the second trimester begins…

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…and the mania has set in.

It is amazing how quickly my energy level has come back. I’ve started interviewing contractors to help us with the hundred or so jobs that I want to do around the house before the baby arrives. (I have a list, with the tasks numbered in order of priority. And it’s typed, because my handwriting is atrocious. Each contractor that comes to our house gets their own copy to keep, so they can use it as a reference when writing their estimate.) I’m a big fan of do-it-yourself and all that, but honestly, when Dave and I do some little house project, it tends to look like crap. Also, we both have A.D.D. about our home improvement projects, so we get 80% done and then get bored and move on to something else.

So for things like baseboards and crown moulding that require things to be sawed into exact angles? And where the work needs to be fully completed so it doesn’t look like we live in the Crazy House? Um. No. We’re going to hire help for that.

That reminds me: you know the luck we’ve had with contractors in the past? Like with the siding, and the septic tank, and the dozen or so other things that we’ve spent thousands of dollars on? Yeah. Pray for us.

I guess because I had home improvements on my mind, and even in spite of the fact that I had just admitted to three or four different contractors that I suck at do-it-myself stuff, I decided on Saturday that I was going to paint our dining and living room. Just me. By myself. Because Dave was out working in the yard – and y’all should really see the amount of work he’s done out there, because it is awesome, and I won’t even try to accuse him of using yardwork as an excuse to avoid me and my freshly onset nesting psychosis. Although seriously, that may have been a big motivation for him.

At one point (last Saturday, I think?), when I was manically rattling off my to-do list of errands that I was going to run and things that I was going to accomplish that day, Dave looked at me and said, “Hon, are you really stressed out or something?” I thought about it for a second, and then said, “No, I think I’m just hyper.” It kind of struck me by surprise when I said it out loud. I’ve been feeling so awful for the last several weeks that suddenly having a burst of energy felt totally foreign to me. And I’m guessing it was foreign to Dave too, since he seemed so confused and sort of worried about me at first.

So, I got the entire dining room primed, and most of one wall painted. I only bought one little test quart of the paint color, because I wanted to leave it on the wall for a day or two to make sure that I love it. And I do. So I’ll be finishing the dining room and moving on to the living room sometime this week. Rah! I don’t know how long this whole nesting thing will hold out, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Also? Kris is going to come over on Saturday to help me paint. We’ll have ourselves a little living room painting party. I don’t know why she isn’t trembling in fear over my nesting mania, but hey, I’ll take all the help I can get.

look! a baby-looking thing!

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As of Saturday, I am officially 13 weeks pregnant. Which means that the painful first trimester is now over. Let us all do a dance of celebration.

Also, I had my second ultrasound today. It’s still too early to tell if this baby is a he or a she, we should find out in another seven weeks or so. I’ve taken to referring to it as a “he” because I have a really strong feeling that it’s going to be a boy. Of course, I could be wrong. Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time.

Although that reminds me, you know how some women have cute little nicknames for their unborn babies? Things like Peanut, or the Bean, or whatever? I haven’t quite been able to adopt any of those. It doesn’t bother me at all when other women call their babies that, it just doesn’t feel like me. I usually just call it “the baby,” or “the kid,” or sometimes just “it.” Which made me feel very cold and un-maternal, and it bothered me that I couldn’t come up with any sort of nickname that I was comfortable using.

Dave recently started calling it The Sprog. I have no idea what it means – maybe it’s a British thing? – but to my American ears, it sounds like a cross between a spawn and a frog. And considering what we’re dealing with here, that just seems oddly appropriate.

So here’s the latest picture of our little sprog:

He put on quite a little show for us, jumping all around in there. He practically did a somersault. I love this picture because you can see one little leg in mid-kick, and he’s holding one hand up by his face. I know I’m biased, but that is one damn cute little sprog.

and now, some happy news

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I started calling my doctor’s office yesterday to try to find out the results of Dave’s cystic fibrosis screen. The nurse finally called me back about a half-hour ago.

