Cathy the Librarian

Okay, so Jeff will yell at me for posting about this, and Sam will be mad at me for not calling her, and maybe this post will suddenly disappear out of embarrassed, but I need to get it out.

Friday after work, I went to pick up Jack at my mom’s house. I went to use the bathroom, and there was blood. I called the doctor (and the doctor said) no more jumping on the bed, or lifting anything or cleaning the house (yeh, like that’ll happen) or moving around too much. He didn’t really go into any details, just said if it gets worse, call the doctor on Monday, and then he hung up. (Without even saying good-bye)

I have continued to bleed since then. I’ve talked to a couple people about it, and they each knew someone who’s bled throughout their pregnancy, including my mom (Sam, you trouble maker). This doesn’t really make me feel much better, even though I know it should. I’m usually highly emotional anyway, so this just aggravates the emotional side of me. I know, logically, that I shouldn’t worry too much and that I should take it easy, but I can’t help it! Plus I keep thinking, was it the DDR? I know I’ve had coffee, not every day, but… Am I not drinking enough water? Was I getting too worked up about summer reading going well? Am I carrying my 38 pound two year old around too much? Could it be the Lamicital (for my seizures), which they say is okay, but do they really know?

So now I have to just hang around, not doing much. I missed the Corn Hill Arts Festival, which would have been hot and a lot of walking. Plus I’m worried now that the doctor won’t let me go to California. Of course, what’s more important, the health of your child or a couple hundred bucks. I’m actually already out about $450 because I was supposed to go on a cruise for the first time IN JANUARY which is when I’m due. 🙁

Well at least I’m mostly healthy. Jack and Jeff are healthy. Hopefully my little (girl) is still healthy too.

Yup. I took the test on Thursday. We estimated that I’m about 4 weeks along, so its still early, but I couldn’t wait to tell the world.

Oh and that’s Jack’s BIG BOY BED in the background! He sleeps all night in there, and he loves it so much that Jeff says throughout the day Jack will jump in bed and just hang out there. Last night we were hanging out in the living room and when he was ready for bed, he just went upstairs by himself and curled up in bed. He’s so cute!

I get so busy, I can’t believe that I’ve neglected the blog for so long! I’ve just been on the go so much! Umm, well mostly crocheting and playing with Jack, but those are important too, aren’t they?

I’ve been trying to take more pictures of the things I’ve made, so pictures will be up soon. The subject of my interest recently is felted jewelry. I made some pins, a couple bracelets and a necklace/belt (for my niece).

There’s also been a lot of work going on in my teen area. As I may have mentioned before, Jenny is my practicum student, and she just finished weeding my teen collection. A LOT of books disappeared. We then moved the graphic novels to a more spacious location. I am very happy with it, and it looks 20X better. I just wish that I didn’t have to get rid of anything that hadn’t gone out in three years to do it. Our library is so small (how small is it :)?) that we’re almost at a one book in/one book out state. That is really awful. Although what is worse is that some people think that we’re plenty big enough. 🙁 I’d love to have some more space to display things, and make it look more like a book store, which as current experts say, is the way to get more books circulating in the library.

Poop.

By the way, Jeff called me yesterday all excited because while Jack was sitting on Jeff’s lap, Jack started grunting, which is the sure sign of poopy. Okay so that’s not the exciting bit. Anyway, Jack looked right at Jeff and said “Poopy!” then got off Jeff’s lap, went into his bedroom, grabbed a diaper and sat on the changing pad. Jeff then had to call me right afterwards.
Awww. How cute is that? … Okay so if I wasn’t a parent, I’d wonder when the cute part was coming, but as a parent all those weird things suddenly become adorable. Parenthood is strange.

Poopy!

I had the day off today. My mom, grandma, sister, Jack and I all went to the Strong Museum. Good grief. We needed all four of us to keep track of Jack! He’s amazingly fast when he wants to be. Plus there was so much to see that he just wandered from place to place and while we were looking at one thing, he would be off on to something new. There were so many neat things to see. They have kept some of the old things that they had before, and added a lot more new things too. The Sesame Street set and Wegmans set was the same. They added a train that the kids could ride, an airplane, a whole reading play center. It was quite a bit of fun, especially since this time I actually had a child with me. Jack had almost too much fun, if that’s possible. We spent about three hours at the museum, and by the end everyone was ready for a nap, or already napping. We hadn’t a chance to go to the Butterfly House so we’ll have to go back sometime.

