Chaos Personified

Sleep Interrupted

2009-07-11T21:58:00.002-04:00

A bit of normal sleep deprivation is to be expected as a parent of a newborn/infant/toddler. And it's normal to worry about your child, especially at night when you might not be conscious 24/7 to watch over them and ensure their safety.

At dinner tonight, this is what I had to tell myself when the Guy confessed the awful dreams that are colliding with his reality..

"I keep having dreams where I'm holding her. And I wake up, but I'm still half-asleep, and so I still think I'm holding her. And I turn and put her down on the bed. Then I'll turn to the nightstand to look at the clock or something, and when I turn back, she's gone. So in my half-asleep state, I start pulling up the covers and moving the pillows, and last night, I even tried to wake you up. And in the middle of yelling at you to wake up cause I lost her in the sheets, I turn and she's sleeping in her cradle. And this stupid thing keeps happening, night after night! It's freaking messed up!"

The description made me feel so bad for him, especially knowing that I totally slept soundly through his freakout last night and never once heard him yell out for me.

Overcome with Illness

2009-07-07T22:19:00.004-04:00

I never once assumed becoming a parent would be easy. And 12 days later, I would never think to suggest such a thing.

But what I have found interesting is that what I thought would be difficult hasn't been so bad, but there are things I never in a million years would have anticipated that take me by surprise.

On the 4th day, for instance, I had one such surprise. The hospital I gave birth at is ridiculously awesome (in my opinion as a patient), and as part of their patient care, they allow the mother and baby to return to the hospital 48 hours post-discharge to check their vitals and allow the mother/parents to ask questions that they never would have thought to ask while in the hospital (namely because nursing staff working "behind the scenes" maybe took care of things that may have gone unnoticed until it came time to do them at home). Lulu and I went for our check-up and got a clean bill of health all around.

So imagine my surprise when, a mere 3-4 hours later, I had developed a fever, was projectile vomiting, and basically was slipping in and out of consciousness. (I wasn't really unconscious, but aside from feeling craptastic, I truly couldn't tell you much about what happened while I was sick because when I wasn't up to barf, I was passed out in my own sweat.) As I said to my mother when I was starting to feel better, I know I wanted to lose my pregnancy weight quickly, but losing 5 lbs and approximately 24 hours is just ridiculous. And not only did it totally suck physically, but my emotions were totally haywire from giving birth anyway. So basically every time I was awake, I started crying about how I'm the worst mother in the world because I couldn't take care of my daughter at all. (I could barely stay awake, so I couldn't risk holding her, lest I accidentally drop her, and I pumped as often as I could, but there definitely was one point during the middle of the night when I could not physically move, and my husband had to feed her formula.) Right, my point is, it sucked big time!

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what happened to me to go to that state so quickly. I have a theory, but I also have no way to prove that theory since, as far as I can tell, I've been better for days. Basically, it's this: I had flu-like symptoms, and the only thing that I can find relating to giving birth and having flu-like symptoms is mastitis (thank you, Heather Armstrong at Dooce.com, for blogging about it yourself over the last couple of days, and thank you, Mayo Clinic, for your incredibly helpful info). The thing is, though, as far as I can remember, I never developed a red mark on my breast. However, the way I "treated" my illness was basically, word for word, how they suggest it in the "Self-care remedies" section. So I never had the antibiotics at all, but it's possible that I might have gotten the infection/blocked duct to clear itself.

Blocked ducts, of sorts, are apparently the thing to have around these parts. Shortly after I started feeling better (a few days later), it was Lulu's turn to make her mom worry. Nothing remotely as severe, thank God, but I didn't know that when it first started. Her eyes were tearing up constantly on the 4th of July. I kept cleaning them out. But I was in for a bit of a shock when we all woke up for her 6 AM feeding on July 5th and her eye was practically sealed shut. It seemed like little baby pink-eye. As far as I knew, no one had any sort of eye problems at the picnic the day before. But it was just so bad that I had to have the Guy call her pediatrician's on-call doctor. The on-call doctor informed us not to worry because, from the description, it sounded like one of two things. It was either a blocked tear duct or an infection. She told us not to panic, keep cleaning it, and call the office first thing Monday morning. So that's what we did. After getting an appointment for a couple of hours later, we found out that it was actually both a blocked tear duct and an infection. Essentially, because we were unaware of her blocked tear duct (and therefore, didn't know that we had to massage it to force the tears out), her eye developed a non-contagious infection that had gunky build up similar to pink-eye without the redness. A little eye ointment for 5 days, and Lulu will be back to normal. (Heck, she's already tons better!)

I thought that the inconsolable crying and the midnight feedings were going to be the hard part. And don't get me wrong, when they happen, they're not that pleasant.

But I look forward to the day when the only pill bottles on the counter are for vitamins, not prescription medications, that's for darn sure!

Pretty in Pink

2009-06-25T14:07:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 2:07 PM*, I gave birth to a stunning little baby girl. For the sake of people's anonymity on this blog and also the fact that her dad will kill me if I post her name (for a guy who owns a computer company, he truly thinks that the internet is some sort of conspiracy for all sorts of shady activity), let's just call her Little Lulu.

Surprisingly, this kid has been easy from start to finish.

Pregnancy was 98% perfect. A little nausea, a bit of acid reflux, and some swelling in my feet and ankles since Memorial Day weekend, but honestly, nothing of consequence. And while I'm pretty sure all my relatives (mom, aunt, sisters-in-law) all want to kill me, labor & delivery was actually not too awful either. Of course, this probably has to do with the fact that from the time I got my first contraction at 5:15 AM to the time I delivered her, only 9 hours had elapsed. I had more than enough time to get my epidural (in fact, the worst part of labor & delivery was the 30-40 minutes prior to the epidural). And to top it off, I only had to push for 17 minutes. (This really REALLY bugged one of my sisters-in-law, who pushed for almost 3 hours before they finally told her that, for her own physical well-being, she needed to finally give up and have a C-section.) And now, Lulu sleeps about 20 hours of the day. Which means I actually get about 6-8 hours of sleep everyday. Not necessarily 6-8 consecutive hours, but hey, I'll take it!

