Energy Bar

There is something so “white yuppie tool” about walking around with a Starbucks cup in hand, but damn if I can’t resist the urge to do it. Especially with one in my building and one on the walk in.

Anyhoo, so with theMan working 16 hour days, including the weekends for the next 3 weeks I’ve found myself with a lot of free time in the evenings. Not sure what the difference is from having him home to not, but it’s made it so my evenings seem REALLY REALLY long. In that vein, I’ve cleaned the house, done laundry, organized dressers, sorted items for storage, made dinner, ran errands, finished editing pictures, and watched movies I’ve wanted to see. I’m hoping this is that second trimester energy I’ve been dreaming of, even though I still have about 2 more weeks until I’m officially in my second trimester.

Tonight I want to work on the baby’s room some more. It’s coming along but there still is a long way to go, things that need thrown out or moved downstairs. I have a feeling in September we are going to be acquiring a LOT of baby stuff (hand-me-downs) and I’m convincing myself our apartment can handle it without stacking it up in piles.

On that same note, I guess at some point I switched from “not believing I was really pregnant” to “okay sure, maybe I’m pregnant but we’ll see” to “shit, I need to prepare.” Because I had no trouble buying up 100 onesies this weekend at all of the garage sales nor did I mind in the least washing and folding and putting away them all in the baby’s dresser in piles according to size.

Did I tell you that I have the best friends in the entire world? My GWO crew is working diligently on throwing me a baby shower in December with all the fixings that I love: Good food NOT from Gordon Food Service, tasteful useful decorations, in a beautiful setting on a lake! And bonus: no awful “guess what melted candy bar this is?” in a diaper game or tacky balloon centerpieces. Just good food, friends and cake. Hells yea! AND my Chicago crew/sister is throwing me a smaller one here that involves turkey, wine and really, that’s all I need to know. Even though I don’t want this pregnancy to go fast, I am sorta stoked about the parties. I love parties! Gifts or not.

Anyways, yea. That’s all the update I have. I’m anxiously awaiting my 9/11 appointment to see if theMan’s plane can hit the Pentagon, so to speak. And yes, see the little whipper snapper again. I don‘t know if “irony” is the right word, but it’s funny that the one time in my life we can have all the unprotected freaky, non-interrupted by a newborn, sex we want is the one time I’m on restricted activities and cannot.

Maybe that’s why our apartment is so clean. Gotta put that energy somewhere.

$40

I'm pretty good at garage sales and finding deals. It was a rite of passage in my family to go with my great-grandparents with a $1 in hand and set out to get as much as you can. I learned to negotiate and I learned that second-hand goods can be a treasure.

But this Saturday morning with $40 in hand, proved extra fruitful. I got 2 bags of maternity clothes (and nice Gap shirts and pants too) and one large bag of baby clothes, including a changing pad, bottle sterilizer & one silly bug toy. This is a view of all the baby stuff. I even bought 2 robes, something I said I didn't want because it seemed silly. But...they were cute and I could picture wrapping up our little lime in them after a bath next winter.

Tonight I washed everything on delicate cycle and folded into appropriate piles, and put away in the baby's dresser. For once doing laundry didn't feel like anything except a labor of love.

30 or Best Birthday Ever

My god. I couldn't have even imagined that my 30th birthday would be as awesome as it turned out. My sister is amazing. My husband and family are amazing. My friends are amazing. My life is amazing.

Friday I take the day off work bcause my mom is in town. I start the day by getting to see Coen when he wakes up all crazy-haired and cuddly. Then I head to my first OB appointment with my new doctor. As a surprise I get to do the ultrasound with the wand on my belly like I'm really pregnant! I see the little critter (this week he's a plum) and he's moving around. They can barely see the heartbeat but call the doctor in to double-check. Turns out it's fine, and it's moving! She is also very awesome. Makes me assure her I can see what I'm really seeing, not being "Rachel from Friends" (her words). Plus the office looks like a swanky artist's loft. It's sooo weird. My vay-jayge felt all classy. Plus it was nice knowing the baby was okay and I'm all good. I have to wait until 9/11 for my next apponitment to see if the bleed is gone and if I'm off "restricted activities". But hey, it's the least I can do for the little booger.

