Friday, February 5th, 2010
Just a few weeks ago I was telling my sister that while post partum seems to turn up my anxiety levels to two notches below thermonuclear freakout; pregnancy, especially this one, has quite the opposite affect, kinda like qualuudes without the actual pills.
Well that was last week.
I’ve finally reached that point in the pregnancy, when the shiznit is hitting the fan and my patience has just about run out.
Oh yeah right, the third trimester, how silly of me to forget. Although I don’t remember if I had the feeling this strong when I was pregnant with Nate but this time around… snappy, bitchy pregnant woman is here. Everything is annoying me and the littlest things are driving me to almost tears. I wish I’d actually tear up, I might get a little more sympathy. Instead people just scurry out of my way and then roll their eyes after I’ve waddled past. To my defense I’ll say that there’s a lot of annoying things going on around me but I’m just not handling it with the same laid back cool I was three weeks ago. Oh how I miss that qualuude calm.
Just as I was typing that last sentence Ben sent me a chat letting me know that he’d be working late, again, and wouldn’t be able to come home to paint the bathroom like we planned this morning. And yesterday morning. Snap! Wail….
You see what I’m dealing with?
Ok yes I did willingly plan this bathroom renovation knowing full well that it would commence right smack dab during the third trimester. I, uh, just forgot how damn annoying that would actually be. That being said, the bathroom is mostly done, mostly being the big stuff like the tile work is finished, the toilet that I love more than one should actually love a toilet, has been installed, the new vanity is in.
What is not finished is anything that I was not paying someone to do and fell onto our task list such as painting, installing the lights, the new medicine cabinet, the shower doors which oh my god I think they are nearly the death of me. Ben and the plumber spent the entire Saturday putting it together and you’d think it was the space shuttle the kind of precision it required. As of right now, they are not actually working yet. Cue wailing…
UPDATE:
Ok I typed all that on Tues, then someone called and I got busy doing a million and one things (did I mention that I’m still working freelance from home? Yeah add that little beaut in there) and forgot to post it and now here it is Friday.
More stuff on the bathroom is done. Including the fancy frameless shower doors that I insisted on buying over the internet to save money and now know why people pay LOTS OF MONEY to have other people install them. What a PITA that was. But they are in and working and I took the most beautiful, awesome shower in the world yesterday and lord do I now know that I am indeed a shower person and NOT a bath person. My mood brightened about a million times after I got to finally, after two weeks, take a shower IN MY OWN SHOWER.
Anyway, both fingers crossed I’ll have exciting photos to post on Monday of my NEW and IMPROVED and FINISHED bathroom. If not, please have lots of kleenex and a shoulder for me to cry on.
Man I can’t wait for this stuff to be finished. Frickin’ frack I’m really stretched all over the place with this renovating. Combined with the nesting I feel totally overwhelmed. Even thought the project is nearly done there’s still this to do list a million miles long and it’s got my name all over it. And the crazy thing is, no matter how tired I’m feeling and exhausted and achy and what the hell is going on with my lower back these days… I can’t seem to stop adding stuff to the list? My brain is writing checks my tuckered out tush does not want to cash. And I wish it was just nesting stuff like I want to organize Nate’s closet, it’s also serious have-to-do-my-taxes kind of stuff.
On the one hand, I know the baby isn’t going to know the difference if the crown moulding isn’t up in the bathroom when she comes home but then again, crown moulding is going to be the last thing that either Ben or I will want to do once she does come home and it’ll be a long time until either one of us gets to it. And yet we’ll have to stare at the unfinished bathroom every single time we go in there. And it’ll bug the hell out of us. Of course, the IRS will bug the hell out of us too if I don’t do that.
*Sigh*
So I’ll rest just when the baby gets here. *snort, chuckle chuckle*
And no, I haven’t been able to get my website fixed yet and if you make me think about it I’ll burst into big, fat ugly tears. Can. Not. Deal. With. It. Right. Now.
But if you have some really great solution on how to move my site easily, AND WITH PICTURES INTACT, to blogspot or something freebie option, I am all ears because I am so. sick. of. dealing. with. tech. shxt. and. my. hosting. company.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
No my site still isn’t fixed. Grrr. Waaa. Gnashing of teeth and all that.
