Ouch

That would be my poor, pathetic, fried shoulder with 3-day-old sunburn. Let the peeling begin. The other side looks almost as bad.

Of course we lathered our son in SPF 1000, but do you think we put any on ourselves? Yeah, well, there ya have it. I was just trying to be patriotic, ya know?

To my dear cousin Jenny, this is in response to your SPF 0 post. More proof that we are related tards.

Funk

I can't sleep. That's nothing new.

Maybe it's because we watched Juno earlier in the evening and it set me off emotionally, I'm not sure. (Great chick flick, by the way.) All I know is I'm in a funk and I just don't know what to make of it. My baby boy turned two years old last week and it's been a harsh reality check. Of course I'm delighted that he had a birthday and that he's even lived this long while having me as a parent! Do I get token coins and tickets for any of that? I think I should at least win a free game or two of skee-ball or somethin! I plan on blogging about his birthday party soon (since it was a really great time), but I'm currently a little overwhelmed with our vacation here in Boston, not to mention all of the pictures and video footage I still need to sift through.

I have so much I want to blog about, but I'm trying to force myself to be a little more analog these days. I suppose what really sticks to my brain will make it to my blog. Should be interesting to see what wins out in the process.

Anyhow, something is bugging me and I just need to get it off of my chest while I await the tylenol pm to friggin kick in already! (I'm going to be worthless in a few hours from now when we're supposed to think about going downtown.)

This time two years ago we were in the throws of the hell that is new parenthood. We had just come home from the hospital on the 4th of July after the alien invasion, also known as a Cesarean section, also known as, to most people besides me, giving birth. I would have settled for the anal probe, seriously, if I would have had a choice. Anything would have been better than a C-section. It sucked and I needed anti-depressants to deal with it all. Someday I'll write what I hope might be a therapeutic blog about that and hope to hell no one reads it for fear the human race will end and it will be all my fault because I blogged about where some babies comes from.

Speaking of which, I am now wishing I'd never stopped taking the anti-depressants. I keep telling myself that when we get back from traveling, I need to make an appointment with a shrinky dink. I can't stand feeling this way anymore and putting my poor, patient husband through it either.



I think it's separation anxiety. Maybe it's just anxiety. All I know is I'm messed up when it comes to being with my child these days. I know what is normal, I minored in psych for crying out loud (which is what I feel like doing lately.) But, like the dude in Juno said, well, sort of in this way "I know I'm prepared. I just don't know that I'm ready."

I don't know that I'm ready for my son to be a kid and not a baby anymore. I know I don't have a choice. My heart hurts when I think about him. When he's awake, I can't wait till it's time for him to sleep. When he's sleeping, I can't wait for him to wake up. And need me.

This is the part where all the other sane people go, "you're kidding me, right?!"

I just want him to need me. ME. Not anyone else.
ME.
M.O.M.
I just want to be needed. Hugged. Cuddled. Kissed.

Lately, only Daddy will do. Lucian could care less if I'm around. He cries in his sleep sometimes calling for his Dadda. He even signs Dadda in his sleep while calling for him. Whenever I try to comfort him, he wiggles away from me and wants Dadda. I can't blame him. I want his Dadda too. (for different reasons though)



I miss my baby boy. When he was born, everyone else got to hold him, meet him, touch him, bond with him, fall in love with him — all before I did. I am very very bitter about having to have a Cesarian. I have yet to forgive myself for going back to work full time for almost the first year of his life. I'll never get that time back and I spin my wheels trying to make up for it.



Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't want to be close to me because he feels I abandoned him. I know that's silly talk, but this is just one of the irrational thoughts in my head lately.

We've been in Boston visiting family this whole week and it's been a little torturous on the anxiety issue. My inlaws probably think I'm a major bitch right about now and probably can not wait till I leave. They would probably have a much easier time if it was just Nate and Lucian spending the time here. I'm certain I complicate everything, but they have no idea of the constant struggles I face mentally when it comes to being here with a young child for the first time. I think maybe this trip is beginning to highlight some things for me which I hope might help me to explain things better to a therpist in the near future.

Not sure if you know this or not, but Boston is a huge freakin city. There are crazy drivers in fast cars, major traffic, everything is high up and close together. There are lots of screechy trains and tracks and people. Lots of people.

In my irrational head: they are all out to get my child. Every time I have to push the stupid umbrella stroller that we borrowed from my sister over train tracks, I have a mini panic attack. I have these mini nightmares that the wheels get stuck just as the T train starts to approach us.

You don't know how close I was to making Nate take us to the nearest baby store and purchase an expensive Jeep stroller with big chunky wheels.

But, we are simple people and that just would not be practical for us, nor our budget. So I suffer and scream inside each time the wheels hit a snag in the road as we walk every-freakin-where in this huge city.

