Get It OUT!!!

It's August, the month I am supposed to give birth. Hear that, little one? You can come out any time now. really. Any time you feel like it, even if it's NOW!!!

I've tried everything. Working in Ryan's garden, Evening Primrose Oil, spicy food, I've even done squats a couple times to try and bounce the baby down! So far the only things I haven't tried are red raspberry leaf tea, which apparently isn't sold anywhere near here, and jumping on Ryan's trampoline, but only because she won't let me and I don't think I could get myself up on it anyway. I want the baby out. Some days I'm fine but some days, like yesterday, I'm a sore, uncomfortable, crying hormonal mess. I want to see Ryan hold the baby she's waited a decade for me to have. I want to see Tom hold his flesh and blood. I want to see if the baby really does have Tom's chin, or his ears, or if this one will have any hair or not. I want to hold my baby and feel warmth, not bony feet in my ribs. And yes, selfishly and unrepentantly, I want to eat real food again.

Frozen coffee drinks. Pasta and rice and potatoes. Brownies. More than one sandwich in a restaurant at a time. I want to eat waffles again! Every morning I get to decide what I want for breakfast, a breakfast I'm more often than not, not even hungry for. I can have one cup of yogurt, or one granola bar, or if I really feel like putting in the effort I can make myself 2 slices of french toast on special whole wheat bread, but I usually save the toast for lunch when I can have four slices and actually get full. This baby is full term, and has been for almost a week now. It weighs more than I did when I was born. It hardly ever gets the hiccups any more and it lets me know with increasing frequency just how much it wants to stretch out. So how can I get this baby to finally come out?! I'm dilated to 2 cm and I'm 50% effaced as of last Monday afternoon. I just really want to meet this nameless, faceless, sexless baby. And I'd like to meet it preferably during standard business hours, so that I can send out for food soon after.

Only The Most Awesome Shower Ever

Diaper Cake by Ryan











Diaper Cake by Tom



















My ducky cake that Ryan decorated, complete with ditch lillies!







I know I'm all bloated and splotchy, and my mother looks panicky, but look! I got my diaper genie! And doesn't my crown look lovely?



More pictures to come once ICC* sends me the ones from her camera.




























*Iconic Cousin Chandos

Abba I aint

You can walk, You can pump, Desperate to push out a life
See that girl, watch her pain
She's the contraction queen

L&D and the lights are low
Doctor says it's too soon to go
"Need to dilate a few more,
You should go walk the halls"
Just get this out of me!

Any doctor could be that guy
With an epidural he'd save my life
With an IV of Stadol, everything is fine
I'm in the mood to push
And as long as I don't poop . . .

I'll be the contraction queen, Young and strong, Breathing hoo-hoo-heeee!
Contraction queen, "Count it out and just push for meeee!"
I can breathe, I can writhe, finally pushing out life
Ohhhh, see that girl, watch her cry
She's the contraction queen, oh yeah!

It's starting to get old.

Tom has started saying goodbye by telling me when I can or cannot go into labor. "You can't have the baby Tuesday night because I'll be in East Michigan. Have it on Thursday when I'm in Sperry and can be home in 2 hours." My birth plan is courtesy of mapquest now. The excitement is wearing off even for the eager first-ish time daddy. He stole my cell phone the other day and put it in my calendar for August 18, labor from 1:30 to 8:51 pm.

Two days until my shower. Yesterday we picked up and made the mints, and Ryan worked a couple hours in the garden and then selling Kool-Aid to the builders adding on to the house next door. Today we have to finish picking up/hiding the clutter in the house, and then dust and windex the house. Tomorrow we vacuum and mop, and Saturday we rearrange chairs and such and decorate, and then Tom will leave at ten o'clock to drive halfway across Iowa to pick up a car from his brother to replace the car that went boom. Oh, and someone will have to run up to the grocery store to buy some helium balloons. It doesn't seem like much, but when you consider that I'm now on the verge of being 37 weeks pregnant and that picking up/hiding clutter includes at least 3 loads of laundry, it becomes almost overwhelming to think about. And of course I help nothing by sitting here on the computer doing nothing to shorten the list except listening to the dishwasher and washing machine run simultaneously.

I'm tired of ignoring housework because of my belly. I'm ready to ignore housework because of my baby.

Face Decoder

For those of you who sucked at those mall pictures, and for Tom who is on the road and can't decipher the picture I sent to his phone, here's the baby's face, decoded. Now just look at the original picture and look for the features without the blue walmart smiley-face. I think it looks like Tom. I see his chin. Also, I think that my uterus behind the baby looks like a skateboard half-pipe, which would explain some of the action in there.

Just a routine appointment until . . . .

Monday afternoon I drove to my 35 week OB appointment and Dr Rickerl checked me and told me I was dilated to 1cm and 50% effaced. Yay!!! Then he told me that's nothing really for someone who's had a baby already. Boo!!! Mondays are his on-call days and he was yawning in the office so I told him to go home to sleep and I left. I couldn't make an appointment for next week though, because it was after five and the office staff was gone already. After I left the office I called Tom on the cell phone to tell him that I'm dilated and effaced but don't freak out, and of course I had to explain what effaced means.

My clinic is in Clinton, Iowa (about 20 minutes or 15 miles away), so there's always time to fill Tom in on the way home. So there I was driving home, on the bluetooth explaining my cervix to my husband, when my tire blows out and shoots the car across the highway and I hit a cement overpass wall at 60 mph. The bluetooth flew off my ear, the phone flew off the seat, and I started screaming for Tom to "Call 911, I had a wreck!" Finally I saw the bluetooth on the dash so I undid the seat belt and grabbed it. Tom was all "Are you okay?" and I just said "Call 911, I'm on Rt 30 under the train overpass, I wrecked your car." Meanwhile, the pickup that was behind me had pulled over and a farmer guy in overalls was running across the highway talking into his cellphone while I was calling 911 myself. The guy came to the car and asked if I was okay, he was talking to the hospital. I opened my door and told him I'm 35 weeks pregnant, so of course he went completely panicky then.

More strangers stopped and 2 guys helped me get out the passenger door (driver's door was only about 6 inches from the wall and I was having trouble getting my legs over the shifter in the console so they kind of had to pull me out) and into someone's car on the shoulder so I would be clear if someone came and hit my car, since it was in the wrong lane and all that. I kept concentrating on my belly and really everything felt okay. No pains or anything, but I couldn't feel the baby move so I was freaking out about that. Plus, I was bawling anyway because I had just slammed into a wall really fast, which apparently makes me just completely lose it. Soon I had cops from 2 different towns plus the county there, along with a fire truck and an ambulance, and they closed off the highway to get me in the ambulance. They strapped me to a backboard and put a neckbrace on me, despite me telling them not to lie me flat on my back because pregnant women are not supposed to lie flat on their backs. I did manage to get a picture of the car before they carted me off, though. What can I say, I'm married to a truck driver and it's been pounded into my head to document the scene.

I got to the hospital and they checked me for dilation, no difference there. They tested me for amniotic fluid and I hadn't leaked any. They cathetered me for urine to check it for blood (hurt worse than the wreck, I don't recommend it) and got none so they gave me a bedpan. And then they called Tom and my mother because they were both listed as ICE (In Case of Emergency) in my cell phone and sent me off to x-ray and ultrasound. Nothing was broken and the ultrasound tech was so nice she gave me a 3d of baby's face and never even went near the crotch so our surprise is still safe. Finally I got sent up to L&D for the night and got put on the contraction and heartbeat monitors. I never did use the bedpan, although I had such bad foot and rib pain (the car folded on my left foot and the seat belt just killed my ribs) that I crawled to and from the bathroom all night. I just don't get bedpans and I'm too shy to ask someone to help me with it or risk having to tell them I overshot and peed the bed or whatever. My main nurse was SO great. She said they only had diet coke products but she dug me up a bottle of diet dew somewhere and then put another one in the fridge for the morning, with a sticker matching my ID bracelet on it so no one else would drink it. I really hope she's my nurse when I have the baby! She also asked the Dr if I could have anything stronger than Tylenol when the other nurse wouldn't even let me take my own Extra Strength Tylenol from my purse because the Dr had only okayed me for "2 Tylenol." I hope that lady slips in afterbirth. As for Nurse Vicodin, I hope she gets a raise.

I made it through the night and Dr Rickerl came today to release me. He gave me a prescription for Vicodin with 2 refills and checked my cervix again. Still 1 and 50% so apparently nothing will get this baby out, not even major trauma. I had had some minor contractions early in the night but they stopped while I slept. I didn't get my blood sugar monitored and the kitchen kept sending me food I couldn't eat (???) so the Dr told me not to worry about it until I got home. I specifically told Nurse Vicodin my carb limits and watched her put them in the computer, and then I got cereal, milk, and toast for breakfast, and a lunch that said "No Concentrated Sugars"and was almost entirely pasta! Probably not eating is why after I left the hospital I threw up my vicodin and my contraband diet dew.