It’s been hacked again by evil, horrible, selfish monsters hellbent on ruining my day with their nasty invisible coding and doing lord knows what else to my website. I’m working on it… which really means I’m sending out feverish emails to my friends who actually know tech stuff and will feel sorry for a tech illiterate pregnant lady who has no business having a dumb old blog when she can’t even fix her own index page. So bear with me another day or so. And pass me a kleenex while I wail into my sleeve.
Ahhhh. Ok well now that that is off my chest, I’ll just move on to happier, less slimey topics.
The bathroom. Despite the torrential rain that we are receiving in the normally very dry, practically a desert region known to the world as Southern California, a place that 51 weeks out the year will not have inches and inches of rain every single day except that one week in which you have scheduled a bathroom remodel, the project is going, well I don’t want to jinx myself, which I’m sure I’ve already done, so I’ll just say that… “hey bad luck trolls, close your ears”, (whispering) it’s going the f*i*n*e, as in not bad, as in people are in there every day doing stuff and it is starting to resemble a real life bathroom so draw your own conclusions. Aside from the buckets and buckets of rain dropping hourly and seeping into our basement (not talking or thinking about it la la la, rainbows and unicorns….) things are on kinda on track(ish), wink wink nudge nudge.
And I’m sure I’ve just created some huge cosmic tear in the karmic universe that will have me wailing and rending my garments shortly.
Hopefully not the good garments that still fit me, just the ugly, tent-like pregnant lady variety that I only wear at home.
Friday, January 15th, 2010
My site is all wonky again.
ARGHGHHGHGH. Me hates the tech troubles. And yes, I know… (Big sigh) you can’t click on any of the links right now. Don’t worry, Hyderabad is working on it.
Bah. Ignoring and moving on…
Remember last week when I said I had Big, Exciting News?
And remember a million years ago when I was complaining about this?
Oh right you can’t see it.
Well guess who’s ugliest bathroom in the world is getting redone next week?
Hint: ME! MINE!! Fugly be GONE!
Here is our current shameful eyesore:
The ugly step child known as our master bathroom, bathroom being a bit of a misnomer since hey, where’s the bath? See that prefab sorry ass excuse for a shower? It will be in a trash heap on Tues!
The lights that are so ugly they hurt your eyes, the peeling faux wood vanity, the medicine cabinet that lives to spite me…. I mean really, it’s no wonder our guests have no idea we actually have two bathrooms.
Ben tried on many occasions to tell me this shower was fine and just needed to be cleaned properly. Ahem, he who has never donned the gloves and OxiClean himself…
This is linoleum we fought over with Ben insisting it was fine. Ha! He’s apparently got Stockholm Syndrome. Wait until he sees the beautiful tile floors that are being installed next week. I plan to lie down and nap on them.
So all this is getting demoed on Monday and (hopefully hope hope oh please let it be so) the bathroom will be finished on Friday. Of course the weather forecast has mysteriously decided to threaten us with rain all next week and literally rain on my bathroom parade but, we’ll see what happens. My fingers are crossed that it won’t impact the work too badly. Haa haa haa (whimpering and nervously biting finger nails…)
This is the crazy ass project that I’ve been madly working on for the last month, spending ridiculous amounts of time pouring over toilet options (G-Max Flush or Power Gravity?), tile schemes, lighting options, vanities… you name it, I’ve researched it. NextTag knows me by name now and I know waaay more about shower valves than I ever thought could be possible.
Oh yeah, did I mention that I made myself the general contractor for this project? Yeah dude, I dial NOTHING in, we’re freakin’ ON with this remodel. And no, I’m not doing the tile work myself, thank god. I’m handy but not stupid.
It’s crossed my mind more than a few times in the last month, “Um Skip, are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind to redo your bathroom at nearly 8 months pregnant?” but when have I ever let something as silly as common sense get in my home improvement ways? Besides, what better way to get your nesting on than with a full blown remodel?
