Maui Wowie

I spent last weekend lounging childless on the shores of Maui. I attribute my ability to have done this to an awesome husband who, with little-to-no persuasion graciously stayed behind to watch Harper, as well as a very well-connected Lindsay who has a friend with a condo in Kihei, Maui which we were able to use for free.

Although I had prior aspirations of waking early to get some sightseeing in, and staying up late to party hard (Mormon style, of course. Shirley Temples and PG-13 rated movies), we spent most of the weekend tanning our buns on the beach and watching trashy reality shows. And boy was it awesome.

We rented a great little Ford Focus. These are the faces of girls with newfound freedom, filled with endless possibility. Aaaah...


This is how we spent a lot of our time. You may think this was a waste of a perfectly good island vacation opportunity, but keep in mind that we take our babies to the beach every single day. A little Bravo, TLC and Style R & R is exactly what we needed...

We ate delicious Thai food uninterrupted by crying babies knocking over glasses of ice water. As luck would have it, though, we were seated (in a very uncrowded restaurant, mind you) next to a family with a baby and a small child. I think seeing the little ones made us miss our own little ones. But not too much...

Then we stopped by a frozen yogurt place to indulge in pumpkin pie fro yo topped with graham crackers and whipped cream. Yes, the girls went wild indeed...

We spent the second day casually crashing a ritzy Mariott resort, trying to act natural as we snatched the neatly rolled green-and-white striped towels from the hotel's lawn chairs and claimed them for our own.


The facade was short lived. After an hour of basking sand-free, hotel security asked to see our elitist "guests only" bracelets. Needless to say we were cast to the sands like the pilgrims we are.

The last day was rainy and cool, so we packed our stuff and headed to the mall with hours (and I mean hours) to kill before our thirty minute flight back home. Oh, but don't you worry. We found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves, much to the chagrin of many-a-salespeople.




It was a much-needed respite. When I got home, I was half hoping that Rivers would grovel at my feet telling me what a hard job I had in being Harper's primary caretaker. Instead I was told tales of how much fun his weekend was. And I guess this is a good thing.

First is the Worst, Second is the Best, Third is My Rivs so You Betta Recognize.

As Rivers and I sat in the church pews today, I slowly rested my head on his knee and shut my eyes. "I'm tired", I sighed as a pang of guilt simultaneously crept over me. If you're thinking that my feelings of guilt derived from my overtly irreverent display of disinterest at a church service, you would be wrong. The truth is, I was sitting on my lazy butt getting a massage from my husband who happened to have just run a 13 Mile mountain race as I complained of being fatigued. And no, Rivs didn't just run the race. Rivs never just runs, in case you didn't know. Nope, my omni-awesome husband ran off into the sunny peaks of Hawaii's Kualoa mountain range for and hour and twenty minutes to compete in the Xterra Trail Running World Championships. And he came third. That's right, my husband is the third fastest man in the world. Now, some may contest the validity of this claim seeing as no Kenyan, Ethiopian, or non-Western runners competed, by I stand by my man. He was just a couple of minutes behind the reigning champion who happens to be so fast that Montrail modeled a shoe after him. So, that's definitely saying something.

Congratulations Rivers, on being the Third Fastest Human on the planet. Now give me a massage. I'm tired.

Nanny Sue

Having my mum come to visit is always a real treat. It's as thought she's the perfect roommate; she cleans up after herself (and me), she always takes the trash out, she cooks delicious meals and she is really good at entertaining herself. Just give my mum a sidewalk and a sleeping baby in a stroller and she can go off exploring for hours, giving me time to work on my thesis (or catch the finale of America's Next Top Model, which is equally important.)

Harper absolutely adores her. In fact, she's starting to walk to my mum for comfort instead of me (oh yeah, Harper's walking). A few months ago this may have worried me, but I know that once "Nanny" leaves, Harper will love me again. For now, it's so nice to watch her cling to her hot babe Grandma as they gallavant around Hawaii together, eating Frozen Yogurt, harvesting sea barnacles and other fun activites.

Having my mum here also makes me realize how much of a kid I still am. I love that she makes me lunch while being sure that all the food groups are on the plate. I love how she bugs me to go to the dentist. I love how she gives me disaproving looks when I finish my 3rd can of Diet Coke for the day. I love that she's making breakfast before I wake up, just like in High School. And most of all, I love how she kisses my cheek before going to bed.

Yup, I'm gonna miss that ol' Brit when she leaves on Tuesday. Kinda wish she could stay forever.

Research Proposal Take Four

Back in the library again. Feeling like a student once more. It's finally time...

After three topic changes, two deferments and a lot of tanning at the beach, I am finally starting my thesis. It's funny how I've been putting it off for so long, but as soon as my mom comes out to Hawaii, I find myself sitting at a desk in academic mode. I guess mothers never lose their "do your homework" influence.

