how to get fast service at an auto repair shop

step one: bring a baby.

step two: change the baby in the middle of the waiting area.

step three: give the baby his bottle when he starts to get fussy.

step four: after the baby downs his bottle and continues to be fussy, nurse him in the middle of said waiting area. discretely, of course. (thank goodness for those cover things!)

knocked an entire hour off our waiting time.





oh, yeah, blogspot. i had a baby.

a world of extremes

pregnancy is less wonderful in the last handful of weeks than it was a couple months ago. there was a wonderful baby shower where i was able to see some dear friends- two even flew in from maryland. there's the darling bassinet we put together sitting next to our bed, ready for its little occupant to make its arrival.

but there's also the heat. a scorching heat wave that makes your face feel like it's about to melt off. even worse in a car without air conditioning.

then there's the pregnancy-related blister-type thing that set up camp on my upper lip. that bled and bled and bled and eventually had to be removed. imagine- 91/2 months pregnant, lying on the doc's table, primed for surgery. the shot, the little whizzing machine that pressed a burning into my face (and gave off a whiff of burning flesh) and seven stitches in this sticky, sticky heat.

brutal.

then little bubba. apparently, at one of my doctor appointments, he measured a bit big. an ultrasound was prescribed where the technician determined the not-so-little guy was already a bouncing almost-9 pounds. and that was a week and a half ago! she made note that he has the chubbiest cheeks she's ever seen- look at that chin!

but now that surgery's done, and ma's flown in to help, i think we're ready for him to get here.

where's the director who's going to shout 'ACTION!' to get this show going???

i could write about the horrible dinner J got us from a fancy chinese restaurant when i was craving chinese food, disgusting you with how soapy the sweet and sour prawns were, the lack of rice with the meal, and the big black hair wrapped around the egg roll. or i could talk about our neighbour's stunning revelation that they had roaches, and were planning to spray just their apartment so the the critters could come scurrying to ours. i could talk about the awesome bachelorette party (and subsequent wedding) we attended where i got all the answers i needed by a fortune teller. but those things happened weeks ago, so let me focus on this one.

monday: i woke up with hives. my face itchy and blotchy, i wasn't too concerned as i had a doctor appointment that morning. only i didn't- i showed up, only to find out the appointment wasn't until wednesday. they squeezed me in anyhow and told me to take some benedryl and come back if it didn't go away.

tuesday: the bumps seemed to subside some, despite the 90degree (plus) weather. i had all manner of errands to run, and the fact i don't have airconditioning in my car didn't help.

by wednesday: the hives had developed into a full blown rash. i made another appointment at the doctor, being transferred from person to person, as internal medicine thought Ob/Gyn should deal with it since they diagnosed it, and Ob/Gyn thought internal medicine should take care of it due to it not being a condition related to pregnancy. finally i was scheduled for an appointment during work hours. i went in to work then, and partway through the day i went to my appointment. by this day, the temperature had climbed to 96degrees, and i was dying by the time i arrived. the doctor on duty confirmed the rash and some extra swollen tonsils, and gave me a prescription to fill. i drove back to my home town to fill the prescription and return to work, and was sitting at a red light not far from my destination. !bam! a car hits me from behind. i pull over, in shock, then get out of the car. i look at my bumper and at the car that pulled over behind me. the driver doesn't bother to get out of his car.

"are you okay?" i ask, approaching the passenger window. the guy rolled down the window and answered in the affirmative. "are you?" he asked. "i'm not sure. i think so-" i look around me, dazed. the guy continues, "it looks like your car's fine." and then he peels off back into traffic.

still in shock, i go to the pharmacy and then to work. several hours later i return home to a panicked J. he reminds me to call my car insurance, which i do. and then i realize i hadn't felt bubba move since the accident. i call the on-call nurse who instructs me to the hospital immediately. everything after that is a daze- arriving at the ER in a whirlwind, being ushered to the birthing area, getting hooked up to a monitor to hear the heartbeat, the nurse telling me i'm having contractions... finally things begin to slow down. J's mom and stepfather arrive to check in on us. the contractions slow down. friends of our stop by with our hometeachers. and eventually we're deemed ready to return home.

it's going to be awhile before i complain of being bored again- that's the sort of excitement i can do without.

ch-ch-ch-changes

my life no longer changes in grand ways- a trip to europe, a safari in the african bush... it changes in small ways.