I now know why I've put on so much weight and can't seem to keep it off. My survival plan does not involve climbing three flights of stairs each any every time I want to enter my home. It also doesn't involve walking several blocks to get to a train and then walking several more blocks to go somewhere else, all while toting a child and a backpack filled with everything you might need for several hours out and about. It just doesn't and when I try to keep up with the fast-paced lifestyle here, I feel like a complete failure.

It doesn't help matters that Lucian wants nothing to do with me most times and then his aunt and uncle want to spend time with him and care for him the way THEY see best. Nevermind what I think should happen, my opinion doesn't matter here. I'm just the crazy woman who wants her child on a leash while waking into town so that he doesn't wiggle himself loose and dart out into traffic.

Anyhow, I guess the tylenol pm is starting to kick in because I've now sat here a couple of times watching the cursor blink.

Part of me thinks I may regret writing this post. The other part of me, the part that is finally getting tired, just doesn't give a rat's ass. Now if only I could be this mellow when leaving my child to go play at the park with another relative that isn't myself or his father, I think life would be a little kinder to me and my emotions.

Firefox 3 Bookmark Management Highlights

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 5
Bookmark Management Features - Firefox 2 vs Firefox 3

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I finally updated to Firefox 3 today. I think I'm in love. So far, Firefox 3 feels smooth and silky. It's peppy and easy on the eyes. One of the first things I notice is that the scrolling feels and reacts much like the swiping on an iPhone. I don't have an iPhone yet, but I've petted my sister-in-law's iPhone, so I have at least interacted with the device and played around with the UI. I have my MacBook Pro's trackpad gesturing set to scroll with a two-finger swipe, so the human interaction required is a very familiar feeling and consistent between the devices – trackpad to iPhone. I'm sure that was no accident.

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It takes a little bit for your eyes to adjust to the tracking, but I tried it with and without the scrolling features enabled and I do prefer the smooth and auto scrolling features checked as opposed to unchecked. Try it out for yourself and see if you notice the difference.

Another thing that struck me right away is how much FF3 is a lot like Safari. My preference has been Firefox for a long time now, but once in a while I do check in with Safari. I would love to be able to say I'm a complete Apple purist when it comes to the apps, but I just can not commit to using Safari full time. That may change and I hope it does, but for the time being, Firefox is my preference.

Take a look here at the user interfaces side by side. (You can click on the screen shot images for a larger view to see more detail.)

This is Safari 3

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This is Firefox 2
(At this phase in the game, it still had a Windows-looking feel to it.)

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This is Firefox 3
(Now look at how much more Mac/Safari-like this polished UI is. See what I mean?)

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One of the biggest reasons for not being faithful to Safari is all the whining and moaning about the security flaws. I guess I give in too easily to peer pressure, but it just doesn't give me a good vibe. I haven't personally been affected by anything, but when I was a site tech, I remember having to jump through some hoops to make Safari more secure for the schools and that, to me, just didn't sit well. Security should be built in and turned on by default.

There was also the occasional problem of certain pages not being coded for or loading in Safari. When I had to make a decision about which browser to use for the clinic I support, I went with Firefox because I just couldn't take the chance of some medical or insurance website not loading for the staff. I'd rather they just stick to Firefox and use Safari as a backup if needed.

I wish I could love Safari, I really do, but it's just not there for me yet, honestly. It's just not my personal habit right now, but hopefully that will change in the future. I really hope they give people what they're asking for in Snow Leopard when it is released and I hope it comes with a tighter, tougher Safari to gain the good reputation it deserves along side of all of the other secure feeling associated with Apple and the Mac platform.

You and I may know the truth about what really happened when Safari got pwned a few months back, but those who aren't "in the know" so to speak still freak out about it and that's just not cool. Apple is just going to have to work a little harder on it's problem child, Safari, in my opinion. And that's ok. It's progress.

I usually recommend Safari to most of my clients who are just doing simple web browsing, so it's not like I go around bashing the product. I just think certain browsers are more appropriate for a certain user. Most of my senior citizen clients are really not interested in online banking and doing a whole lot that requires me to worry that much about their security. I mean, it's not like their surfing porn sites or downloading games. (at least not to *my* knowledge and I'd like to keep that nice clean image in my head, thankyouverymuch.) Of course safety is always a high priority, but Safari is plenty sufficient for people who have not developed a persnickety attitude towards user interfaces like I have.

Speaking of persnickety, I'd like to tell you about some of the features and differences I've noticed between the two versions of Firefox. For this post, I'll be focusing on bookmark organization. This is not for the squeamish. I am not right in the head when it comes to organizing stuff. I'm sure I have some sort of "condition" but just humor me and check this out.

Here is a view of the toolbar and bookmarks toolbar in Firefox 2. You can put folders in your bookmarks toolbar which will result in a drop-down menu. I love using this method for bookmarks I interact with in cycles. For me, it's not enough to pay all my bills on one site at my bank. I like to be able to interact with each of the sites to check things out since we don't get any paper bills. I think only our water & sewer bills are paper. The rest are all online. I also interact with a lot of social media tools and drop-down menus organized by category are great for that.