Me: [biting my nails and practically vibrating out of my chair with anxiety]
Her: Umm… Are you sure your husband is ok with us giving you his results?
Me: [screaming] YES!!! [calmer] I mean, um, of course it’s fine. The only reason he had to get the test done was because of me, right?
Her: Well, I don’t have a signed consent form, so I have to ask. But I figure he probably won’t sue us… [laughing]

She seriously dragged out the pleasantries way longer than necessary. By which, I mean, about 30 seconds.

Dave doesn’t have the gene for cystic fibrosis. There is no possible way that this baby, or any future children that we might have, could have it.

It’s the strangest feeling. I’ve been on edge about it for so long that when the nurse told me, I thought I might burst into tears from finally feeling like I could stop holding my breath. I probably would’ve cried, except I’m at work, and that is just never a good idea.

I’ll hold in the tears until I’m driving home. Because that’s the kind of safe driver I am.

Now I have to try to wrap my head around the idea that we might actually have ourselves a real, live baby next year. I hadn’t really let myself think about that too much yet because I kept waiting for the Jinx Fairy to strike me down.

A baby. Huh. Whaddya know.

Ok, deep breath in, deep breath out… And for the record, I am *so* going to do my prenatal yoga DVD when I get home tonight. You cannot imagine how much I desparately need it.

at our house, we party like it's 1994

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It wasn’t my intention to leave the Prairie Muffin post up at the top for as long as I did, but y’all will just have to forgive me, because I have not had internet access for the past four days. Four days! No internet! Aaaahhhh, withdrawal!

The story: Since we live in the boonies, we have to use a satellite dish for both TV and internet access. That means two different satellite dishes are stuck on the side of our house (as if one isn’t ugly enough). Oh, how I long for DSL… Anyway, the siding guys were out on Thursday tearing the old crappy siding off our house. (The new siding – which we ordered to replace the ugly stuff with big gaping, bubbly seams – will arrive sometime later this week.) When I got home from work on Thursday afternoon, Dave told me that the guys must’ve bumped one of the dishes, because our TV was fine, but we had no internet access. Fantastic.

Since I don’t work on Fridays, I had Dave call the satellite folks to send out a repair guy to fix the dish. I’d be home all day, so no problem, right? Well, they couldn’t get a technician out until Saturday afternoon. Dave stopped on his way home from work on Friday and bought me a couple of new video games to keep me occupied, because I was going crazy without internet access. And for some reason, we couldn’t even get a dial-up connection to work on my laptop. Argh!

Saturday, the technician came out, and the poor guy spent about three hours outside trying to get our dish working again. (Did I mention that we’re having some freakish heat wave right now and it’s been 95 degrees every day? I felt really bad for the guy. But you have no idea how thrilled I am that we got central air-conditioning this year.) Problem is, the dish is about five years old, which in satellite technology means that it’s three or four generations old, and… no luck. The guy couldn’t get it working again.

The thing is, Dave and I have been unhappy with our ISP for a while – our access speed is crazy slow, they have a limit of how much we can download per day, and forget trying to upload anything because dial-up is faster. We had heard that there were other satellite Internet companies in our area that are much better, but to change ISP’s means that you have to shell out the cash for a whole new dish. Since our current one is busted, this gives us a good excuse to go ahead and make the switch to a new ISP. So it’s really not all bad, except for the cost aspect.

Well, that, plus the fact that it will be Wednesday before they can come out to set up the new satellite dish. Cry! So if you don’t hear much from me this week, you’ll know why.

for all my feminist readers

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I don’t usually bother with getting all political on here, because I figure that that most of the people who read my blog have the same general beliefs that I do. And if you don’t, what’s the point of arguing about it? You’ll never change my mind and I’ll never change yours, so it’s really all just a waste of breath. It’s like when they have the Aryan nation guys on talk shows, and the audience just boos and hollers at them until the skinheads “sieg heil” and storm offstage. You’ll never manage to convince them that racism is a bad thing, so why bother?

