Yeah, so it's been several months since I've found the time and energy to update, but I just wanted to make a quick post saying that I'm going to be at Azkatraz (Harry Potter convention in San Francisco, for those few of you who may not know) starting this Thursday, and I hope to see some of you there! Let me know if you're coming so I can look out for you. I'm going to be there with my mom, Meghan, and my husband (who's coming along mainly to watch Meghan -- this HP stuff weirds him out a bit, I'm afraid ;) ). And yes, for those of you who may remember my last post about my mom being in the hospital on a ventilator, that means my mom is alive and well. :D A virus attacked her heart back in late March, and for a couple of weeks, we weren't sure if she was even going to make it, but she's all healed up and even healthier than she was before the illness.

Anyway, I hope to see some of you there. I'll be dressed as Hermione, escaped-from-prison!Bellatrix, and possibly another, supersekrit character, so look out for me! And when I get back, I think I will finally be back up and running LJwise. I've just had a lot going on over here, as well as a copyediting job from hell that caused me to put a sort of ban and mental block on activities I knew would suck me in and take up my time. But that's all over now, and so once I get back from Azkatraz, I should be back to updating and reading and all that.

It's just been a busy couple of months, and I haven't had the time or the brain space to get on LJ. You all know my whole anality thing about needing to backread the flist and all that. I've just been focusing on other things -- mostly Meghan, the little megalomaniac that she is. ;) I will be back up and running sometime in the not-too-distant future. But for now, I need to focus on a bigger situation, which is that my mom is in the ICU on a ventilator due to a lung infection that went haywire. She's been in there since Monday, and things were looking really scary, but we got good news about it today, and she should be off the ventilator by tomorrow or Friday at the latest, the doctors think. I don't have the time or energy to go into it in detail right now. On top of it all, I've got a bad cold myself and have been up a lot of the past three nights coughing my own lungs out. Aside from that, I feel fine, although I sound like a 70-year-old 4-pack-a-day smoker.

Anyway, that's it from me right now. Oh, agameofthree, I'm SO SO SO sorry about not getting your BPTP stuff out to you yet, but I will! Once this crisis with my mom's health passes, I will send you your stuff. *HUGS!*

Thanks to those of you who were wondering where I was! I do miss y'all, and I'll be back in the game soon! ♥

ETA: No April Foolery here. Just to clarify.

My flist backlog is finally conquered. Yes, I know I'm crazy for doing all the backreading, but I genuinely do enjoy it. I just don't like getting so far behind, and the stomach flu death plague thing didn't help. The good news on that front is that it spontaneously resolved itself sometime between last night and this morning, so it wasn't E. coli after all. I even went ahead and cancelled tomorrow's doctor's appointment; no point in wasting his time when I'm perfectly back to normal again.

And to celebrate that, here is something absolutely horrifying, courtesy of st_aurafina (DO NOT CLICK IF THIS IS SOMETHING YOU DO NOT WANT TO UNSEE): Some Twitard has made a knit-and-felted model of Bella's uterus, complete with a mini felted Renesmee in it, all tied up with a ribbon for extra WTFery. The pictures are not graphic (it's knitting), but that doesn't make them any less brainbreaky. In all seriousness, it's sort of a vaguely neat, albeit still somewhat squicky and weird, idea to craft a baby and a uterus; as someone who, you know, grew a real child in a real uterus, I find the process of human gestation pretty damn amazing. But then you get the following explanation and it all just goes to hell: "The inside of the belly is all black because Renesmee was such a mystery and was hiding. There is red for the Edward since he's a vampire and nothing shiny I had would felt. 8-P. Bits of brown in there for Jacob because he's part of Bella (even before imprinting) as much as her baby." YAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH. I am, however, amused by some of the horrified comments underneath. I guess even Twitards have their limits.

Also, if anyone's interested in purchasing children's and other educational books from the Usborne company, I have an online store from the show I did at my house this past weekend, and if you purchase through that, I get free shit. :) It closes tomorrow at 11:59 pm EST, though, so you kind of have to act now. Just thought I'd mention it here in case anyone is interested.

ETA: The post with the knit uterus is now flocked. But you can still fry your brain see the pics here. You're welcome.

My iPhone just attempted to commit suicide by sneakily leaping from my jeans pocket to the dishwasher. I thought I felt something pulling at my jeans, accompanied by a slightly odd noise from the dishwasher, so I went to check my pocket, and -- yup, no iPhone! It had lodged itself on the top rack of the dishwasher. Good thing I noticed! My warranty has been over for ages, and anyway, I don't think "having been dishwashed" counts as a reason for free replacement.

Healthwise, I've actually felt a good deal better all day, but I'm sure it'll be the same old crap tomorrow morning, so I'm definitely keeping that appointment with my GI doc.

One of my HP newsletter comms linked to Dramione comm post about the best D/Hr fanfic quotes. Out of (morbid?) curiosity, I decided to see what was there and was pleasantly surprised, especially at the good writing and humor in some of them (some, not all!). And that made me think about how it can really pay to read fic whose basic premises aren't along the lines of your usual preferences, because good writing exists in places you wouldn't expect. I just wish I had more time for it all.