My ribs feel better today (at least I can breath deep again) and they gave me this giant foam and velcro boot to wear so I can walk, and my neck is really sore so I assume I have whiplash. I am sitting here now at 11:30 pm dreading, yet needing, my vicodin pills. I don't want to puke anymore, but the weight of the sheets hurts my foot and I can't roll over with my ribs the way they are now. I recommend, if given the chance to decide, that you drive between the walls of the overpass, not into them. It tends to work out better that way. Well, here's pics of the car and of little Tommy/Ivy:
See how the front tire by the wall is facing you, and the front tire by the road isn't? Apparently that crooked one is what caused the problem because at the junkyard I have 3 full tires and only the one flat one.


Step back and look and you'll see the face. It's kind of like one of those hidden 3d pictures at the mall that looks like little squares but turns into a sailboat if you stare long enough.

My diaper cake. . . .I think

Ryan and Tom made a diaper cake for the shower (I know because I helped roll the diapers), and it's in the kitchen under a black garbage bag so I can't see it, and it's kind of driving me insane. I really want to know what they put on it. Also, Tom let slip something about ducky candies for the cake (I assume an actual edible cake this time) but told me "never mind" when I looked confused. Those two spent forty five minutes in Hobby Lobby yesterday looking at shower stuff and I'm completely in the dark. I like it that way, since I don't want it to seem like I planned my own baby shower and I want to be able to look back at it all later and not have to try to remember what was Ryan's idea and what might have been mine (or Tom's, but who can shut him up?), but it's like knowing where your Christmas presents are hidden! I'm fine with not knowing the baby's sex. I'm fine with waiting to learn what my gifts are. But this is sitting on my kitchen table! I am going to be eating mere inches away from this trash-bag encased surprise and it's partly up to me to keep the surprise! This is too much.

OMG it's getting close

Went to the doctor today for the routine tape measure and heartbeat check. Everything was fine and the baby doesn't look huge or anything. I go back next week.

I'm up to weekly appointments now; that means I'm getting close to the end. I'm not ready to be close to the end yet. I have a shower to go to on the 20th, and one here on the 26th. Tom's still in on-the-road training for another week and a half. I have school supply and school clothes shopping to do! I'm not even registered at the hospital yet! A baby right now would be really inconvenient.
I'll need to pencil it in for sometime next month.

Grow Up!

Men who refuse to buy feminine hygiene products for their wives/girlfriends need to grow the fuck up! No one in the store is going to think they're for you, and you're not important enough for the clerk to care what you buy anyway, so grow the fuck up.

Women who freak out about stretch marks need to grow the fuck up! You're having a baby and your entire life is about to radically change in just about every way imaginable and you're concerned about next year's bikini season? Get over yourself and grow the fuck up.

Stepparents or live-ins who think that by virtue of being older they somehow have instant parental authority over the kids need to grow the fuck up. Fine, you're an adult and it's your home so you can set some rules, and when you're alone with the kids you get the babysitter power, but otherwise you're just Mom or Dad's spouse/live-in, not an actual parent. Your job is to back up the real parent, not to step in and pretend you have the authority that comes with having been there from the start. It doesn't matter how much you want your friends to respect you for taking on someone else's kid or how much you want the former single parent to see you as their savior, the kid's not going to fall for it and the hero worship you expect ain't coming anytime soon either, so grow the fuck up!

Parents who want to be "cool" need to grow the fuck up. When I was 16 I swore I'd never be as strict as my mom was but I know what I got away with and now I swear I'll be twice the bitch she was to me. Buying beer for the neighborhood kids or letting your kids have sex in your house doesn't make you cool. At best it makes you a joke to the people your age who've actually matured in their lives and at worst it makes you a flat-out bad parent. Maybe they'd do it anyway and you'd just rather they did it at home, whatever "it" is, but the fact is that they'd do it a lot less if they had to go to some trouble to get away with it. Put your daughter on the pill and give your son condoms, but don't sit at home with the TV volume turned up so you can hear it over the party in the next room! No teenager is going to name their neglectful parent as their best friend anyway and any authority you might otherwise have had will be washed away with your horrible displays of judgment, so just grow the fuck up!

Adults with kids who can't prioritize need to grow the fuck up. If you've got 2 kids who can't afford school clothes in the fall but you've got a new tattoo and a Harley, you need to grow the fuck up. I don't care how nice your hair looks with 3 shades of highlights or how sexy your man looks in his leathers if your kids are living off of mac and cheese and state-funded school lunches. It's a lot easier to respect someone who sacrifices it all for their kids than one who works overtime to go out drinking with friends while the kids sit home in a trailer with a bad roof, so grow the fuck up!

People who think they're better because they have a "clean" job and you have a "dirty" one need to grow up. If you have a drug conviction and 2 DUIs, I don't care how white your collar is compared to my truck-driving husband's. The label on your jeans or the price of your haircut don't mean shit to some people and believe it or not there are people in the world who don't keep score. If you really want to know who "wins", see who's happiest. It might be the guy with grease under his nails and not the one with the corner office. If you think status is everything, you really need to go grow the fuck up!

People who try too hard to be different need to grow the fuck up. I was one of them back in the day but guess what, I needed to grow up! If you have to spell your baby's name Mickaeylah and over-complicate things just so people will know you're "edgy" and "unique" then you're not. If you have to have 3 different colors in your hair (black, blond, and pink?) just to stand out then you don't. Want to really be unique and different? Take up quilting, or learn to square dance. THAT'S the stuff you don't see every day. But trying to stand out by doing what everyone else is doing just shows you need to grow the fuck up!

I'm sleepy and forgotten.

All night I dreamed. In between nearly hourly trips to the bathroom and waking to hip pain and rolling my cumbersome ass over, I dreamed of the most mundane and uneventful daily happenings possible. I weeded Ryan's garden, tried to decide what of my limited food options I was the least sick of so I could eat at the appointed times, and searched baby shower websites for rubber ducky decorating ideas per Ryan's instructions. I woke up at noon to find Tom and Ryan watching TV and myself still utterly exhausted. I don't feel like I slept at all. I feel like I was up all night in the garden and in the fridge and on the computer. So what have I done today? I weeded a little in Ryan's garden, I searched for food ideas every 2 hours, and I looked up ducky themed baby showers online. Oh, and I answered an email regarding my June 26 baby shower. I wonder how many of the invitations went out with that mistake on them. In case anyone who reads this got the wrong info, it's July 26.

My birthday is on Tuesday. Last year Tom gave me cash, which I HATE because it's the same lazy thing my dad always did (the gift that says, "You're not worth a trip to the store,") and although I've dropped hints about him and Ryan going grocery shopping, he doesn't seem to be interested. He says we can buy groceries tomorrow if there's something we're out of. I only really want 2 things this year: a tape deck attachment for my mp3 player so I can play it in the van, and the new Prey book by John Sandford. I'm guessing Tom doesn't remember me mentioning either of these things. In fact, if my due date wasn't his father's birthday he'd probably forget how far along I am. Then again, I haven't asked him lately so maybe he has.

It's Official

I am having a baby shower. Ryan's been saying since the beginning that she wanted to throw me one, but she's only ten and that's a little young. But then Tom and my mother both said they'd take her to the stores she'd have to go to, and my friend Christina (the shower QUEEN) is in email communication with her regarding planning, so it looks like I will be possibly the first person I've ever heard of to have a baby shower hosted by a ten year old.
She's already designed, printed, and mailed the invitations. She found the background online, modified it and added text in MSPaint, and then filled each one out individually. She's got a notebook full of ideas for games and decorations, and already bought ducky candy molds for the cream cheese mints, which she's going to make with Splenda so I can have some.

Yeah, I got the perfect kid. And I'll have the perfect baby shower too. I'm so damn hormonal right now I cry whenever I think about it. Now I just have to keep the baby in until after the 26th.

I'm sorry, the cervix you have dialed is out of service . . .

How can you be 8 months pregnant, let alone be on your second or third kid, or have grandkids, and still spell it "dialated"? It's a word that's spelled out quite clearly in every single pregnancy book, pamphlet, magazine article, and website out there. You dilate to ten centimeters, the doctor begins checking you for dilation around 35 weeks, drugs may be given to speed dilation if it doesn't occur on its own. Hell, in grade school science class they taught us about how pupils dilate in the dark. I don't know what these women think is going on down there but no calls are being made, no one is dialing anything. Some people even pronounce it "dialate", as in "She was dial-ated to seven."

Add this to the list of idiotic things some women say that makes them sound too stupid to bear children, like that they're prego or that they're having comtractions. I feel bad for their kids.