So, I have been genuinely trying to let this go since I read it last week, but I cannot get it out of my head because it astounds me that people like this even exist in our so-called modern society. I first heard a reference to something called “Prairie Muffins” over on flea’s blog (that post, btw, is totally mind-blowing and worth reading in its own right), and clicking a couple of links blog-hopped me over to the blog of a Prairie Muffin. (Apologies if you’ve already read all about this.)

What is a Prairie Muffin, you ask? In this case, it’s a woman who calls herself a “reformed Christian” (I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I had never heard that term before; google it if you like, they might even be scarier than southern Baptists), she homeschools her ten (10!) children, and she lives in California (of all places).

Ok, so it seems a little fundamentalist Christian-y, but no harm so far, right? She’s just doing her thing, whatever. Then, a whole big slew of controversy got stirred up on her site because of this post, which is just a regular ol’ standard blog meme. But then this question came up:

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt and politics, what would you do?

Now, if you’re a fundamentalist Christian, there are about a million possible responses to this question. I would imagine that converting the world to Christianity is way up at the top of the list. But even if it isn’t, what about things like putting an end to war, world hunger, child abuse, or disease? No, the Prairie Muffin cannot be bothered with such trifles. This is her response to that question.

Hoo-boy, this is where I get in trouble, and that starts with “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for “pool.” I’d like to jump in a pool right now. Some may tell me to jump in a river for this one: I would remove women’s suffrage, and I might even consider making voting rights tied to property ownership.

Really? Of all the things in the world that you could potentially change, taking away a woman’s right to vote is the one thing that you’d pick?

(I have to stop here and give some credit: this site makes some truly excellent remarks on the whole subject, and if you have time to read through it and all the comments, it’s well worth it.)

So after my initial “blu-bu-whaaa???” reaction, I read through her comments, and it seems like there are an awful lot of people on her site who agree with her. Oddly, they’re all women. How much hatred must these women have for their own gender, that they don’t even believe themselves worthy of the right to vote?

Oh, except they all do vote. Because their husbands want them to. Ooooo-kay.

More digging around led me to the Prairie Muffin Manifesto (yes, they have a manifesto). You absolutely have to click that link, but you should probably first put a pillow on your desk because otherwise, it might hurt when your jaw hits it. Here are a few of my favorite items on the list:

3) Prairie Muffins are aware that God is in control of their ability to conceive and bear children, and they are content to allow Him to bless them as He chooses in this area.

Easily said by a woman with ten children. I wonder what the infertility bloggers would think of that statement.

9) Prairie Muffins do not reflect badly on their husbands by neglecting their appearance; they work with the clay God has given, molding it into an attractive package for the pleasure of their husbands.

Dave thought this was hilarious. I was somewhat disturbed by it, because I thought the reason that I never left the house without mascara was because I’m southern and vain. Turns out, I’m apparently a Prairie Muffin. Funny how I never thought that my make-up (or lack of ) was a reflection on Dave, though.

Here are two in a row that make me want to scream:

17) Prairie Muffins place their husbands’ needs and desires above other obligations, arranging their schedules and responsibilities so that they do not neglect the one who provides for and protects them and their children.

18) Prairie Muffins are fiercely submissive to God and to their husbands.

Right. I don’t need a life or any sense of self-awareness, I’ll just devote myself to my husband. And then he’ll leave me because I’ll be boring as all get-out. And I’m sorry, #18 is just flat-out kinky. (So is #29, if you go read that site.)

32) Though we abhor the idea of women being involved in the military and fighting battles which men are commanded to fight, Prairie Muffins recognize that there is a real battle in which they are on the front lines: the battle of the seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent. In this most-important conflict, we gratefully serve King Jesus in the capacity He has given us, waving our wooden spoons and rallying our children to stand alongside us in the battle, training them to be mighty warriors in the defense and furthering of God’s kingdom.

The waving of wooden spoons almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.

36) Prairie Muffins are happy to be girls—they rejoice in the distinctives which God sovereignly bestowed on them which make them feminine. They are also happy that their husbands are masculine, and they do not diminish that masculinity by harping on habits which emanate from the fact that boys will be boys, even when they grow up. In addition, Prairie Muffins are careful not to use their feminine, hormotional weaknesses to excuse sinful attitudes and actions, but learn to depend more and more on God’s grace and strength in the midst of any monthly trials.