I figured it would take weeks to find a routine with my baby girl, but this kid and I were so meant to be a part of each other's lives.

You know, aside from the obvious fact that I'm her mom, of course.

*Ok, so it's possible I may have backdated and timestamped this post to her date/time of birth. Sue me. I'm a new mom. I barely remember to eat sometimes, let alone blog!

I Wonder

2009-06-18T17:49:00.004-04:00

As I sit here and actually stop to think about the logistics of it, do women ever come to the conclusion that this whole concept of pregnancy, labor, & delivery is a REALLY STUPID IDEA?

Oh well, too late now.

A New Baby Boy!

2009-06-18T10:28:00.007-04:00

And no, it's not mine!

Here's a little shout-out to my brand spankin' (except you're not supposed to do that to kids) new nephew, born very very late Tuesday night.

For those unaware, one of the Guy's sisters was pregnant as well and her due date was quite literally 2 days before mine. She was induced on Tuesday afternoon for medical reasons (she's fine, the baby's fine, but they wanted to make sure they STAYED fine, hence the induction), and low and behold, out popped the 1st baby boy for my husband's side of the family!

I'll admit it. I semi-wanted to give birth to the first boy. You know, even though I have NO clue whether this kid inside me is a boy or a girl (and neither does the kid, cause every time I ask it what it is, it won't nudge me or anything to let me know I'm on the right track!). (And also, I'd like to note that I will be PERFECTLY happy if this is a little girl, if for no other reason [and there are plenty of other reasons] than they don't pee on you as much when you try to change their diaper, or so I've heard.) And even though I thought I'd be a little bit jealous when this happened (cause I've been convinced for her entire pregnancy that she was carrying a boy), I was actually overwhelmingly happy for her.

And it also made my life a heck of a lot easier. Cause after 5 nieces (who I love and adore), it gets a little difficult trying to figure out what to buy for these new babies when the parents already have things for them. Going to Kohl's and buying all the adorable little blue and brown puppy clothes that I have been wanting to buy for my own child definitely made my life significantly easier, and not to mention extremely happy. (Cause it's all about me, obviously.)

I could continue on with my regular rant of why I think puppies are NEUTRAL cause EVERYONE LOVES PUPPIES and they are NOT boy things and WHY CAN'T BABY ITEM COMPANIES GET THIS THROUGH THEIR THICK SKULLS AND MAKE PUPPY THINGS IN PINK AND/OR ON GREEN/YELLOW CLOTHING ARTICLES...but that pretty much sums it up, so I'll spare you the rest.

(Seriously, not being able to buy neutral puppy clothing/decorative items for my baby and his/her nursery has actually brought me to tears on numerous occasions in the stores.)

I believe the word you're looking for is "Anyway..."

So welcome to the world, Little T! It's not all bad, despite that nasty circumcision you had to go through yesterday, I promise!

Preparations

2009-06-09T17:57:00.002-04:00

So 38 weeks are over today. Only 2 more to go.

Maybe.

At last Wednesday's appointment, Dr. R. scared the crap out of me by telling me I was 2-3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. Her words, "With any luck, I'll see you this weekend." Totally instinctual gut reaction from me: "Well, holy crap!"

I had what I like to call a "nesting" instinct, but what everyone else probably called a major freakout. (Ok, I'll admit it. Even I call it a major freakout!) You see, I have this list. It's a list of things I have to purchase prior to the baby being born. I swear, it truly is things I need, not things I want. The majority of the stuff needs to be packed for the hospital, and the rest is stuff that will be necessary within hours of coming home from the hospital. There are plenty of things I want to have that are not on this list for a number of reasons, such as, 1) someone will probably buy it/them for me once I actually have the baby, or 2) it's something the child and I can both live without for a couple of days once he or she is actually born. Seriously, this is a "must have" list, for sure. (Even if it does have "lollipops" on it. Which, FYI, ARE a must-have, considering they're needed for labor, to keep my mouth moist from all the heavy breathing. No joke. The nurse who ran the birthing class told me to bring them.)

Well, when the doctor told me that, I lost my damn mind because I had checked off all of 3 items from this list out of, like, 20. Marathon shopping began immediately after leaving the doctor's office that night, and didn't really end until 10 PM on Thursday evening, when my mom and I quite literally closed down Target (they started shutting the lights off on us!). But basically, I was ready. I could relax and have the baby early if I needed to.

And then the baby didn't come.

This is probably (ok, definitely) a good thing, for numerous reasons, but especially beause while I get that things can change in a split second, I had a wedding to go to on Saturday and well, it just wasn't in the plans to give birth, too. I would've felt extremely terrible if it was the bride's day and then all of a sudden I was like, "Um, yeah, I'm in labor, sorry!" Plus, I've gotta tell you, it's wicked fun doing the Cha-Cha Slide at 37+ weeks pregnant, at the point when the guy goes, "How low can you go?" No one actually expects the pregnant woman to go all the way to floor, and yet, I totally did.

I'm kind of surprised the kid didn't just shoot out of me at that moment, actually.

What I Am Not

2009-05-30T00:45:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday, I will officially be 37 weeks pregnant.

However, I still will not be an animal at the zoo.

Please do not pet me. Please do not stare at me for uncomfortable, awkward 10-minute intervals.

I'm self-conscious enough as it is. It's worse when I feel like I'm on display with people who are supposed to be some of my closest friends.

I'd much rather shrink into the background, please.

A Lesson on Bravery

2009-05-18T17:05:00.002-04:00

First of all, this has nothing to do with the topic of bravery, but I have to say -- I can't believe I let it happen. I can't believe I went over a month without blogging. I mean, I know I don't have much to say, but I've never done that before. I don't know whether I'm proud of myself or ashamed of myself. (I think it's a little of both.)

Now to the topic at hand.

