Category Archives: Friends & Family

still working on the leftovers

Posted on by

I’m trying to think of a way to wrap up our little holiday weekend with a minimum of whining, but it’s going to be difficult. Thanksgiving dinner itself was awesome – Kris came over, and it was great to get to hang out with her for a few hours. The food was great, everyone was in a good mood, and a fine time was had by all.   

After dinner, things went a bit downhill. Dave went upstairs to bed for a couple of hours. Kris and I joked that he was sleeping off his turkey hangover, but when he came back down, he had a fever over 101, so it appears that he came down with whatever bug I had earlier in the week. Poor guy. His fever is down now, but he’s been feeling generally tired and achy and miserable ever since.

I also discovered on Thursday night that it’s apparently a really bad idea to spend all day on your feet in the kitchen when you’re 30 weeks pregnant. I was totally fine while I was preparing dinner, but afterward my lower back and hips suddenly started causing me excruciating pain. I’ve been doing my prenatal yoga DVD every day (sometimes twice a day) to try to stretch things back to normal, and it does seem to help, but I still don’t feel quite “right.”

Oh, and my stomach is still weird. It’s been going on long enough now that I’m starting to think it might just be how my body is adjusting to the fact that Baby Girl is getting bigger and bigger, and the fact that I don’t have as much room for my normal (albeit surgically-altered) digestive processes.

Overall, it looks like I’m in for a fun last ten weeks. I’m starting to understand all those women who say that by the time you give birth, you no longer fear the pain because you’re just so desparate to not be pregnant anymore.

So, Dave and I have spent the past few days mostly just lazing around the house and eating excessive amounts of food. (Well, that second part is mostly me – he tends to sleep it off when he’s sick, and I’m the one who’s now eating every two hours.) This is the first time since Wednesday that I’ve taken the time to sit down at my laptop to check email and blogs and whatnot. Like I said, lazy.  

In other news: I only have three days left at my job, although I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I’ll leave that topic for another post. I also have my 30 week check-up tomorrow, and a few other activities lined up over the next couple of weeks to keep me from going crazy while I adjust to being unemployed. Hopefully that’ll keep this blog from turning into one big ol’ “oh woe is me” crybaby fest over the next few weeks.

how much longer until I'm unemployed?

Posted on by

I really feel like I should be writing here more often, but there are a couple of major problems with that:

1. The crappy weather lately means that our crappy Internet connection is even crappier than usual. So our connection is, as Dave puts it, up and down like a whore’s drawers. I cannot think of anything more infuriating than typing out a whole long entry just to lose it all with a “server not found” page the second that I hit Publish. So I’m trying not to write too much when I’m at home. I could (cough) potentially (cough cough) update my blog while I’m at work, but I try not to do that either, because I’m a paranoid freak. Plus, the girl who’ll be replacing me at my job started yesterday, so she’s been hovering around my monitor a lot lately – since, you know, I’m training her and all – and that makes blogging even more problematic.

2. There is this one major thing that’s kinda-sorta-maybe-potentially going to happen within the next week or two, which really affects Dave more than me, but I’m not allowed to talk about it until things are at least somewhat more official. I hate being all vague and mysterious, but them’s the rules. Anyhow, that’s been taking up the majority of my brain-space lately.

So, new topic: Thanksgiving! It’s going to be pretty mellow this year, just me, Dave and Kris (it’s her first Thanksgiving on her own, so I invited her to come over and join us). However, I’m going to be doubling up on most of the things that I cook, so I can freeze half of it for Christmas. Since my entire family is going to be descending on us for the holidays, and I’m going to be something like 35 weeks pregnant then, it makes sense to get as much of the work as possible done in advance.

Which brings me to the very bizarre conversation that I had with my mom recently. I was looking over my Grandmother’s stuffing recipe (we call it dressing in the south, thank you very much), and I saw that it required one major ingredient – Pepperidge Farm cornbread stuffing mix – that isn’t available anywhere around here. I know this because I tried to make it for Christmas last year, and I had to use the herbed stuffing mix instead, and let me tell you, that is just not the same thing.