It was fun watching all the little kids running about having a great time, and their parents hurrying behind them, trying to catch up. I even met one of the moms that comes to my story time for 1 – 2 year olds. Her son couldn’t be bothered with me, but the mom spoke to me for a minute or two. I also saw my choir director’s wife with her children, but I just popped out of a window and said hi, so I don’t think that she recognized me, and I may have scared her.

Overall, a great time, but I think we’ll have to go back, so that we can see more. I spent so much time chasing after Jack, that I didn’t get to see too much… especially upstairs where they have the collections of old toys and dolls. Jack’ll have to be a little older to appreciate that, I think.

Jack is sick, and I feel helpless. He coughs this terrible hacking cough and he’s much quieter than normal. At night I can hear him tossing in his sleep and then HACK HACK HACK he coughs. I don’t know what to do, and all I really want to do is cuddle him and make him all better. I haven’t decided if I should stay home to cuddle with him all day, or if I should just let my mom do it. I know that she’d be fine, since I’m sure that she cuddled me to make me better when I was little, but I’d rather it was me that was doing the cuddling. Oh well.

BTW, I knew that he was really sick when he didn’t really want to eat anything… well except blueberry cobbler, cookies, animal crackers and m&ms… hmm I wonder if he’s just playing with us.

Double BTW. Jack is getting really good at making the sign for more, and he uses it quite often. I think I have a really hungry baby. I’ll pretend its because he’s so tall.

**Update**
Jeff informed me that bananas is spelled B-AN-AN-AS (in the words of Gwen Stephani) not banannas. Doh!… and double DOH now I have the song stuck in my head!

I have now changed them to the proper spelling.

—

This is shameful. Jack will get older and ask me (hmm, he is a boy, maybe he won’t) “Mommy where is my baby book?” I’ll look in those deep blue eyes and say “What baby book?”

My mother-in-law recently gave us Jeff’s baby book. OH MY GAWD! She really is an amazing woman. She kept track of EVERYTHING. Every new food, every step, every new word. I think she even kept track of his BMs (as my grandmother would say) when he started on a new food.

Umm. I’m really sorry Jack, but I haven’t done that. I do recognize how very adorable and fun to be with you are, so here are some fun facts about you.

1) I know that you are going to be a great kid because you are so easy going and quick with a giggle.

2) You have the most adorable laugh and hearing one of us laugh usually gets you laughing.

3) You love the water and splashing in the bathtub, and would spend the whole day in there if you didn’t wrinkle up like a prune.

4) You love making a mess of your food and rubbing it in your face and hair. Personally, I think that its so you get another bath.

5) People have told me that you should be a baby model. I agree, but I could never do that to you.

6) One of the ladies at church told me that when you were in the nursery, you very clearly said banana. Of course now you won’t do it when I ask.

7) Aunt Jenny thinks that you have said her name a couple of times… I’ll let her continue to think that.

8) Your favorite toys aren’t really “toys”. You absolutely love flipping the pages of your board books.

9) Your favorite foods are (in order of importance)

a) bananas – probably makes sense that your first word would be this.
b) graham crackers – grandma has them in a special container and you scream whenever she goes near it.
c) yogurt (key lime flavor) – you literally suck down yogurt
d) pretzel sticks – you scream bloody murder when you see the bag, and on several occasions, you have eaten them double fisted. Daddy doesn’t like when you eat them because you liquify the pretzel and half of it ends up all over the place.
e) cookies – everyone likes cookies, and you are one of those everyones (hmm…)

10) You like giving hugs and on several occasions tried to give me an open mouth kiss on the nose. Adorable and icky at the same time.

11) You make sweet little chirpy noises when you talk… they probably aren’t really “chirpy”, but I don’t know how else to describe them.

12) You put your hand up to your mouth move it back and forth repeatedly so that you can make noises.

13) You go right to sleep when I put you to bed.

14) Whenever you hear music, you feel compelled to dance.

15) You love being spun around in circles when someone is holding you tight. If you aren’t being held tight enough, you hold on to the swinger.

16) You love slides, but hate swings.

17) You love going out so that you can people watch or flirt with the ladies.

18) You know how to use a straw.