About a week ago, I met up with Irish and Blondie for dinner at Chili's and a movie. Being my 8-months-pregnant self (give or take), I really wasn't feeling like anything especially healthy for dinner. And that's strange, cause Chili's is the only restaurant where I actually will voluntarily order the salad. (However, I find it hard to believe that the Quesadilla Explosion is actually healthy, but whatever. It's delicious. It has vegetables. It has grilled chicken instead of fried. That's healthy to me.) But I didn't want the salad, so I opted for a very lame chicken fingers with fries. And on this note, I will comment that the Chili's Honey Chipotle Chicken Fingers dipped in ranch dressing are actually a delightful treat.

But here's the thing. Shortly after our food arrived, Irish reached over and grabbed a fry. I looked up, and smiled, and said, "That was incredibly brave of you to touch a pregnant woman's french fries." We all laughed. But then, later on in the meal, Blondie finished her healthy tilapia, but must've still be hungry cause her hand wandered onto my plate and snatched a fry too. I know I wasn't really angry at them, but at the same time, I was sitting there, whining in my own head, "But those are MY fries!"

So children, the lesson to be learned is...never touch a pregnant woman's food unless she appears full and thus has given you permission to touch said food.

I mean, I like my friends, so it all worked out just fine for all of us. But if they had been random people, they might have lost their hands.

(And also, why would random people be coming over, trying to snatch my dinner?)

Lights Out

2009-03-28T19:06:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I'm in the maternity ward at Griffin Hospital right now cause my brother, E's wife is in labor (hopefully, we'll have some good news about my niece/nephew very soon).

Meanwhile, don't forget that from 8:30 PM through 9:30 PM LOCAL TIME (whatever that might be for you; for me, it's Eastern Daylight Time), it's Earth Hour. So shut out the lights, get cozy in front of some candles or a warm toasty fire, and be all earth-conscious.

Me? I was planning on participating. And in a way, I still will be, considering I won't be home and turning on my lights. But I'm pretty sure they can't turn the lights off in the hospital (just a hunch).

Pride (Laced with Profanity)

2009-03-20T10:44:00.003-04:00

Our dog, who does not growl or bark, and is practically mute, is growling AND barking at the assholes who are taking down the tree next door.

And while, I don't care that the neighbor has that damn tree company taking down their tree (although, I question if it's really "their tree" considering it's on the property line...I personally love the tree, but whatever, the tree is going, going, gone for better or worse at this point), I'm ROYALLY pissed that the assholes taking down the tree are STANDING IN MY FUCKING RASPBERRY BUSHES AND DRAGGING THE SUPER HEAVY BRANCHES AND SHIT ALL THROUGH IT, PROBABLY DESTROYING MY GARDEN!

I'm very proud of our dog for recognizing this. And I wish I had enough balls to go out there and yell at them to get the hell out of my yard!

Procrastinator

2009-02-28T14:32:00.003-05:00

Nothing like waiting till the end of the month to update this. Frankly, there's not much to update with anyway. I'm in the midst of getting my life together for my cousin's wedding which is, oh dear, just two weeks away from today. It's nothing like getting myself ready for my own wedding, but I've been having minor freakouts cause I didn't even have my first dress fitting until, oh, Thursday. The dress was huge (thank God), so they didn't have to order any extra panels, but considering it's got 17 extra inches (exactly, how big did they think I was going to get by the middle of my 6th month?), they've basically got to reconstruct my dress.

And as for the bebe, everything is kosher, except for the fact that the little punk is giving me acid reflux. Which wouldn't be so bad, except I have to take a prescription for that now. I just hope the prescription isn't giving him/her like webbed feet or a third ear or anything. So let's pray that I don't end up with freak baby.

And I really want to go shopping, but the Guy won't let me. "Not until the nursery's cleaned out." Except, the nursery wouldn't have anything in it if he didn't start piling boxes in there instead of in our spare room. So I'm getting antsy for that, but we've still got time.

That's life in a nutshell. Continuing. Fairly boring. But happy, nonetheless.

The Christening

2009-01-30T14:45:00.002-05:00

I've spoken about it for over three and a half years, on and off.

I have been itching for a brand new car.

When the Guy and I found out we were having the baby, we started to do some serious talking about our vehicles. I drive a Chevy Prizm. It's been an incredibly good car to me, gets great mileage, has survived long trips and total open heart surgery when I busted its engine, but alas, it is small. I barely feel comfortable in it, and I really didn't feel comfortable putting a car seat in the backseat of it. The Guy? He drives a Camaro. Have you ever driven in a Camaro? Yeah, that's not really a car for a baby either (although, he repeatedly tries to convince me that a car seat would fit into his almost non-existent backseat).

We did research for, quite literally, months. We looked at safety, mileage, size, price (of course), and the Guy looked at other car-type things that I just will never understand. We went to dealerships and went on test drives. It became real. I was definitely about to get my car.

The next big decision was "What do we do with the Prizm?" Cause you never tell a guy to sell his sports car. Just something I've learned. My father informed me it was "cruel and unusual punishment," like when he had to finally give up his T-Bird. So that was out of the question . It was all down to the fate of the Prizm. We went back and forth. One week we were keeping it, cause it's fuel efficiency was great for riding around town to the grocery store. The next, we were selling, because the cost savings of the fuel efficiency (plus taxes and registration) didn't make sense anymore. There was no actual savings. Back and forth, back and forth. And the final decision was that we had no final decision. We were 95% sure that we were selling, but we weren't 100% positive yet, so until that moment, we would keep the car. At least we knew we wouldn't trade it in (they were going to offer me $800? Yeah, right; it may have a lot of miles on it, but I claim that car still has another 100K to go before it comes even close to dying).

That brought us to insurance. Essentially, we have to keep the car insured since it is still a registered vehicle, in order to avoid getting fined by the government for having an uninsured registered motor vehicle. Right. Ok, insure it. We found out we could have minimal insurance that basically kept it as active, but took away the ability to actually drive the vehicle (it has no liability or collision insurance).

So long story short, when I picked up my brand new 2009 Subaru Forester yesterday, we now have three cars in our garage, but only two are operable based on insurance coverage and laws at this time.

Awesome.