My Prison Diet

I have, as my readers know, a horrible case of gestational diabetes. I am allowed only nine servings of carboydrates a day. For those who don't know, one serving is between twelve and nineteen grams of carbs, ideally fifteen. So I basically can't eat shit all day, although I have to eat somethng every two hours. It breaks down like this:
Breakfast - 1 serving
Snack - 1 serving
Lunch - 2 servings
Snack - 1 serving
Dinner - 2 servings
Snack - 1 serving
Bedtime Snack - 1 serving

Now, this is a hard diet to live with since almost nothing has fifteen grams of carbs. For instance, one slice of bread is one serving, so I can't have a sandwich unless it's meal time. And although my obstetrician did send me to a dietitian, the problem was that she was a dietitian. She kept talking about protein and low-fat and organic food, things that had nothing to do with GD! I listened to her advice at first; I even spent the big bucks on the all natural organic peanut butter. Have you ever had all natural organic peanut butter? Same carbs as regular, but it's gritty and oily and tastes awful! So I quickly learned that I was on my own. However, in the last month I have managed to find some snacks that aren't half bad, and some that actually kick ass, that fit with my diet. I figured I would post them hear in case anyone else who reads this get put on a similar diet as I am. And keep in mind that if you're allowed more than one serving at a time, you can double up o the snacks. Yum!

• Sunbelt Golden Almond chewy granola bars. One bar (and not the tiny little ones either like those hard ones you get from your grandma)= 17 g carbs
• Blue Bunny Light No Sugar Added key lime pie yogurt cup. 1 cup = 11 g carbs
• The Skinny Cow Minis Frozen Fudge Bars. One bar (the same size as half of a twin pop popsicle)=10 g carbs!
• Edy's Fruit Bars No Sugar Added. One bar = 8 g carbs (I recommend having one fudge bar and one fruit bar, but then I'm pregnant in the summer too.)
• Quaker Granola Bites Chocolate Flavor 90 calorie packs. One pack (not too small but not huge)= 14 g carbs
• Hunt's Snack Pack Sugar Free chocolate pudding cups. One cup = 15 g carbs
• Breyers All Natural Pure Premium coffee ice cream. 1/2 cup = 15 g carbs
• Medallion Bite Size white corn tortilla chips. 24 chips = 15 g carbs (and salsa has no carbs so you can load up the chips!)
• Sara Lee 45 Calorie & Delightful Bread, 100% Whole Wheat With Honey. TWO slices = 18 g carbs. (Peanut butter and sugar free jelly make it a pretty filling snack. And an egg and some vanilla make for a great French toast breakfast.)

If you learn to bulk up your snacks with peanut butter, dips, and sugar-free jelly, you can stay reasonably full throughout the day and still keep your blood glucose numbers low. As for meal ides, that's been harder for me to come up with. But Tom's cooking tomorrow night so I'm thinking baked tilapia with lemon butter and Parmesan and some rice on the side. Yum. But damn, do I miss mac and cheese!

Why motherhood is more lonely now.

I remember when we'd been married maybe a year and Tom was still on the road all the time, he told me about a show he'd seen (Dateline or 20/20 or something like that) about how girl bullies in junior high. He was shocked! With boys a bully will hit you or pants you in the hall or something, he said, but these girls were ruthless. One case was a non-stop campaign of about ten girls to make one girl feel fat and ugly and worthless! I just nodded and thought, "how cute, my husband's naive." Any girl who survives public school knows how catty the female of the species can be. It's why it's not really a big deal if your best friend tells you that you look great when your skirt is tucked up in the back of your underwear. It's a natural instinct; she has to thin the competition.

All of this was brought back to mind today as I waited for an hour an fifteen minutes to see my obstetrician. (Why does he take appointments on his on-call days?) The waiting room had the usual line-up: menopausal woman fanning herself with a magazine, teenage girl casting desperate looks at her mother and wondering why she has to see THAT KIND of doctor anyway, twenty-something young mother telling her five year old to "Just sit down and shut up, God I hate how you act when you come back from your father's!" (the mother of the teen was of course trying to discretely point out that THIS is why she has to see THAT KIND of doctor), and the two requisite pregnant women. I would have loved to strike up a conversation with the other pregnant lady, but of course I didn't. And why? Because women are catty!

At some point during the last few years, pregnancy and childbirth became even more of a contest of strength than it had been. Hospitals started letting mothers make more decisions and more options opened up. In addition, birthing centers popped up, midwives stopped being quaint village characters from old Europe, and the word doula stopped sounding strange. Women decided to give birth at home in kiddie pools, modern pain management went from blessing to option, and it became perfectly acceptable to post photos of yourself online giving birth in a sports bra and crystals, bouncing on a giant kickball. Now, while I'm grateful that I'm not going to be strapped to the table like my mother was, that hospital staff is actually supportive of breastfeeding now, and that the whole "shave and enema" thing has gone out the window, I'm not too sure how I feel about being put in a position to make so many decisions while in constant hormonal flux. Everyone, from Ricki Lake to the ghost of Dr Spock seems to have an opinion and to present it as being the only viable choice if you care at all about your child. Somehow the thought of an epidural has become, to some, the equivalent of thalidomide. Women who smoke throughout their entire pregnancy will tell you how bad epidurals are and how if you really wanted what was best for your baby, you'd do it "naturally".

Come on! No, an epidural or an IV of Stadol isn't exactly the natural way of doing things, but neither are weekly urine tests, group B strep testing, gestational diabetes management, gender ultrasounds, or even the giant kickball to bounce your mid-labor ass on. I'm not saying it should be all or nothing. I'm just saying that these people shouldn't be acting like they do it all while we do nothing. If you want your polyvinyl ball then let me have my modern conveniences too, and don't judge me for them!

Back in the days of mandatory enemas, strapped down mothers, and nurses who doled out bottles of formula without any questions, mothers were part of an exclusive club. They could compare notes and reassure each other and form a real support system. I guess I kind of wish we still had that kind of camaraderie. Now it's either you didn't nurse long enough or you nursed too long or you're raping the Earth with disposable diapers or your epidural makes you less of a woman or you're the hippy-freak who gave birth in a fisher-price baby pool. I don't want to go back to enemas and bed straps, but I wish the progress toward options didn't have to mean a march toward superiority either.

On doctors and diamonds. . .

I had my thirty week appointment today, the first one since I've been tracking my blood sugar. I was sure the doctor would send me straight to the diabetes expert for insulin shots but he said my numbers looked okay. I guess I'm doing pretty well on the yogurt and granola bar diet, despite what my colon may think of it. The doctor also gave me the go-ahead to leave on vacation with my mom on Thursday.

I have been alternately dreading and looking forward to this vacation since Mom thought it up last fall. It sounds like a fun trip, but then again it also sounds like the worst vacation possible for a woman deep into her 7th month of pregnancy. Plus, there's the guilt of having my mommy pay for me to go on vacation with her, but since it was her idea I try not to feel too bad about it. She and Ryan (I'm just tagging along to watch Mom's dog from what it sounds like so far) are going to dig for diamonds in Arkansas. I dread the long car ride and the heat, but it sounds fun and I think Ryan will get a kick out of it. I might even wield a shovel for a couple hours in the mornings too. Maybe I can find a rock big enough to put Ryan through college. Oh well. My main concern is the bathroom facilities. Our cabin is supposed to have a toilet installed before we get there, and I'm hoping there's some drink stand with bathrooms near the dig site. The last thing I need is to be doctor-hunting with a bladder infection in Arkansas from holding it for too long. Also, infections aren't good for us diabetics, or so I hear. I really hope Mom means it when she says she expects to make a lot of bathroom stops during the drive. Just going to Omaha and back last month with Tom was bad. I would try to wait at least 2 hours between breaks but sometimes it wasn't in the cards. This baby thinks my bladder is a trampoline.

Not sure how the wi-fi will be at a cabin in Arkansas, so I'm not sure I'll be able to post anything until we get back. So until then, wish me luck. And wish me big old honking diamonds, too.

Ryan joins in the fun.

Not one to be left out of anything artistic, Ryan took her turn at painting my belly tonight. If I felt worldly yesterday, I feel absolutely stellar tonight!

And of course, I didn't want to be the only one not painting people, so here's my handiwork:

All "pregnant" fathers should have to see this.

I recently found a website that shows, un-airbrushed, un-photoshopped, completely honest pictures of women after childbirth. The saggy tummies, the deflated balloon look of stretch marks without the stretch, the pointing down boobs trying to hide in armpits, all of it. For all the men out there who think pregnancy changes only the size, and who then get disgusted by the texture and shape, this website is for you! And for all the women who think that Demi Moore magazine cover was real, and who think that every woman can birth twins and then wear an evening gown to the Oscars a week later in her pre-pregnancy size, this site is for you!

