When Reagan makes her grand entrance, she'll tip the scales in the household so that the girls outnumber the boys, a fact that has been bragged about mercilessly by us gals over the last few months. Although we'd like, in theory, to have one more baby in a few years, Chris also wants to add a dog to the household, to macho things up a bit. I'm not really on board with this, because I don't like cleaning up after myself, let alone another being. And if I wanted to tend night and day to something that's not going to ever say "Thank you!", then I'd just keep having more kids, right? Besides, the way I look at it is if Chris is going to take time out of his day to pet something, I NOMINATE ME!
Last night, my sister Jadyn, my practically-adopted-sister Chelsea, and my brother Tyger were over, so after the kids were all fed, Chris and I snuck out for a little grown-up time. When we got home, the boys were both asleep, but Maddy, Jadyn and Chelsea were up watching High School Musical. Lucky for me, we walked in right in time for the big finale! GO WILDCATS! As Chris stood silently watching, Maddy, Jadyn, Chelsea and I were dancing around singing. When the credits started rolling, I turned around to Chris. He just looked at me with this expression of almost desperation, and said,
"Babe, I really need a dog."
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Pedi-cure
Ah... nothing finer than spending thirty minutes in one of those fluffy massager chairs, having someone make your toes look pretty, giving you reflexology on your feet and legs...
That is, until they ask, "Do you want me to paint a design on your toes? Not like you'll be able to see it, but, I can do flower for you!"
Look, lady. I know I'm big. I know I can't reach my toes. And, yeah, so I can't see them when I'm standing up... but I'll have you know that I spend a good amount of time with my swollen tootsies elevated, and I can see them then. Let's not talk about the other areas of my body that I can no longer see and have, hence, become neglected also...
I really wanted to avoid going into labor with chipped toenails. Seeing as how I'm going to be sprawled out for the world to see, insides coming out, feet up in stirrups, I might as well take every little chance I can get to look semi-pulled together, right? I'm sure, at the time, my toes will be the least of my worries, but every little bit helps, right? And it's not like I'm going to sign myself up for a bikini wax.
That is, until they ask, "Do you want me to paint a design on your toes? Not like you'll be able to see it, but, I can do flower for you!"
Look, lady. I know I'm big. I know I can't reach my toes. And, yeah, so I can't see them when I'm standing up... but I'll have you know that I spend a good amount of time with my swollen tootsies elevated, and I can see them then. Let's not talk about the other areas of my body that I can no longer see and have, hence, become neglected also...
I really wanted to avoid going into labor with chipped toenails. Seeing as how I'm going to be sprawled out for the world to see, insides coming out, feet up in stirrups, I might as well take every little chance I can get to look semi-pulled together, right? I'm sure, at the time, my toes will be the least of my worries, but every little bit helps, right? And it's not like I'm going to sign myself up for a bikini wax.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
More Chins than a Chinese Phone Book
Maternity Leave officially started around 3:45 this afternoon, as I cavalierly tossed my Hawaiian shirt and apron over my shoulder and skipped* out the restaurant, smile on my face and leave of absence paperwork in hand.
No more will I have to deal with customers asking me why I'm still working. Really, is it that hard to figure out? BECAUSE I WANT YOUR MONEY. TO BUY BON BONS. Or, you know, effing diapers for my child.
I can feel my face getting fatter already...
*Skipped? Who am I kidding, it was more like an accelerated waddle.
No more will I have to deal with customers asking me why I'm still working. Really, is it that hard to figure out? BECAUSE I WANT YOUR MONEY. TO BUY BON BONS. Or, you know, effing diapers for my child.
I can feel my face getting fatter already...
*Skipped? Who am I kidding, it was more like an accelerated waddle.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
B-I-N-G-Oh, is that a contraction?
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
For a while now, I've been having intermittent Braxton-Hicks contractions (they're like the Casper the Friendly Ghost of labor pains) and sundry other random baby-related pains. I didn't have my first major "Oh holy bleep is this a real contraction????" freak out, however, until two weeks ago, when Chris was driving us home from my baby shower in San Diego and I was mildly suspicious that my water was going to break on our two hour drive through a mountain range, because why not? That's the kind of luck I have.
It wasn't just unwarranted paranoia, I'll have you know. I was genuinely concerned because the waves of discomfort I was feeling could have been labor. With Madelynn, I went to bed thinking that I just didn't feel good, and sat up in bed a few hours later in a pool of my very own amniotic fluid. Nine hours and one epidural later, I was a Mommy.
