We went out to the Mint Festival yesterday, which was nice. I always look forward to it. I think Elsa liked the parade and it was nice to hang out with my mom, although yard sales weren't that great this year. I have a magnificent sandal tan to show for it. That and horribly painful legs.

I can't win with my legs right now. My muscles are sore all day long, and instead of relief after sleeping, I wake up with pain in my knees and ankles. My back is screwed up too. I want to start getting chiropractic again but I have to get x-rays first, which is a lot of money upfront. I need to see if I can work out a payment plan or something.

I also have at least one ingrown toenail but the doctor can't see me until next week. Bother. Anything that touches it makes me scream out in pain. It's not a well visit so the insurance should take care of it now.

Elsa has been napping like a dream today. She cut two incisors yesterday, bringing her tooth total to four. Is that nuts for a baby who's not even six months old, or am I wrong? I got done with everything I wanted to online and was going to clean the kitchen while she's playing by herself but Jeremy got a wild hair up his ass and decided to make a cake. So I have to wait until he's done.

I made a blog on Blogger where I could talk about mom stuff and not bore everyone to death here. But now I realize that mom stuff is pretty much all I have right now.

Um...I've been watching The Big Bang Theory. Everyone I know who watches it says it's hilarious and I agree. Once I catch up on that I'm going to try True Blood. I've read the first book and started the second one, but it's way easier for me to watch something than read something.

I'm entirely sick of cat hair being on everything I own.

I think that gets you caught up. I am so lame.

Finally got some time to write. Elsa was playing with her toys on the floor, but she rolled herself to the tv and has been watching Holmes on Homes for like ten minutes now. Cracks my shit up. I probably should care more that my infant watches tv but fuck it. She's brilliant and tv never hurt me so I'm allowing it.

I still let her sleep on me for her naps. My mother-in-law comments on it every so often (nicely, but still) but honestly, why put her down where she'll sleep for a half hour if I'm lucky, when I can let her nap on my lap and know she'll sleep at least an hour, sometimes two? I can do what I need while she naps, or surf the internet, or read. I don't mind, and besides, before I know it she'll be too big to sleep in my lap and then I will miss it. Plus I'll never have my first baby again, and next time I may be too busy to get this kind of special time so I'm going to enjoy it while I have it.

We're tentatively planning on having my mother-in-law watch her on Thursday for our anniversary and go out to a movie. I really miss going to movies, even though there's not much out now that really interests me. I loved the Avatar: The Last Airbender show, but the movie looks all fucked up. I could deal with the whole thing of casting white actors for Toph and Aang, because they really could go either way. Zuko really ought to be Asian, but I could still deal with it for the most part. But Katara and Sokka have brown skin! It's just dumb to cast white actors as dark skinned kids. And then it sounds like they're changing the tone of it and I don't care for that.

I'm thinking Toy Story 3. Despicable Me sounds good too but I've heard such great things about Toy Story that I think it wins out.

I'm now being summoned so until next time.

Trucking along here. Elsa has started rolling onto her tummy, but she can't go back. It's pretty funny. She'll roll onto her tummy, play for awhile, and then gets bored and yells at you to help her go back onto her back. She sings and vocalizes a lot when she's on her tummy too. It's amazing that she just did it the first time a week ago and could barely hold her head up on her stomach, and now she's an old pro at it. I can't believe how time flies - I knew it would but actually experiencing it is incredible.

I find myself getting addicted to buying diapers and baby carriers. Baby things in general, really. It's hilarious to me because before she was born, the prices for things seemed ridiculous to me. $17 for baby sunglasses - are you kidding me? But now I'm like, "Eh, no big deal." And the damn teething giraffe. I want one of those even though it's hard not to see it as a $20 chew toy. My dad's ex has been bugging my mom and sister about what she should buy for the baby, which is weird but I told them to tell her about the giraffe. That would be sweet.

I especially need to be careful about spending because of me not going back to work, and trying to get into healthier food buying habits. Both to be healthier but also to support local producers and to feel better about the condition of the animals we're eating. And unfortunately that's rather expensive. I want to start small, with produce from farmer's markets a few times a week, eggs from people with free range hormone free birds, and a part of a cow direct from a farmer. We're already growing a bunch of our own veggies too. As we go I'd like to move on to chicken and pork from farmers too, and eventually find a raw milk supplier.

Don't think I'm turning into a health nut by any means. I have no plans to give up junk, just include more good stuff and make sure that good stuff is the best it can be. Also I was getting very up in arms about the movie "The Cove" and realized it was hypocritical of me to be outraged about mass dolphin slaughter when I eat all meat from commercial farms. I thought about stopping being mad about the dolphins, but that wasn't really the solution. ;)

Just dropping in to squeeze out a quick update since it's been like a month already.

Elsa is getting so big so fast. She has a checkup tomorrow where I'll find out her new length and weight but even if she's literally growing slower than average she seems to be looking older every day. Stuff like housecleaning and anything for myself seems kind of pointless now. I just want to look at her all the time.

She holds her head up and coos, and essentially sleeps through the night. I can put her down for longer periods but she still needs me to sleep, which is ok with me.

I can't stand the idea of going back to work. Especially at moronic Target. And I'm very resentful that Jeremy wants me to go back for pretty much no reason than that he would like the extra 400$ a month to spend on comic books and movies and other stupid crap that only benefits him. Hopefully I will get a better job before then so this doesn't have to come up.

We're going to Missouri this weekend for a wedding. That should be both fun and interesting...

I'm enjoying my life pretty well, even with my neverending list of things that need to be done.

I'm seriously thinking about getting into PonyIsland again. It costs money, and oh, the drama, but god help me I'm bored.