I think I have E. coli. Not the lethal version, mind, but it still sucks. I got some sort of stomach flu, or maybe it was food poisoning, on Thursday night (notable food consumed for dinner: salad, harbinger of all things illness related). When the accompanying lethargy finally lifted somewhat Friday evening, we went out to this famous local burger place. I told Jack to order mine well done, because I had no interest in taking chances with my food after going through the crap (take that however literally you would like to) I had gone through the night before. So Jack goes and orders it medium, because that was what was recommended on the menu. Despite me explicitly saying, "I know medium is recommended, but I want it well done, because I'm not taking chances, given that I'm still not feeling so great." (And yes, I normally order my own food, but this place was the sort where you order up at the counter, and it was really crowded, so Meghan and I held seats for us while Jack went and did the ordering. Incidentally, he also ordered my burger with American cheese despite my explicit instructions to go with cheddar. He knows how I think American cheese is processed crap, so why on earth would he think I want it? *sigh*) Well, anyway, the burger came back more like medium rare, and not being the sort of person who returns food, I sucked it up and ate it anyway. And have been sick ever since.

So I'm not sure if it was the salad Thursday night, the burger Friday night, both, or just some completely non-food-related stroke of bad luck, but yeah, I'm not doing so great when it comes to the good ol' digestive tract, and that's making me lethargic and dehydrated. Thankfully, it's definitely not my chronic intestinal condition come back to haunt me; I know the signs of that one, and these are not even close to them. This is more like what happened 10 years ago after I ate a restaurant salad (note a pattern here?), and after blood tests and whatnot, my GI doc said he thought it was E. coli, and he prescribed me an antibiotic, which solved the problem. I've got an appointment with him on Wednesday afternoon, so I'm just going to hang in there until then. It's not dire, but it's not fun either, especially when you have a small, but very energetic, child crawling all over your home.

The good news is that Meghan is finally napping! Consistently! Without hours of screaming! After a few days in which Jack and I were really strict about putting her down in the afternoon when we knew she was tired and letting her cry herself to sleep without checking in on her at all (apparently that last part was key!), she now allows us to put her in her crib for a nap. Oh, she complains, but it lasts for maybe 30 seconds max, and not even that much, and then once we're out of the room, she pulls up her lamb doll, lays her head on it, and goes to sleep. She doesn't seem to nap for much more than 40 minutes to an hour but it's something, and I'll take it!

Speaking of sleep, I've been having the most retarded-ass dreams. In one of them, I wasn't sure who Meghan's father was (I think I've been watching too much Maury...); it was between an old friend from high school who has since made it to some degree on Broadway and in Hollywood (he was the choice I was hoping for) or...wait for it...WILLIAM SHATNER. WHAT. THE. HELL. Apparently, I didn't think it was important to have a family discount on Priceline. I blame the E. coli. And Canada. (Hey, it works! William Shatner is Canadian!)

Yesterday, Meghan went from 8:15 am until 9:20 pm without a single nap, with the exception of a 7-minute car ride around 7:30 and a 10-minute car ride around 9:00. Over 13 hours without a nap for a 10-month-old is RIDICULOUS. And it wasn't for lack of trying, either: I let her scream in her crib from 2 to 3 pm and again from 5 to 5:45 pm. And by the end of it all, I was really angry. Unreasonably so, and I think it was because she had won the battle, and I hate losing (especially when my victory would be a good outcome for her -- I mean, children need to sleep, you know???). And then on top of it all, she slept like shit last night, so it's not like she crashed to make up for her lack of sleep.

Well, today I AM THE VICTOR, HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Forty-five minutes of screaming in her crib, with me checking in just once (as opposed to every 10 minutes, which is what I had done yesterday), and she's finally given up! I sneaked up there 5 minutes ago -- and this is where the ninja part comes in, because our stairs are pretty creaky, which I knew would cause her to start screaming again, so I had to creep up on all fours at times -- and while she wasn't asleep, she was finally lying down with her head on one of her stuffed animals.

I will take what victories I can snatch up!

Of course, now I'm feeling all guilty and second-guessy, because what if she simply wasn't tired, and what if I'm a bad mom for letting her scream all that time by herself, but...yeah, she'll be better off for having a nap.

I feel like she is a horse and I am breaking her. But I know she will be so much better off if she just naps consistently every day -- and so will I, because I need some time to myself, so that I can appreciate her more later on.

Back to backreading.

