I read this book in February/early March, but once again, I’ve procrastinated writing about it. I have no idea why I do that, because it’s always harder to remember everything when I let too much time pass.
The Help explores the culture of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. Most white households–even middle class families–have African American maids. In an era of impending change, the white women are working hard to keep segregation intact; the black maids are beginning to push boundaries and fight for their rights.
The story is told from three different points of view. There are two African American maids, Aibileen and Minnie, and one white woman, Skeeter. When I first started reading the book, I’ll admit that I was a bit put off by the first couple of chapters. Aibileen’s chapters are written in her dialect, as if you’re hearing the thoughts in her head–and some of the English is broken. I found it difficult to get through, but I found that once I was into the book, I adjusted and barely noticed.
Skeeter is a recent graduate of Ole Miss, and she has returned home from college to live with her parents. Her mother wants to marry her off, but Skeeter longs to find a respectable career as a writer. She lands a job at the local newspaper, writing a column about housekeeping, but her dream is to be a writer in New York City. In order to reach this goal, she sets out to write about a subject that means something. Ultimately, she decides to tell the stories of black maids, inspired by the one who worked for her family and raised her. Skeeter’s friends are the young, married housewives who employ these maids, so she must interview and write in secret. In order to do so, she turns to Aibileen and Minnie.
Aibileen and Minnie’s chapters center around their experiences working for white women: cleaning their houses, running their errands, doing their cooking, raising their children. Although the risks are unmeasurable, they decide they want to tell their stories, so they agree to team up with Skeeter to write her book–but not without some drama along the way.
I was really entertained by The Help and read it very quickly. It kept me turning the pages. One thing that really bothered me, though, was that I felt like the story never came to a peak. The author implies that something really big is going to happen, and then… it never does. I found that I was most interested in some of the secondary storylines, and the day-to-day happenings of the characters, as opposed to the whole point of the book. I also wasn’t ready for it to end–it seemed like there should’ve been more to the story.
In the end, although I can’t say I was blown away by the book, or that it left a lasting impression on me, I certainly enjoyed it. It’s worth reading. The topic is heavy, and civil rights isn’t an issue I would treat lightly, so I felt like the author could’ve done a better job with it. I find it really interesting that the author, a white woman, chose to write a book written from the perspective of black maids. I found myself wondering how much of her writing was based on fact/real accounts from black women, and how much she simply assumed based on her experiences being raised by one.
Oh, Tessa.
It seems like if she doesn’t provide us with some kind of health scare, it’s not a normal year. Thankfully, this wasn’t as serious as the BIG scare in 2008, but it still sucked.
We ended up at the emergency vet today, scared of all the “what ifs.”
Back up to yesterday afternoon. We took Tess for a walk, and on the way home, she stopped to sniff what appeared to be a leaf in the grass, so I let her. (She is a dog, after all.) Next thing we knew, she was gulping it up, chewed it twice, and swallowed. I wasn’t standing that close to her, so I have no idea what it actually was. The way she chewed it and the way she gobbled it up, it seemed like it was likely discarded food (we were near a couple of restaurants, so it seemed probable). Of course, I was kind of alarmed, but dogs are gross and eat gross things sometimes, so we didn’t give it much thought. Tess acted completely normal for the rest of the day, so it was not much of a concern.
But then, at 1:00 a.m., we were awakened by the sound of Tessa jumping off of our bed and heaving her stomach contents onto the floor. Three times. Not a great way to wake up in the middle of the night, I assure you. Although this is definitely not “normal” for her, it has happened before in the four years that we’ve had her, so generally, we clean up and go back to bed. But given that she had eaten the unknown object earlier in the day, we were significantly more worried than usual.
After cleaning up, we did a series of “tests” to see if Tessa would act as her normal self. We actually took her on a walk up and down our street (yes, at 1:00 a.m.!) to see if she would be up for it. She seemed relatively OK, so we came back and, although worried, got back into bed and tried to get some sleep. Except it wasn’t restful, because we both kept waking up to check on the sick little girl.
