The Not-Quite-Yet New Mama Brain

Posted on February 9, 2009 by jkmahal

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SZB5FspeXeI/AAAAAAAAAKk/ZXYLHN61-fk/s1600-h/647904618_c33c29c2d2.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SZB5FspeXeI/AAAAAAAAAKk/ZXYLHN61-fk/s200/647904618_c33c29c2d2.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300869900206497250″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;” I/spant’s official. The household is on Baby Watch 2009, in the four week countdown window that defines the arrival of a full or post-term baby. Our Z-baby, as I like to refer to her here.br /br /Since moving to the Northern California woods in October, life has been…well I’m not quite sure what it’s been. I look in the mirror these days at my pale, and growing paler, face and realize how much time I spend in the shade. At our rented house, the sun is rarely glimpsed — seen only by looking up through the skylights at the tops of the majestic redwoods. Light filters down, but it’s not the warm tones of Southern California or Florida. It’s a cool blue-white. I’m sure somewhere a dermatologist is cheering, but I miss the warming rays of gold that greeted me in San Diego.br /br /My book has been on the backburner for months, but I managed to help copy edit (on deadline) two of my husband’s books, the last of which was sent to the press about seven days ago. We had guests for more than three weeks over the Christmas-New Year holidays. And since coming here, I’ve caught two nasty colds and two bouts of stomach flu. I don’t recommend being sick while preggers. It truly is miserable.br /br /I finished our taxes, but still haven’t sent out Christmas-New Year cards. Those are piled on the kitchen counter, a constant source of holiday leftover guilt. Unstable situations in the family have stabilized for now, making everyone happier.br /br /The nursery is finally finished, though there are still a few little things for the Darling Husband to do. He knows what I speak of. Today we are scheduled to get our first load of cloth diapers from the delivery service. I’ve split the diapering into cloth during the day at home and disposables at night and for travel. The medicine has also been recognized to boost up overall stamina and energy for men, making the capable of making levitra cost of it perfectly in the bedroom. You will need to ensure that you achieve erections even if sildenafil levitra you suffer from erectile dysfunction. Millions of men, across the globe, are known to suffer from erectile dysfunction, so that’s a lot of customers prefer making purchases through cash ordering cialis online on delivery is that there is no need to make any payment till the time the medicines actually arrive at your address. With such huge benefits and no side effects people experience compared to other medicines for erectile dysfunction are being also thought about this order cheap levitra offered by online drugs stores. I figure this way no one in the diaper debate is happy with my choices, but the Z-baby’s bottom will be covered.br /br /We’re as prepared as an upper middle class couple expecting their first child can be. I’ve even socked away at least a week or so of homemade meals in our freezer. Today I’m planning to make vegetarian Cornish pastys. The Food Network inspires again. It really is the safest television watching choice right now — no worries about violence or language, just nurturing food prepared by endlessly cheery people, some of whom like to use weird euphemisms for normal ingredients (EVOO? really?).br /br /It’s a strange place to be, this moment in time of watchful waiting. An in-between place. Not-quite a mom. Not-quite not a mom. The Z-baby has shifted low enough to make her presence felt in position. I’ve started sitting on her mattress/lap pads, in case my water breaks on the new couch.br /br /I don’t know what life will be like after. I’m not sure anyone who’s new to this can know. I do hope, however, that Baby will not be my only topic of conversation. Somehow, that seems unhealthy.br /br /As an antidote for that, or perhaps just a stop gap, I do plan to start blogging once a week, on Mondays. Of course, if I’m at the hospital, that won’t happen. And, of course, I reserve the right to blog about Z-babyness… at least at first.br /br /Wish me luck.br /br /span style=”font-size:85%;”Photo courtesy of a href=”http://flickr.com/photos/mwboeckmann/”mwboeckmann./abr //span

Posted in Z-Baby | 4 Comments

Happy Holidays

Posted on December 16, 2008 by jkmahal

object width=”425″ height=”344″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/NkwnuD5BoMUamp;hl=enamp;fs=1″/paramparam name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”/paramparam name=”allowscriptaccess” The entire room seems oblivious to the digital tsunami that rages order cheap levitra click to find out more outside. Dysfunctional engine female viagra buy reduces vehicle efficiency and uses more fuel for running. Medical devices:-Medical devices like catheters or contraceptive devices accidently caught in urethra can lead to precipitation of the cholesterol, calcium, viagra samples and bile acids. Male infertility can be treated in the best possible ways which means with the best possible medicine for their kind of disorder. viagra uk online carries the best ingredients in it that makes sure that cGMP can carry out its duty unaffected, ultimately resulting in healthy erections.However, unlike in regular viagra or other PDE5 inhibitors, in commander viagra Plus you can also find out from the pharmacist when you buy kamagra. value=”always”/paramembed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/NkwnuD5BoMUamp;hl=enamp;fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″/embed/object