*like sunflowers. which i managed to grow from seeds to seedlings, placed in pots on the porch, and were promptly nuzzled to death by the ferocious beast that lives downstairs (and tends to haunt my backdoor all hours of the night).

sunflowers. or, at least, what's left of the twelve dancing princesses.


damage the beastie has inflicted. all the mud and dirt? from the flowerpots that held my little sunflowers.

*sammy samuel samerai. who will sleep on your chest, curl up to you on the couch...
and destroy whatever projects you're working on. like my layered gray's anatomy, cut and layered into delightful images (below is the page he destroyed. he has an obsession with paper and promptly chewed off several of limbs)

(a page he hasn't gotten to, yet)
*and turning into a major clutz. seriously- i have bruises all over my body, and my hand is currently burned in several places because of a bowl of clam chowder and a microwave. life shouldn't be this difficult.



*and the fact that my belly is becoming progressively more unwieldy- i no longer walk from place to place, i steer my belly. navigate my Bauch. maneuver my heft.

*changing my name. which is every bit as complicated and problematic as i thought it'd be. which is a terrible shame, because that only feeds my tendency to procrastinate.

i think these changes are enough for now. i mean, who needs sleep, right?

boys boys boys

a couple months ago we found out little bubba's a boy. i think j was a little shell-shocked seeing the little guy squirm on the ultrasound- he didn't have too strong of a reaction. i know he was hoping for a girl, but- i knew he was going to be a boy. that way i won't have to stop calling him bubba.

finding out the gender was certainly a huge step toward making the let's-have-a-baby situation all the realer (can i use that as a word?). another came just a couple weeks ago when i flew home. it wasn't the eleven hours on the plane (a layover in phoenix where i didn't even get to disembark) or little bubba using my bladder as a punching bag the entire way there (having to get up to use the restroom every 20 minutes- priceless). it was the moment where, late at night, i was using my belly as a desktop, my laptop settled comfortably on it, when all of a sudden- plunk! the laptop jumped an inch into the air. visible evidence that he is indeed squirming around. it was so very awesome. tonight, in fact, j was able to feel him giving me a good hefty kick in the ribs for the first time. he likes to do that just when i'm dozing off for a nap- it makes me jolt awake because i think i'm falling.

the visit home was so very awesome. i was able to see some fabulosa friends. and of course there was the visits with my siblings. there were all these new inlaws to get to know, and we made a good time of it, playing cards and telling some really horrible jokes. i got a little homesick coming home- not because i didn't miss j and the cats, but because i hated to leave. but j fed me, the house was wonderfully clean, and there was work the next morning.

and so the next round begins...

of recent happenings

my belly button has disappeared. it was there one day, gone the next. it's very unnerving. there's a space where my belly button SHOULD be. but it's absence is certainly notable.
it's just not natural, that's what.

i was subpoenaed to court a couple weeks ago. it wasn't so bad, as i had a couple of co-workers with me, also waiting their turn to testify. the attorney told me i would be up next, so i ate a handful of yogurt-covered blueberries (just in case i was on the stand too long and subsequently died of hunger- one can't be too sure, after all) then ran to the bathroom (more pregnancy preparations). when i flashed my usual 'how's it going' smile in the mirror, i realized my teeth were slightly off-colour. a full-on tongue exposure revealed my whole mouth was blue. the yogurt-covered blueberries! i hurried out to the waiting area, hoping and hoping and hoping i hadn't been called, yet. what was i going to do in front of the judge with a mouth full of blue? how professional was i going to look? should i start with: "i'm sorry, you're honour- you must forgive an unthinking, potentially half-starved pregnant woman for her error in judgment. please don't blame the blueberries" and throw myself at the mercy of the court? i bided my time, waiting... and the court adjourned for lunch.

i needn't have worried at all, actually. all that waiting got us another day to come in, as the first witnesss took nearly the entire day.

mmm... yogurt-covered blueberries...

yesterday i hunted down subway and got a delicious flatbread sandwich with all the fixin's. my favourite sandwich. delicious sweet onion sauce, crispy lettuce, toasted provolone cheese all wrapped up in one of those subway sandwich bag. it was all i could do to not rip open into that sandwich then and there, but i refrained, placed on the car seat next to me (within arm's reach, of course), and drove to work.

i gobbled half that sandwich for lunch. it was delicious. i thought about eating the other half, but i again put temptation behind me, or in this case, put it in the fridge.

i thought about that sandwich last night. i even dreamed about it while i slept. i held off eating it for breakfast, waited through brunch, and by lunch, my mouth was watering. i heaved my pregnant booty off my chair and padded to the employee room. mmm.... sandwich...

only, no sandwich. someone had thrown it away. or eaten it. my yogurt was there- why couldn't they have taken that?

