Not Quite What I Expected

16 weeks (really 15)
15 weeks (really 14)
14 weeks (really 13)

13 weeks (really still 12)

21 weeks [see note re. 18 weeks]

Just Like Jennifer Garner, Only More So

2012-01-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I'm severely delinquent in posting a pregnancy photo—a project I never should have started in the first place, given how little I like to be photographed when pregnant. I'm no Jennifer Garder. Obviously.

That said, I did have a lovely, sunny time in Mexico (where the paparazzi is so much less intense!), made even better by the fact that we flew out of Seattle in the wee hours of a blizzard that shut the city down for many days.

The toddler transitioned beautifully to beach life, making snowmen, snowgirls, and snowcats in the sand. My pregnant self transitioned pretty well to (the good) life in Mexico, too, though I was reminded the hard way that this baby I'm growing inside me WILL NOT STAND FOR ONIONS, dammit. (Yes, I sometimes still barf in my third trimester of pregnancy. Be warned: it could happen to you!)

The highlight was probably the fact that we befriended a very, very fit (and mysteriously tan) family from Vancouver, and I managed to let myself be seen by them in a bathing suit* without having a nervous breakdown.

* I went with my retro-styled one-piece with lots of ruching. Thank god once again for ruching.

Snowed In

2012-01-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

It’s snowing in Seattle. Big, fat flakes for the third day in a row even though, as the woman at the table next to me at the doughnut shop just mused as she gazed out the window, “It’s not cold enough to snow.” It’s not cold enough to snow, but the sky keeps dumping the white stuff, trapping people in their homes and neighborhoods because the city of Seattle owns one snowplow, one shovel, and one bucketful of salt, and the airport has dibs.

Yesterday the two-year-old and I experienced our first “school is cancelled!” snow day, and let me tell you, it was a big bummer. I was not at all in the mood to be housebound for another day, and she was in no mood to hang out with her cranky mother all day. We got bundled up and went outside and I exhorted her to “Go have fun!” while I shoveled. After 20 or so minutes I said, all fake-cheery, “Did you have fun?”

“No.”

I felt like such an ass.

But I just wanted to do some work. And have some alone time. And get some shit—other than shoveling—done.

I’m feeling increasingly panicked about being home mostly full-time (but for occasional writing and teaching breaks) with not one but two children, and being literally trapped at home wasn’t helping matters.

I don’t want a full-time job away from my precious cargo, but twenty hours a week sounds pretty good. Or maybe 25… Anyone know of an employer looking to hire an essayist 25 hours a week? They’d barely have to pay me—just enough to cover a babysitter and maybe a few pens. Anyone? Anywhere? Helloooooooooooooooooo?

In the meantime, we head to Mexico tomorrow. Unless, that is, we get snowed in by the 14'' expected tonight even though it's not cold enough to snow.

Photo courtesy Ladyheart, morgueFile

Things Not to Do in Seattle in January When You’re Six Months Pregnant With Your Second Child:

2012-01-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

1) Try on bathing suits.

Even the one you wore last time you were pregnant. Especially not the one you wore last time you were pregnant. No matter that you’re leaving later in the week for five days in Mexico—DO NOT DO IT. Do not tell your husband your old suits might not fit, either, because he might suggest swimming in one of his old t-shirts which will make you laugh and cry in equal measure until your lungs are choked with snot and phlegm. I don’t know what you should do instead, but don’t do what I did.

DO. NOT. DO. IT.

photo courtesy markemark, morgueFile

Clogs Can Be Sexy...Right?

2012-01-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Chicago, where I basked in the company of two of my best friends, saw a comedy performance at Second City, had high tea at a fancy hotel, slept in a different fancy hotel, felt a bit vertiginous at the top of the John Hancock building, did a little window shopping, had my toenails painted a color called "Vanessa," ate too much delicious food, and had a tiny (but wildly disgusting and a little upsetting) relapse of "morning" sickness in the middle of one night. It turns out the baby-in-the-making isn't as big a fan of truffle oil as I am.

It also turns out that even a city as tidy as Chicago (and DAMN is that city litter-free—I saw ONE wadded-up kleenex on the ground the whole time I was there, and it may well have come from my own pocket)—even a tidy Midwestern city smells really gross when you're (I'm) pregnant. It wasn't as bad as, say, New Orleans, but it was considerably worse than, say, rural north Texas.

