enjoy himself.  I heard him laughing at several different spots, though he probably just found the story line a tad funny since it IS for younger girls.  

Anyway, the movie was pretty good.  I found the cast they picked for the characters to be a little odd, but I always feel that way after reading the book and then seeing the movie.  I apparently have a different imagination than the casting director.  They also had some "off" scenes in comparison to the book, but over all it was a good movie.  I do want to add that the director definitely went out of his way to make Edward Cullen (the male lead) about as romantic as a 17 year old could possibly be.  The book of course portrays him as a romantic, but the movie included these little things that I noticed to make him even more "swoon worthy".  While I enjoyed it and appreciated the fact that he's just a movie character, I do feel badly for all those teenaged girls out there who've read these books and seen this movie and are now on the hunt for their own Edward Cullen.  There's no guy on this planet who would meet up with the qualities that have been given to this character.  But I'm sure there are at least a few teen girls who think he does exist somewhere and won't settle for less than him.  I feel sad for them when the day finally arrives that they realize this character is just that, a character.  Nothing that a real life guy would ever live up to.  Overall it was a good movie choice to pass the time with.

Since Saturday, I've had several people remark on the fact that I chose to go to a movie alone.  I just wanted to say for the record that I enjoy doing things solo.  Sure, I like to do things with friends or my husband, but I also don't mind doing things on my own and can appreciate the quiet and solitude that comes with going it on my own, including going to the movies.  It's not like you can talk to a friend in the movies anyway, at least you shouldn't be, if you are, then stop, it's annoying.

After the movie, I came home, took a shower (yes it was only 7pm), got into my pj's and settled onto the couch to watch another movie.  We have a fairly extensive movie collection that we seldom watch.  I debated between "The Notebook" and "Titanic" but decided on neither because they're too depressing, though I love them both.  I settled on "Hitch" (with Will Smith and Kevin James).  It's funny and a semi-chick flick.  When it was over, I went to bed, watched a bit more TV and fell asleep with the lights and the TV on.  Woke up at 3am, turned off the light, left the TV on and went back to sleep until 8am.  My alarm hadn't even gone off, I just woke up on my own.  The joys of being 30.  I went to church, came home, finished the laundry, washed all the sheets on our beds, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my bedroom, and about that point Keith and Garrett got home.  

Keith gave me a rundown on their weekend.  Before he went to his parents' house on Saturday, he stopped at a sporting goods store in Athens to buy a few more things he was needing.  He said Garrett made shopping almost impossible (LOL), but he got what he needed, just didn't have time to browse any (welcome to my world!).  After visiting with his parents some, Keith went down to his dad's shooting range to "sight in" his gun.  I think that just means to make sure the scope and everything was set properly.  It took him 2 shots to bullseye, so he was happy with that, he even brought home the target to show me.  At 6:30 or 7:00pm, he and his friend headed out to the spot where all these wild hogs have been spotted.  They only waited for an hour or so and then 9 or 10 hogs came through.  Keith picked out the hog he wanted and shot it.  His friend attempted a shot, but missed.  The rest of the hogs took off, but Keith's hog was down for the count.  He took a lot of pictures, but I'm going to refrain from sharing them here, they're pretty gross.  It was a huge hog though.  He had some shots of it in the bed of his truck and it took up a lot of room.  He took it by his parents' house to show them, Garrett was still up, so he showed him too and took his picture with it (only a man would do something like that).  Then they hauled the hog to the back of his friend's property where he said the coyotes would eat it.  Turns out you can eat hogs like that, but they don't taste all that good, so Keith didn't bother with the ordeal of butchering, cleaning, etc.   