But most of all, for those of us who pray against all hope that this time we'll bounce back like Angelina or Katie Holmes, this site is for us.


*EDIT: also, add to the list of people who should be strapped to a desk chair with their eyelids glued open and these photos on the screen in front of them, sixteen year olds who want to have babies. Imagine stuffing that belly into a prom dress you fetal-minded imbeciles!

One half cup of YUM!

One serving of carbohydrates is 15 grams. I am allowed 2 servings per snack. I just looked and discovered, much to my surprise, that half a cup of coffee ice cream has exactly 15 grams of carbs. I am now eating ice cream out of a measuring cup. Yum! I thought I had to forsake ice cream, but now I don't have to. Happy time!

My husband, the artist

I feel so worldly now.

The Cure's As Bad As The Disease!

I'm starting to think I've had diabetes for a while. The main symptoms are frequent urination and excessive thirst, which I've known. But I've always been a drinker. It was Mountain Dew all day up until a couple years ago, then water, then OJ early in the pregnancy, and now iced tea. And I've been peeing too much for just as long, but I never felt any different so I didn't worry about it, other than to wonder occasionally if my kidneys were malfunctioning. See, I've always had periods of low blood sugar, and I've voluntarily taken the yucky-orange-soda-test multiple times as well, all with negative results. But now, after a couple days on my carb-counting diet, I'm drinking less. I noticed this the other day and took it to be a good sign, proof that the diet was working. But when I awoke this morning with my calf muscle locked up in a horrible spasm of pain, it occurred to me through my screams that an absolute lack of thirst might have its downside. Dehydration causes leg cramps in pregnant women,. Ugh, now I not only have to force feed myself every 2 hours, but I also have to remember to drink water when I'm not thirsty.
I swear, it would be so much easier to just hook up an IV and surrender control.

Of Glucose and Old Friends

Ugh. I have diabetes. Well, gestational diabetes at least. All I know is that after 36 hours of crying, I have learned finally that I can actually eat enough to fill me up, and that my baby is not already all fucked up. This one, like the last, will have to be all fucked up slowly, through my parenting skills and not my incubating skills.

How did I get diabetes? It doesn't run in my family that I know of, except that apparently my father's grandfather got Type 2 in his 60s or something. But I mean, I'm relatively thin (always had a good BMI), and I don't live off junk food. I like to snack, sure, but I've never had a real big sweet tooth. So, why am I one of the 5% of pregnant women to get gestational diabetes? I always figured people got it because they ate lots of sugar. Now I can't have spaghetti or anything like that, and I LOVE spaghetti. I have charts stuck to the fridge and cabinet doors telling me what I can eat, when I can eat it, and how much I can have. And I slept in today which screwed me all up. I missed breakfast and my morning snack so I kind of had to put it with my lunch and then I'll have 2 afternoon snacks or something. It's confusing. And whoever decided that one slice of bread was a serving?! Who eats one slice of bread? Have the diabetes people never seen a sandwich?!

In other, more cheerful, news: Ryan is ten. Her party was on Saturday but her actual birthday was yesterday. An old friend, someone I hadn't seen since my "gay days", stopped by while in town last night. Maggie used to babysit when Ryan was a toddler and hung out here because it was a more gay-friendly environment than her parents' houses, but I hadn't seen her in at least 4 years. She grew up and found her own life, and I ended up fated to be monogamously hetero, at least till death do us part. (Who knows what'll happen in my next life?) Anyway, it was nice to see her again, and she stuck around to visit for at least an hour. I, of course, had to brag up Ryan, mainly because it's what Mom does. But when I mentioned the Wii savings plan Ryan is working toward, Maggie ran out the door, only to return with two twenties! She said she wanted to see Ryan color the thermometer up to $100, which it is now past, by $1.20. For a kid who's only been saving for a couple weeks, Ryan's done pretty well for herself. But I still feel like maybe Maggie thought I was dropping a hint or something, even though I said more than once that I had NOT meant anything by mentioning the Kool-Aid stand, which is how the bragging started.

Whoops. Two o'clock. Time for my snack. I think I will have crackers today, and save the granola bar and yogurt for bedtime. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll lose those fat pockets my ass has developed. Wish me luck!

Rhinopotomus

I'm a rhinopotomus! And somehow, my ass is getting square too.
Wish me luck; I get my RhoGam shot and take my glucose test tomorrow. Yay. A stab in the butt and an hour long urge to vomit, all in one day.

Reasons Not To Nominate Hillary

Or, how she's made herself look bad during the primary races.

1. She played the gender card, way back when there were more candidates. I don't care if they did ask you all the hard questions first or scrutinize your answers more, you don't claim sexism. You are trying to get the hardest most-scrutinized job in the country and all you've done is prove that you will blame the boys for everything. Maybe what you said was true, but you need to present yourself as a woman capable of working with that reality, not just cry out against it. My nine year old knows not to cry out that "It's not fair," because I'll just point out that life isn't fair.
   
2. She let Bill go out and run his mouth and didn't shut him up in time. The first time he said something stupid and controversial, she should have disclaimed it in front of a bank of reporters, with him looking thoroughly chastened behind her. People worried about having Bill back in the White House and she needed to show that electing her would be letting HER run the show, not Bill. Being unable, or unwilling, to stop him as he roamed the country doing damage and garnering attention only proved that she can't run the show, that he will take over no matter what she tries to do. There's a reason potential first ladies stand behind and slightly off to the side of their husbands, smiling and clapping quietly; it's because people want to know who would be running things if the candidate were elected.
3. She tried to claim her years as first lady as personally presidential experience, and then refused to claim Bill's mistakes along with his credits. It's hard enough to run as an incumbent for a VP (remember Gore?) but to do it when your title was one you literally slept your way into, and which the American people still feel is a mainly decorative one that Jackie O did better, is almost impossible. If you're going to take credit for Bill's great legacy, then you have to accept NAFTA too. Call it a mistake, apologize for it, and then claim to have learned from it and use that education to illustrate why experience is necessary, and that Obama doesn't have it. Also, after letting Bill shoot his mouth off and grandstand like he has, she needs to downplay the role of the president's spouse, not make it out to be an elected position with real responsibilities. People don't want Bill to have real responsibilities, and they don't want him elected to the White House again.
   
4. She reacted to the "pimping Chelsea out" comment and swore not to appear in any MSNBC debates after it. During what is basically a months long job interview, she showed that she has a very glaring weak spot. We don't need a president with that kind of gut-level reaction to anything. We are in a war with people who play dirty and she is running on the premise that she will end that war. When she called herself a "mother first", she created real concern that if a bin Laden tape surfaced insulting her daughter, that she would be unable to think straight, and presidents need to be able to always think straight. She should have expressed her disgust with the comment, called it a low blow, and then refused to acknowledge it further.
5. She ran the 3:00 a.m. phone call commercial. Again, she's supposed to be running as the peaceful candidate, so let McCain's team use the scare tactics. Her target audience, democrats, are sick of the GOP trying to constantly convince the American people that an attack is just around the corner and that we need a war monger to prevent it. She shouldn't have run a republican sounding ad, especially not when people are so sick of republicans.
6. She brought up race, at all. People have repeatedly shown that they don't like the mere mention of race in this election. The Muslim rumors, the race issues, Obama has successfully brushed them off for months as being unworthy of replies or even contempt, and when the Wright scandal came up he gave a speech addressing racial tension that earned him new fans. So pointing out that she polls better with whites was a bad move, not to mention how she phrased it.
   
7. She doesn't know when to back away. She could have run in 2012 or 2016, if she'd been graceful with her defeat this time. But now she's a sore loser. She's the runner-up standing behind the beauty queen who, instead of clapping and congratulating the inner like the other girls do, folds her arms over her chest and glares. She's coming off as increasingly desperate and pathetic. Ever see the Friends episode where Rachel is so intent on impressing a man that she comes to a party in her high school cheerleading uniform, because it had never failed her yet? Yeah, that's Hillary and her yellow suit.
8. She pointed out that pledged delegates aren't contractually obligated to vote for the elected candidate. Sure it's true, and the rule exists for a reason, but you don't point it out and imply that delegate stealing is an option you're willing to explore. The rule is there fro recounts, in case of a tie so that the delegates can be swayed rather than having the entire country engaged in another year of voting, not so that you can play dirty to win.
9. She ran in Michigan, campaigned in Florida, and is now trying to get the delegates seated for her. Michigan and Florida were warned and knew the consequences of going against the DNC. They broke the rules and now they are paying the price. Arguing that rule-breaking shouldn't have consequences is not a wise action for the wife of the guy impeached for immorality. As for the delegates, Clinton's name was the only one on the ballot in Michigan so there's no logical way those delegates should be seated in her favor, and Obama didn't campaign in Florida at all, which proved not that he didn't care about the voters but that he was willing to play by the rules. She claims that voters in those 2 states will be disenfranchised if their votes don't count, while at the same time she makes it known that delegates don't have to go where the votes tell them to anyway!
   

