Generation D (as in Digital everything)

So I've been reading these two blogs lately on a regular basis that I really enjoy. They are both written by mothers. One has 2 boys and the other has 2 girls. I like checking in daily to see how they make normal, ordinary events so entertaining to read about. ( http://www.amalah.com/ and http://www.dooce.com/) I guess it's insipired me to post a little more often about little things that happen or things I find interesting. I saw this story on yahoo.com today and thought it was a must read since Nathan and I are bringing a child into this big, bad, crazy world come January. It's about the things that our kids may never know about. Some of the things on the list are still around but not widely used or practiced and some may not be around anymore but we all still remember what they are. (And to be honest, some of them, I've never heard of!) So it's interesting to me that my kid may not have a clue about most of this stuff. So here it is in case you are interested.

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
By Nathan Barry
July 22, 2009
8:00 am

There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.
That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …

Audio-Visual Entertainment
1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to todays teenager.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax tapes.
11. MiniDisc.
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio bork this concept.)
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’

Computers and Videogaming
18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.

The Internet
36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs 55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.

Gadgets
57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.


Everything Else
70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil of break off the first finger
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine
99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

Can you think of anything else to add to this list?

-Dawn

Twenty-one!

Is it wrong to play BlackJack with your 10 year old stepson? Is that sending the wrong message to someone who takes a few minutes to add up 7 + 8 + 9 to figure out he busted? Nah, it was his idea. And I blame Santa Clause anyway. He's the one who gave the kid his own set of poker chips and a deck of cards for Christmas 2 years ago! Yeah, it's Santa's bad judgement that we have to blame!

Awwww, Yeah

So yesterday, I parked in the "Expecting & New Mothers" parking spot for the first time at the grocery store because it was crowded and I was too lazy to park farther back. And darn it, I AM an expecting mother even if most people wouldn't know it yet just by looking at me. However, I feel pregnant and fat so I feel like everyone else should realize I'm pregnant too, darn it! As I was walking in though, this hoosier guy looked me up and down (after I parked in that Baby Mama spot) and said, "How you doin', sweetheart?" Part of me was pissed that he said this to me and a couple different phrases popped into my head to respond, such as, "I'm pregnant. Leave me alone A-hole!" or "Knocked up and married!". However, instead, I said, "I'm fine. How are you?". He responded with some mumble-jumble that I could not understand and I just shook my head and proceeded to walk my pregnant butt to the bathroom, like a good pregnant lady who has to use the facilities a lot in her state of being. However, even though part of me was mad that this guy flirted with me, I have to admit, that a part of me thought, "Awwww yeah, this pregnant lady's still got it!" Haha! Then I hid from him the rest of the time I was in the store. :)

The End.

Who's a Slacker Now? (I Still Am Really!)

Here are some of the pictures I've been talking about posting in my last two posts. I finally got around to doing something tonight after work. Funny how I got around to it when Nathan isn't home. . . I even took a walk around the neighborhood!

These are for the Komen Race for the Cure. My work had a team this year for the second year in a row. We had a water station and many of us walked.

Graham, Nathan and me before the race

I ran into my cousins there. Carrie, me and Christa

Anthony and his crazy costume getting the water station ready with Katy

The thousands of people who walked

My two boys!

Over Father's Day weekend, we went camping at Klondike Park in St. Charles. It was ridiculously hot and the most I have sweated in . . . ever maybe! We lasted a full 24 hours before heading home. It was so miserably hot and humid that these are the only two pictures we took:

Graham all sweaty the minute we got there!

Me and Graham all sweaty after our hike

Last week, we went to the zoo with Nathan's parents, his sister, Chantel, his sister, Bethany and her boyfriend, Kendall, and some of the nieces and nephews. It was a nice day and a good time!