19) You like lunging yourself on the cat so you can use her as a pillow.

20) You can walk. YOU CAN WALK! You took your first steps yesterday, and now you’re walking like a real person! It really is amazing to think how fast you’ve grown. Sone you’ll be married with children of your own.
Frightening.

**Update** This post was started on May 29, 2006

I really want to write. I’ve always know this. I was going to get a creative writing degree in college, and was discouraged from doing so (by my parents of course) so I went into journalism, which I didn’t like and changed to English Lit, which was equally, if not more useless. Although the English professors at Geneseo are really neat, so far, I have not had a chance to make use of my knowledge in Elizabethian and Jacobean drama. If you care, here is a list of the English courses I took while at Geneseo:

18th Century British Literature
American Voices: African-American Migration Narrative
Drama: Elizabethan & Jacobean
Exploring the Renaissance
Major Author: Momaday & Silko
Modern American Literature
The Practice of Criticism
Senior Seminar: Sentiment & Scandal
Shakespeare I

I actually have a whole list of my undergrad courses here and my grad courses here.
So far the only really useful course was the Children’s Lit course I took at MCC. Of course it was fun taking weird courses like the Sentiment and Scandal course, in which we read books like Pride and Prejudice and one of the Marquis de Sade’s books. (I’ll have to look at my books to remember which one).

**Update #2** Around here written around May 30, 2006

What renewed my interest in writing were two things:
a BBC original movie about Shakespeare
and an interview in the School Library Journal with the author Lynne Rae Perkins.

I just think that its great to have such an intensity for something. I think I’m pretty intense about being a librarian, but sometimes I don’t get much personal satisfaction from it.

**Update #3** Here is what I actually wrote today, May 31, 2006. My god, is it almost June already?

Great Honk! It’s taken me three days to write this post (I bet you can’t guess why). I have absolutely no idea how I’d write a book.

Oh well, I better just finish this thing (finally) why Jack manages to entertain himself. Damn-it! Already into stuff he should’nt be.

Okay, really quickly. One of the blogs I read, by Patty Uttaro, the director of one of our local public libraries has put forth a challenge (or rather, another librarian blog she reads has)… to read as many books between June 16 – 18 that we can. After that we talk about each one on our own blog. She calls it the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I call it well-nigh a damn miracle if I could even read one book! But anyway, I accept the challenge, and even if I read nothing but children’s books, its still more than I’ve read recently. Plus I really need to get back to reading again.

In closing, I’d better go. Somehow Jack found a tampon and decided that he should give it to me as a gift. What a sweet boy… or something. (I do love him. I just need to find that patience that seems to be missing right now.)

I feel like a horrible mother. I don’t keep track of each time a tooth breaks through, when he starts eating a new food, when he sat up by himself or when he first laughed. I haven’t had any professional pictures taken (and he’s almost 14 months) or taken a lot of videos. I love him so much, but when he gets older, I’m sure he’ll ask why I didn’t keep track of all that information… well, on the otherhand, maybe he won’t, he is a guy after all.

Every day is a new day that is just so much fun now that he’s around. I think I look forward to getting up a lot more. I look in his face and I feel so good, like everything is at peace with the world. What a wonderful feeling.

Still. I can’t even remember if we took pictures at his first birthday, or the first time he unwrapped a present or ate a piece of chocolate cake… hmm, I’m pretty sure Jeff wouldn’t allow that. Jeff’s a little bit of a neat freak when it comes to Jack. The rest of the house could go to pot… which it does somewhat. Not totally. I’m not a complete mess, but anyone who has seen Jeff and I, knows that we aren’t Mr. and Mrs. SQUEEKY Clean. We probably are more likely to resemble… Sorta Clean Gene. Okay so I have no idea what I’m going on about, but we are not the cleanest people in the world.

One trouble with not being neurotically clean is that we have a vomitty cat who vomits in places that we can’t see. Now we have little bugs everywhere. I think that I may kill my cat… okay I probably won’t kill my cat, but I’d like to. We have her on drugs, food that costs more that the food I eat, and she drinks water out of a little fountain. And yet, still she vomits. And I want to kill her.

Ah well. What can we do.

BTW, I really wish that I had more times to read books. What good is a librarian that has no time to read books?

I NEED TO READ!

