Fabulous Miss S.

A fetus grows here

Marc wasn't home tonight so I had some time to kill.  I took a long walk with Hines to get some exercise and chatted up some neighbors. 

They told me that our homes are experiencing the 5-year meltdown.  They are across the street and this malady seems to be working its way around the winding neighborhood row by row.  By my guess, we have about six months until all hell breaks loose and plaster starts to fall and the sprinklers go on without warning or reason.  Oh, and the damn gutters. Every time it rains water pours over the gutter and onto the deck.  Something about a tree growing on the roof.   

I did some laundry, vacuumed most of the house, watched Survivor, showered, baked cookies, caught three of the cats eating the cookies and cleaned up the kitchen. 

I also decided to go through some old pictures and put together this little montage-y thing-y to see the growth and expansion as such. 

Here's a little photo story of the last 27 weeks of my life.  I'm not proud of the way I look in some of the photos.  I did gain a little too much weight too soon and I haven't deprived myself of anything that I wanted.  I rationalized that I've worried and hated my weight for 27 years and finally I had a time in my life where I could enjoy food and not worry about the results.  I eat pretty well, I just also eat too much and I enjoy all of my favorite junk foods like Cheetos and Oreos, soft pretzels and slice and bake cookies.  And! Oh! Candy corn. Mmmmm. I have outweighed Marc for three months and will outweigh my Dad in eight more pounds.  I'm very motivated to get back into shape but I'm loving the freedom to embrace my body, every last pound. There were times when I just felt so fat and chubby, in fact, I love my big baby belly right now.  I have 13 weeks left to go, possibly a little less, I'm full term in 10 weeks.  Eeeek!

Last night I was laying in bed talking to Marc but staring directly at my stomach to catch a glimpse of the kicks that make my stomach change shape, I call this the belly dance.  Literally, my belly looks like it is dancing.  Suddenly, I covered my eyes and screamed "NO! NO! NO! NO! OHMYGOD NO!!!" 

And when I stopped thrashing my legs and uncovered my eyes, I looked directly at Marc and announced that I had an official stretch mark. 

Upon closer inspection, I saw that my "stretch mark" was actually a very slight scab left over from where I opened the door into my stomach last weekend causing the door latch to scrape across my entire abdomen as though it didn't stick out an extra foot. 

Relieved, I applied extra tummy butter.

CURRENT STATS:

Weeks Pregnant: 27

Stretch Marks: 0

Waist size: 44 inches

Pounds gained so far: 30

A PREGNANCY IN PICTURES:

7 weeks:

9 weeks:

17.5 weeks, and some bad poison ivy:

18.5 weeks:

20 weeks:

23 weeks:

23.5 weeks, because I took a lot of pictures that week:

26 weeks:

27 weeks:

   

Internal mommilogue

It's been a-long-while since I've posted and my readership has officially dropped to those unlucky few who click on my link by accident on their way over to someone else's blog who actually updates with regularity.

I've had several rounds of in-laws staying with us and several Rosh Hashana related events to attend.  Lucky me, these activities involved lots of sitting and lots of eating.  Both of which I take very seriously and excel at with greatness.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about my baby, who has plans to arrive this December.  As much as I like to plan; he doesn't yet understand that OCD can be a good character flaw trait.  Therefore, I have no idea when in December he plans to make his arrival.  This irks me.  How am I supposed to make sure I leave my job two weeks before his birth, thereby ensuring myself one week to clean the house, wash, fold and iron his baby clothes (yes, I know this is insanity at its best, however, humor me please, once he does arrive, his clothes may not even make it through a full dryer session before I hurriedly put them right back on him only to have them spit-up on, peed on or diaper-leaked on again very soon), finish his room, pay extra attention to the dog, catch up on an entire Fall season of Tivo'd shows and have an entire week to rest and relax and think pretty thoughts before I ... go into labor. 

You see my dilemma?

I have learned one thing from years of a masked anxiety disorder and 27 years of living on this earth: Whatever I plan is for shit.  Nothing will go as I anticipate.  I'm having a baby you say, I should roll with the punches?  I'll master that one just as soon as I am able to roll over in bed again without the assistance of my husband, three pillows and a host of grunting noises one isn't usually privy to outside of a barnyard.