SO....after that I have brunch with my mom and sister and head to my surprise hair appointment! theMan woke me up by telling me he is glad I'm on the planet and "oh I made you a hair appointment." Love him.

I pick up mom for some maternity shopping at Target (finally found pants that fit) and get werid calls from my sister like, "Where exactly are you?" "What road are you on?" "When are you coming home?" Turns out when I walked in her door almost all of my GWO girls were waiting to surprise me! I teared up, screamed and yelled something along the lines of "Holy fuck!" Best surprise ever.

I just kept hugging them and saying "I can't believe you are really here!" Turns out they have been planning this for MONTHS. I thought we were supposed to get together next weekend!! So they give me my gifts including a ring I've wanted forever, lube, and wine and I start feeling like a spoiled birthday princess. Pretty much perfect. :)

But oh no, the surprises don't stop there.

We get downtown to this great Italian restaurant and I walk in and almost all of my Chicago friends are there to suprise me too!!!! I seriously could have just passed out. We spent the remainder of the night, eating, drinking and laughing. Which honestly, is my idea of heaven. All of my loved ones enjoying themselves and followed by cake.

Later that night I tried on maternity clothes my BFF Jen brought and we landed in a heap of tired on my sister's floor.

The rest of the weekend my BFF Heather stayed with my mom and we shopped, ate and played with Coen.

Seriously, my 30's couldn't have started any better.

The last of my 20's

Well folks, I made it. So far. I have 3 days until I'm no longer in the fabulous head-fuck that is my 20's! I fully expect to wake up Monday morning, know exactly what I want to do with my life, be confident in the decisions I've made, feel comfortable in my own skin and ready to take on the world all while casting a coy little smile at those 20 years olds on the hunt for a man.

Umm......I'll let you know how that goes.

Posting may be a little light as my mother is coming up to spoil me with coney sauce, maternity clothes shopping, card playing and even accompanying me to an OB appointment. Weee!

Pregnancy update: I'm feeling great physically, other than a little tired! Still have heartburn but the nausea is manageable. Plus! I can't fit into anything and that makes me feel like I'm growing! I'm starting to get cabin fever from all the tents I'm wearing. Hopefully that is cured this weekend. But what has hit me FULL steam besides the "fats" is the emotions. Oh dear god.

I can't have sex or orgasm as it might shake up my sensitive uterus but has that message got to my brain? OH NO. I've had the raunchiest, dirtiest, bent over random things with all sorts of random strangers dreams almost every single night: one after another. I wake up at 3:00 a.m. so horny I could convince myself to orgasm with the right thought and no hands.

So when I'm not full on sexually frustrated during the day, I'm a crying insane nut job that thinks her life is falling apart.

WEEEEE! Hop along kids, leave your arms inside the car at all times and enjoy your ride on the CRAZY TRAIN!

Outfits fit for a Embryo

So we bit the bullet, girded up our loins (no idea what that means, but it sounds like something that takes intense concentration) and headed out to get this kid an outfit. Just a little good luck charm. A little "Hey Embryo, don't die, we already love you" talisman!

It was kinda hard though. I mean, we tilted back and forth from trying to find something "perfect" and "special" to just something that didn't have gender specific qualities. After an hour of sorting through baseball bats and princess shirts, I was ready to just buy the kid his/her first Halloween costume and be done with it.

theMan picked this out so now it's hanging on the door to the "nursery." I use the term "nursery" in quotes because honestly, it's just a big closet. The kid won't sleep in there but it's going to be used specifically for baby paraphenilia and probably a changing table. However, I will be decorating it as much as humanly possible. Why not? I've run out of room everywhere else in the house to put up knick knacks. This kid owes me just for the stretch marks alone! :) I kid, sorta.

Also, we found pics of theMan when he was little as we were going through a box of things his brother gave us. Good sweet god. I did the sign of the cross and said, “Carla (mother-in-law), you know I love you” but then I assured theMan that I was dressing our kids or at least not using them as science experiments to see if 2 atrocious colors can work together without causing blindness.