On Sunday, Keith did some more target practice, and then he and Garrett left for home when his parents left to go to a funeral.  They stopped in Athens for lunch and then were on their way.  Keith said that Garrett was very ready to see me and didn't even want to stop for lunch.  Then from Athens to Kaufman (about 40 minutes), Garrett talked nonstop about David Cook.  Believe me, Keith gave me lots of grief about that.  I promise you, I do not talk about him to Garrett (or anybody).  But I do listen to his CD in the car and Garrett knows who it is.  That's it.  For some reason, Garrett asks to listen to his music all the time and is always asking if the singer on the radio is David Cook.  I am not intentionally creating a tiny fan of his, it's just happened.  (But hey, if my 3 year old likes his music, you probably would too.)  :)

So that was our weekend in a nutshell.  I thoroughly enjoyed my alone time.  I realize that it was probably the last one for a very long time, so I'm trying to lock in my memory of a quiet, clean house and the chance to watch a movie in peace and quiet.

In closing, 3 weeks from today is my ultrasound.  I'm nervous and excited at the same time.  We'll see what's hanging out in my belly, a boy or a girl.

Home Alone

It's official.  I'm home alone for the first time in almost 4 years.  I think this is the part where Macaulay Culkin slaps himself in the face, right?  I'll pass on that, but otherwise, I'm finding myself with about 24 hours of complete and utter aloneness.  Yeah, that's probably not a word.  Anyway, I'm trying to figure out the best way to pass this time in order to do so efficiently as well as keeping things fun.  I'm seriously contemplating going to a movie in about an hour, but right now I'm just sitting here enjoying the silence, and the buzzing of the light in the kitchen which has been known to drive me crazy.  

Keith came home from work on Thursday and randomly said that he was going hunting this weekend.  I was all for it, of course.  He hasn't gone hunting since we've been married and I know he's been wanting to get out and try some of the newer guns he's purchased recently.  I asked him what he would be hunting for and the time frame of his plans and he told me he would be going hog hunting in the area around his parents' land.  Apparently hog hunting is best done during the nighttime hours.  Before he started making calls to round up a friend or two for this excursion as well as letting his parents know of his plans, I suggested that maybe he might want to take Garrett along and let his parents spend some time with him while Keith would be out.  They're always wanting Garrett to stay overnight with them, I've been hesitant for a few reasons, but knowing that Keith would be within 20 minutes of their house, I thought this would be the perfect chance to do this. 

When he called his parents, this was his side of the conversation:

Hey, could I come down and spend the night with y'all on Saturday?

And I might have Garrett with me.  Would that be ok?

Now, my first thought was, "I hope his parents don't think we're having some sort of marital problems" because that sounded like a strange request to me.  Thankfully he got on with explaining the why of his trip and of course they were very agreeable.  Keith and his dad have done these overnight hog hunting trips many times in the past.  Apparently wild hogs are a problem in that area at different times of the year, and there's currently plenty for hunting right now, according to one of his friends who's going with him tonight.  These aren't the type of hogs you would eat, that's my understanding, so I have no idea what they will do with the hog once it's been "hunted" but I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow when he gets home.  

So now I contemplate all this time before me.  Wondering what would be the best use of my time.  The obvious choice would be to clean, and I hope to do some of that.  But I also want to feel as if I've done atleast a few things that I wouldn't have been able to do had Keith and Garrett been home.  Normally I would seriously consider doing some shopping, but it's pretty cold today and I don't have anything pressing that needs to be purchased.  It's probably good I don't know the sex of the baby yet because otherwise I might be out buying "necessities".  The second thought that came to mind was the movies.  When I mentioned it to Keith (after he asked me what in the world I was going to do while they're gone), he was very hurt that I would even consider going to a movie without him.  I swore to him I would be seeing something that he wouldn't even want to watch on video, let alone in the theater.  So I'm probably going to see "Twilight".  I've read the entire series, twice, but I've heard the movie doesn't quite do the book justice.  However, if I'm wanting to go catch a movie, then this is the best option because no way would Keith ever want to watch a movie about teenaged vampires.  So that's where I'll be headed here shortly.  Then I'll probably come home and watch a few more chick flicks on DVD that I haven't seen in ages and go to bed at some point before it gets too late.  Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to do some of the cleaning that needs to be done.  There is church in the morning, but after that I should have a few hours before they'll be home.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I was home alone for this length of time.  I almost feel as if I'm at loose ends knowing that there's nobody who needs to be taken care of.  Such a freeing feeling!