The dreaded other question looming over my head right now is how long will I have off with my preshus baby before I have to succumb to the horridness of day care and a consumerist mortgage-driven economy and tearfully and heavily sedated-like, go back to work?

That comment right there just ignited fires across the country as stay-at-home-mothers cheered me on for cursing the evil that is leaving your child with someone else in a germ-infested day-care to learn god-knows what and be exposed to the awfuls of the world.  And, in another corner, not far away, a happily working-mother just added one point to her tally in assuring that women don't give up their careers and jobs and independence because of a child.  I say, fuck you, to both actually.

The truth is, I have no career.  I never did.  I never wanted to work actually.  I just never had a desire to work in a career-type, professional world.  It didn't appeal to me.  Don't confuse this with wanting to be a lazy-ass bum.  I have always had a host of causes I would like to work for and many projects that could busy a person for a lifetime.  None of these however involved supporting a CFO, lugging a laptop around downtown-DC in eighty-five degree August heat and humidity, worrying about my benefits and paychecks and when a report was due and those invoices! OhGOD. 

I'm here now, a college graduate who has worked as a library assistant, a nanny, an elderly caregiver, an Administrative Assistant and more recently, an Executive Assistant to several CFOs and company presidents.  I have learned about library catalogs and procurement processes in the federal, commercial and non-profit sectors, I can edit proposals, prepare and manage spreadsheets, understand and discuss budget periods and government contracts, and how not to violate federal contract law.  I can process a company's payroll and solidly converse with the Board of Directors.  I can negotiate contracts for meeting space and maintain the benefits for a small company.  I can write letters to Congress and get them delivered in a day, create a filing system out of an empty cabinet and blue folders and write a transition plan in the case that a high level executive resigns.   I also still ask every visitor if they want a cup of coffee or a glass of water.   

In less than ten years of working I have tripled my first salary that I was dreadfully proud to have secured but didn't even cover my rent. Thank-you Mom and Dad.  I have created a niche for myself.  I have learned skills that compliment my cheerful attitude and I still continue to learn each day.  I still don't have a career and I don't care.  I never wanted one.  Remember? 

I have wanted to be a mother since I was, like, nine years old. I have just always known how to hold a baby and change a baby and soothe a baby.  There is nothing more rewarding than playing simple games with a toddler and watching them respond to you as their only stimulation in the world.  Having the trust of a small child is possibly one of the greatest gifts in this life. 

The road of pregnancy does not lead you directly or anywhere near the blissful simple joy of which I speak.  Pregnancy is hard.  It puts thirty pounds on your already ten-pounds-too-heavy frame. It makes your back sore and your knees and pubic hair disappear into an area you can only assume is where you last left it.  It challenges your friendships and makes a stronger marriage (if you are lucky), it tests your ability to save and budget and plan for the future (as if!), and changes the way the world sees you, forever.  Pregnancy makes you a parent.  It makes it impossible for you to hear a news story about a three-year old rape victim, or watch a protesting mother of an Iraq-war causality dragged out of a Congressional hearing because you can r-e-l-a-t-e and the horror, ohholygod!

Pregnancy does not prepare you for all the changes to your life, it just gives you nine months to adjust and make plans that will inevitably, be broken.

I plan to stop working on December 7th. 

I will be a very full 37 weeks pregnant and carrying a very much full-term baby.

That day is eleven weeks from today.

I always thought I would be thrilled to leave my job behind, the two and a half hours-that-too-often-become-a-full-three hour commute each day, the putting up with total bullshit and following orders and staring at one more damn untraceable invoice, but, actually, ...I'm having mixed feelings.  I will be moving on to something so much greater and more rewarding than a lifetime of jobs could ever bring, but somehow that doesn't calm the nagging feeling that I've worked for something and this might be the end.  I'll be a mother. We all value mothers. Yeah, whine, blah blah blah.  But there is something gratifying in putting on a suit each morning and having older men take you seriously and rely on your work to get a job accomplished.  There is something satisfying in watching your salary increase. 