L-R
Elaina, Clayton, Lexie, Graham, Kalei, and Adelyn

Adelyn and Kendall

Baby bear

L-R and clockwise
Chantel, Kalei, Elaina, Graham, Clayton and Lexie


Graham

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Dawn

Cut This Slacker some Slack, Please

OK, so I never got around to posting pictures from the Komen Race, camping, etc. like I said I would. I still intend to do it sometime but I just have to get my lazy, gestating butt downstairs at some point to do it. Ever since we moved the computer down there, I am so bad about logging on. And most days when I come home from work, I park my pregnant booty on the couch and don't move unless it's dinnertime, I have to urinate or it's time to get ready for bed and move into the bedroom to commence sleepytime. I think this is the laziest I have even been in my life. I try to cut myslef some slack but I still feel guilty. I have been feeling pretty good the past couple of weeks - it's just that I'm tired and lethargic. Then this week hit and I've been even more exhausted. When I wake up, it feels like I never went to bed. And it's screwing with my appetite again because it's hard for me to find stuff that sounds good to eat or to have an appetite at the appropriate times of day.

Anyhow, enough complaining. I do have some updates. Nathan's carpal tunnel surgery went well last week. He's been doing pretty good with the healing. He went to physical therapy on Monday and they said his stitches looked good. It was too soon for them to actual work his hand but I think they may do that at his second appt. on Thursday. I just can't wait until he gets the stitches out next week (the 14th) so he can get it wet and we can go to the pool. Yes, it's all about me still somehow! :) He's been doing things with his left hand though as much as possible.

I had my 3rd Dr. appt. yesterday. It went well. The Dr. was able to find the heartbeat this time with just the listening ultrasound thingy. It took her a while but she did find it. She said my uterus has still not tilted back up but it should in the next couple of weeks and I should have a nice little pooch by my next visit on 8/5. She said since she was able to hear the heartbeat w/o seeing it, my miscarriage risk is greatly decreased. So that's good to hear. Nathan was with me so he got to hear Baby Meyer too. I almost wish Baby would have not cooperated though like last time so we would have had to do a regular ultrasound and Nathan could have seen him or her and not just heard the heartbeat. But regardless, it was cool to hear and I'm glad he was there to experience it with me. Other than that, we went over medical history and they drew some blood. Oh, and I lost 1 1/2 lbs. So I've only gained 2 lbs. so far in 12 weeks but I know it will start piling on! The difficult part is that I've gotten wider though and some of my pants and shirts don't fit well anymore. But since I'm not really showing (unless you really look), I feel silly wearing maternity clothes at this point. So I rotate a lot of the same outfits that still fit right now.

Graham started summer camp and that seems to be going well. He loves going and they do a lot of activities. They go swimming every Monday and last week they went to the zoo. His last baseball game was last week but I think he is playing fall ball and will start practicing for that any minute now. It's a new team for him and it's going to be a select team so it will be interesting to see the level of play compared to his old team. He's a good pitcher so I hope they can develop him in that position even more.

That's it for now I guess. I'm not promising to post any pictures soon but I will promise to think about it and feel guilty that I haven't!

Dawn

Our baby is already a stinker!

So, I had to go to the Dr. yesterday for a personal issue and while I was there, the Dr. decided to do a prenatal checkup. He whipped out that device to listen to the baby's heartbeat but Baby wasn't cooperating. He moved the wand-thingy all around and kept asking the baby where it was hiding. Meanwhile, I was trying to hold it together and not freak out. He decided to lay me flat to see if that helped. It didn't. So he said he'd go get the other ultrasound machine. He said my uterus could be tilted back and that's why we couldn't hear the heartbeat. Once he did the other ultrasound, my fears subsided. There was the baby. And the little stinker waved it's arm at me as if to say, "Don't worry momma, here I am!". I could see the heartbeat too. It was so cool. The Dr. asked me if this was worth the few minutes of worry and it totally was. I just wished Nathan would have been there to experience it with me. The Dr. did confirm the tilted uterus so I don't know if this will always be an issue or not. My online research says it usually tilts back in place between weeks 10 and 12. I'm in week 10 now.

I also couldn't believe how much the baby looks more like a baby since my last ultrasound at the beginning of the month. And I have a better ultrasound picture now (above). I've been feeling pretty good lately. Nauseous is gone. Just battling the fatigue and tailbone pain. My wonderful husband made his first craving run for me this week. It was an easy one at a reasonable hour. I wanted french onion dip and since he was going to get that, I also had him get me original Krunchers chips and sunflower seeds (which I haven't eaten yet). I can't get enough of the chips and dip right now.