?!???

bleakdom

it's winter. snowy, cold, and too depressing. i don't know if it's the evening hours at work or the pregnancy, but it's hard to be motivated. for anything. i had a list of projects i wanted to do today, and i haven't been able to tackle any of them. my predominant mood is sadness. j threw a piece of popcorn in my face and i felt sad. i had to go to a restaurant by myself to satisfy a craving and i felt sad. i think about having to cook dinner and i feel sad. on top of it all, the underlying homesickness that i typically feel is pushing itself forward. i have a terrible case of the blahs.

blah, blah, blah.

i can't blame everything on the pregnancy. other than feeling chunky and having a hard time sleeping, i don't seem to be showing any of the typical symptoms. i rarely feel nauseous, i don't have any swollen ankles or fingers (yet), and i haven't experienced morning sickness. but i feel out of shape, hungry all-the-time, and my bones feel exceptionally weary. it's hard for me to not think about the things i'm giving up- travel, trying new things, spontaneity... maybe i'm mourning the loss of a lifestyle.

...

on the other hand, i've been able to hear bubba's heartbeat twice. i've been able to see bubba doing acrobats on the ultrasound. when i'm faced with these more tangible signs, i feel hope. and excitement. and anticipation. i almost get emotional. there's so much possibility, and above all, i carry with me the future. i get so overwhelmed with THESE thoughts, it's hard to even breathe.

maybe it's the seesawing that's so exhausting.

in october, this was joe's birthday present:

joe calls him sammy-short-for-samurai. and he lives up to his name. he was sweet, cute, cuddly-the qualities you want in a kitten. and then the honeymoon was over. now he races up and down the apartment, tears at the wallpaper until it's in shreds, had ripped down most of the blinds, and the shower curtain is riddled with holes. he howls when your in the bathroom and he's on the wrong side of the door, attacks your ankles when you walk by the bed, and has somehow managed to tear down my entire standing wardrobe.

yet he fetches. that's right. it only works with those twisty pull tabs that come on water bottles, but when you toss it, he races after it, picks it up in his mouth, then trots back to you, tab in mouth. he'll drop it at your feet and wait for another go. oh- and he crawls into bed with you. under the covers- just to keep your toes warm.

he's actually quite awesome.

waiter, there's something bigger than a fly in my soup.

j bought me a delicious sandwich from this pizza place we go to every other week. they sell large pizzas for really cheap every tuesday, so that's been our default tuesday meal. being pregnant, i had a hankering for anything OTHER than pizza, so he bought me a delicious omelet sandwich. i gobbled up half, setting the other half into the fridge for lunch the next day.

next day, i unwrapped the sandwich- and there, flattened between the wax paper and the bun, was a 1 1/2 inch orange roach. my first thought- had i missed something in other sandwiches i'd eaten there? were the pizzas always so reliable? i immediately brushed the roach-infested-tasty-sandwich in the garbage. in retrospect i could have used it to demand my money back, but i don't even want to step foot in that pizzeria again. and what if all they did was invite me to get a replacement sandwich? it was bad enough i had several clients to meet with after that. during these meetings, i kept having flashbacks of that gigantic bug who'd probably begun eating my lunch. and who knows what was in the other half the sandwich? the sandwich i ate???

now my stomach churns at the thought of food. i choke it down because i have to, but ... ew. and i have a stomach of iron. is it the pregnancy? or is it seeing a bug in a bite that was intended for my personal digestion?

disgusted am i.

tidings

it's been an action-packed couple of months. we've gone from:
to:needless to say, we've been riding the emotional roller coaster. it's so odd- the first couple months i didn't dare say anything to anyone. it was a cross between not wanting to jinx it to not really wanting to accept the reality of how much our lives are about to change. even if it's for the better. because everything i'd thought awesome before now needs to be looked at with a more scrutinizing eye. the one-and-a-half bedroom apartment that had been HUGE before now seems cramped. the two door car that i love now seems a bit inconvenient. the bathroom destroying cats that i thought adorable now seem like a handful.

it didn't take me long to figure out there was something going on. right from week one my body started complaining that something odd and foreign was setting up home base inside it. and now- even the figure i once took for granted is now misshapen and odd looking. getting an ultrasound a couple weeks ago, though- that changed everything. little bubba was squirreling around turning backflips, swimming the breaststroke, i think at one point a little game of solitaire was laid out. it was at that point things went from: 'holy crap' to 'totally awesome.'

although there's still a little bit of that 'holy crap' there. i mean- we are having a baby, after all.