30 days of truth: yeah, I'd get rid of that

Day 16: Someone or something you definitely could live without.

I looooove TV. Love it, love it, love it. I love the fact that we have a giant one in our living room. I love that I can record four shows at once and watch them whenever I feel like it. I watch sci-fi, drama, and a smidgen of comedy. I watch all sorts of dirty reality shows like The Real Housewives of _(insert city here)_, but some really great ones as well, such as Top Chef. I watch Glee. I will turn it on and put it on mute while I listen to music and do stuff on the computer.

Yeah, I love TV.

Growing up, I remember having something like 5 channels, including channels 52, 48, 15, etc. We got only the basic of basics. It wasn't until I was 14 or so that we got a dish service that didn't royally suck. It wasn't until I got my driver's license that we had something resembling cable. I didn't get my own TV in my room until I was 17.

But once out on my own, I became so addicted. And it got worse when I finally had a DVR, after I met my soon-to-be-hubby. I could actually pick and choose what I watched. Suddenly, TV became even more interesting than before. When my grading was done, I was glued to that thing (while surfing the Internet as well, of course). I watched a ton of TV while pregnant. Really, what else was I going to do?

Then G was born. At only a few months old, his eyes would wander toward our giant TV in the middle of the living room. How could he resist? Here was this black sliver of a machine that flickered bright and colorful images. What baby wouldn't like TV? But I was disturbed by the fact that later on, he would actually fuss if we didn't turn him toward it. Despite our efforts to keep him from watching it, he knew it was there and when it was on. Gimme TV, my kid would fuss at 3 months old.

Yeah, so not happening, child of mine.

While home by myself, I decided to turn it off one day. I was trying to play with G and his eyes kept wandering to the TV behind me. I turned it off and didn't turn it back on until later that evening. The house was quiet. I could hear G clearly when he talked to me. Babycake is a way vocal baby - check out a video I'm posting tomorrow morning for a bit of that cuteness. G didn't miss it when it was off... and strangely, I didn't either.

Since then, I've turned it on while G is asleep to watch a few shows I have recorded. I also keep it on right before the hubs comes home. We restrict what G watches to just a few minutes here and there a day, mostly by accident, except for football on Sundays when he can watch all he likes. He looooves watching football with all those pretty colors and the fast movement, and while it's certainly not going to enrich his development, I doubt it'll hurt him either. Sometimes if he's really fussy, especially at the end of the day, we'll watch a few short clips of Yo Gabba Gabba!

In short, I've rather grown to like my quieter days. Sometimes I'll go most of the day without turning it on. Sometimes I won't even turn it on during his naps. Today, I maybe had it on for two hours. That's a huge difference for me. This TV experiment has proven that I really could go without watching it at all. I'd get used to it eventually, like I have cutting back my hours.

And really, if I want to watch something that badly, I could always find it on the Internet. Oh, Internet, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

30 days of truth: OMG NO

Day 28: What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

Oh. my. goodness. I'd just die. Seriously.

I used to think I'd like to start trying again when G was a year old. But then pregnancy majorly sucked, more so that I thought it would. I mean, I knew it'd be hard and labor would hurt, of course. But I had four months of all-day sickness that then shifted to swelling and pain. Then I got preeclampsia. Then G was diagnosed with a diary-allergy, so my diet was hugely restricted again. Breastfeeding also means I can't eat or drink the way I want to, beyond even just the no dairy thing.

I'd like to breastfeed G to one year. So starting to TTC means I'd be restricting my diet even more than I am. Plus, I'd likely get pregnant quickly again. And I'd be pregnant over 9 months again. And then breastfeeding for a long time again. And that kid would likely be dairy allergic AGAIN.

You can see where I'm going with this.

I just want to be able to exercise and eat like a normal human being for a lengthy period of time. Plus, I'd like for my body to go as back to its old self as possible. At this point I'm not even sure I want to try to have another one... It hurts to even type that.

What would I do? I'd pee on another stick, just to be sure. Then I'd yell at the hubs. Then I'd call my mom.

Once I picked myself up, I'd adjust what I was eating, sit down with the hubs, and figure out how we would make it work. And maybe I'd hope it was a girl? Maybe just a little.

30 days of truth: I hope I never ever

Day 6: Something you hope you never have to do. 