As prepared as I am to give this up, I didn't expect to feel pangs of ... sadness. 

The reality of my world is a mortgage that needs to be paid.  My return to work is totally governed by that fact alone, no more, no less.  Some days it makes me scream and pull at my hair and cry until I can cry no more and why did we buy this house when we could have moved to the middle of Nebraska and bought a home for like, pennies?   

And then yesterday, an old co-worker told me there might be an opening for my kind of job sometime early next year, or rather "right about the time that might work for you" and suddenly the gears in my brain began turning faster and faster daycare ... check, no sleep, but I'll live on caffeine... check, a very different financial situation than I was planning on... check, actually saving money for college not just for next week's groceries... check.  Many women go back to work right after popping out a child. Hell! While I was writing this I got a call to reschedule an appointment because my midwife was scheduled to induce someone next Friday.  (I thought with a midwife you were of the let nature run its course-school of thought.)

And then, the gears came to a grinding, squeaking, stinky-brake smelling halt as I realized that I am not on the waiting list at any daycare centers, that I don't like caffeine, that I might miss my child's three-month check-up and that is NOT okay, that I do not believe in paying money for formula when I can produce food for my child with my god-given breasts, that I am committed to breast-feeding for a minimum of six months (it would be 12 months it if weren't for that fucking mortgage thing) before considering alternatives and that I want nothing more than to see each moment of my baby's life, that I have spent the last six months dreaming of the Spring mornings that we will walk, him babbling just below my chin in the baby-bjorn carrier, me, with good running shoes on, we'll take Hines with us and go for super long 2-mile walks and watch the new leaves grow on the trees and I'll lose my already 24-pounds of pregnancy weight, and then we'll come home and nap and we'll make dinner and wait for Marc to come home and kiss us both on the forehead and revel in the peaceful joy that is, our family. 

And I'll be valued and needed in a way I have never been depended upon before. 

And I will forget that I used to feel a little bit more important when I walked around with a blackberry attached to my purse because I will now have a baby attached to my hip. 

And I will have become a mother who had a life before she had a baby and  who will have a life afterward, it just hasn't been determined yet and it will have to be created along the way. 

And I am okay with that.

And maybe I will finally write that book...

Labor Day weekend, retold two weeks later

I am a wee bit tired.

'Twas a loooong weekend.

I did a lot of chores. Chores that pregnant women don't usually do. That's why I'm not posting the pictures Marc took of me while I was on the ladder!   

The major home-sprucing event began on Sunday morning with a trip to the dump.  We dumped an old sofa, a disgusting trash can that the previous owners left behind and a few pieces too large to hide in big black trash bags.  What?

Then, we went and bought a grill box for the cats to play in.  And you too can have a big box, for a mere three hundred dollars.  The pets? I'm telling 'ya!  They LUV it.

Me? I just got this bad boy:

Hines likes it too because there is more opportunity for yummy things to fall into his world.

Our new Weber Performer is like having a kitchen outside. For some reason it is very satisfying to cook over open fire.  Marc bought me the grill and I will cook him lots of meat.  That's our deal.  And it works for us.

We woke up Monday morning all rested and Marc began complaining that all of our house projects are for me.  So, being the good wife husband that I am, I dragged him to Home Depot for supplies to accomplish this:

And then when I was finished, I did this:

 

The flag pole? I mounted it. Screws into the mortar. I'm tough, eh?

It is September. The time of year that brings the start of school and the end of summer and more darkness and long nights.  I love the fall and I hate HATE the heat and humidity, especailly now, twenty-five eight pounds heavier than ever before, but I am still sad that summer is over.  I don't like the change and I don't accept it well.  Perhaps it would be easier if I knew exactly when it was coming, not, sometime between now and November.  Know what I mean? I am loving these cool nights we are having, when you can open the windows and breathe that fresh crisp air. 

