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My family came to visit me last weekend! My mom, dad, and one of my brothers drove down to Portland to see us and we had a great time. Here are some photos:

Wesley and Grammie Angie:

Wesley and Grandpa Ronnie:

Wesley and Uncle Landen:

We went to a local toy store, looked at lots of awesome things and walked out with a Skwish toy for Wesley. He loves it!

Later, we drove to the coast to hang out at Cannon Beach for a while. Wesley had on a super-hip outfit:

Then he napped for something like three hours while I carried him around in our new Ergo carrier. While he was asleep, we visited another toy store and my mom bought him a squeezy ball and a book with baby sign language (we want to start teaching him signs). He loooooves the squeezy ball! It’s easy for him to grab and hang on to, and it’s chewy and has lots of places for him to poke his tongue into. Case in point:

It was a super-fun weekend and I’m so glad they got to come and visit! It’s great that they could hang out with Wesley again now that he is more interactive – my brother had never met him and my parents last saw him at 7 weeks old!

Today has been just lovely. Wesley had a good night so I didn’t wake up exhausted, and then Daniel took him to the living room for a while anyway so I could rest a bit more. I got breakfast in bed: French toast on Texas Toast-style bread with blackberry jam, and BACON and fruit and orange juice!

Daniel is basically the best husband ever and got me a gift certificate for a one-hour massage. WIN! (And no, I will not share him.)

Then Daniel took Wesley on a walk (in the Moby wrap – *swoon*) while I took a nice, long, shower. It was gorgeous outside today so I’m glad they got to take a nice walk.

Then, Wesley has been a DREAM BABY all day today. Napped for two and a half hours. Hung out in his swing.

Played in his Bumbo chair:

Has been pleasant while awake:

All in all it has been a great day.

Wesley Leif was born March 25, 2010 at 11:57am. He weighed 6lbs 14oz and was 19″ long. He’s super cute! (And blonde!)

I will post the rest of the birth story as soon as I can. The short story is that I dilated to a 5 and was doing pretty well, but the baby hadn’t moved down into my pelvis and was still kind of crooked, and even with a catheter I hadn’t produced any urine in several hours so the doctors made the decision that I needed a c-section.

On the whole, I am feeling pretty good. Very tired, kind of sore, and I still look about 6mos pregnant. Wesley eats all! the! time! and gets really frustrated if he’s making hunger cues and doesn’t get fed right away. (He is obviously his mother’s child.) Daniel is a huge help and makes sure I’m taking my pain meds and drinking water and helps latch Wesley on. (Remind me to discuss his hiliariously bizarre breastfeeding habits.)

There are more pictures on Facebook if you’re interested, and we’re settling into life at home. We have a follow-up appointment with a lactation consultant today to weigh the baby to make sure he’s taking in enough food (he didn’t have a dirty diaper for about a day and the hospital people were concerned) and then we’re supposed to make a pediatrician appointment for tomorrow.

Overall, we’re doing really well and appreciate all your well-wishes and good thoughts. Wesley is adorable and I can’t wait for you to get to know him.

I totally got the absolute shock of my life this morning.

I am an aunt.

My younger brother and his live-in girlfriend had a baby in JANUARY and kept it a secret for not only the entire pregnancy, but for A MONTH after the baby was born. My parents found out last night.

Here’s what my mom posted on Facebook today:

So sometimes your kids can drop a bombshell on ya….Carson came home yesterday….followed by girlfriend Nellie…carrying a baby. THEIR baby. They had a baby a month ago and told no one…..NO ONE!!! ……SURPRISE!!
Meet Riley Alexander born 1-5-10 7:41 am 5 # 13 oz 19 1/2 ”
Our precious first Grandson!!

I am still reeling from the shock. I’m obviously super happy for them and very excited about my nephew – it means that Baby will have a cousin close in age (4mos apart) to play with, but I’m pissed they didn’t tell anyone. And I feel a little bit like my thunder has been stolen, since now Baby isn’t the first grandbaby OR the first boy. (I’m sure I’ll get over this, but right now I am still in rug-pulled-out-from-under-me mode.)