I have a few pictures from the past couple of weekends to post. I will try to get them up this weekend.

Oh, and Nathan is having surgery on his right wrist for his carpal tunnel on Wednesday, July 1st. Say some prayers that all goes well and that he has a speedy recovery.

-Dawn

In Case You Haven't Heard. . . We're Having a Baby!!!!

OK, so even though almost everyone knows that Nathan and I are having a baby, I've been waiting to post it on here so I could upload the first ultrasound pictures. Well, we've been pretty busy the past couple of weekends and when we are not going, going, going, I'm exhausted, nauseous or just don't feel good. I finally got around to asking Nathan to scan the pictures last night, which he did willingly, but he couldn't get them out of the HP Wizard to email them to me. So. . . long story short (not really, at this point!), we're having a baby but I can't post the ultrasound pictures as of yet. :) :(

As of today, June 16, 2009, I am 8 weeks, 5 days pregnant. I'm not really sure when people ask if I should say I'm 8 weeks at this point or 9 weeks. I get these weekly email updates and the one I got this week is Week 9 because it says I'm 8 weeks, 5 days. Very confusing if you ask me. Anyway, my due date is Jan. 21, 2010. It was pushed back from Jan. 13th at my last appointment.

Many people ask how I knew I was pregnant. I guess I had early symptoms but they were the symptoms you might read about but the ones that most people don't experience. First, I had a metal taste in my mouth. I had it every morning for about a week and a half. Yuck! Then, my gums were bleeding every time I brushed my teeth (and once when I was checking out at the grocery store!). I really didn't know these were symptoms at the time. I think the one that gave it away the most was, as Nathan puts it, my super-sonic sense of smell. The new ceiling tiles in our basement smelled so bad to me and everytime I opened the refridgerator, I thought something smelled bad (I think it was that our Brita pitcher needed to be cleaned). Then finally, I had a few more normal symptoms that I won't go into. :)

I decided to take a pregnancy test on Mother's Day. Even though I wondered, I thought for sure it would say "Not Pregnant". When it said the opposite though, I about fainted. Nathan was still in bed and I ran in there. He pretended he was asleep. I was shaking him and he finally said, "I can ignore you all day" (nice, huh?). I said, "No you can't because I'M PREGNANT!" He opened his eyes realy quick then. I cried as we hugged each other. I kept looking at the test to make sure I had read it right. I was just in shock. We had to quickly move on though because we had our families coming over to celebrate Mother's Day and there was lots to do.

We told my mom, my brother and Nathan's parents that day. We wanted to tell everyone but we knew I should go to the Dr. first to confirm everything. The weird thing is that when I sent the email to invite everyone to the Mother's Day BBQ, Nathan's sister, Heather, asked me if we were hosting it to annouce that we were pregnant. She said her psychic just told her that that someone close to her was pregnant. When she sent me that email though, I didn't know I was pregnant but obviously, her psychic did!

Another weird thing along those lines is that once I made the annoucement at work last week, one of my co-workers told me that this girl who works in another department at our work, had asked his wife (who works in the same dept. as this girl) if I was pregnant. And she had asked the week before I found out. So I was pregnant but had no idea. I asked her how she knew and she said one day I was standing at the copier and she just looked at me and thought I was pregnant. She said she can usually tell by the eyes. Crazy! I now call her the "Baby Whisperer". (BTW, she says I'm having a girl!)

Anyway, I know this is a long post but there is so much I want to remember and have in writing about this whole experience. But all in all, we are very excited and feel very blessed. I'm excited for Graham to be a big brother because I know he will be great. And I already know that Nathan will be a wonderful dad because I see how he is with Graham. It's comforting to know he's been through this once before and we both won't be total newbies at this.

We will found out the sex of the baby when we can. I think that will be sometime in Sept. Nathan and Graham are pulling for a boy but I'm pulling for a girl so we can even out our household. But really, we just pray for a healthy baby either way. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes OK. I'm sure that I'll be posting a lot as we continue this journey through the birth in Jan. and beyond!

And hopefully, one of us will figure out how to get the ultrasound pictures on here sooner or later!

Love,
Dawn