U.S. Divorce Agreement

I got this in an email the other day, and it made me chuckle.  Rather than forward on yet another "chain mail", I'll just post it here!

DISCLAIMER:

This is not intended to offend anyone...simply posted for entertainment purposes...even though I tend to agree with a lot of it!!!  Enjoy!

DIVORCE AGREEMENT 

THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!!  WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.  I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms.  We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion.  That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement.  After that, it should be relatively easy!  Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.  You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.  Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.

You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.  You can have your beloved homeboys and illegal aliens.  We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.  We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that treaten us.  You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.  When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.  You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain.  You can also have th U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars.  You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.  We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.  We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem.  I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya, or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot.  Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this?  If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete.  In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall

Law Student and an American

P.S.  Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.

P.S.S.  And we won't have to press 1 for English.

Life Variations

Lately, I feel like I'm stuck in a big mixing bowl or something.  We'll have a week of good days, then one day that just puts me over the edge, and gets me all frustrated.  Here's what I mean...

Julia is 6 weeks, 2 days old today.  For a good week or more, we had GREAT days.  She was eating every 2-3 hours during the day, and 3-4 hours at night.  Now, while for many people that may not seem like a great trade off, it's better than every 2 hours at night!!!  It sometimes takes her 45-60 minutes to eat, on a 2 hour schedule (up until she was 4 weeks old), that leaves about 45 minutes for me to grab some shut eye before she's up to eat again.  On a 3 hour schedule, an hour, almost 2, and when she goes 4 hours... 3. hours. of. sleep!  Praise God!

So anyways...we had been on this schedule for a couple of weeks.  I would feed her between 8 and 9 pm, a full feeding session, and would put her down to sleep.  She would sleep until 12 or 1 am, get up and nurse a full session again, and go back down for a couple more hours.  It was nice!  Most nights, she wouldn't be up for the day until about 6 or 7 am.  Yeah, I complained about being tired, but I really shouldn't.  Some women have colicky babies that don't sleep, or babies that have their days and nights completely mixed up.  I really am truly blessed to have such an "easy" baby.

Then...we have nights like Monday night.  All day, her eating was erratic.  She would eat anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours apart, and no matter how hard I tried, she would NOT nurse more than 5-8 minutes.  She slept all day except for about 2 hours (most of which was first thing in the morning).  Now, before you go and say "well, that's why you had a bad night", she was doing this a LOT.  She would sleep all day except for being fed, AND all night!  Anywho...back to the bad night.  I decided that when she turned 6 weeks, I wanted to start implementing a nighttime routine.  It consists of a bath, change diaper, change clothes, nurse, go to bed.  I'm going to add in a bed time story eventually, but I want to start it out simple.  We got all of the bath stuff out around 7:30 so we could bathe her at 8.  Well...we had to wake her up before her bath.  Michael got her stripped down and brought her to me.  She generally likes her baths, but her patience runs short close to the end.  We went about finishing her new routine, and she went to sleep...only to wake up about an hour and a half later, wanting to eat.  She ate every.two.hours.  We haven't done that in 2 weeks!!!  I was EXHAUSTED to say the least, and by 2:30 am, she decided it was time to get up for the day.  Wow...ok... so here we are, I'm going on about 2 hours of sleep...IF I'M LUCKY...it's now 5:30 am or so, and I'm now up with my 6 week old daughter.  Michael didn't have to go to work until later in the morning, so I was able to catch a quick 30 minute nap before he left, and Julia was actually asleep.  Yesterday was a LOOOONG day to say the least.

I decided about half way through the day that I was going to start trying to keep her awake in the evening, in hopes of better sleep at night.  I was thinking a little over-ambitiously at first, and was going to keep her awake from 2:00 until bedtime.  That quickly changed to 5.  I can't imagine trying to keep her awake for 6+ hours!  So...5:00 rolled around, I woke her up and started playing with her, tickling her, talking to her, etc.  I wanted to get out and work in the flower bed last night too, so when the first intermission in the Wings game rolled around, Michael and I took Julia outside and pulled some weeds!  When we got back in, I got a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth, gave her a quick wipe down, changed her diaper, put her in her jammies, and headed upstairs to nurse her.  She nursed a full session, and was in bed - asleep - by 8:30.  Why she ate again at 10, I will never know...but she nursed another full session, went back down, and slept until 2!  I got her up, nursed her, changed her, put her back to bed, and she didn't wake up again until 5:45.  Wahoo!  Good night!!!  Let's see if it happens again tonight!

Sigh...here's hoping.  =)

Reality Check

Today I had a hard, strong reality check.  It's still sinking in I think.  I have a new found respect for single moms - and dads - about as much respect as I have for military wives and husbands (more on that subject later).

