Just popping in to let you know there's no baby yet. However, today is the due date the ultrasound technician gave us, so maybe we're looking at sooner rather than later.
Can you read the desperation in there?
Spicy foods, long walks...
Hi hi, I'm still here--just more distracted as the days go on. J and I are trying to take advantage of the remaining child-free days the best we can. This involves complicated house projects (transforming our bunker-like basement room and scuzzy bathroom into nice places a mother-in-law would enjoy staying, doing the cutest load of laundry ever, unpacking shower gifts), as well as resting projects (sleeping in, seeing a play, eating out with friends, FINALLY getting to watch The Dark Knight [which, btw, LOVE!]). It is very weird to be working against a deadline that even you can't predict. I'm equal parts rushing and procrastinating, so I guess it equals out.
You guys are smart: what to do about a bee colony that is living in one of your window wells of the porch? I think I have taken the very rational stance of "hey, let's get rid of the bees on our porch." J thinks they are harmless ("harmless") and wants to let them live out their bee lives unimpeded. His argument includes cold weather coming soon and the honey bee epidemic. While I'm sympathetic in a generalized Buddhist way to not killing hordes of living things, I do not like bees. They make me nervous. And then on my way out to water the tomato plant last night, I had a brief brush with one that gave me sort of a half sting on my chest. My yelp brought J to the porch, at which point I thrust the pitcher of water at him and told him the bee problem needed to be taken care of. So what to do? Do you just hire an exterminator? Should we wait it out until the cold or will the bees just return next year?
Hey! There's a big convention in town! So far it just means I'm avoiding downtown, though I did see a bunch of cops on bikes and a Shotgun Willie's convertible driving around with some booby ladies propped up on the back seat. Already it's spicing up my daily commute.
You know how when you're reading a blog about something delicious the person made and all you wish for is a lickable computer screen, or even better, a coin slot and food shoot so that you could get some of the tastiness? Well, I think I've come as close as possible to living the dream. After drooling over Deb's Key Lime Meltaways, guess what came in the mail?
Yes, magic happened.
They are just as delicious in real life as they appear on the screen. I apologize for lack of lickability for those unfortunate souls who aren't me and can't eat these right now.
My mom and friends threw me a shower this weekend, though if you were just judging from the pictures, you would think Martha Stewart masterminded everything.
There were homemade baby quiches, tiny cookies, a cheesecake straight from Juniors (thanks, Jennie!), a coconut cake, and--I didn't even know this was possible--hand-squeezed raspberry lemonade. Followed by about seven hours of gift opening. Let's just say this baby will be the cleanest, warmest, best dressed, most entertained baby that ever there was.
Everyone keeps saying, "Oh, he looks like he's ready to come early!" Which is a nice sentiment, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. They consider babies full-term after this week, so I wouldn't have any problem with the little guy bumping up opening day. However, practically speaking, I'll be doing the same complaining here for another few weeks as this guy keeps getting bigger and punchier. Here's a question for you ladies who have done this before: my upper stomach skin is buuuuuurning. Like a sunburn. I assume it's from some last minute stretching out, but other than the buuuuuuurning and sensitivity, the skin looks totally normal. No rash, no redness. Did this happen to you? Any soothing suggestions? A friend suggested a brand of oil that she really liked and I realized I had a little bottle of the stuff. I'm sure it's good product, but unfortunately for me I was too desperate to pay attention to the fact that the particular fragrance I had was cinnamon. Which contains cinnamon oil. Which, just for future reference, DOESN'T HELP burning skin.
Overstock.com sent out an email yesterday with a cryptic apology
One of last week's emails contained a typographical error of one character, inadvertently creating an inappropriate message. Please know that it was a simple accident by one of our graphic artists, and that I sincerely apologize to any who noticed it.
Of course, this meant I had to go scour last week's emails for the error. Which I believe is this:
Hey, I'm almost 36 weeks along. How about that! I'm definitely starting to feel it. It happened somewhere between my belly not really moving in synch with my body when I roll over in bed and my back's insistence that I not sit in an upright chair for very long. And while my cravings have been pretty limited throughout the pregnancy, I'm suddenly very susceptible to suggestion. A single Nutty Buddy* I consumed about two weeks ago has been haunting my brain, along with these lime meltaway cookies, any mention of donuts, and--as always--ice cream treats in general. Lucky for the waistline, I'm usually at work when these cravings strike and I'm forced to make do with the fruit I brought as a snack. But seriously: Nutty Buddy's are freaking awesome, aren't they?
J and I had this ambitious plan for the nursery, which involved some talented friends of ours painting images along a central border on the wall. But now I am a little worried that I put the fate of our finished room in the hands of several other people. And since the border is on the WALL where most stuff would be pushed up against, we're sort of in the lurch until it is done. I can't tell if this is the nesting instinct or just a completely reasonable "maybe the new person should have a place to live" instinct.