I am unreasonably thrilled that I am snowed in today. It's not like I typically leave the house a whole lot; most of my days, I just stay home with Meghan. (I'm trying to get out more for playdates for Meghan, and Jack and I just joined a gym that has child care services, and is a two-minute drive from our house to boot, which means that I have no excuse not to go there at least a couple of times a week, but with it being winter and all, I'm not exactly motivated to be out and about a whole lot.) But the prospect of a snow day is still ridiculously exciting. We actually did have somewhere to go today -- Meghan has a music-play class at 10 every Tuesday -- but it got cancelled because of the weather, so in a sense, it really is a snow day; however, I think my giddiness has more to do with fond memories of snow days back in high school. I went to a magnet school that was an hour and 15 minutes away (well, really just 45 minutes, but the school bus always took longer), and it was always the most wonderful feeling to get the news that school had been cancelled and I could sleep in. That meant curling up on the couch and hot chocolate and everything being all pretty and white...and the prospect of actually getting my homework done before it was due...although who'm I kidding, most of the time I just left it for the very last minute before class the next day anyway.

It's also nice to be up and about earlier than usual. Usually by this time of morning (10:30 am), I'm up, but still ruing that fact (you can rue facts, and not just days, right?), and Meghan and I are not typically showered and breakfasted yet.

GAH, she keeps trying to type with me. I'm going to give her a chance to get it out of her system. Here's Meghan:

=]


-=]?[pp-[\][
]l"
.

Well. I'm glad she is familiar with the use of emoticons and ends her statements with periods.

ANYWAY, because I didn't get word of her class cancellation until the last minute, I had gotten us up and showered and all that only to find out that we were going to be staying home. And even though it was just an hour-long class rather than a full-day affair, I'm still insanely excited. Ridiculous, I know. But this is one of the many reasons I don't want to move to California (something Jack is still somewhat disappointed about): Snow days are an important part of growing up! I want Meghan to feel that special thrill at the announcement on the news, and I want to make her hot chocolate and bake cookies and do fun crafts and watch videos and stuff during a time that would otherwise be spent in academic seriousness and whatnot.

God, when did I become so domestic? *clings to her inability to clean the house properly as proof that she's not a housewife from the '50s, EWWWW*

I do sort of wish I had known about the cancellation earlier, though. Jack had texted me to say that schools are closed (the music teacher's policy is that when county schools are closed, she's cancelling class, even though the classes are not part of the county system itself), and at the time, Meghan was still sleeping (in my bed, where she usually ends up at around 6 am), and she was all cute and cozy in her Santa-suit pajamas (which I intend to get good mileage out of even though it is no longer Christmas). It's only a 50-50 chance these days that she is still sleeping after 8 am, and she wasn't waking up all that easily (which is generally a miracle as far as this girl goes; I swear, she's the lightest sleeper in the world), so I was all YAY about being able to curl up with her and sleep longer. But then I decided to double check Jack, and I didn't seen our county on the list of closings, so I woke Meghan up and got us ready. We were running really behind, because it had taken me a good 20 minutes before I thought to double check Jack, and that was 20 minutes during which I was supposed to be getting ready. Luckily, about 7 minutes before I needed to be out the door (but sooo wasn't ready yet), I checked my e-mail again, and there was a message from the teacher saying that roads near the church where the class is held are bad, so there will be no class.

I still kind of wish I had been able to snuggle longer with Santa Meghan and get some more sleep (especially since while I got about 7 or 7.5 hours, there were two wakeups, courtesy of Meghan, that broke it up, so I really could have used some more), but it's also nice to be up and clean and fed this early. Or "early," should I say. Heh.

I'm also feeling inexplicably thin today, or rather, not as gross and blobby as I've felt since I had Meghan. And I think it's going to be a good hair day as well. And I know these things shouldn't matter, but it's still nice. Hey, man, I'm a snake (by the Chinese zodiac), and we're supposed to be vain. ;)

Now all I need is for Meghan to take a nice three-hour-long nap later on and my day will be MADE.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

I know. A girl can dream, right? Incidentally, it kills me when the other moms in Meghan's class, the ones with kids who are several months older than Meghan, are all, "Little Jakey is starting to skip his morning nap, which means that all we have is his afternoon nap, and three hours just passes by so quickly!" I'm like, DUDE, I'M LUCKY IF I GET ONE 30-MINUTE NAP A DAY, AND MY KID'S YOUNGER THAN YOURS, SO STFU!

She's lucky she's so damn cute. Especially when I tell her to put stuff on her head and she does -- it's her latest party trick. ;) I just enjoy knowing she's finally understanding things.

I have started to try to enforce naps, though. Like, when she obviously needs one, I've been letting her scream in her crib. Surprisingly, on some occasions, if I go up there after 10 minutes and put her back down, she's been going to sleep for 30 minutes to an hour. It used to be that she'd just continue screaming, and I'd eventually bring her down and let her play again (because 30 minutes to an hour of screaming is not fun), but lately she's been relenting a bit. And I could REALLY use that time, you know? Like, I really want to write some fic, and I often find myself very inspired during the day, but I simply don't have the Meghan-free time in which to do it. I'm starting to get to the point where I'm like, OK, you can be all cranky downstairs and I have to put up with that and can't get anything done, or I can leave you in your crib, where you can be equally cranky, but I can at least sit downstairs with the baby monitor's volume on low and get shit done, you know?

