White Men Can't Jump

I should revise that. 33-year-old white men can't jump. Or run very fast.

Ben is on a new health kick. His office is giving him a membership at this amazing gym for a fraction of the cost of a normal membership, as long as he works out there three times per week. I'm just a teensy bit jealous. But obviously I don't even speedwalk at this juncture, so I can save my jealousy for six weeks postpardem.

His office also organized a basketball team; they play other businesses' teams every Wednesday. Or other teams of just random guys that like to play basketball.

Ben's team hasn't won yet, the poor blokes. As far as Ben can tell, his team is the oldest and most out-of-shape team in the league.

I took the kids with me to one game. (And I haven't been back. I just don't feel like chasing three kids around. Call me crazy.) They were playing guys that looked maybe 21 years old or so. And Ben's team is all thirty-somethings. I took some shots of Ben.

Standing and looking up instead of rebounding:

Walking instead of running:

More walking...

I wouldn't be doing much better, that's for sure. Dylan kept asking why Daddy's team wasn't making any points. I told him was because Daddy's team was older and a little bit more out of shape than the other team.

Dylan: How old is Daddy?

Me: 33.

Dylan: Whoa.... He IS old.

I remember thinking people in their thirties were old. And I was thinking that when I was, like, 20. Hahaha! I remember watching Blast from the Past, where the main guy is thirty and looking for someone to marry, and I was like, "Dude, 30 is wayyyyy too old. The writers should have made the main guy 25." Perspective changes when you age, that's for sure. To me, 30 is YOUNG, now.

Sadie spent the game chatting up some pretty girlfriends of the twenty-something basketball players. She is a friendly little lady. Micah spent the game throwing toys on the ground, and then getting mad at me for not picking them up. Dylan spent the game asking if he could go talk to daddy, and me saying, "Not now, honey." So yeah. I'll lend any further support to Ben from afar. I'll send him mental high-fives.

Slides:

Girl Power

When I take Sadie to and from preschool, she likes me to turn on the radio. And if there is a song on where a man is singing, she says disdainfully, "That is a boy song. I want a girl song." She prefers songs that women sing. I think it's pretty funny.

Bed Issues

It seems that, with each pregnancy, the list of things that make my life miserable increases. This time around, I have all the normal miserable things, but two more things have been added - this weird Anti-Lutheran antigen thingey and now bed issues. And not husband-and-wife bed issues. I'm an oversharer, but not THAT much of an oversharer.



I'm talking about the fact that I cannot sleep in my bed. I've tried and tried. It's been weeks since I've slept in my own bed. The couch is my bed. There are a few issues contributing to this phenomenon:



1. Ben's snoring.



All the women folk in my mom's line have had a history of Restless Legs Syndrome. My great-grandma. My grandma. My mom. And now me. I get it off-and-on in my normal life, but when I'm pregnant, it's OFF THE CHARTS. And if you've never had it, it's hard to explain. Basically, you'll be lying there, starting to drift off to dreamland, and HYYYYY-YAHHHH!! You start karate kicking your husband. You go, whoa, that was weird. You apologize to your husband for the kicking, lie back down, start to drift... and then.... suddenly, you feel the tremendous urge to stretch your legs clear up to your face. Or jump up and literally run a marathon. Many times, I've hopped out of bed and started to do ballet jumps and grand plies. Anything to get those wiggles out. It's insane. My grandma's antidote to RLS was to wear those leg warmers that go clear from your ankles to your thighs. My mom wraps a small blanket as tightly as she can around her legs, like a mummy. I find that taking warm baths really helps to fight RLS. It seems to me that the warmth of the legs is essential. My mom actually takes some pills for her RLS and has found a lot of relief. She says you can take away any of her other pills, but don't EVER take away her RLS pills. :)



So, as a result of my RLS, it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep. I used to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, thereby not being bothered by Ben's snoring. But now I lie in bed for a good two hours before I fall asleep. If I'm lucky. Ben falls asleep almost immediately after he lies down, and I lie there listening to his incessant snoring for hours. I ask him to roll over a few times, but the snoring never stops, and I continue doing rond-de-jambs en l'air with my legs. I decided a couple of months ago to invest in some ear plugs. The kids really love playing with them:

It hasn't really helped. I can't hear Ben snoring, but I think there are a few more bed issues I need to address. It's a multi-pronged problem.



2. My bed feels like a metal examination table.



I still just can't get comfortable. It felt fine for the past three years, but lately, to me, it feels as hard as a rock. So my kind husband went and bought me one of those eggshell foam things to put on your mattress to make it softer. It really feels so nice, but still, I cannot sleep.



3. I have a sensation that I'm going to roll off the bed. It's just so FLAT. I know this is soooo weird. Sleeping on the couch gives me that support on one side, and the couch kind of sucks me into its pillowy depths, and for some reason, that gives me comfort, and I'm able to sleep.



4. My heartburn is already kicking in, and being able to kind of prop myself up in one corner of the couch gives me a lot of relief. I can prop myself up in my bed, but then the rolling-off-the-bed sensation is too much for me.



I try a couple of times a week to fall asleep in my own bed, but to no avail. However, I find that, when I get up at four in the morning to pee and then go downstairs into my bed, I can fall back asleep easily. But that initial falling-asleep thing has continued to be elusive, unless I'm on my womblike couch.



