monday blahs, and baby stuff

This whole cold and snowy thing is just not cool. Dude, it was 70 two days ago! And now with the snow! How is that okay? Seriously. I want to file a complaint.

I'm also really tired. (Does that seem to be a theme in my posts of late?) Got to sleep really late last night. Sigh.

My mom brought back some baby stuff from Hawaii. A cute little bib and a cozy blanket with turtles on. Awww! I also got some misc. baby items from misc. friends. Yay. :)

While I was walking with mom the other day we saw several different examples of baby-carrying slings on women. It's pretty cool how well-engineered they are these days -- same goes for baby-backpacks (or whatever they're really called *g*) and front-carriers, which used to be called snuglies but apparently now are called Baby Bjorn (both of which are from brand names).

Anyway, I kept seeing them and going, "I want that one!" and then going, "I want a baby to put in that one!" :) I think the one we saw at the peace rally was this one which looked quite well-padded on the mom's shoulder to reduce strain. The other one I liked actually looked like the mom had just taken a piece of fabric and fashioned her own sling out of it. But it looked pretty comfortable for her and baby. I've always been into slings for carrying babies; they just seem more natural than those detachable carseats or the backpacks. Plus a sling makes it really easy to breastfeed discreetly.

Note to self: don't read the parts of the pregnancy books that talk about how to deal with miscarriage- or stillbirth-related grief. How dumb can you get?

Last night I read in a couple of books that by this point in development, baby can distinguish tastes and develops a sweet tooth. Fetuses at this point have been observed doubling their rate of swallowing amniotic fluid after mom eats sweet foods (and grimacing and closing their mouths if mom eats sour foods). This is dangerous knowledge for me. ;) And I thought it had been my imagination that chickpea is responding more vigorously when I eat chocolate lately.... ;)

Bini gets annoyed if he's snuggling against my tummy and chickpea kicks him. ;) It's only going to get worse as my amount of available lap decreases! Poor kitty. ;)

With the war looking like it might stretch on and on, I've been looking up names that mean "peace" or variations thereof. I'm annoyed when one source claims that a name means one thing and another source has a different definition (or doesn't have that name at all). Who am I supposed to believe?? Especially when a website gives a particular name as Hebrew, but my "Hebrew baby names" book doesn't have that name at all. :P There are a few "peace" names that all the sources agree on, though. I'll keep looking.

By the way, if you haven't voted in my baby pool yet, obviously you still have time! :) Go to http://www.expectnet.com , create an account, then enter "Chickpea-Pool" in the "Game Name" box.

'Nuff baby stuff for one day? Or at least one post. ;)

The Fairy strikes again

This week has been declared LJ Fairy Week, also known as "Buy Someone A Paid Account Week." The LJ-Fairy strikes without warning, anonymously! Free-account users mysteriously discover they have more icons, the ability to make polls, access to their friendsfriends pages! Meanwhile the wonderful livejournal people who work so hard to bring us this great service get some more cash to pay for things like server upkeep, webhosting, and so forth! It's a win-win situation all 'round!

Dude, it only costs $5 to buy someone a paid account (for two months). (And you don't *have* to do it anonymously, it's just kind of more fun that way.) Why not go do it right now? Make someone's day! It's Be An LJ Fairy Week! :)

By the way, this handy little link will show you which of the people on your friends-list have free accounts, which have paid accounts that are expiring soon, and which have paid accounts that aren't expiring any time soon. A good tool to use when you want to play LJ-Fairy but can't decide whom to buy for. :)

monday evening misc

Hee, my chiropractor says she waved to me at the anti-war rally on Saturday. But I didn't see her.

musesfool and blunaris journaled about the start of the baseball season. I was going to do same last night, when I watched the first official game (Rangers/Angels), but decided to wait till after Red Sox Opening Day.

( baseball stuff )

Just got an email from someone who found my Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit! site and wanted to whine about why it says that real-people-fic is evil and wrong. I wrote back politely (I hope) to say that I don't want to get into that argument because it's pointless; neither of us is going to change her mind. RPF is Just Plain Wrong in my opinion and it's one of the very few things that I'm not willing to reconsider or cut any slack. (Please don't flame me over this; it's my opinion and I'm sticking by it but I'm not going to argue it with anyone. BT,DT.)

In case I haven't been depressing enough lately, here's an article from the Washington Post about some US soldiers who fired on a van containing fifteen Iraqi civilians, killing ten of them, including five children. And here's a post from Plaidder explaining why it's wrong to castigate the individual soldiers but also wrong to just shrug and say, "It's war, these things happen."

In other depressing news:
* according to this article from The Independent, "the Pentagon confirmed it was authorising use of "non-lethal" gases of the type used in last October's disastrous Moscow theatre siege – a move that has already provoked accusations of hypocrisy by a country that claims to be at war to prevent chemical weapons being used."
* The New York Times reports that soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division have named two of their outpost camps after major oil companies Exxon and Shell.
* The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights release a report on the erosion of civil liberties in the US since 9/11/01. (The link goes to a PDF of the full report. To read just the summary, in plain HTML, go here.)

And just in case you haven't had your full daily dosage of throat-choking, stomach-churning irony, Yahoo News reports that fleeing Iraqi civilians gave food to US marines who had been rationing their meals due to being cut off from their supply routes.

OK, enough depressing shit for one day. Or at least one post. ;) Time to go eat some dinner, stare blankly at some TV, and fall into bed. Man, am I tired. Note to self: go to bed early tonight. Choir rehearsals start up again tomorrow night, and you want to be at least moderately fresh. Well, okay, let's not be overly optimistic; you want to be conscious. ;)