So yes – very excited, confused, happy, upset, and so many other things this morning. Congratulations to Carson and Nellie and baby Riley!

Christmas Eve this year marked 24 weeks of pregnancy for me, meaning that if – heaven forbid – Baby were to be born, he would at least have a chance at survival. Babies born prior to 24 weeks are often too fragile and underdeveloped to make it. As such, I am very, very thankful that we’ve made it this far and hope we continue to rack up the weeks with Baby baking safely inside.

Holiday Travel

Oh man. So, we took the train home for Christmas, and everything went fine until we hit Spokane. Then we got news that the other leg of the train coming from Seattle was stuck behind a derailed freight train, and would be four hours late reaching Spokane. ARGH. We sat on the train at the Spokane station from 12am until 5am (it takes about an hour for them to service the trains and join them together) and finally made it into Sandpoint at 6:20am.

I would have done fine except for some reason my feet decided to swell up like the characters in Wall-E and it was so uncomfortable! I had fat little sausage feet. They’ve never done that before but the train was super warm so maybe that aggravated it? Either way, they’ve been chubby off and on since then so I’ve been drinking water and trying to lay with my feet elevated when I can.

Baby Stuffs

Baby more or less cooperated with family members wanting to feel kicks – my cousin and Daniel’s sister each got a few really good ones. He’s still pretty sneaky, but it’s getting a little easier to tell what’s going on in there so I can tell people where to put their hands.

Baby should be around a foot long and about 1.3 pounds this week. Sometimes this seems really little and then sometimes this seems OMG ENORMOUS and I start wondering how he manages to fit in my tummy. And then I remember he is supposed to weigh something like SEVEN TIMES this amount when he’s born and I get freaked out.

We received a bunch of totally adorable things for Baby for Christmas. We got two different dinosaur themed footie pajamas, a photo album, tiny scrapbook, and a large hardback book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. I also got Baby a pacifier clip and a crinkly toy owl for his stocking.

My mom gave me a hand-knitted ear-flap hat that I think will fit Baby next winter. Apparently she was trying to knit a hat for one of my brother’s friends but kept making it too small, so after a few attempts she ran with it and just made a small baby hat.

Also, my cousins’ kids are so cute! We got to play with them on Christmas and it was a lot of fun. We were talking about baby gear and one cousin offered to give me her gently-used Medela breast pump! She said she bought it to replace the last one she had, but only ended up using it for a couple of months before they cut down on nursing and didn’t need it anymore. Score!

More owly things

Among other things, Daniel got me the cutest tea set ever and I can’t wait to use it. I am still dying of cuteness.

Car update

We hold the keys! And we have made duplicates in case we lock ourselves out! I am still trying to figure out the process of transferring ownership but we are going to commit to purchasing insurance tonight (fingers-crossed) and then we can submit all the title transfer informationy stuffs. Hurrah!

• Scene: Yesterday evening. I am in the kitchen talking to Daniel. I happen to be wearing gray jammie-pants, dark gray tee, and his light gray sweatshirt.
  Daniel: You are awfully monochromatic.
  Me: Oh, ha, I–
  Daniel: “By the power of GREYSCALE!”
• Our friends’ save-the-date that came in the mail today:
  
• Impromptu crafts, especially ones that involve Harry Potter:
  
  (This is one of several. I don’t want to share them all just yet!)
• My birthday coming up on Sunday. Woo! I will be 24. And yes, my birthday this year IS Harry Potter themed, hence the crafts I am so spectacularly excited about. And the pumpkin pasties (as in, “Two pumpkin pasties please!” -Cho Chang) Daniel is currently making, and the butterbeer recipe I perfected yesterday.
• Our lovely visit with Daniel’s mom and sister this past weekend, wherein we ate a lot of wonderful food, celebrated Gretchen’s 30th birthday, had dinner for Kerri’s birthday, and generally had a very good time. Daniel’s mom brought our Christmas present with her, which was a hand-painted basket (she’s a basketmaker) painted with coffee! Rad!
  

