Law(yer Mama) Review

The Secret to Obtaining a Playstation 3, 1 Month Before Christmas

When the Play Station 3 came out, people were lining up outside of stores and camping over night to get one.  T and I are far too lay to do that. Plus, I'm not a big fan of camping unless I have running water and a toilet pretty close by.  I have the world's smallest bladder under the best of circumstances.  If you tell me I can't go to the bathroom unless I'm willing  to squat behind a parking lot tree planter, it's a guarantee that I'll feel the need to pee at least every hour.

Clearly waiting in line was not an option.

So, T had a brilliant idea.  It wasn't like his usual "brilliant ideas" like "wouldn't it be great if we put Cheez Whiz on top of this pork loin?"  It was truly a brilliant idea.

He started calling stores in rural areas.  He hit pay dirt at a WalMart in McCook, NE, not far from where his parents live.  They had two in stock.  They took his credit card over the phone and shipped it out the next day.

One month before Christmas, we scored the hottest item on every Christmas list, You can bet we'll be trying this again in the future!

This post is an Extreme Toy Shopping blog blast sponsored by Hasbro and PBN.

Highlights High Five Magazine Gets a High Five From Me

In elementary school, I always looked forward to the day we got our Highlights magazines. I eagerly read every story, tried out the crafts, and solved all the puzzles. I loved, loved, LOVED the hidden picture puzzles. Highlights day was always a great day at school.

Highlights has been around for 60 years now. You know that anything with the sort of staying power that can interest so many generations of children has to be special. So when PBN offered me the chance to review High Five, a new Highlights magazine for children ages 2 to 6, I jumped at the chance. I couldn't wait to see if High Five was as wonderful as the Highlights magazine I remember from my childhood.

High Five didn't disappoint me. I received the first 3 issues from 2008. Each issue contains four sections: (1) Let's Read Together, with short stories, poems, and wonderful illustrations; (2) Let's Puzzle It Out, with fun games and age appropriate hidden picture puzzles; (3) Let's Do it, with crafts, recipes for kids, and fun activities; and (4) Bonus Pull-out Pages.

Hollis, my 3 year old, and Holden, my just-turned-2 year old, loved the magazines. The Bonus Pages were a huge hit. The January 2008 magazine Pull-out Pages featured numbered egg puzzle pieces that you cut out and put together as you read one of the short stories in the magazine, Little Round Hen. H & H are currently obsessed with puzzles and wanted to repeat Little Round Hen over and over again. I even sucked it up and helped because I love that it helps them understand what they're hearing.

The stories were also a huge hit. One issue contains a short story with Hollis's favorite topic of all time: construction equipment. He's been bringing the magazine to bed for 2 weeks now so he can page through it before he falls asleep and when he wakes up in the morning.

I can't say enough about High Five. At just under $30 a year, a subscription to this magazine is definitely on my gift list for the boys. It will make a wonderful Easter present. Anything that gets them this excited about reading is worth every penny.

PBN is also having a Blog Blast tomorrow where you can win a free year's subscription to High Five or Highlights. Go check out how you can play!

What Quality Time?

Warning, warning! Rampant, unchecked sarcasm ahead!

This morning I had to wait in line to use the ATM near my office. There was a guy there servicing it, he swore he'd be done in 30 seconds (he lied), and it was too damn hot to walk a block to the next ATM. I'm lazy. Anyway, an older couple (maybe mid-sixties, clearly tourists) was in line behind me. As I was fishing my debit card out of my purse, I dropped a boat load of my narcissistic Lawyer Mama magnets all over the sidewalk. As you know, they have an adorable picture of newborn Hollis on them. The apparently nice couple helped me pick up my crap and the female of the couple asked about Hollis.

While the technician in front of us took as long as humanly possible to refix the ATM face plate, the woman proceeded to tell me about her daughter and her three grandsons. She was perfectly nice and then for some apparent reason she kept rambling on and told me that her daughter was staying home with them instead of working and that her children would thank her one day.

