How is your pregnancy going?

It's going really well. Most of the time.

(Like, the other day, when I was driving home from work and stopped at the green light because my #preggo brain thought it was a four-way stop . Because on my way TO work the first intersection after I exit the freeway has a four-way stop sign, so of course the first intersection after I exit the freeway on my way home FROM work would be the same, right? Clearly.)

I have resigned myself to the fact that I need to write everything down, because if I don't, it didn't happen. Kind of like the dude in Memento (but I use Post-Its instead of tattoos. Can't find a decent tattoo artist at work).

I have had an extremely easy pregnancy (so far). My 24-hour sickness in the first trimester was mild; I was very picky about what I wanted to eat, but I could eat, and as long as I was munching on something throughout the day I was fine.

Freddy works at a health-food grocery store, so I have access to all sorts of healthy, organic goodies daily. He texts me before he leaves work asking me what I want to eat. And he does all the cooking (and all the cleaning, and all the laundry, and all the cat-duties...) because he is, pretty much, the Bestest Hubby And Dad-To-Be In The World.

(Seriously: I come home from work, sit on the couch, get waited on hand-and-foot, and after I pass out around 9:30 he gently wakes me up and takes me to bed. Once I get home from work, I do NOTHING.)

Troy Emmitt has been kicking healthily, but he likes to give me a few good kicks, so I make Freddy stop what he's doing to come over and feel them, and then Troy Emmitt stops. But Freddy has gotten to feel a few of them... and you should see how his face lights up when he feels those little kicks.

I also have an extremely accommodating job where I sit most of the day, so I don't have to worry about overdoing it physically or straining myself. I cannot imagine how miserable I'd be (and how stressed and unhealthy Troy Emmitt and I would be) if I were still in the classroom, teaching full-time, dealing with parents and administrators and grades and all that blah-blah...

Tomorrow we have our 24-week appointment, where I get to drink the glucose stuff to test for gestational diabetes. I'm either going to ace the test or fail it miserably... but I've been really good about getting my sugar from natural sources, so I should do well. My body's so used to processing massive amounts of sugar, I'm probably going to metabolize (or whatever you do with it) all that glucose in half the alloted time. (How does that glucose mixture compare to a bag of cotton candy, washed down with regular Coke? Anybody have stats on that?)

Last week Freddy and I started our Bradley childbirth classes, so I've been doing my exercises and counting my protein intake. I thought I was doing really well nutrition-wise, eating 65-75 grams of protein a day. Well, according to Dr. Bradley, I should be getting 80-100 grams of protein a day. EIGHTY to ONE HUNDRED grams of protein A DAY.

They give you this little chart to fill out, and though it looks a little intimidating at first, I've actually done well so far. I just have to make sure I eat, the right things, pretty much all day long.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat some hard-boiled eggs and get back to reading NATURAL CHILDBIRTH THE BRADLEY WAY.

Ask, and Criss shall answer.

formspring.me: "Do you think it is healthy for teenagers to view pornography? Why or why not?"

Do you think it is healthy for teenagers to view pornography? Why or why not?

Ooh... that's a tough one.

I think we need to remove the taboo from sex and sexuality, definitely. Teenagers are having sex and doing things their parents are ashamed to even think of, so we need to talk about these things, without shame or blame or fear or judgement, and provide teenagers (and adults) with the tools they need to particiapte in that behavior safely if that is what they choose to do, and the tools to know how to decline participation if that's what they choose to do.

We need to have this information out there.

Now, as to pornography... hmm. I'm a prude at heart, really. Also, from what I understand (I have viewed pornography, I'm not going to pretend I've never seen a magazine or a movie, but I also know there is tons of stuff, and genres and styles, out there that I have not seen) "most" or much of what's out there does not send positive or healthy messages to the role of the cis female in sex (I won't try to speak for trans or intersex people since I am wholly ignorant as to how they are represented in pornography, though I am willing to wager they are seen as a source of fetishes and not treated as real people/being with sexual desires of their own).

I guess before I could say yes, it is healthy for teenagers to view pornography, we'd have to change the industry and the material. I would want to make sure that lesbianism is not portrayed as a sexual fantasy for cis het men, and that women are not perpetually in the submissive role, only there to fulfill the fantasies of the males.

I do think porn has a place and a value, since, given our puritan, prudish society, teens can't get information about sex and sexuality and "alternative lifestyles" and non-cis, non-hetero sexuality any other way.