Begging For Ideas

When Tom and I registered at Toys R Us last month we found the PERFECT stroller/car seat combo. It was ROAD CONE ORANGE! It was also $160, and no one I know was going to spend that kind of money on me.

So this weekend when Tom found out it was the big city-wide garage sale, he went nuts. He was out of the house and up the street by 8:30 am. He didn't even stick around long enough to help Ryan set up the Kool-Aid stand she had planned. (She made almost $50 selling kool-aid and cupcakes, and decided to put it toward the Wii I won't get her.) He called a couple hours later and asked if he should get an Eddie Bauer stroller/car seat combo for $50, and I had to say yes.

It's black and gray, very adult and sophisticated, and boring. I like it, but it must be improved. So I am making an open call for help. Any ideas are welcome. How do I customize the stroller? I want to put one of those bicycle bells on it ( Cha-Ching) and maybe handlebar streamers, but other than that I have no idea. So I'm begging; help me pimp the stroller.

The Baby's Playlist

Songs that make the baby dance:

• Rufus Wainwright: Across The Universe
• The Ramones: We're A Happy Family
• Iggy Pop: Lust For Life
• Elvis Presley: A Little Less Conversation
• Fleetwood Mac: Second Hand News

Songs that make the baby sucker punch me in the bladder:

• Digital Underground: The Humpty Dance
• Sarah Brightman: Ave Maria
• Oingo Boingo: Weird Science
• Robin Sparkles: Sandcastles In The Sand

Songs that make the baby play dead:

• The Ramones: Teenage Lobotomy
• P.W.E.I.: Defcon 1
• Faith No More: We Care A Lot
• Lit: My Own Worst Enemy
• Weezer: Buddy Holly
  

My baby has strange taste in music. I can only assume that the more subtle notes are lost somewhere in the abdominal wall.

Could I Even Produce A Normal Baby Anyway?

My Iconic Cousin recently alerted me to the possibility that we may be missing some universal brain enzyme, some protein that makes people value fitting in and being "normal". This had never occurred to me, honestly. I mean, I don't really like to be thought completely socially unacceptable; I do shave my legs even though I hate to and see no reason for it except to avoid harsh comments and ridicule, and for the last year or so I've consistently worn a bra into public despite finding them to be very uncomfortable. I think perhaps I have, at most, a slight case of Asperger's. Like maybe I have Asperger's from before it was called Asperger's, back when it was just considered socially retarded rather than actually suffering from a syndrome. But whatever it is, syndrome or chemical deficiency, it has apparently affected my maternal instincts.

The pregnancy boards are full of posts from worried mothers looking to have their minds put at ease. Many of these women have had bad news thrown at them: holes in miniature hearts, hydrocephalic babies, severe clefts in fetal palates, and I feel so bad for them and understand their concerns. But then there are the ones I don't understand, like the lady freaking out because her ultrasound showed a possible extra finger. First off, have you ever seen an ultrasound? Half the time they can't tell a penis from an umbilical chord and they're doing finger-counts on a woman who is only 5 months pregnant? Second, it's just a finger! It's not like the kid will be born predestined to be run through by Inigo Montoya! Sure, it'll be hard to buy gloves, but how hard can it be to make a freaking glove? Trace the hand on fabric and sew the outline shut. And in some cultures people with extra fingers are worshipped. I think it would be cool to have a baby with an extra finger(s) or toe(s). Maybe not one with an extra boob or eye or something, but how many people do you meet where you would even notice anyway? I don't count people's fingers or toes so unless it was an extra thumb or if they had their flip-flop strap moved over and I happened to glance down, I wouldn't even spot it. But if it were my baby and it were a functioning digit, not just a floppy piece of meat to get caught in the play-pen netting, I wouldn't have it removed.

I don't really like the idea of performing unnecessary surgeries on babies, especially not cosmetic ones. For one thing, there are risks to putting a baby under anesthesia. How many times have you read or heard about parents who had their conjoined twins separated just so they could have a "normal" life, even if it meant they would be on dialysis or in wheelchairs forever, only to have one die from the surgery? And I have seen enough documentaries to know that if a baby is born with genitals that look to be neither here nor there, that most of the time doctors recommend rebuilding them into whatever's easiest to make with the tissue they have, regardless of chromosomes or reproductive organs. Micro-penis and undescended testicles, or enlarged clitoris and fused labia? The diagnosis often depends on what would be easiest to sculpt, with a warning from the doctor that "these babies have a 50% higher chance of being gay later on", which is code for the fact that doctors have a 50% chance of being wrong right now. I say let the kid grow up and tell you what they are and then go from there.

Yes, fix a cleft palate. Fix bowel obstructions and cleft palates and heart defects, sure. Install shunts for hydrocephalus and feeding tubes if needed and remove parasitic twins, of course. But when it's just to make a kid "normal", just to try to ensure that your baby meets your standards and expectations of what a baby "should" be, then I think you need therapy more than your kid needs surgery because you are just setting yourself up for disappointment and your kid for the pain of never living up to what you want. Because NO child will ever live up to all your dreams and wants for it. They might have a learning disorder that keeps them from getting into the college you picked for them, they might be uncoordinated and unable to fulfill your dreams of athletic achievement, they might be gay and challenge your visions of the perfect wedding and grandchildren. But certainly, at the very least, they are going to one day look at you in all seriousness, with venom in their gaze, and tell you they hate you. And if this child's purpose, surgically reinforced in infancy, is to reflect well upon you and live up to your goals rather than their own, then your world will shatter at that moment.

Really, though. Removing extra fingers? Lasering birthmarks away? What's next, nose jobs and hair plugs for babies too?

LOL WTF!

We live in a world (or at least a culture) of abbreviations. Some are universal but certain subcultures have their own too. My MIL died so DH and I left DD with his MIL and went to stay at my SIL's for a couple days. (mother in law, dear husband, dear daughter, sister in law) I happen to have learned in my lifetime certain abbreviations that perhaps aren't so incredibly mainstream, like glbt (gay lesbian bisexual transgendered), ftm (female to male transgendered), mtf (male to female transgendered), msm (men who have sex with men, even if they claim to be straight), wsw (women who have sex with women, even if they're straight too), you get the idea. Also there are certain abbreviations that most people can readily identify, like VD (old school), STD (current), STI (European, the I stands for infection), AIDS, HIV, HPV (thank you Gardisil for making that one common knowledge), etc etc etc. And of course, once you know what an abbreviation means, that's a word as far as you're concerned. I'm a SAHM (stay at home mom) and I would never read that to mean anything else, would never think perhaps that someone was claiming to be stuck alone hunting moose. Tom was OTR (an over the road truck driver) and he never once worried that people would think he was an overtime rancher. So this brings me to my latest claim to idiotic fame.

I'm pregnant, and even though it seems like everyone I know capable of being pregnant is as well I still feel the need to occasionally visit pregnancy websites. I can't help it. I want to know what is forming or developing this week and how other women due around the same time are doing. So I go to these sites and sometimes I post or sometimes I just lurk, whatever, and I've gotten pretty good with the lingo. GD is gestational diabetes, LMP is last menstrual period, BF is breast feed and FF is formula feed. But for the longest time, I thought I was on the most progressive pregnancy board available, due to the relatively impressive number of FTMs posting. There was even a thread devoted to pregnant FTMs, which I never read because I don't plan to change my sex. At first I thought this guy was online, until I realized that there was more than one person using the term. Fine, I'm an idiot. And as you've no doubt guessed long before I did, FTM means first time mother. And this isn't the first time I've gotten caught being an idiot with this pregnant lady shorthand. It took me a week and a half to figure out why one lady wanted her boss to give her STD*.
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*short term disability pay, for being put on bed rest.

I'm a symptom

So Tom tells me today that he isn't as superficial as he used to be, because he can see all the weight he's gained and he thinks he doesn't have any room to talk. He tells me this to make me feel better about the fact that my ass cheeks have grown their own ass cheeks. I laughed. I said, "So you're telling me that your attraction to me is directly related to your repulsion for yourself, that your love for me is a symptom of low self esteem?" He laughed too and complimented me on my ability to twist anything to make him sound bad. Well, I try.

Funerals and Missing Dogs

Tom's (estranged) mother died last week so we drove out to Omaha Thursday evening and came back Saturday evening. I'm not sure who the drive was harder on, me with a sore back or him having to pull over for my bladder every hundred miles. But we made it and we saw people we don't often get to see and there were no huge fights despite having six sibling, their significant others, and their children all in the same room. It was all very "Big Chill" and it wasn't until we crossed the Nebraska/Iowa state line on the way home that I realized I hadn't even gotten a Runza.