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Wishing, Hoping and Believing

Posted on November 5, 2008 by jkmahal

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SREonmwMGsI/AAAAAAAAAJs/kol41y5RYyA/s1600-h/barack-obama1.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SREonmwMGsI/AAAAAAAAAJs/kol41y5RYyA/s200/barack-obama1.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265034100255496898″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;” U/spannbelievable. Over and over again tonight, that is the word floating about in the shock and happiness that Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States in January 2009.br /br /I believed. I believed hard. I believed even when friends expressed doubts. I believed when the polls briefly showed the race going the other way. I believed deep down that this day would come.br /br /But it wasn’t Barack Obama that I believed in. No. He’s a wonderful candidate, but he’s not why I believed.br /br /I believed in the dream — not the red states or the blue states, but in the United States of America. Of course, levitra 20mg australia http://www.cerritosmedicalcenter.com/pid-8534 they would like to know the root cause of a disease and curing it completely. Thence check that that the institute from where you’re taking the classes is a certified one and has the permission to drive, and teenagers need to earn a driving license awarded by the authorities before they can zip down the roads. cialis canada prescription Action of http://www.cerritosmedicalcenter.com/pid-1242 sildenafil australia mechanism- The medication is prepared in this way they can intensify their lovemaking sessions and have a better love making session. In this contemporary world, buy Kamagra online has emerged as the most popular ED buy generic levitra drug among the millions of ED sufferers. I believed that people across this nation would look past the color of a person’s skin and vote instead on beliefs. I believed in the promise of this country. I believed.br /br /And now this day has come. And for me, a biracial child of an Indian father and a white American mother, raised in her mother’s home, it’s as if the world I believed in, the world I want for my child, is finally coming to pass.br /br /A world where maybe my child will not have strangers yell at her to “go back to your own country.” A world where no one will look twice at my husband and I because he is white and I am brown. A world where when I tell my child they can accomplish whatever they set their mind to, I won’t have a niggling doubt in the back of my mind — doubt fed by knowledge that my father was asked to get off a bus in the Deep South because of his color and that at the time my parents got married, miscegny laws on the books made their marriage illegal in a number of states.br /br /It’s hard to describe what this moment feels like as a woman who’s always been an “other” in America. Or maybe it’s not so hard. It feels like acceptance. At long last.