Except this morning? I had to take the dog to the vet. It was just a vaccine booster shot, and thus, no big deal. But we couldn't put the dog in the Prizm. And despite the Camaro being 10 years old, how dare I even consider putting a dog in the Camaro. And thus, I had to put her in the trunk area of the Forester.

I had the car for a little over 16 hours when the next thing happened. Ask me what happened. Seriously, I dare you. (Let's face it, I'm going to tell you anyway.)

I opened the hatch to let the dog out of the car post-vet visit, to find a lovely pile of dog vomit in the trunk of my brand new car. Thankfully, the Guy was still home and hadn't left for work yet, cause I promptly marched inside the house, and yelled, "Put on some pants, cause YOU'RE CLEANING OUT MY CAR!"

Hell, he would have made me do it had I taken the dog in the Camaro. Fair is fair.

The Great Red Sox Ticket Buy of 2009

2009-01-24T12:02:00.002-05:00

I got a phone call about 15-25 minutes ago from my brother, C. Red Sox tickets went on sale this morning and my brother is desperately trying to get some for a game around his and his wife's birthday. So he's got two computers running, trying to get out of the "Virtual Waiting Room" and get to the ticket purchasing screen. And now he's got two more, with my desktop and laptop trying to get in too.

So while I just get to sit here waiting, I figured I'd say hi. Cause really? I'm doing nothing else but sitting here in the never ending loop of the "Virtual Waiting Room," too.

Baseball fans are crazy, I think.

And hopefully, I won't be judged when I have no presents or card for my niece's birthday party tonight since I was waiting for Red Sox tickets for her daddy.

Debs Strikes Again

2009-01-19T13:34:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Jennie, I found out that today is the Most Depressing Day in All of History. Which I find really hard to believe, but hey, she didn't make it up.

But I find it disturbingly appropriate that it's my Dad's (a.k.a. "Debbie Downer's") birthday. So, you know, it kind of makes sense now. I wonder how many disaster and death stories he can manage to tell tonight at his party. Should be a good time had by all.

The Bad Kind of Dog Whisperer

2009-01-10T21:54:00.003-05:00

If I ever go up to your pet and I'm like, "Hey, what's that?!" make an appointment with your vet immediately.

So in my last post, I mentioned how I noticed the lumps under Diesel's arms that were thought to be "no big deal," and then tested positive for cancer (the doctor felt like an idiot for telling us she was 95% sure it was something benign for which I can't even remember the name now). Then I found the tumor in her eye (sort of, but frankly, someone would have noticed the incredible amount of gunk in her eye within an hour or so).

Well, on Wednesday, while working from home, I was petting Rain, and she lifted her chin for me to scratch her neck. And I look and see something that looks like scar tissue. She was a stray, plus was in the pound, plus was on a transport with other animals to get her from the pound in Kansas to her foster home in New Jersey (where we adopted her from), on which was a pitbull that apparently mauled a cat to death (8 cats made it onto the transport and only 7 made it off). Frankly, no one knew if anything had happened to her on that transport and since she seemed mostly unharmed, no one asked too many questions.

So my initial reaction was, "Hmm, probably got a little nip on her from another puppy in her litter or from that pitbull on the transport and I just never noticed." But I didn't question it too much, knowing that we had to take her to the vet today for vaccines.

So just before we left, the Guy reminds me about what I found, and I told the doctor, "Oh, yeah, while we have you here, I noticed she has this scar thing on her chin." So I lift her head and show him, and he says that it's probably nothing but it could be something for which I've already forgotten the name but has to do with mites on the skin (update: the Guy remembered it was called "Demodex"). He scraped off some cells to look at under the microscope, and sure enough, came back into the room 2-3 minutes later saying it was the mites. The good news is that whatever type of mites it is, it's not going to spread to us and her puppy immune system is going to combat it all on its own (he said only 1 in thousands of dogs actually have a problem with it that requires a medication, and the problem is due to a defunct immune system).

Anyway, so in reality, it's nothing major. Our only job is to make sure that it doesn't spread, so we've got to check her thoroughly for the next couple of weeks until her next appointment for the 2nd round of some of her vaccines.

But seriously, I seem to spot these things on dogs a mile away. And it's always the BAD thing that the doctor says is the most likely case that it won't be. So seriously, if I ever tell you your dog has something strange-looking going on, you might want to set up that appointment ASAP.

Can't Keep a Good Dog Down

2009-01-06T13:09:00.010-05:00

The following is really, mostly, addressed to my husband and anyone else in my family.

But just so you're all aware, I'm really REALLY not going to be okay when something finally brings Diesel down.

Let's recap, shall we:

In March of last year, I noticed a lump under her front leg. My parents tried to reassure me that it was just a nipple. I assured them it was not and I didn't care about the cost, I was taking her to the vet. So I did. The vet tested it, and it came back positive for cancer. She had a rather expensive surgery to have it removed, as well as one that I had found in the meantime under her other front leg.
Around late May to early June, I woke up one morning with her sleeping on my feet as she always did while I was still living with her. I didn't have my contacts in or my glasses on, but there was a weird looking glow coming from her eye. I broke into tears, and scrambled for my glasses to get a better look. Her eye was incredibly cloudy and had lots of gunk in it. After a week of eye drops to clean the infected eye, the doctors could finally see what was happening. Sort of. What they could see was that something was still obstructing the eye. It was either a detached retina or a tumor and they wouldn't be able to tell until they did surgery to remove the eye. Frankly, it didn't matter cause she needed the surgery regardless because if it was a detached retina, there could be internal bleeding and kill her, and if it was a tumor, it could get bigger and push on her brain and kill her. Shortly after my brother's wedding at the end of June, Diesel went in for another expensive surgery to have her eye removed (pirate dog), to discover she had a benign tumor (thankfully, not another round of cancer, but still not a good thing).
In light of the recent medical activity and Diesel's tendency to hate change, the decision was made that the Guy and I would not take Diesel with us when we got married, despite our original plan. We would let Diesel live out the rest of her life in peace, whatever amount of time she might have left (she's already over 12-1/2 years old). And while happy with our new dog Rain, Diesel is still my pup.