We came into town, picked Ryan up at my mother's, and came home to find two very lonely dogs happy to see us. We don't know where Cheyenne went or how she got out or how long she was gone before we got here, but she's missing. I've called the police and Animal Control and tomorrow I'll put ads in the local papers, but if she got in a fight or ran into traffic, I've just lost my puppy.

Tom had to go to Minnesota for a job and I'm not dealing well with the separation. I had really gotten used to the idea of him being home at night. Maybe it's hormones but I'm feeling really mushy and clingy lately. Yeah, I'll blame it on hormones.

Went to the greenhouse today for the first time this year. Ryan and I bought some seeds for her garden and she's pretty impatient to plant them, but we have to wait for Tom to come back and rent a roto-tiller first. Also I bought some strawberry plants for the barrel planter and a little spruce tree for the front yard. it'll be fine in a container until we find a permanent house someday; it's small and grows slow. Ryan named it Grasshopper Spruce. I wonder why she names the plants when half the time I kill them. Poor Warden Shmuley. Well, it's time for me to get to bed now. It's a school night and my back is screaming anyway. If any of y9ou see Cheyenne, let me know. I bitch about the dogs but I don't want to lose them.

I Birthed A Lab Rat

My daughter is an experiment. Scratch that. My daughter is my Grand Experiment. Maybe that sounds cold, but I think it's just honest. Every firstborn child is an experiment; you have a child and decide to test out all of your theories on how to raise a kid, with this particular kid's mental health at stake. If you're really on the ball, you realize and accept that you're not even in the business of raising a child. You're in the business of raising an adult. Children are corralled and herded, by parents and sitters and school systems. Adults are the results of the experiments and they have to be shown, somehow and by parents barely capable of it themselves, how to stick with the herd while thinking independently. It's a rough job, and you can't just scrap the experiment when it's over either.

When my daughter misbehaves, I don't spank her. If she commits a rule offense, such as being late or getting a bad grade or not cleaning her room, she gets grounded, and if it's bad enough she gets grounded to her bedroom. But if she commits an ethical offense, such as lying or cheating or gods-forbid bullying, she gets assigned a paper. So far she's only had to write 3 papers, and none really up to par seeing as how she's just a kid with little in the way of formal paper-writing training. This theory, that you can raise a better adult by assigning them anecdotal examples of their own offenses rather than using brute force or arbitrary punishments, came right out of my own head. I'm probably not the first mother to ever think of it, but I did think it up on my own nonetheless. For all I know I'm fostering a horrible distaste in schoolwork, but I honestly don't think I could do that any better than the public school system anyway. It is just part of my Grand Experiment. Also, my kid has a summer reading list, including To Kill A Mockingbird and The Picture Of Dorian Gray. And this is in addition to the vegetable garden she keeps in order to sell her wares and earn money for the county fair. I don't think every child should read Oscar Wild at age ten, but I do think more of them should. And I think that having her own little vegetable stand teaches her valuable lessons about money. Of course, last year she ended up making over a hundred dollars, so the financial burden it takes off of me during fair week is a contributing factor as well, but not the whole story. As for the books, she can read them between customers.

What makes me sad, is that the child I carry now won't be my Grand Experiment. I will have to collaborate with a fellow scientist: my husband. And he's a different sort of scientist. He feels that children should be raised with a more militaristic approach than I do, and he doesn't fell it's at all important that they learn that Napoleon was short or that Eisenhower's real first name was David or that Persephone ate half a pomegranate. I will have to share this child, and that scares the living hell out of me. In fact, it scares the living hell out of me that I am going to have to let him hold the baby, the same man who can't sit on the couch watching TV without dropping the remote.

25 weeks

I would of rather he did that then what he did do. I swear if he does it again, I'm going to loose it!

How do people who write like that ever manage to graduate middle school?!

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Ahh, now that I've gotten that rant off my chest, on to my regularly scheduled post. This pregnancy is taking too long! I am 25 weeks along, which leaves 15 left. Fifteen weeks of growing and being pummelled from within and it just seems like so long. I don't think my last pregnancy took this long. I really think there's been some alteration in the Earth's rotation, causing the days and months to stretch out. Maybe something with the moon, since we work with lunar months. I know there's plenty of things I need to do before the baby is born, but none of them are things I can do now. I need to pack the hospital bag, but I can't pack the things I'll need before then. I need to set up some place for the baby to sleep, but we don't happen to have that particular furniture just yet. And I suppose there's a baby shower to be had, but I don't have anyone planning to throw me one, except Ryan and it might be a little over her head. I kind of feel like I have three months of sitting and waiting left in front of me. I'll just keep getting bigger until I become homebound and immobile, and eventually an ambulance will come and they'll haul me out through the side of the house with a crane.

Shoulda Kept Christopher A Saint

The other day I was driving along scenic I-88 and I noticed, not for the first time, a cross on the side of the road, decorated with weather beaten silk flowers. You've seen them before, the crosses nailed together as a shrine to someone who died in an auto accident. Normally I see these things and I feel a bit of sadness for whatever poor soul was flattened on the side of the road but this one got me curious.

Why is it always a cross? Why do only Christians get run over? You never see a Star of David on the side of the road surrounded by dying roses and polyester carnations. It's never a pentagram. It's always a cross. It makes me wonder; is Jesus really the way to salvation, or just the way to a tire track across your frontal lobe?

A Day For Celebration

HAPPY BELTANE!!!!

A Book Review, Of Sorts

I have recently rediscovered my local public library. When I was a kid I used to spend whole days there in the summer, but then the library moved. Now, instead of the big cozy room with dark wood shelves and a fireplace flanked by overstuffed chairs, it is a sandstone and glass monstrosity, well lit by windows and recessed fluorescent lights, with a bank of computers and no shelf higher than eye level. And a community room, complete with a kitchen which permeates the building with the smell of burnt coffee and the latest benefit pancake breakfast. It's a horrible and plastic version of what it used to be, like Kenny Rogers's face. Even the chairs in front of the new (gas or fake?) fireplace are hard and uncomfortable. And the children's section, once a room all it's own down a short flight of stairs, is now in the same atrium-like room, right next to the counter, ensuring a no-fun librarian-shushing time for all. Combine all of this with the fact that this is a small-town library with next to no selection anyway, and you'll see why it fell out of my favor for a decade or so.

But anyway, a couple weeks ago I had a hormonal breakdown and stormed out of the house in a huff. I went for a walk and ended up at the library, wondering if perhaps they might actually have Darkly dreaming Dexter in stock, a book I'd only seen the title of before. I like the show "Dexter" and hidden amidst the credits are the words "Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay", so I thought I'd check it out. It turned out that they had it, and the next 2 books in the series. The first book, although seemingly about the same thing as the television series, has pretty much been bastardized by Hollywood. Don't get me wrong, I like the show. But if you're thinking that you can just read the book to see what's going to happen next week, like I was, then just give up now. After the second murder or so, the two storylines branch off from each other in what can only be described as a T intersection. As for the next 2 books in the series, they're good, but. . . .

Book three, Dexter In The Dark, brings too much unconnected stuff into the mix for my taste. No matter how literal Lindsay has been with the Dark Passenger, one can't help but see it as either a symptom of psychosis or as a metaphor for his urges. So, for the Dark Passenger to suddenly be granted independent thought and movement, to be explained as its own self-aware and separate being, just sort of changes the premise. Now we've gone from a glimpse into the charming mind of a functioning serial killer to a supernatural ghost story. I am, however, still looking forward to Book four, and sincerely hoping while I wait that it will be more like one and two. Let three stand on its own as an aberration, not serve as a turning point. Meanwhile, I'm off to the library. I think I'll rediscover Heinlein today.

Things I Don't Approve Of

As though it matters, here is a list of things I don't approve of. I recently got a phone call berating me for over an hour about all of the things I don that this person doesn't approve of, most of which seemed to boil down to my merely existing, so I thought I would make a list too. So, without further ado, here it is, in no particular order:

• Books on tape. If you want to read a book, read it. Why have James Earl Jones read it to you?
• Conformity. If you can't do something without 150 people doing it first, or if you have to do something because 150 people did it first, then you're a drone. All historical progress has been made by people being the first, the first to stop something or the first to try it. Conformists are just sheep without spines.
• Forceful arrogance. Sure I think highly of myself, but I don't tell other people to think highly of me too. Considering people to be failures because they live up to their own failures is the worst form of egotism. You're no more important to the world than I am; at the end of the day we're all ants in an ant farm and no one cares if your tunnel is better.
• Harry Potter movies, in principle. Finally a book series came along that actually got kids to read and some Hollywood schmuck came along and took the reading part out of it. Yes my kid has seen them all, but only AFTER she read the books. Same with Bridge To Terabithia, Harriet The Spy, Narnia, etc.
  
