It's almost Fall, let's watch TV!

Finally, after a week of 185 degrees I am finally comfortable. Maybe it's because school starts today or maybe its because Mother Nature is gearing up for the Fall TV lineup, either way I'm not complaining because Fall is coming!

Fall typically reminds me of school supplies, television shows and crunchy leaves. Since I'm trying to pretend that school isn't actually happening, I think I'll make a list of all of my favorite television shows. These are in no particular order ...

1. The Cosby Show - (I used to love watching this show with my mom and Lucas. Every Thursday we would watch the Cosby Show, Family Ties and CHeers together. We would pile into mom's bed or room and all watch and eat dinner together with our tv trays. Lucas had a Duke's of Hazzard tray and mine was Strawberry Shortcake. Mom still has them.)
2. Family Ties
3. The Facts of Life - (this was not the best show ever, but I loved it! I wanted to be just like Joe, although I never really wanted a motorcycle.)
4. The A-Team
5. Cheers
6. 21 Jump Street - (But only the Johnny Depp episodes because Booker was just lame!)
7. Seinfeld
8. Friends - (I got to see the show taped live once ... I'm pretty sure I cried when they introduced the cast members.)
9. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - (when Greg and I first moved in together, I asked him to record to the show for me because I had class or something. All he had to do was press record, but instead he decided that he would leave the tv on and since he didn't want to listen to the show, he put it on mute. This was before TiVo. So, he recorded the entire show on mute and when I went to watch it there was no sound ... we almost broke up that night. I like to think that I was the better person for forgiving him, but really he was the better person for not leaving me after learning of my crazy obsession with a fake tv show about vampires)
10. Felicity - (Greg hates this show! He hates that they all whisper and I have to say that is pretty weird)
11. Arrested Development - (Seriously one of the funniest shows ever on television. I wish it were still on.)
12. Scrubs - the musical episode is genius!
    
13. Sex and the City - (minus the last season because the Russian dancer was gross and the show got depressing)
14. The Office - (I watch the US version, not because I don't think the UK version is good or probably even better than the US version, but mostly because I can't understand a word that Ricky Gervais says and then I get embarrassed and Greg makes fun of me.)
15. 30 Rock - (Doesn't everyone relate to Liz Lemon ... the episode where she goes to some new NYC club opening and she feels uncomfortable so she tries to chat with some people and she says "So... do you guys watch Heroes? I like the Japanese guy" and they all look at her like she's crazy.)
16. Alias - (I still haven't seen the final season, but the show is still quite entertaining! I love Sydney Bristow. She secretly made me want to become some sort of spy or FBI person ... I think it could work as long as they don't expect me to travel or shoot anyone or use weapons. Otherwise I think I'd be awesome!)
17. Veronica Mars - (Another show that was cancelled well before it's time. Who doesn't love a sassy, teenage super sleuth who quotes The Big Lebowski and has a dog named "back-up"? Even Greg watched this show with me)
18. Gilmore Girls - (Another show that Greg wishes I never discovered. He says it's because they have this weird "lalalala" song that they play between scenes, but really I think he likes it.)

Hair Washing and Finger Joints

I haven't had too much to say these days ... mostly just trying to get by. School officially starts today and I'm just not there yet. I'm not ready. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready because to be honest, if you couldn't tell, I don't really enjoy law school.

I am going on early maternity leave this week. My last day of work will be on Thursday. I'm excited! I've been working for EdVoice for almost 3 years, it's going to be strange not driving here next week, but I'm seriously not complaining because I'm really tired!

BHR is taking a lot out of me lately... This morning was hair washing day, probably one of my least favorite things to do during the week. I got so tired blow-drying my hair this morning, I had to take a break! Hopefully the early break from work will help the energy level, but I'm not counting on it.

Recently I discovered a new pain ... last week I woke up in the middle of the night and my fingers were super sore! I have come to learn that my joints are getting looser and my fingers are a little more swollen and my knuckles hurt. Apparently this is normal and it will hopefully go away once BHR arrives or shortly thereafter, but honestly I definitely wasn't expecting pregnancy to hurt my finger joints!

Gross picture of gross looking food!

I was reading my usual gossip columns and I came across this picture of a new "hot spot" restaurant that serves eggs or something ... I decided this was one of the grossest looking meals I have ever seen and think that this restaurant should probably do a much better job at advertising how tasty their food is ... that looks like a bunch of stuff that my cat just threw up! Blech!

The brocoli stuff might be tasty, but it's sitting next to a pile of weird colored, already chewed eggs ... not good in my book.

34 Weeks ... and we're back to round fruits!

BHR is 34 weeks today. He weighs 4 3/4 lbs, which is about as much as a cantaloupe, and is almost 18 inches long. If BHR were born today he'd generally do fine. He might have to stay in the hospital a bit longer, but in the long run he'd be okay. Phew ... we're almost there!

Meet my new tasty sangwich ... the picture doesn't do it justice.

We've been watching the olympics all weekend, so today I decided I wanted some chinese food. However, I didn't actually want to make the effort to go and get some and I didn't actually know what I wanted, so I gave up on the chinese food idea and went into the kitchen to search for some inspiration...

