Football

I have a love/hate relationship with football.

At times, I love watching football.  The competition of it all, the mind-numbing effect of staring at the tv for a few hours, listening to the announcers try to fill every second of air time with game-related chatter.  Watching football with Scott is one of his love languages, I'm pretty sure.  Wait, I'm POSITIVE.  He's told me so before.  And when a guy says the phrase "love language", one should listen carefully.

At times, I hate watching football.  The commercials seem to have a LOT of scantily clad women in them.  I don't particularly enjoy watching scantily clad women, in general, much less on tv.  The announcers during the game are all "Let's spend twenty minutes watching that play again from seven different camera angles to determine if that was an incomplete pass or a fumble."  And every twelve seconds of game play requires three commercials.  Enter said scantily clad women again.  Sheesh.

My absolute LEAST favorite part of football is pre-game, half-time, or post-game shows.  A group of men sit around and speculate what is going to happen during the game.  At half-time they discuss what has happened so far and what needs to happen in the second half.  After the game is over, the men folk rehash the whole game and talk about whether they were right or not.

Wait, it gets even better.  How about a talk show about FANTASY FOOTBALL.  Now the group of mostly-men are sitting around talking about fictitious football games occurring only in the land of make-believe.  What players should the fantasy football league manager play that week?  Who should be benched?  Speculate, speculate, speculate.  Blah blah blah.  And this isn't even REAL!!!  I can hardly stand it.

Sadly, winning at fantasy football happens to be a tremendous talent of Scott's.  He listens to the jabbermouths on the pre-during-post-fantasy talk shows.  He wishes I would play in his fantasy league.

Maybe I could sign up to be a scantily clad woman and advertise something instead...

Life as a Military Kid

My dad was in the Air Force.  We moved a lot.  Until college, I had never lived in one city for four consecutive years.  People asked me as a kid if I liked moving around a lot.  That's like asking me if I liked being a girl.  I didn't know any different.  I liked it because it was all I knew.

I realize, in looking back, that I developed some coping mechanisms to handle all the moving.  Some healthy, some not so much.  Pretending to be aloof, nonchalant, acting like I didn't care about anything...this was one of my strategies.

I spent my 9th grade year of high school in Illinois.  I spent 10th-12th grade in Maryland.  That's not a big deal.  Two high schools.  My brother went to four.  I consider myself lucky.  The first day at my new high school in Maryland, I had my defenses up.  I went in ready to blend in and not stick out.  This was particularly challenging because I was in the minority in my school.

In one particular class, the guy next to me struck up a conversation with me.

Attempting-to-be-nice-guy:  "You're new here, aren't you?"

Aloof-me: "Yeah."

ATBNG: "Did you just move to the area?"

AM: "Yeah. My dad is in the Air Force." <looking disinterested>

ATBNG: "Oh really, my uncle is in the...."

<me interrupting> "I didn't ask."

As you can imagine, the conversation pretty much ended there.  Wow.  Nicely done me.  Way to stay disconnected, disengaged, DISTANT.  So distant I didn't even care if I was down right rude.

What a strategy.  I've spent a lot of time trying to undo my self-taught "disengage" coping mechanism.  I don't have it all figured out.  How to be present, engaged, emotionally available.  But I've come a long way since that chilly conversation in high school.

Now I have roots in a city I've lived in for more than 7 years.  I have long-term friendships that have weathered me moving away for a few years and then moving back.  I have an elderly cat that has been mine since he was a kitten.  (You don't understand...we never had old pets.  We didn't really move with our pets.  We would find them new homes or take them to my grandparents farm.)  And I have a new kind of relationship in my life that is unlike any I've experienced before.  Being a mom to baby James.  Lucky for him he doesn't have climb over my heart-walls like almost everybody else has had to do.

He was born an insider.

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I'm linking up with Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary for #justwrite.

Baby Gear Must-Haves

New moms:  As you've probably already discovered, the more moms you ask about baby stuff you absolutely must have, the more recommendations you'll get.  Well, here's my two cents on the matter.

Bare essentials list, in random order, followed by pictures of what I chose:  

1) Place to sleep. Could be a bassinet.  Could be a crib.  At times you'll want that sleeping containment area as close to you as possible.  At other times you'll want to move it to another country.

*baby not included

2) Diapers.  Cloth, not cloth.  Whatever suits your fancy.  Take the advice of those that have gone before you, you're going to want to cover up that cute little butt.

3) Food.  Formula, breast feeding, again, whatever suits your fancy.  Kid's gotta eat.

my freezer stash

Although I chose breastfeeding, I felt a picture of my boobs would be inappropriate.  Not ready to head in that direction with this blog...

4) Car seat.  Lots and lots of choices here.  Ask your friends what they like/dislike about the car seat they chose.  The hospital staff won't let you go home from the hospital with your new little babe without this key item.

5) Clothes.  Options are endless here.  I'd recommend CUTE.

The non-bare essentials list:

A)  Some sort of baby bathtub, so as not to drown the child while trying to get them clean.

B)  Swaddle blankets.  I highly recommend swaddling your kiddo to keep them happier.  These light weight blankets (Aden & Anais) were awesome:

C)  Regardless of your feeding choice, you will need bottles at some point.  Lots of them.  If you are breast feeding and pumping, extra pump parts would be helpful, too.

D)  Pacifiers.  Wow.  These absolutely improved our quality of life for the first several weeks.

E)  Comfortable chair.  I've spent a LOT of time in this chair and in the recliner in the living room.  You need a comfortable spot to set up "shop" for all the millions of hours spent feeding your baby.

F)  Bumbo.  I haven't really gotten a ton of use out of this yet.  But some moms swear by them.

*duck not included

G)  Bouncy seat or swing.  Could NOT have survived our first few weeks without our bouncy seat.  James was a huge fan of sleeping in it.  And we were huge fans of James sleeping.  Sooo....   We didn't use our swing much at all, but some babies love the swing.

H)  Play mat.  Our kid loves his.  

I)  Boppy.  I've found this very, very helpful with breastfeeding.  

J)  Not at all helpful:  a sunbathing cat.  As I was walking around the apartment photographing all the various baby gear items, I saw this on the back porch.  Not only is Nestle NOT helpful with the baby, she actually helps create more mess for me to clean up.  If you don't have pets already, now is not the time to get one. :)

K)  Last but definitely not least, the most helpful thing to have when you have a new baby:  A PARTNER. 

Even if said partner despises having his picture taken and posted on the interwebs.