Join us for a newborn care workshop in Toronto!

I'm not exaggerating at all when I tell you that my first night at home with my new baby, my first daughter, Alyce, I sat in the dark of my living room, everyone else in the house fast asleep, wondering how in the hell I was going to do this. I had given birth that afternoon to the beautiful wee one I'd been waiting months (years) for, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off. My partner was asleep in bed, my mother asleep on the couch next to me, and I was ready for sleep for the first time in two days. But Alyce was awake, starring up at me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with her.

Two years later I found myself sitting in the dark, again, this time holding my second daughter, Shira. She was one day old and had been nursing since she left the womb. Each and every time she fell asleep at the breast , when I would slowly put her down in her co-sleeper, ready to collapse in bed myself (labour is hard work!), she would wake up. Again. And my partner was in bed asleep. Again.

The moral of the story? Newborns can be hard work, or more to the point, they make us work hard. We are tired, hungry, a bit confused, and at least one of us is healing from the work of birth. Fortunately these newborns are also soft, delicious, perfect, tiny-toed, and we'll pretty much forgive them for anything.


We are Alexandra and Danielle, and we'll be leading a workshop this month about how to care for newborns. No, we can't tell you the magic secret of how to catch a full-night's sleep or how not to worry at the overwhelming feelings of responsibility we all feel once a wee one is born. But we can share our experiences as birth and postpartum doulas (and mothers and adorers of babies) and introduce you to some tips and suggestions for an easier transition into life with a new baby. Whether you are a parent, grandparent, or super-excited friend of the new parents, we welcome you to join us for an evening of discussion, hands-on demonstrations (though, not with a real baby!), and encouragement on caring for your newborn.

Alexandra and I will introduce some of the following topics:

• What to expect the first week with a new baby
• Diapering options and bum care
• What does it mean to wear you baby?
• Sleep (including bed-sharing and crib-sleeping)
• How to comfort new babies
• Preparing your home for your baby
• Practical suggestions for breast and bottle feeding

Our next class is offered Monday, July 8th at the Toronto Yoga Mamas studio (in Toronto's east end). For more information about the class see here, or contact Alexandra or Danielle at info@holisticbirthcollective.com.

We'd love to see you there. We love talking about babies.

Alexandra Weinberger and Danielle LaGrone are birth and postpartum doulas in Toronto and founders of Holistic Birth Collective. You can reach them at info@holisticbirthcollective.com.

I just couldn't write what I wanted to write

I should have known that baking cookies would do it.

I've been quiet around here for the past month. Some of that has to do with our big move to Toronto, not an easy feat with two young children. (We say that a lot, don't we? That things are made more difficult with the addition of young children. It's true that little ones are pure chaos sometimes, and their schedules often make planning life a challenge, and their whining can drive you to madness. But I do want to come right out and declare that life is made infinitely better when you throw young children into the mix, and I wouldn't have it any other way.) I've been busy readjusting to how this new life fits. So far I'm happy with our choice.

I've also been busy teaching again, an online course at a nearby university, and this just makes life very full. I'm learning a lot as I reintroduce myself to my course after two years off, including how to run a course in between all the events of my days at home with the girls. It looks something like this: get up and return emails. Read some posts from the discussion forums. Make breakfast for starving children in my kitchen. Return another email. Take children on new city adventure. Eat a popsicle. Do a tiny bit of grading during Shira's nap. Unpack. Chase children around park. Tuck them in after dinner, collapse, and then peel myself off the couch to start actually working for the night. Rinse and repeat.

But I'm always busy. We're all always busy, yet we still find time to do the things we love. I love writing this blog. What's stopped me from finding the time hasn't been all this other stuff, busy as I am. I could post three times a week instead of five, or one time instead of three. There are always ways to readjust (and I'm already doing a lot of readjusting this month). Nope, I'm quiet because I'm afraid. I'm suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable here on the internet. I love the internet, love it a lot, but all of a sudden I'm feeling awfully open. A big part of this comes from my return to teaching. I know some of my students have read my blog, and this kind of exposure is a first for me. I've always been an open person and it's translated into my style of teaching. When I teach in-person courses I learn about my students quickly, and they learn about me. I don't hide my love of cooking, or my enthusiasm for Sookie Stackhouse novels, or that my American husband just doesn't get the CBC. But my academic mentor always taught me to keep a distance from my students, even when you share parts of yourself as you teach. I remember when an undergraduate student asked her religion, and she emphatically explained that it was None Of Their Business. Her interaction with the inquiring student left a mark on me, because my mentor shared so many things with her students, even her home sometimes, inviting us over to share a meal or an extra lesson. But there was a line, she taught me, and it was critical. The space of the classroom, it seemed, had boundaries.