AND OW, GAH, WTF, she is pinching my boob while nursing (yes, I can type and breastfeed at the same time; does that count as a superpower?) and then smiling coyly when I say no and remove her hand. I swear, she's worse than a junior high boy. Again, she's is lucky she's so cute. Damn.

OK, back to backreading y'alls' LJs and replying to comments. &hearts

Yeah. So 2009 did not start off well for me, which is why I haven't been around LJ, or the Internet in general, for that matter, since New Year's.

( Cat health fail (summary: My kitty nearly died from an acute episode of chronic renal failure, but is now doing much better and will hopefully have many years ahead of her) )

( Grandma health fail (summary: My 92-year-old grandma fell and broke her femur at my house and had to have surgery to fix it, but is now doing awesome at a rehab facility and is exercising like a madwoman so that she can get out of there and come home) )

( Single-mother fail (summary: Jack went off to a hospital 2 hours away for 10 days to do extra work -- a good thing in light of our $6,000 vet bill (YES, YOU HEARD ME RIGHT; see 'Cat health fail' above) -- leaving me a single mom for that time, and it was haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard *whine*) )

Now things are finally relatively back to normal, and so it is catch-up-on-LJ time. The good news, however, is that I managed to finish my Harry Potter reread during those crazy weeks. (Obviously, I did have some free time, but between the health crises and dealing with Meghan on my own, I often was way too braindead to open up my laptop; it was a lot easier just to pick up a book and read.) I even read Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Quidditch Through the Ages. I plan to do another reread sometime much later in the year so that I can note down all the things that kept occurring to me as I made my way through the books, but one thing I have to say now is that I liked Deathly Hallows MUCH more the second time around. Maybe it was because I read the other six books right before it (whereas the first time around, a good year and a half had elapsed between my reading of the first six and my reading of DH), or maybe it was because this time around, I savored the prose and thought about the concepts rather than rushing through to the end so as to finish before getting spoiled accidentally.... I don't know, but I just really thought it worked much better this time, and the details clicked much better. Even the epilogue bothered me less, although I still maintain that it was sort of lame. Actually, I think the biggest problem with the epilogue also plagued the interactions from Snape's memories a few chapters before -- namely, stilted kiddie dialogue. It's so strange: JKR wrote amazing dialogue between children in the entire series, but utterly failed at writing kid!Lily, kid!Petunia, and all of the next-genners in the epilogue. I didn't have a problem with the concepts she was putting forward, but the execution just didn't work at all.

Anyway, so now I am recanonified, which is a relief. Names and events are once again fresh in my mind, and I feel ready to get back to ficcing. I'm also going back and reading old theory essays (like over at Red Hen) on my iPhone while I'm nursing Meghan, because those keep me thinking about all of the intricate plot points and help inspire some of my fic.

I'm also reading Harry, A History (you know, the book by Melissa Anelli, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron). I think fandom itself fascinates me almost as much as canon. I only wish I had discovered fandom earlier, like during the three-year summer, and that the forums over at The Sugar Quill weren't dead.

Well, enough blabbery for now. I've got tons of e-mail to catch up on, as well as weeks worth of flist. Thank goodness you can now backread your flist by date (if you're a paid member). *takes a deep breath and plunges in*

( Jack FINALLY went and hooked up the Wii Fit... )

In other New Year's news, I went and switched my necklace around. It's a gold pendant, and on one side is the Chinese character for longevity, and on the other is the Chinese character for fortune. My grandfather had given it to my mom ages ago, and she gave it to me when I was 18 and half-dead from my first ulcerative colitis flare. I prefer to wear it with the "fortune" side showing because I like that character better, but even though I'm not the superstitious type at all, I've made a point of flipping it over to "longevity" (which is more health related than fortune to me) whenever my colitis rears its ugly head. Then, when I'm healthy and the new year comes, I flip it back to fortune. Well, having gotten sick again in March 2007, I had flipped it to "longevity." I got better in April, but when 2008 arrived, I was 7 months pregnant, and so I wanted to keep the health-related side showing. I know, I know, it's just a pendant, and it's not like it actually influences events, but for some reason I've been really weird about it. Anyway, so I didn't flip it. But now I'm healthy and Meghan is out and healthy, so it's time to go back to fortune.

Ugh, and I totally taste garlic. Jack and I went to a Korean buffet for dinner, and we had tons of pulgogi, kalbi, squid, and other meat you cook on the grill in front of you. The best way to eat it is to wrap it in a piece of lettuce with chili sauce, miso sauce, and raw garlic. It's SO SO SO good, but then the garlic lingers for like 18 hours, and you wish you hadn't eaten it at all -- it's on your breath, it comes out of your pores...and worst of all, well, let's just say a lot of air freshener is required. SO GROSS.

...OK, clearly Jack is continuing his nap rather than coming down to watch Get Smart (the recent remake, with Steve Carell), so I think I'm gonna go up there with a nice glass of water (SO thirsty) and continue reading Goblet of Fire.