When I told my mom that I couldn’t find the exact type of stuffing mix, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She went to the grocery store in Mississippi, bought the cornbread stuffing mix, and MAILED IT TO ME. Because lord help us all, we cannot have my dad grumbling over the dinner table that my dressing isn’t as good as my Grandmother’s. I think my mom did it more for my benefit than anyone else’s, since I’m already a ball of hormones and if anyone gripes about my cooking, I just might lunge across the table and stab them in the eye with a slotted serving spoon.

Or, you know, maybe she just wants to make sure that her husband lives long enough to meet his first grandchild. Six of one, half dozen of the other…

saturday night whining

Posted on by

I’m sure I have complained before about the fact that living in the boonies means we have no options as far as high-speed Internet access, yes? There’s no DSL here, no cable, na-da. Instead, our Internet connection is through a satellite dish, which sucks because it’s only slightly faster than dial-up. And when the weather is bad – like, say, today – the connection just flakes out altogether. Bah.

(I’m actually typing this entry in Word so I can copy and paste it whenever our Internet access decides to come back.)

Since I haven’t been able to goof around online today, I’ve actually been pretty productive. Dave and I went to the supermarket, I started dinner in the crock-pot, and I cleaned the kitchen. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, I move pretty slowly these days, so that ate up quite a bit of my afternoon.

Then, I decided to make an attempt at organizing the baby’s room. We’ve been acquiring lots of baby gear over the past several weeks, plus I did some major shopping yesterday. All of the stuff has been sort of randomly scattered throughout the house, so I decided to try to tidy it up. 

 

This baby sure has a lot of gear for someone who isn’t even here yet, doesn’t she? And that doesn’t even include the toys and bouncy seat that we’ve picked up at garage sales, plus baby clothes, bibs, sheets, blankets, etc. Lord have mercy. 

For the record, other than that impressive assortment of boxes in the corner, the only piece of furniture in the entire room is a crib. But I feel like we’re in pretty good shape overall. The only things I know that we absolutely need before the baby arrives is:

* A dresser – I have some empty Rubbermaid bins in the garage that I can use for clothes storage if I absolutely have to, but I at least need someplace to put a changing pad. 

* A Boppy pillow – I meant to get one yesterday and forgot. (It wouldn’t have fit in the cart with all the other stuff I was buying anyway.)

* A glider rocking chair – I know exactly the one that I want, and the store where it’s located, I just need Dave’s car to get it home.

In other news, tomorrow night Kris and I are going to see the Indigo Girls. I’ve seen them in concert at least 3 or 4 times before, and they always put on a great show, but I’m really dreading it this time. I don’t know any songs off of their last two albums, and the whole point of seeing a band like the Indigo Girls is to sing along. Plus Kris went to quite a bit of trouble to get us really good seats way up front, which is great except that I’ll be getting up to pee every twenty minutes. And honestly, the idea of sitting in a narrow uncomfortable auditorium seat at 7 months pregnant doesn’t sound all that appealing, either.

But, I promised Kris ages ago that I would go, and I paid $50 for the ticket. I already feel guilty for not being there for her as much as I should have been over the past several months. She moved here less than 3 months before I got pregnant, so I’ve been very much caught up in my own little holy-god-we’re-gonna-have-a-baby world, and I haven’t been paying that much attention to making sure that her transition here was any easier. She seems to be doing ok, although I know it’s still really difficult for her sometimes. So if it makes her happy to have me tag along to a concert that I’m not necessarily enthusiastic about? I can deal with it. Besides, I keep reminding myself that this will probably be the last concert I see for a very long time.

orange syrup and harmless reptiles

Posted on by

Friday was my 24-week OB appointment. Which is a little off since I’m actually 25 weeks pregnant, but I don’t think anyone is really keeping track of those minor technicalities except me. This was the appointment where I had to drink the nasty glucose stuff ahead of time to test for gestational diabetes. Mmm, yummy orange syrup. Gag. It was quite gross, and I won’t know the results of the test until sometime next week.

