Had no time to make baby Barak a costume for halloween but this bat costume purchased from another mom for a measly $5 was a hit!
Oh my my my my.
I’m breathless.
I got sucked in hard!
I just got to the office at 1.30 in the afternoon after spending what was only supposed to be five minutes reading while on my morning loo visit. Four hours later I had a serious cramp in my legs so I just crawled back in bed and continued reading. I can’t stop. I can’t help myself. Yesterday I went to the library and checked the book and its sequel out. I thought there is no way I’m going to plough through these in the time I have before they are due. Well, I’m almost done with the first tome and salivating at the sequel. I didn’t get to sleep until 4am this morning.
The culprit: Twilight
OMG!!!!
I first saw the movie on a flight to Kenya this summer and I was completely drawn in. With reading the book now, I’m officially a Twihard. Yep, a Twilight diehard
O.k. hurriedly catching up with work thats urgently due so i can run home and read some more.
Whats come over me?!!
Any other fans out there?
I”m so sick and tired of everyone finding mud to fling at Obama. At once he is doing too much and changing everything too fast, and for others he is not doing enough to undo Bush damage. And about all those saying the Nobel Prize is premature: WTF?!!
1. There have been other sitting presidents to be awarded the prize
2. Start your own prize so you can give it to who you see fit
3. Obama has already accomplished much in terms of changing the general direction of U.S.policy!
Heck, at this rate i might even consider taking on U.S. citizenship for how much I love the man.
O.k. so its been forever since i’ve blogged. I’ve been debating whether to abandon the venture alltogether or keep going. You can see the decision i’ve made 
I love my blogthren and its a good release.
what have i been up to?
Peanut is now almost 9 months old!
I’m back at work this semester and paying the unspoken price of going on maternity leave for 8 months. Project A is going fantastically and Mzee still comes home to me at night
I’ve also developed a healthy addiction to harlequin romance novels!
These things are porn for girls. The well sculpted male specimen, the lusty protagonist, the romance, the sex…..
Its all contributing to a happy Mzee is all I can say
So i’ve been facing a quandry that leaves me wondering how other mothers manage.
We’ll have guests at home and its time to feed baby Barack. I sit there trying to figure out if to just whip out a boob and feed the squirming screeming baby to quiet him so I can follow the conversation, or if I should leave the room and go feed him in a private room to avoid embarassing whatever male visitors.
For a while I had decided to follow the Muslim rule whereby I would whip out a boob if the male present was related to me and go into a separate room if they were not related. I think that doing this made my dad and father in law uncomfortable at first but they soon seemed to get over it.
For Easter we had close family friends over who also have a baby and I decided to just go ahead and feed in front of them. That seemed to make the other mother comfortable enough so she went about pumping right there. Both our hubbies didn’t seem to mind. What a relief!
As I get ready to go home for a few weeks I’m wondering how to navigate this one. I know that being gone for a while has left me a little hazy on how things are done. Plus i’ve never had a baby in Kenya before. So, whom to nurse in front of?
How do you mommies out there deal with this one?
boobs at work: lifted from Arnie Becker photograpy
So I never have time to do anything nowadays. showers are a rare luxury even.
But today was special. Today baby Barack took a long nap enough to allow me to indulge in one of my favorite things; making ice cream. Mzee and I bonded over the project. He cut and quartered the fresh strawberries and we chatted as I made up the recipe from thin air.
The final product was absolutely fantastic! I ended up using very simple ingridients. Fresh strawberries, grated ginger and a dash of apple juice in the blender. Whipping cream and sugar mixed together and slightly whipped to fold in air. Combine the two batches and put them in an ice cream maker for about 25 minutes and presto, fresh, homemade ice cream thats better than anything you could ever buy. I made three batches so I can take over to people’s houses when we’re invited for meals or to serve as dessert when we have people over. All that is assuming I don’t eat it all next week.
This new re-discovery of the ice cream machine is going to have me concocting new mixtures all summer long. I can’t wait till all the fresh fruits come out. I saw somewhere that you can use coconut cream to make a vegan sorbet thats still creamy. Thats my next experiment.
In the meanwhile, I’ve got containers full of strawberry ice cream to polish off. lets hear it for spring and summer!
the ice cream machine at work this afternoon
I swear I don’t know where my days are going!!
I had all these brilliant ideas about all these things I would be able to accomplish once I was home on maternity leave. Well, projects are still on the shelf waiting for me. Ati I even thought i’d have time to put together some scrap books. Yeah right!
I can’t figure out where all my time is going. I had no idea taking care of a baby took this much time. I barely have time to check email let alone write people back. And blogging is such an indulgence nowadays!!
oh and lets talk about showers…. I used to think its a joke those women who would complain about not having time to take a shower. Kumbe its true! As soon as I put baby Obama to nap and step into the shower he wakes up and start wailing. There I am, all soaped up and debating to let him keep screaming and rinse off, or create a sudzy puddle all the way to his crib and try and calm him down. It was funny the first two times. After the third time it gets old.
