Friday, May 29, 2009

Don't even get me started about ranch dressing

I'm picky. I know this about myself. I'd rather just state up front what I want and what my expectations are so that way I can know in advance if they aren't going to be met. Perfect example: I love iced tea with a half of a sweet & low packet. Not Equal. Not Splenda. Not raw sugar. When I go to a restaurant that doesn't keep their sugars on the table, I asked if they have the pink packets before I order my iced tea. If they don't carry it, I order water. Nothing lost, nothing gained. If I go out to eat with someone new and they hear me ask this, I inevitably hear the "wow, you are picky" statement. But here is my argument -would it be better for me to order iced tea and then have them bring it to me and then when they don't have the sugar I want, send it back? No! I ask for what I want in advance. This is very logical to me.

My husband, kiddo and I stayed at my dad's house for 3 nights in Nashville last weekend. We went to spend memorial day with him, my stepmom and 16 year old half brother and my dad and did a sprint triathlon on Monday. I'm not sure exactly when this happened, but it was blatantly clear during the whole trip how accustomed I've become to the way I do things at home. Here are all the things I mentally complained about:
- The A/C was set to 78. Like, they SET it to not get cooler than that. In humid Nashville. Ugh. My house is a blissful 72 degrees in non humid Colorado, with ceiling fans aplenty.
- They don't have filtered water. I'm not like some germ freak by any means, I just like my cold Brita filtered water. And my glasses are perfect. They have weirdly thick insulated ones that don't quite hold enough liquid and the bottom edges are kinda rounded or something and I always feel like they are going to fall off the table.
- We slept on my little brothers full sized bed. The pillows were just....not right. The sheets are flannel (remember: A/C set to 78). And our kiddo was in a pack in play at the foot of our bed. Our bed at home is king sized with the softest sheets ever and a down comforter that always feel cool to the touch. I have a Snoogle pillow which supports and snuggles every little bit of my weird pregnant body. So there I was, laying on top of the sheets, hogging about 7/8 of the bed, trying not to move too much so we wouldn't wake up Finn, unsuccessfully tucking pillows in awkward positions.
- Everything creaked - the floorboards, the bed, the chairs. (remember: kiddo at the foot of our bed).

I do not remember ever staying away from home and wishing I was home so badly EVER. And not that the trip and the company wasn't lovely - I love hanging out with my dad and his crew. But I just longed for my shit. I have to imagine that this was only exacerbated by my expanding belly and my toddlers general crankiness the last day and half of the trip. But I can only assume that this gets worse as you get older. At the ripe 'ol age of 28, I think this may be a problem.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Markings

The other day while giving Finn a bath, I noticed that he got his FIRST FRECKLE!


This blew my mind because it solidifies that he's like, a real person. A person who's not only going to get freckles, but also body hair and cavities and a girlfriend and a tattoo and OH EM GEE mah baby is growing up! Wait, deep breath, he's only 2. Calming down now.

Coincidentally, I also got a new freckle in a weird place - my thumb.


I don't know what this means, but I feel like it means something. Like, something to do with palmistry. But seeing as how little I know about that subject, I'm just going to theorize that it means that I am pregnant with the second coming of Einstein.

And something else that I'd like to talk about (that will NOT have an accompanying photograph) is the fact that my chest is currently expanding at an insane rate. I don't recall this happening last time until towards the end of the pregnancy. I'm busting out of all my bras and although Jake is NOT minding this "development" (heh, heh, heh) but I'm a little perturbed. Because if THIS is how they are NOW...well, then how are they going to be come October? I'm worried for the well being of my bras and also my husband, who won't be allowed to touch them for the entire time I'm breastfeeding. And seeing how they are looking so AWESOME these days, I feel kinda sorry for him.

In other CrAzY-town news, I was just asked to be in a wedding for my husband's best friend. I'm not super close to the girl, but we are both really close to the guy. And when is their wedding, you ask? Why, about 1 month before I'll have the baby. Because you know what's cute? An 8 month pregnant chick in a bridesmaid dress. Uh huh, SUPER CUTE. At least my rack will look hot.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Evidence

I'm fairly maniacal about taking pictures - I have some crazy number of photos of my kid that is somewhere in the thousands (yet, he still won't cheese it up for the camera). But for some reason, I did a terrible job of documenting my belly growth with my first pregnancy and I'm not showing any drive towards doing a better job with this one. I will blame this 100% on my husband because he never has the inclination to pick up the camera, putting me in the position of awkward self portraits. Well, if that's how it's gotta be.....here's me at the 16 week mark:


I think my belly looks huge-ish for 16 weeks. And also weirdly pointy.

I had my appt this afternoon and felt some weird sense of satisfaction that I've only gained 6 lbs so far. I'm being sorta gloaty about it. Example: Towards the end of my appointment today, my doc is like "Any more questions?" and I'm all "Is my weight gain okay for this stage?" Even though I know damn well it's just fine, I just wanted to hear her say it. She looks at my chart and is like "Oh yes, it's quite good!" and I look at my husband with some smug look, as if he gives a shit whether I've gained 6 pounds or 12 pounds. Ahh, the things I take joy in...

Speaking of taking joy in things, here is my kid playing with the stirrups at the docs office. Classic.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Wordy

Found a cute little tool today that created a word cloud out of your tweets - I already knew about Wordle, which rocks and I've given as a cool gift, even if they don't really "get" word clouds. So, here's my cloud from my twitter account:


Here is how it works - the more you have a word written, the larger the word becomes on the cloud. It's no surprise that nausea is among the biggest, and I'm happy to say that it's mostly behind me now. Still twinges in the evenings, but all in all, I'm feeling very very close to normal.