Okey dokey then. You have a nice day too then.

In the past, I've faced criticism for being a working mom. I don't mean "working" in the sense of prostitution, but I do work outside of the home full time. Comments I've heard include:

One day you'll realize the time that you've wasted.

Your children will look back and wonder why you didn't love them enough to stay
home.

And my personal favorite:

Being a mom and staying home with your children is every woman's biological
destiny. Why would you deny God's plan for you?

So, in honor of the thoughtless grandmother I encountered this morning, and because I always take these comments very seriously, I've decided to share what our family does with all of the quality family time that we do have:

We sit around and watch TV.

We park the kids in front of the TV and do our own thing so that we can pretend we never had them.

(And yes, I'm fulfilling my destiny as a bad mother.)

This post is brought to you in conjunction with Parent Bloggers Network & EA’s Wii-Boogie, a family gaming experience. Shake it. Sing it. Create it. I'm sure this post wasn't quite what they had in mind, but I'm feeling bitchy today.

And please don't take this post seriously. I may be a snarky bitch, but I'm not a bad mother. I am 75% certain that both my kids will graduate from high school some day and still be speaking to me when they reach adulthood.

Isn't Breastfeeding Gross?

Put down the torches and pitchforks and read the post before you string me up, OK?

PBN is having a fantabulous Blog Blast, cataloguing all the stupid questions we've been asked as pregnant women or new moms. It was hard to choose because I've been asked a few doozies.

Question: "Are you sure you aren't having twins?"
Answer: "No, I'm just a cow."

Question (Noting my obvious pregnancy and my child under the age of one): "Do you know what causes that? Because I can help you out if you don't."
Answer: "Why yes, I do know what causes that. I'm just trying to live up to my white trash roots, thanks."

Question: "What are you having?"
Answer: "Um, a puppy. What do you think?"

Question (upon hearing that I'm having another boy): "I guess you'll have to have another one then, won't you? So you can buy all the girly stuff?"
Answer: "No, actually, we've decided to raise our second boy as a girl so my life can have the meaning that only lace frilled, pink onesies can provide."

But my absolute favorite was "Isn't breastfeeding gross? You aren't going to do that are you?"

What I actually said: "Um, yeah, I think I'm going to give it a try."

What I wish I'd said: "So that explains why your kids are so stupid."

I don't actually think that people who don't breastfeed or aren't able to breastfeed are intellectually harming their children. C'mon! You know me! Or at least some of you do. I've talked about my breastfeeding woes before. With Hollis it was a struggle. Even though he was born at 37 weeks, the IUGR (that's intrauterine growth retardation) rendered him unable to suck. And I have flat nipples.

Hold it, was that too much information? Great. Now every perv in the blogosphere is going to find my site doing inappropriate Google searches.

But anyway, I nursed Holden quite successfully in private. In public, I constantly felt like I had to justify myself to every Tom, Dick & Harry who came by to gawk at my boobs. And boy do the gawkers come out when you are showing absolutely none of your breast, but there's a baby there who is obviously nursing. Even when draped in a blanket. C'mon, people! You can see more boob in People magazine!

So what are the worst questions you've been asked as a new mom or when pregnant? Don't you wish you could have just handed them this? Or at least had the book handy to smack them in the head?

If you'd like to play, go check out the rules at PBN. PBN will pick two random winners of an iPod Shuffle and an autographed book. I'm all about the free stuff.

Worrying Makes Me A Mom

I worried about Hollis constantly when he was an infant.

There were problems with the pregnancy from the beginning and we honestly didn't think we'd make it beyond the first trimester. My progesterone was way too low, the fetus measured too small for its gestational age, my hormones were so messed up I got a false positive on the AFP and had to go through an amniocentesis to rule out Down Syndrome.