You all enjoy your child-filled, spouse-filled evening, while I'll be out partying it up like my college days.  ;)

Here's the Proof

I know some of you have a hard time believing me when I say that the book pictured above is an actual necessity for me in parenting Garrett.  I will admit that after having read some of the stories from Dr Dobson's book, Garrett is certainly not at the end of the spectrum for the strong-willed child.  Though he is only 3...  

I thought I would present you with some proof of the strong-willed/defiant nature that my child exhibits to me.  First I have to say that this is not a daily problem, thank you Lord!  But he does it with enough regularity for me to think of him as strong-willed and therefore parent and discipline with that in mind.  

Today was definitely one of those days where Garrett decided to exert his will at a few various moments.  We went grocery shopping at Walmart this morning, which is not something I've been doing with Garrett by myself lately, but he's always asking to go to Walmart and I needed a few things, so off we headed.  He was pretty good throughout the store.  As we were walking out to the car, he was standing on the end of the cart while I pushed it.  He has the bad habit of stepping off of this perch while I'm in motion resulting in me running him over, so I warned him not to let go, mostly because we were going to be going through the parking lot and I didn't want him falling down on the cement.  The words "Don't let go" had just finished leaving my mouth, when he let go with his right hand, held it up to me and wiggled his fingers with a smirk on his face.  I think I've run him over enough that he knew it would hurt if he went that route, so he thought he would go the safer route by just letting go with one hand.  Whenever the thought crosses his mind, he will do exactly the opposite of what I say.  I chose to ignore his little flaunt and kept on walking to the car.  Dr. Dobson's big emphasis in his book (atleast as far as I've read) is picking your battles and that was not one of the battles for me.  My intention was to keep him from stepping off the cart, which he didn't do, so I moved on.  

Once we got to the car, I quickly unloaded the groceries while Garrett stood beside me.  I specifically told him to stay by the car, and had him helping me to keep him busy.  As I was finishing, he said he wanted to stay at Walmart and I explained to him that it was time to go home so we could put the groceries up and eat lunch.  He immediately bolted into the middle of the parking lot with all the traffic.  Safety is most definitely one of the battles that I will pick every single time.  I grabbed him up by the back of his shirt and "yelled" in a low voice in his ear about what can happen when you run out into traffic (as best as you can explain this to a child this age).  Then as I was stuffing him into his car seat, I spanked him.  I avoid spankings in public whenever possible, but this definitely warranted a spanking and he was already in the car, so I'm sure few, if any, people saw it and if they had been watching for a minute or two they would have known why it was happening.  

By this point I was downright furious with my child.  In less than 10 minutes he had done exactly the opposite of what he was told.  Not surprising, but still infuriating.  Yes, I will put him in the car seat before unloading groceries the next time.  However, I do think he's getting to the point where he should be able to mind an instruction like that for the couple of minutes it takes to unload your shopping cart.  I'm not even going to get into the whole bedtime fiasco this evening, involving a Daddy spanking, which are very rare.  

So I'm trying to really think through what areas I should consider to be battlegrounds.  For the unaware readers, I am also a strong-willed person.  I'm one of those moms suffering from the curse "may you have children just like you!"  If it were up to me, everything would be a battleground because I cannot stand disobedience, disrespect, defiance, etc.  But if I truly stuck with punishing for every single time my child disobeys me or even as simple as telling me "no" all the time (which I equate to defiance in a way), then he would be in a constant time out and/or constantly being spanked.  I certainly don't want to live that way.  Now I'm asking you, what are/were your battlegrounds with your kids?  Those areas where you said you would absolutely "win" anytime your child attempted to go toe to toe with you?  

