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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Fumbalina...Fumbalina


Walking on uneven sidewalk...wearing wobbly wet sandals...carrying too much stuff = Duh.

Took a fall and scraped up both knees and right palm...good thing I do push-ups at the gym...caught my weight...checked in with the baby...looked around...took notice of the damage...gathered my things...and returned to apartment to cry bitter tears and clean up the battleground blood.

My husband's jokes when I call to tell him about my disastrous fall:

1) Ohhhh My Fumbalina!
2) I'm getting you Neosporin to wear around your neck everyday
3) I'm carrying the baby

Ok Ok, I can take a joke..or 3...but have some mercy. I think the last time I fell like that was when I was 10 and biking on gravel (yeah, I was a stupid kid)

I should have fallen so many other times since then...considering what a cool daredevil I am...
But NO, it had to be when I was walking from the car to the apartment. How lame.

Monday, April 28, 2008

7 Weeks


Today Jon and I saw our baby's heart beating for the first time. It was a beautiful moment for us with special family bonding. I saw the baby first and said "I see him!" Jon didn't know there was a separate screen for us to look at up in the corner. Then he saw the baby and grabbed my hand. We were both elated and laughed with joy. There is something about seeing your baby and peeking into his world that really makes parenthood become real and natural. I think especially because of our loss before (which was not a baby, but a molar pregnancy) and the year-long waiting period, this ultrasound was a great and joyous reassurance.

In addition to celebrating our new child, it was also deeply meaningful for me to bond with Jon. When we had our hands together it was somehow more significant than our everyday hand holding. We've almost known each other now for five years and have been holding hands almost as long...Some moments though stand out...like the first time we held hands as boyfriend and girlfriend...then when he took my hand to propose and for three months we held hands as fiances...then when we were first married and held hands walking down the aisle to be greeted by everyone who witnessed our marriage....then on our honeymoon...then through the two beautiful  years we have been married...and then today when we saw our first child on the ultrasound screen.

I am thankful for our first baby (and even if we do not get the privilege to hold him in our arms, we know that his soul exists forever), but today I am also thankful for my husband who I consider to be the finest man that I have ever known. Something that I have realized in being married to Jon is that no matter how much I love him, he will always be a mystery and I will always be able to grow in love for him. I also know how infinitely God loves him. I am just so happy to be entrusted with Jon and blessed with him as my husband--there is no one else that I would want to hold hands with for the rest of my life. 

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Safe Sex? Come On, Give Me a Break


It's too bad that in promoting "safe sex," advocates are really robbing teens and adults of "good sex."

What I mean by "safe sex" is pill-popping, condom-wearing, random hook-upping (like a train hooks up), and demoralizing sex. It is stripped of true love and intimacy. It is actually very dangerous in terms of STDs, "surprise" pregnancies, and emotional damage.

What I mean by "good sex" is completely faithful, intimate, affectionate, relationship-building, and exciting sex. It is a celebration of each spouse and of their procreative capacity. It is actually very healthy in terms of marriage-enhancement, beautifully accepted & embraced babies, and emotional fulfillment.

So, instead of promoting a taste of Heaven, advocates of "safe sex" offer teens and adults a taste of Hell.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Study Break Stretch


Jon and I have been pretty overworked lately...but still papers and finals to finish...our idea of a break was to spin around and take pictures, although Jon never seemed to get me in a motion shot, for all of his effort. I, on the other hand, as the supreme photographer, was able to capture him in a Street Fighter kick. No wonder we get kicked out of, or otherwise reprimanded by, so many places. 




Friday, April 25, 2008

Speaking of Summer Dieting...


*** I love how the cartoon model for this diet patch looks thinner than a piece of paper. Actually, that just might be a piece of paper wrapped around her body. 

*** I'd also like to add that this post follows my last one fittingly since I mentioned that while advertisers are encouraging women to lose weight, I will in fact be gaining weight this summer. An estimated 25-35 lbs by December, in fact. So, good thing I can just stick on that patch after the baby is born and look like a Japanese anime toothpick in a paper dress...in no time.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Summer


So summer nears and all of the diet (f)ads are out....."How to Shrink Your Waist Fast"..."Get Ready for Summer..Lose 10 lbs in a Week!"   

I can't help but chuckle when I think about how irrelevant those ads are to my present "growing waist" condition. Yeah, while other women are focusing on slimming down, I'm getting ready to expand like I've never expanded before. So much for a small waist anytime soon...I'm thinking this will be closer to reality:


I'm not sure I'm liking this image of myself!!!! haha

Sunday, April 20, 2008

6 Weeks Pregnant


And morning sickness begins....I got away without the nausea until NOW. 


"The morning sickness can be accompanied by other signs of pregnancy like backaches, constipation, darkening of areola (breast nipple), excessive salivation, exhaustion or feeling sleepy, food cravings, frequent urination, headaches, increased sense of smell, lower abdominal cramps, and/or tender or swollen breasts."

Yep--have 'em all...except headaches.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008


Many of us grew up with that rhetorical question that was meant to induce critical (and independent) thinking: "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" (a favorite for teachers)

Our response was "No!" ...unless, of course, we were the smart alecks, then maybe the answer was "Maybe. Depends on [insert tone and smart aleck comment here]"

Well, I find it interesting (if not undesirable) that now, when many of us choose not to jump off the bridge of contraception (that it seems like everyone is jumping off of) that we are challenged or refuted in our decision. 

