Not So Subtle

So, many of you may know the woes I had in the earlier (and not so earlier) days of the pregnancy, when no one seemed to be able to tell I was pregnant at all. I must admit, my face still hasn't filled out one bit. People who can only see me from the shoulders and up or so still don't seem to realize I'm pregnant (restaurant servers pushing margaritas on me, the lady at the DMV who was surprised when I stepped back to have my picture taken for my new license, etc.)

However, as you can see from this lovely, headless self-portrait, it's not really all that subtle when you can actually see my stomach now. In fact, my arms are quite nearly not long enough to reach the keyboard on my laptop as I lie about trying to use it. It's gotten further and further away for months now and at this point, it's closer to my knees than it is to my waist by a wide margin.

I still feel outclassed by some of the women at our Lamaze class though, many of whom are weeks behind me as we are just a tad late (only by a few weeks) in starting our classes. Now some of those girls look PREGNANT. As in, I betcha their servers at T.G.I.Fridays don't offer them the Grande Margarita Especial.

Just a tad under two months to go, unless little miss kick and stretch has other plans. Sometimes I think she plans to just come through my abdomen Alien-style. She seems to be trying it even right this second. Hopefully my singer's abs present enough of a barrier to save me that.

The Kreepy King

Do those new Burger King television ads oog out anyone other than me?

I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the plastic, single-expression face. Maybe it's the faux fur. Maybe it's the fact that his head is way too big for his body. I just don't know. He's just not right somehow.

Don't get me wrong. If I want a quick burger, the BK Lounge is usually where I go because I don't like those goofy onions and puffy buns on McDonald's hamburgers. I have no issues with the product, when used in moderation and as an occasional treat. But this dude is just wrong.

The Scapegoat

You don't know who this guy is. If you do know him on sight, I'd wager you know more about current politics than anyone should. His name is Scooter. And if he doesn't get a pardon or an easy judge, he's going to jail for stuff I think most reasonable people would deduce that plenty of other people were in on.

He may not be saying this out loud, but he has to be thinking it. "I'm a scapegoat! Look at me! Don't look at Karl Rove! Gee, my boss didn't know anything about this! I don't know anything myself! I can't even remember my first name—that's why everyone calls me 'Scooter' for God's sake!"

Best. Apprentice. Ever.

Spoilers.

Run now. If you care. Which you might not.

First, a lot of Carolyn, my hero. Second...

"All four of you are fired."

Whoo! Didn't see that coming. I thought maybe he'd fire two of them. He's done that before. But four? All of whom were equally inept and undeserving? Awesome. I mean it.

"Oh, but you won't care..."

If one more person tells me that I will someday soon not care about something that seems fundamentally, diametrically opposed to who I know I am now and what I am comfortable and capable of, I will honestly yell at them until my voice is hoarse.

I don't care if I'm wrong. I don't care if they're right. That's still an arrogant and dismissive thing to say. I really hope I've never said anything that stupid and insensitive to anyone else. If I have done so to you, accept this as my formal apology.

What is it about this time right before you become a parent that makes some of the people around you treat you like a child? Doesn't that irony strike anyone as odd? And I know it's not just me. I have recently spoken to a couple of people who were recently in this situation and it happened to them, too.

There are many of you who may be reading this who have been nothing but supportive and really only talked to me about pregnancy related things when I brought them up or asked them a question or for their opinion. I love you people.

Good lord. Is October nearly gone already? Heavens. I can hear the clock ticking louder now. Maybe this is just me freaking out.

But I mean it about that "you won't care about _____" stuff. Seriously, don't ever say that to anyone. I can't imagine anything more disrespectful to their view of who they are and what they need in order to be comfortable.

Zero Wing Rhapsody

Okay, I know All Your Base is played out.

But the AYB version of Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty funny.

A Day That Will Live in ... Well, Not Infamy Really

Put it down on your calendars, people.

Today was the day that directions-challenged me actually printed out a map and followed it successfully to a location here in the new town that I'd never been to before. This coming from the girl who got lost going to the Target that Google Maps told me was three miles from here and ended up at the airport instead.

For those of you who do this all the time and who always seem to know through some moss-on-the-tree or direction-of-the-sun zen kind of way whether you are driving south or west or whatever, this may not sound like a big deal. For me, however, it's rather notable. I even had to wing it once, when my directions said I needed to go south on a road and I was only given options for east or west.

My reward on the other end was to sit on a bench in a pretty quiet, slightly humid and just warm enough to be comfortable without my jacket, butterfly conservatory. After walking around and taking a few pictures with my it's-too-much-for-me-but-it-was-free-with-the-plan camera phone, I sat quietly and very still on a bench for several minutes before the butterflies decided I was part of the scenery and started to land on me. Maybe it was because my shirt was light pink and some of the flowers in the area I was in were about that color; I don't know. It was rather nice once they warmed to me.