Obviously safety is one without a question.  In Dobson's book he shares a story about a family that used to be their neighbors years ago.  They had a strong-willed 3 year old.  One day Dr. Dobson's wife saw the mom and the 3 year old outside.  The child was attempting to ride in the street and the mom pulled him off the bike and brought him back to the driveway telling him it wasn't safe.  He threw a huge fit, got back on the bike, took it back to the street and kept riding.  The mom just looked on helplessly as her child rode his bike in the street.  Never once attempted to stop him, discipline him, or anything.  

Another one, for me, is disrespect.  Having taught in public schools for 4 years, currently teach Sunday school in our preteen department at church, and just spending a good bit of time around a variety of children of many ages, my children will be respectful.  So far, that hasn't really been a problem area for us.  Not sure why, but Garrett is very good about saying please, thank you, welcome, etc.  In the south, ma'am and sir are very common, and that's still an area Garrett isn't quite as proficient, but overall he's pretty polite and respectful.  Except when he's disobeying, obviously.  

I wish somebody could tell me that the second child isn't going to be strong-willed like Garrett (and me).  According to Keith's mom, he was a very easy going child.  I think I could handle having one of those.  Keith has asked me why he's paying for my raising.  He was a fairly good kid, yet he gets to help parent one like me.  Life just isn't fair at times....  

But hopefully that doesn't transfer to having one who is actually worse than Garrett.  I don't think my blood pressure could handle that.

The Best TV Show Ever

Two weeks from tonight, the best show on TV will finally return for another season!!!  If you don't know what show I'm talking about, then you just don't know me at all.  Of course I'm talking about "Lost".  

I had good intentions of rewatching previous seasons this summer leading up to season 5, but unfortunately I never got around to doing that.  Maybe this summer.  You know, because I won't be busy at all with an almost 4 year old and a newborn.  But if this baby isn't a good sleeper, I may need something to pass those nighttime feedings...  I really hope that isn't the case though.

Back to Lost, I seriously cannot say it enough, this is THE best show ever.  If you like the least bit of intrigue and mystery this show is truly for you.  The writers have no problem killing random characters off.  Some people probably don't like that, but I think it keeps you on your toes because you just never know what's going to happen because nothing is sacred.

I know this is going to be a great season.  

Baby Update

Today I had my 3rd doctor's appointment and I took Garrett with me again. Keith had initially planned to stay home with him for the morning but this is a really busy time of year for him and he just couldn't take off a few hours. It worked out well because Garrett has been really good at the last 2 visits with me. I know that with all the appointments I will have between now and June, he'll be attending several, so atleast he's getting used to it now.

The highlights of the visit:
-Lost 2 more pounds for a total weight loss of 9 pounds since getting pregnant. Not intentional, I promise, just a strange side effect that pregnancy has on me, not sure why! I do eat and I've only upchucked once...
-My blood pressure was good. I've never had a problem with it before, but now that I'm 30, I'm aware that there's always the chance it could start giving me problems. My mom started taking bp medicine when she was about my age. But today's was a good number: 120/70.
-Heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time, very exciting! This also confirmed that I have been feeling the baby move. This weekend I felt several very distinctive punches/kicks in the same spot. I basically assumed it was the baby moving, but when the doctor was searching for the heartbeat, I told him where I had felt it move the day before, he moved the doppler there, and we immediately started hearing the heartbeat! While he was pushing around on my stomach looking for it, baby was squirming a little too and I could definitely feel it. Very cool!
-And the most exciting news...4 weeks from today is the BIG ultrasound! I can't believe it! I really thought I would have to wait another month, but I asked when we'd be doing it and he asked me if I could hold off for 4 weeks.