On this blog I write very explicitly about breastfeeding, my religion, how it feels when I lose my patience with my children, and the devastation I felt when I wasn't accepted into midwifery school. The space of my classroom has changed a lot from the days with my mentor. Of course blogs don't reveal everything. I am always choosing to tell a very particular story in my posts and details are overlooked (I hope, the very boring and the parts that involve another person's privacy). But when I write I'm not trying to deceive anyone, and at the same time I'm intending to share some very honest, and traditionally private, feelings and ideas. It's this kind of exposure that makes writing and reading blogs both so exciting and so overwhelming.

Teaching and blogging, at the same time, has forced me to think about what I want to share on my blog. As soon as I realized that students were reading I felt paralyzed, caught in the act, if you will. I would jump up to write a post, or be brainstorming in the shower, and instead of wondering how I would tell a story in a way that was honest and interesting, I was worried about how a student might think of me after reading it. I immediately began censoring myself. If I wanted to write a post about how much my breasts were hurting because my two year old was enjoying yet another renewed fascination with nursing every two hours, I held myself back. No one wanted their paper graded by someone who had just moments ago complained loudly about her breasts. Or if I wanted to write a post about postpartum depression, my own included, I withdrew the idea before I could even consider how to write it. Writing about how to cope with the stress of multiple deadlines while parenting two little ones? Forget it. If I'm not perfect, I'll lose their respect. Or so I thought.

It turns out that I have no interest in writing about my life if I can't be honest. I don't want to write about my trip to the museum if I can't also write about how many times my toddler pulled my shirt up to nurse. I can't share with you how hard it is to balance all the competing demands of my wonderful life if I can't permit myself to admit that re-learning how to fit in grading papers is hard sometimes. If I was so concerned with censoring my posts, I felt pretty sure I didn't want to blog anymore.

Nah. I won't stop. I just don't want to. And I've reached a decision about how to manage my concerns about exposing myself to my students: they'll get over it. Or they won't. Either way, it's fine. I'm not doing anything scandalous here (hardly). I'm not inappropriately discussing my course or students. I'm just writing honestly about how I spend my time, how I choose to carve out this life of mine. I'm a parent. I want to be a midwife one day. I want to be a doula right now. I love to teach. And I bake a lot. Nothing too crazy.

So when I was baking today with Alyce and Shira, the first real baking adventure in our new kitchen, and Shira's first time as sous-chef, I wanted to share it with you right away. I took their picture, the two of them bickering over who would sprinkle the baking soda into the bowl, and I wanted to share with you how glorious it feels to have our own space again. I wanted to tell you that I felt comfort baking with my girls, while Matt chatted with us from the other room. I wanted to tell you that adjusting to our new life in Toronto, as happy as it makes me, is sometimes hard, and that some days I spend a lot of time worrying about how we'll make ends meet or where we'll end up a year from now, but that no matter how much I worry, that baking with my daughters makes everything ok. That makes me human. I think my students already knew that. You already knew that, too.

So, I'm back. Let's get this going.

See you back here tomorrow. Let's make it a good Monday.

Honest

I haven't been entirely honest lately.

That's not to say that I've been lying to you. The things I write about my children here are true, and I think, worthy of sharing. Like all parents, I like to show off. And all my complaining about being tired, that's true, too. I couldn't make that up if I tried. and I'm too tired to try. I'm not apologizing for any of this, mind you. It helps me to talk about being a parent and I like telling these kinds of stories. Sometimes being a parent to The Children is really difficult, and other times it's just plain ridiculous, but it's always where I want to be. Like this afternoon, enjoying the first day of spring.


I'm occupying an unfamiliar place at the moment. There are things that I know: I recognize Matt, Alyce and Shira. I know my family and that feels good. It the rest of the world that feels unfamiliar, and by "world" I mean my own tiny piece of it, not that big world that is certainly unfamiliar and too often a scary and confusing place. Tonight, right now, it's my own selfish world I'm concerned with, because lately this world of mine has felt a bit overwhelming.