At 6:00 a.m., I woke up to find Michael awake, concerned that Tessa hadn’t yet tried to wake him up. (She is typically so “starved” for food, that she wakes us up as early as she knows is acceptable to make Michael take her outside, feed her, and then AND ONLY THEN will she come back to bed with us to sleep in on the weekends.) It was clear then that Tess definitely hadn’t bounced back from her vomiting episode, and she wasn’t herself.
Still, we got up and Michael took her outside to see what she’d do. When she came back inside, she didn’t run for her food like normal–in fact, she didn’t give a crap about it. She ran to me and wanted me to hold her. Obviously a sick little girl! I took her over to the kitchen and gave her a little water, and put a few morsels of food in her bowl. She ate them and didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects, so I was pretty encouraged that all would be OK.
But before we went back to bed, I called the emergency vet hotline to ask some questions. The woman on the other end didn’t seem extremely concerned either, telling me to just observe her and feed her a bland diet today. Again, we snuggled back up in bed and tried to get a few more hours of sleep.
Between 9:30-10 a.m., we woke up and decided to get up. Tessa was pretty lethargic. Not alarmingly so, but definitely out of the ordinary for her. I tried to give her some more water, but found that although she would drink it, she would unfortunately throw it back up within a minute or so. This happened two or three times before I gave up and became pretty worried.
We decided we’d take her on a short walk to the grocery store to pick up a few things considered part of a “bland diet” for her so we could try to get something in her stomach. But as we were getting dressed to go, Tessa began vomiting again. After she had emptied what little was in her stomach (the food from 6 a.m.), she continued to vomit repeatedly, consisting of only stomach acid and bile (sorry, eww).
I picked up the phone and dialed the emergency vet line immediately, and updated the tech. She still wasn’t too concerned, but when I mentioned I was afraid Tess was going to become dehydrated, she asked me to check the color of Tessa’s gums. When I did, they were white. The tech said that is “really NOT a good sign” and advised us to bring her in immediately.
*sigh*
Because we had no idea what she had ingested, they had to run blood tests to check for toxins, but they also had to take x-rays to ensure that whatever she ate wasn’t causing some kind of G.I. blockage. And of course, in order to get the x-rays, they said they were going to have to give her a mild sedative. NOT what we wanted to hear. He said that he was pretty concerned that she couldn’t keep down water and had continued to vomit, even after the 1:00 a.m. episode.
To top it all off, they said that we’d have to leave her there for 1-2 hours while they did these tests and treated her with fluids. HEARTBREAKING, because this little girl hates to be left at the vet. It’s seriously traumatizing for her, and she always gives us the saddest looks when we have to hand her over. HATE IT.
After we reluctantly passed her over to the doctor, we left for a while to try to get our minds off of her (impossible) and kill some time. We returned to the hospital about an hour later, only to have to wait almost another hour. It sucked. Sincerely sucked. I had too much time to imagine all possible worst case scenarios and by the time they called us in I was freaking out!
The doctor came in and showed us her x-rays, which were clear (except for some gas bubbles in the intestines, ha!), and told us that her bloodwork came back clear as well. RELIEF. Sweet relief. We paid the bill while they finished up her treatment (they gave her some fluids under her skin to help keep her hydrated), and finally, we were reunited.
Poor girl is STONED. They must’ve given her some seriously good drugs. When they handed her back to me, she was whining with every breath (as if she was saying, “MAMA! You won’t believe what they did to me!”) but her tail was wagging because she was happy. But the look in her eyes was far away and she was obviously out of it. Hilarious and so sad, all at the same time.
We’ve been instructed to keep an eye on her. We had to wait until 8:00 p.m. to feed her, and when we did, it had to be a mixture of boiled hamburger, rice, and low-fat cottage cheese (um, ew!). The vet expects that she’ll be feeling loads better tomorrow. I sure hope so.
