I’m one in a million baby.

In case you haven’t heard, J.K. Rowling has a new project called Pottermore.  Pottermore is a fan site designed by JKR that will contain lots of new information about the school, houses and characters and is designed to encourage reading.  We don’t know a whole lot about the content but hopes are high that it will be awesome.  One feature that is especially tantalizing is the sorting hat.  JKR has reportedly written a very long and exhaustive sorting test that will assign you to your proper house. 

The site is scheduled to go live sometime this October however one million fans will get the opportunity to beta test the site this summer.  For the past several days the Pottermore site has put up clues that, when answered correctly, get you an early registration.  On Day 1 (July 31) I got the clue and managed (amazingly) to get my username WormwoodPixie97 (you pick your name from 5 preapproved selections and I loved this one.)  Day 1 was the only day I could commit to staying up refreshing my browser so I feel extremely fortunate to have gotten in. 

I have a new love

No this isn't a post about my son (though I do love him tremendously) this is about a love like no other.  The love of sport, of competition, of comradery and fishnet stockings.  This is about roller derby. 

St Patrick's Day

I first caught the derby bug when we were living in Long Beach in 2004.  I had heard about derby making a comeback in Texas and seen a few videos.  It was incredible.  At the time I was taking ice skating lessons and flirting with the idea of taking up speed skating so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to transfer those skills from ice to wheels.  We moved to San Diego and life just sort of took over.  Career, baby all that stuff made me just forget about roller derby for a while.  Then two things happened that changed everything.

First in 2008 we moved back to the bay area where derby is alive and well.  My job required that I go past Kezar Pavillion where the Bay City Bombers play.  I was constantly being reminded of my derby bug every time the bombers put up a banner about an upcoming bout.  Then in 2009 Whip It came out and my derby bug started to gnaw at my soul.

I was off having a baby this day

One day at the mall Kevin pointed out a small poster advertising a bout in the south bay.  It said they were looking for skaters so I wrote down the name of the team and promptly lost it.  A few months later Whip It was on cable and I was online.  It got me thinking about that poster.  So I did a quick search for derby teams near San Francisco.  This is how I found the Peninsula Roller Girls a new team that was just getting started.  They needed skaters and were willing to take on fresh meat.   All levels were welcome.


Now of course I was pregnant at the time.  But I sent in my info and told them that it would be a while before I could get on skates but I could help with other support.  That was November.


In December the team had a meeting, its first.  There were about a dozen of us there and one of the girls  brought a coach (her husband.)  We were ready to start a team.  More meetings were held in January and practices began.  Around this same time Johnathan was born.  On January 31st I attended my first off skate workout.  I strapped my 2 week old baby to my chest and started doing lunges with the rest of my team.  Two weeks later I was on skates. 

In one month I've gone from being a fidgety nervous skater that could barley stay upright, to an athlete that can do cross-overs, falls, stops and even jumps.  I've rearranged the furniture and rugs in my home so I can practice when it's raining out.  I've also gone from a size 18 to 14 and lost close to 20 pounds.  But best of all I have fallen in love with my team.  I've never had much luck making friends with women and suddenly I've got this incredible connection to 20 other girls.  Every one of these women is amazing in her own special way.  And I consider each of them a friend.

Tomorrow night I take my first skills test.  If I pass I can start participating in contact drills.   I am so far away from where I was just a month ago that it's still a bit surreal.

My birth story

Wow has it really been 2 months since I posted anything?  I guess time flies when you're having a baby.  Except of course when you're waiting for that baby to show up.  That takes for freaking EVER.

After a week and a half of false starts, stripped membranes and early morning text messages of "still nothing" we finally went in for an induction the night of January 13th (8 days past due). Our first child had to be delivered via C-section because she was breech and the placement of the placenta made turning her dangerous.  I really wanted to avoid having another surgical delivery.  Fortunately the staff at UCSF Med Center were supportive of my decision to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and were willing to spend the time needed to slowly induce me giving me the best chance of success.

The first step (after getting settled into our amazing room) was to have a foley catheter passed through my cervix and inflated to 60mL.  Then the catheter was taped to my leg to put pressure on my cervix (mimicking the baby's head.)  It was stunning how well this worked.  Within a few seconds I was having strong contractions.  Within a few minutes I was asking for drugs.  Which reminds me, Fentenyl is amazing.  It doesn't make the pain go away it just makes it so that you don't care about it anymore and it makes everything funny.

The view from my room

Once the foley came out (about an hour later) they started me on low dose pitocin.  This went on forever.  After lunch on the 14th I finally decided that I was too tired.  I couldn't sleep because of the contractions and I knew I was going to need some rest if I was going to push this kid out.  It was time for the epidural.  I ended up getting the epidural and a spinal at the same time so that I could go right to sleep.  I took a nice long nap and watched a little TV.

At 1 in the morning on the 15th the nurses told me it was time to start pushing.  I couldn't feel much on account of the epidural so I had the nurses get me a mirror.  As I pushed I could see my son's little hairy head getting bigger and bigger.  His head was getting close but still not quite crowning.  Then during one of my contractions I pushed and all the nurses yelled "STOP!!"  His head had popped out.  Kevin later said that it looked like a game of whack-a-mole.  The doc came over checked his neck for the cord and told me to push one more time. 

At 2:36 in the morning on January 15th Johnathan was born. 

