Imagine That

I started to dramatically recite the hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah, and was rather tickled at Miss M's choosing to follow me with her own, passionate, "Hal-ah-you-ah!"

Important Letters

Dear Freshly-washed Baby,

You are the softest thing I have ever snuggled, and I love you for it.

Love, me.

Stress Eating on a Budget: A How-To Guide.

Ah, stress eating. What a glorious part of human tradition. Our ancestral genetics communicate the fear of death or pain and trigger our bodies to store up some insulation for coping with the terrors of pre-industrialized life. Things to be truly frightened of - killer diseases like colds and diarrhea, or natural predators like raging fires burning our twig huts, and the sabre-toothed cat attacks that are sure to follow - are defended by adding carbs and fat for energy and healing surpluses. The same fantastic impulses periodically race efficaciously through your brain's survival response too, the only difference being our stressors now are more like break ups, taxes, and failing at the same Angry Birds level 37 times and counting (10-1 of Chapter 4--curse those hateful boomerang birds. I'm glad your offspring were stolen from you to be devoured by swine; you certainly don't deserve to reproduce!).

Since you recently paid your taxes and you're too busy pursuing vengeance on behalf of our avian compadres to work much, you're going to need to handle all your stress ingestion on the cheap. Not to worry; the following shopping list will show you how to do just that. Ready? Next time you go to the store, buy:

1. Pasta
Most places still offer a 1-lb bag of carbalicious heaven for around a buck. Stock well. Add butter sauce, tomato sauce, a handful of shredded cheese, or any combination of those, all for mere cents per serving. Change it up often; we don't want you burning out on your carbo-loading.

2. Chocolate.
Combine with just about any fruit for maximum caloric intake on that stress-gorging streak. Bananas are a good choice because they are cheaper than dirt. In fact, now that you mention it...

3. Bananas.
Ice cream is expensive. Buy an unholy amount of bananas. Freeze some when they turn solid brown and mushy. Mash some frozen banans up with some cocoa powder. 30¢ Dessert. Done. Eat fifty of these in a week if you want, I don't care.

4. In'n'Out Burger.
For the splurgey days. Get a shake (chocolate or vanilla--not strawberry) and a burger & fries. Dip your fries in your shake. Don't ask questions, just do it. You'll see.

5. Mashed Potatoes.
Keep potatoes on hand. When you're stressed, mash them by hand. Don't let machines do the work for you; really dig into whatever's making you uppity and picture it in there with those potatoes, being destroyed by your brute strength. Then eat the whole bowl of potatoes with your bare hands. Who's going to stop you? Nobody. Grab a spoon if you add gravy, though... nobody likes a slob.


Take these simple tips to heart next time you need to show those little green pigs you're serious about coming after them and destroying their thieving, greedy colony with the raw power of your potato-mashing muscles.

Speaking of angry birds, though, have you guys seen this?

They already haunt me on my phone; why in 3D too?
Curse you, Angry Birds.

Shameless plug

but I'm not even getting paid...

I am utterly addicted to Pinterest these days (hit me up if you would like to try it; they are still granting (FREE!) accounts on an invite-only basis).

It's simply ingenious.

What is it? The old concept of keeping an inspiration board/book/notepad now in the place you could use it the most: the internet. Keep images with descriptions (as opposed to pages and pages of links stored someplace; formerly google notebook, in my case) at your fingertips--quite literally, if you have an iPhone and download the app. I totally have the app.

Have a Spring fashions shopping list you want to remember for you next run to the mall? Pin photos of your favorite threads to have handy for your splurge. Planning a bathroom remodel? Start an ideas board of all the new design elements, keeping track of price and item location. Everything is right in front of you, and you can narrow down the choices as you go.

It's interactive, too. I can follow various boards you curate, and you can track mine. We can pin from one another and from total strangers, as well as comment on pins and steal inspiration from our most creative friends' best stuff. Not forgetting that they are just starting out; who knows what kind of incredible features they'll add as time goes on. What is not to love here?

The 5 Stages of Grief, Abridged

We parked just outside the front doors of the Mexican Mercado where Aaron was acquiring the groceries for tonight's dinner. Miss M spotted him approaching the line, and excitedly yelled, "I see my daddy!"
A moment later he was hidden behind a long line of other shoppers, disappearing from our sight. "Where is he? He went away! Well, I guess I have to get a different daddy."

Quick! The Baby's Asleep!