And thus, that brings us to just a few minutes ago, when I received the following e-mail from my father, with the subject line, "diesel":

hematoma in ear..yeast infection, scratched too much, blood vessels broke...lanced today, treated with antibiotic and steroids. Meds..drops twice a day 2 kinds..clean ears 3 times a week with ear wash..I think we have some, collar which she must wear total for today......[cost of procedure removed]

thursday morning she goes back...local anesthesia and operates on it like a cyst...leaves a drain in for 3 weeks. Pick her up at 4:00...she also needs a thyroid test or they wont re-issue meds... So we are probably talking about another [estimated cost of procedures removed]

but it's treatable and other than that she seems well. weight up to 42lbs.

So like I said, I really REALLY am not going to be okay when something finally brings Diesel down.

It's been a good fifteen minutes since I read that e-mail, and I can honestly say that I'm still tearing up (and I know without a doubt that hormones have nothing to do with why I'm crying). I'm upset. And I'm really pissed at myself for not even being there to know that something was wrong with her.

And So It Begins

2009-01-05T19:52:00.003-05:00

For the most part, up until this point, I haven't really felt pregnant. I mean, I know I am. And I had my couple of bouts of morning sickness. But I could clearly count those incidents on my hand, there were so few. Aside from a few doctor's visits, I have pretty much ignored that something is growing inside of me. Frankly, I don't even really notice a bump. My husband says it's there, a little bit, but my weight has fluctuated so much during my life that, to me, it looks like I am just losing the battle I started with Weight Watchers almost a year ago.

Well, last night was a little different.

You know how they say you should never go grocery shopping hungry? I say you should never go grocery shopping hungry and pregnant.

Last night, the Guy and I went to the Shop-Rite a town over to restock our refrigerator (it broke on the day after Christmas, leaving me without any delicious leftovers or really anything else except for mustard). Prior to this trip, the grand total of what I ate all day was a 1/2 bowl of Cheerios. In reality, it was probably a regular serving, but let's face facts, I fill the bowl and don't measure out a perfect cup of cereal every time. (I used to, but I say screw it now.) Needless to say, I was hungry.

As we walked through the grocery store, crowded because apparently everyone in creation stops at this particular store on Sunday evenings at 5:30-6 PM, I quickly distracted the Guy with other things and would shove random craving foods into the cart. He didn't even realize that 90% of the things made it into the cart until we got home and we were putting them away. (I heard the phrase, "Where the hell did this come from?" several times last night.) For his thriftiness' sake, this is probably the cheapest grocery store I've seen in about 2-3 years.

And thus, I give you a list of all the pregnancy cravings I indulged in purchasing last night:

Fruit Snacks (2 different kinds)
Black Beans & Rice
Carrots with Veggie Dip
Raisin Bagels with Cream Cheese
Hard Rolls and Bacon (to make Bacon & Egg sandwiches, which was our dinner last night)
Baked Doritos
Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips
Bread & Butter Pickles (cliche, I know, but I don't care, they looked delicious)
Teddy Grahams (the Honey kind)
Popsicles
Tapioca Pudding

Amazingly, I managed to talk myself out of getting ice cream sandwiches and Carvel Flying Saucers, but I told the Guy that, very soon, they will make their way into the shopping cart during a future excursion to the store.

But the Baked Doritos bag didn't even stand a chance. It was open before the car was even started, let alone out of the parking lot.

It's the End of the Year as We Know It*

2008-12-31T16:10:00.003-05:00

Um, I guess I forgot to login and say "Merry Christmas" last week. So in that case, Merry Belated Christmas, and also Happy New Year.

Have fun, but be safe tonight, folks!

*And I feel lame (for having come up with that as my title).

I May Love Rain, But...

2008-12-20T22:25:00.005-05:00

...I definitely swiped Diesel's 1st Christmas ornament from when she was a little puppy off my parents' Christmas tree this evening.

Diesel might not have come to live with me after I got married, and I may have a new dog who I love as if I've had her my whole life, but it doesn't change the fact that I still love Diesel very much and I'm sorry, Mom & Dad (who don't read this, but I'm addressing you nonetheless), but SHE'S STILL MY DOG!

Where she lives will never change that fact.

My Dog Is Weird

2008-12-19T21:13:00.004-05:00

I've been living with Rain since Sunday night. And here are a few things I've learned about this dog so far:

Rain will do anything to get on the couch. Anything. It pisses her off that we don't let her. She eyes us, hoping we'll leave the room so she can get up there.
Rain loves my mother, but hates all other visitors to the house. Not in an "I'm gonna bite your arm off" kind of way, but in an, "Oh my gosh, I hate people, and I'm going to hide in the corner until you go away" kind of way. Seriously, she cowered and backed away when my 11 month old niece crawled over to her (cause my niece LOVES pups), and my niece is like half her size!
The only thing Rain hates more than strange people is her crate. She was crate-trained. It was a no-brainer that we'd have a crate for her. And when we put her in her crate, she cried almost non-stop for eight hours (I know, because it was at night when I was trying to sleep, and needless to say, I think I heard all eight hours of it!) and promptly tore up her bedding in protest.
Rain doesn't like to eat at her bowl. Instead, she picks up five pieces of kibble in her mouth, runs out of the kitchen into my living room, where she opens up her mouth, drops the five pieces of kibble on my area rug, and then eats them one by one. Then she turns around, runs back to the kitchen, and repeats the process.
Rain doesn't like to inconvenience her people. Instead of barking or whining for us to take her out for a walk tonight, she promptly went into our basement while the Guy and I were upstairs and peed on the only part of our floor that's carpeted. I suppose it was really considerate of her, considering there's a huge freaking snowstorm going on outside.
She really hates the huge freaking snowstorm going on outside.

Rule #3, or Why Fudgicles Will Be My Downfall, Literally

2008-12-15T18:08:00.002-05:00

Why Rule #3? Well, here are rules #1 and #2.

1) No smoking while pregnant.

2) No drinking while pregnant.

So what is Rule #3, anyway?

3) Falling down requires trips to the ER now that you're pregnant, so be careful, you stupid klutz!