I'm excited to not get so damn hot and to be able to walk outside and breath the cool air.  I excited for the changing leaves and for being in my house for one full year, and for the holidays coming up.  Oh, and I'm probably going to have a baby in December.  Probably. Unless he gets too comfortable and decides to forgo the tax deduction that we get if he appears before the ball drops at midnight on the 31st.  Shall we tell him that the deducted cash will go directly to his college fund?  No?  Too soon for the Jewish college fund guilt? 

And the best addition to the house, in my opinion, is this, the very beginning of a nursery, a room that will bring me much anticipated joy, later this year:

It gets better ... just this morning I found this, Gromit asleep in the crib and Hines asleep in the carseat. 

 

The story behind the guaranteed muffins

Early in my pregnancy I asked my midwife about the inevitable constipation.  It was actually a welcome relief to only shit a few times a week. 

I'll spare you, this entry is not intended to be an ode about my bowel habits, but rather, what you can do about yours!

My midwife told me about All-Bran, a rather gross cereal to eat alone with milk, but a miracle ingredient when made into muffins.  Especially when you add in a few special ingredients.

The Original All-Bran Muffin Recipe

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups Kellogg's All Bran cereal

1 1/4 cup fat free milk

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

I made the muffins a few months ago when my father-in-law was visiting and I promoted them by saying that eating one guaranteed a result.  I haven't been proven wrong yet! They taste good, they are not overly grainy or filled with fiber. You can add fruit and flavoring because the bran alone is rather bland.

I said the muffins tastes good, but you can really add some protein, nutrients and even more fiber and taste by exchanging and adding a few ingredients.  For example, replace the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour.  Add one or two mashed bananas, raisins, cranberries, dried blueberries, shredded carrots, and flax seed.  I have added a mixture of some of the above with the exception of the carrots.  I also add a few dashes of cinnamon and a about one teaspoon of vanilla extract. 

We now call these guaranteed muffins because a result is guaranteed. 

Try it, I dare you.

Oh, a warning, if you are 25 weeks pregnant and your intestines have temporarily relocated to a whole new part of your body, and you happened to eat a lot of Cole slaw (raw cabbage) a few days ago, I do not recommend eating two muffins within twenty-four hours of each other.  Please, just take my word for it.   

My bohemian side steps forth once again

Marc and I made a baby registry and we're having a big family picnic baby shower in a few weeks.

I haven't registered for a diaper bag. 

I know! Stop throwing things at me!

I completely refuse to register for a bag, a bag that will hold diapers, clean and dirty, and get all filled with cracker crumbs and the smell of baby wipes that costs $150. 

Dear Consumer-Driven Society : I give you the proverbial finger because I simply cannot spend or allow someone I know to spend that much money on a stupid fucking bag.

Okay?  Do you understand why I am so exasperated?  No?  Oh ... allow me to explain. 

See, babies cost money.  It all begins with paying your insurance co-pay at every visit and that adds up very quickly, almost before you can say, I wanted to spend that sixty dollars on cheeseburgers, bagels and donuts, but shit!

And then there are cribs and sheets, clothes, diapers, creams, ointments, powders, soaps, lotions, room decor, swings, seats, seats that bounce, seats that strap, highchairs, booster chairs, car seats, carriers, slings, swings that hang from door frames, teething rings and bottles, all with extra lead and plastic-born chemicals, of course.

For the record, I really am fine with buying all of that stuff. I am not, however, fine with paying over one hundred dollars for a diaper bag.  I mean, you can get them for free at the hospital - they do give you one sometimes.  There is also Target. But I am not registered there.  And EBay.  On EBay I can get a Kate Spade diaper bag for a mere split fraction of the cost of this one, so what if it is made for daddy, and has special spoon holders and a total of ten pockets!

This is what ten fabulous pockets looks like.

Okay, so the ten pockets thing sort of lures me a little.  But!  ME?  OCD?  I would spend all day checking my ten pockets for my cell phone and baby wipes.  No one needs TEN pockets. Anywhere.

Or, as a good friend pointed out to me, a Vera Bradley bag?  On EBay of course. Totally affordable.

See? Just less manly. I wonder if the NFL makes one? They totally SHOULD.