Now, back to cleaning the apartment. I don’t usually think of myself as a very messy person, but YOW does the living room get filled with junk when I am not looking. Sweatshirts everywhere, half-finished craft projects all over, and piles of things waiting to be sorted…

• The most surprising Internet gossip I’ve seen in a LONG time.
  I have no idea why this surprised me so much, but it did. Congratulations to Jem and Karl!
• This text effect.
  I don’t know that I’d call it “letterpress” per se, but I do like it and I’ve been wondering what fancy things to do in Photoshop to achieve it. Then I saw this tutorial!
• Swine Flu
  Epidemics annoy me, I think. Perhaps it is because I am on the West coast and therefore feel less likely to be affected? Whatever it is, I still love piggies and I will wash my hands a lot but I am not panicked about Swine Flu.
• Beta-testing Melly.me
  Melissa (formerly of Guitarangel.net) has been redesigning her site on the sly, and I got to be a beta tester! It is super cool and I hope she releases it soon!
• Heidi’s surprise visit

  Daniel’s sister Heidi called me at 8:30pm on Sunday like, “HI I AM 10 MINUTES OUTSIDE OF PORTLAND. SURPRISE!” Apparently she decided to get in her car and drive and then after a while decided to head to Portland. From North Idaho. Making it a 7.5 hour drive to get to Portland. (She might be crazy!)

  I took yesterday off of work to hang out, and we went to breakfast and coffee and Powell’s. Daniel got his hair cut and then he had to go to work, so we hung out at the coffeeshop for a while before she had to take off to go back home. It was nice to have the day off and great to see Heidi.

What’s up with everyone else on the Intarwebs? Anything fun happen lately?

Hi! I have no idea what happened to that last post I wrote!

After our flight was delayed on Sunday, we did end up leaving Wednesday, but it wasn’t 8:15 Wednesday morning like they said. We got on the plane around that time, and ended up arriving in Spokane at about 1pm. I should probably mention that this is a 40 minute flight. We sat on the plane for roughly four hours while they de-iced, got delayed, de-iced again, got delayed, started to de-ice again but ran out of de-icer and had to have the truck run to get refilled, de-iced for the third time, sat around, and finally took off.

We had an action-packed three days but overall, it went really well. We saw all the grandparents and spent some time with everybody’s family and got presents and ate too much food.

Getting from Spokane to Portland was also an adventure. The weather had been kind of crap so we assumed there would be delays, but we did not expect to walk into the Spokane airport to see a line of hundreds of people stretching through the walkways up to the Southwest counter area. For some reason, their e-ticket check-in kiosks were out of order and they had THREE people total working the counters for all of their flights. It was never really explained why this was the case, but we spent about 45 minutes in line just to check in and check our bags.

Since we arrived with about an hour to spare, this meant we had 15 minutes to make it through security, over to our gate, and on the plane. Jog jog jog, security, jog jog jog to the gate to see… another line. This one wasn’t so much a “line” as it was “a big mess of people in front of the gate counter” and we couldn’t really tell where we were supposed to stand.

Two people had designated themselves the line police, so while we were asking several people if they were in line and what they were in line for, a man in the back kept yelling “PLEASE DON’T CUT” to anyone who walked by, and this batty old lady kept directing people out of her line and giving incorrect information to the people standing next to her.

We stood in this line for over an hour. No explanation was ever given for why the first line was so long, or why this second line was so long – I overheard it had something to do with an earlier flight to Portland that had been canceled, so our line was made up of the people booted off that flight plus our own delayed flight. Thing is, our flight never actually said it was delayed – we just didn’t make it on the plane for a loooong time.