So last Tuesday evening, everything was fairly normal (sort of). In a pregnant, hormonal rage, I argued with my husband about who would make dinner (I think that was it), and decided I couldn't stand to be in the same room as him for the rest of the evening. (Hey, I said I was hormonal. What more would you like me to admit?) All was seemingly well, considering the fact that we argued over, well, nothing, and I was happily content sitting on the futon in the basement, catching up on my DVR so that I'll be all set for this week's "Biggest Loser" live reveal finale. (I still have one episode to go before the show airs tomorrow night.)

About 45 minutes into the episode, the super skinny makeovers that these contestants were getting inspired me to go upstairs and get a fudgicle (the lack of logic is not lost on me, trust me, but this was exactly how my train of thought went). So I went upstairs, grabbed my fudgy, and I was good to go.

That is, until three steps from the bottom of the staircase, my slipper-socks slipped out from under me, and the next thing I knew, I was gripping the railing for dear life with my left hand and gripping the fudgicle for dear life with my right. I only fell two steps down (there were only three to fall, so it couldn't have been that bad), and I'd like to state for the record that my fudgicle was totally in tact by the time I landed on my butt. In fact, I had a death grip on the thing, and as the Guy rushed down the stairs to make sure I was ok, he realized that I wasn't going to let go of it anytime soon. (In fact, at one point I must've started eating it, cause it definitely went in my belly, but that was all kind of a blur to me.)

Between the Guy and my parents, I eventually decided to go to the ER to get checked out. I mean, I didn't feel any pain, but you never really know what's going on inside with that other person invading your personal space, right? The heartbeat was regular, and an ultrasound two days later at my doctor's office proved much of the same. In fact, the kid is so ok right now that, in a nice, snarky way (or at least, in my head, that's how I choose to believe it went down, as if a fetus understands snark), my kid WAVED at the ultrasound technician and me. Seriously. No joke. It waved. There's photographic evidence to prove this.

And to top it all off, I saw my in-laws yesterday, and the Guy told them nothing all week of what happened. I claim it's cause he doesn't tell anyone anything (even me sometimes, I think), but he claims it was to avoid what ended up happening anyway. Which is that his dad, shaking his head, and starting by saying my name as if I had just gotten a D in English class, lectured me on how careful I have to be.

To which my mental response was, "No shit, really?!" but my father-in-law scares me more than my own dad does (because anyone who's seen them both together realizes that the two men were made from the same mold; I've simply had more time to break my father into my sarcastic behavior), plus we were sort of standing church and you shouldn't really swear in church (unless you're Fr. Jim, right, C and Wetsel?), so instead I hung my head in shame, and said, "I know."

Meanwhile, how many pairs of rubber grip slippers do you think I'm going to get for Christmas? I'm going to guess four, right now, but this could increase if people go all sorts of crazy on both sides of the family. (As if four pairs of rubber grip slippers isn't crazy enough.)

Just Rip It Off Like a Bandaid

2008-12-11T17:04:00.002-05:00

I'm pregnant.

There. I said it.

Yup, I'm just shy of 12 weeks pregnant.* OK, I realize I'm announcing this a LITTLE before the first trimester's over, which is a superstitiously bad bad thing, but oh well, tough luck, I did it.

People seem to have their opinions on this, for better or worse, and frankly, I don't really care about those opinions. It happened. We weren't trying, per se, but we definitely weren't not trying. We let nature take its course and that, it did. We're happy about. End of story.

Other peoples' opinions don't really matter to me in this case (and they never seem to matter to the Guy). And yet despite this, I still feel like I'm often trying to justify it. Which is just bizarre. Cause while I may be a tad young, seriously, people, I'm not a 16-year-old who got knocked up by her boyfriend of 2 months. Sorry if it sounds like I'm passing judgment on those teenagers, cause I don't mean to be doing that either, but I'm just saying, I'm kind of in a better position for this kind of thing to be happening than said 16-year-old.

I've heard the comments and advice about "You should wait until you've been married at least a year before you even start thinking of children." And I think that's a valid piece of advice. Advice from parents/friends/other relatives was taken into consideration, and don't think for a second I wasn't a little hesitant before finally making up my mind (it is a big decision not to be taken lightly, of course). The thing is, though, that the decision to not-not try was mine and my husband's, and really no one else's.** We knew this was a likely outcome, and no one has to agree with it. And that's the last time I'm going to attempt to justify my side of it to anyone anymore (at least on this blog).

So that's that. I'm pregnant. Expect awesome updates about wanting to lose my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and all the amazingly ridiculous things a woman learns while pregnant.***

*The following is scientifically fascinating to me, but may be minorly repulsive (due to icky words used), especially to male readers. So stop reading if you don't think you can handle it. Have you stopped? Last chance. Ok, here we go. Want to know what I learned about counting how many "weeks pregnant" you are that I didn't know before? The first two weeks (approximately) all occur PRE-conception. As in, they start counting weeks at the start of your last period. So this makes me saying I'm 12 weeks pregnant sound REALLY suspect considering I've only been married for, oh, let's see, 11 weeks. Oh well, I guess if people thought I was a dirty tramp before, me stating this interesting fact probably won't change their opinions. Whatever. I've decided I'm going to stop feeling weird about this from this point on.

**What's funny is that this is a decision we made before we were even engaged, let alone married. I know a lot of couples don't want to have that conversation too early on in a relationship. We did. (Well, not that early, but once we knew it was going somewhere, we talked.) We're both planners. It was important to both of us to find out where the other one stood on the issue. And this, frankly, is where we stood.

***Such amazing life lessons like, "Waistbands on your stomach hurt, so only wear T-shirts/nightgowns to bed." Or how about "Tripping over yourself and falling down the stairs actually requires trips to the ER now (unlike before), so, um, stop being a klutz!" (and yes, this is actually something that happened, but I'd rather have a new post for this one later cause the experience is so lovely and fresh in my head).