As I suspected, no one called the pregnant lady a MILF—which was probably all for the best but still a little disappointing. Even pregnant ladies want to feel wanted, you know? Even in our soft-knit plumpness-showing spandexy skirts and puffy coats that don't close and sensible clogs to keep our feet from aching—even we want someone to convince us we're still hot—or at least really, really, really warm.

photo courtesy kevinrosseel, morgueFile

Post-Vacation Vacation

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

As any therapist, travel agent, or adult human being will tell you, visiting family is not the same thing as taking a vacation. Maybe if your family lives on Kauai and is super chill and psychologically sound and gives you lots of alone time to eat macadamia nut ice cream on the beach, maybe that would qualify as a sort of vacation. Maybe.

But the rest of us…

Well… I for one am off to Chicago for the weekend with two of my best friends, whom I’ve known since elementary school orchestra—off to eat and shop and gaze at artwork and drink mocktails and probably not be called a MILF this year, alas.

I got teary-eyed last night when I thought about being away from the toddler for THREE WHOLE DAYS—and then I got teary-eyed when she woke me up at 6:30am after having been up for two hours in the night for no apparent reason other than she wanted to hang out with us in bed to serenade us with a song that went a little something like: “Mama bed…and daddy bed…and baby bed…and [name withheld] new bed!”

Even though I’m starting to really feel this pregnancy, I can think of nothing nicer than being stuck in an uncomfortable airplane seat alone (well, “alone”), eating my cheese and crackers in peace. And peeing solo for THREE WHOLE DAYS? My holidays have just begun.

photo courtesy clarita, morgueFile

Things They Don't Tell You About (a Second) Pregnancy #348,958

2012-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking, I do not weigh myself at home. I don't particularly want to know how much I weigh—unless I've just given birth to a baby and a placenta and a whole lot of fluid and suddenly weigh a hell of a lot less than I did mere days before. And when I'm pregnant I REALLY don't want to know how much I weigh, especially when that number starts approaching my husband's weight, as it did at the nine-month mark of my first pregnancy.

I know I'm not alone in hating the ritual at the OB's office of weighing in first thing, even though the doctor always says, "Your weight gain looks great!" as if it's something to strive toward—which I suppose in a way, it is—but it's hard to imagine having to WORK at gaining weight while pregnant, what with all those doughnuts and glasses of whole milk and cubes of cheese begging to be consumed.

After my weigh-in at this month's appointment, the nurse exclaimed "Yay!" for no apparent reason which was really, really sweet of her because I weigh nearly as much as I did at the END of my last pregnancy. I was horrified, of course, because I still have THREE AND A HALF MONTHS OF WEIGHT-GAIN LEFT. And there's no WAY I'm going to be able to survive over three more months (or even hours) of pregnancy eating, like, nonfat yogurt and carrot sticks.

When I mentioned my horror to the nurse, she said cheerfully, "Yeah—that happens with second pregnancies. We just don't tell you beforehand!"

When I mentioned it to the doctor, she assured me that I probably wouldn't gain more than a few pounds more than I did last time and then added, "Anyway, it's out of your control." Which was pretty much the most reassuring thing she could have said. Like even if I were to only eat carrot sticks and nonfat yogurt, I would gain the same amount as with my current diet of bread, cheese, cereal, BLTs, pasta, homemade cookies, and almond-flavored steamed milk, which I always mean to ask to be 2% but almost always forget.

I have rolls of, uh, extra skin seemingly everywhere these days, like my body wants to be totally prepared JUST IN CASE there's a famine between now and April 21st. Body, I promise you: no famine! You don't need to store fat QUITE so vigorously. I promise the baby will get PLENTY to eat.

(I promise, too, to post a picture soon—even though I don't really want to. My excuses are many, not the least of which is that it's pitch dark until 8am and then again at 4pm and moderately dark in between, so there literally has not been a time with enough light for my husband to take an outdoor photo. And no WAY am I going to add the unflatteringness of a flashbulb to the situation. No fucking way.)

photo courtesy alvimann, morgueFile

Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Wilson

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

So. It's been a while. I survived two weeks (plus an extra day—what was up with yesterday being a school holiday? Enough already!) without childcare help, a Texas Christmas, two long flights with a two-year-old, an overworked husband, and countless other things I blocked out. The toddler is back in school, and here I am, wondering what the hell I was thinking getting pregnant a SECOND TIME so I could start the waiting-until-he-or-she-is-old-enough-for-school process all over again. By day #8 I was contemplating a career in finance just so I could hire a full-time nanny rather than an occasional college student who goes HOME for winter break—the nerve! As lucky as I am to be able to stay home with my kid—well—I can't do it 24/7 and maintain my sanity. Especially while pregnant. In the dark, rainy winter. With a toddler who loves nothing more than to be six inches from my side AT ALL TIMES.

"Watch Mama pee-pee?"

"Actually, Mama would love just a moment of solitude."

"Mama poo-poo? Watch Mama poo-poo?"

"Actually, adults tend to like privacy when they go poo-poo. Would you mind maybe just giving me a moment here?"

"Mama wash hands? Help Mama? Help Mama wash hands?"

It's ADORABLE AS HELL, and it's driving me mad. Well it was. But now she's back in school, and I have to say I felt a little bereft after dropping her off—though nothing a doughnut didn't quickly cure.

photo courtesy ppdigital, morgueFile

It Isn't Christmas Without Cowboys and Barbeque

2011-12-22T05:04:00.000-08:00

The two-year-old: Airpane.

Me: That's right! We're going on an airplane today. Do you remember who we're going to go see?

The two-year-old: Pop and Nana!

Me: Yep. And where are we going to see them?

The two-year-old: Texas!

Me: And what do we say when we go to Texas?

The two-year-old: YE-HAW!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Drink Your Gin-and-Tonukkah

2011-12-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

Last night, as you may well know, was the first night of Chanukkah. My husband is mostly Jewish. I, on the other hand, do not even know how to spell Hanukah. (In my defense, it’s never spelled the same way twice. Can’t they standardize that sucker?)

For whatever reason, my husband celebrated secular Christmas growing up as well as Chanukah, and here in Seattle where there isn’t a super active Jewish culture, he downplays his Judaism. I’m the one out buying apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, the one securing us a Seder invite on Passover, the one making sure the turkey is kosher and the candles have been purchased for the menorah.

I did these things before we had an offspring, but they’ve gained a certain urgency since.

My daughter is more or less half Jewish. Her paternal grandfather is 100% Jewish. Her paternal grandmother is 50% by blood—but on her dad’s side, so 0% by religious tradition—and 100% by premarital conversion.

My daughter’s maternal grandmother is 0% Jewish by any measure, and her maternal grandfather is reportedly 25% Jewish by blood, but on his father’s mother’s side, so 0% by religious tradition and 0%, also, by any other tradition, as rural Iowan Great-Grandma Diehl apparently did not cop to being a Jew. All anyone knows about her is that she apparently made really great cookies.

I’ve tried to sort out exactly what percent Jewish my daughter is by blood (because fractions are fun!), but I always get muddled along the way. I think she’s 7/16ths, for whatever that’s worth. (She might also be one-one-zillionth Cherokee, but aren’t we all?) Basically, she’s half, though in a totally secular way so far, since neither her father nor I is religious.

When I explained a Christmas song to her the other day in which various animals share things with baby Jesus (some hay, some fleece, a dove-song, a ride to Bethlehem for his massively preggo mama), I found myself saying, “Christmas is about family and sharing and giving gifts and celebrating the birth of all the babies in the world.” Um… really? Since when? I attended a Quaker-founded college and am versed in the belief that “there is that of God in all of us,” but the idea that Christmas is celebrating ALL our birthdays is a bit much, even for the super-tolerant Quakers.

“Festival of lights,” I can get behind. I left the explaining of the Maccabees to the Chanukkah episode of the Shalom Sesame series—a series that is going to prove very useful, as my husband claims not to have much in the way of religious memory, even though he was (traumatically, I might add) Bar Mitztvahed during his parents’ brief orthodox phase.

“How do you pronounce Shammash?” I ask. “Is it Shah-MAWSH? SHAY-mish? SHAM-ish? And are there any traditional Hanukkah foods I could make besides latkes? And what does this prayer mean exactly?”

He shrugs and leaves the dreidel cookie I bought for him at the bakery for the two-year-old to have tomorrow.

The two-year-old is, of course, eating it all up. The candles, the prayer, the cookies, the tree, the decorations, the fudge, the gifts, the cookies, the advent calendar, the Christmas music. I fear she will grow up to be one of those kids they were talking about in the controversial Israeli “come back to the homeland, ye American Jews” advertising campaign who think that Chanukah is Christmas, such is the overlap of our traditions—not to mention decorations.

We’re thinking about sending her to a preschool program at the Jewish Cultural Center next year (or the next year or the next—godDAMN is there a lot of preschool when your kid starts at 22 months), largely because I get teary-eyed when I see the little kids on the website making challah.

The other day she came home from her current preschool, which has been adorned this month with snowflakes, menorahs, and a Christmas tree covered in pipe-cleaner ornaments and Mardi Gras beads, and I asked her if she wanted to play dreidel with me. I began singing, “Dreidel, dreidel, drei—”

“I made it out of play!” she finished proudly.

Birthday parties for all babies of the world and tops made out of play—the holidays have officially Arrived.

Happy Chrismukkah!

This essay also appears here as an Editor's Pick on Open Salon.

photo courtesy auntlaya, morgueFile

Not Quite What I Expected From Target

2011-12-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

I was standing in line at customer service at a certain big-box store yesterday returning the 17th maternity coat I've ordered online that hasn't even come close to fitting, when I caught this adorable preschool-age girl staring knowingly at my (uncovered-by-anything-so-bulky-as-a-coat) belly.

"You know what's in there, don't you?" I smiled.

She nodded and pointed at the infant in the shopping cart next to her and said, "We have a baby, too! Her name is Brooklyn."

Having named my favorite childhood doll Baby Chicago, I was instantly enchanted. "What a pretty name! What's yours?"

"Kennedy."

I told her that's one of my very favorite names (which Dr. Husband would be hard pressed to use for our child and therefore I can share with you here), and she turned to her mom and said, "She is SO sweet."

It was like one of my great-aunts had come back to life in the form of a chatty three-year-old.

It made my day, and then the day got made again when I heard her mom saying to her as I left, "But remember, we don't ASK people if they have babies growing inside them, right?"

And Kennedy was all, "But why?"

But why, indeed. It beats telling someone they look like a "regular American."

photo courtesy imelenchon, morgueFile

My Child's Future Career in Advertising

2011-12-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

When asked if she needs a clean diaper, the two-year-old says one of two things: "Noooooooooo." Or: "Clean AND fresh AND new."

When I asked her today if something was yummy, she said, "AND fresh and new."

I'm pretty sure she's working on an accompanying jingle, too.

Twenty-Two Weeks

2011-12-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

I think I might have forgotten to mention that I'm no longer queasy or barfing. A Chrismukkah miracle—or just the joys of finally being well into my second trimester of my LAST PREGNANCY EVER, GOD HELP ME, HALLELUJAH, AMEN. I actually quit barfing a few weeks ago—around week 18, same as last time around. Many, many smells and flavors are still revolting, including the smell of onions and something they cook with at every bakery in town—possibly onions? Whatever. Only 18 more weeks to go! (Eighteen weeks feels like a lifetime, still, but supposedly it's not.)

20 weeks

19 weeks

[at 18 weeks I REALLY didn't want my photo taken]

17 weeks (for reals)

16 weeks (really 15)
15 weeks (really 14)
14 weeks (really 13)

13 weeks (really still 12)

My Highly Specialized Self-Given Assignment for the Day:

2011-12-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

Locate and download every "Chrismukkah" episode of the O.C. and binge like mad. Who needs Zoloft when you've got a really bright lamp and a four hours of Rachel Bilson singing the dreidel song with reindeer antlers on her head?*

*This is a metaphor. Or maybe just a figure of speech. Or a creative use of language. In any case, not literal—lest you download them yourself and get disappointed.

photo courtesy kakisky, morgueFile

How to Apply Eyeliner (But Not Really)

2011-12-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

I know, Santa, it’s not the time of year to be bad-mouthing other writers (an activity best saved for late January), but this particular issue has been dogging me for a while. (Long before Babble unveiled its list of top 100 Mom Bloggers and none of the people I like to read the most are on it. (I learned of said list after writing the bulk of this post, in fact, so you cannot accuse me of sour grapes—at least not with any accuracy—though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be NUMBER ONE in all aspects of life. Especially the ones I’ve never even tried—like professional golf.)) This isn’t a specific dig on any one writer. It’s just that so few so-called Mommy Bloggers seem to be truly honest about the gritty, messy parts of parenting and even more so the messy parts of marriage (perhaps because our spouses and their co-workers are more likely to read our posts than our children and their peers?).

Surely I’m not the only person out there whose mate isn’t always 100% supportive (or who isn’t always 100% supportive of their mate)? Surely I’m not the only person out there who feels like her brain might explode if her toddler takes even ONE MORE SECOND to finish her mind-numbingly slow ascent up the stairs? Surely I’m not the only person out there who would rather—and, in fact, does—eat M&Ms than wheatgrass smoothies when pregnant?

Am I alone in feeling more alienated by tales of near-perfect parenting presented under the guise of “my day was sooooooooo crazy—the washing machine broke and then I tweeted about it and now I got a new one for free?” (A slight exaggeration for dramatic purposes.) Am I alone in being tired of endless streams of slow-to-load photos of adorable children behaving adorably? Am I alone in wanting my online mom-peers to dig deep and get thoughtful and maybe even really bitch about something in a well-spoken way rather than tell me how I can apply makeup in the manner of a movie star or tell me a list of your favorite songs this month or tell me where to buy, buy, buy this that or the other camera/nursing cover-up/purse/deer-antler coatrack?*

Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE TO SHOP. And god knows I like someone else to do the legwork of sifting through the internet to separate the cool, interesting products from the copious amounts of crap in the world. And god knows, too, I NEED TUTORIALS ON HOW TO APPLY MAKEUP—it’s just that as a professional writer and an avid reader, I’m actually (stupidly?) looking to the internet and its many, many blogs for GOOD WRITING that SPEAKS TO ME in that magical universal way that writers hit upon when they get good and specific about themselves—and their struggles and problems and obsessive thoughts about WHATEVER. And it would be nice SO NICE if a post occasionally broke the 1,000 word mark—hell, even the 500 word mark—and not with the inclusion of the lyrics to entire songs.

I know, I know, I’m lame. Old-fashioned. I do not tweet. I barely use Facebook. I do not use an e-reader, nor do I aspire to. After reading a thoughtful, longish essay or meditation on a sustained topic, I feel fulfilled, educated, connected. After I finish reading a blog post (let alone a status update) full of excruciatingly cute photos of strangers and cheerful tips on dog-rearing, I kind of want to kill myself.

I was happy to read this post by Alice Bradley this morning, which struck me as more honest and real than most work by the best-known “Mommy Bloggers.” I felt awash in gratitude for the realness. It's terrifying, yes, to find out that even when they're NINE, children apparently still whine and refuse to get dressed and cry at the drop of a pin and generally behave like two-year-olds, but it's also REALLY GOOD TO KNOW because it means that even if my child's obstreperous behavior is a phase, it's a RECURRING phase, so I'd better find a way to ride it out, stat.

I appreciate you women who share photos of your dog balancing your vial of antidepressants on his head (for instance), but I also want to hear about the struggle—otherwise I end up feeling more alone, like, Sure, other moms have a hard time occasionally, but then they take cute photos with their pets and they’re cured—what’s YOUR problem?

As I sit here under my crazy-bright therapist-prescribed S.A.D. lamp even though I do not have Seasonal Affective Disorder—I just live in a very dark place (literally, not figuratively— most of the time) and have a mild form of regular old depression-depression and a disinclination to take meds, especially while pregnant—I give thanks to all of you other “undiscovered” bloggers out there who are talking so thoughtfully and humorously about pee and poop and vomit and depression and sibling rivalry and sibling love and faith and writing and how to get blood out of every piece of cloth in your bathroom after unwittingly giving birth in there.

I like you.

*I’d actually really like one of these.

photo courtesy jdurham, morgueFile

Twenty-One Weeks

2011-12-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

SO not in the mood. Sorry! Check back next week.

The War on Drugs

2011-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Not me...Yet...

I was at a certain home furnishings/picture frame/giant candle store the other day and saw a slender, well-coiffed woman who was looking decidedly pregnant and the teensiest bit nervous. I showed her my belly (clothing on), and we did the "simultaneously pregnant" chatting thing for a bit—When are you due? Is this your first? Boy or girl?—when I decided to drop the bomb:

"The whole childbirth thing isn't actually that bad."

"Oh, thank god!" she said, visibly relieved. "That's so great to hear. I'm doing natural childbirth, so that's really great to know!"

I wanted to say, "No, I meant the epidural makes it not that bad," but I decided to let her believe what she wants. Who knows. Maybe unmedicated childbirth isn't that bad, either. I kind of hope to never have to know.

photo courtesy grietgriet, morgueFile

Not Quite What I Expected From an Obstetrician

2011-12-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

I love my OB. LOVE HER. I loved her even before she donned her hazmat suit and full-on plexiglass face shield (Things They Don’t Tell You About Pregnancy #157, 983) and delivered my first baby and then sewed me up as good as new—so good, in fact, that the nurse practitioner who removed my IUD declared that it looked like I’d never had a baby—which is, of course, the nicest compliment you can give a post-partum vagina.

She’s perfectly professional while simultaneously making me feel like if we’d met in a coffee shop instead of her clinic we’d be best friends (a girl can wish); she soothes my anxieties without indulging them; she makes it seem reasonable to want an epidural and a lovely, midwife-approved soak in a hot tub; she went to Harvard Medical School and remains current on all the latest research and she’s super approachable in an ever-so-slightly frazzled way that I find endearing. She’s like a sweet, nurturing, no-nonsense midwife who can expertly manage the most extremely risky/dangerous/complicated pregnancy without batting an eyelid.