I came up with the tastiest sangwich EVER! I'm not usually a huge "egg" person necessarily, but this was some tasty stuff! Whole wheat roll, kona honey mustard, lettuce, pepper jack cheese, turkey bacon, and one egg with salt and pepper. MMMmmmmmmm ... meet my new sangwich.
Oh tasty sangwhich, how I enjoyed eating you with my giant glass of apple juice. How you made me so happy and filled my tum tum with tasty goodness. Thank you tasty egg sangwich. Thank you for making my insides melt with yumminess.

Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone ... it's about spanking.

I preface this post by saying, if you believe in spanking, don't read this. It's not meant to offend anyone, it's my own personal views on spanking children.

Last night in my Juvenile Law class we had a very interesting discussion. It was about corporal punishment and whether or not there should be a law that a bans corporal punishment, or spanking your child. Hopefully this post does not offend anyone, but here's my take of the discussion that occurred ...

I was overwhelmed by the number of people who were against a law that banned spanking. Not everyone in the class spoke out, but the majority of students were pro-spanking, or they were not for spanking themselves, but they did not want to tell other people that they couldn't spank their child.

As someone who is about to become a mother I found this discussion incredibly interesting ... I was not raised with spankings as a child, so I have never thought about spanking my own children. I felt naive as I sat and listened to my classmates rationals about why spanking is okay ...I assumed that being in a law class most students would agree with me, I was very wrong.

One student felt that creating a law would not change behavior, to which I thought in my mind, why are you in law school? Another student felt like if his child ran across the street he should be able to teach him that it's not okay without the risk of being turned over to CPS. Others said that it's a cultural thing and that you can't tell a culture that it's not okay to do something ... they are entitled to their opinions and I kept my mouth shut (mostly because I had to pee and I wanted class to end early and also because I was so shocked and amazed at what some people were saying).

The whole time this discussion is going on books were being passed around the classroom. The books contained very graphic photos of children who were sexually assaulted or who were beaten by their parents. The pictures were so disturbing that some people wouldn't look at them and just continued to pass them along. Please don't take my statements to mean that people who spank their children are on the same level as people who sexually assault or who beat their children, but the discourse among my classmates was still shocking to me. Where do we draw the line?

The thing that I have a hard time with is this ... nowhere else in our lives is it okay to hit someone, so just because we call this "spanking" how is it different? I'm not a parent yet, so I can't say that I fully understand any of this, but it was thought provoking ... my mom told me the story of the one time she spanked me. I guess I turned to her and I said "Don't hit me! If I can't you, you can't hit me." And she said she never was able to do it again. Doesn't that make sense though? I wonder as a parent, how am I going to teach my child right from wrong? What will my methods be?

My professor, who is an expert on child abuse, made some interesting statements. While a law that banned spanking might be hard to enforce immediately, laws can change people's perspectives over time. He used the example of segregation and how people once believed that there would never be integration and look at where we are now. He talked about how at one time many people believed that it was okay for husbands to beat their wives ... maybe 10 or 15 years from now we will look back and be shocked that people thought it was okay to "spank" their children.

From a scientific perspective, the professor also mentioned that the American Academy of Pediatrics has also come out against corporal punishment saying that is ineffective. Since I am not writing a scientific article nor am I looking to get this published anywhere, I will leave it at that.

I believe that teaching people new approaches to correcting misbehavior would be a very challenging task! It would be hard to implement and telling people that one behavior is not okay without educating them as to why and providing them with resources would be irresponsible! I openly admit that I am not an expert that I don't have the answers, I would just prefer to live in a place where hitting of any kind was never involved. I'm hopeful and incredibly naive ...

Chompers Himovitz-Ries

So I had a dream last night that I delivered some giant blond baby AND he had a full set of teeth. It could have been because I had just watched So You Think You Can Dance right before I went to bed and Nigel "Chompers" Lythgoe gives me the heebie jeebies, but regardless of why I dreamt it, it was traumatizing!

The dream went like this ... Here I was, all exhausted from giving birth and then they hand me some large, like 40lbs-large, baby and he has blond hair! That was strange enough, but then when he went to breast feed or something all I saw were these big chompers comin' at me. I tried to explain to the nurses that a full set of teeth on a newborn was not normal and that this couldn't possibly be my child and they insisted that it was the new "thing" and all babies have teeth now ... saves on orthodontic work later or something. Anyway, now I'm scared of labor, delivery, anesthesia and "chomper babies"!

When I thought about the dream I decided this ... the teeth thing was definitely because of Nigel Lythgoe and the blond hair thing was because I read in my pregnancy book last night that parents with dark hair are sometimes surprised to see that their newborns have blond hair and then I pictured what Greg and I would look like with blond hair.

The giant baby thing, well I think that's just because everyone keeps telling me how BIG I look and saying things that they think are funny, but in reality it's not that funny to say to a 5'1", 8 1/2 month pregnant woman "Are you sure there aren't two babies in there?" or they ask when I'm due and I tell them September and their jaws drop to the floor and then they say "Really?! That's going to be a BIG baby!"

Just so they know, that's not helpful! I know my tum-tum is big and that there is a living baby inside it, I don't need the reminder of how large I am or how big he is going to be ... the hole down there will either accommodate him or it won't, so basically I just have to trust the doctor's when they tell me "everything is measuring normal." If he doesn't fit through the hole that is provided, then the doctor's will look for other options ... I vote for the option with the least amount of pain, but that's just me.