• Fwd:Fw:Fw:Fw: You Gotta Hear This!!! Not only is the thing I gotta hear almost definitely false, but the subject line is almost invariable followed by the email addresses of a hundred people who probably don't want me to know their email addresses. As for the subject matter: http://snopes.com/
  
• Neck tattoos. I understand if you're a tattoo artist, or in a famous rock band, or Chapter President of the Hell's Angles, but for most people a tattoo can be safely covered without any loss of dignity. As for the mother who wonders why she gets funny looks at the PTA meetings, it could be the two dimensional python licking at your jugular.
• Political baby clothes. A baby in a pro-life onesie isn't cute, it's a dirty trick. No one is going to believe that a child actually formed an opinion and chose to wear it on a shirt, and most people are going to resent such an obvious sympathy ploy. The "I love my 2 daddies" sleepers are slightly better, in that a baby probably does love them, at least as much as a baby is capable of any feelings other than distress or hunger. I tend to see the 2 Daddies sleepers, and their 2 Mommies counterparts, as being more akin to the "Daddy's Girl" bibs. But still, making a kid into a poster is kind of opportunistic. And please don't try to tell me who your kid wants me to vote for. My kid likes Obama, but even I know that's because she hears positive things about him from me, not because she's researched his stance on the issues important to her.
• People who know the "right" number of children to have. Either it's "I could never have an only child; who would they play with?" line, or it's the population control angle where you should only replace yourself and the other parent, or my personal favorite, "How can you bring another person into this world anyway when there are so many babies out there without parents?" (Hey, even Angelina got knocked up a couple times.) As for the parent-replacement theory, how would that even work anyway? I know of a lady with 9 kids, does that mean 7 other people should refuse to have kids just to keep the numbers right? Wait a second, they're with 3 different guys so only five people have to stay on birth control. Of course, she's married to a guy now with no biological kids of his own, so that leaves 4 couples who can never reproduce. Then again, she does have some non-related guy claiming some of the kids already, so only 3 people without babies. But two of her kids are with my husband, and I already have a daughter, so OMG my second child is too much! Now where does that leave me with the "no only children" people? And what about that family in Arkansas?

• Creditors who start the phone harassment the day the bill is due. Is it possible that we mailed it this month instead of paying online, because your company decided to charge a fee for paying online? And if we didn't pay it, if we were that strapped for cash this month, how would 15 phone calls a day help? Is there a program we could sign up for that would pay us for every call we got from you people?

. . . . to be continued.

How To Annoy Me When I'm Pregnant

1) Use the terms "preggers" or "preggo". If you're over the age of 12, the term is pregnant, or knocked up if you feel especially crass. Adults who refer to themselves as being "preggers for the third time" sound like trash ghetto 18 year olds.

2) Compare my belly to other women's. I do that enough for both of us.

3) Ask me if I'm having twins. If I was, the polite thing to say would be "Wow! You don't look big enough!" no matter how huge I was. Unless you happen to be pregnant as well, and we have already established a long-standing "I'm bigger than you" dialogue, this is very inappropriate and, considering my fluctuating hormone levels, liable to get you smacked..

4) Lecture me about nutrition, or even just give me "that look" while I eat. I eat fresh fruit and fortified cereals so back off when I inhale a case of Nutty Bars in one day or have a cup of coffee. Oh, and the cereal is the kind marketed to adults, no cocoa fruity marshmallow stuff here.

5) Comment on how tacky the new tight maternity clothes trends are. I am facing being pregnant in August, for gods' sakes, and I am fully prepared to do my garden work in a crop top and low-rise shorts. If you don't like it, stay home in your air conditioning. As long as I don't accessorize with a cigarette and fur boots, I'm not as bad as Britney Spears and you survived that media blitz.

6) Ask me why I don't know what I'm having. Maybe it's because I don't believe in X raying Christmas gifts in November. And no, I don't care if that makes shopping harder for you. If you just have to buy me something, how about something I can use rather than some outfit the baby will only wear once. Buy me a breast pump -- they're gender neutral.

7) Ask me what names we have picked out and then criticize them.

8) Explain to me why formula is "just as good" as breast feeding. I've been through this before and even if I hadn't, I and all scientific medical evidence have to disagree with you on that. If it's what you need to believe to feel good about your parenting skills then fine, but I don't need to. Formula isn't toxic by any means, but even the Enfamil ads say that breast milk is better.

9) Ask me if I'm not just a little old to be "starting over". My daughter's only 9; it's not like we were going to be driving her up to college in the fall. And I'm only 31. Women are increasingly having kids in their forties now; it's not like the hospital staff will be torn between admitting me to either the maternity ward or geriatrics.


10) Blame all my moods on hormones. Hormones amplify moods; they don't create them. I might overreact to something, but there has to be something to set me off in the first place and if it's that you're being a butt, then my bursting into tears doesn't make you any less of a butt.

11) Ask me how much weight I've gained. Unless you're my doctor or you're pregnant too and comparing notes, my weight will never ever be any of your business. Period.

Shopping & Scanning

Well we finally did it. Tom and I took a trip down to the cities and registered at Babies R Us. It was strange, I had expected him to have more opinions. The only things he seemed to care one way or the other about were yellow blankets. He said we had enough green. Oh, and I couldn't register for anything blue, as though a girl can't use a blue blanket too. But I did slip some blue sheets past him; they went with the pack 'n play. But otherwise, he seemed perfectly content to hold the scanner gun and shoot everything I handed to him. My dream jogging stroller (the kind with 3 really big wheels that won't get caught when I cross the railroad tracks) got bumped off the list when I realized that there wasn't any way to comfortably put an infant into it, so instead we scanned a bright orange car seat and stroller combo package. The orange is kind of a road cone color but I like it. It'll keep my baby safe during hunting season and besides, I'm a strange one anyway. Plus, hunting vest orange is manly enough that Tom might even think about walking the baby every once in a while, and it has a parent's cup holder too and lots of storage underneath. Other than that, we scanned the usual stuff: crib, high chair, exersaucer, breast pump, diaper genie, baby washcloths Tom had never even heard of. We left off things like baby soap and lotion. We kind of figured that if people are going to spend money on us it might as well be on stuff we won't have to replace in a month.

We also went to the maternity store in the mall down there, so I could get some much needed articles of clothing. In addition to the much-neededs I got some tank tops too. Hell, if I'm going to be huge pregnant in August, I'm not sticking with elastic empire waist tents. I got plain ribbed tank tops and if my protruding belly button pokes through then so be it; I'll feel sorry for any toddlers I blind.

Fetal movement, ultrasound, and obstetrics bills aside, I feel somehow more pregnant now that I've registered for baby gifts in an actual store (as opposed to Amazon.com). I guess it's a symptom of our capitalist society that this is what it takes to truly feel like a mother. Sad, isn't it? Now, go feel sorry for me and buy me stuff.

Hormones + Politics = Bitchy Post. Sorry

I am so pissed off about politics lately. Jimmy Carter wants to talk to Hamas, a militant terrorist organization standing in the way of peace in the Middle East. The Bush administration goes on record as being firmly against any peaceful discourse with Hamas and Condy Rice says she finds it "hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is in fact the impediment to peace." This is basically the same thing Hillary pulled when she jumped Obama's shit for promising to talk to enemy leaders during the first year of his presidency. Apparently US policy seems to be to give enemies the silent treatment rather than try to talk anything out. Yes, talking things out may seem like a pretty naive solution, but it's better than sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "Lalalalala I can't hear you!" After all, it's worked so far with Cuba.

Obama made the observation that some people in middle America are bitter, jaded by the way things have gone for so long, and that they cling to guns and religion because of it. McCain, candidate for the bitter guns and religion party, of course jumped all over him for it. But so did Hillary! She called him elitist and arrogant for it, and then she told a story about shooting guns and downed a shot of whiskey in a bar. Of course, it was Crown Ryan whiskey, a Canadian brand. Nothing less than imported booze for our All-American gal. It's not like America has any well known brands of whiskey, after all. (Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Southern Comfort . . .)

It's just, we finally have a candidate who's willing to talk about these things, that people are bitter, that it's time we try to solve our international differences rather than invade or bomb them away, that perhaps black and white people have racial issues. And Hillary is so self-obsessed, so bloodthirsty, that she can't step down for the good of the party (Hell, for the good of the nation!) and let this once in a lifetime candidate run against McCain and McCain alone. I expect to get pissed off by Bush, and by extension I expect it from McCain too, but Hillary? She's wrecking the Clinton name worse than Bill ever did. He tried to fuck an intern; she's trying to fuck the country.

A Sad Day For Our Children

I had hoped the next generation would be spared this evil. My hopes are dead now. The saddest part? I can name them still, on sight.

Rock Star Mom?