And then, just in case that glucose stuff didn’t make me quite nauseated enough, I also got a flu shot. Because apparently it’s very, very bad for pregnant women to get the flu. And I understand that, but my arm (where I got the shot) has been aching and my stomach has been upset for the past two days, so I’m not sure if it was really worth it.

Also noteworthy: at my monthly weigh-in, I found out that I’ve only gained two pounds since my last appointment. That means that I’ve gained a grand total of 12.5 pounds since I first got pregnant. Now, call me kooky, but doesn’t it look like I’m hauling around a bit more than twelve measly pounds? It certainly feels like it. Every time I have to walk up the stairs at our house and it completely winds me, it feels more like I’m carrying an extra fifty.

Not that I’m complaining. Twelve pounds is good. And I noticed recently that I seem to have less cellulite on my butt and thighs, so maybe those prenatal workout DVD’s are doing some good after all. Although honestly, it’s sort of hard to tell if my legs are really getting more toned, or if it just looks like it when compared to my ginormous belly. Who knows, it could all be an optical illusion.

Other weekend stuff: Saturday night, I went to dinner with some of my girl friends, which was great. Other than Kris, it had been weeks (if not longer) since I’d seen any of them, so it was really good to sit around a table for a few hours and catch up. And they’re such a funny group, I realized as I left the restaurant that my face ached from laughing so much. I love it when that happens.

Sunday is kind of our non-official lazy day, so Dave and I hit the grocery store, and I’m trying out a new crock pot recipe. I’ve also cleaned the kitchen, cleaned our bathroom, and done a few loads of laundry, so I’m feeling pretty good about the state of our house overall.

Oh, and today I learned something about Dave that I didn’t already know: apparently he is even more scared of snakes than I am. We found a little garter snake in our front hall, which I’m guessing one of the cats brought inside. The poor little guy was moving very slowly, it seemed like he had been injured. Anyway, Dave and I both sort of freaked out over it, and then I was the one who ended up using a curtain rod (random, I know, but it was nearby) to shoo the snake into a box, so I could carry it outside.

It’s just funny because Dave is the guy who will pick up the biggest, hairiest, nastiest spider in his bare hands to carry it outside rather than kill it. But a little garter snake – which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even have fangs – totally squicks him out. Go figure.

Oh well, as long as he keeps taking care of the mice and other critters that the cats bring inside, he’s still my hero.

bongos!

Posted on by

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but since I’m going to be something like 35 weeks pregnant by Christmas, Dave and I decided a long time ago that we would not be flying anywhere for the holidays. Instead? My entire family is coming here. That means my parents, plus my brother and sister. That’s six people if you count me and Dave, and everyone is crashing at our house. It isn’t really a bad thing at all. I haven’t seen them since my cousin’s wedding in June, and they’ll only be here for three days, so it should be fun. I like the “short and sweet” trips – it’s great to get a chance to see everyone, but it isn’t long enough to wear me out. (My family is a very high-energy group of folks.)

I’m not trying to plan an agenda for their trip here. I have a couple of things I’d like to do, but I also like the flexibility of being able to change plans at the last minute, if we feel so inclined. There are only two things that I know absolutely will happen:
1) There will be a huge meal on Christmas Eve;
2) We will go to Christmas Eve church service.

Both of these things are family traditions that I can’t imagine my family (well, ok, my dad) being willing to alter just because the geography has changed this year.

So to that end, I’m getting prepared. For the meal, there are a couple of things that I can make and freeze in advance, that’s really no big deal. My mom will probably be doing most of the cooking anyway, since by that point, I’m sure I won’t need to be standing on my feet for long stretches of time. As for the church service… well, it seems that after having lived in the greater Seattle area for the last five years, I am now in the position of trying to find a church for the first time.