Woohoo let’s do this already!!
(And yeah, I fully expect to be dragging my sorry preggo butt to you guys on Tues, wailing about what a mess my house is and how on earth did you guys let me do this?)
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
I know, I KNOW! Before you start asking “Geez Skip where have you been?” let’s get the whole Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s thing outta the way.
Happy Happy!
Ok that should do it.
We had a great, if not terribly busy traveling sort of Christmas, which I decided that next year, if we have to travel then I’d like to travel to just one place instead of three. Or four. But travel we did, starting on Christmas Eve and not stopping until Jan 2nd, my Dad’s birthday.
The biggest part of our travels was our trip to New York. It was Nate’s first flight and longest time away from home. He did great on the flight, although I wouldn’t know it directly though since due to a ridiculously long and silly story which I’ll spare you, Ben and Nate spent the flight relaxing merrily in business class while I huddled in back with the masses in coach. That’s right, I was not right next to my first born on his first flight and no I didn’t feel (all that) guilty. Probably on account of the fact that I was not even served complimentary peanuts or pretzels while they had means, snacks and a full cheese course. With beer! I mean for Ben, not Nate. Yeah the poor babies huh? Well it all took a turn for the absolute worst when approaching JFK we got stuck in a holding pattern for nearly an hour, circling and circling around in gut destroying turbulence. As you can guess, poor Nate puked and poor, poor Ben had to clean it all up. Me? I was back in coach, reading my magazine, trying to lose my own cookies so to speak. So I guess it all equaled out in the end.
So New York… wonderful, freezing, fun. We visited our brand new nephew and I was reminded, oh my lord we’re going to have a newborn of our own in … um 75 short days, yikes freak out need more chocolate please! Wow they sure cry a lot don’t they? But mmmm do they smell good. And that little smiling thing they do, hey pass me that baby again.
The trip also definitely reminded me of why we moved from New York, the whole “not making a million dollars therefore not living in a swank highrise apartment with nannies and car service” thing that just makes parenting seem like the biggest PITA. The theory that was completely reinforced by seeing my bro-in-law and sis-in-law dealing with a widdle baby in a widdle apartment. It’s a cute little place n’ all but you put one baby apparatus in there and it’s cramped galore. And bundling up just to take the baby for a walk? Totally forgot about the whole bundling nightmare. Walking was the thing that saved me in the beginning with Nate, if I had to bundle him up each time I’d have gone out of my already delirious mind.
Aside from the freezing we managed to get out quite a bit to stuff ourselves with all the things we can’t get in Los Angeles, namely delicious bagels and pizza. We even dragged the new parents up to Midtown for Korean food for a comparison where I (silently) decreed that LA Korean food is every bit as good if not better than NYC. Just don’t tell my sister-in-law. Mmmm kimchee. I’m hungry.
Hey did I mention I’m absolutely huge? Ok maybe I just feel that way. My weight, according to the really nice nurse at my doctor’s office, is “just perfect and where we want it to be” but the second I crossed over into the third trimester I feel like a large moving continent. Will post incriminating photo as soon.
Also will update (very shortly) on what I’ve been frantically and slavishly been working on for the last month. Hint, it’s very exciting. I know, huge and wildly vague draw huh?
Here’s a few faves from the holiday and travels. It feels like ancient history already but what the hey, here’s to better late than never.
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Ok technically it’s not Thanksgiving yet but we’re going to be on the road tomorrow and then on the actual day I’ll be either: sitting my fat butt down in a chair helping to prepare the food, eating the actual Thanksgiving meal, or food comatose on the couch post meal so no lofty blogging plans for me. If I manage to take Nate to the park pre or post meal I’ll feel like freakin’ over-achiever. Yay me!
This year I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and while I’m not going to bore you with my very long list, imagine that I will be thinking of my list, numbering and alphabetizing it the whole 7 1/2 hours to our relatives while Nate rousingly suggests another reading Richard Scarry’s Busy Busy Town.
Have a Happy Happy Thanksgiving everybody! You’re number 23 on my list, Bloggy friends. Right after Bed but before Butter.