We’re all exhausted from last night’s NO SLEEP, so we’re heading to bed early. We’re thankful to have little Tessa home with us.
So pitiful. We caught her staring off into space several times today. At one point, she was sitting on the couch, staring at the back of it. Would love to know what those drugs were making her see!
We want our lively little girl back! :(
I felt really PREGNANT today. I wore my cute Old Navy maternity jeans for the first time (although, they were still a bit too big–had to wear my Bella Band to hold them up!) and I felt like my belly was actually somewhat noticeable. Weird how that happens so suddenly.
We decided to do a little preliminary browsing for baby stuff this afternoon. We took a ride to Buy Buy Baby to see if they had our current favorite contender for a stroller. We had never seen it in person, so we were happy when we found that they did, in fact, carry it in the store. We got to push it around a bit, play with the different adjustments, and fold and unfold it. We’re pretty sure we love it, so it is officially the front-runner.
What stroller, you ask? Well, it’s the Bumbleride Indie. The only problem now is that we have to decide which color we like best, which is pretty much impossible since they are ALL adorable. But we’re pretty sure we’ve narrowed it down to the Ruby or the Seagrass:
Right now, we’re leaning more toward the Ruby. Although I love the green, I’m not crazy about how light the blue is in the seat and toward the feet. I’m worried it’ll get too dirty! The red seems like it would be able to hide dirt better.
We’re looking to buy ONE stroller that will serve all purposes. We’re not crazy about the travel system strollers, and from what I hear from tons of experienced parents, they don’t even use it that often because it is so GINORMOUS that it takes up the entire trunk. When folded, this actually is a bit smaller than most of the travel systems.
Since we’re fairly active people, we’d like to have the actual inflatable wheels instead of the plastic wheels that are on the travel systems. The nice thing about the Indie is that it seems to be somewhat smaller than a lot of jogger strollers, but still features all of the same benefits. Grass, sand, snow, ice–this thing can handle it all (or so I’m told!). It also comes with an infant seat adapter bar, so we can still “snap” baby’s car seat into the stroller when he/she is little.
We’ll see how it goes, but we’re pretty sold on it! :)
We also checked out a few car seats, and then, on the way home, we stopped by a local baby furniture store to check into cribs and dressers. The specialty store prices seem to be kind of steep, though, so we’re pretty sure we’re going to end up ordering from JCPenneys.
It felt a little bit weird to be out among all the other expectant parents, looking at stuff that will be used by our baby. Like, an actual baby. Whoa.
17 weeks down, 23(ish) to go…
The nephews are all getting big. Fortunately, we’ve been able to see all three of them several times in the last month, so we’ve had the chance to witness all of their latest and greatest tricks!
10-month-old Hunter is pulling up on anything and everything…
…working on some additional teeth…
…and smiling. Like always.
13-month-old Logan is usually a pretty serious little boy. He seems to spend a lot of time thinking and observing. But over Easter weekend, he was a seriously happy boy!
He was also crawling all over the place, playing with his toys, and holding his own with his big brother!
Last, but not least, 2.5-year-old Brendan is talking up a storm, working on potty training, smiling on cue…
…and generally, being a B-O-Y! He’s crazy busy and all over the place, but he’s loads of fun.
The guesses are split on whether their new little cousin will be a boy or a girl!
When I first found out I was pregnant, since I couldn’t blog about it, I had this brilliant idea to start a journal. Like a real, written journal. I bought a cute blank book and started writing about my pregnancy in it, including weekly photos of myself and documenting my experiences. I was dedicated to it, thinking that it would be pretty cool for me to be able to hand the journal over to our baby some day. And it would be.
Except I apparently suck at journaling and I’m a good 5-6 weeks behind in writing about the pregnancy and pasting pictures inside. Whoops.
