July GBOMB

Good

Love for AJ. Not mine but everyone else's. It's so fun to see my grandma loving on my baby. It's so awesome to watch my parents love my baby. Face timing my brother and having him comment on how beautiful my boy is just makes me want to burst. I love seeing people love my baby. It fills my heart. 

AJ's hugs. AJ "gives loves" to the animals and his stuffies all the time. He rarely will give loves to me and Matthew on command. But often lately, he comes up to me and hugs my leg, or if I'm on the floor, he wraps his little arm around my neck and squeezes me so tight. I don't know what's going through his mind, but these little moments are so special and make me so happy. 

Health. Maybe it's summer. Maybe it's sunshine. Maybe it's that AJ isn't in daycare. But we've had a really good stretch of health across the board, and I don't take it for granted. We also had AJ's 15 month appointment, and he's just such a smart, healthy boy, and I don't take that for granted either.  

Fall Out Boy. We went to a show at USANA. It was so fun. I've wanted to see Fall Out Boy since I was 18. I finally got the chance, at twice that age. They were awesome. It was hot. It was so hard to go and do it, honestly. But it was worth it. 

I got a new betta fish. I killed one in my immediate postpartum just because I didn't feed it and nobody else did either. I feel bad :( I killed one recently after trying to put him in a new one gallon tank. I thought I rinsed everything out thoroughly enough, but I guess not? He was acting despondent and not eating. I tried to put him back in his previous tank to see if he could recover, but he didn't. So I rinsed the tank even better, with vinegar too, and got a new betta. He's very pretty and thriving. His name is Rip Van Finkle. 

Bad

Pain. I just feel achy and uncomfortable so much of the time now. Getting up from sitting on a chair or on the floor, hurts. I had a back spasm, and even after it stopped spasming, it was generally tense and stiff for a couple more weeks. My neck and shoulders have been a problem in my entire adulthood. I try to be active and eat well. I don't love the idea of an elimination diet, but I feel like if I can reduce inflammation then maybe that would be helpful. 

Holidays. I feel like I don't plan well enough in advance to do anything fun when we have a three day weekend or holiday. I want to go and do fun things, but then the day rolls around, and it mostly just ends up being another day. I want to get ahead of it and plan better. 

Dropping a nap. Today marks two weeks of dropping a nap. And yesterday/last night was the first time things really went clockwork like they were supposed to. He woke up at 6:00, took a nap from 12-2, and went to bed at 7:00. He slept until 6:20 this morning (July 31). We had to do a lot of 6:30 bedtimes due to short naps. He makes it through wake windows just fine for the most part; he's always so happy. But then the nap, which needs to be 2+ hours, ends up being 1 hour, or 80-90 minutes if we're lucky. Yesterday gave me hope that the one nap transition wasn't a mistake. I hope he does it again today. 

Sleep. It's a struggle to make myself go to bed by 10:00. My sleep quality has been poor. I need to make some big changes to my sleep hygiene because I can't keep on the way things are going. There's no reason I shouldn't sleep more and earlier, with AJ going down at 7:00. 

Mosquito bites. I hate them. I got three when I went to Logan on Sunday, and I woke up at 2:00 this morning just with intense irritation. So I got up and put some cream on the bites. 

On My Brain

Energy. "Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich." - Sarah Bernhardt. On the way to see Fall Out Boy, I told Matthew that it is hard to do fun things. Whether just us, or with the baby. It's a lot of work. We're tired. It's so much easier to stay home. I know it'll get so much more challenging with extra little ones. But it's worth it to put the energy into novelty. It's by spending ourselves that we become rich. We gain memories. 

Human Trafficking and Sound of Freedom. I have run several fundraisers for Operation Underground Railroad. After doing a little bit of digging, I no longer felt comfortable supporting them or their methods; this was years before the movie came out. I am glad this movie has stirred some people up, and happy that people want to get involved. But as I've been reading perspectives about how the movie can actually be harmful to trafficking efforts, it's been enough for me to want to delay seeing it, if I go see it at all. (Plus I want to know how the profits are being used and haven't been able to find info.) I think the heated debate among everyone is misplaced. I don't think the stories or truthfulness necessarily are being questioned; we all readily accept that human trafficking is a real and awful problem. I think the Q-Anon discussion is kind of irrelevant. But I do think the way the donated funds are used, the investigations the organization has been under, the way they often center a hero (instead of focusing on victims), the allegations regarding inadequate aftercare for victims, the fact that they often don't involve local authorities the way they should, and the way they have involved/leveraged media to sensationalize things are all worth questioning. 

Some other causes/organizations I've seen recommended are:

- @polarisproject

- @nightlightcollection

- @projrescue

- @jesussaidlove

- @mercyhouseglobal

- @missingkids

- @exoduscry

- @thefreedomstory

- @ecpatusa @ecpat

- @dtonnaam

For more nuanced discussions, I highly recommend watching the Trafficking highlight from @upwardlydependent, and the HT highlight from @mindyesummers. 

I don't love divisiveness. But I also don't love people jumping to defend something without maybe doing some other homework or at least stepping back to ask what the fuss is all about. There are plenty of other ways to get involved besides OUR--organizations with many years of experience. 

Job qualification. A disgruntled employee at my work left pretty scathing comments on an exit survey. Among many, many things they mentioned, there was mention of hiring an unqualified person to be the training coordinator. That's been on my brain a ton. I'm a teacher. I know how to set objectives and teach toward them. I know how to assess. I am organized. I feel pretty qualified for my position, especially since literally nobody in the company would be able to create training for all the positions. I don't know what she thinks would've qualified a person, but kind of annoying that she even brought me up in all her grievances. Run along, lady. 

Life callings. I sometimes am overwhelmed with the number of passions I have in life. Avenues that I have wanted to pursue professionally that just haven't worked out, or I haven't had the confidence to chase aggressively without leaving a stable safety net. Since I support my family and provide AJ's insurance, I don't really have the luxury of pursuing the direction I feel called to now--birth work. I see other doulas in the area doing the work and just wish I could jump in with abandon. I wonder if I can volunteer as a doula at a hospital or anything just to get my feet wet. I have such bad imposter syndrome; I feel unqualified to be a paid doula for anyone other than friends or family. I also still very much feel called to teach. I love teaching and love that I can leverage that in my day job a little bit, even though it looks different than in-person instruction. I just want a way to blend everything I'm excited about in life, to help improve people's lives. And I wish education were free. Because I would totally go to midwifery school. And I'd totally become a Certified Lactation Consultant and/or a Thompson Method practitioner. So many things to do and learn, so little time. 

Moving. Finding a home is still on my brain. I can't believe home prices in Utah, especially for just reasonably sized, average homes--not fancy big homes. I thought looking at prices out west past the lake would be good, but they're the same price as homes in South Jordan and parts of Sandy. I'd rather stay in this area. We'll see. I am excited for a change and try hard not to fall into the "I'll be happy when," trap. But a yard really would be so nice.