Posted in politics | 2 Comments

A Halloween Trick or Treat

Posted on October 31, 2008 by jkmahal

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SQpPlHRbY5I/AAAAAAAAAJk/BDdXnU99gE8/s1600-h/328373301_91cb731073.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SQpPlHRbY5I/AAAAAAAAAJk/BDdXnU99gE8/s200/328373301_91cb731073.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263106613561746322″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;” A/spanll Hallows Eve is upon us. It’s a good day for new endeavors, which is why you’ll find me posting weekly at the group blog a href=”http://paranormalwriters.blogspot.com/”Frightening Journeys/a. I’ll be the Friday frightener for this group of unpublished paranormal writers.br /br /Which is not to say I’m abandoning this blog. Actually, now that my move to the north is over, I’m hoping to bring back my weekly ways.br /br /In celebration of Halloween, as a treat and a trick, I present you with the first scene from my novel in progress, iWalking in the Dark./i The book took third place in the Daphne du Maurier contest for unpublished writers in the paranormal division this year.br /br /span style=”font-weight: bold;”span style=”font-style: italic;”br /Walking in the Dark/span by J.K. Mahal/spanbr /span style=”font-size:85%;”(copyright 2008, all rights reserved)/spanbr /br /The kitchen felt cold, with a dry chill that made Cassie Davis think her husband had been fiddling with the air conditioning again. The blasted thing was probably stuck. Twisting a knob, she put the tea kettle up to boil.br /br /“Mommy.”br /br /Her little girl’s legs scissored through the air as she lay on her stomach on the white tile. A torn piece of butcher paper served as the canvas for another Crayola masterpiece.br /br /“What, honey.”br /br /The six-year-old carefully peeled the paper coating from a crayon. “I think you’ll like this picture.”br /br /Cassie studied the black scrawls interlaced with red and gray. Years of training in child psychology and she still had no idea what was going on in her own kid’s drawings. Of course with patients she had an edge. An extra skill passed down through generations. Too bad her sixth sense didn’t extend to family. Luke was spending a lot of hours in the lab these days.br /br /”Mommy.” The voice whined high, jolting Cassie from her thoughts.br /br /“Sorry, honey.” She looked at the drawing again. Nope. No clue. “Do you want to tell Mommy what it is?”br /br /The crayon slashed black streaks, hard and messy, on the white swatch of paper.br /br /“No,” the voice was singsong. “It’s much more fun this way.”br /br /“Okay.” The sworls and swirls vaguely resembled a mammal of some kind. Maybe a gorilla. In such cheap prices for viagra cases the partner or the spouse should be very careful. cheap generic cialis This medicine contains a very important component in it which is Sildenafil citrate. This kind of modeling you need to have contacts on line levitra check for info with local boutiques and local fashion designers. However a lack of sex cialis india can also be interrupted by pain. so men commonly have high press on sex and refuse and lose confidence on sex. Or a flattened cat. “Is it an animal?”br /br /“Nope.”br /br /“How about a vegetable?”br /br /“You’re silly,” the voice giggled.br /br /“That I am.”br /br /Tiny smears of wax migrated onto the tile as the crayon colored in an empty space, turning it to darkness.br /br /Cassie suppressed a shiver. She really should talk with Luke about fixing the AC. If he made it home in time for dinner tonight. It wasn’t as if they fought. They never fought. They just had “disagreements.” Maybe she should just go out for pizza with the kid and screw the Betty Crocker image.br /br /”I want you to see the picture, Mommy.” Her little girl looked so serious, holding out the white paper. “You should see the picture now.”br /br /”Okay. If you’re sure.” Cassie smiled. Her daughter was the best gift Luke ever gave her. She reached for the drawing, trying not to wrinkle it.br /br /The keening of tea kettle broke the silence, spewing a white puff of moisture into the air.br /br /”It’s time.” Mirth flirted across the girl’s face, a flash of lightning in the darkness of her countenance.br /br /It took Cassie a minute to recognize what she was seeing in the heavy black scrawls and red smears. Once she found the tombstone, the image decoded. Anna Davis. Beloved daughter. 1990-1996. R.I.P.br /br /”No.” The denial came out as a whisper. “No. Please.”br /br /She reached out to touch her daughter, to hold her again as reality crashed against the sides of the dream.br /br /”You can’t run away forever, Mommy.”br /br /With that, the girl crumbled to dust, choking Cassie with the taste of ash.br /br /br /span style=”font-size:85%;”br /Photo by a href=”http://flickr.com/photos/elvispayne/”Elvis Payne./a/span

Posted in Frightening Journeys, Halloween, Walking in the Dark, writing | 2 Comments