I'm also so excited that I'm starting to feel the baby move, which is such an interesting feeling. As cool as it is (and don't get me wrong, it's awesome) it is also incredibly strange. Also, since the babe is like the size of an avocado, but my belly is more the size of like a half volleyball already, I just wonder how it manages to get such a running start that I actually feel it.

As much as I wasn't really interested before, I'm all of a sudden DYING to know what the sex of the baby is. Our appt. is on June 2, and it can't come fast enough. I ask Finn every couple of days if it's a baby girl or a baby boy, and his answer changes all the time, although it's been a girl the last few days. When we had Finn, we had a short list of names in mind, but didn't actually pick until we had him. I wonder if this time we'd be more inclined to pick a name so that he could start calling the baby something. Just as we were the first of all of our friends to have a kiddo, we are obviously the first to have the second, so I have no idea what types of things will make the transition easier for Finn, something that is VERY important for me. I guess I need to pick up a book or something on the subject, because I really want Finn to still feel super important and loved and payed attention to. I guess it all works out, right? People do this all the time :)

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Neither here nor there

Just when I thought I had the cold that would NEVER EVER end, I got my 15 week email from Babycenter.com and they informed me that there is a reason that I've been blowing my nose every 5 minutes. Well thank god, because it made it so I could go see my new friend's baby at the hospital today without feeling like I was bringing along a bucket of germs. He's all brand new and squishy, full of the cutest squeaky-est little sounds and THANK GOD I'm pregnant, or I'd be breakin' out the moves tonight while simultaneously flushing birth control pills down the toilet.

I can't believe I'm 15 weeks already, firmly in the 2nd trimester. I'm feeling fab, finally, and now wondering when I'm going to start doing all those things I said I'd do when I started feeling better (i.e. exercise, cook dinner, put away laundry and all those other mundane useless tasks that I found to be quite easy to ignore the last 2+ months). I'm doing a triathlon in exactly 3 weeks and DAMN if I didn't get winded walking up the stairs to my 3rd floor office today. I'm kinda screwed, but going to do my best working out the next several days so I don't fully embarrass myself.

I'm feeling much better today than I was when I wrote my previous post on the woes of being me with my crazy family. I'm back to my zen state of being in which I realize I can only control me, blah blah blah. Although I did read a fairly beautiful post today in which the blogger described my ideal family situation. I couldn't help but have one of those "if my family could only be like THAT" moments, but ya know, it's not - and that has to be okay. Moving on now!

Random share of the day: I totally believe in Love and Sex and Magic now. Girl you are FLEXIBLE! It's kinda skanky but totally hot all at the same. I can't help but wonder what their significant others think when they see this video? I mean, I guess Jessica puts up with all of Justin's weird new heavy framed glasses, so she can deal with a little fondle here and there.

I'm off to go buy a used co-sleeper that I found miraculously for only $45, which is about half as much as I've ever seen used, I'm totally stoked. Three cheers for perfectly good used baby garb!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Deep breaths

Okay, Internets, I'm just going to say it - I think the worst of my nausea is over. I realize that putting this out there could be my undoing - my unborn child will check his/her little fetal iPhone to check out my blog and somehow turn up the hormones, but I'm just going to take that risk, because HALLE-fucking-LUYAH, I feel like a normal human being. I'm only about 5 days in, but after you've spent 10 consecutive weeks of 24 hour nausea, 5 days seems like a pretty incredible reprieve. There have been several moments of sickness in the last few days, but it seems like no big deal comparatively.

I'd only gained about 3 pounds as of last week, and I just stepped on the scale this morning and was up to 7.5 pounds! Yikes, how did that happen?

I've been reflecting on how this pregnancy has compared to the last. Some of the notable similarities include craving chocolate milk, chocolate ice cream and Chipotle barbacoa burritos, puking every morning and being sick for 10 weeks exactly. However, those 10 weeks were from 10-20 weeks with Finn and 4-14 with this one. And I know it's easy to forget things that suck, but I swear it was worse this time.

Also something that I've been overwhelmed with this time is the inability to precisely control my emotions, something that I am generally VERY good at. I've been dealing with some pretty obnoxious family issues the last couple of weeks and I'm just not handling it well. I don't want to use the pregnancy card, but I just want to be like "PLEASE can we freeze the freakin drama for like a year or so??" I'd sorta like to just float along in a idyllic existance for the next few months and ignore *certain* family members who frequently act as if the rules of reality don't apply to them.

Here's the fact of the matter - I simply want to live an honest and happy life. And I feel like most of my life is like that. But then I've got these dark clouds looming over that just want to rain all over my good shit. Normally I can aptly ignore these clouds, but being pregnant and emotional and a little loony is making it harder - and not only does it make me sad, but it makes me angry. I am a lot of things, but an angry person isn't one of them, so this is an emotion I have a hard time navigating.

I've talked at length about this with the husband and he's trying to help me come up with some good coping strategies, which makes me feel a bit like a mental patient. I've just got this voice in my head that is telling me "ESCAPE! ESCAPE!" and then the other day Mike sent me a link to real estate in Guam, and I couldn't help thinking....I hear the Mongmong area is beautiful this time of year....