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
AKA Do not tell a skinny girl she’s fat, especially when she’s pregnant.
I know it’s totally small in the very large scheme of things and months from now none of this will matter but…
My doctor called me fat yesterday.
*sob*
Ok she didn’t actually call me fat exactly but….. the second thing she said at our appt yesterday, after concluding that my fancy ultrasound with the perinatologist indicated that indeed the baby looks healthy, was that I needed to watch my weight as I had accelerated weight gain in the last month.
Let me just repeat that for you, Accelerated Weight Gain.
Roughly translated from doctor speak to english, that means “Hey Fatty, slow down!”. The rest of what she said sounded vaguely like “waa waa wa waaaa” (cue what adults sound like in any of the Peanuts movies) as I got stuck on the whole accelerated weight part. I kinda pieced it all together after I got home and recovered from my heaving sobs that what she really said was “You’ve gained 11 pounds in 9 weeks, you should be careful about your weight gain because it gets exponential during the third trimester”.
Which, right I get that, I mean it sounds reasonable and stuff BUT, can I just point out to you all that the eleven pounds I gained? Is practically all that I’ve gained the whole pregnancy. So here I am, 21 weeks in and I’ve gained 11 pounds. Yes I’ve gained it all in the last 9 weeks or so but what the hell, why get penalized for not gaining any weight in the first trimester? Also, this is exactly like what happened during my last pregnancy. In which I gained exactly 30 lbs, no more and no less.
I know it probably sounds a little shallow and superficial and whatever but you know what? I’m pregnant with raging hormones and I’m a fragile flippin flower right now. Also, I’ve never been called anything but petite or skinny in my whole life.
Just so we’re on the same page, math-wise I’ll share this with you. I’m 5′3″, originally weighing in at 109 (111 on the doctor’s scale with all my clothes and shoes on). Yesterday I clocked in (in full clothes, shoes and right after lunch consisting of a filet o’ fish and a soda) at 122 (120 on my scale in the am, ahem).
Am I taking crazy pills here? Seriously, this is enough of an issue to look a pregnant woman in the eye and tell her to watch her snacking? You might as well tell a bull to ignore that red cape you’re wearing. Hell hath no fury like a gestating woman’s snacking scorned.
And then she told me the office had no idea when they were getting the H1N1 vaccine and I really ought to go down to one of Los Angeles’ finest county clinics and wait on line with the rest of the (potentially diseased) population to get my shots (and probably some wildly contagious ailment).
And then the nurse giving me my seasonal flu shot said I looked tired and asked if I was feeling ok. She said this while Nate was alternating between running around the office and trying to climb up on my lap right as she was administering the shot.
“Oh no” I sighed, “I’m fine.”
*Sob*
Apparently I can no longer turn to Honey Nut Ohs in my time of need anymore. And I’m guessing Salt and Vinegar pringles are probably off the list too. Just healthy living from here on out. (Cue more crying, indignation and rage…)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
So after writing the last post I called my mom who is mother to not only me but my sister and my brother and asked if my little bro was more active, pregnancy-wise than my sister and I. She said “Actually you were the most active, and that didn’t stop after you were born either.” Ok, so much for that theory then. Back to square one. No idea.
Yesterday we had our appt and Baby Skiplovey looks wonderfully healthy, right-sized and on track for a March 23rd due date. We brought Nate along so he could see his baby sibling on the big screen and be a part of the finding out thing.
The doctor then asked me if we wanted to find out what we were having and I said “Heck yeah!”. Ok, maybe it sounded more like “Yes!” but why quibble with details. The doctor asked Nate what he wanted and he replied his usual “Baby Sister!”. The doctor said, “Looks like Nate is getting a …..”
Baby Sister!
What can I say, whatever my Nate wants, he gets. Either that or he sure has one strong premonition for these things. I ought to start asking him about lotto numbers.
Girl! Wow! Super excited a little surprised and really really really looking forward to this spring!!
