Kiersten’s Blog

These last few days have been difficult for me for a lot of reasons.  I’ve been feeling stressed and uncomfortable and irritated and emotional all the time.  Maybe the baby blues are hitting a little early.  Does that mean he’s coming soon?  I sure hope so.  Anyway, as London would put it, “I’m just having a hard time.”  Luckily I have a great family.  This afternoon London played in her room while I napped on her bed for 45 minutes.  She didn’t want to nap and I didn’t care.  At least she let me sleep.  Then when Taylor got home from work, he sent me off to get a much needed pedicure.  My toenails were getting too long and I can’t even get close to reaching my feet to cut them anymore.  When I came home an hour later, the house was clean and the dishes were almost done.  Even London was helping.  I know I don’t deserve that kind of treatment, especially since I haven’t really done anything in the last couple of days, but I’m glad I got it.  I got to sit in a nice massage chair and have my feet rubbed and smoothed while my house was being cleaned.  I think I’m a pretty lucky girl.  And I definitely married the right guy.

In case you don’t check my website (and I don’t blame you because I haven’t updated it lately), I did some updates!  Okay, I haven’t gotten around to changing up London’s page yet, but I did tweak a little bit of the welcome page and add some photos.  So go check it out!  You can also subscribe so you know when I update my photos.  I’ll be sure to do it more often, since it has gotten to be much less of a pain.  Enjoy!

Me, Lora

This weekend has been full of memories.  Months ago, Lora contacted me and told me she would be in southern California on business and would love to meet up.  The date kept getting pushed back but she was finally here this week.  Lora is a friend of mine from high school.  We played in music groups together and were also on the tennis team.  She graduated in 1996 (the year before me) and I hadn’t seen her since.  She went off to college while I finished my senior year.  Then I went off to college and our lives went their separate directions.  She’s now married and lives in Texas.  It was so fun to get together and catch up on the last 13 years.  Just hanging out with her for a bit brought back floods of memories.

Heather, Dana, Me

Just today I met up with two friends from college, Dana and Heather.  We were all music majors at Ricks College together ten years ago.  We each went our own ways in 1999.  For them, it was getting married.  For me, it was going on a mission.  I saw Dana once after my mission but haven’t seen Heather since we were at Ricks together.  Heather lives in LA county and Dana lives in Albuquerque.  Dana’s kids were on spring break this week so she decided to take a spontaneous trip to California for some extra fun.  We met them at the beach in Newport this afternoon and had a great time.  Heather has two adorable little boys, one whose birthday was today, and Dana has three precious little ones.  It was so much fun to see them and have the kids all play together.  It seems like it was just yesterday that we were all hanging out together.  Time sure does fly.

Last Saturday, my good friends, Melissa and Christina, threw me a fabulous baby shower.  It really was great of them.  I think everybody had a nice time.  The food was fantastic, as was the company and the gifts.  A lot of people showed up who I don’t even know very well and brought some very generous gifts.  I am so impressed by the generosity of people.  I hope I can be like that.  I received 3 handmade quilts!  I also got some really cute clothes.  On top of that, for the group gift, I was given an exersaucer.  I had one for London when she was small but have since rid myself of it for lack of space.  I’m excited to have one again for the new baby to use in a few months.  I’m feeling much more prepared now.  I’ve been doing tons of laundry and still have lots more to do.  I’m getting ready, slowly but surely, and hopefully I’ll be completely ready by the time the little guy arrives.  Now for a name…

London and I had a little argument today.  We were sorting laundry, since we have lots of it to do before the little guy makes his appearance.  I want to make sure I get all of his stuff washed in time.  I realized I’ve created a laundry sorting monster.  Yes, I have a 3 1/2 year old who knows how to sort laundry.  I know 25 year olds who don’t know how to sort laundry.  Anyway, we were sorting through all the new clothes and I tossed something red into the dark hamper.  London took it out, and adding it to the lights said “Red is NOT a dark color!”

“Yes it is,” I told her.  She continued to tell me that red belongs with the light clothes while I tried to explain that if I were to wash red items with light colors, everything would turn pink.  Finally I convinced her that bright colors belong in the dark pile.

36 weeks pregnant with London

36 weeks pregnant this time

That’s right.  I’m bigger this pregnancy than I was when I was pregnant with London.  I was actually kind of surprised to learn that information.  I feel like I look smaller and Taylor swears I’m smaller.  It’s all an illusion.  I was reading in my journal last night from when I was pregnant with London.  I had measured my waist exactly a week before I had her and it was 41 1/2 inches.  I measured myself yesterday (I still have 2 weeks to go) and I’m 42 inches around.  Because I’m bigger at this point (I weigh more too), you would think that maybe I’ll have the baby sooner.  I doubt it.  When I was 38 weeks pregnant with London, I was dilated to 2 centimeters and 75% thinned out.  This time (I’ll be 38 weeks tomorrow) I’m dilated to 1 centimeter and my cervix is only 25% effaced.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even go late.  Hopefully not, but if I plan for it, then I won’t be disappointed if I really do get to the overdue point.  I have a feeling the next two weeks (and maybe more) are going to go by SO SLOW.  I guess I better get busy and get things ready.  Oh yeah, it’s probably time to choose a name.  Any suggestions?

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

London in the desert garden at Balboa park

This poem describes London exactly.  I have been trying very hard lately to have a lot of fun with her before the new addition arrives.  Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Balboa park.  She was good for the first little bit but decidedly got bored after a little while.  Then she was not so good.  It was an okay outing but I was hoping we would have a lot of fun together, just Mom and London.  This evening we made cookies together.  It wasn’t super fun but it wasn’t horrible either.  But while we were waiting for them to cool, we decided to play songs on the piano and sing.  We had a lot of fun. . . at first.

