A pregnancy after a stillbirth

Kitteh for you!!

The cold front finally came in!!!  Time to break out my "catalog clothes", 'cause Lord knows you can't get decent winter clothes in Texas. 

I'm trying to lose weight.  Too bad I just ate six tamales and half a pint of ice cream.  It was "light" ice cream though, but the tamales weren't.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

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Just some shit.**editted with Andy PIX***

Free food for life is what Socrates feels his punishment should be for "corrupting the minds of the youth".  Instead he is given the death penalty.  However, because of the Delian ship, he's not executed immediately.   Instead he must remain in prison until this ship returns.  His friend Crito tries to convince Socrates to escape, but Socrates won't do it.  In the dialogue Phaedo, Socrates utters his famous words, "We owe a cock to Aesclepius" right before he drinks his hemlock.    In other words, in death Socrates is cured.  The body is a prison of the soul and now Socrates is free to join the realm of the forms. 

As juicy as Plato's metaphysics are, that is not the topic of discussion here.  Instead the Delian ship is.  Well sort of.  The Delian ship was sent every year from Athens to the island of Delos to commemorate  the slaying of the minotaur.  Admittedly my history on this is weak, I was a philosophy not a history major.  Every year the ship would need a plank or two replaced upon return.  Over time the entire ship was replaced.  Was this the same ship that first left?  My first really difficult college paper was to decide if this was still the same ship using Aristotle's notion of form and matter.  Again, too juicy for this post. 

But what I want to talk about is what makes us the same person over time?   I don't feel like myself.  I've forgotten who and what I feel like.  Am I ever going to feel like myself again or have I changed completely?  What makes me me?  What is my... hmm.. my Monicaness so to speak.  Has the experience of losing a child and now being a mother in the conventional sense changed me?  I don't feel like me. 

What makes one?  What makes you you?  What would have to happen to change you?  Are you a materialist?  Would you argue that you are always you as a result of DNA?  Or would you say that a profound event could change you?

I feel like this Delian ship.

BTW. Andy is doing great and he's getting fat!  I'll post some pics when I get around to it. Just take my word for it.

OK.. here they are

When good kids go bad.

No, I'm not talking about Andy.  He's not bad.  Well he is, but in a good way.  Like when he farts loudly then smiles.  I'm talking about one of my students I ran into today.  I've only ever taught at low SES (socio-economic status) schools.  Low achievement and discipline issues plague these type schools.  I'm not making a causal statement, just that they are correlated.  So it was not unusual for one of my students to run afoul with the law.  When I taught in Houston ISD I taught a student who had two felony convictions.  Well I taught him until he stabbed his sister in the head with a screwdriver then stole a truck.  Anyway, where am I going with this?  Today I ran into a student I taught in the seventh grade.  Her name was Sally (no, that isn't her real name).  She was one of my favorite students.  She was bright and funny.  I gave her a hug and asked her if she was at LHS or AHS (the two high schools my middle school feeds into).  She said she was at LHS, but flunked out and her mother moved her to a rural high school.  I asked her how she was doing at that school.  She said she was doing OK until she "did something bad" and was sent to DAEP .  DAEP is a school for students who have been found guilty of a crime. 

I could not believe it.  HER?  What happened?  I asked her if she fell into the, "wrong crowd"?  She said she had not, but had made some bad choices. 

I still think she is a good kid. 

I wish I had fewer students so I could actually spend time getting to know them and doing character education activities.  Sure, parents have a hand in what their children do, but if I didn't have 140 students and district, state, and federal tests to administer, I might actually be able to make a difference in these students life.

Off topic:  I pumped seven ounces today.  (But it had been five hours since the last pump)

Oh, I had to change Andy in the back seat of my car.  Of course he had diarrhea while I was putting the diaper on and also peed on the seat.  Thank goodness for leather seats.

edited to add:  Apparently good cats can go bad too.  Sophia Marie has started acting out now.  She had plenty of kibbles in her Bert and Ernie dish but she was striking it with her paw making a racket.  This was threatening to wake up both babies (Andy and DH) so I gave her more.  She gobbled it, took a few steps, then threw it up.  And yes, as always, she got it on the carpet even though she was standing on tile. 

Here is a pic of the devil.

Andy pix

Several people have told me they want more Andy pics.  Wait no longer.  Also, I'm attempting to contact a woman who posted on Babycenter.com that she found another woman's picture of her stillborn daughter on her signature line, "offensive".  I hope that by talking with her she will understand that we do not mean to offend and that to us, our children are beautiful.  If she doesn't see my way, I'll track her down and beat her.  Just kidding.  Unless you want to help me.  Just kidding.  Unless you...

Monica and Andy (who makes some pretty weird sounds) 

Also, forgive me for not getting the red-eye out of the pics.  DH is the software engineer/nerd supreme, not me.  He could program a NASA satellite, and he routinely fixes our pics with photoshop.  Not me.  I'm lucky not to cut the heads off of my subjects.

 

Calling all Monday morning shrinks

They say the only normal people are the people you don't know.  I've always suspected I was crazy, but I just don't know how crazy I am.  You see the problem is we never know what other people are thinking.  We have no way of knowing if they are thinking the same crazy thoughts we are ( I write "we" like I'm including you in this crazy thing).  Most of the IRL's I interact with seem normal.  They don't validate my crazy thoughts as normal.  Now a lot of the bloggers I read are crazy (don't worry, I won't out you).  You have to admit, blogging draws out crazies.  I mean you have to be sorta self-absorbed and slightly hyper-emotional to write about your daily life or think anyone cares to read about your daily life.  The problem is I don't know if I'm truly crazy or just normal.  So what exactly are my symptoms you ask?  I worry.  Like a lot.  Everyday I'm dying of something new.  Every twitch in my body is some new disease or sign of impending death.  I worry every time I get in my car.  Sometimes I worry that not only will I die in a car crash, but I'll crash into my husband or mom/dad and kill them too.  In fact, if I know they are on the road the same time I am, I'll try to avoid their path.  I've been known to describe what I'm wearing to my husband not to arouse him, but so he can tell the cops what I'm wearing when my dead body shows up in a ditch (as opposed to my live body?).  I could go on.  So I finally called my doctor and made an appt. to get a referral for a flexible sigmoidoscopy since colon cancer is my disease du jour and to get a psyche referral. 

Andy update:  He never stops eating, he is still so cute, he doesn't sleep enough, he still cannot latch well, and he sorta reminds me of animal from the muppets.  I love him dearly.

Breastfeeding update:  I'm now getting five ounces per pumping session.

Monica