Mine was a low-key New Year's. Plans with Jack's BFF never came to fruition, which was a good thing, because even if Meghan weren't teething and consequently in a shit mood and exhausted, it would have been hard to deal with her at someone else's house for three to four hours past her bedtime. So instead, my parents and grandmother came to our house and we watched Ratatouille and the first two episodes of the first season of Family Guy (which were surprisingly awesome -- a lot of shows get off to a rocky start, but Family Guy was hilarious from the get-go; I can't believe I once thought this show was lame and stupid). Then we watched the ball drop and had a very last-minute toast with sparkling grape juice. (Jack had some wine earlier, but my parents and grandmother don't really drink, and I can't imbibe much because of the breastfeeding.)

The night was capped off by some unexpected hilarity courtesy of Fox. We tuned in maybe 7 or 10 minutes after the ball dropped, mainly because the programming on NBC and ABC was complete crap. I must be getting old, because I had no idea who most of the "stars" on it were, and we were thoroughly WTFed at people like Kelli Pickler (I barely know who she is -- just that she was on American Idol -- but her glitter eyeshadow made me wonder if she was trying to be a Cullen) and the Emilie de Ravin lookalike (who the hell was she???) up there with Ryan Seacrest being all, "OMG THIS IS A LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT FOR ME! THIS IS THE MOST MEANINGFUL MOMENT OF MY LIFE! I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS!"

...Dude. It's Times Square. There's an assload of people. It's fucking freezing out. And while those are three fairly extreme things, I would hope that these chicks had more significant experiences in their lives than that, like...oh, I don't know, singing in front of millions of people as an American Idol contender? And...um...looking like Emilie de Ravin? Yeah, I don't know, but seriously, hasn't she ever done volunteer work or seen a rainbow or turned out an amazing performance or done anything more life changing than gabbing on a microphone in the freezing cold while surrounded by thousands of drunk people on national television?

Anyway, so, not being interested in hearing the Jonas Brothers sing and all that, we switched to Fox. And there was this host guy who looked like he was hired straight off of some really low-budget reality series, like a CW ripoff of Cheaters or something, and he's interviewing some really ripped shirtless dude who looks like he just stepped off a romance novel cover and a heavily made up skinny chick with voluminous auburn hair and large boobs who looked like she just got off work at any of Vegas's strip joints. For a moment, I questioned whether I had tuned in during some weird elimination ceremony of a reality show; maybe Fox was showing When Strippers Attack 2 instead of New Year's programming? But no, according to my channel guide, it was New Year's in Las Vegas. Which...sort of explained things, but not really, because it was just that sketchy.

I still have no idea what that part of the show was, especially since they said something about the guy stripping down to a G-string in his show, and then when he walked away he was wearing assless jeans, so there was a little cartoon circle (that, if I recall correctly, said, "Happy New Year's!" inside it, but I might be making that up) over his butt, and the low-budget-looking host was all, "Oh my goodness, assless chaps, I don't know if you can show that on live TV!"

But as awesome as all that was, it is not the awesomeness of which I speak. That awesomeness was the build-up to Robbie Knievel's jump over the Mirage volcano, wherein the announcer, accompanied by low-budget graphics, gave about five to seven different scenarios in which Robbie Knievel could become severely injured or die a gruesome death. He was all, "...and in this scenario, if Robbie Knievel makes the jump too late and the pyrotechnic people release the fire too early, he will go through the fire and crashland, bouncing ten times and suffering crippling injuries in addition to devastating and life-threatening burns!" And then you see the graphic of a motorcycle speeding up the ramp, catching fire in the volcano, and crashing multiple times. The last scenario was the absolute best one, in which Robbie Knievel falls INTO the volcano. The announcer actually called it a "deathride" scenario, if I recall correctly, and he said that Robbie Knievel would die from ghastly burns all over his lungs, something like that. I was dying of laughter and had to replay the last scenario (via DVR capabilities) because my dad was in the bathroom at the time, and it was something that truly had to be witnessed.

And then, of course, Robbie Knievel had no problem making the jump, so the whole thing was totally anticlimactic and didn't look difficult at all when it was over. GOD, we need more programming like this.

Anyway, I'm going to scrape up what sleep I can, since Meghan is still waking up way more often than she should because of the teething pain. I wish you all a wonderful New Year's Day as well as a brilliant 2009! &hearts

From dinner tonight at the Chinese buffet:

(Posting from my iPhone, so I don't know how to do alt tags. It's a picture of a fortune cookie above a fortune that reads "You have yearning for perfection.")

I'm not even going to make the obligatory "in bed" joke.

ETA: Sorry about the pic size and the annoying blank space above it. I don't know how to fix it.

It just hit me that icons are basically pieces of flair. I paid $175 for extra flair.

SUCKER!

And yet, I don't regret it. *goes back to digging up icons for near-future upload*

Oh, wait, in other news, I think I'm going to do yuletide next year. I subscribed to the comm to see exactly what it's all about, and when all the reccs started coming in, I was pleasantly surprised and quite impressed. I mean, there was Saved by the Bell fanfic -- and it was GOOD. (It's here, in case your curiosity gets the best of you.)