Today, our little girl decided that she didn't want to go back to sleep after her 3 am feeding.  We tried and tried, but to no avail.  Around 4:30, I brought her downstairs so that Michael could sleep for the last hour before he had to be up to go to work.  Once I got downstairs, I tried yet again to get her settled into a decent sleep.  She fought it again.  So there I was, at 4:30 in the morning, trying to keep my eyes open to watch over my 5 week old daughter.  I couldn't do it.  She ate (again) at 5 am, and I fell asleep at about 5:45 I think.  She fell asleep in my arms eventually also.  I vaguely remember Michael coming downstairs doing his usual routine...I know he came down and said "You didn't have to bring her downstairs, honey."

Anywho...that was how my day started.  Julia did eventually wake me up when she was ready to eat again at about 7.  Then I decided to just be up for the day.  No sense in fighting it any more, right?  By 9 am, my body had enough, and I crashed...HARD...on the couch.  Julia woke me again at 10:30 to eat.  I felt much better by that time.  We carried on our usual routine of feeding-eating-feeding-eating with the occasional bouts of time on the computer.

Here's where the single mom part comes in.  Michael has been working...a LOT (thank God!).  He was helping his aunt for a while, would leave his full time job, go straight to work with her, and wouldn't be home until around 8:30-9 some nights.  That ended last week (or the week before...I can't remember).  I felt pretty much like a single mom at that point too, with the occasional opportunity for taking a shower that lasts longer than 3 minutes!!!  I would take Julia with me everywhere I went (duh) whether I went to Target, my mom's house, her work, wherever.  Today, however, I got to venture to the grocery store with her...alone.  And it wasn't just to grab one or two things.  Oh no...I had to go grocery shopping.  I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got everything on the list.  She started to get fussy after about 30 minutes in the store, but I knew we wouldn't be there much longer.  I just shushed her, and rubbed her arms until she calmed down enough for me to finish up and head out.  On the way home, she cried.  All the way.  Granted it's only a five minute drive from the grocery store, but this was the pissed off, blood curdling, screaming cry that I absolutely HATE hearing.  I started thinking "well, I guess this is what it would feel like to be a single mom".  It was a very profound moment for me...but I guess you had to be there.  When we got home, I got everything unloaded and noticed that she had spit up on the way...I felt terrible.  I felt like I failed her.  I hate that I can't comfort her while I'm driving.  I hate that she got so upset on the way home that she had to cry like that.  I hate that she had to get sick for whatever reason.

I cuddled her for about 10 minutes, nursed her, apologized about 10 times for her having to be so mad, changed her diaper then put away the groceries.  I had wanted to give her a bath tonight, and normally Michael is here to help.  Well, he was still working, and it was almost 7:30.  I got everything we needed - towels, wash clothes, jammies - and filled the tub up.  She wasn't happy about having a bath at all.  By this time, she was over tired, and hungry again.  I bathed her as fast as I could, wrapped her up in the hooded towel, and took her to get a fresh diaper her jammies on.  She peed on me.  I can't say I blame her!!!

Anyways.  I figure this must be what it feels like to be a single mom.  Yes, I saw my husband this morning...for maybe 10 seconds consciously.  I am so incredibly grateful to have him here with me when he's home to help out.  Even if it's just so I can go take a shower, or go to bed at 8:30 so I can survive another day with the little one.

I don't envy single moms or dads.  I applaud them.  They have, quite possibly, one of the hardest jobs that anyone can possess.

And with that, I'm off to bed...right after I finish the cloth diaper laundry.  It's 9:30, my daughter is sleeping, and I should be too.

Good night blog world.  Love your mom, sister, wife, daughter with everything you have.  You never know when it may be gone.

She smiled at me!

Yesterday morning at about 5am, I was feeding Julia.  I went to put her up on my shoulder to burp her (around 5:30am), she looked at me, I said "HI!", and she smiled at me!  It wasn't the typical gas smile...no way...it was a full on, open mouth, gummy grin and I LOVED it!!!  I've been trying to get her to smile at me again, but haven't gotten the same big grin yet.  Poor Michael was jealous!  =)

One Month Today!

So, today is Julia's one month birthday!  Yay!  We're going to get some pictures taken this evening, and I can't wait!

She had an appointment with the pediatrician today too...check this out...
Birth (Mon):  5lbs 2oz, 18"
Discharge (Wed):  5lbs even
Day after discharge:  4lbs 11oz (story on that later...)
2 week appointment:  5lbs 10oz (yes...that's almost a pound in 2 weeks!!!)
One month pediatrician appointment:  7lbs, 19" long!  More than a pound gained in 2 weeks!  Go lil bean!!!

Her weight and height are between the 5 and 10th percentile, but her head...in the 25th percentile!  Yes, she has her father's noggin!  LOL

Sweet

Oooh...New editor!!!  Might take some getting used to, but I'll adapt  =)

I'll have an update sometime...hopefully soon.  LOL  It's pretty time consuming taking care of a baby!  She will be one month old on Thursday.  It's kind of hard to believe!  I got in touch with my artsy side, and here are a couple of photos that I took of her the other day...  =)