The day Family Game Night was born

For some time I've been pestering Kevin for a dinning room set and this year for Christmas I got exactly what I wanted.  I helped pick it out and it arrived earlier this week.  It's really lovely, dark wood retro design, and fits in well with the house.

On the day it arrived Em and I came home and she spotted it first thing.
"Mommy you got one of those?"
"Yep, pretty cool huh?"
"We play cards?"
And just like that family game night was born.  We ate pizza and salad at the table like a family, played  Yoohoo Can You Moo, and didn't turn on the TV until well after Em had gone to bed.

Love is a many splendored thing

Not everyone is lucky enough to find that one person who makes their world a brighter place.  For those of us who do, it can be incredibly hard to put into words "why" you love someone.  I think the reason is because it's all the little things that add up to a really great relationship.  I am very lucky to have one of those great relationships where we are exactly alike and very different all at the same time.  Our differences compliment each other and our similarities bring us closer together. 

For many years now I have been a self proclaimed Harry Potter fanatic.  Somewhere along the line I got Kevin to read  the first book.  Soon he had caught up to me and we started having great conversations about who did what and what was going to happen next.  As the movies came out Kevin got use to me always going to them dressed up in my Hogwarts best.  Usually I sported a Hermione costume but for The Half Blood Prince I went as a dark witch. 

One thing that Kevin learned early on is that I, like so many other women, have a huge crush on Severus Snape (as portrayed by Alan Rickman.)  And while I've never really gotten into fan fic it's always been our little joke that he is my Professor Snape and I am his Hermione (detention is usually part of the story.)  I have tried for years to get Kevin to dress as Snape for me for Halloween or for a trip to the movies but he's never been up for it.  He's just not much of a costume kind of guy.  Well last week when we decided that we would see Deathly Hallows part 1 the day after Thanksgiving Kevin actually suggested that we dress as Professor Snape and a very pregnant Hermione (a not uncommon story line in fan fic.)  So I hit my favorite Goodwill store and picked up some supplies.


I got a couple of black coats to piece together for Kevin along with a pair of skinny jeans.  I got myself a stretchy gray skirt and a new sweater-vest.  A couple of hours with a sewing machine and a pair of scissors and this is what we ended up with.  Just one more little reason why I love my guy and why we are so perfect together.  Because even though he doesn't do costumes he couldn't pass up the opportunity to be the dirty professor that got Hermione into this condition.

Hello Severus

The happy couple

Kiss me Severus

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I just finished watching Glee's RHPS episode.  It was a lot of fun and, in my humble opinon, an excellent tribute to the show.  The cameos by Barry Bostwick and Meatloaf were an unexpected treat and the performances by all involved were excellent.  But the best part of the show was sitting there yelling "slut" and "asshole" at my TV and remembering just how much fun I had going to those shows and dancing the time warp.  For those that didn't see the Glee episode there was a comment at the end (don't worry not much of a spoiler) that really rings true.  "The Rocky Horror Picture Show (and I'm paraphrasing) was a place you could go if you didn't fit in anywhere else."  Everyone was accepted for who they are at Rocky.  And if you're really lucky you might just get asked up on stage to be part of the pre-show (pics below.)

Fetish night

This is one of my favorite outfits from my RHPS days

Horror night (I'm a bridesmaid that killed herself b/c of her horrendous dress)

Sci-fi night

Let the gaming begin!!

Well it's been a busy week around the geeky mom home. Last week I had jury duty. Then over the weekend we had a birthday party for Emily.

Jury duty pretty much entailed calling the courthouse repeatedly to see if I had to go in. The big up side of this is that I couldn't go into work and run the risk of being more than an hour away from the courthouse. I got a lot done around the house that day but more importantly once I was fully cleared from jury duty I could go off and do whatever I liked. So that afternoon Kevin and I went into the city to visit Gamescape before picking up Em from daycare. Gamescape is an awesome store and just what we needed to get the basics for D&D. We got the 4^th edition core rulebook collection and some figurines (Kevin already had dice.) Kevin got a set of figurines (Nualia and Eyrium aka chick and little demon dude) and I got this really cool black knight. 

I fell in love with mine b/c he rides a skeleton horse and has a helmet with bat wings on it (for some reason he reminded me of the Evil Genius from Time Bandits, I need to watch that movie again.) 

So every chance I get I've been reading my D&D Player's Handbook. Thursdays are going to be our official game night and this Thursday we're going to start working on making our characters. I'm leaning toward some sort of elf (possibly an elf wizard) since they are natural archers. Kevin's been working on creating a campaign for the game. He said it's going to involve some sort of zombie attack in a small town. As luck would have it I read Max Brooks Zombie Survival guide a few months back so I'm well prepared for anything Kevin can dish out.

A few days after my jury duty/D&D adventure we had Em's 3^rd birthday party. It was your typical kids party extravaganza; cake, balloons, pin the tail on the donkey and lots of gifts. Two of the gifts she got were the classic board games Candy Land and Shoots and Ladders. Today when we got home she wanted to play a game. We set up Shoots and Ladders and started to play. This was very cool for mommy. Em really seemed to like playing and was starting to “get it” after a while. This makes three games now that we can play together (the others are dominoes and Yoo-Hoo Can You Moo) and I must admit I'm really looking forward to the day that Kevin and I can take her to Gamescape and get her her very own figurine to paint and play D&D with.