Holy god. He looked awful. And this coming from the girl that willingly got a mullet. But he owned and wore at least 3 times a week yellow sweatpants. YELLOW!?!? I didn’t even know they made them!? While I think it's endearing, I also know he wasn't a huge hit with the ladies and he huffed butane at one point. Surely those sweatpants were the cause of both of those hardships. No child should bear the weight of yellow sweatpants repeatedly through his/her tender adolescent years.

We found a pic of him leaving for school in a shirt that says “This whole week has been a Monday.”

I said, “Really? 1st grade that stressful, eh?”

8 Weeks 3 days corrected

Best appointment ever!

I apparently am just a week behind b/c we got the little bugger on the last try of that month. Who knew! So I’m only 8 weeks 3 days, not 9 weeks 3 days. He almost doubled in size, 1.1 to 1.8 cm and the heartbeat went from 140 to 167!! It really looks like a baby too. Kinda weird!!

I have 3 new cysts, which the doctor said she wanted to see, that means it’s sustaining the pregnancy. Also, I have a slight bleed behind the pregnancy, I even saw it on the u/s. Dr. B. said that I might see some spotting or more than likely my body will just absorb it. I'll already very politely asked my uterus to absorb it, as I do not want to see any blood.

BUT I cannot do anything that might irritate it like running (no big deal there) or the lovins (bummer) until whenever my next u/s is. I’ve officially been moved to the new OB practice and when she said “Sustainable pregnancy” I nearly kissed her. WOOO HOOOO!!!

New due date: 3/15/08

Mother's Day

Man, having this little green olive (that’s how big it is now) in me is making me do a big ol’ 180. I haven’t missed boozing or 11:00 p.m. or cute clothes and high heels one bit. In fact, all I can think about is 1.) not puking, 2.) where are my Tums?!?!, 3.) Will my pants stay up as I stand at the copier, even though completely unbuttoned? and 4.) What the hell kind of mother am I going to be?!

All I keep thinking about is our moms. Chadd’s mom was fucking awesome. And I am using that f-word in the strongest most brutal sense: She was fucking AWESOME. Up for anything, laughed with her whole body, didn’t give a shit what people thought of her, cared about her family fiercely, even when she shouldn’t have at times, welcomed me from day one, could make a mean casserole, and took care of her boys, basically alone.

This is the woman that hid theMan’s BB guns from him so well he never found them until she gave them to him, I think, after his graduation. She wouldn’t let him leave the yard to play and always kept her police scanner on to catch him at his tricks. Yet this is the same woman that gave him a painted skull she made as a gift. She came to his band performances and put his “Schmerzen” sticker on her car proudly. She let theMan have her basement to turn into “hell” with chains and loud music. She didn’t mind his weird obsession with Freddy Kruger or him taking a chainsaw to the school’s Halloween dance.

She also took me out for my 21st birthday for white Russians and tenderloins. The woman loved life. I wish I could still hug her and hear her whole body laugh.

Then on my side there is my mom, and not to mention a ton of strong, fierce women who all helped raise me and my sister. But mom was the kind of woman that did up your birthday, Valentine’s Day, any holiday, BIG. Even when we didn’t have the money, we were going to celebrate being alive, by god. We went everywhere and she made sure we hit all the sights. She never let 3 seconds go by without some sort of plan for fun. She also let us have the freedom to roam the streets of our small town. She would let us have a campfire on school nights and shoot guns and drive her car up and down the road when we were only 12. This is a woman who enjoys the moment and doesn’t get all anxious too much about the future.

She’s very thoughtful, caring and worries that people are having a good time. She also saved my ass from being held back in the 4th grade because I think she knew I just hated my teacher, not that I was “bad at math and not paying attention” as Ms. Mingus suggested.

Mom also works very hard and always has. Even staying in situations just so we had a roof over our head. She’s a tough one, mom.

So maybe I’ll try to be a mixture. All me, but a little crazy, tough, fun, adventurous and loving all mixed in. All the while teaching our kids about these ladies until we’re blue in the face.

Or I’ll send them to military school until puberty is over because seriously, I cannot handle chainsaws taken to school.