He said their new technician is really good, which is exciting because at our first ultrasound with Garrett in this doctor's office, the tech at that time couldn't tell if we were having a boy or a girl. She did confess that we were one of her first ultrasounds, so she just didn't have the experience doing them. Plus, Garrett was stubborn even then, had his legs crossed and pulled underneath him, as well as the cord between his legs. So, while we have experienced the letdown of not finding out the baby's sex at the first ultrasound, I really hope we don't have to do it again. We did end up having a 3D ultrasound done and that was when we found out Garrett was a boy. Good thing too, since I had sworn up and down he was a girl. Had we not found out, we would have gone into that delivery room with pink clothes in our bag, I swear. This is why I'm hesistent to feel very strongly one way or the other about this baby's sex. I told my doctor today that I am still feeling like it's a boy and he said "Well, you have a 50% chance of being right!" ha ha He said you really can't go off of the similarities and differences in a pregnancy to determine the sex because it's not a good indicator. So 4 weeks from now we'll see if it's boy #2 or (heaven help me) a girl.

Garrett still insists it's a girl, which is just the strangest thing to me. Does a 3 year old really know the difference between brothers and sisters or boys and girls? The only brother and sister he hangs around with occasionally are his friends Drew and Avery, but they don't refer to themselves as brother and sister, so I'm not sure what he's thinking a sister is. But he did tell me today that he's a genius so maybe he does know. (My dad has this thing that he does with his grandkids where he teaches them to say "I genius" as soon as they start talking. Today was the first time Garrett has said it without being prompted by someone else. I hope that's not a bad thing...)

The only negative for today's appointment was the weather. It's very cold and rainy here and they were predicting freezing rain as well as slick roads. I watched the news before we left at 8:30 this morning and they said things were good at that point, so I drove through the rain with one eye on the roads and one eye on the outside temps. It hovered between 32 and 34 degrees. I left plenty early, went by the bank and still made it to the doctor's office 20 minutes before my appointment. They had me in and out before my actual appointment was supposed to start. Apparently a lot of people had cancelled today because of the bad weather potential. My doctor even thanked me for braving the weather to come in. I'm glad I did go because I didn't encounter any problems, other than driving in the rain, which I don't enjoy, but it wasn't bad. When I was getting Garrett into the car after the appointment, he started freaking out because the umbrella was dripping water inside the car. I had to ditch the umbrella, stand there and buckle him in, while it was raining without anything over my head. I'm sure I looked lovely on the drive home.

So now I sit here trying to muster up the energy to finish the laundry and clean the kitchen. I've got all my Christmas decorations on the dining room table and a bare Christmas tree standing in the living room. Eventually we'll get to the point of having everything packed away into the attic for another year. I told Keith last night that in 4 weeks I'll be exactly halfway through this pregnancy. That freaked him out a little. We both started listing off all the things that need to get done between now and then. It should be fun! I'm not as anxious to get this pregnancy over with as I was with Garrett. I guess this go around I know what's coming up and I'm not quite ready for it. I'm sure by June I will be.

Random '09

~I have to brag briefly. Yesterday morning, Keith and Garrett were reading "Rudolph" and Keith was trying to get Garrett to tell him the letters in the word Rudolph. Garrett looked at him and said "It says Rudolph." Keith said "I know what it says, I just want you to tell me the letters!" Then today we were on our way home after running errands and we passed a Walmart semi truck. Garrett said "That says Walmart."

~Keith bought a GPS system and it came in on Wednesday. He seriously loves that thing already. Initially he wanted to send it back because there's a small flaw in the screen and the back of it is missing a cover over one of the screws. (Keith is very particular about things like that.) But now I think he's fallen in love with it so hard that he's going to have a hard time sending it back and waiting for another one. He asked me last night what I would do if this were my GPS. Then he retracted and said "Well, it is your GPS, but... well, you know what I mean." LOL So I said if it was completely mine, I would just keep it because it works fine and those little flaws don't bother me, nor would I have probably even noticed them in the first place. But I can understand why he's aggravated, so I don't care either way. Send it back and he's fully justified in doing so, or keep it because the flaws don't affect how it works. We'll see what he ultimately decides. He has it at work today...even though he rode with his boss because they had to go to Fort Worth and his boss has his own GPS. I'm telling you it's true love. Had I known which one he would have wanted, I would have bought him one for Christmas and I could have gotten all the credit for an awesome gift. It's too late now.