I've been in school since the beginning of time, and even when the work was hard, it was safe. I was given this cozy space to think and learn and write (and just so you don't think it was all rainbows and unicorns, there were plenty of tears along the way, too) and I could do so with a clear vision of what I wanted to the future to look like. I could really see myself as a professor, looking much like those mentors I had learned from so many times in the past. When I married Matt, our futures melded seamlessly. We would both find work in academia, even if that meant some wiggling around (that's the technical term for the negotiating and compromising that comes with two scholars in the same field finding a job at the same school). There would be challenges, but everyone faces challenges. We could do this.



It turns out that we won't be doing this. I stepped away from my graduate program before completing my PhD, and so for the time being I've closed those doors. I no longer want that future, no matter how much self-doubt I feel from time to time about my decision. And Matt? He's leaving academia, too. My gifted, nerdy, talented (and handsome) husband has tried for three years to find a position in a discipline where there are simply not enough jobs. And by not enough I mean that there are like three jobs. In North America. Sure, Matt could find short-term contract work (schools rarely turn down the opportunity to hire professors on the cheap!), but that isn't what we want for our family. We like things like health insurance and the breathing space to reasonably expect that our job to last more than one semester.



You see, we have this wonderful little family, and want to provide for everyone. We even want to provide enough to add some more to this family. So this means that we need a new plan. Our old plan was a good one, but as it turns out, it's just not for us anymore.



So this brings me back to that unfamiliar place I mentioned earlier. I have trouble remembering a time when I wasn't working toward my goal of the PhD. Yes, I've really been in school that long. I have spent a little time trying on the new goal of being a teacher, seeing how things fit, and there's a chance that's the next step that I take. But now with Matt also deciding to leave the academic world, it feels as though the stakes have changed. In so many ways it feels as though we have been given this incredible freedom to choose anything we want. We can live anywhere and take any job.

But if I'm honest, I feel a bit paralyzed by all this freedom, and I've been hiding this paralysis from you. Instead I've chosen to share what I know for sure: that Alyce and Shira are the greatest, silliest, most delicious children in the world. But this blog is also about carving out some space for myself to figure some things out. You know, little things, like what I'm going to be when I grow up and how I'll pay for The Children's college tuitions.

But not to worry, I couldn't stop talking about Alyce and Shira if I tried.

Ten Things About My Tuesday

1. I am back to feeling that kind of tired that only Shira can produce. She's so sneaky that I sometimes don't even realize that I've brought her to bed and started nursing her. Before I know it she's pulled up the covers, claimed the good pillow, and is moving on to side two.





2. I got the results from my second Praxis exam (the English literature test) and I kicked its ass.

3. This morning a very tiny man arrived in my kitchen to fix the broken fridge light. I think he might have been part hobbit. After weeks of darkness, there is now light in our fridge. And, it turns out, a lot of dirt.

4. Matt is away in North Carolina for a few days and he stole the MacBook Pro and I miss it so.so.much.

5. I also miss Matt.

6. No, I really, really do. It turns out that I have the hardest working husband around. Life between 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm feels like hard work most days, chasing after Alyce, nursing Shira, coordinating bedtimes, making Alyce's lunch for the next day, and cleaning the mess that generally plagues our house, but it feels more than hard when you're doing it alone. Holy cow Matt does a lot around here.

7. Alyce and Shira go to bed at the same time each night, so Matt and I usually divide and conquer. Since I have boobs, I get Shira. I needed to come up with a plan tonight so that I could spend the necessary time nursing Shira to sleep and Alyce graciously offered to watch Alice in Wonderland and eat pretzels until Shira was sleeping.





8. I found out that I was pregnant with Alyce in March 2007. I think that might have been the last time I cleaned the litter boxes.


9. I'm not above eating chocolate icing from a bowl. This is unrelated to the previous entry.


10. My husband is currently in a hotel room, with an enormous bed, without children or cats. I don't really know how to process this information because I'm so tired I can't think straight. But I think I'm really jealous. A lot jealous.

School, Part Two

No textbook should ever be this big. Especially when I am required to bring it to each and every class. And because I don't like to break school-related rules, I will (but I'll complain about it).