Only when we got the amnio results back did we truly let ourselves think that we might actually be having a baby. We'd been disappointed too many times before. Still, I can't say I was all that surprised when other problems arose. First came the insulin dependent gestational diabetes. That resulted in four shots a day, constant monitoring of my blood sugar, a special diet, and two biophysical profiles and non-stress tests every week. I practically lived in the radiology department of the hospital.

We thought that might be the end of the problems. I mean what else could possibly go wrong? Well, a prematurely deteriorating placenta, of course. It happens gradually throughout every normal pregnancy, but mine was going way to fast. Then came the oligohydramnios and the Intrauterine Growth Retardation. My little guy stopped growing. He miraculously made it to 37 weeks and then was delivered by emergency c-section.

All of Hollis's problems in utero may explain the problems he had later on. Hollis had severe reflux. It took us awhile to figure out what was going on. I mean, all babies spit up, right? And lots of babies are fussy and colicky, right? When our pediatrician suggested reflux, we kind of hemmed and hawed at her offer of medication. Then the power puking started. Every single meal came up. Almost all of it. Every time. And Hollis started arching away from me when I fed him. Breast or bottle, it didn't matter. He screamed while eating and after eating and when he was hungry, which was all the time because of the puking.

Hollis started taking Zantac. It didn't work.

Our pediatrician suggested a milk protein intolerance. We tried some soy formula. It didn't work.

Hollis stopped eating.

We had to carefully monitor and record exactly how much my little guy drank and peed and pooped. After a horrible day when Hollis was 2 months old and had only taken in 2 ounces of fluid the entire day, we made an emergency trip to the on-call doctor at our pediatrician's office. He had me feed Hollis in front of him. Hollis ate one ounce of formula & then refused to continue, screaming his little head off. The asshat doctor then suggested that the baby sensed I was "uptight" and I was causing his problems. He told us "babies don't refuse to eat. They just don't." So therefore it must be something I was doing wrong.

Right, genius. Babies never refuse to eat.

I immediately took matters into my own hands, calling every pediatric gastroenterologist within 100 miles to get the earliest appointment possible. Tests were run, formula was changed, medications were added. Nothing worked. Every day was a fight to get just enough fluid into my baby to keep him from losing weight or at least keep him hydrated. By this time, even the sight of my breast or a bottle caused frantic screaming and thrashing. Hollis was 4 months old.

When Hollis began to drop on the growth chart (he was only in the 3rd percentile when he was born) and was regularly refusing more than 6 ounces of formula a day, he was hospitalized. His pediatric gastroenterologist wanted to run more exhaustive tests on him and have him evaluated for a feeding tube. A feeding tube. For my 4 month old baby.

Holding Hollis down while they put in his IV and took blood was the worst thing ever. The next time the technician came by to get more blood I made my husband stay and I went for a 15 minute walk, shaking the entire time. But I didn't leave the hospital for a week. I slept in the chair beside Hollis's crib, snuck showers in his bathroom, and had T bring me clothes. I wasn't leaving my baby there alone.

Hollis had every test known to man. I can't even remember them all, but the one that scared me the most was the head ultrasound. Why? Because his head size wasn't even on the growth chart, he was considered slightly microcephalic. The doctors didn't have many answers for us beyond a severe feeding aversion caused by reflux. (Well, there was another scary problem, but I don't want to go into it here.) The doctors told us it's a lesser known complication of reflux and not rare by any stretch of the imagination. (So much for the genius doctor who told us that babies never refuse to eat.) Hollis's doctors put him on a special amino acid based formula that had to be ordered through a medical supply company, at an outrageous price, and it still didn't help.

Hollis just didn't eat.

We had weight checks every week. If Hollis's weight dropped too low, a feeding tube would be inserted. We worked with a speech pathologist specializing in feeding disorders in infants, including food aversions. It didn't help. We latched on to the hope the GI gave us that Hollis might do fine once he switched to more solids. His digestive system was more mature and he might not associate solids with that white liquid that made him feel so bad. Once Hollis started solids, we would start seeing a pediatric nutritionist to help maximize his caloric intake.