Much as i’m miffed at how little time I have for myself I have to admit i’m quite proud of myself and the little guy for how much he’s grown. He’s put on close to 4lbs in 9 weeks and has those chubby cheeks babies get. I marvel that all this is from drinking my milk and my milk only!
And as i’m typing this he’s swaddled in bed right next to me completely refusing to take his nap and just smiling and cooing at me instead. It warms my heart. What a cutie…….I”m smitten
Seriously, WT?!!!!
While I admire people who act out of moral or religious conviction, I’m dumbfounded by the Pope flying all the way to Africa to tell us to stop using condoms!!
I wonder if we’re going to see a spike in HIV rates as a result of his urging.
grrrrrrrr
Mzee and I are holding up but I must admit that the addition of this little munchkin had changed the game.
Its amazing to me that such a little thing can have such a big impact.
Not being able to make him stop crying is the hardest. When he’s crying I feel like my heart is being ripped into pieces. When Mzee is not able to get him to stop crying in 2 mintues I feel like i’m dying. At the same time I know that its important to let Mzee take care of him and not be hovering all the time. Stepping in every time does communicate to Mzee that I don’t trust his ability to handle the baby. In my mind I know that.
But boy am I failing the test big time! I hear the baby crying, vumilia for about 2 minutes, then I can’t take it any more and I have to come in and intervene.
I’m worried that i’m contributing to a dynamic that is going to come back and bite me in the butt again latter where Mzee doesn’t know how or is not willing to deal with the crying baby anymore or the baby doesn’t know how to be comforted by his Dad.
Moms out there, was this ever an issue for you guys?
Also, in celebration of babies here is Nyota Ndogo and my next cd purchase as soon as I hit home.
I remember growing up watching this movie about animals that get drunk off marula fruit.
KBC played it again in December during PEV. There we were, Mzee and I in our little studio apartment watching elephants falling over drunk as the country fell apart outside.
Quick post while baby naps…
My brain is barely functioning!
I keep forgeting stuff and can barely retain new info. I’d heard about this phenomenon but its really trippy when it happens to you!
So much for trying to work on my book while baby Barack is napping. All i can muster is folding laundry and ironing.
Hopefully things get better in some weeks here because this really is not sustainable.
In other news, today is my first day alone with the bambino. He was born exactly a month ago (January 16th) and since then I’ve either had Mzee or his parents or my parents around. So far its going swimmingly. I even figured out how to go to the bathroom while holding him because he was screaming his head off and I really had to go. about those Kegels……
I keep thinking that if I knew six months ago what I know now I would have had so much more fun with my pregnancy.
I spent so much time and energy flipping out and fearing the labour and delivery that it seriously cut into my enjoyment of pregnancy. Turns out I had nothing to worry about and I should have just chilled out.
1. Yes labour and delivery are painful but its doable and bearable with the right kind of pain medication. I went into the process thinking that it was either an epidural or nothing. Kumbe there are IV medication options which is what I took and it worked perfectly for me. Every hour the nurse would load me up with a dose and I would continue labouring. I could still feel the contractions and the pushing but the meds just took the edge off. Halfway through the nurse looked at me and told me that I was well on my way to doing this without an epidural and for the first time I believed that i was capable. That nurse was awesome!
2. My body is capable of a lot more than I’ve ever given it credit for. I’ve had a really rough relationship with my body for years now. Coming to America as a teenage girl to a family where the women had serious body image issues themselves was horrible for my self image. Consequently i’ve wasted the last decade in conflict with my body. I feel like labour and delivery have ended a long civil war. My body has won. I love it, I respect it, and I am in awed amazement at what it can do. For example, I’m already weighing less than I did on the day that I found out I was pregnant!! This is not because I went on some extreme diet during the pregnancy. I just decided that I wasn’t going to care about dieting and that I was just going to focus on eating healthy but eating what I fancied. Nausea took care of my tendancy to overeat and the rest is history. I’m hoping to parlay my newfound respect for my body into a new healthy lifestyle. wish me luck!!
yep. No baby Barack yet. I’m due in less than four days now but it sounded from my last visit to the doc like the dilating had slowed down. I have another appointment on Thursday and will know if I’ll have gotten any more extra centimeters.
I’ve been having tons of braxton hicks contractions though. Thankfully they don’t hurt.
In the meanwhile i’m pleased because I’ve had the free time I needed to complete some projects around the house and especially do some work on project A which I had not been able to focus on as much as I would have liked.
I’m begining to feel ready to meet the little guy actually. The room is stocked and decorated, his clothes are washed and folded and his crib is assembled.
It also feels like Mzee and I have been doing a lot of work getting ready for him emotionally. Perhaps blame it on hormones but we’ve been having some really intense conversations and I feel like we’ve been reconnecting a lot recently. All goes towards making me feel more comfortable about bringing this baby into the world, into our home, and into our marriage.
Now back to twiddlig my thumbs and waiting……
wow, life is moving along at a fast pace.
Just came back from the doc and found out that I’m already 2cm dilated and 70% effaced. Its amazing to me but the doc could actually feel the little guy’s head right there! Thankfully I’m not having painful contractions so i’m counting the progress thus far as ‘free’ centimeters in terms of dilation. And I’m hoping for even more ‘free’ ones before the painful contractions come
I’m thinking there is no way we’re doing to make it to the due date on the 17th or even my hope of giving birth on Obama’s inauguration day on the 20th.