Now that we’re back in Portland, Daniel is off to work and I need to clean the bathroom. I considered taking down the Christmas decorations, but… I like them, so maybe when it gets closer to January. I hope your holidays were lovely and had less travel trouble than mine did, and hopefully I find that post that disappeared.

The other day, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. This happens fairly frequently, so I just let it go to voicemail. I checked the message about fifteen minutes later and this is what I heard:

Hi Meggan, my name is [blank] and I have a Honda CRX that needs to be serviced and I know you serviced it last time and I’m in Salmon, Idaho but I’m going to be in Idaho Falls tomorrow and I wanted to know if you could work on the car tomorrow morning? Please call me back to let me know if you can fit me in. Thanks!

She was obviously on a tight timeframe, and I felt really bad just ignoring her so I called her back. The conversation went something like this:

MEGGAN: Hi, I’m Meggan, you just called me about your Honda?
LADY: Oh, yes!
MEGGAN: Um, so you definitely have the wrong number – I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.
LADY: Oh… So you’re not an autoshop then?
MEGGAN: Er, no. I just wanted to call you back so you could get your car taken care of.
LADY: Okay, well, thank you!

It was only kind of awkward.

——-

My mom’s pet goat had a baby yesterday! Mom text-messaged me (she’s getting all super high-tech with her new phone) to say she thought her goat was in labor, and would I like pictures? I told her I’d like pictures of the babies, not so much the birth. Heh. Later that day she messaged me a photo of new baby Gretl.

I’ve never really been a huge fan of goats, but baby animals are always cute.

Harry Potter IV DVD

To begin, Daniel is all better. He took the next day off of work to recuperate and felt better stomach-wise and then promptly came down with a cold. He’s still snuffly, but he’s feeling okay now, which is awesome.

My parents flew in Thursday evening and we spent a lot of time walking back and forth between their bed & breakfast and our apartment and the grocery store and whatnot. I had a bit of a shock when we looked at their room and I realized there was only one bed – they somehow failed to tell me that my two younger brothers would be staying with us instead of them. Ha ha ha.

The portfolio show went very well. I think some of the business people wrote me off because I already have a job, but right now that’s sort of okay with me. I was mostly there as a formality anyway (it’s required for graduation) and the purpose is to make some contacts, which I think I did. A lot of people were inquiring about freelancing, which I haven’t totally ruled out but ye gods I am not interested in more work right now. My goal is to make the next two weeks as painless as possible before I start full time the 1st of the year, and I can’t see freelancing helping that at all. I had a really good response to my branding/identity (if you’re listed as a friend on Flickr you’ve probably already seen a preview of my business card) and lots of people told me it was very nicely done. My department director told me I’ve done the department proud.

My cousin, her husband, and their baby showed up unexpectedly! I sent them the mass “I am graduating” email but didn’t exactly expect them to drop by even though they don’t live very far away, but I’m so glad they did. I hadn’t met the baby yet and he’s so cute! Very serious (didn’t crack a smile the whole time I saw him) but adorable and incredibly well-behaved. I’ll see them again around Christmas.

I got to see my friend Keith! And Ben H and Ben D and Stacey and other graduated-types I haven’t seen in a while. My family got to meet all the people that meant a lot to me in school, especially Chris and Angie. I’m really going to miss both of them.

Graduation also went well. I graduated with honors! I hadn’t even thought about it until I was checking in at the ceremony location and received some silver cords, and some time later noticed that not everyone had them. The president of the school mispronounced my last name when he was recognizing the honors students, but oh well. People tend to try to make it sound a lot more elegant than it actually is – you can either emphasize the second syllable and make it sound refined, or emphasize the first and sound backwoods-ish. It’s the backwoods sound you’re going for, and I think people don’t want to offend so they try the other way first. It bothers me but I’m used to it. The guy announcing names as we walked across the stage said it correctly so I think that’s what counts.