My son, the meatloaf, was already a week late when I went to my doctor to beg and plead with him. After the doc, um, investigated the goings-on, he told me that I was neither effaced nor dilated, and we arranged a time a few days from then for me to show up at the hospital and have my labor induced. That very same evening, I remember sitting on the couch feeling really uncomfortable. As much as I hoped it was labor, my doctor had pretty much assured me that my body wasn't going to start the process on it's own, so I just tried to relax. After a few hours of increasing pain, and (skip to the end of the sentence if you get grossed out easily) intermittent amniotic fluid leakage, I showed up at the hospital, where no one believed that I was actually in labor because although I had begun to dilate, my water hadn't completely broken. I assured them that it had, in fact, been leaking, and I think they all just wrote my symptom off as incompetent bladder, but they let me change into a hospital gown because I was so enormously huge and in some sort of pain, labor or otherwise. Was I surprised when my water finally broke completely and I flooded the cot they had me laying on? No. Were they? Yup! And I bet that to this day, the nurse is cursing the day she had to mop up all that fluid. To this day, I'm cursing the fact that once they finally admitted me to a Real Actual Labor Room, it was too late to do a Real Actual Epidural. And I was Really Actually Pissed. Wait, I take that back. At the time, I didn't have the energy to be angry. It was too much work birthing my almost-ten-pound baby. Hang on a second, let that last sentence sink in. Here it is, one more time. It was too much work birthing my almost-ten-pound baby.
So, you can imagine my commitment to catching that pesky labor as soon as it begins, so that I may hopefully partake of any and all medication designed to ease the baby-passing process. I've felt things in the last two weeks that have made me fold over in half like I was punched in the gut, that have made me catch my breath, that have caused an audible "OW!" that I didn't have time to hold back. Reagan's head is down in the "OK GO" position, and sometimes it feels like she's pressing up against my cervix like it's the peephole to the outside world and she's trying to steal a glance. Seriously, it makes me want to go put on a pair of spandex shorts just so I can be sure she doesn't start to army-crawl her way out of my vagina. Sometimes the pressure will be so intense that I literally am afraid to look down, for fear there will be a little goopy baby hand waving at me from between my legs. Or, you know, flipping me the bird.
I feel these phantom contractions often, but I'm only severely uncomfortable when I'm sitting, standing, or laying down. (Yup, that's all. That leaves... um, never?) Every time I feel any flash of pain, I check the time, so if it does happen to be a contraction, I'll know how far apart they are. I've even taking to jinxing myself- because I do have the worst luck ever, I'm tempting Murphy's Law into making me have this baby. Just today I told Chris "Do you want me to fake going into labor so you don't have to go to work?" Come on, if that's not jinxing myself, I don't know what is.
The weird part? I'm praying for it to happen! I am so miserable, physically and especially emotionally, that I just want to get Reagan here. I am a hormonal wreck- there has to be something like Pre-Partum Depression, and I am the Brooke Shields of it. Aside from the two days Chris and I spent in Santa Monica last week, the only time I have consciously thought "Cervix stay put!" was when I was watching a TiVo'd episode of National Bingo Night and playing along with the bingo cards I printed out from the website.
So, what gives? What's wrong with me? I don't want the birth of my baby to interfere with National Friggen Bingo Night??? I'm sure most Bingo Addicts are worried that it's going to conflict with their great-grandchildren coming to visit them in the nursing home, not with childbirth.
Well, what have I left to say? I've already talked about amniotic fluid and babies reaching out of vaginas, let alone divulged my National Bingo Night guilty pleasure. Really, the sad part? I could keep going for hours. It's nearing 11, I think I'm going to try to get myself to bed. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll wake up in a pool of amniotic fluid! Or maybe if I'm really really lucky, I'll wake up in a pool of Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt. Either way...
For a while now, I've been having intermittent Braxton-Hicks contractions (they're like the Casper the Friendly Ghost of labor pains) and sundry other random baby-related pains. I didn't have my first major "Oh holy bleep is this a real contraction????" freak out, however, until two weeks ago, when Chris was driving us home from my baby shower in San Diego and I was mildly suspicious that my water was going to break on our two hour drive through a mountain range, because why not? That's the kind of luck I have.