Before I decided I had to get up and drive back to my part of town to do the grocery shopping that was the more practical reason I had for leaving the house, I had at least five or six on me. Maybe more...I'm not sure if any were on my back or not. One of them lit right on my knee for about a half minute before flitting off...a very small, pretty, black butterfly with bright red markings on the wings.

There were hundreds of butterflies in there, many more than in the other butterfly house I visited a few years ago in Wisconsin. It was well worth the forty minute round trip, plus I found a bunch of blessedly-familiar stores on the way there and back which I will visit on some other day when I am possessed of more energy.

It was a full day, just a bit more than I probably really have in me at this point. It was worth it, though. Even as I'm being whacked just behind my belly button by my passenger and constant companion, too tired to get up and take my plate downstairs (and thus had to con the mister into doing it), I am glad that I went and proud that I did it all with only one very minor u-turn. Maybe I'll get the hang of this road system after all.

Best Veronica Mars Line Tonight (So Far)

"The only way I'd ever make two grand in a week working at the Hut is if they installed a pole."

Heh.

Baby 101

So, we had our first labor and infant care class this evening. Three hours. It probably should have been more like two and a half hours, but I'm hardly one to whack someone for rambling on a bit.

It's weird to be in a room with ten other pregnant women. I haven't been around that many people who are also in the situation I'm in and it is a bit odd. You find yourself comparing a bit (her stomach is bigger than mine, she looks more uncomfortable than me, I can't believe she's still flexible enough to sit like that and cross her legs, etc.) and generally wondering how they're dealing with the whole thing and if it's anything like the way we are doing it.

And the instructor. First, let me say this. Really nice lady. She obviously has a lot of experience and is a great source of information. She's quite earnest, straightforward, and has just a touch of a sense of humor. I suppose that if you get on your back on the floor and put your legs up in the air and pretend to push a baby out for about two minutes within the first two hours that you've met two dozen strangers, you would have to have a sense of humor.

That being said, do you all remember the characters Nora Dunn used to play on Saturday Night Live back in the day? The "Oh, my, what are we doing here? Well, we can't have that, now can we?" wrinkled nose, smiling women. She actually played an OB/GYN on The Nanny (Nora Dunn, not our instructor) in that show's last season. This instructor lady FORCIBLY reminded me of all those Nora Dunn type things.

A very nice lady, but just stereotypical enough to make me hide a smile behind my hand a couple of times.

The class made me feel both worse and better, which I suppose was unavoidable. But what are you going to do? Better not to be ignorant.

I felt a little like a very well-behaved Hermione through most of the class. I've been reading a lot about this whole thing and she kept asking us questions ("Do we know what the four factors of how quickly the birth will go? Hmmm?") that I basically knew the answers to, but I elected to hold back a bit because I didn't want to be the insufferable know-it-all of the class. Hopefully I can keep myself reined in.

Curtain Choices

Ah, the pictures of the second choice don't have the best color reproduction, but I'm feeling a little too tired to go in there and give it a second go.

Here is the first choice, from far away (in the context of the room and paint colors) and then close up so you can see the detail.



Now here is the second choice, same deal: far away and then with more detail. Again, the colors are WAAAY off in the first one here. Imagine it with the colors from the far off picture of the first choice; those colors are just about truely reproduced.




Okay. Votes?

Depinked

So, there are some things that you like about a house you buy, and some things you inevitably won't. One of the things in the "won't" category for us was the Big Pink Room. It's really the formal living and dining room, but that part of the floor plan is very open and it was basically one big open space that looked like it was ever so slightly embarassed.

It really should have been. It was hideous.

I, of course, forgot to take the "before" picture. However, these are the drapes that were in there. Believe me, they matched the walls. This is a bit darker pink, but not a lot. We're talking about a 700 or 800 square foot room. That's a lotta Pepto.

I realize the people who bought our old house probably felt the same way about all the stuff we did. I'm sure they hated the tan in the hallway, the blue in the master bedroom, or the sagey green/burgundy combination we put in the dining room. They easily could have hated the fruit themed wallpaper in the kitchen. I mean, we did. But in three years we just never cared enough to go out and buy the stuff to strip it and start over.

But really, unless the new owners of our new house hated EVERYTHING we did, they have it better than we do. I could show you the Noah's Ark wallpaper room, or the master bathroom that has tannish-gold tile and vanity that they paired with a flowery pink, blue, and white wallpaper. Now, I hate both of those things. But not as much as the pink room.