2874. As in 2,874 pages with tiny print. Norton, this is out of hand.


Today begins round two of me returning to school. You'll find me in American Literature, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The enormous Norton Anthology aside (if I can lift it), I'm looking forward to this class. I've been reading mostly cookbooks lately, and it's probably best to expand my horizons a bit.

I hope your Monday is an excellent one. What are your plans for the week?

On Making Changes

For the last two days I've been hiding in the house with Shira. She's been battling an evil cold and yesterday she was just too miserable to leave the house. Instead, she decided, she'd rather stay home and explore this box of toys:




Can you blame her?




She also spent some quality time with Hille, who was too busy hunting robins from the window to notice that Shira was within arm's reach from his tail. One day they'll be fast friends.



Today it was snow. Heaping piles of snow. Alyce's preschool was open and Matt, who thinks people take too many days off already--for silly things like pneumonia or national holidays--would never let a little blizzard keep him from the office. Me? I was happy to stay home another day with Shira, who was feeling much better today. I tried to tell her that all that extra sleep she's been getting at night (we've gone from waking eight times a night to twice!) is contributing to her brighter mood, but she just shook her head and went back to eating her sock. It's already clear, at eight months, that Shira has better things to do than pay any attention to my advice. Even though it's good advice, exceptional even. Nevertheless, we enjoyed another day at home.


****

Why am I not at my linguistics class? Because my plans, again, have changed. I'm fighting my natural instinct to feel ashamed and flaky over making more changes to my plans, and instead I am trying to accept that change isn't a bad thing. Just as I learned that I didn't have to finish my doctorate just because ten years ago I had said it was something I'd wanted to do, I am learning that new plans can be changed, too. Or, tweaked.

That's what we've been doing lately--tweaking. Trying to make plans for the future when you have no idea what city (or state) you'll be living in come September is tricky (that's me putting it in happy, sparkly terms). Matt's fellowship at the university is up this summer and he is currently looking for a new job. The reality of job-hunting as an academic is that your new job could be in another time zone. This is how we ended up in Delaware in two and half years ago, and this is how we'll probably leave it. But back to my point: last fall, when I first decided to pursue teaching instead of completing my dissertation, I moved forward with a plan to get my certification to teach in public schools. I thought this would open up the most doors for me. To do so I would need to take some English courses and apply to a graduate program in education that certifies would-be teachers who have previous degrees. Without certification I could only apply to some charter and private schools. It was exciting to make a decision and move forward, and this is how I wound up in Linguistics 101.

I think we moved forward with my plan a little quickly, motivated by excitement and a sense relief that I would no longer be slumped on the couch sobbing through a page of my dissertation research. But reality looks a bit different. In order to take all these classes we need child care for both kids (which is expensive) and would require a financial sacrifice over the next year that we really cannot afford. If following these particular paths were a part of my biggest hopes and dreams we would figure something out, but they are not. Matt and I sat down together and talked about this last week, and we asked ourselves what we really wanted from the next two years. First, a tenure-track job for my brilliant husband. Done and done (or, at least, I have all the confidence in the world that a department will scoop him up in no time). Second, we both want a third child. I know, I know, we'll be outnumbered by cats and children, but it's what we want. Not tomorrow, but in the next year or two.

Having made this clear to ourselves, we can make decisions accordingly. For myself, I still want to be a teacher, but I don't want to return to school (at this point) to make that happen. I will instead look for a place to teach this September, you know, once we know where we will be living. Watch out, children of Texas, you might have a Canadian amongst you soon! I'll get you spelling 'colour' in no time! So for now I am not going to continue in linguistics because it was a credit necessary for a very particular graduate program that I no longer need. I am still taking a course in American Literature in the coming term, because 1) I love reading, 2) it's free, thanks to Matt being faculty, and 3) my future students will only accept so much Margaret Atwood and Mordecai Richler for so long before they rise up and demand someone local.

Stay tuned for more changes. I don't want to overwhelm you all at once.

Anyone else making a big change?

I Can Speak Math!