Other randomness: I wiki'ed my high school the other day and found out that Nora Roberts was one of the many celebrity alums. (Others include Goldie Hawn, Connie Chung, and Ben Stein.) I've never read any Nora Roberts -- romance isn't so much my genre -- but I thought a few of you might be amused by the news.

Life in Meghanland is a bit tumultuous right now. She's been sick with a fever for the past two days. It's nothing serious, no cough or sniffliness or upset stomach or anything, but she's been really whiny, cranky, and clingy because of it, and she hasn't eaten much in the way of non-breastmilk foods. I am also almost positive I feel a tooth starting to push up under her gums (it's about time -- homegirl is nine months old and toothless!), which I'm sure is not helping the situation. Her fever went up to 102.5 yesterday, but it didn't get nearly that high today, so I think she's getting better. Hopefully tonight won't be as bad as the last couple, where she was waking up every 2-3 hours -- and sometimes every 15 minutes! Poor girl....

ETA: GAH. I hate how you can't rename an icon without LJ changing every instance you've used that icon in the past to your default icon. I want to rename a bunch of icons so that there's more of a system to their names (which will make it easier for me to select from them), now that I can have nearly 200 of them, but all of my old uses of them will go to the default. Grrrr.

Pilfered from ishie, a "year in review" meme, because I want to reflect on the incredible, life-changing year that was 2008:

Where did you begin 2008?
The 2007 holiday season was very busy for Jack and me. We visited his family in California from December 14-25, came back to the DC area for a day and a half, and then went to Boston from December 27-31. Our flight back home on New Year's Eve arrived around 7 or 8 in the evening, and we went straight from the airport to Jack's best friend's apartment in Crystal City. We rang in the New Year with him, his fiancé, and his family, surrounded by delicious homemade Syrian food, a very hyper toddler, and lots of good cheer. I was about 29 or 30 weeks pregnant at the time, and Meghan was moving like a madwoman inside of me. Little did I know that was nothing compared to how she'd be outside of the womb!

I was also newly out of work, as I had left my job mid-December to go on early (and ultimately permanent) maternity leave. It was a new beginning for me, and I was feeling it every day.

What was your relationship status by Valentine' s Day?
Happily married and ecstatic (and anxious!) about Meghan's impending arrival. I also came down with a bad cold on Valentine's Day and spent the next week, including my birthday, being all clogged up, but unwilling to take cold medication (on account of the pregnancy).

Were you in school (anytime this year)?
*sigh* I'm still in school. As in, my poor master's degree remains unfinished, pending my writing of a term paper and a thesis. One of my goals is to get the term paper in before May, so that I don't break the professor's prior record of having a student turn in a paper three years late. It's not even that it's that hard to write; I just need to find the motivation and book Meghan-watching time with Jack.

Did you have to go to the hospital?
Yep, for Meghan's birth, but thankfully not for my ulcerative colitis, which has been in remission for 20 months -- the longest amount of time ever in the going-on-14 years that I've had this disease! I was in the hospital for four nights (including the night I gave birth), because Meghan had jaundice and had to spend time under the phototherapy lights. I do plan to write up the story of Meghan's birth and hospital stay, but I will save that for another time.

Did you have any encounters with the police?
Unless you count when we went to the police station to make sure we had our car seat installed correctly, no.

Where did you go on vacation?
HAHAHAHAHA! Not with an infant! We did go to Antigua for a babymoon, but that was in October 2007. But after our end-of-2007 trip to Boston, the only other place I went was Atlanta for my BFF's baby shower.

What did you purchase that was over $500?
Yeaaaaahhhh. I'm sure there were a number of items. I'm sure all the BPAL I bought adds up to well over that. And we just swapped out our Infiniti FX for a Mercedes ML 320 Bluetek. And then there was furniture.... I don't even want to think about it. Moving along....

Did you know anybody who got married?
My brother and Jack's BFF!

Did you move anywhere?
To Mommyville. And the Land of No Sleep.

What sporting events did you attend?
We went to four different Orioles-Red Sox games at Camden Yards. Meghan enjoyed every one of them!

Where do you live now?
In northern Virginia, in the townhouse we bought almost 2.5 years ago.

Describe your birthday?
Well, I was still getting over the really bad cold I came down with on Valentine's Day, so that sucked. But Jack surprised me by making last-minute reservations at 2941, a really swank restaurant nearby. We've been pretty low key about birthdays over the past several years, but it was a nice surprise to go somewhere fancy, especially since we knew everything would change once Meghan came along. Unfortunately, my nasal congestion made it hard for me to truly enjoy the food, and of course, being pregnant, I couldn't drink any wine, but it was still a really nice evening.

What's the one thing you did but thought you would never do in 2008?
I'm sure there were a bazillion things I swore I would never do as a mother, but ended up doing anyway, like co-sleeping. But I can't think of anything really major that I thought I wouldn't do. I mean, I gave birth with no anesthesia, but I had been planning to do that. Hadn't expected to add pitocin to the mix, though, so maybe I'll count that: giving birth naturally WITH pitocin.

