But liquor is quicker

I love Keane. They are absolutely in my top 5 favorite bands of all time. Keane's first album is still one of the few I can listen to start to finish and love every song. I had the chance to see them two summers ago when they toured with the Killers as the opening act.

Sunday I got to see them again in Philadelphia. At the Tower Theater. Which is my new favorite concert venue because, dear blog readers... It has A BAR. Not cheap shit, either - Top Shelf, my friends. And you can take drinks to your seat. And a double SoCo and Lime is the same price as a beer, but you seriously get like 4x the alcohol.

So I got to sit with my hubby and one of our very best couple-friends with a very large SoCo and Lime and just get buzzed in my 7th row seats and watch an amazing show. Keane is a great live band. You can tell they love what they do. They love their fans. I love their music. It was heaven. Really, I can only describe the whole thing as a spiritual experience.

Middle Ages

The fact that I didn't even really blog about my own birthday seems to illustrate how sort of pretty boring it was. I ended up sharing my birthday with Lisey's friend-party, which was fine with me. I couldn't think of any exciting plans, so it gave me an excuse to just eat the chocolate Volcano at Rainforest Cafe and be okay with that.

I have to admit this past week I am feeling really old. I am now solidly in my mid-thirties. My child-bearing days are behind me and am well into child-rearing now. The biggest excitement in my marriage is that we are getting ready to take out a home equity loan in order to re-do the bathrooms. Maybe even some landscaping. This has given us more to talk about than we have had in months.

I am not complaining. I love my life. I just can't help but feel that to an outside observer, it really must appear quite ordinary. But right now I am listening to Lisey in the bedroom doggy-piling Erik in order to wake him up, and it's making me smile.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!!

I knew you were going to be something special even before you were born. I went into labor with you during a lunar eclipse, so I figured that was some sort of sign.

You were such an easy baby. My labor with you was only 3 hours long. I spent an hour of that in bed at home trying to decide if I was really in labor. I spent the next hour soaking in the bathtub trying to get comfortable waiting for PopPop to arrive and watch Marc. I spent the next thirty minutes driving to the hospital.

The final thirty minutes was spent mostly just checking in and trying to convince the triage nurse that I was actually in labor. By the time I got a room and the midwife arrived to check my progress, I was ready to push. Three pushes later you arrived. My water never even broke. You surfed into this world. I never even broke a sweat.

The first thing I noticed is that you had the longest fingernails I'd ever seen on a baby. I don't have any good newborn pictures of you because you'd scratched yourself up so much in the womb with your talons. You were a very serious baby. You actually managed to nurse with a scowl on your face. You were content just to be carried around in the sling, watching what was going on around you.

But as the above picture demonstrates, you quickly learned to love the good things in life. I am not exaggerating when I say that "coffee" was one of your first words. Despite my best efforts not to gender stereotype you, you've grown up to be the girliest girl in the universe. You wear make up more often than I do. I don't think you own a piece of clothing that is not pink, or sparkly, or decorated with a kitty cat. You are truly a princess.

Today you turned 4. I can hardly believe how the time has flown. You light up my world every day with your smile and your laughter. You are my joy and my treasure. I love you Lisey.

Interestingly enough, my husband was simultaneously posting on the same topic in this post.

Mommy Milk

Sacred Sister has inspired me with this post which is joining with the many proud women posting their beautiful breastfeeding boobies across the blogging universe. I am still in search of a decent picture to post here of me and my milk guzzling beasties (as I called them during their nursing years).

During the early posts of this blog, I went by the name Jersey Cow because I was still nursing my daughter. I posted about weaning her. That was about two years ago now. My husband used to refer to me as a lactivist because I was always telling anyone who would listen about the joys and benefits of momma milk.

You name it, I probably breastfed there. I breastfed in restaurants, book stores, libraries, malls, coffee shops, national parks, civil war battlefields, rotary meetings, and even the courthouse (I was stuck in trial so my husband brought the baby to me during my breaks). I once breastfed my son while walking through Timpanogos Cave. By the time my daughter was born, I'd gotten pretty good at it, and I used to actually breastfeed her while I was making dinner for my son at the same time.

One of my proudest moments was when my daughter got her first baby doll. Instead of giving the baby a bottle, she would hand it to me for mommy milk. I thought that was wonderful. I hope that stays with her.

And so let me shout a hell yeah in support of proud nursing mommas everywhere. Don't be shy. Babies need to eat!! And I have to selfishly admit that when I started to lose my baby weight, I was most pleased to find out I got an extra 350 calories every day for doing nothing other than sitting on the couch, watching tv while holding my cutie pie baby and lactating.

I'm off in search of beautiful boobie pictures...

Feel the burn

The pole burn, that is. Last night I went into a spin... well, it was just WRONG and I have a red mark starting at my wrist half way up to my elbow. It is quite painful, yet oh so awesome to be able to say... I have pole burn!!

Oh, and I definitely love my black shoes the best of all the shoes I've tried out in class so far: