Tales of one woman stumbling her way through motherhood.
Since it was Mother’s Day, I had the honor of choosing dinner, so I picked Chinese. My fortune cookie fortune?
You will soon take a very pleasant and successful trip.
Let’s hope that trip is to the labor & delivery floor of the hospital, and I really hope I’ll be able to describe it as “pleasant and successful”.
My lucky numbers were 12, 34, 5, 16, 8, and 27. I’m aiming for the 16th – the 27th is way too long to wait.
Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!
That may just be the title of every post from now until I go into labor, since it’s the primary subject people are wanting to read about. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t make it the title, or you might just skip over the post, having already read the most important news.
I’ll be 38 weeks tomorrow, and still nothing. I spent the weekend walking as much as possible (including getting to spend some time at the zoo with Kate and her kids!). Lots of painless contractions, but nothing regular.
Aaron and I were lucky to land babysitting last night so we could see Spiderman 3. The trailers before the movie showed many of the movies we’re looking forward to seeing this summer. Only I’ll have just had a baby. Plus we have a toddler. And few people want to babysit a newborn and a toddler.
While this baby was planned, I now realize that I should have looked forward a little to the entertainment schedule for May and June. Columbus isn’t exactly a hotbed of exciting things to do, but the next two months are busy. Figures – as soon as I’m busy with a new baby, all the cool stuff comes to town.
First, there are the movies. Spiderman 3 is just the first of the movies we want to see this summer. I really want to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3, as well as Shrek the Third. (What is it with the trilogies this summer?) Then there’s Harry Potter a little later.
I also discovered the Cirque du Soleil is coming to Columbus for the second half of May.
In theatre, two shows I would love to see will be here in June. First, The Complete History of America (Abridged), followed immediately by the musical Wicked.
While the theatre and the Cirque are most certainly off the list, we may still make it to the movies. One idea is to find a drive-in theatre somewhere in town to see the movies, having Cordy go to bed with a babysitter at the house, and taking the baby with us to the movie.
However, in the grand scheme of (admittedly shallow) entertainment pursuits, I did one thing right: I made sure I’ll be mostly recovered and ready for BlogHer 07 at the end of July. Priorities, people!
Wow, it’s Wednesday already? Where has the week gone? Oh yeah, I remember now – I’ve been so busy trying to get things done before this baby comes and the rest of my life gets put on hold for a month or so.
The quick update: No baby yet. I’m 37 weeks, 1.5 centimeters dilated, no effacement. No name yet. Still waiting on that burst of energy known as the “nesting instinct” and wishing it would show up soon, because I could really use a little boost to get all this cleaning done. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve evolved past that particular instinct, because I feel like I could sleep all day long.
Last night, Aaron and I were treated to a very nice dinner. His brother and brother’s girlfriend gave us a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant and promised babysitting as well so that we could have a night out as a couple before our lives are once again thrown upside down by a howling infant. It was a welcome break.
When I say fancy restaurant, I mean fancy. This place was based around their very large collection of high-quality wines (oh, the temptation!). It was a small-ish menu compared to the huge wine list. However, it took us a long time to consider what to order, mostly because we had no idea what half of the menu items were.
There was no bacon cheeseburger or pasta alfredo on the menu; instead, we had to look like the uncultured heathens that we are by asking for menu translations. “What exactly is beef carpaccio? How does Napa slaw differ from regular coleslaw? Can we get no anchovies on the caesar salad? Chili pepper-flavored ice cream – seriously?” (That last question was mine – Aaron has had chili ice cream before. And here I thought I had more sophisticated tastes.)
The meal was excellent, and we finished it off with a layered chocolate and cashew mousse with a fried marshmallow peep “O” – an Ohio State tribute dessert. Total cost for the meal, before tip: $50.71. Total cost to us, with tip: $10.00. Woo-hoo!
Our waitress encouraged us to come back after we have the baby to show her off, but seeing how one meal there is the equivalent of 5-7 meals out normally, it probably won’t happen. But it was so much fun to have that time together last night, talking like adults, with no toddler to entertain at the table, and sit down to a meal that didn’t include french fries or ketchup.
Edited to add: Thank you so much to everyone who shared advice for Liz, Tammie and myself in the Virtual Baby Shower. You’re all awesome. I’ve made some progress getting through the generous outpouring of advice and laughing at all of the assvice as well. It may take a few more days, but I promise I’ll read every single post.
I’ve been self-conscious of my stomach for most of my life. As a kid, I was fairly skinny, but I always had a little bit of my “baby fat” left in my stomach. When my teen years came, puberty chose to keep my abdomen as the first place to store extra fat. I would wear short shorts long before I’d wear a shirt that exposed my belly. That was an area of my body to be kept hidden in the dark under a shirt, sucked in, and held in place with support garments.
So pregnancy functions as a “time off for good behavior” period for my belly. Instead of embarrassing me, my expanding midsection is proof of a new life being nurtured under that layer of skin, fat and muscle. What was once flabby and jiggly is now firm with a defined shape. This is the one time in my life when I’m not ashamed of this part of my body. Good thing, too, since my long torso practically guarantees that my belly is poking out under every shirt I own.
And this is also the only time in my life when I could willingly post pictures of my exposed stomach for all the world to see. (Although I am a little embarrassed at my unfinished wallpaper job in the bathroom.) Here is the baby belly, in full glory as it holds a little girl already estimated at seven pounds:
I was planning a long post about how today was a miserable day and nothing was going right. I had all sorts of things to complain about:
– how our three cats took turns waking me up in 20 min. increments beginning at 5:15am, meaning I had very little sleep and woke up grumpy.
– how the elder Siamese then chose to throw up on the carpet in the living room this morning, not once, but three times. And of course he moved a little between each barfing session, so I had three areas to clean up.
– how Cordy and I have seen Aaron less than a half hour a day since Sunday, due to his being busy at work and directing a play that opened last night.
– how Cordy has not napped in two days, and the weather has been dreary, so she’s bouncing off the walls. And the stupid cable is acting up, and of course one of the channels that doesn’t work right now is Disney.
– how sad/pissed I was to receive a baby shower invitation to my coworker’s shower, when she’s due a month after me, and yet no one at work is throwing a shower for me. I normally wouldn’t care, but every other pregnant woman in our department in the two years I’ve been there has had a shower given in their honor, even if it wasn’t their first child. I guess we part-timers aren’t worth it.
It was going to be a rant-a-rific post.
But then I took some time to read my Bloglines this morning, and saw this. Which lead me to this. Suddenly, my day was brightening.
And after I cried a little from the wave of warm fuzzy feelings washing over me (of course, it doesn’t take much nowadays, so this was a small fountain), I had one of those goofy, half-embarrassed, half-amazed and flattered grins on my face the rest of the day. Still do.
I can’t even begin to say how awesome all of these women are for putting together such a fun and generous event like this for myself, Liz and Tammie. You rock.
If you haven’t had the chance to check out the virtual baby shower, go do it. Because there are games where you can win some fabulous prizes, all without being forced to eat baby food and guess the flavor. And while you’re at it, feel free to leave some advice – or assvice, or both – for the three of us. Liz and I are sophomore moms, so we can pretend we know what we’re doing, but Tammie is a freshman at this, and I’m sure she could use your best tips for this parenting gig.
Tomorrow, I promise a picture of my ginormous baby belly, just so everyone can feel like they’re all really here with me in person for the shower. But can we please skip the game of guessing how many squares of toilet paper go around it?
Tech geek, wife, mom of two, Disney fanatic, woman with ADD, and a complete domestic zero. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but that's not so bad when you get to keep trying new things, right?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.