Speaking of, I'm sort of looking forward to this nesting instinct kicking in. I have all kinds of jobs for it! Hey crazed preggy lady, the cabinets really need a good cleaning, the car certainly hasn't been washed or vacuumed in awhile, and how ABOUT that project of turning the basement area into a livable guest bedroom.
People, I still have not seen The Dark Knight. How is this possible! I'm thinking this will become a weekend priority, somewhere between helping friends move (J) and baby showering (me).
And by "Nutty Buddy" I mean Little Debbie Nutty Bars. I think I have always called them "Nutty Buddies."
So the general consensus was that the pervs like to collect belly pictures in addition to boob and butt pictures. I have made my Flickr baby set private, viewable only to friends and family. I do, however, have a pretty wide definition of friends and family. So if you are sad the belly pics are now hidden and you are not a perv, drop me a line (lizworking at the place where gmail lives) and I will help you out. The belly, by the way, is now getting bigger by the minute. I'm at that annoying stage where things have stopped fitting but I am so not motivated to buy new clothes for a couple weeks' (!) wear. Lucky for me, the universe is kind sometimes and I have been gifted or loaned a whole pile of maternity shirts to get me through this last month (!!) or so.
My parents recently gave me a whole pile of stuff I'd asked them to save from when I was younger. I'm not sure what exactly I thought I'd do with all this junk down the line, but I remember being fervent in my desire that my old stuffed animals and random knickknacks not be thrown away, but packed up for posterity. I was sure they would be welcomed with open arms by an adult me, who would be unable to wait to bestow these gifts upon my own children. So now that I am almost a parent (!!!), they decided now would be the time to purge their basement of all these things and drop them off at my house before I could decide otherwise. Long story short, I now have a basement full of ca-rap. Okay, some of it is admittedly fun, like the box of Barbies, complete with very 80s outfits. Lots of shiny tops and off-the-shoulder shirts and wristbands with tassels.
As I've mentioned, Max likes to bring us little presents in the middle of the night, or have them waiting for us when we get home from work. Apparently he got himself into the Barbie box, because this was the outfit waiting for us when we woke up the other morning:
Obviously, he didn't arrange it quite this way, but his intent was clear. I like that he went for only the one legwarmer look. Very avant-garde.
In the past couple weeks, I've received about five notices from Flickr where someone I don't know has added me as a contact. Since the only thing to do in those situations is to check out that person's profile, photostream, and favorited pics, that is what I did. In each case, it was some skeevy guy with a bunch of breast and booty shots for contacts and who belonged to groups like "sexxxy making out hot." I quickly blocked all these contacts, but now I am wondering: where are they finding me? Do I have one poorly tagged photo that's leading crazies to me? Is it just random weirdos that are trying to amass as many contacts as possible? I really don't think I have anything in my photostream that would leave anyone to believe I'd be posting topless photos anytime soon. Maybe in addition to boobs, they also really like candy?
While in Target today, there was a young couple in the men's department looking over the pants selection. The guy was holding up a shirt to several pairs of pants, trying to decide what matched. Upon closer inspection, this was the shirt:
It's very important to have the correct pants with that shirt. Difficult to match.
Willow is visiting! So far, we have eaten a lot of good food and gone to see Hellboy. This is how lame I have become: after planning the movie night with several friends and J for about a week now, I managed to somehow watch the entire move and then fall asleep for the last five minutes. In case you haven't seen the movie yet, some shit goes down in the last five minutes of the movie. I know this because I had to have it all relayed back to me and it involved a prolonged question and answer period. That will teach me to try to sit in a dark, air-conditioned, stadium seated theater after 10 pm.
This morning we had brunch in a ridiculously delicious creole restaurant that serves chicory coffee and hot biscuits the size of your heat. The acoustics are pretty terrible, but it led to this exchange:
Heather's dad: It's too bad we can't time travel. Though I guess they found out electrons can time travel.
Willow: Yeah, leprechauns can do anything!
Everyone: ...
Heather's dad: Electrons.
I most appreciate how Willow was willing to jump right into a conversation about time-traveling leprechauns with no warning. That's why she's the best.
For the record, I've been on a hot cupcake streak since Wednesday. They've been popping up everywhere! It's looking good at least through Monday.
Hello! Here I am.
I'm in a bathing suit waiting for my swimming partner to finish up a meeting before we can head to the poooool. I love the pool. I would live in the pool for the remainder of the summer if I could somehow manage to continue my job and social life from said body of water. Okay, filing might get tricky, but I could totally handle conference calls.
I don't know if it's heat-induced or pregnancy-brain, but as you've probably noticed, I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with blog entries lately. It's like my brain has just shut off. I think perhaps it is conserving energy for the near future where it will have to function at twice the capacity and half the sleep. Did I already tell you I'm contributing to a little candy-reviewing blog spot over here? There is nothing like being obligated to eat some candy and write about it for work-related reasons.
(While I'm writing this, Pinky is sitting next to me on the chair trying to purr and nudge me the hell off so she can have it all to herself. She's temporarily stopped in a position where she is basically doing a headstand, with her lower body smashed up against my hip and arm. This is presumably preferable to stretching out on the completely empty futon directly behind her.)