The speakers had varying degrees of interestingness. The school president’s speech was about some 16th century Indian philosopher whose name I can’t recall, and it was meant to be inspiring. The keynote speaker was some guy from Germany who was one of those “I’m young and wildly successful” types who spent the last X number of years sleeping on floors and working for free to get into the companies he wanted to work for. He talked a lot about himself and made several references to purple Speedos. I think all the parents loved him and the graduates were sort of lukewarm. The student speaker’s speech was the best because it was short and to-the-point, and wasn’t pretentious or boring.

(more…)

The Presidents of the USA – “Cleveland Rocks”

It’s no secret that I didn’t get along with my brothers growing up. They’re 3 and 6 years younger than me, and I used to go through phases where I’d ally with one of them to beat up on the other, and then the alliance would switch and the enemy would be the new ally and we’d beat up on the other guy. Carson (the older one) was usually the brunt of the violence, as I think I felt the most put out by his arrival when I was three. He’s the one I almost killed as a newborn because I was sick of his constant crying and muffled it with heavy pillows. Yeah.

Carson just started college in August, and there have been several fiascos involving his roommate and various just-started-college things.

He just posted a rant about some of these issues, and I am intensely proud of him for doing so. It takes balls to stand up to your friends when you know they’re doing something stupid, and it seems like he’s taking a lot of flak for not being a pushover.

I’m sure I’m embarrassing him horribly by talking about this, but seriously? I really am super proud of him. A lot of people he knows are being douchebags, giving him crap for not being an idiot and passing out in his own vomit in someone else’s apartment. Giving him crap for respecting his girlfriend and her wishes and wanting to hang out with her. I never thought this would happen to me, but I am really, really mad that people are trying to make him feel bad for standing up for what he knows is right. He’s not an idiot. I told him he was so many times growing up, but it isn’t true. He’s not an idiot. It’s so weird for me to be defending him, feeling like I should defend him. Yes, he’s my brother, but we never got along until I was almost done with high school and just gave up being an asshole to him.

In sum, Carson, keep it up.

Nine Inch Nails – “Reptilian”

I’m going to begin by saying everything went really well and my week was great.

Tuesday, my cousin Kalena was visiting by sheer coincidence and we got to hang out for a bit. Wednesday and Thursday I spent around the house, not doing a whole lot. Friday, I found the perfect brown ballet flat shoes at Target (not the ones I linked to – EVEN BETTER) so that was awesome. I also found a nice wedding gift.

Zach and Danielle’s wedding was beautiful. They said lovely things at the ceremony, and the thing I liked best about it was that they did traditional things in a bit of an untraditional way. They had something like seven or eight bridesmaids (“Best Women”) and I think eight or nine groomsmen (“Best Men”). The bridesmaids wore black dresses (any style) and carried black fans, and the groomsmen wore black shirts and khaki pants (some wore sunglasses too.) The reception was tons of fun and they played great non-current music. Daniel and I even danced. Daniel’s mom caught the bouquet, and our friend Seth caught the garter. Needless to say, Daniel and I are both very, very happy for the new couple.

Sunday, we went to breakfast with Daniel’s dad and stepmom and then had brunch at Zach’s mom’s house. Afterward, we drove out to my parent’s place where we had hamburgers. I milked a goat (WEIRD) and got my foot stepped on by an ancient, hungry mule. I was not a happy camper and my foot has a bruise on it now, but I don’t think there will be any lasting damage. My grandma served us ice cream, we lost my grandpa, found him again, and then I packed up all of my stuff. When we got back into town, Daniel’s mom served us homemade vanilla ice cream and then we napped until the train arrived.

I’m happy to report there were no major train incidents (other than us being an hour late, due mostly to freight train interference). We made it back safe and sound, and pictures are on Flickr. (Wedding) (Cousins) (Goats)

School of Rock DVD

I’m slowly but surely catching up on my homework. I still have a couple of big projects to work out, but I have today, tomorrow, and Monday to finish them so I’m feeling confident at the moment. And technically I have until Thursday afternoon for both of them, but you know. I want to get ahead, not just scrape by. I have a whole binder of stuff that’s due Thursday and I think I’m only missing one assignment from it, so that should be fairly easy to accomplish.