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The same feature exists in Firefox 3 only it looks slightly different.

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In this screen shot, notice how the bookmark manager in Firefox 2 looks. In FF2 you could put separators in between folders and give them names. This seems to be missing in FF3 though.

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Now in Firefox 3, there are a whole new set of organization tools for bookmarks like tagging. Perhaps its been there all along, but now I have occasion to really use it! At first, I really didn't like it because it felt to similar to the way Safari handles bookmarks which was another thing I didn't like about Safari.

After playing around with the new bookmark manager in Firefox, I grew to love it. I started tagging and sorting things and I was feeling very happy about my new-found obsession.

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There are good reasons for wanting to tightly organize your bookmarks besides just satisfying your inner Rain Man. If you interact with social media, it helps to have all the different tools handy in one area so you're not hunting around for them. If you like to share links with others, for instance, a blogroll or a link list, you can export your bookmarks as an html file and edit the text for use on a website. Using the bookmark manager in Firefox also enters those fine details on the resulting webpage with live links as seen in these examples.

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Sorting and viewing the columns in the bookmarks manager is a little different than in Firefox 2. Shown here is an example of where to find the column list.

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Here's where it moved to in Firefox 3. It's viewable once you've selected Organize Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu bar. Pretty crafty, huh?

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Lastly, I'd like to point out the new bookmark feature. It's pretty obvious when you choose to bookmark a page for the first time. You can either click on the blue star in the location bar, press command-D on the keyboard, or select Bookmark This Page from the Bookmarks menu. You now get this slick-looking HUD (heads up display) that appears. It is stationary and seems to shoot out of the corner of the star once engaged.

Clicking on the triangles within that HUD expand more options for where exactly to store the bookmark you wish to save. This is nothing new, but the interface looks dramatically different from the previous version. It's much more obvious now.

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Well, this concludes my first look into Firefox 3 and some of the fine tuning it has to offer in this new version. I hope you may have learned a few new tips or tricks you can use. Please don't send me the bill for your therapist; however, but if you can recommend a good one, that would be helpful for me!

My Dad on Father's Day

More Monkey See, Monkey Do
So, what's dinner like with YOUR Dad? Here is a day in my life with MY Dad.
I'm going to get grounded when he finds out about this post, so if you don't hear from me in a while, you'll know what happened.


Father's Day Meal Conversation from TheMacMommy on Vimeo.

Thanks for making me a Mom!
Here is Mr. Davis with Lucian opening his geeky gift from us. Now he'll be able to listen to HIS iPod in HIS car.

(Just to show how much I love him, HE has the bigger of our two iPods. For now. He did earn it though.)

Happy 2nd Father's Day to my wonderful and loving husband. You're such a great Daddy and we love you very very much!
(Even though it was a couple of days ago, I still like to brag to the world just how awesome you guys are.)

Monkey See Monkey Do

Lucian is in that mimic phase these days. Sometimes it's cute. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's just not funny or cute, it's scary.

It helps that there are times like when he follows you into the bathroom (like all the time) to mimic what you're doing. Like pulling toilette paper off the roll. And repeating the process. Till you tell him to stop. To which command he refuses to obey and then you get mad and then he wipes himself over his diaper and then you laugh.

I swear one of the hardest things about parenting is keeping a straight face.

Could Ya Pencil Me In?

Hand-Made Mac Tip No. 4
Travel & Trip Blogging using Social Networking Service: Dopplr






Before we left for our trip, I started organizing some of the trip details with a social networking tool called Dopplr. I even made some journal notes in it recently. (Thanks to fellow MomsGoneGeek co-host, GeekyCyberMom for turning me on to this service.)

I suppose you might have to have an account to view it, but above is a blog widget to show you a preview. It also has links to photos on my Flickr account in some of the individual trip details. (although, you know me, I wish it were my Picasa account instead.) Some of the pictures associated with the trip are off, but I suspect it's just syncing the dates in the XML data of the photos.

I do like how you can subscribe to it (as well as others' Dopplrs you socialize with) and sync it with iCal. You can enter details and they appear in the notes section of each iCal entry.

I just wish you could tweak it a little further to specify trip names and detailed times so I could really use it as a public calendar to schedule events and trips. Instead of just saying "In Philadelphia" I'd like it to say "Playdate with Triplets." I'd also like to specify a time as opposed to an all day event when it might not be an entire day trip. I can at least do that in the notes section, but you know scatterbrained moms like me like to have alarms to remember stuff. My iCal is my other brain. I'd be lost without it.


Let me know what you think of this tool. (Leave me a comment.) I would be especially interested if you have any other tips on some good traveling tools like this that might be more open for family and friends who might be opposed to signing up for some service they might never use. That's one beef I always have with services.

I realize that this isn't truly Dopplr's intended use, but it's got great potential. Isn't that what we moms do anyhow? Foster great potential?

Just saying.

Happy travels to you :)