So, here it is. My final research topic (hopefully). I am going to be examining the extent to which satire news (John Stewart/Colbert Report) has influenced the formatting and content of mainstream broadcast news outlets (CNN/FOX). I'm feeling good about this one, and even if I wanted to change topics, I think my thesis advisor would officially disown me as a mentoree. Without his media research omniscience, I would be lost. And for that sake alone, I will plow through this thesis, page by page until I've written 16,000 socially significant words.

And yes, I've snuck a Rockstar Recovery into the library.

Shhh, don't tell my students...

Loves of My Life

That's all.

First (but really second) Birthday!

Harper's first birthday was way better than her original birthday. You know, the one where she was stuck in a cramped, contracting birthing canal for ten hours only to be pushed out into a cold, iritatingly bright room with tons of masked men speaking a mortal, unintelligible language? Hands down, even if you spent your sixteenth birthday eating a dessertless, balogna sandwich lunch alone in a high school bathroom stall, your original birthday was the worst. With this in mind, I knew that Harper's second First birthday would be her best yet, even with minimal effort on my part.

Of course I still wanted to make the day special. I know it's been said that a first birthday is more for the parents than for the baby, but I think Harper had a really awesome day. I mean, just look at her wake-up face. It's like she knew this was her day.


She really loved her Happy Birthday sign. She kept pointing to it and growling (because that's her #1 form of communication...)


She couldn't wait to open her presents, and was definitely stoked (and not the least bit humiliated) by her obnoxiously flashy headband. I tried to make her wear it all day.



I then made Harper her favorite meal for her Birthday dinner: chicken nuggets and peas. Yup, still wearing the headband...


After her gourmet dinner, we had the usual gang over for birthday cake. Harper had the happiest, most genuine smile the entire time we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her. It was as if she knew we were singing just for her. Then we just let her go buck wild on the cake. She made a few unsuccesfull attempts at eating the cake face-first with not hands, but eventually resorted to the hand-to-mouth method. She almost ate the entire piece!

All Hallow's Eve

Harper's first Halloween wasn't too special, thanks to me. At first we were going to dress Harper and Parker in some kind of "duo" costume. Our ideas slowly deteriorated from grandious aspirations of dying our babies' hair hot pink and azure for Dr. Seuss "Thing 1 and Thing 2" to just drawing a sun and a moon on a couple of onesies and calling them "Night and Day". Eventually, probably in an attempt to subdue our 'creatively underacheiving mom' complexes, Lindsay and I decided that first Halloweens weren't that important anways. I mean, then can't even eat candy, after all, so what's the point? Then I found an awesome 5$ baby motorcycle jacket and decided that I would be James Dean, and Harper Baby James Dean. This didn't happen either. Luckily ever-festive Aunt Tawnie came to the rescue by inviting us over for pumpkin carving. Harper just couldn't keep her hands (or mouth) off of the pumpkin innards and kept sneaking handfulls of the orange, stringy goo into her pie hole. As you can see from the following photos, Harper's Halloween costume degraded into a couple of spooky stickers on her cheeks. I'll do better next year. Promise.

Alternative Toilets

Running errands just ain't what it used to be. Like today, for instance, when I had to make the hour-long trek to Honolulu to pick up Harper's Social Security Card. Pre-baby, this feat would have been annoying, but pretty low on the stress-o-meter. Add a one year old baby to the mix? Well, things aren't quite as easy rider as they used to be...

It started with strapping a fussy, hand-foot-and-mouth diseased baby into her car seat, coaxing her to sleep for the first 15 minutes of the car ride. This included many dangerous (and impressively acrobatic) manoevers that required extreme arm contortions to keep Harper's pacifier in her mouth. After she was finaly asleep, I was able to relax for a while, just until the keen pang of a full bladder came creeping up on me. At first it was a faint sensation, but after 45 minutes I was trying to figure out how to cross my legs and do the Pee Dance (you know what I'm talking about) while driving in a straight line. I never figured it out, but somehow I made it to Honolulu and parked on the side of a busy street. Was sweet relief just minutes away? Not exactly. Being that Harper was sick, I didn't have the heart to wake her. I figured she wouldn't sleep for much longer. 20 minutes elapsed, and I had resorted to a strange seat version of the Pee Dance to try and supress my burning bladder (my hands were gripped to the steering wheel, so think a faster version of the Macarena). Finally I couldn't take it anymore. Did I wake up baby and take her into a public bathroom? Nope. I peed in a bowl. That's right. A bowl. You might be thinking that this was a shameful act for me, but in the moment, I was actually really proud of myself. In fact, as soon as I was done, I texted Rivers to let him know how rustic I was. I thought he would be proudest of all. And he was. He sure was... The End.

More Harper n Parker

Lindsay and I have concluded that we spend more waking hours with one another than with our spouses. This, coupled with us sporting similar androgenous hairstyles and the fact that our babies are 6 days apart in age may lead some to suspect that we carried each other's eggs in order to make a modernly progressive family. This is untrue, of course, but it's hard not to feel like a little family of four on our daily outings...