I consider myself half-Methodist and half-Catholic, and for a long time, I really thought that I was more Catholic than anything. But I’ve come to realize that Methodists generally fall into the category of “relaxed and groovy” Christians (read: liberal), so I’m identifying more and more with that as I get older. I like the idea of Christianity that’s based only on Jesus’s teachings and none of that hellfire-and-brimstone stuff that happened in the Old Testament. No judgment of others who happen to have a different lifestyle or belief system than your own? I can get behind that.

I also figured that maybe while I’m investigating churches, I could find one that has a Mother’s Morning Out program, and that would be all the better. (Selfish, I know.)

Dave isn’t really into this idea of “experimenting” with different churches to find one that I like. He agrees that it’s important to go regularly when we have kids who are old enough to understand, because we want our children to grow up with some foundation of beliefs. But right now, I’m basically church-shopping, and if Dave doesn’t want to go along, that’s fine. Kris was also raised Methodist, and she’s been more than happy to test-drive a few churches with me. This past Sunday was our third so far.

The thing is, I do really like the more traditional church services. I like it when there’s a choir and an organ and a minister who gives a regular ol’ sermon. That’s what feels church-y to me. Which is why the church that we tried out on Sunday was such a bizarre experience.

We got there right before the service started, so we had enough time to hit the ladies’ room (because, you know, it had been more than five minutes since the last time I had peed), and then we went to find a seat in the sanctuary. Right away, I noticed that there was no organ and no choir. And although they had a piano, they also had a full band – a guy on guitar, another guy on bass, a drummer and a couple of singers. Hmm.

They started the service by launching into song – which was not exactly a hymn, it was more of a song you might hear on contemporary Christian radio. Very pro-Jesus rock music. And apparently this was one of those churches in which the congregation raises their hands up in the air during the singing – I think it’s supposed to symbolize receiving God’s grace or something, but it looks more like an “I surrender” gesture. I have never understood why people do that.

Sometime during the first song, I noticed the one band member I had missed earlier – they actually had a guy on bongos. BONGOS!! And the guy playing the bongos? Had a harley-biker mustache, and he played with his eyes closed, because he was just that into it, man. He would not have been out of place at a Grateful Dead concert.

(I kept leaning over to Kris and whispering, “Bongos!” to make her crack up. Because I’m evil like that.)

After the first song, the minister got up and spoke for a few minutes – he said one prayer, and then did the standard church bulletin announcements. You know, the youth group will be meeting at this time tonight, if anyone wants to volunteer for such-and-such on X date, all that stuff.

Then, the minister sat back down and we launched into more of the contemporary Christian pop/rock singing. Only this time, it was a medley! I was thinking “ok, almost done with this song, then I can sit back down” and they’d launch right into another one. It felt like it would never end.

At some point during the big Happy Christian Sing-along Hour, I turned my head to the left to whisper something to Kris, and I saw over her shoulder that – so help me, I am not making this up – along the side aisles of the church, there were interpretive dancers, people. I counted four of them, and they were all holding flags and waving them around while doing their little dances. The bongos were one thing, but that was the point where I officially lost it and spent the next several minutes shaking from trying not to laugh.

The dancers, for the record, were not synchronized and had nothing to do with each other AT ALL. I guess they were just moved by the Holy Spirit or something. Also, one of the interpretive dancers was wearing some kind of tai-chi outfit – sort of like white coveralls with a big blue sash belt around his waist – and everyone else was in street clothes. If there was a point to all of that, it was lost on me.

I have no idea how long the singing went on, or if that was the whole service. Somewhere around the fifth song in the medley, Kris leaned over and whispered, “Do we have to stay?” I was thinking the same thing, but I was afraid that she’d think I was being rude. So we high-tailed it out of there and went out for brunch.

For the rest of the day, I kept trying to imagine my dad’s reaction to that type of church, and I’d nearly pass out laughing. I know it’s going to be a challenge to find a traditional church in the Northwest, but there has got to be some sort of happy medium. Preferably one that doesn’t include bongos and interpretive dancers. Sweet Jesus. (No pun intended.)

topic change

Posted on by

I’m finding it very difficult to write, talk, or think about anything other than pregnancy right now. I’ve hit this very strange phase where this baby is taking up a large enough portion of my body that it’s virtually impossible to stop noticing it all the damn time. Even my dreams are all about babies. I think I’m probably somewhat annoying to have a conversation with at this point.