I've been a little beaten up by an afternoon of test-taking, but I'm happy to report that I didn't fail! I was confident that I'd reach the required score for reading and writing (thank you thousands of tuition dollars), but the math? It wasn't pretty. But who needs pretty when you can get four points higher than you even need? It's like I had some spare points, in case someone else needed them. You need some math points? I don't mind sharing!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the person who invented computers, and the person who invented this computerized test (you'll see where I'm going with this in a second), and then the person who realized it would be a good idea for the computer to give you some of your test scores as soon as you're done writing, so that you don't freak out for three weeks waiting for the mail. Because then you can rush home and tell your family! And the internet!

Now, for some rest. No, actually, it's not time for rest. I have a second test this weekend. But it is a math-less test, so bring it on.

Thanks for all the good thoughts this today!

A Little Math to Keep You Warm

Can't write, must multiply fractions and find for x. And then sob in the corner.

Have I mentioned I dislike math? Especially the lonely kind of math you learn all by yourself in preparation for these evil standardized tests. They don't even go easy on you because you're Canadian and didn't grow up writing these kinds of tests. I'll just say it: multiple choice gives me the willies. And in order to cope with these willies, I have consumed more pizza and peanut m&ms than anybody ought to.

Now I must go and study some more. The good news is that I've probably passed my practice tests so far--I say probably because, despite my graduate degree, I can't decipher the cryptic scoring system of the Praxis exams. My study guide offers an explanation something like, "if you get 75% of the questions right you'll likely achieve a score of 678, but sometimes you can achieve this score if you get 65% of the questions right, or if you're writing the test on a Tuesday in June, you might score 783."

Fortunately this weekend was not all about studying. We did some other stuff too:

What is January good for if not a little static electricity. One girl found this very entertaining.

Shira grew a new tooth. That red cheek has been staring us down all week.

The neatest ice cream-eater in the U.S.A. But that neatness comes at a cost: it was the slowest cone in history.

Hille rested.

I also bought this for Shira. The girl likes her sleep sacs, and she's growing out of everything we have. I am a sucker, and I mean sucker, for polka dots.

I hope everyone had a warm weekend inside under blankets. Maybe you read a great book, or studied math?

Wish me luck tomorrow!

I Wish I Had a New Dress to Wear

See, it's my first day at school.

As I mentioned before, I would like to be a high school teacher. Since my previous degrees are in religious studies, and since it turns out that most high schools don't hire teachers to teach courses in Buddhism or religion and gender, I need to brush up on another subject. I'm only a few courses shy of an English major so I am using the next six months to fill in these gaps. This month I'm taking an intensive course in Linguistics. It will meet everyday for the next four weeks and I'm already a little nervous about being the oldest person in class. You'll know who I am because I'll be the only woman not wearing leggings and a pair of Uggs.

I'll also probably be the only one with a breast pump in my bag. I can't say for sure, but it's a good guess.

Wish me luck! I'll be sure to tell you all about my first day.

Ten Things I Learned Yesterday

The Event: a thirteen-hour drive from Canada to Delaware
The Players: Me, Matt, Alyce, Shira, the Kia*

1. No matter what I have said in the past, I want a minivan. There, I said. We have two young kids, we're thinking about having some more. Since the law requires that each be strapped into their own huge, protective bubble, there is no other option. I wish it weren't so. But more than driving a hip, non-minivan car, I want my legs not to touch the dashboard, which they did, for eleven hours yesterday. So I'll make the minivan hip if it's the last thing I do.

2. It's best not to start your trip having to turn around because you forgot Alyce's purple milk cup. We'd only driven a few blocks, but it was six-thirty in the morning and it really hurt morale.

3. Whining sounds even whinier from inside the Kia. We tried our best to ignore the whining, but trapped inside the car, we were weak. Alyce could smell our vulnerability.

4. That even in the middle of an exceptionally hard day, it's fun to steal a moment in the car with Shira. Matt and Alyce were inside the service center finding dinner, while I breastfed Shira in the darkened car. She was delighted to be released from her seat, I was happy to turn on NPR (oh how I'd missed you), and we both enjoyed some peace.

A little moonlight milk

5. I am going to google the creators of automatic flush toilets, find out where they live, drag them on our next car trip, and make them take Alyce to the potty.

I could live my whole life without ever seeing another automatic flush toilet. I know, we've all said it before, but this time I mean it.