How is it that choosing the healthy and moral choice of not using contraception is now unacceptable or even condemnable (mostly I think because it's not conformable).

So here we are, not jumping off the bridge, and instead of being patted on the back by those who posed that first question to instill independent (as opposed to group thinking, or more accurately, bandwagon effect, which all would agree doesn't seem to involve much thinking), we are asked in effect the opposite form of that first rhetorical question: "Why aren't you jumping off the bridge? What's wrong with you?"
-------------------------------------------------
*By extension, I think this logic/illogic could be applied to almost every decision that is not generally accepted and praised by what Pope John Paul II called our "culture of death."

Sunday, April 13, 2008

5 weeks pregnant (3 weeks baby age)


After dinner, Jon goes into the kitchen and comes back with a small folic acid vitamin and says:
"This is brain food for the baby"... 

I couldn't help but recognize that the baby, being about the size of a sesame seed, is comparable to the vitamin.

Friday, April 11, 2008


Jon has a cute habit of saying "Not my daughter!" when he sees young girls and teens dressing less than modestly. Tonight we were leaving from dinner and he said it. I asked him playfully, "So, you're not going to let your daughter dress like that, huh?" 
He replied protectively: "Not only that, but I'm going to be with her all the time too."
hahahaha.....

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Horton Hears a Who! (and not a "What")


Horton tells us that "a person's a person no matter how small"....And we see that elephants really are smarter than Herodian feminists.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Not your everyday optometry check-up



Went for an eye appointment last Friday....
Left amused by the conversation with the optometrist, which ended with him telling Jon and me that not only would we have two cars in the garage in the future (huh? this part I really didn't understand), but we would also most definitely (not a shadow of a doubt) own robots

I think when the robot craze starts, I am going to have to abstain--just to prove to the doctor (and myself) that I, Lauren, am more than a product of discursive/cultural formation. But stock might be an option.
;)




Saturday, April 5, 2008


This is from Jenny's blog over at http://agreatdeception.blogspot.com
It links so well with one of my recent posts on NFP that I want to post it here. Also, she can express it better than I can!

In response to an amazing discussion with my brilliant, thoughtful classmates last night in Marriage and Family Counseling:


When I give myself to another person, my spouse, in the marital act, I am making physically manifest the words I pledged at the alter on our wedding day. I am speaking the language of the body to affirm a promise I made through spoken language, bearing testimony to my wedding vows and making those vows incarnate. The Church teaches that a marriage is consummated only with the first act of sexual intercourse between husband and wife. Until the couple make good with their bodies on the promises they made with their lips, there is an incompleteness to their union. Only through a total exchange of persons - a mutual self gift - do two become one.

The Church, in Her wisdom, rightly teaches that the sexual act is intrinsically both unitive and procreative, refusing to divorce the two. And contrary to popular opinion, the Church's hard line stance on matters erotic stems not from an unwillingness to "modernize" or "get with the times," but from a profound recognition of the impossibility of changing God.

Herein lies the fundamental misunderstanding of non-Christians (along with many Christians) regarding Catholic sexual ethics. In our quest to modernize and our effort to redefine reality to better suit our needs and desires, we have begun to believe that everything is a social construct. As such, all truths, all reality is merely popular opinion, and as such, can (and must!) be adjusted accordingly to best suit the needs of the masses.

What we need right now is contraceptive marital sex, so we must adjust the rules. Our discomfort with violating God's law no longer indicates that perhaps we are doing wrong, but rather, that what we are doing needs to be justified and even condoned by the greater body of Christ. We are basically asking God to rethink his plans for human sexuality, and rationalizing away our feelings of guilty discomfort until He does so.

Contraceptive sex between married couples is intrinsically disordered, because it forces the body to speak a lie. For the same reason that in-vitro fertilization is disordered in its attempt to divorce the creative from the unitive, so too is the contracepted sexual act an attempt to divorce the unitive from the creative. Even when the couple is infertile biologically, whether during the infertile period of the month or because the wife is post-menopausal, any refusal of openness to life is a denial of one's wedding vows.

This is not legalism. Far from it, this is a refusal to bear false witness to the truths spoken in our marriage vows, a refusal to perjure oneself with one's own body! When I refuse my entire self to my spouse, whether through infidelity or contracepted sex, I don't hold up my end of the bargain. At the very moment I am most passionately re-presenting my marriage vows to my beloved, I am denying my entire self and invalidating the whole she-bang! Contraceptive sex is neither total nor fruitful. What we're doing physically is engaging in the act of sexual intercourse, but what we're doing spiritually and metaphysically is removing God from the equation, refusing His design, and taking matters stubbornly into our own hands, so to speak.

If I eat for the sheer pleasure of the act but vomit to avoid the natural consequences which accompany consumption of nutrients, (read: caloric intake) I am no less in violation of natural law then if my husband and I make a practice of "pulling out" pre-climax to avoid the natural consequences of intercourse. Sex, like food, is a natural good with pleasures attached. But sex, unlike food, brings us closer to God than any other physical act, as we join forces with our beloved and literally participate in the Divine in the possible creation of an immortal soul.

Every sex act which is contracepted is a refusal to invite God there, where He should be most intimately present to us. It is here we are made most like him, given the awesome ability to love so perfectly that our love creates. It's mind blowing. And it's about more than selfish pleasure, more than recreation, and more than immediate gratification, no matter how hard we wish it were otherwise.

My desire doesn't create my reality. Only one Person can make that radical claim.