Oh, the number of times I’ve wished she could be my doctor for everything, not just my lady business. (Today, in fact, I made this wish come ever-so-slightly true when I told her about some dizzy spells I’ve been having that I was pretty sure weren’t pregnancy related, but you never can be sure, right? Her diagnosis: an otherwise asymptomatic inner-ear bug that’s been running the viral circuit lately and that she currently has, too. See? We should be best friends!)

Given my last post, you can imagine how much my love skyrocketed this morning when my OB told me that if my prenatal vitamins were giving me trouble, I should STOP TAKING THEM. What kind of doctor says that? The incredibly awesome kind, that’s who. Apparently I can just take some easy-on-the-stomach folic acid and call it a day.

Well, not quite, I still have to take iron because I’m one of those women who tend toward the anemic even when not growing a fellow being who sucks half your blood from your body for their own selfish purposes—but she and I agreed that if I took the iron with a snack right before bed, I might not even notice the indigestion. She also praised me for “experimenting with" (i.e. "neglecting to take for the past week") the vitamins to sort out the indigestion situation. I love being pregnant the second time! It’s like being a pro!

Did I just say I love being pregnant? To clarify, I do not. It’s just not quite as horrible this time around. Which apparently means I’m having a boy. Because, as everyone knows, boys are easier—at least once they’ve outgrown the stage of getting into everything and before they enter the stage of never calling or writing or sending a card on Mother’s Day.

photo courtesy jeltovski, morgueFile

Twenty Weeks: Half Full, Half Empty

2011-12-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

It's cold. I should be wearing a coat. But then I'd look fat. (See below.)

Twenty weeks! 20/40ths! Halfway there! Woo hoo! All these exclamation points! They are my way of trying to convey an enthusiasm that I should be feeling but am not! I’m actually still quite worn out! And unmotivated-feeling! And a little blue even though it’s the MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

Do marathoners feel elated when they hit the 13 mile mark, or do they think, “Fuck, I still have 13 miles left—I hope I can keep holding my shit in, er, together…”?

This weekend at the drug store, the young, smiley cashier looked at me in my puffy down mid-thigh winter coat that is luckily equipped with a double zipper so I can (so far) squeeze in my stomach while I pull both zippers up to my new waist, located at my bra-line, creating a split zipper-type situation and thereby keeping a bit warmer than if I had to leave the garment all the way open all of the time—she took one look at me squeezed into this thing and said, “Are you pregnant, or—?”

Or what? Or too fat to be able to properly zip my coat? Seriously? You’re asking me that? Are you trying to make me feel worse, or is that part an accident?

“—or do you just like these prenatal vitamins?” she finished, holding up the bottle I was purchasing.

I confirmed that I am, in fact pregnant, and she congratulated me and did a little happy dance and generally behaved like the extremely sweet young woman she clearly is.

I might be a touch paranoid.

Speaking of prenatal vitamins, I finally, after SIXTY WEEKS, discovered that they are what causes/exacerbates my pregnancy indigestion. (Actually, it might just have been the past twenty weeks, since EVERY PREGNANCY IS DIFFERENT, so who knows what was causing/exacerbating my indigestion last time around.) I share this fact not because it is interesting but because OH HOW I WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME TWENTY WEEKS AGO that SWITCHING PRENATAL VITAMINS might have been ALL IT TOOK to CURE MY INDIGESTION. (I don’t actually know yet whether switching helps. What I do know is that skipping them altogether DEFINITELY helps. Who needs niacin, anyway? And iron? So overrated!*)

19 weeks

[at 18 weeks I REALLY didn't want my photo taken]

17 weeks (for reals)

16 weeks (really 15)
15 weeks (really 14)
14 weeks (really 13)

13 weeks (really still 12)

*Kidding, Mom.

The Circle of Life

2011-12-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

I had my third—and if all keeps going well—final ultrasound yesterday, and I managed not to peek and find out the sex of the baby. Even more so than last time, I've really been enjoying not knowing—though both times I've had a moment or two of wanting to cave. It's not that hard not finding out—except when a total stranger in-the-form-of-an-ultrasound-technician is sitting in the room with you looking at images of your baby's crotch and knowing.

When the technician told me her daughters' names, I said, "Oooh! Those are good ones! We're always looking for good "S" names since our last name starts with an S" (and it's fun to alliterate, obviously). Her lack of a response told me with certainty that the baby is a boy—no Sophias or Sadies for us—but Dr. Husband pointed out that she's a medical professional and unlikely to reveal information she's not supposed to. God knows those people never slip up! Still, I'm assuming boy. Samuel? Scott? Silas? Singer?*

The baby appears healthy and strong with no obvious markers of obvious problems, which is fitting since people in this family tend to have more subtle kinds of problems—the kind that require therapy, not the kind that require intervention by a team of specialists. (Though now that I think about it, I can imagine any number of ways in which intervention by a team of specialists would have been/would still be a GODSEND.)