And Apparently, I'm Still 14 Years Old

2008-12-09T17:47:00.004-05:00

Early in the week before Thanksgiving, I got an e-mail from Irish. I figured the e-mail was going to ask if I wanted to see "Four Christmases" with her when it came out that Wednesday, which was something we had discussed probably over a month earlier.

Instead, her e-mail kind of took me by surprise (as much as an e-mail about what movie to see on Thanksgiving Eve could really take a person by surprise). Apparently, Irish caved to her "kids" (read: the college kids who come into her office on a daily basis, not actual offspring, for which I'm sure she's grateful), and bought "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. They had been bugging her for a while to read it, and she claimed she had no interest. Well, she read the 498 pages of "Twilight" in all of about a day or two (definitely no longer than that) and was totally hooked and had to see the movie.

The movie didn't totally turn me off, despite the fact that I hadn't read the book, so I figured what the heck. And as it turns out, I really liked the story (minus a couple of really cheesy dialogue moments that I had to appreciate for what they were -- straight out of a trashy romance novel, a.k.a. "lady porn" dialogue).

So I was in Target on Sunday night with the Guy, trying to find an artificial Christmas tree under 7 feet tall (that's the tallest we could get for our house, and that's pushing it) that doesn't look like complete crap (apparently, the well-made artificial trees are all $250+, over 7-1/2 feet tall, or both). Seriously, we went to like 9 million stores this weekend looking for trees (and stuff for the new pup!) to no avail. We still have no tree or decorations up. But this is not the point of my tale.

I snuck away into the book section for a moment, and in reality, I wasn't actually looking for anything in particular. I just wanted to see if I spotted any books that might be worthwile. And I saw "Twilight" in paperpack on sale for $8 or $9, so I figured, "Hell, that's way cheaper than the crap-tastic book (that is totally right up my alley for the crappy genre of book I love) I bought at Target a few weeks back, and don't get me started on the good-but-not-worth-$20 book I bought in the airport before the honeymoon." So $8 or $9 (whatever it was) seemed like a bargain to me, so I bought it.

Um, yeah. I read it in 2 days. And I'm itching for the next book, which I clearly don't have, and am probably going to slip into the Amazon.com order I'm placing for my niece's Christmas gift. Apparently, I'm just as bad as every teenage girl out there, except for the fact that, you know, I'm not a teenager.

And let's not forget, I still have to find some time to see "Four Christmases," except, I'd almost kind of rather go see "Twilight" again to see if there was something I missed the first time around.

Pathetic.

Rain, Rain, Come and Play

2008-12-05T19:46:00.005-05:00

I don't think I got that quite right.

Except, I totally did.

Ok, so in the Dog Adoption Quest of 2008, we were originally looking at Myrtle. But while waiting for approval to even be eligible to adopt any dog (let alone Myrtle), she got all sorts of adopted.

Then we were approved for adoption. And we picked out Zoey as another possible option. But come to find out, the website wasn't updated just yet, and thus, Zoey had been adopted.

And while Winston was a contender, I asked his foster mom a couple of questions about him, and instead of answering them, she just sent me pictures of him. He's still adorable, and I still sort of want him, but I can't really make that decision without all the information at hand.

So because the website wasn't updated, I asked, "Hey, are there any other dogs that are supposed to be on here, but aren't?" And that's when they told me about her.

Rain.

I spoke to Rain's foster mama on the phone tonight for almost an hour. Between the conversation we just had and the profile, it became clear that she was "it." Her foster mom agreed. And in about a little over a week's time, the Guy and I are driving down to New Jersey to pick her up and bring her to her "fur-ever" home with us.

This was not my news that I mentioned in the last post. But it's my news now!

And in case you were wondering (which you probably weren't, but whatever), here's Rain's profile:

Rain is one of the sweetest puppies this foster home has had the pleasure of helping. Think gentle rain, sweet summer rain. Rain and her sister Sunny were plucked from the Osawatomie KS animal shelter where they were brought in as strays. Rain is between 6 and 8 months old, has been spayed, and has a clean bill of health all around. She is tri-colored girl with mostly blue ticking and some chestnut.

This foster home is amazed at how quickly this baby was able to get comfortable here after the overwhelming changes in her little life from spending time in the shelter to a temporary foster home then through a long transport where she and her sister were to go their separate ways and finally landing in the haven of her current foster home. After only a couple of weeks she has managed to become a typical English Setter puppy. She will happily play with a toy or a ball all by herself making wonderful puppies noises and barks. Although she has gone into a puppy point at a squirrel, she really isn't a very birdie Setter.

Rain is best friend material; she snuggles with the resident Setter boys, has no problem with the ruling cat, but can be found mostly hanging with her people. Rain just loves all people. She will crawl over on her belly to meet them and would do well in a house with children; energy wise her demeanor is rather low-key.

Rain is crate trained when foster mom is at work. As a puppy she is very curious about everything and still needs certain restrictions. She has had run of the house with just the resident Setter Boys home for short periods of time. She is easily redirected by a soft no or a toy, and loves balls and Kongs especially if they are stuffed with peanut butter. After all her adventures and travels lately, she doesn't much like to actually get in the car, but foster mom is working on that with good trips and treats. Being a very resilient little girl, once she is in the car, she'll perk right up and be the perfect passenger.

Rain's housebreaking has been relatively easy: either crated or kept in a safe area when no one is home, then with walks at regular intervals like after meals, naps and play time, she is fine.

Rain has the most adoring habit of taking things and hiding them in her crate, all the items have been totally intact by the way. The first time foster mom went to check the bedding in her crate, I found the paperback book I was reading buried there. Since then, missing socks have been found along with all the tennis balls in the house.

This little wiggle butt has much love to give and so much growing and learning to do. She is just waiting for her fur-ever home to recognize her, would that be you?

If you hear any shrieking and "aww-ing" next weekend, it's just me and my new awesomely awesome dog, Rain, having a blast together!

Wedding/Honeymoon Updates...

2008-12-02T12:09:00.007-05:00

...Sans pictures, cause I didn't have my digital camera with me at the wedding (thus, no pictures), and I don't have the cord to put the honeymoon pictures (all clean, I promise) online at the moment. You'll have to deal with that.