You have between ten and eighty-five minutes to:


-Eat something! Bonus points if it's healthy and nutritious.
-Take a shower! Being clean may revitalize you enough to keep going.
-Play with Big Sister! All this transition means she could use a little extra love.
-Tackle any one of the five chores nearest you! That number keeps getting longer, doesn't it?
-Stare at the baby! You know this is going to happen anyway.
-Glance at a mirror! Promptly ignore what it tells you.
-Put on some clean clothes! When did sitting down a lot become such a smelly activity?
-Take a nap! Sleep depravation leads to clinical insanity, which is the last thing you need.

You must choose, but choose wisely.

Legend of the Arrival that Fooled All

I didn't even get to use my rockin' playlist...

A solid contraction woke me out of a seemingly-solid sleep just after 5am. A grand notion or two crossed my mind, as I let myself settle back into rest, not wanting to get prematurely excited. Not ten minutes later, an equally strong contraction jolted me out of my state yet again, and with that, I picked up my iPhone, opened the Contraction Timer app, sat down at a chair in the living room, and started keeping track of the notably stronger-than-last-time, ouch-a-lot muscle spams my uterus was producing.

Initially I paced the kitchen floor every contraction--it seemed to alleviate the intensity pretty well, but I was a bit startled by how quickly they became too much for me to handle alone. I woke Aaron at 5:40, requesting he shower and come support me. It took him a moment, but he forced himself awake and joined me in the living room shortly before 6am. He began to browse Netflix offerings, intending to pick something to watch in between the action to help him stay awake. He never did decide on anything, instead quickly picking up on the fact that this was not a quiet, early-labor-like experience. He astutely kept an eye on the time; Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women, a facility 40 minutes away on a clear stretch, was to be our destination, and Aaron deemed it necessary to be on the road by 7am so as not to participate in Friday morning commuter traffic. It was just before 7am, in fact, that we were calling the after-hours service of our OB, letting him know the contractions were averaging 3-6 minutes apart, and rather aggressive.

At the doctor's advice we decided to continue to labor at home, waiting for the timing to draw closer together. Roughly ten minutes later, Aaron was on the phone again, saying, "Yeah, they're two-three minutes apart now."
"Time to go! Quickly," came the response.

I moved to the restroom and sat on the toilet, deciding to quickly relieve myself before leaving, and to wait for Allie, who had agreed to come and sit with the still-sleeping Miah while we went to the hospital. 

Aaron tried to accomplish several things to help ready us for departure, but I kept calling him back to help me through another contraction. I was genuinely concerned at this point that I was facing another several hours of this kind of intensity. We stopped timing around 7:40, when each contraction lasted almost a minute, with about a one-two minute break in between. It felt like they were right on top of each other. 

At this point, I clung to that blessed toilet. The towel bar at my left hand was perfect for gripping, and I leaned into Aaron at my right through each wave of body-shaking madness. Here I encountered a problem: Allie had arrived and Aaron was anxious to get underway, but each time I tried to stand and walk to the bed, where my clothes lay waiting, everything intensified, and I'd have to sit back down, wade through it, and try again. I finally found a break long enough to get to my bed--sort of. I had just traversed the longest ten steps of my life and started to climb onto my bed when a big one arrived, bringing me to all fours in the middle of my laundry. Aaron was one-track minded on a mission: get our arses to the hospital! Something was slowly becoming apparent to me, though, and I struggled to access language in order to communicate it. Turns out I didn't have to. Aaron stepped out to refill my water bottle and I, still on all fours, finally came to the realization we were at the point of no return when at the next contraction, my water broke all over my bed. 

Back on the phone, Aaron was updating our doctor with the latest, and we were given three options: 
1. Get in the car and start driving; our OB promising to follow and assist if we needed to pull over.
2. Call an ambulance and have them take us to the nearer hospital, where a doctor strange to us would deliver.
3. Have the baby at home, then call the ambulance to take us into the hospital to be checked.

Though not yet obvious to everyone else, I knew three was our only real option. Thankfully, we had an Ace up our sleeve. Allie called my friend and her sister, Kaydee, a midwife-in-training, who raced over to help with the rescue. 

With every contraction my body was now involuntarily pushing, and I tried desperately to keep it from progressing until Kaydee could arrive. It was no use, though--she was crowning. With instructions from over the phone with her sister, Allie caught and handed over a pink, screaming infant sporting a full head of long dark, mussed hair. Sweet little Miss Ezra Flynn Gentry, whose name means "Yahweh Will Help," and "Fire," charged forth into the world at 8:23am, weighing 7lbs. 15oz., and measuring 20 inches long, though we wouldn't learn these stats until after a short and pleasant ambulance ride to Pomerado Hospital, where my doctor could be found.

I am almost sure it may just have taken longer to write this than the event itself.

And then there was the matter of convincing everyone it wasn't an elaborate April Fool's day prank... on anyone but, perhaps, her parents. :)