So instead, I am going to focus this post on other people I know, and none of this has anything to do with this little baby girl that I’m gestating. Although some of it might be related to other people’s offspring.

* There’s someone who I’ve been friends with for several years, but lately I’ve decided that I’m tired of living in her little self-absorbed world where she “accidentally” hurts my feelings on a semi-regular basis. She’s the type of person that I would’ve drifted apart from ages ago, except that we have a mutual friend in common, which keeps us in contact with each other. Still, in spite of Mutual Friend, I think it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

I mentioned this over on Shannon’s blog yesterday, but my sister has a friend who uses this analogy: “Your friends are like a flower garden; you have to constantly tend to them to keep the friendship alive and growing; you have to love and nurture them so your friendship can bloom and flourish… And sometimes, some of them just gotta get weeded out.” I think now is the time to weed this person out of my Friend Garden. It sucks, because it’s hurtful to close a chapter of your life that way. Also, it sort of puts Mutual Friend in an awkward position. But in the end, I think it’s for the best.

* Speaking of Mutual Friend, she and I seem to be going through a sort of weird/tense phase. Part of me thinks that it’s the married-versus-single thing, which I hate. This is someone who I thought I would always be able to relate to, but lately it just feels like we’re in two very different places. She can’t seem to understand why I never want to go out dancing anymore, and I don’t understand how she can stand to go to those types of clubs and not feel like the “old person” in a room full of 21 year-olds. Oh, and have I mentioned that none of my cute downtown club clothes fit me right now? Dancing in maternity jeans and sneakers (because let’s face it, heels aren’t going to happen) is not my idea of a perfect Saturday night.

I’m not too worried about that, because this friend and I have been through tense phases before, and they always blow over eventually. Right now I just find myself missing our usual rapport.

* On a much happier topic, I have a dear friend who I have known and adored for over a decade. She’s one of those people that I can lose touch with for months, or even a year, and when we talk again, we just immediately pick up where we left off. We have such an easy, comfortable vibe, and I love that about her. She and her husband started trying to get pregnant around the same time that Dave and I did. So they’re going on a year with no success, and she’s had all of the up-and-down mood swings that go along with that. She’s been charting her cycles for the past few months, and right now she’s having some very strange “uh, WTF?” symptoms that could possibly, maybe, hopefully be signs of very early pregnancy. But it’s too early to take a home pregnancy test, so she basically has to sit on her hands and wait for the next few days, which I know is agonizingly frustrating. I’m crossing every finger and toe, making wishes, saying prayers, and sending as many positive embryo-implantation-vibes that this is finally it for her. She and her husband would be fantastic parents, and I want this for them so much.

(See? That doesn’t count as me “talking about pregnancy,” because I was talking about someone else’s, not my own. So there.)

(Aside to Shannon: this friend lives in the DC area, so I keep thinking that I need to set up a “playdate” for the two of you or something, because I think you’d totally hit it off. But she isn’t a blog reader at all and I don’t know if that would be weird.)

* Have you seen my cousin’s baby yet? Because she’s really, really cute. I can’t wait to meet her in person. (Next March or so, yes?)

* My mom told me yesterday afternoon that she thought she was getting a bladder infection. The way she described her symptoms, and knowing what I do of her medical history, I told her that it sounded like a kidney stone and that maybe she should get that checked out. Like right then. She said, nah, she was sure it was just a plain ol’ boring UTI. She called me back at midnight her time (10:00 here) to let me know that she and my dad were on their way to the ER. And guess what? She has a stone. Ouch. I partly feel a little “I-told-you-so,” but mostly I feel bad because I know she’s in a huge amount of pain. Poor mom.