I've decided that marriage, so far, has been pretty darn good for me.

I know several people wanted wedding updates, and it's been a little over two months now, so I might be able to have enough brain function to figure this one out. So basically, um, it was a really good wedding. Aside from the fact that I totally forgot to make the programs for church until two days before (and ran into OfficeMax to print out 200 of them at, quite literally, 10 minutes until closing time, and kept them there until 10 minutes after [but that wasn't my fault; it was their stupid, slow copy machines' faults cause I was running multiple machines simultaneously in a bad attempt to make it go faster]), and literally working on those until about, oh 4 PM, when the rehearsal was at 5:30, and I still had to shower and also wrap my girls' gifts. (And, I believe I went off the deep end when, during the realization of the "program crisis," I burst into full on sobbing and blubbered, "I don't want to get married!" cause the Guy wasn't going to help me cause he was working, but that's another story altogether.)

Well, my point is, that was pretty much all the chaos that was involved with the wedding. The actual wedding itself? Beautiful. (I'm a little biased, but whatever.) The reception? Very long, but definitely enjoyable, and oh my gosh, did I mention the awesomeness of the food that just kept being brought to the tables with no end in sight? (Seriously, people were taking pies and cakes [yes, multiple cakes] home because there was so much dessert that no one could even think of eating by the time it got to the dessert time.) Oh yeah, and there was a chocolate foundation on the Venetian Table with mini-Rice Krispie Treats for dipping. Yum! Right, like I said, we were all pretty well fed, just like a good mostly-Italian wedding should do.

Honeymoon? Also awesome, and also really exhausting. Seriously, we were on tours of Italy almost daily. We technically only stayed in three cities (and trust me, it was enough to haul our luggage around on the Eurostar trains for just those three, thank you very much). However, in total, we saw the following places:

Rome
The Vatican (for those who don't consider it a part of Rome, which I don't)
Orvieto
Assisi
Sorrento
Capri
Anacapri (technically the same island, but different village, with a main road named after my maiden name, so I'm including it cause it's cool)
Pompeii
Mount Vesuvius (not technically a city, but when you climb an active volcano that once destroyed entire cities, I think you can list it as a "place you visited")
Florence
San Gimingano
Siena
Venice

And while I don't think I can go into full details on all of these things, here are some of the awesomely awesome (and one not-so-awesome) experiences we had and I'm attempting to put them, at the very least, in chronological order:

Got free tickets for the "Sposi Novelli" (Newlyweds) blessing at the Pope's Wednesday audience in St. Peter's Square, and found out when we got there that we had special tickets to sit up close and personal where the cardinals all sit. Really cool, and what was cooler was, as we were shown to our special seats, the Swiss Guards repeatedly kept saluting us. I wish I had gotten a picture, but I only have one of the Swiss Guards walking away.
Walking straight from one end of Assisi to the other (which is not really all that impressive considering the circumference of the town is only the equivalent of a 5K walk, but at the same time, it was all uphill, so I'm including it).
Going on a 2-hour night tour of Rome, getting soaking wet by the end of it, and then having the bus driver not know where the hell he was going/I think he was holding us hostage, so we ended up driving past St. Peter's Square 5 (5!) times and crossing the Tiber 3 different times to get back to our hotel. Needless to say, this is the not-so-awesome experience, and that bus driver held out his hand for a tip as the Guy and I were the bitchy Americans who walked past him rudely since we ended up getting back to our hotel after midnight (when we should've been back no later than 10) and had to get dinner from a McDonald's, and the value menu? Not such a value in Europe, since it cost us over $20 (American) to eat a Big Mac, a double cheeseburger, and medium fries. Oh, and he dropped us off several blocks away (even though it was door-to-door service that we had paid for). (I would also like to state for the record at this point that we were not the only super pissed off people on that bus, and I can almost guarantee that with 45 people on the tour, that man didn't leave with more than 10 euro in tips, and most were probably from the people who got off the damn bus first.)
The absolutely amazing view of Mount Vesuvius and the Marina Grande from our hotel room in Sorrento. We were on the top floor of the hotel, built in a cliff (they're all built in a cliff there), and were the only room with an almost floor to ceiling window. A-mazing!
Climbing Mount Vesuvius. Incredibly horrible (I thought I was going to die, and quite literally had 75-year-olds passing me out on the path, but they had walking sticks to help them and I didn't), but really cool to say I made it to the summit and got to see the steam rising.
The view of the Arno from our room in Florence. The pictures I took out of the window around 8 AM seriously looking like a painting, with the way the buildings are reflected in the water. And we were only one bridge away from the Ponte Vecchio so if we stuck our head out far enough, we could see it too!
Dueling accordion players. 'Nuff said.
Just barely making it to church on Sunday from our tours of San Gimingano and Siena (we had to take a cab from the tour drop-off point in order to make it in time), and unintentionally going to a pretty awesome cathedral (and we only went due to its proximity to our hotel). A tour group from Alabama was there, so we got the readings/gospel in English (unlike the week before when I almost passed out cause I got bored cause I didn't know what was going on during the mass), and then afterward, the really cool Franciscan priest who was saying the mass says in super broken English, "All the Americans, stay after mass. I have something to show you." At which point, we stayed with the tour group (they were very welcoming), and we got to see that, within this cathedral, were the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo. And we got a private tour, after hours, with no one else there, and this little priest took us all along the grounds. It was surreal and totally awesome, and we were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Having birds perch on my arms in St. Mark's Square in Venice. And then watching one perch on the Guy's back, even though he was incredibly opposed to trying to get the birds to perch anywhere near him. (I laughed and laughed and laughed when that happened.)
The gelati. So delicious. I could go for some right now.

Life has been exciting since then. Ok, for the most part, that's actually a lie. It's been a whole lot of work, and not a whole lot else. But we do have exciting stuff going on (aside from being approved to adopt a dog, and even though Myrtle's gone, we're still looking at the other dogs they have available at Above & Beyond rescue). But that's another post for another day very soon, cause frankly, this is getting awfully long to begin with. So you'll just have to live in suspense for now.