I couldn’t remember the lyrics to the Looney Tunes cartoon with the frog that was found in a box. I thought that the lyrics were something like good night or good bye, so that they would be appropriate now, but then I found out that the lyrics are HELLO. Damn. Well, I used them anyway.

Hello! (GOOD NIGHT) ma baby, Hello! (GOOD NIGHT) Ma honey, Hello! (GOOD NIGHT) ma ragtime gal.

So GOOD NIGHT!

Nine days until I turn… 27. I know this may not seem a big deal to some people, but to me, okay so its not a big deal. But really, I’m actually pretty satisfied with my life. Okay, so I’d like it if I had more friends (that actually called me) or that it would be easier to lose weight (okay so skim Starbucks does not equal low calories) and it might be nice if work was closer/I made more money/didn’t have to break my butt working, and I wished that I’d never had a seizure, but otherwise, I’m satisfied.

Some things that make me happy right now:

1) I love love love my son. He giggle when he sees me, cries when I walk away and rests his head on my shoulder. I love when he sleeps on me, gets all sweaty and his hair gets curly. I love when I take him to choir practice and he sings with my father-in-law. I love that he has tons of toys and he would rather look at his books. I love that he sleeps all night long. I love that he makes my mom happpy.

2) I love my husband. Granted he can be a pain in the ass, but he really cares about me and that is so cool. He doesn’t try to understand everything about me, but that’s okay because I know that I’m weird. And just because he loves me, that doesn’t mean that he gives in to my every whim. Sure, I’d like it if he would let me buy every purse I want, every pair of shoes, and he wouldn’t bitch when I buy fancy Starbucks coffee, but if he did, then it wouldn’t really be who he is. Funnily enough, that doesn’t stop me from buying purses, shoes and coffee. Anyway, Jeff is funny, he has strong hands that are very assuring and protecting, he makes me aware of lots of things going on in the world and he loves: Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, George Burns, Gracie Allen and Laurel & Hardy. How many people can say that their husband does an awesome Stan Laurel impersonation?

3) I have a brand new car and house… I HAVE a BRAND NEW car and house. We drive home (since I can’t drive my nice new car right now because of the seizure) and I’m still amazed that this is my house. Its not clean very often, what with a 13 month old, and both of us working full-time (and Jeff having to pick me up), but that’s okay.

4) I love my job. Everyone’s nice, most of the regulars are nice, the kids and teens are great, and a lot of times it doesn’t feel like work. This is really important, because sometimes, when I realize how much work I really do have, it makes me faint. Don’t be fooled by the old woman with bun, thick glasses, millions of cats, likes to read stereotype librarians have. Being a librarian is a lot of work. Thank god that I love working with people and encouraging young people to read. Otherwise, I’d probably slam my head in a car door. Oh I’m positive that there are other jobs that are more stressful, more work, more of a pain-in-the-butt, but (tee-hee) it can still be overwhelming.
Librarians need to order books, plan programs, conduct tours, encourage reading, balance budgets, fix toilets (yes that’s right) perform CPR (you heard me right) make sure no one is drinking beer in the bathroom (yup) and make sure that no one gets hurt. Still, I love being a librarian.
Speaking of which, I need to get up early and go to work. Good night!

Am I depriving my child because I don’t want to give him toys with batteries?
For Christmas, I gave him:
– a big blanket for the floor
– a stuffed Eeyore from Disneyland
– a turtle puppet
– jammies
– blocks (not wooden, they’re plastic with little things in them)
– stained glass coloring book that we can color for him and stick in the windows
I didn’t want to go crazy, since he’s just an infink, but he does like opening presents, and I am his mother.
My mother-in-law is big into giving Jack toys that take batteries, but I’d just rather give him something simple: a doll with a rattle, a squeeky thing, a book. In fact, last night he got the biggest kick out of a styrofoam take out box.
My mother-in-law does give him books too, and most of the toys she gives him are “educational” so I guess its not that bad.
I also think that giving a child a book as a toy will give them a life long love of reading. And I’m all about the reading.
I found it really sad that today I told some teens that they could play Clue and they said… What’s Clue? Teens don’t play board games anymore do they? Everything has to be played on the computer. (Gawd I sound like an old woman!)
It really really scares me when we watch tv and Jack stares at it, fascinated. Entranced, like there’s nothing better in the world. Then it occurs to me that sometimes I’m like that too.