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
So here we are at 19 weeks, one the eve of our 19 week ultrasound:
I think I look HUGE. (Yes I’ll be using that breadbox as a marker!) Definitely bigger at this point than I was with Nate. Of course I have absolutely zero photos from the last pregnancy to compare it to so we’re relying on my rather subjective memory. And I don’t recall being this big so quick. Pretty sure that settles it.
Here the peanut gallery wanders into our self timer mode - “Hey, what’s in there? A baby sister or baby brother? I want a baby sister!”
As some sort of reference, here’s me at 13 (ish????) weeks? Which is way bigger second time around. I know for certain I didn’t show a damn bit at 13 weeks with Nate. Geez I’m pasty white:
On the boy/girl thing, I really have no idea what I’m having. With Nate I was absolutely certain (well pretty darn sure) that I was having a boy. Upon confirmation I loudly proclaimed in my doctor’s office “I knew it!”. With this one, hmmm. I just don’t know. Earlier on whenever I thought about baby names my mind gravitated to girls. Maybe because we don’t have one and heck it’s a 50/50 shot so perhaps this time around it’s a girl? The pregnancy thus far has been vaguely similar and vaguely different from Nate. More puking, less stomaches. More Heightened Sense of Smell, no terrifying miscarriage-like symptoms (thank god!), more rebounding second trimester, less headaches. Same amount of dizziness, same level of nausea and general blechiness, similar cravings (hello potato chips, haven’t seen you for about 2 1/2 years!). A friend of mine has a boy and a girl and she said both pregnancies were night and day different. But then another friend has both also and she said both were surprisingly similar.
Except her son was a mini prize fighter and her daughter was so mellow they had to do numerous ultrasounds to make sure she was actually moving in there. Well so far this one? Is way more active than Nate. And Nate was very active. I don’t remember feeling baby kicks until 20 weeks or so and they were pretty mild at the beginning. This one has been active for at least two weeks already. I swore I felt some little movements around 16 weeks but I thought, nah it’s too early for that. But I felt a very distinct series of very noticeable kicks a week and a half ago on the 17th, coincidentally my birthday. Thanks little bean!
So Nate may be getting a little brother, if all the old wives tales are true about boys being more active. Or he’s getting a kick ass little sister.
Well, we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see. Unless it decides to be a troublemaker like Momisodes’ baby. Then we’ll have many months to go until we find out.
Monday, October 12th, 2009
A bit of a grab bag of things but isn’t October such a grab bag type of month?
I’m resisting buying trick or treat candy until the last possible moment because I can’t be held responsible for candy in my grabby reach these days and also, we almost never get trick or treaters so I’m stuck with a full bag full of candy on Nov 1st, which Ben and I will consume in mass quantities creating a vertible war to the chocolatey finish. Recently I’ve been craftily choosing a candy that neither of us enjoy so as not to be tempted into eating said candy. Which we end up doing anyway but much more slowly and with less enjoyment than we would with say, Reese’s peanut butter cups as opposed to Laffy Taffy. I think if I actually buy Laffy Taffy this year, I’ll have none of it. My delicate pregnant condition has made me so finicky these days.
Speaking of finicky, ok remember how I was all obsessed with anything in gummy candy consistency? Bears, soda bottles, sharks, cherries and the vast array of sour gummy candies? Oh swoon, I couldn’t get enough of those around the 8 - 9 week mark. And then overnight the love was gone and Ben was forced (happily I might add) to finish off the rest of the QBZ and Sour Gummy Peaches. Then I moved on to seaweed. Yes roasted seaweed, little crunchy sheets of salty goodness. Pringles had a showing for awhile then these yummy chocolate bear shaped cookies that I bought for Nate but ate them all myself. Now it’s Honey Nut Ohs. We’ve gone through three boxes in the last two weeks and it’s mostly me. I do have to fight with Ben for them but if I hide the box waaay back in the pantry, sometimes he forgets it’s in there. Anyway, all that’s well and good (and delicious) but strangely I am still having the very finicky feelings towards the rest of the food world. It’s not all pukey and gross and STRONGLY SMELLING like in the first trimester but I don’t remember gagging this far along with Nate. Or feeling so adverse to bacon and sausage. I mean, bacon and sausage are my weekend buds, we’re tight. Us and the eggs and toast, we’re a happy family. Well we were and now we’re not. The pregnancy thing, it is so strange.