It wasn't just unwarranted paranoia, I'll have you know. I was genuinely concerned because the waves of discomfort I was feeling could have been labor. With Madelynn, I went to bed thinking that I just didn't feel good, and sat up in bed a few hours later in a pool of my very own amniotic fluid. Nine hours and one epidural later, I was a Mommy.
My son, the meatloaf, was already a week late when I went to my doctor to beg and plead with him. After the doc, um, investigated the goings-on, he told me that I was neither effaced nor dilated, and we arranged a time a few days from then for me to show up at the hospital and have my labor induced. That very same evening, I remember sitting on the couch feeling really uncomfortable. As much as I hoped it was labor, my doctor had pretty much assured me that my body wasn't going to start the process on it's own, so I just tried to relax. After a few hours of increasing pain, and (skip to the end of the sentence if you get grossed out easily) intermittent amniotic fluid leakage, I showed up at the hospital, where no one believed that I was actually in labor because although I had begun to dilate, my water hadn't completely broken. I assured them that it had, in fact, been leaking, and I think they all just wrote my symptom off as incompetent bladder, but they let me change into a hospital gown because I was so enormously huge and in some sort of pain, labor or otherwise. Was I surprised when my water finally broke completely and I flooded the cot they had me laying on? No. Were they? Yup! And I bet that to this day, the nurse is cursing the day she had to mop up all that fluid. To this day, I'm cursing the fact that once they finally admitted me to a Real Actual Labor Room, it was too late to do a Real Actual Epidural. And I was Really Actually Pissed. Wait, I take that back. At the time, I didn't have the energy to be angry. It was too much work birthing my almost-ten-pound baby. Hang on a second, let that last sentence sink in. Here it is, one more time. It was too much work birthing my almost-ten-pound baby.
So, you can imagine my commitment to catching that pesky labor as soon as it begins, so that I may hopefully partake of any and all medication designed to ease the baby-passing process. I've felt things in the last two weeks that have made me fold over in half like I was punched in the gut, that have made me catch my breath, that have caused an audible "OW!" that I didn't have time to hold back. Reagan's head is down in the "OK GO" position, and sometimes it feels like she's pressing up against my cervix like it's the peephole to the outside world and she's trying to steal a glance. Seriously, it makes me want to go put on a pair of spandex shorts just so I can be sure she doesn't start to army-crawl her way out of my vagina. Sometimes the pressure will be so intense that I literally am afraid to look down, for fear there will be a little goopy baby hand waving at me from between my legs. Or, you know, flipping me the bird.
I feel these phantom contractions often, but I'm only severely uncomfortable when I'm sitting, standing, or laying down. (Yup, that's all. That leaves... um, never?) Every time I feel any flash of pain, I check the time, so if it does happen to be a contraction, I'll know how far apart they are. I've even taking to jinxing myself- because I do have the worst luck ever, I'm tempting Murphy's Law into making me have this baby. Just today I told Chris "Do you want me to fake going into labor so you don't have to go to work?" Come on, if that's not jinxing myself, I don't know what is.
The weird part? I'm praying for it to happen! I am so miserable, physically and especially emotionally, that I just want to get Reagan here. I am a hormonal wreck- there has to be something like Pre-Partum Depression, and I am the Brooke Shields of it. Aside from the two days Chris and I spent in Santa Monica last week, the only time I have consciously thought "Cervix stay put!" was when I was watching a TiVo'd episode of National Bingo Night and playing along with the bingo cards I printed out from the website.
So, what gives? What's wrong with me? I don't want the birth of my baby to interfere with National Friggen Bingo Night??? I'm sure most Bingo Addicts are worried that it's going to conflict with their great-grandchildren coming to visit them in the nursing home, not with childbirth.
Well, what have I left to say? I've already talked about amniotic fluid and babies reaching out of vaginas, let alone divulged my National Bingo Night guilty pleasure. Really, the sad part? I could keep going for hours. It's nearing 11, I think I'm going to try to get myself to bed. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll wake up in a pool of amniotic fluid! Or maybe if I'm really really lucky, I'll wake up in a pool of Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt. Either way...
Friday, June 15, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Life's so rough...
Here's a shot of Reagan, looking very annoyed by the paparazzi.