I think I'm having a mid-life crisis, which is really sad because that means I'll only live to be 62. Maybe it's just a mid-pregnancy crisis, but either way it kind of sucks. I feel old and despite knowing it would just look foolish and desperate, a large part of me wants to rebel by acting young. Not acting young in a "take a class, learn something new, live for today" sort of way, but in more of a "dress completely age-inappropriate and listen to loud music and be cool" kind of way. Yes, cool in italics, which is way too hard for a pregnant 31 year old housewife to pull off. I envy my friends who know themselves, the ones who are equally at ease in make-up and heels or in spit-up and sweats. Me, I'm always second-guessing myself. Some part of me is stuck in Jr High, wondering if the kids are going to laugh at me because I have a tweed car coat and this season it's all about leather bomber jackets. I'm like Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. I'm a dork. And worse, I'm a dork with stretch marks and bad tattoos.

I want to be goth. Maybe not Abby Sciuto goth, but a little Mary Alice Yeskey goth would be good. I think I was goth before it existed. I was grunge, although sadly I looked more like Dave Mustaine than Claire Danes, but I still rocked the plaid flannel. But now there's so much more out there! Skulls and 1950s cherry prints, and Doc Martens even come in neon green now. How cool is that? It's not that I want to wear corsets and fishnets and neon green Docs around town, but boots under my jeans, or some skulls on my Converses, that would be okay. Maybe a black bag with lots of buckles, or a vintage Ramones tee under a denim jacket. Yes, I'm married to a Nebraska Farmboy who can't tell Godsmack from Gwen Stefani, And yes, he has characterized my taste in music as "not heavy metal, not soft rock, maybe medium metal?", and for me to go all goth on him, or even just shell out the cash to buy a pair of Doc Martens, would probably send him into an early grave, but I still feel the need to resist soccer-mom obscurity.

This is the life I want, the life I've always wanted, to be a wife and mother and drive a minivan. I guess I just thought that I'd be a cooler wife and mother, and drive a cooler minivan, maybe one without stock speakers.

Only Stupid People Are Breeding

I kind of like being pregnant, and I like blogging about it. But I am finding that I have less and less tolerance for other pregnant women. I read, and post on, a pregnancy message board, sort of an online gestational community, and I have to say that there are some idiots out there breeding. My main peeve, though I would never say anything on the boards about it, people stick their kids with some awful names. Not the Colins and Coltons and Avas and Marissas. But Nevaeh? That seems to be a real popular one, across racial and ethnic divides lest anyone think it "sounds black" (which was actually a comment I read). Why is Nevaeh so popular? Because it is Heaven spelled backward, which is just so pretty for a baby girl, apparently. Me, if I wanted to go for an angelic name, would pick Angel, or maybe something biblical. Heck, even Gabriel would be better for a girl, but I'm partial to boy names for girls anyway. And what's with arbitrarily adding the letter Y to names anyway? I thought it was loopy when people started spelling it Bryan, but now there's Dawsyn, Allysyn, Krystyn, Jennifyr. It's like people sit there and say "How can we ensure that our child's name is constantly misspelled, mispronounced, and that she has to introduce herself and explain it at the same time?" "Hi, I'm Jenni with an I," is one thing, but "Hi, I'm Allysyn with two Ls and two Ys," seems excessive to me.

I have nothing against ethnic names. I don't care what cultural name you give your baby to keep him in touch with his roots, religious or racial or otherwise. However, I do think it's almost unforgivably selfish to choose random moronic names. It's an abuse of power. Someone should have kicked Nicolas Cage in the balls for naming his son Cal El. Yeah I know, it's superman. So name the kid Clark Kent if you can't outgrow your comic book. This kid will have to live with the name for at least 18 years and while he can claim to be Cal L. Coppola, the world and all future employers will know the truth, that he is genetically descended from idiots. Same with Rob Morrow naming his daughter Tu (a pun, really?) and Gwyneth Paltrow naming her baby Apple.

I know some people have a problem with me naming a girl Ryan, but I did NOT name her Chewbacca or Himalaya or Tila Tequila. I chose a real human name which when written backwards spells on a name written backwards, not some word that makes no sense spelled backwards. Nevaeh. Shit, why don't I call my kid Legna? It's Angel spelled backwards. As the song says, I've been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding. A song which, by the way, came out the last time I was pregnant.

Kicks, Weeks and Arbitrarily Assigned Gender

I call the baby "he". I don't know what it is, but I suspect it's a boy so I call it he. Plus, in our backwards patriarchal society, words like "he" and "him" are the default anyway. The main reason I suspect the baby is a boy, against all logic or reason, is that the close-up picture from the ultrasound looked sort of masculine to me. Yeah, I know. Even with skin, babies don't look masculine or feminine anyway, which is why any baby with short hair, no matter how many frills or ruffles it wears, gets called a boy by strangers. But still, I am somehow sure that this is a boy, just like I was ten years ago when I knew Ryan was a boy. She hates that story, by the way. So last night, lying in bed but not ready to fall asleep yet, Tom and I were talking and he had his big fat heavy hand on my belly and the baby was kicking him. Repeatedly. In the same exact spot, which is odd because it's usually not that predictable. But sadly, Tom couldn't feel even the hardest whacks from within. I'm forced to try to explain what it feels like to me so that maybe he can understand. Bubbles popping, so in that sense he feels like gas. Or you know when you get a muscle twitch but it's just in one spot, like one pinpoint jerking on your arm? It feels like that. But it's different, because with a muscle twitches you can flex the muscle to stop it, and with gas you can sort of feel it coming on, but this is so completely unconnected to you, because it's not your body doing it. It's someone else doing it so there's no warning and no flexing or moving to stop it either, not that I particularly want to stop it anyway.

On a side note, I am 140 days along now, exactly half way through my pregnancy. Twenty weeks, which I choose to view as five months, lunar calendar be damned, is a milestone. I get to turn to the next chapter in my copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting. It's a big day.

Names

We already have a boy name, but we're stuck on a girl name, including the spelling of one possibility, so we need help. Vote and let us know what you like. Also, comment here if you have ideas not on the list.

Caffeinated Fetus

I like the occasional coffee drink. Not black Folgers like my mother drinks all day, but a cappuccino or even just a flavored black coffee. I had made it known that I wanted an espresso machine with a frother for Christmas last year, before I knew I was pregnant and couldn't have all the caffeine, and I not only got one from Ryan but I also received a French press from my brother. Yesterday, in the mood for coffee and citing studies which state that a cup or two a day isn't bad enough to do damage to a fetus, I made a pot in the press. Since it's a 14 oz press, it only makes about a cup and a half of the smoothest Swiss almond chocolate coffee I have ever tasted. I made myself two pots, about 3 cups, which isn't that much for most people but for someone who hasn't had caffeine in about 4 months and whose pregnant body metabolizes it slowly, it was enough to leave me bouncing and vibrating all evening. And it got me my first kicks.

Yes, all it took was a massive overdose of caffeine and and what must have felt like an earthquake ridden womb, to get my baby kicking hard enough for me to feel it. All. Damned. Night. Also, unrelated to the kicking but certainly not to the coffee, I had some really strange dreams last night. Tom as a serial killer? I need to quit watching so much Dexter.

"....surrounded by alien milk people."

I suppose an update is in order, although I don't have much to say. I am still waiting to feel any kicking but I probably won't for another couple weeks yet. Sometimes I think there's something going on down there, and it doesn't always turn out to be bubbles, but I'm afraid I'm just trying too hard. Maybe it is fluttering, maybe it's my imagination. Either way, I'll feel kicks soon enough, and then Ryan and Tom can feel them too. On a funny note, I've started lactating and Tom is thoroughly disgusted. He's so cute when he's naive. He thinks he knows how these things happen and then something as silly as a little colostrum pops up and he's floored. I hope we have a boy and he lactates too. Tom will be convinced he's surrounded by alien milk people.

I Caved . . .

. . . and ate the hot dog. Sauerkraut, while still tasting primarily of vinegar and salt, is slightly more palatable if warmed in a frying pan with some garlic. Otherwise, just as disgusting and satisfying as it was the other night. This time, though, I used spicy mustard instead of yellow.

Alien Appetite

I have food cravings. For instance, I hate sauerkraut. Can't stand the stuff. And I don't eat hot dogs. I have no idea what they put in them but I have a friend who works at an Oscar Mayer plant and she tells me to avoid them. A couple nights ago I made Tom buy me hot dogs and sauerkraut in the middle of the night. I had visions of Chicago street vendors in my head and I cooked and ate the hot dog, piled high with kraut. The next day I woke up wondering what the Hell I'd been thinking. Tonight, I fight off the urge to go make myself another one. This baby is strange. Also, I think it looks like either a Roswell alien or the Grateful Dead lightning bolt skull. What do you think?