* My sister is a bridesmaid in a wedding this weekend, and as such, she has to give a toast. The bride has specifically requested my sister for this task, so there’s no worming out of it. I’m having a preemptive anxiety attack on her behalf. (I know my sister doesn’t have nearly the same fear of public speaking that I do, but still. That sounds like hell to me.)

* Dave has now been in a good mood for two days in a row, so we can all say a little *hallelujah!* for that. It wasn’t really his fault, he was just having some weird sleep issues for the past couple of weeks and it made him a major crankypants. Last weekend, I was all jittery and wanting to talk (about nothing in particular), so I sat next to him on the couch babbling about lord-knows-what. Finally, he kind of gave me this icy glare and said, “Do you need something??” Ooookay. I’m just gonna go in the other room and watch TV, then. But he’s back to his normal sweet, funny, lovable self right now, and I’m very grateful for that. I was starting to miss the sound of his laugh.

marathon shopping

Posted on by

The biggest news of the weekend: The Alphababy has arrived! My cousin Cat and her husband Tony welcomed their bouncing baby girl early on Sunday morning. Hooray!

I think it’s worth noting that although the baby wasn’t technically born until the 24th, Cat’s due date was the 23rd, and she started having contractions at 2:30 a.m. on the 23rd. That is one seriously punctual baby.

I can’t wait to see photos. (Hint hint, guys. Get on it. You’ve had 24 hours to recover already!)

Since I had the day off on Friday (as I always do – man, I do so love this part-time gig), I headed out to look for baby stuff, hoping to avoid the weekend traffic. The other perk of going on a weekday is that Dave wasn’t expected to go with me. Because honestly? Yes, there are a couple of things, like furniture, that I want his opinion on before I buy them. But as a general rule, shopping is more fun when I don’t have someone tagging along who’s constantly whining about how long all of this is taking because he’d rather be home playing World of Warcraft. So we were both much happier with this little arrangement.

First, I hit one of the local baby furniture stores to look at cribs. For those of you who have kids: how on earth did you decide on this stuff? Because I can find a crib that seems perfectly nice at Target for somewhere in the $200 range, but the baby specialty stores have those gorgeous Italian imported cribs that are like $700-800. I can’t quite justify spending that much money on something that’s only going to get used for a few years (assuming that we have more than one baby), and that we’ll probably end up selling on Craig’s List someday, but I also don’t want a piece of crap that’s going to fall apart in six months. Help? I’ve been using my Baby Bargains book as a general reference point, but my god, there are just too many choices out there. I’m lost.

After the baby furniture store made my head spin, I headed over to Babies R Us to start our registry. It’s less of a gift registry and more a list of things that I absolutely have to remember to buy before the baby arrives, because woe betide us if we forget to buy a diaper pail. (There is some gift-y stuff on there too, because I felt bad about only putting the high-priced “need to have” items on the registry. And also because a few people have warned me that I should register for way more burp cloths and receiving blankets than I think I’ll need.)

I really had no intention of buying anything at Babies R Us, I was just there to do the registry. But I made the mistake of wandering through the clothing section, just to look at the little girl stuff (mostly to compare it to Target and see if they had a better selection). And then, I came across this little pink cap that had a cat’s face embroidered on the front, and the cap had kitty-cat ears, people. And matching kitty-cat booties, too. I really didn’t think I’d cave to the cutesy pink stuff, but my god. I’m only human. That was pretty much it for me.

Overall, I did pretty well. Everything I bought (ahem, except for the pink cap/booties) was on sale, because I limited myself to the clearance racks. And I bought a few sizes ahead – everything was in the 6 or 9-month sizes, since people keep telling me that I’ll get more newborn clothes as gifts than I’ll know what to do with. So I stayed pretty reasonable about it, and I think Dave was shocked that I only came home with one bag of stuff (although it was one very big bag).

I ended up spending about three or four hours on my feet at Babies R Us, so I basically collapsed when I got home that evening. The next day was better, but we kept the rest of the weekend pretty low-key to give me time to recover. It was lovely. I plan on taking full advantage of lazy weekends while I can still have them.

Now, if I can just figure out this whole baby furniture dilemma…