Ask me anything

Formspring.me: Transgender issues edition

Where do you stand on transgender issues?

Where do I stand? Transgender people are people. Their body, their choice. Why is this even an issue? Shouldn't it just be a given??

Why do people think they have a right to question, prod, investigate, interrogate, judge, or comment on the self of another?

My stand on transgender issues is the same stand I have on every other issue: this group [be the group trans folk, intersex folk, LGBQ folk, women, people of color, people with disabilities... or whoever else I'm forgetting] deserves the same rights and privileges as your average cis, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, upper-middle-class man.

How has your support of transgender issues evolved? by lilithvf1998

I don't think I can use the word "evolved" yet, since I've just recently become aware of transgender issues.

I was sittin' pretty in my limited cis world, completely ignorant that the word "cis" existed. I had heard of drag queens and transvestites, and I was vaguely aware that there were people who said they were "a man trapped in a woman's body" or "a woman trapped in a man's body." But that was over there, far away, so I didn't really need to think about that, did I?

Now that I'm thinking about it, the closest I probably came to thinking about transgender people was when I read Isabel Allende's EVA LUNA, where one of the characters was a trans woman who worked as a prostitute -- I can't remember any of the details (now I feel I need to re-read the book *goes to get it from the bookshelf, realizes it's EVA LUNA, not PAULA as she had originally typed), but the main character is a young girl who somehow is taken in by these misfits (as in, a human Island of Misfit Toys), and one of the people in the house is the trans woman. I can't remember if Allende refers to her as a he or a she, but I remember the character wearing women's clothes and plucking her facial hair so she wouldn't have stubble.

But other than that and the episode on Friends with Chandler's dad being played by Kathleen Turner (which I think is further evidence of how misinterpreted and misrepresented trans people are in the mainstream media -- they still refer to his dad as a gay man and drag queen, not a trans woman, even though Chandler's dad lives their life as a woman -- or am I missing something?) I didn't really, for lack of a better word, notice trans people nor was I aware of their issues.

I think I first followed @nueva_voz because of a Twitter chat on women of color; through her I became aware of trans women's issues and -- as shameful as it is to say, but I'll say it because it's true -- trans women became "real people" to me (as opposed to fictional characters who only appeared in the controlled environments of books and movies).

I still want to call myself a "feminist" because I want to keep believing what I originally understood feminism to be: a movement to end oppression, especially the oppression of women... ALL KINDS of women. I know the movement started with cis white (rich) able-bodied women fighting against sexism, but it has grown to include the fight(s) against racism, heterosexism, and classism (in most cases...?) and I still want to believe it is still growing to include the fight(s) against ableism and cissexism and all other -sims I'm still not aware of (or that I'm forgetting as I type this... I'll blame it on the cold).

But I know the reality is that too many "feminists" are either still ignorant of trans issues (as I was) or choose to not take the opportunities given to them to learn and educate themselves on those issues. Then there are some who are openly and actively transphobic and transmisogynistic, which I cannot even comprehend. Which makes me hesitant to attach myself to a movement that would willingly exclude and attack an entire population of women who need it the most.

All that to say... my support of transgender issues is still in the "Behold! An amoeba!" stage, but I hope I am slowly making progress toward evolving into a multi-celled organism.

formspring.me: How's Freddy doing?

How's Freddy doing?

Freddy's doing quite well. He was a little ticked at the Cowboys last weekend, but he's over that now (time heals all wounds, don't you know).

He's come to terms with last weekend's loss, and today's win by the Colts cheered him up. If the 'Boys can't go to the SuperBowl, at least he can cheer for his bud's Colts.

Oh, and since our home Internet had been broken for most of the last two weeks, and I had not been chained to my laptop the way I usually am, Freddy and I were spending some nice quality time together. Too bad I fixed teh Internetz today (sort of... wireless is still broken, but I'm plugged in and therefore confined to this one corner of the house), and we're back to me sitting at the laptop while Freddy does... something else. I don't know, he's in the other room...

Ask me anything

Day 8: And since I am a virtual exhibitionist... #formspringme!

Because a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and whateverelseI'mforgetting are clearly not enough, I now have one of these.

So, just in case you don't already know everything you could ever possibly want to know about me -- and more!!! -- feel free to ask me anything!

http://www.formspring.me/CrissLCox