From my ultrasound today, 6/11/07... she's got her hand up to her face- quite the drama queen already, right? In front of her you can see her arm and also, the umbilical cord (which she was sucking on right before the pic was taken. WHAT REGGIE? Nutrients zipped right into your body aren't enough for you? You've got to try to suck extra food through the cord itself? You've definitely got your mother's appetite!).
Other news? Our little butterball weighs 5.52 pounds. (Average is 4.75.)
Oy vey...
From my ultrasound today, 6/11/07... she's got her hand up to her face- quite the drama queen already, right? In front of her you can see her arm and also, the umbilical cord (which she was sucking on right before the pic was taken. WHAT REGGIE? Nutrients zipped right into your body aren't enough for you? You've got to try to suck extra food through the cord itself? You've definitely got your mother's appetite!).
Other news? Our little butterball weighs 5.52 pounds. (Average is 4.75.)
Oy vey...
Is this nature's way of preparing me for the 18 years of sleepless nights to come?
When I woke up this morning after a night of tossing and turning, I felt a sudden burst of energy and sat right up, ready to start the day. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was only 1:45 AM. I tried going back to sleep, but it just wasn't happening, so here I am. It's almost 4 in the morning and I've finally finished editing all the baby shower pictures, posted them up on various websites, caught up on some email, and now, here I am, nearing delirium and unable to sleep.
Life has been a little hard to keep up with lately, which is why the blog has been neglected. The annoying thing is that I'm constantly writing in my head, phrasing sentences and drafting entries- and then I realize that ooooooooooh yeah, these thoughts don't just post themselves, but would I rather sit and type everything out or watch today's episode of Rachael Ray with my swollen feet elevated? We have a clear winner.
According to my doctor's first estimate, I'm at 33 weeks, and if you're going by the updated due date, I'm in week 34. Medically, this means that the baby is probably just under five pounds, and that my body is going through the final preparations of getting Reagan ready to make her grand entrance. Sociologically, it means that I am the recipient of gawks, gropes, and and endless line of questioning from strangers. Chris practically had to hold me back from jumping over the counter at the movie theater on Saturday and strangling the woman selling tickets. I didn't like her tone.
I'm on the verge of losing my mind, and it does happen for fleeting seconds. Last week I literally laughed until I cried when I realized that I burnt our bagels- for the second time in a row. I was standing alone in my kitchen at 7 in the morning, smoke coming out of the toaster oven, laughing one of those big hearty laughs at my own expense, when all of a sudden I didn't think it was quite so funny anymore and began sobbing. Really. Today? Today I had a little stuffed pink rabbit from the Baby Shower hanging around my neck, and it got caught in my ponytail as I was trying to take it off. Tears. Chris: "Honey, what's wrong?" Me: (tears, sniffing) "There's a bunny stuck in my hair!" I am slowly losing all rational credibility.
I've got two and a half hours before the world officially demands my participation, so I'm going to try to catch some sleep while I can...
Life has been a little hard to keep up with lately, which is why the blog has been neglected. The annoying thing is that I'm constantly writing in my head, phrasing sentences and drafting entries- and then I realize that ooooooooooh yeah, these thoughts don't just post themselves, but would I rather sit and type everything out or watch today's episode of Rachael Ray with my swollen feet elevated? We have a clear winner.
According to my doctor's first estimate, I'm at 33 weeks, and if you're going by the updated due date, I'm in week 34. Medically, this means that the baby is probably just under five pounds, and that my body is going through the final preparations of getting Reagan ready to make her grand entrance. Sociologically, it means that I am the recipient of gawks, gropes, and and endless line of questioning from strangers. Chris practically had to hold me back from jumping over the counter at the movie theater on Saturday and strangling the woman selling tickets. I didn't like her tone.
I'm on the verge of losing my mind, and it does happen for fleeting seconds. Last week I literally laughed until I cried when I realized that I burnt our bagels- for the second time in a row. I was standing alone in my kitchen at 7 in the morning, smoke coming out of the toaster oven, laughing one of those big hearty laughs at my own expense, when all of a sudden I didn't think it was quite so funny anymore and began sobbing. Really. Today? Today I had a little stuffed pink rabbit from the Baby Shower hanging around my neck, and it got caught in my ponytail as I was trying to take it off. Tears. Chris: "Honey, what's wrong?" Me: (tears, sniffing) "There's a bunny stuck in my hair!" I am slowly losing all rational credibility.
I've got two and a half hours before the world officially demands my participation, so I'm going to try to catch some sleep while I can...
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