I think Ben is taking it personally, and I keep trying to tell him that it's not him, it's me. But it ends up sounding like a lame breaking-up speech: "It's not you; it's me..." The fact that his breath smells like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to me isn't helping matters. Sometimes I start gagging if his breath gets in my face, and I feel badly about it. I hold my breath a lot to spare his feelings. Poor guy. I just keep telling him that I adore him; I just can't sleep in our bed or be near his breath for awhile. (Or anyone's breath. I had flee Relief Society a week ago. All I could smell in there was stale breath, and I nearly vomited. And last night, Dylan and I were watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and his breath was so repulsive to me that I got up and started folding clothes so that I didn't have to smell it.)



Pregnancy is the WORST.

Xena's Throne

Because of some complicated car seat-switching action, Micah's seat was sitting in the dining room for a couple of days, and Xena was in hog heaven. She really felt like this was her special bed. I suppose I should to go Petco and get her a proper bed, huh?

Olympics Observations, 2010 Edition

Beads and Nat, watching Olympics at my house (I love this picture of them)

1. I don't think curling should be considered a sport. I'm a fast sweeper; should I join a curling team??

2. I don't think the luge should be considered a sport. Unless you want to make sledding a sport. Seriously. I just don't feel like it's that athletic. Scary, yes. Athletic, no.

3. That one position in pairs figure skating makes me really uncomfortable. I can't find a picture of it, but surely you know the position to which I'm referring.

4. Evan Lysecek is a god. His technique is amazing. I can tell he's had a lot of ballet training, and I think it's that training that won him the gold. Gorgeous lines.

5. K.D. Lang (opening ceremony) really looks like a man. But her voice is like silk. I have always been a fan of her voice.

6. If I was an Olympian, I would do those three downhill skiing events. Obviously. I heart skiing.

7. If I lost or biffed it, and the media was interviewing me about my disappointing performance, I would just yell as loudly as I could, "MEH!!!" And that's it. I think it would be funny.

8. Johnny Weir is very flamboyant. Wow. A black corset with hot pink ribbon lacing?

9. Women's halfpipe isn't nearly as impressive as men's halfpipe. More bulk=more air. More air=more exciting.

10. Shaun White is amazing. I get really emotional when I see that kind of raw talent. The man can fly.

11. The ladies who do curling are very, very vocal.

12. If figure skating is an Olympic Sport, then so should ballet be an Olympic Sport. Just sayin'.

13. Plushenko's moves in his free skate also made me uncomfortable. I kept yelling, "Oh, no. No. You can't be doing that."

14. Did you know that Plushenko is referred to as "Plushy"? I think that's funny.

15. I'm disappointed that Lindsey Vonn posed for the SI Swimsuit Issue.

16. I get mad when people show sour grapes over their silver medals. Wahhhhh. Dial whine-one-one. Call the wahmbulance.

17. I hate this spin in pairs figure skating:

Ugly.

18. I'm a huge fan of Apolo Ohno. Whenever we see something with him on TV, Dylan yells, "Look, Mom! It's your favorite guy!!" I'm sad he didn't get a gold this year. Booo. Short track is so crazy and unpredictable. But he set a medals record for winter Olympics with his 8 medals. I'm proud of the little man.

19. Perhaps it is a requirement for ice dancer males to have long, nasty, shaggy hair. Except for the gold medal winner. His hair was okay. But every single other guy in the ice dancing had nasty-asty hair.

19. Joannie Rochette. So brave. So beautiful. I'm so glad she won a medal. Kim Yu-Na was fantastic. As for Mao Asada, she was also amazing, but as far as her reaction to winning silver, see #16.

20. I'm digging the gloved look on figure skaters. Very cool.

21. The Canadian short track men all look like they are from the seventies. That is a whole lotta hair they all have.

22. It makes me happy when a chubby dude wins an Olympic Gold Medal (Steve Holcom - bobsled). Hooray for chubby, yet in-shape people. That's me. Well, that was me until I got pregnant and got too sick to exercise.

23. The men's nordic 50K. Oh. My. Gosh. That's 31 miles. 31 miles of pumping your arms and legs non-stop. They even have to change skis three different times because the wax wears off!!!! Can you BELIEVE that??? Ben said he heard on NPR that the nordic 50K guys were probably the most athletic people in all of the winter olympics, because of how grueling that is. I just couldn't get over it.

Thanks, Olympics. I spend a LOT of time on the couch, and you made the last two weeks enjoyable for me. I'll miss you.

Boogey Down

We own the movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - the one from the sixties that's on TV all the time around Christmas time. Sadie ADORES it. Especially the special features - there are a couple of music videos that have that same clay, stop-action kind of stuff. One of the videos is Destiny's Child (back when they were still together), singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Micah loves to dance to that song. It's pretty cute. In this video, he danced just for the first few moments, and then got shy. But I still wanted to put it up here:

Little Ponies with Special Powers

My mom and I got Sadie some My Little Ponies DVD's for her birthday last year - one is the My Little Pony Movie, circa 1985. The other one is several episodes from the My Little Pony TV series, also circa 1985. These things are hilarious to watch. When one of the ponies is talking, you can hear the voice, but the lips kind of just move up and down, and not really in sync with the words that are being said. And the plots are really, really ridiculous. We are so spoiled nowadays, aren't we? But Sades still loves the movies and watches them often.

Dyls was watching an episode with Sadie, and there was an editing mistake. This pony was standing on one side of the screen, and in a split second, it was on the other side of the screen. Dylan gasped, "Mom, that Little Pony can teleport!!! Awesome!!!"