I hope you've enjoyed this completely filler post here, but I gotta go slather myself in sunscreen and make my way down to my temporary office.
We had a second ultrasound yesterday to check on the positioning of the placenta. They flipped on the 4-D for a minute and we got a glimpse of the baby's face. The technology is amazing, but the baby managed to pull a pretty hilarious face, so the only picture we have looks decidedly un-cute. He was looking, as J put it, very Cydonia mensa.
Everything looks good and he's measuring about a week ahead of schedule. We met up with some of J's relatives last week, one of whom almost had a 10-pound baby (they induced at 8 pounds). So there could be a giant baby in my belly. The placenta is still low-lying, but right above the cusp where I would have to have a mandatory c-section. There might be some of you reading this who have very little interest in placentas, but maybe you should just google "placenta" and check out a few pictures that pop up. That is what I had to do after my first ultrasound, because what I realized I didn't, after all, know much about placentas. Oh man, that thing is crazy! Anyway, it's important to keep that guy intact and doing well, so we'll see what the doctor says. I've passed the 30-week mark...in the home stretch! Right? Right??
Otherwise, things have been lovely and mild. I rediscovered a Thai restaurant right around the corner from our house that is actually the very first place I ate pad thai in high school. It is still as delicious as I remember. Definitely the best pad thai I've had in Denver, maybe even surpasses New York stuff. Sometimes pad thai just tastes like old oil or wet dog and I can't abide by glommy noodles, so going back to a really delicious dish that started my love affair with Thai food was pretty awesome.
I've spent the rest of my time getting worked up over these people who adopt monkeys because they had "empty nest syndrome" and needed a living doll they could feed french fries and candy to. After they removed the dolls' teeth, of course.
If you need me tomorrow, I'll be watching the Nathan's Hot Dog Competition from my couch while eating donuts with my friends. It's no standing in the press box and drinking at Ruby's, but it will be decidedly more relaxing.
Happy 4th!
I have been waking up in the night with very random, clarifying thoughts. Like suddenly realizing that an odd last name of a new retail contact at work is the same as the odd street name in a new address of one of our papers. I realize this means nothing to you, but it was like puzzle pieces fitting together at 3:00 am. Last night, Maude Newton, she who blogs about literary stuff, popped into my head for some reason. What I thought was this: could "Maude" be her real name? Could one really be a literary blogger if one's name was, say, Kaitlyn? Of course, one could, but maybe one would change one's name to something more bookish and fitting, like Maude. A Wikipedia check this morning tells me her first name is really Rebecca.
Thank god I'm coming up with shit like this instead of brilliant child care solutions or can't-lose money-making schemes.
You know what makes me mad? Popcicle stick jokes. Most of the time, they're just of the typical bad joke variety, but lately there have been a lot of infuriatingly nonsensical ones. It used to be my least favorite was, "What goes 99, clump, 99, clump?" Because the answer is "A centipede with a wooden leg." But if you think about it, what the hell is 99 supposed to sound like? You can't combine a general number with a descriptive sound and pretend they are the same thing. That my friends is a lazy joke, dependent on the listener to fill-in all the missing parts and laugh based on the idea of a joke.
But now! Now I have a new least favorite: "When is it time to go to the dentist?" Answer on stick: "Tooth thirty." Do you know why I hate this joke? Because they fucked up the punch line. This is a classic joke and the answer is supposed to be "Tooth hurty." Which sounds a lot like 2:30. Har har. It's not a brilliant joke, but it works because it is punny. "Tooth hurty" describes the ailment and reason to go to the dentist, as well as sounding like an actual time of the day you would go to the dentist. "Tooth thirty," on the other hand is nothing. Beyond using the word "tooth," there's zero substance to the joke. Plus, "Tooth thirty" is awkward to say. It makes me want to stab out eyeballs with popsicle sticks, or at the very least call some popsicle stick joke hotline and complain. I'd boycott the product, but can't resist the lure of banana and root beer flavored treats.
I think we've solved the swimming pool problem: my brother's apartment has two pools. I predict much floating this weekend.
The baby was kicking very hard last night, but on both sides of my stomach simultaneously. I can only conclude he is training to fight ninjas in there.
We were just watching the Olympic trials, though, so it's also possible he was inspired and wanted to test out his flexibility.
Isn't he talented already!
This weekend I had a lovely massage, a Mother's Day gift from J. I think all my weekends should include a massage. Apparently, you just lie there in a nice-smelling room with relaxing music and someone rubs all your sore muscles away. Brilliant!
The plan was to go swimming afterwards, but that fell through when our hot spot turned out to be populated solely by very tan 20-somethings who were lounging on all the available chairs and watching each other. The new plan is to find a hotel with a spectacular pool and seek out a cheap room rate one weekend night. People will all chip in, lay by the pool, watch crappy cable movies in an air-conditioned room, and maybe even order up some room service junk food. Sounds perfect to me.