My students’ grades are turned in and the semester wrapped up at work, my hospital bag is packed, the baby’s room is in decent shape (even though we’re still waiting for the mattress and mattress pad to arrive), but I still don’t feel ‘ready’. I don’t know if I ever will actually.
I’ve had horrible sleep for the last two nights. I’ve woken up in anxiety attacks worried about the baby and unable to sleep again. Its wierd because until now i’ve been pretty possitive and able to sleep quite well through the night. I don’t know where this fear is coming from as it seeming to hit me from nowhere.
The graduate school chapter of my life is finally over.
I got to walk at graduation and get ‘hooded’ and with that short ceremony, the last 7 years have been solemnized.
I’m finished!!!!!!!
I did it!!!!!!!
wohoooooooooo!!!!
So i’m starting to look for options for childcare for our next trip home and getting quite stumped. Are the only options available to have someone come and look after your child in your home?
Does anyone know of any daycare centers that will accept a baby a few months old for a few hours a day?
And lets not even get into how guilty I feel for looking to leave the little guy with someone else even for those few hours.
Honestly, I thought the world had moved on from these pseudo-scientific explanations of race!!
racist newspaper-article in Munich “AZ”: Obama’s “negroid features” and outrageous race theories
Veröffentlicht am 1. Dezember 2008 von Noah Sow
“In the long run, people with dark skin tones have little chances of survival under Northern conditions. Also, their birth rates drop. The reason for this lies in the weather’s impact on their bones. Says Professor Schiefenhövel: “Their bones quickly become soft and warped. The womens’ pelvises become distorted which eventually renders child-birth impossible for them.”
“Barack Obama’s victory means that for the first time a Coloured has been elected into the highest office of the US. His frizzy black hair, negroid lips and dark complexion stem from his parentage…”
This is just some of the racist content of a newspaper article that has recently been published in the german newspaper “AZ” (Abendzeitung, Munich) and on AZ’s online presence. The article was motivated by Barck Obama’s election and stayed online despite numerous protests during the commemoration day of the Pogromnacht on November 9 and 10. Scroll down for full translation of the article.
The fact that it appeared in a not specifically right-wing but mainstream newspaper, shows very clearly the lack of awareness in German media.
The response to negative reactions from readers throughout Germany was an e-mail from the author in which he regrets that his article evoked such negative reactions – a reaction far from an apology. The executive board, publisher and editor in chief haven’t found any reaction necessary so far.
Please help Germany’s mediashpere comprehend that the use of racist language and content -even if seemingly ridiculous at first- is harmful and watched with concern from people all over the world.
You could do so for example by writing an e-Mail to the AZ’s editor-in-chief with cc to us for documentation of your reactions. Or cover the issue in your blog and forward it to counter-racist-organisations.
Mail contact to the newspaper:
chefredaktion@abendzeitung.de
full article translation:
Publication: Abendzeitung
Author: Michael Heinrich (Editor at Abendzeitung)
Publishing Date: November 5th, 2008
Circulation print version: 148,000 sold copies, 290,000 readers
Circulation online version: not known
Circulation areas: mainly Munich and Nuremberg
The Mystery of Skin Colour
In the past, all people were black. The fact that at one point they turned white, red or yellow, is due to the duration of sunshine
Barack Obama’s victory means that for the first time a Coloured has been elected into the highest office of the US. His frizzy black hair, negroid lips and dark complexion stem from his parentage: his father is a black African from Kenya, his mother is white. A good occasion to pose the question: Why is it, actually, that people have such diverse skin complexions?
In the past we were all black. The undisputed scholarly opinion is that humans originated in Eastern Africa – and this region had massive sun exposures already millions of years ago. “In that region those humans had better chances of survival whose strong pigmentation protected them from harmful ultraviolet rays”, Wulf Schiefenhövel told Abendzeitung. Schiefenhövel is a Munich based Professor of Anthropology. During the course of thousands of years skins turned ever darker until they were black. Until today, the populations of some parts of Africa and also Melanesia are nearly inky.
In the long run, people with dark skin tones have little chances of survival under Northern conditions. Also, their birth rates drop. The reason for this lies in the weather’s impact on their bones. Says Professor Schiefenhövel: “Their bones quickly become soft and warped. The womens’ pelvises become distorted which eventually renders child-birth impossible for them.”
All other skin complexions are hybrid forms of black and white. Schiefenhövel explains: “People always call the Chinese yellow, and the Native Americans Redskins. Obviously, that is wrong.” Both these groups have simply developed skin complexions that had the “right” mixing ratio for their respective habitats. I.e., their skins would sufficiently protect them from the ultraviolet rays while at the same time absorbing just the right amount of sunlight.
By the way, the skin shade only plays a minor role in the definition of human “races” or “populations”. Decisive factors are, amongst others, the shape of the head and the body height.
Links:
- our coverage of the article in german (with more contact information): Here and Here