6. Knitting helps to take the edge off.

7. All those times, long before having children, when I'd looked down my nose at the notion of DVD players in cars? We didn't need those when we were kids. Why can't people just read or listen to music--or maybe even have a conversation--instead of turning on TV yet again. I'd like to go back in time to kick myself, hard, for thinking I had any idea what it is like to take a long road trip with kids. It's shocking that no one ever beat me up.

Watching Tinkerbell.

8. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is capable of murdering your soul. And they make you pay for it, too.

9. It turns out, I'm not above calling my three year old insane. While I didn't say it to her face, I said it near her face.

10. I have never loved Delaware more than I did last night. We have our differences, but last night me and Delaware were alright.We made it home. FINALLY.

*the Kia is a teeny tiny hatchback we purchased when we lived in Toronto. We thought a small car would be perfect for city driving (it was) but we failed to consider that Alyce's car seat would take up 96 percent of the car. We certainly weren't thinking about Shira. To be young and stupid.

Recovering Grad Student Seeks New Forms of Torment

As a teacher. A high school teacher, that is.

So this is my big plan. Disappointed? Hoping I might have really thought outside the box and opted for a new career as a secret agent, or maybe a mad scientist? I don't have the wardrobe to pull off the secret agent job and I have no business being a science-y scientist (or, as it turns out, a social scientist. Moving on then.)

Nah, I think I'll make a great teacher instead. I have been teaching in universities for five years under the title of Adjunct Lecturer (and no, I don't know what that actually means). I have taught various classes in Religious Studies at two universities and it has been, hands down, the best part of being a graduate student. My first class was an intensive summer session course on world religions. It was a chaotic mess and I was utterly unprepared, but I enjoyed myself so much and I think many of the students did as well. Before I knew it was teaching regularly at a couple of different universities, in that grand old tradition of hiring graduate students instead of actually hiring (and giving benefits to) tenured professors. I can't say I minded, though--I loved getting the teaching experience and the extra money.

When I would return to my own research and writing after a semester of teaching, I would realize quickly that I missed the classroom. I'd miss the chance to talk and listen, to engage with an actual human rather than another online journal. I had landed in academia because I like ideas; I was now learning that I enjoyed ideas most when they were alive in a classroom discussion. I found myself more and more weary from the isolation of research. What I'm saying is that this seed was planted a long time ago.

And then I had kids. Isn't this how so many stories begin?

My daughters have changed me in so many ways. For one, I'm really tired now. I don't ever remember feeling so tired. In fact, it's just after eight and I'm having to prop myself up in front of my laptop. In my head I'm negotiating between an eight-thirty and a nine o'clock bedtime as I write this. Second, I can carry a lot of things at once. I can remember myself complaining about having to lug a bag of books home from the library, on the subway no less, every week. Now I can carry my two children, my bag, fourteen toys, and a bag of groceries in from the car. And I usually only drop one of those things, and it isn't usually a child.

But mostly having my girls has changed the way I want to live in the world. I'm feeling charged to work practically in the lives of kids (and not just my own). Academics can be a lot of things, but in my chosen discipline, practical was not one of them. For many people this is a great thing, and I salute their ability to stay the course and analyze/translate/critique/argue. Of course I could have become a teacher with my PhD, but that would have required that I finish and defend a dissertation I did not want to write. I would have had to analyze/translate/critique/argue, and my heart is just not there. But that charge I feel leading a classroom, of working each day with kids who are learning to explore the world, this, I think, is where my heart is.

Perhaps I am romanticizing the daily life of a teacher. Perhaps. But I've been close with many teachers and I see how hard they work. I've seen the emotional ups and downs of becoming invested in the lives of their students, and how they so often struggle against that large brick wall of educational bureaucracy. No, I don't think being a teacher easy. Nevertheless, here I go.

Because we don't know where we will be living next year, it is difficult for me to dive right into this new path of mine. I can't start an education program or look for work until we, say, pick a state. Or a country. But I can still move forward this year in preparation of these bigger steps. Since I have a few (cough) years of secondary education I am able to cobble together the pieces of an almost-English major, so I am enrolled in a few more English courses next semester to fill in some holes. I'm peeking around at jobs, testing the waters for when I'm ready to actually begin. I'll use the rest of this stolen time to work on my writing. Not a bad way to spend some time, don't you think?

This post is far too long. Night everyone.