We were lucky. Hollis loved food. We were actually forced to accelerate his intake of solid foods, going against conventional wisdom, because once Hollis discovered solids he refused formula completely. He weaned himself at 8 months and REFUSED to drink anything even resembling formula again. But he was eating.

At 12 months, I spent more than a month teaching him to drink milk again. We started with his beloved apple juice (maximizing calories, you know) and added a tiny bit of milk, increasing the amount each day until he was drinking milk. It worked.

By 14 months Hollis had stopped throwing up completely and by 16 months he was off of his medications. My little guy's horrible nightmare was over.

So what does all of this have to do with what makes me a mom? I'm a mother because I worried the whole time.

I'm going to have to say "we" worried because my husband was an equal player. He's a good dad because he worried about Hollis and he worried about me. But we never gave up. It simply wasn't an option. We didn't take the easy route and have a feeding tube inserted. (Of course, you can bet it would have happened if my little guy had needed it.) We kept trying, and tried some more. We did everything we could to make sure that Hollis ate and gained weight. And somehow we didn't make his entire life or our entire lives about Hollis and food.

Looking back on Hollis's first year, I wonder if I have some inkling of how the mother of a child with an eating disorder feels. Anorexia and bulimia in a teenager may create a far different parent-child dynamic, but I think some of it is the same. I felt helpless and no matter what I did, I could not force my child to eat. And once he ate, I couldn't make him keep it down. And, of course, there's the worry.

Still, I think I've blocked a lot of the fear and frustration from that first year out of my mind. It's easier to remember how sweet Hollis was and how he was always happy and smiley, unless he was eating. I realize that many parents face far worse with their children. Our problems with Hollis pale by comparison. But still, I think nothing makes you understand that you are a MOTHER more than worrying about your child.

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This is part of the "What Makes You a Mother?" Blog Blast by the Parent Bloggers Network and Light Iris. Head over and check it out. If you'd like to participate, you can find the information here.

My Pantyhose Are Down Around My Ankles!

When I first started practicing law, I always obeyed the First Commandment of the female lawyer's dress code: Thou Shalt Always Wear Pantyhose In Court, even if it's 105 degrees outside. It made sense to me. Who wants to risk pissing off a crotchety old judge with antiquated views about women and decorum? Plus, a good foundation garment never hurt anyone, right? Right?

Ha! Tell that to someone who hasn't walked all over D.C. in a suit in the Summer. And crowded into a packed Metro car with somewhat, um, fragrant people. When it's 95 degrees. Oh and really friggin humid!

Still, for the first few years my panty hose were my support system, literally and figuratively. If I was scared to death going into a hearing, at least I knew I was wearing the right uniform. And fitting in is half the battle right? Right?

I think I finally got over that when I was pregnant with Hollis. I had a court hearing in June in D.C. I struggled into my maternity underwear, fought the D.C. traffic, and then hiked half a mile to the courthouse in 95 degree weather.

On the way there I noticed I was having a bit of a problem. My maternity pantyhose were slowly rolling down my body from the waist. I kept grabbing them and hiking them back up, but it was futile. I barely made it through security and into the restroom before the hose was around my ankles. Boy, did I get some looks in that bathroom! Anyway, I had a great hearing, minus the required leg wear, and finally freed myself of the yoke of the foundation garment. You couldn't pay me enough to wear hose these days.

Even in court.

I'm such a rebel.

This post is part of the Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast for Sk*rt, a new "social bookmarking" website for women. Our topic was "What Are You Hiding Under Your Skirt?" Clearly, it's not my pantyhose anymore!

Now I've already heard some digs about Sk*rt, some speculation that it's too girly and frivolous. But I see nothing wrong with reading about make-up, shoes, my weight, and world events. I mean, I can climb trees with the best of the boys, but I'm not going to do it in my new celery green peep toe wedges.

I can win a nifty prize if you go over to Sk*rt and vote for this post. I hate to pimp myself out, but I'll get over it!