Nate and the disappearing naps. Well not much has changed except I had this idea to check out ye olde tooth situation since people seem to blame all sorts of problems on that. I poked my finger around in his mouth just to see and lo, there are two large mounds on his bottom gums where his second year molars will live. Now they haven’t broken through yet and have probably awhile to go since he has the slowest moving teeth around but hey I’ll just throw that in there too for good measure since I can’t seem to figure anything else out. When in doubt, blame teeth.
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
Where to start? I seriously just started to get a handle on Summer and then boom, all of the sudden October is upon us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of October, also known as Month of Skiplovey, since my birthday happens to fall right smack dab in the middle of it and I like to stretch out my birthday as long as possible. But still, time = warp speed - me still stuck in July.
Well first things first, the lovely and ever witty Rima tagged me for some type of musical meme. But alas, I cry pregnant brain for I cannot do anything too meaningful or creative these days without it taking FOREVER and rendering me completely useless for days on end, as evidenced by my elusive blog sightings due to the increased frequency of my freelance schedule. I know not how to work full time anymore people, it is exhausting. I have no idea how you do it. Oh yeah, you’re all on caffeine and I’m not. Bah.
So in lieu of a meme, please accept this hastily cobbeled together birthday salute video (oops, no. sorry but that was way too hard to try with a broken website) photo of your favorite star Nate, whom we will be discussing more of shortly. I thought I’d show you the cute side first:
Oh that child, he is cute, yes? So now that we have that established, I have to tell you that my sweet, little boy has been secretly replaced by Folgers crystals. Bossy, wild mood swing-laden Folgers crystals that don’t taste delicious with cream and sugar. I don’t know if it’s the terrible twos or he’s bothered by the news of “the impending baby coming to live with us” thing but as of late he’s been, shall we say difficult? On top of that he started this terribly annoying habit of skipping a nap every other day. Which wrecks the rest of the non-napping day and evening since he’s a total grump and then wakes up in the middle of the night in a really PISSED off mood requiring multiple trips to his room to discuss the “awakeness in the middle of the night-ness” situation. On the one hand, hey this sure is getting up back into the swing of things for that up coming newborn stage but then again, HELLO - can I have my kid who sleeps through the night back please? Because one or two nights is novelty, five nights in a row is annoying.
I’d say it was the start of school that maybe threw things off kilter but since the craziness began a good two weeks before school started I don’t know what to chalk it up to. This week I thought we were all back on track what with him taking naps and sleeping and all that but apparently that was just a ruse he had going for the nanny. After being in the office for a freelance assignment the last week and a half, yesterday during our first afternoon together Nate pulled ye ole nap strike card again. Au revoir progress. I’m beginning to think it’s me.
So is this just par for the course with two year olds or is this the beginning of a long and painful adjustment to becoming an older brother? We explained to him in very vague terms about a baby arriving in the far (for him) future and that one day he’d be an older brother. He seemed vaguely interested slash mildly suspicious. Given a preference for baby brother versus baby sister he consistently chooses baby sister. He knows that in a couple of weeks we’ll go to the place that has the “special camera” to find out if lo, he indeed gets baby sister or has to put up with baby brother. I tried to focus on the positive aspects of baby brother: avid interest in smashing things, goofballing around in general, discussing all things motor related, ect but he sorta glazed over after I mentioned the word sharing. Hmm. Anyway, a couple of friends have mentioned children acting differently while their mom is pregnant. A couple of my friends are pregnant with their second and the first borns are definitely more clingy and whiny than usual.
Which is it kid? Sibling rivalry or terrible twos? I throw my hands up, I really have no idea what’s going on. Two, it’s a magical and confusing year.
On a wildly different note, my website is apparently f*ed again. I have no idea if the homepage is loading for you but it certainly is not loading for me. I fear much tech work and upgrading in my future. If things go dark here for awhile, just imagine me sitting at my laptop cursing at the live chat operator while crying into my scotch and soda milk and cookies.