What has/have been your favorite moment(s)?
I'm not going to say Meghan's birth itself, because that was full of turmoil and screaming and crazy intense pain. Don't get me wrong: The birth was definitely amazing and memorable -- and not just the birth itself, but the process leading up to it, where Jack, my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister-in-law were all supporting and helping me through my labor in invaluable, intimate, and important ways. But my favorite moments are some of the little bitty moments with Meghan, like being on the receiving end of one of her joyful smiles or the time several days ago she drifted off to sleep in my arms as I stared into her face. It's during those times that I'm filled with an incomprehensible amount of happiness and wonder.

What's something you learned about yourself?
I am capable of so much, both mentally and physically. I can actually take care of an infant competently. Whenever I'm afraid of trying something, I need to just do it; a lot of the time, it takes confidence rather than special talents. And, like Meghan, I am hellbent on being independent and not accepting help from others unless I have no choice.

Any new additions to your family?
Hmmm. Oh, right. Yes. :D

Made new friends?
Yep, through a local mom's group. And a few people here on my flist! ♥

Favorite Night[s] out?
Well, I don't get many of those anymore, but I did enjoy seeing Coldplay back in August, even though I was dwelling on Meghan (who was being babysat by my parents) and the potentially engorged state of my boobs most of the time.

Any regrets?
I wish I had blogged more about Meghan, especially during her early months. But I'm not really sure that's a regret, because if I had been blogging, I wouldn't have been holding her, snuggling with her, staring at her, etc. I do sort of regret wasting precious hours of life watching A Shot at Love 2 With Tila Tequila.

What do you want to change in 2009?
I'd like to read more. And sleep more. And write more. And knit more. And, along those lines, I'd like to manage my time better. ...and as evidenced by the time I'm spending on this meme, I'm not off to a good start! :P

Other than home, where did you spend most of your time?
At restaurants.

Change your hairstyle?
Not really. Although I did manage to dye my hair back to its natural dark brown, only to discover that no one really liked it that way, so now I've got some golden/auburn highlights again, albeit subtle ones.

How old did you turn this year?
31. But that doesn't bother me. I feel ageless at heart.

Do you have a New Year's resolution?
Lose the baby weight. And read and sleep and write and knit more. And manage my time better. *sigh*

Anything embarrassing?
No. I'm not easily embarrassed, though.

Got arrested?
Nope.

Did you get sick this year?
Well, aside from the cold I got in February, I had a million colds and allergy issues after giving birth. But no intestinal issues, and for this I am profoundly thankful.

Start a new hobby?
Does mothering count?! I don't have time for hobbies, yo! I can barely squeeze in my fandom stuff as it is!

Are you happy to see 2008 go?
I don't know. It was a good year, especially compared with the previous two. It is the year of my daughter's birth. But I'm also ready to enjoy 2009.

Between a frantic fit of HP rereading, preparing for the holidays, playing flist catchup once again (although not nearly as drastically as last time), and going through the daily motions of chasing an infant around the house to save her from herself, I haven't had a chance to update. But there are a lot of random and completely unrelated items I've wanted to jabber about, so here goes.

( Meghan )

( TwiLOLOLOLOLOLOL )

In other news, I got a permanent account here on LJ, so go me for spending even more than the zero dollars I had allocated at the start of this whole fandom adventure. Now I have 195 icon spaces and need to fill them! Any suggestions for stuff I might like (or any icons you want to make for me *bats eyelashes*) are greatly appreciated. I especially want funny icons in the following fandoms: Harry Potter, anti-Twilight, The Office, and Homestar Runner. But I also would love recommendations to anything that is purty or reminds you of me and/or anything I would like. :)

I'm gonna stop here before this post gets too unwieldy. I've got other shit I wanted to mention, but I'll save it for later -- it's seriously just random crap anyway. But I did want to say that to anyone who gave me their address for a holiday card, I haven't forgotten you! I just...haven't printed or sent my cards yet. Procrastinators unite...tomorrow!

But here is some holiday cheer, in picture form:



Yes, that is a Santa suit Meghan is wearing.

Happy holidays, y'all!

Everyone needs a little anonymous fangirling from time to time, right? So if you feel like it, drop on by my thread at this year's Secret Santa Style Holiday Love Meme and tell me why I sparkle harder than Edward Cullen.

Last night was another good night from Meghan. We were at a friend's house for dinner, and she fell asleep around 8:30 or 9 after I had nursed her there. We left maybe half an hour later, and when we got home, I had expected she would wake up and I'd have to nurse her back to sleep (which is more mommy friendly than the alternative, which is letting her cry until she falls asleep), but it turned out that it was as easy as bringing her in the house and putting her in her crib! (She was already in her PJs -- her Red Sox ones :) -- as we had changed her when she started getting tired after dinner.) EASIEST BEDTIME EVER, YAY! I'm not used to just setting her down and going about my business! Anyway, she slept until around 4:30, so another 8 hours from her, more or less! I was fairly satisfied with 6 hours in a row; 8 is a dream!