This is what we replaced it with. We also just took the curtains completely down to let more light in the room. The living room portion is the only room in the house that doesn't have a built-in overhead light. Pair that with four windows covered in those heavy, dark pink drapes (complete with awful matching pink balloon valances) with nearly opaque "sheers" behind them and it was one big dark pinky mess.

I admit that I am a fool for the sagey green. In my own defense, all of our nice table linens are either green or burgundy, so painting to match that stuff was a cost-cutting measure as much as anything else. Now my tablecloth and candles and whatnot don't look so out of place.

In other news, my next post will be an exciting poll for those of you who feel like weighing in. There is this mall somewhat near the house that I ventured out to today (and I paid for the trip with a two hour nap this evening) that has a J.C. Penney outlet store. I've had the worst time trying to find some curtains for the nursery and in that one outlet store I found two possibilities. They were so cheap that I bought enough of both to use and now I have no idea how to make up my mind. Where is LWC when you need her?

So after I put up the curtain rods tomorrow, I'll dress one window in each possibility, take a few snaps, and post them. I don't know if I'll let the commenting public have the last word, but I would be interested in a vote. So keep your eyes open, vote early, and vote often.

I Wish I Had Something To Say...

...but I've spent the day mostly in bed because my back really seems to have decided to go on a rather unpleasant strike. I kept trying to talk myself into going to take a bath to make it better and I couldn't even really grasp that idea.

I hear there was weather and wind and stuff outside today. I wouldn't know. Ah, I take that back. I went out on the deck in the backyard for a few minutes while I ate my Cheerios. I nearly ended up with a dead leaf in my bowl from the neighbor's tree. It hit me in the forehead instead. All things being equal, that was much better than ruining the last bowl of Cheerios in the house.

I did do a spot of spackling to prepare for the nursery being painted tomorrow. Not by me, as there is at least one source I found on the internet that says that it's safer not to paint while pregnant even if it's water-based.

I will post pictures once it's painted and the crib is put together, though. You're all quite lucky not to have been subjected to pictures of some of the cute baby clothes I've binged on buying since we found out the sex. Darling little pink things with hoods and feet built in. Oh! And thank you SP, for the pink outfit you sent here with Hollywood. I really suck, I meant to send a thank you card back with him but I totally spaced it. It's really nice and is in exactly the right size for the level of warmness she'll need when she's big enough to wear it.

I have spent altogether too much time today reading about all the choices I have ahead of me for the actual birth. As most of you reading this are men, I'll spare you the details. Is it bad though, that I'm much more concerned with the loss of dignity and autonomy than the pain? I will probably feel differently in the moment of pain, but I'm still dumbstruck at the notion of losing that much control over my life for so many hours. I am way too much of a control freak. I will probably get us kicked out of the hospital somehow and end up having the baby in the parking lot or something.

By the way, no offense, if you're a man, please do not respond to that last bit with anything that could be interpreted as advice or "my wife blah blah blah". In fact, it would probably be better to err on the side of, oh, anything else, than risking making an advice-like comment on the above. Forgive me, but I'm a little bitter about the woman's burden at the moment and anyone of the male persuasion who tweaks me at this particular juncture will probably find their comments removed and their general personage ignored until I regain my sense of humor (ETA: unknown). You know, fair warning.

I also found out that I can get Listeria and potentially lose the baby from eating COLD CUTS. Why is there no master list of crap you shouldn't do? I've read and read and read everything I could find, and today, 27 or 28 weeks in, I read about a possibility of stillbirth because of eating a little pre-packaged ham. I've probably had a cold cut sandwich at least every other day for the past two weeks for lunch. What the *(#$)*$.

Apparently, it seems I have quite a lot to say. If I wasn't so 'eh', I'd probably change the title of the entry. Feh. That would require pressing shift-tab and typing some stuff.

When TV Is Not Your Friend

The cable company should really have to block the show A Baby Story from your service when you're pregnant. I just watched an episode where it looked like the couple had invited everyone they'd ever met into the delivery room. I lost track of counting when I got to the eighth person in the room that appeared to be serving no medical purpose whatsoever.

Am I just selfish, or is it weird to anyone else that your mother-in-law, sisters, brothers, cousins, your child, random strangers off the street, would be in the delivery room? Seriously, if I could figure out some way to safely and somewhat comfortably do the whole thing by myself, I'd probably do it.

Now I am going to try to go back to sleep. Some idiot telemarketer (it takes six weeks for your number to register on the National Do Not Call Registry) woke me up at 8:00 a.m. after I was up from 3:3o a.m. until 6:00 a.m., only to wake up briefly at 6:30 a.m. and finally drop back off around 7:00 a.m. It might be worse to get sleep in little bits like that than it would have been to just get the heck up. I suppose it's just preparing me to get up with the baby.

Gosh, being tired is just making me ramble. I'm out.