I was reading through the radiologist's report, happily noting all the "normals" (not to mention the "singles"), when I glanced at the top of the page and saw, "Detailed screen for fetal anomalies — Advanced Maternal Age."

I'd forgotten that at 36 I'm ooooooooooold. I do feel kinda creaky nowadays, but I assumed that was from this damp climate and carrying around an extra 20 pounds in my mid-section and a 27-pound toddler in my arms. Not so. It's because I'm elderly. Advanced. Old.

Awesome.

Now get over here so I can call you by the wrong name and pinch those rosy cheeks and force you to eat some peanut brittle.

*None of these are names we would actually use. Unless something tragic happens to Dr. Husband before the baby is born, in which case Silas and Singer will both be back in play.)

photo courtesy julesinky, morgueFile

Bingle Balls and Whofoo Fluff

2011-12-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

It appears to be December here in Seattle, and I know this not because my calendar (and computer and phone and child's preschool) tell me it is but because the sun is now rising at approximately 8:45am* and setting around noon**.

Never have I wanted quite so badly to string holiday lights ALL OVER THE HOUSE AND YARD, creating a spectacle rivaling those of the '80s West Texas yards of my grandparents' friends and neighbors—giant plastic illuminated reindeer and snowmen and Nativity scenes featuring the three Wise Men and Santa peering at the baby Jesus. Awesome stuff that was. Sheer ridiculous gaudy splendor. Seattle tends to be a bit more... understated. And energy conscious. And did I mention DARK?!

*Technically 7:37am.
** Technically 4:20pm.

photo courtesy paulabflat, morgueFile

Nineteen Weeks

2011-11-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Now that Thanksgiving has passed and I can be done feeling guilty for all the things I should be thankful for but am not always (including but not limited to our lovely-but-not-suiting-my-needs house and our lush and private but baby-death-trap-ish yard), my spirits have lifted slightly. I’m not saying that I’m going to go out and become a cheerleading coach or motivational speaker, but everything today feels slightly less pointless than it did last week. Maybe everything is just as pointless as it was before, but I’ve stopped thinking about it, which is an improvement. I'm less blue and more, uh, periwinkle, I guess.

I’m still not wild about my “Is she plump or pregnant?” (when wearing pants and a shirt because CLEARLY I'm pregnant when wearing a dress!) body and find myself weirdly looking forward to being hugely preggers if only so that people will stop telling me I don’t look pregnant. As a friend from my mom’s group put it the other day, “You don’t look pregnant—you just look like a regular American.” Um…thanks?

Feeling Blue

2011-11-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

So, the baby—er, the two-year-old—is now two, the bun in the oven is 9/20ths baked (this week’s photo coming soon), my nausea has largely waned, the blessedly uncommercialized holiday known as Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and still I am in a foul (I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to write “fowl”) mood. I’m not sure whether it’s pregnancy hormones, too little sunlight, too little quality Adult Time with my mate, or too much recent and impending Family Togetherness (parents and in-laws and siblings, oh my!), but whatever the cause, the effect is this: I don’t want to write, I don’t want to cook, I don’t want to prepare for the class I’ll be teaching in a little over a month, I definitely don’t want to rake the yard, and lord knows I don’t want to clean the house, though lord also knows I do want the house to be magically clean. All I really want to do is lie on the couch and watch TV shows featuring Rachel Bilson, though I know from experience that will make me feel worse, so I don’t really even want to do that.

When I’m not pregnant and feel this way I usually drink too much coffee and run around doing a zillion mindless errands, getting shit crossed off my to-do list so that when I start feeling better and the creative thoughts resume, I can devote my time to them and not worry that I’m about to run out of toothpaste/deodorant/diapers/cat food. Also, I eat a lot of chocolate.

But without coffee (still smells disgusting) or chocolate (makes my indigestion markedly worse) or my non-pregnancy energy levels (where is my glorious second trimester energy burst?), even the idea of going to Walgreens to replace my mysteriously missing fingernail clippers feels too daunting. And in the rain? No freaking way.

I know this feeling is temporary, that it could pass before the day is even done, but in the meantime, it’s pretty sucky. And what’s worse is not being able to think of a single thing I could do for myself that might help. Because more than anything else, I don’t want to wallow. I wouldn’t even know what I was wallowing in, so there really would be no point.