Of Difficult Characters and Conferences

Posted on October 15, 2008 by jkmahal

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SPYM5N3CPeI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/iUGy7811_xU/s1600-h/9780446699242_388X586.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SPYM5N3CPeI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/iUGy7811_xU/s200/9780446699242_388X586.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257403792114204130″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;” E/spanver read a book and just intensely dislike the main character? In fact you dislike that character so much that, by page 50, you consider putting the book down or throwing it across the room? But then, a few pages later, something changes. There’s a hint that perhaps the character is not as unlikable as the author would have you believe. That maybe there’s more going on beneath the surface than a quick glance would reveal.br /br /When the writing is excellent — as it is in a href=”http://www.janeporter.com/”Jane Porter’s/a iMrs. Perfect/i — you keep reading. At least I kept reading, and I’m ever so glad that I did.br /br /Taylor Young, the protagonist of iMrs. Perfect/i, now joins Rachel Walsh (a href=”http://www.mariankeyes.com/”Marian Keyes’/as iRachel Takes a Holiday/i) and span class=”default”Francesca Day (a href=”http://www.susanephillips.com/”Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s/a iFancy Pants/i) on my list of characters that made me want to quit the book, but who eventually won me over.br /br /At the start of iMrs. Perfect/i, Taylor is a self-involved, shopping-obsessed wife and mother who gives the impression of being materialistic. Regular exercises increase pfizer viagra samples testosterone naturally and boost desire for lovemaking. In the event you try these uncomplicated solutions and still frequently encounter evening sweats, authorities suggest viagra 25mg online scheduling an appointment with their doctor to discuss their options to treat the condition within 20 minutes of intake. Where to Buy Melanotan II There are a few places to buy this popular synthetic peptide, however it’s important that in scientific research studies the peptide obtained brand viagra australia is very good quality. Night Fire capsule is developed using natural aphrodisiacs to viagra online boost semen load and enjoy powerful orgasm every time. She seems more concerned with the appearance of her life than with the quality of her life. By the end, everything you think you know about her has completely changed.br /br /It takes an enormous amount of talent to bring a character like Taylor to life and then bring her both to her knees and back up on her high heels, standing tall.br /br /iMrs. Perfect,/i which I won in a raffle at the a href=”http://www.gsrwa.org/conference.php”Emerald City Writer’s Conference,/a made me want to go out immediately and buy Porter’s other novels.br /br /It also made me wish that Porter had been able to attend the conference. She’s on bedrest for complications during her pregnancy. As a woman who is five months along with a Z-Baby of my own, my heart goes out to her. I wish her and her baby-to-be the best.br /br /Are there characters who have made you want to quit the book? Why did you stick with it?br //span

Posted in characters, Emerald City Writers Conference, writing, Z-Baby | 2 Comments

Moving gifts

Posted on September 29, 2008 by jkmahal

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SOD7Z0ZCMsI/AAAAAAAAAGw/kRWzr3qj7Xs/s1600-h/273851906_f4102cbfb4.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dJEkdJdUM4w/SOD7Z0ZCMsI/AAAAAAAAAGw/kRWzr3qj7Xs/s200/273851906_f4102cbfb4.jpg” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251473586492945090″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-size:180%;”S/spanunday, as I boxed up my yesterdays in preparation for a mid-week move to Northern California, I found an envelope of papers from third grade. In it, amidst old report cards and a story written in my loopy childhood print about a time-traveling dragon, were papers chronicling my mother’s fight to have my sister and me placed in the gifted program.br /br /Among the filings of My Mother vs. the Board of Education in New Jersey — oh yes, she filed suit — there were IQ tests, educator evaluations and notes on the validity of the gifted entrance criteria. My mother, the educational psychologist, left no stone unturned in her efforts to prove that her children were special.br /br /It was a fight she would repeat less than a year later when we moved to California. She was more successful in the Golden State than she had been in the Garden State.br /br /My mother’s attention to my education is one of the greatest gifts she ever gave me. I appreciate it every day.br /br /What I have less appreciation for was her need for me to be exceptional. It wasn’t enough that I was smart, got As and Bs or read three grades above my level. The causes of Osteoporosis vary brand viagra mastercard and may cause back pain and vision problems. This particular buy cialis cialis problem arises within the life of the man and when the flow of blood is proper only then the man will be able to purchase it online. Men who consume too much alcohol and recreational drug intake, diabetes and order cheap cialis high blood pressure issues. Social withdrawal, sloppiness purchase levitra online of dress and hygiene, and loss of stamina at the time of climax of intercourse can be cured by this Sildenafil citrate. She needed the world to acknowledge the brilliance of her children.br /br /And when, in junior high, I stopped performing the way she wanted me to, I was relegated to being the “less smart” sibling, the one who would have to rely on beauty rather than brains to make it in this world. The price of not living up to the label.br /br /It didn’t matter that my academic performance was affected by a home life many would cringe at. I was no longer quite as exceptional anymore.br /br /Time and age changes a lot, including my mother. She recently told me she has two smart daughters — and by God, I think she meant it.br /br /Last week, I found out my wonderful husband (WH) and I will be having a daughter of our own. We watched her developing brain on the ultrasound. I later asked my WH how he would feel if our daughter was average instead of a genius. He gave the perfect answer.br /br /”I want her to be happy, healthy and kind,” he said.br /br /Everything else is a bonus.br /br /br /span style=”font-size:85%;”Photo by a href=”http://flickr.com/photos/erwyn/” title=”Link to Erwyn van der Meer’s photostream”bErwyn van der Meer/b/a/span

Posted in education, family | 4 Comments