Saturday, November 7, 2009

a bullet pointed list

Oh, how I used to rail against bullet pointed lists when I was teaching English composition.  I had a whole mini-lecture in which I explained that 90% of the time bullet points are embarrassingly illiterate ("here are some interesting things you might not know about bee keeping / my grandmother / gender inequity in the Indian subcontinent") or are transparent efforts to avoid transforming scattered ideas into a coherent thought ("here's some stuff I have in my notes, but I've already reached the page minimum so I won't bother trying to shape this into a paragraph").    

I have no idea why that popped into my brain today.  I actually really like lists, especially on the interwebs, where a bullet pointed list is like a freaking petrarchan sonnet compared to most everything else.

Anyway. 

  • The boob situation, OMG.  You can see them from outer space.  They could be in an Aerosmith video (the rest of me, not so much).  After 31 years of unremarkability, my bosom has found its calling.  Everything in my house in covered in leaked breast milk.  You'd think that nursing two babies would mean less leakage, less oversupply.  Not so.  All that supply & demand stuff the breastfeeding experts talk about must be true (i.e., the babies demand more, I supply more, etc etc etc until there are puddles of the stuff everywhere you look). 

  • The diapers I made are working brilliantly.  However, if my husband does not start folding back the laundry tabs I am going to do something drastic.  A semi-related anecdote: last month Scott and my dad were changing Joseph's diaper (because this is a job for two strong men), and I overheard Scott telling my dad "you've got to fold the tabs back or you'll get us both killed!"  Yes, ruining my diapers is more than your life is worth.  TAKE HEED.
  • Joseph remains pretty mellow in the face of the baby invasion.  I'd like to believe that this has something to do with my excellent parenting skills, but probably it's just because 1) he's an awesome kid, and 2) my parents and Scott are taking him on daily adventures.  Or maybe, 3) he's saving it all up for his future therapists.  Here's a somewhat gratuitous photo of him stalking a turtle on one of his outings with Scott:

  • I gained sixty five pounds during the pregnancy.  Now somebody tell me why yesterday, nine days after giving birth, I put myself through the hell of trying on several pieces of non-maternity clothing in my closet.  Do I hate myself that much?  We need a rule that when you have a baby, somebody comes into your house and takes away all your pre-pregnancy clothing until you're about ten weeks postpartum.  Or possibly forever. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My life would be chaos without lists; however, they do not often belong in academic writing. And, yes, you are crazy for trying on your pre-pregnancy clothes this early! You just had twins! I really hope that H takes Joseph's approach when we decide to have another baby. I'm worried he'll totally freak out, but on the other hand, he loves babies. So glad to hear you are doing well!

Theresa said...

Just think, everytime you see one of those puddles of breast milk on the floor, you can remind yourself that you burned calories making that milk! WHoo HOo!

I love the picture of the boy stalking the turtle.

Should I ask why folding back the tabs are so important?

Amanda, Jake, and Parker Patow said...

You are so funny! Did you hang this fold tabs back picture up around the house!? haha
I had the same milk crust puddles on everything too...and that was with just one..so I can only imagine! I am so glad you are doing so well!

Kira said...

If you have a musician husband, you can make the analogy that not closing the laundry tabs prior to laundering is like NOT COILING THE GUITAR & AMP CABLES CORRECTLY ZOMG THE END IS NIGH, and he will totally get it. There must be a lawyer parallel, but I don't know what that would be.

Karen said...

exposed velcro in the wash = ruined, unsticky velcro. and diapers that fall off. bad.

no lawyer analogy; this is the problem w/law, see?