I read a lot of blogs. Between that and some forums, this is really how I spend my time breastfeeding. G rarely has much interest in interacting while he's eating; only on the rare occasion has he tried to look up at me and eat at the same time. Focused on food, that one. Because he's still eating every two hours (and because he often wants to boob-nap), I tend to have some time to spend on the Interwebs. I really only have one hand to do it though, so I tend to blog hop.

I have my favorite categories of blogs: mommy, baby, food, news. Sometimes I'll jump onto one blog and bounce from one to the next through their links. That's how I stumbled upon a thread of blogs concerning babies born with heart defects.

We're very lucky that G was born super healthy and has been fine ever since. The most we've had to deal with is a small bout of jaundice and some milk protein allergy issues. I can't imagine him going through more than the pain of vaccines or some spitting-up. But there are so many mamas who have babies with severe problems, and often they know about them from the 20-week ultrasound. During my 20-week ultrasound, I was more concerned with whether it was a boy or a girl and not if my baby's heart or kidneys or lungs looked normal.

Worse of all, there are so many mamas whose babies don't make it. Sometimes I just have to stop reading those blogs because I can't deal with their pain of losing a child they carried inside their own bodies for so many months. It's so selfish of me to turn off their pain when they can't, but I do, and I hold G close to me or stroke his hair as he lays in front of me feeding.

I hope I never have to know what it feels like to bury a child. It has to be the worse sort of pain in the world, no matter how old they are. I'm not really sure how I'd make it through that. The hubs would be my rock, I'm sure, and there are all these mamas who are still living day-to-day. From my outside perspective, however, it seems like something too impossible to deal with.

If G wasn't asleep, I'd go cuddle him right now. Instead, I'll flick on his video monitor and watch him breathe for a bit.

30 days of truth: it all started with that book

Because I can.

I've jumped on board the 30 Days of Truth meme in an effort to talk a bit more about my self, not just G. Some of these will be really difficult to discuss, and a lot of them will be real downers, so I've chosen one that's more positive for my first foray.

You can find the complete 30 Days list in the links at the top of the blog. I'll link each day to the corresponding blog entry.

Here goes.

Day 17: A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

It all started with a book, really. Though it was more like four books stuck together in one set. They sat on the top shelf of the living room in the double-wide trailer where I grew up, above the small fish tank. There weren't many books on that shelf, mostly other odds and ends like an old cigarette container or a metal sailboat.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. Tolkien is a series that has been sensationalize by the movies. But I first met those stories as a little girl who would stare up at them where they were too high to grab. They belonged to my father, who is someone I've never seen read much, and he wouldn't let me read them. Now, this was quite devastating to a girl who would read anything and everything, especially at the age of ten or eleven. I would read the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles with relish. My dad said I was too young, and so I waited.

Finally, when I was about eleven, he gave me the copies, an old 1960s set in gold, and let me read them. I read them through, and read them again. And read them again. I read them so much that some of the covers fell off. My parents took them away and wouldn't let me read them for a while, but they eventually gave them back and I read them again. I was seriously addicted. I hadn't read anything like it.

Up until the point, I hadn't written much of anything except a few stories for school. The thought of writing had seriously not crossed my mind. But I was so entangled with The Lord of the Rings that when they ended, I didn't want them to end. So I created my own continuation of the story. Yes, the first thing I wrote was LotR fanfiction, though I didn't know what fanfiction was back in the very early 90s. I liked my story so much that a few chapters in I decided to cut out the LotR characters and make it my own. Thus my first novel, The Great Awakening, was born. It really was awful, but it was my first book, and I love it dearly for that. I still have the first few chapters written out on wide-ruled paper in my large childish hand.

There were other careers I wanted as a kid - astronaut, elementary school teacher, marine biologist - but writer overcame all of them. Because of these four books, I majored in English and got a master's degree in creative writing. These books shaped the rest of my life. Without them, I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't have the same likes and dislikes, the same life goals, the same wants. I wouldn't be a blogger, I wouldn't have met most of the people I know now, I wouldn't have my current job.

That set of The Lord of the Rings now sits on my own self. We have a whole collection of Tolkien books, including many sets of LotR alone. One day I hope to entice my son to read them. "Not yet, Grayson," I'll tell him when he's little. "Get a little bit older and they're all yours."