Today was horribly uneventful – the only interesting thing I did was talk to my mom on the phone for a while. Apparently my mother has just purchased four new goats, bringing her total up to five, all of which I think are unnecessary. She’s planning to breed them, I guess. My brother scratched my car. He allegedly tried to do a u-turn on gravel going about 30 miles per hour and the car didn’t like it and he hit a hill-type thing. He’s fine, the car is scratched though and a bit dented and he’s grounded from driving the nice pickup.

My other brother made it through his first week of college. He even did homework! He’s majoring in something like auto mechanics or auto something or other. Automotive technology? Cars, at least.

Mom also told me about a recent incident she had involving bad milk at work. They have little milk cartons, like schools do, and she grabbed one to drink. She said she took a big swig of it and only then did she realize it was bad. She spit it all over the sink in the break room and gagged and rinsed her mouth out forever. EW! I will admit that that is so much worse than my bad milk experience. Mom said it was days before she could drink milk again. Blech.

In Flames – “Jester Script Transfigured”

I was going to write some poignant story about my mother and I for today, but then I searched and searched my computer and photo albums for a photo of us together and discovered that I had none.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t any in existence, nor does it mean I don’t have any photos of me or my mom, just that I don’t have any of us, together. And it occurred to me that I honestly can’t think of a time in the last three years that I even remember having a photo of us taken together, and it made me sad.

I know my mom doesn’t generally read my site (well, at least I think she doesn’t…) but on the off chance that she does decide to read today: Mom, I just want to say that I love you and next time I’m home I’ll get a picture of us together. Because we need one.

————

Here are some other, more poignant posts about Mother’s Day:
Mother’s Day Entry by Very Mom
Mother’s Day by Tertia
PostSecret (alternately heartbreaking and inspiring)

Jimmy Eat World – “If You Don’t, Don’t”

Hi.

I have something to talk about now.

Some background: I am extremely grouchy in the mornings. I do not enjoy getting up early, and I have just gone without food for a number of hours, and we all know how awful I get without food. This grouchiness factor was multiplied by at least five when I was younger because (I swear to god) my mom would do everything in her power to make me have a miserable morning.

(Side note: in elementary school, we somehow ended up with a “parent checklist” form that we stuck on the refrigerator. It was supposed to be kind of like a report card for parents that the kid would fill out (I think there was a column for the parents to grade themselves as well) and it had statements like, “I am encouraged to read” (A+) and “I am happy with my bedroom” (C). I remember taking GREAT pride in giving my parents an F minus (times about 32 if I remember correctly – I filled up the square with minuses) for the phrase “I am sent off to school with a bright and cheery smile every morning.” That should give you some idea of how much I hated mornings.)

So one day, in middle school (presumably 7th grade), I was upset about something or other and complaining about not getting any breakfast and the fact that my backpack weighed about 45 pounds. I was heading outside to wait for the bus and my mom said, “Hang on just a minute, I think I can find something” and shut the door. By this time, I’m already onto the cement carport. It is the dead of winter. There is snow everywhere. My mom sees the bus coming, yells “Here! A muffin! Can you catch?” and THREW THE MUFFIN AT ME.

I spun around to reach for the muffin, and slipped on a patch of ice. I began falling backward. The offending muffin flew over my head and into a snowbank, my huge backpack accelerated my fall and I went slamming into the concrete. I had my flute case in one hand and that hit the concrete just as hard as I did.

My mom almost died laughing.

Now, I admit that this had to be hilarious to witness. However, now I was tired, grouchy, hurt, and still hungry. And the bus was coming. I can’t remember now whether or not I missed the bus, but OH was I upset. And to this day my mom still calls it my “Four-point muffin catch” as apparently all my limbs were off the ground at one point.