London has also been really irritable lately.  She has a good friend, Isabelle, who she loves.  The problem is, much of the time, she can’t stand her!  They play great until one of them takes a toy or gets upset for some reason.  If Isabelle starts crying, London can’t handle it and will scream at her.  Even if Isabelle is crying because she’s hurt, London has no sympathy!  Then, of course, this upsets Isabelle even more and we all have to go our separate ways.  Then London gets more upset because she can’t play with Isabelle anymore.  You would think she’d learn.  Apparently not.  I’m a little worried about this because I’m pretty sure the baby is going to cry quite a bit.  How will I be able to handle two screaming children?  I have noticed myself becoming more easily frustrated and irritated.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m constantly uncomfortable and feel like I can’t do anything.  I’m sure this effects London (and Taylor).  All of these changes are difficult on everybody.  Hopefully she’ll be just fine by the time the little guy arrives.  And that curl on her forehead?  I’m sure it will stay for quite some time.

A couple of weeks ago, Taylor and I made a trip to Claremont.  He had to take his written qualifying exam.  We spent the night in Hemet the night before and left London there to play with Granny and Papa.  I spent the day shopping and hanging out with old friends, while Taylor spent the day taking a test.  I had a nice day.  I don’t think his was quite as fun.  That evening we went to a concert at the Claremont Colleges.  I was glad to be able to go, especially after the disappointment of not being able to see Itzhak Perlman the week before because London and I were too sick.  Anyway, the concert this particular day included a performance of a Philip Glass piece.  One of the performers was Philip Glass himself!  Philip Glass is one of the most important modern composers.  You will definitely find him in textbooks.  To non-musicians, he would be considered a “classical” composer.  To musicians, his music would fall into the category of minimalism.  It’s not often that a person gets to hear a composer perform his own music so this was a treat.

Taylor knows more about this stuff than me and he already blogged about it, so this is what he has to say,  “Mr. Glass et al performed a new piece called Book of Longing.  Book of Longing is a new work completed last year; basically it is a song cycle.  The songs’ texts come from Leonard Cohen’s recently-published book of poems by the same title.  Leonard Cohen is also one of those towering figures.  Cohen is perhaps one of the most important poets in the last 40 years; he is certainly one of the most popular.  Cohen is a songwriter himself, though most folks haven’t heard much of his music.  That song “Hallelujah” that was in Shrek, and that has been remade by everyone from Jeff Buckley to k. d. lang is probably Leonard Cohen’s most famous song.”

I enjoyed the concert.  It was definitely different from a traditional classical music concert but it was very good.  We had second row seats.  I felt kind of bad because, although I was enjoying myself, I had a really hard time staying awake.  I hope Phil didn’t notice me nodding off!  Part of the problem is, it was 100 minutes of nonstop music with no intermission.  Try that on for size when you’re 8 months pregnant.  I started to feel like I couldn’t move, and of course I had to go to the bathroom.  All in all, it was a great concert and a fabulous date with my husband.

Now for the rest of the story.  We just found out on Friday that Taylor did, in fact, pass the written portion of his qualifying exams that he took that day!  I’m so excited and proud of him.  Now he has to go back in a couple of weeks to take the oral portion.  After he passes that, he has to finish up the German class he’s taking and write his dissertation.  He’s getting so close!  It’s so exciting!  I’ll let you know when you can start calling him Dr. Smith.

I’ve been trying to find fun activities to do with London lately.  She loves doing anything crafty.  I bought a Hello Kitty activity book at the library bookstore the other day and she’s always telling me she wants to do a craft.  We didn’t do anything from the book, but we did make this cute popcorn tree as we sang “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.”  She thought it was a lot of fun and she loved eating the popcorn.

On another note, I found a recipe for these yummy pretzel things on somebody’s blog the other day.  I really don’t remember who it was but I do know that it’s someone I don’t know at all.  You know how it is.  It was a link from somebody else’s blog.  Anyway, London loves making them.  We’ve done it twice now.  I think these ones turned out really cute.  They look kind of like cute little Easter nests.  We lined pretzels up on a foil lined cookie sheet and topped them with Hershey Hugs.  Then we baked them in a 400 〫 oven for 5 minutes.  When they came out we topped them with a Cadbury Mini Egg.  Yum!  They’re so easy and so good!  Last time we used Hershey Kisses and peanut butter M&Ms.  Those were really good too.  If you plan on making these delicious treats, know that the white chocolate melts faster than the milk chocolate so I think 5 minutes in the oven for the white chocolate was too long.

I’ve made it to the nine month point.  This is the worst part.  I’m uncomfortable and unmotivated.  I planned on cleaning my bathroom today but wasn’t at all disappointed when I remembered I had run out of bathroom cleaner.  Now I have that tub to look forward to cleaning tomorrow instead.  I’m not sure how that bending is going to happen.  I find myself involuntarily grunting all the time.  Nice.  I’m sure there will be a lot of that happening as I’m trying to clean the tub.  I’m thinking the last month of pregnancy is a good thing for women because by the time it’s over, we don’t really care how this baby gets out or what pain it causes, at least we don’t have to be pregnant anymore!  Consequently, I’m starting to feel better about having this baby.  We went to the hospital tonight for a tour.  It made me more nervous than excited.  I also learned that it’s really important that this kid has a name as soon as he’s born.  Hmm.  I wonder if that will be possible.  I’ll take suggestions.  Anyone?  Anyone?  In all seriousness, though, I really appreciate all the nice comments and encouragement I have received.  So thanks!  You guys are great!  I know everything will be just fine.