( Breast and Tit's Excellent Adventure -- in other words, breastfeeding talk, cut for TMI )

Anyway, then it was off to the newly renovated National Museum of American History with the several brave souls from hp_dcmetro who fought the terrible Boston-style frigid wind to meet up. We had a great time deeply absorbing the exhibits shooting the shit and amusing ourselves with the sculpted Imperiused George Washington statue (and his big feet and long...sword) and Meghan's upside-down antics. And in_a_tizzy and I made the incredible discovery that I knew her fiancé when he was 1 year old, because his mom used to babysit me before and after school when I was in 5th and 6th grade! I was also friends with his sister, who was one year below me in school. Small world, man, small world. Anyhow, if you live in the DC metro area, come join us next time!

Also discussed during the outing: My absolute need to make or buy a onesie that says, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." And quite possibly "Mischief managed!" on the back. Meghan needs some HP threads, man! One of the activities at my baby shower was making puffy paint onesies, which is why she proudly rocks clothes that say things like, "That's what SHE said!", "Made in China" (which is a snark at Jack's parents, who hate China -- they are Taiwanese -- and go on and on about how you should never buy anything made in China), and "The results are in... You are NOT the father!" Although these onesies just might be the best Maury onesies ever. Anyway, the onesie activity was really fun, but nothing HP related came out of it, and this must be rectified.

In other news, I'm hosting Meghan's playgroup tomorrow (well, Monday, so today) at our house, which I'm pretty excited about. I was sort of against the playgroup idea for a while, just because I didn't like the idea of randomly getting to know strangers just so our kids could play together. I've got a few friends with kids Meghan's age, more or less, in this area, so I was just going to stick to them. But then I realized that I need to provide her with regular activities and opportunities for social interaction, and it's good to get out of the house and meet people. Our days go by so much faster when there are activities involved. So I joined this local mom's Yahoo! group that a good friend had recommended, and the people there seem to be really cool so far. The playgroup is a teeny, tiny subset of that; last time, which was also the first time, four of us met up at a nearby mall (since no one was able to host it at their house that day) and got to know each other. The kids didn't get to play much, since it's hard to do that at a mall, but we moms got to chat, and that was really nice. So I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. My house isn't all that babyproofed, but that didn't seem to phase the others, so I'm trying to relax about that and just enjoy the interaction.

OK, it's 1 already, so off to bed!

Courtesy of cleolinda's linkspam:

All of Edward's condescending yearning and stalking would be way more fun if he were doing it while flitting about the rink in puffy shirts and tight trousers, tossing off triple Axels of romantic angst and throwing Bella into the air before catching her with one hand (subtext: "You must not love me BUT I LOVE YOU but stay away BUT NOT TOO FAR AWAY let me stare at you NO I MUSTN'T but I will LET ME TOE-LOOP MY FEELINGS don't look at me EXCEPT DO I am dangerous TIME TO SPARKLE").

I would so go see that. I'm sure it'd be 100 times better than the movie, which I'm convinced must be 100 times better than the book. Well, I'll find out the latter next weekend. Sparkletiems, everybody!

I need more Twilight icons. ...and I can't believe I just said that. But I think a marriage of stillshot from the movie and "Growing Up Cullen" quotes would be beautiful.

Best night ever from Meghan. I think we put her to bed around 8:30, and except for a minor mishap at maybe 10- or 11-something,* she didn't get up until almost 6:15! That's almost 10 hours! Of course, she barely napped yesterday, so perhaps she finally wore herself out. I'm convinced she's a cyborg, given that she subsists on way less sleep than most children get and, even at 8.5 months, doesn't eat a whole lot at a time when it comes to solids. Maybe her human side is taking over her robot side? GOD, I HOPE SO. I went to bed around 1 last night, so even though that was sort of late, I still got over 5 hours in a row -- nearly unheard of for me these days! Yay!!!

* In which a crib toy that plays music was not set to the off position, so when she accidentally moved against it in her sleep, it suddenly started playing music (to the tune of "Old McDonald's Farm": "See the animals on the farm, just for you! Hear the animals making sounds, baaaa, oink, mooooo!", which came through the baby monitor and scared the crap out of me, because I couldn't initially figure out where it was coming from. When I realized what had happened, I raced to her room to turn the thing off before it could disrupt her, but when I got in there, the room reeked of poo, leading to my discovery that at some point -- probably just after I had put her to bed -- she had filled her diaper. There was no way I was going to let her sleep in that, so I changed it and then put her back down in her crib. She had woken up partially by then and didn't like being put down, so I quickly washed my hands and disposed of the diaper and then picked her up for about 30 seconds. After a hug and some kisses, I put her back down, and after about 30 seconds of complaining on her part, she went back to sleep. So yes, just a minor mishap, quickly dispensed with. Amazing!