Ah, the hybrid word. I get that they were trying to combine hormonal and emotional, but… “hormotional”? I honestly thought she made that word up, and I was shocked that Dave had actually heard it before. I think his church back in the UK was a bit more “fundie” than where I grew up.

Also, I am totally going to start referring to my period as my “monthly trial.” I love that.

There’s a million other things I could quote from that site that just generally give me the heebie-jeebies, but I think y’all probably get the idea. What’s amazing is that the few commenters she got who disagreed with her were very polite in their objections, and it didn’t turn into an all-out flame war. Still, she said in a later post that she’ll be praying for all of her dissenters. I wonder how the liberal feminist agnostics feel about that.

These types of people make me ashamed to call myself a Christian.

the term "sister-wives" does still freak me out, though

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One of the perks of my starting a part-time job was that it would give me a lot of free time to do the million or so projects around the house that need to be done before the baby gets here. I mean, three-day weekends every week, right? And even the four days of the week that I do work, I’m only there for 5 or 6 hours.

Clearly, with so much time on my hands, I should be getting all kinds of things done. But, HA! My butt hardly left the couch for three solid days this weekend.

First of all, I had DVR’ed the entire first season of Big Love a long time ago, but I had never gotten around to watching it. Have you seen this show? Do you know how addictive it is? I watched all twelve episodes in three days. The last few nights, I’ve even been dreaming about polygamists, although luckily, they’ve been the types of dreams where I’m an observer, not where I’m actually involved in what’s happening. But man, that show is awesome, and I’m totally annoyed that I don’t even know when season two is going to begin.

One scary moment while doing my “Big Love” marathon yesterday – I got up off the couch to refill my water glass. I had a head rush when I stood up, but I get those fairly often. (Moreso since I got pregnant.) Usually I can just grab on to the wall or some nearby piece of furniture to steady myself until it passes. Yesterday, though, my legs gave out. I just fell down, landed on all fours, and suddenly tears were involuntarily coming out of my eyes and I was gasping for breath. It was the strangest sensation, and I still don’t know what it was. I didn’t lose consciousness, so I can’t say that I fainted – I guess it was just a near-faint?

I yelled for Dave; I think it freaked him out to find me on the floor between the dining room and the kitchen. He got my glass of water for me and I crawled (literally, I was scared to stand up) back to the couch. For the rest of the day, though, I had to be really careful every time I stood up. I couldn’t seem to get rid of that shaky feeling in my legs. I thought I was supposed to be getting over that stuff now that I’m almost in my second trimester, but I guess “almost” doesn’t count.

Abruptly switching topics back to fun stuff: while I’ve been camping out with my butt glued to the couch, there have been movies too. Recaps!
* Shopgirl – A little disappointing, only because I don’t care for Jason Schwartzman at all and I really thought that Claire Danes could do better. But it was ok.

* The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada – This is one that Dave picked, but I watched it because I generally like Tommy Lee Jones. I really hated this movie, though. I liked the beginning because it started off as kind of a sad story. Then it turned into some weird gross-out/torture flick and I just couldn’t handle it. I covered my face for a pretty significant portion of the second half of the movie. Oh, and also? The ending sucked.

* Transamerica – Ok, technically we watched this over a week ago, but I’m including it here because I loved it. I now think that Felicity Huffman should’ve won the Oscar for Best Actress. Great movie.

* Eight Below – I coerced Dave into watching this with me last night. And yeah, I know, it’s a Disney movie. But oh, how I cried. I mean, the human actors, meh. I didn’t really give a flip about them or their lame little storyline. But the dogs! The pretty huskies and malamutes with the beautiful doggie faces! They broke my heart. I sobbed – a lot.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I have kind of a new respect for Paul Walker. He was so good with the dogs that it made me think that he must love animals in real life. Because honestly, he’s not a good actor by any stretch, so I just can’t imagine that he could’ve pulled it off if he wasn’t really a dog person.