~Yesterday we had Christmas with Keith's family. We had a good time and Garrett got several gifts. He is currently playing with the playdough factory which he absolutely loves. He's been playing with it off and on for the past 3 hours. It's not like he's never played with playdough before, but this particular tool that came in the factory is new to him and he apparently loves it (almost as much as his dad loves the GPS.) Keith and his dad both bought each other guns for Christmas, not surprisingly. Keith bought his dad some sort of rifle with a scope on it and his dad bought him a .45 stainless steel revolver with a holster and 8 boxes of ammo. Garrett was thoroughly intrigued with both guns. He loved the scope on the rifle, but was so funny when he was trying to look through it. I don't think Garrett has any choice but to be a huge gun enthusiast, he's surrounded by it.

~I've slowly started taking down our Christmas decorations. Right now everything I've taken down is on the dining room table. Last year when we took down all the decorations, they never made it out of the garage into the attic where they belong, but Keith is determined to put them in the attic this year to clean up our garage some. So I'm going to wait to box them up until he's ready to immediately take them to the attic. It will be nice to get our house back to normal.

~I have baby appointment #3 on Monday. We should get to hear the heartbeat which will be really fun. I'm also hoping he'll let me know when we'll be doing the ultrasound to find out what we're having. Garrett is on a baby sister kick right now. He punched me in the stomach earlier today for saying that I thought we were having a baby brother. That didn't go over too well with me. But I really don't think he's going to care one way or the other. Yesterday he was around his 8 week old cousin, Michael. He stared him down for awhile at one point, but he mostly just ignored him. He didn't even care when I held him for about 15 or 20 minutes, so I thought that was a good sign. Of course Michael slept the majority of the time so Garrett never really got a chance to hear him all out crying and, in turn, potentially get annoyed or worried about him. I've felt the baby move very sporadically. It's mostly been small tapping in my lower left abdomen. But it's not even a daily occurance right now. I know in the next month it will become more frequent and more noticeable, so I'm trying to enjoy the minimal movement right now. The first time I felt Garrett move I was 16 weeks pregnant and it seriously felt like he did an entire body flip all of the sudden in my abdomen. I'm sure I had been feeling smaller movements before that, but that was the first one that registered with me.

~Once all the Christmas decor is put away, I will seriously begin tackling the guest room which is a current disaster area. I want to completely clean it out and then paint. At that point I'll start slowly moving Garrett's things in there, making a very valiant attempt at getting things organized from the start. Then we'll set the crib up in Garrett's current room and I'll start moving down our baby equipment from the attic. I told Keith once this stuff comes down, it's not going back up. The only thing that would go back up would be if we have a boy, then I'll be boxing up Garrett's clothes as he outgrows them and moving them temporarily to the attic. We only plan on keeping the pack n play and the highchair. Everything else will be given away when we're done with it. The crib turns into a headboard and footboard for the full sized bed we have, so it will continue to be used. I have no plans for painting the baby's room until it's older and I know its personality, likes, and dislikes. If it's a boy, he'll inherit Garrett's nursery decorations and will have a John Deere tractor/barn yard theme. If it's a girl, I have some pictures that I'll hang in there and will just have to buy some bedding that will match. In a way, all of this is overwhelming, but I know that we have about 6 months till the baby gets here, so that helps. Though I do want Garrett moved into his new room atleast a couple of months before the baby is born. I think that would be easier on him.

I think this is about as random as it gets. I should get off here now and put away some laundry. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's day!