I still want to catch up on the journal, but just in case I continue to suck at life and never get around to it, I think I’m going to start chronicling a little bit on here, too. I figure I can dedicate one post a week to just providing an “update” on the pregnancy. I’ll probably post about other pregnancy/baby related topics sometimes (like my previous posts on the nursery, the fetal monitor, etc.) but these will be my little “check-ins” to document things that happen throughout. I apologize if this type of post totally bores you. If it does, by all means, I encourage you to skip them.
Someone asked me last week if I’d be sharing belly photos. I’m not against sharing them, but up until last week, I really didn’t have anything to show. It took what seemed like forever for me to get any sort of belly, but it’s finally here:
16.5 weeks pregnant
It’s not much, and I’m pretty sure my clothes still hide it pretty well, but it’s there, and it’s made a huge difference in the way I’ve felt this past week. I’ve been able to wear almost all of my regular pants, with the exception of a few pairs with which I had to use a Bella Band. But this week? Yesterday, I put on my go-to pair of black work pants. They zipped and buttoned up OK, but once I sat down on the couch to eat my breakfast, I realized that they were REALLY uncomfortable. I ended up unbuttoning them and wearing my Bella Band, but they still felt ill-fitting and I felt uncomfortable with myself all day. For lack of a better way to describe it, I felt pretty disgusting. Instead of feeling proud of my little belly and feeling pregnant, I just felt… fat. And even though I know I’m not fat, it’s still a weird feeling to grow out of your clothes.
So instead of feeling like that again, today was the day… I busted out the maternity pants I bought at Kohls last week. And HOLY HELL, people–the difference in comfort and the way I felt was amazing. I mean, who can complain about pants with an elastic waistband? Heaven!
In other amazing news, I felt the baby move for the first time on Sunday. I was sitting in Easter Mass with my family, the priest was giving the homily, and all of a sudden, I felt this little pop/poke in my lower right abdomen. I immediately thought, What was that? and waited to see if it would happen again. Sure enough, a few seconds later, another pop/poke. I smiled because I was pretty sure it was the baby, and then it happened a third time. I actually couldn’t keep from laughing a little bit! (Sorry to my fellow parishioners.) But what an incredible feeling to all of a sudden be able to feel this being that has been growing inside of you.
I’ve felt it a few times since then, too, but I’m generally only feeling it once a day at this point. On Monday night, I felt it when I was lying on the couch watching TV, and last night, I felt it as I was lying in bed. Just a few little pops/pokes and he/she goes back to resting and/or moving around more gently. I can’t wait to be able to feel it more regularly. :)
I had a routine OB appointment today and all was well. I think I’m up a total of about 5 lbs. now, which I guess is within the normal range for this stage of pregnancy. I’ve been weighing myself once a week at home, just because I can’t help myself. Prior to pregnancy, I was an everyday weigher, and although I recognized the need to not do that anymore, I couldn’t just quit cold turkey! So even though I always have a pretty good idea of how much weight I’ve gained between appointments, I still HATE getting on that scale at the doctor’s office. But today was good.
We talked to the doctor about all of the things I can’t do on our upcoming vacation to Florida–including jetskiing or biking. :( I knew these things already, but it was still disappointing to hear that I “officially” can’t do them. She laughed and told me to relax and “take gentle swims” and “float around and snorkel.” I suppose I can handle that, along with lying by a pool with a virgin frozen drink. But man, it’s going to be hard for me!
On the way out, I had blood taken (AGAIN–I swear, I haven’t yet had a doctor’s appointment where they haven’t needed my blood) for a second trimester screening. They’re going to check for a bunch of genetic disorders, even though I’ve already been tested for some of them when we had our first trimester screening (NT scan).
Now I’m good to go for another four weeks. Next appointment–20 weeks! But before that, we have our big ultrasound on April 23! Of course, we’re not finding out the sex anyway, but it’s still exciting to get a chance to see the baby…
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