I feel really bad that my first entry after having Elsa was so dark and sad. But I'm not going to minimize my feelings here. It really went to hell and unfortunately it's going to take some time and healing before I can see my daughter's birthday as a happy day only. I wish I could have been able to talk about how beautiful she is and how good she smells, and how she's so cute. She looks so much like her daddy, but has hair like I did. I wish I could have said exactly what I felt holding her for the first time, but honestly I was in such a fog that I don't remember.

Things are going pretty well so far. She doesn't like to eat or sleep anywhere but across my lap, which is tricky. I don't feel ready to really try to get her to sleep on her own yet since she's so little still. She has her little fussy moments and sometimes she gets really pissed off, but it's usually nothing a boob won't fix.

She has the softest, chubbiest cheeks I've ever seen. I kiss them a lot. She is also very tooty, which makes me laugh, except when she can't pass them, and she gets upset. We tried to get her pictures taken Monday but she was in a bad mood and we didn't get many. We're trying again on Saturday.

Baby chiropractic has been helping her, I think. We have another appointment tomorrow, and next week I think we'll go shopping for her baptism outfit. I wasn't planning on taking her out "in public" until six weeks but otherwise I'll have to leave her home. I have to decide how concerned I am about germs.

My birth did not go well. I started prodomal labor Thursday night and it went on for about 36 hours at home before going to the birth center Saturday night. I should have known something was wrong when I got checked and was still at a 6 because the pain was excruciating and I don't think it was supposed to be. It was horrible back pain that wouldn't subside and I wasn't progressing very well. We tried everything the birth center had at their disposal. I was at a 9 on Sunday morning and stayed that way for the next nine hours. We even ruptured my waters at this point. I was incoherent and hysterical at this point and we finally decided to transfer after 24 total hours of active labor.

At the hospital I consented to an epidural hoping I would relax and finish dilating. I still wasn't and consented to pitocin. After another eight hours I was fully dilated but not feeling much urge to push. We tried and waited and after four hours of pushing I was just spent and couldn't handle it anymore. I let them section me at 5:20 on Monday after a total of 36 hours of active labor.

My baby girl ended up being 13 lbs 8 oz, 23.2 inches, and having a head measurement of 15.2 cm. I know that I did more than most people would ever do but I still feel absolutely gutted when I think about how it was supposed to be versus how it was. I can't think about my birth without tears and frustration. I feel like it was my fault, like I should have allowed an ultrasound or been more proactive, or I ate the wrong things and made her too big. I just make myself sick thinking about my beautiful birth center birth where she could be born warm and safe and gently instead of being yanked out of me. I feel like I cheated her out of something amazing, and myself too.

And on top of everything else she has started refusing to nurse. She didn't do it well in the hospital and I ended up with sore and cracked nipples but everyone there said it would be fine and I was doing it right. Friday night she started fighting hard and then after a 5 am feed refuses totally and screams when I try to feed her. I've asked so many people for help but between her refusing to get on in the first place and having a bad latch in the second I'm just overwhelmed.

My whole world has crashed and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it.

I have decided to go Friends Only again. After all Livejournal's bullshit I don't want any of their advertisers or prospective investors or whoever else up in my shit. If anyone wishes to read my entries without being on my flist, I have the same name on Insanejournal.

Awesome. Livejournal cocked everything up again. I've spent the whole weekend trying to catch up on the fallout and am just now up to speed. It's completely ridiculous.

Deleting journals, with no warning, for breaking rules that were NEVER SET and the "offenders" had no way of knowing about, is absolutely despicable. Not to mention that the artwork in question is not illegal under United States law, and to get around that, LJ claims it will be basing bans on work that has "no artistic merit." Meaning they're going to just delete things they don't like or approve of, whether or not it breaks any laws.

And in four days, they have not made one statement to the LJ community. Nothing at all. People are upset, angry, worried, and they refuse to speak to their customers - the ones who pay their salaries!

"I am not personally affected by the current situation, yet I still feel increasingly unhappy and unwelcome here. Although I don't have any interests that could be considered dodgy or engage in anything that might cause my journal to be shut down, I fundamentally disagree with the current and past actions of the 6A/LJ management.

It's not just this latest mess, it's a combination of everything that's happened since Six Apart took over - the gradual creeping introduction of ads; the false jokiness in official posts combined with an apparent disregard and contempt for the users; a fundamental misunderstanding of what LJ is; the way the breastfeeders and Russian users were treated; the utter mess of Strikethrough, the apparent inability to learn from their mistakes and the constant corporate doublespeak and backtracking.

It all just leaves an increasingly bad taste in my mouth.

I want to journal somewhere where the management is competent, approachable, accountable and consistent. Six Apart is none of these things and I no longer believe that they ever will be."

- fragiletender, because I agree with every word she says here.

I'm speaking out about this not as a member of fandom. I don't consume, create, or participate in fanfiction or fanart in any way. I discuss my favorite things, but only in terms of canon. I am just a regular person who uses her journal for regular everyday life and I'm disgusted with how LJ has been treating their customer base.

I know most of my friends here won't be leaving, mostly because they're not affected, but also because they're used to it, and (at least for now) it's the only place where you can have a free account without seeing ads. Some of you I know in real life, but some of you I only connect with through this place. And since most of the communities I go to won't be affected by this, I'm pretty much stuck.

But I'm never giving these people another dime of my money. I wish I could downgrade my account right now, but there's no way to do it. When my paid time is up, that's it. I will downgrade to Basic and leave it there. I'll be going back to Insane Journal and start a second blogging life there and see what kind of communities they've got going. For now I'll cross-post my entries, but I can see a point coming where my entries will consist of a link to my InsaneJournal.

I'm so angry I can't even see straight.