Photo courtesy alvimann, morgueFile

Bye, bye, baby!

2011-11-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

My baby turns two tomorrow. Two! TWO YEARS OLD!

I have not found a single soft-focus pregnancy cliche to be accurate—okay, it is pretty cool to feel the baby kick, AND I suppose giving birth was pretty rad, too, what with the epidural and all, but I clearly am not a "pregnancy is a glorious, glowing time" kind of girl.

Sappy Hallmarky sentiments about parenting are another matter, however. The years really do fly by! You really do have to cherish every moment! They honestly do grow up so damn fast!

Just yesterday I was coaxing my child to eat her first bite of pureed sweet potatoes, and now she's demanding cake and cookies at every meal.

Just yesterday I was bouncing her up and down on a Pilates ball (ultimately used for neither Pilates nor labor) for hours on end to get her to stop crying, and now she's consoling me when I can't pull it together. (She always is quick to offer a hug and a kiss—today she also offered her Magna-Doodle and her Fisher-Price push-"popper" to cheer me up. And wouldn't you know? It worked.)

Just yesterday she screamed bloody murder every time the car was stopped at a traffic light, and now she gleefully cries out "red yight!" from the backseat. (Granted, her next words are usually, "Geen, pease!")

Just yesterday I was wondering when the fuck labor was going to FINALLY START, and now I am the proud mama of a daughter who wows me with her creativity and curls and stubborn sass—not to mention her love of frosting, which surpasses even her love of cake.

In honor of this girl's special day, I will stop calling her "the baby" tomorrow, and start calling her "the two-year-old."

In the meantime, when did my baaaaaaby get so grown-up?

Seventeen Weeks—Again!

2011-11-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

Remember how when I went in for my 12-week ultrasound, I found out I was actually 13 weeks pregnant? Remember how it was the best news a pregnant lady could hear (other than “Your baby is a healthy, amazing specimen,” of course)?

I found out at my 17 week doctor’s visit last week that I was actually only 16 weeks. The 12-week ultrasound is apparently notorious for adding an extra five days or so to the wee one’s age, which I sort of knew from browsing the information superhighway but was sort of in denial of.

So: here I am at seventeen weeks and two days. Again.

My "due date" is back to April 21st.

The good news is that apparently for a second pregnancy, one is allowed to be induced at 39 weeks instead of 41-42, so if I'm feeling desperate, there are options. The less good news is that I'm already sick of photographing my less-than-beautiful-feeling self every week—and there are still 23 (or 22) weeks to go. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate being pregnant? I'm lucky and blessed and believe you me, I'm very excited for the little guy (or girl) already kicking me in the ribs—but still, I hate being pregnant.

16 weeks (really 15)
15 weeks (really 14)
14 weeks (really 13)

13 weeks (really 12)

16 weeks
15 weeks
14 weeks

Leaf Me Alone

2011-11-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

I feel much the same way about raking leaves as I do about grocery shopping—I dread it, I avoid it, I think that I hate it, but when I’m actually doing it it’s pretty fun, and afterwards it’s gratifying—especially if I’ve gotten to shop somewhere loaded with organic produce and short on crazy junk food. (Don’t get me wrong, I do love me some crazy junk food, I just don’t like to be bombarded by it—or by the cartoony mega-corporate packaging or loud overhead muzak associated with it. My ideal grocery store would carry all organic, fresh, local everything—plus Quaker Oat Squares, Wheaties, cinnamon Pop Tarts, Tostitos brand corn chips, and the occasional block of Velveeta with which to make cheese dip. Oh, also Kit-Kats, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser.)

When it comes to leaf raking, I appreciate a dry, level yard with minimal ground shrubbery or evergreens for the leaves to get tangled up in—all things I took for granted when I lived in Iowa. Just as I took for granted “leaf collection day” on which a large truck with a giant hose comes along and sucks up all the leaves you’ve piled by the curb and takes them off to the mulch factory or whatever.

Our yard is wet, severely steep, and loaded with evergreens and ground shrubbery—not to mention a very, very old, beautiful and prolific maple and a very, very, very old, beautiful and prolific cherry tree. The maple and cherry trees are, in fact, my favorite things about living in this house, which much of the time I am of mixed minds and feelings about. I love that it’s an old craftsman, and I love that there are so many windows—I just don’t love that it’s so dark despite the windows (or so drafty because of them) or that the yard is so steep I worry about my child falling to her death whenever we’re in it or that there are rats in the back yard or that getting to the car from the house involves a billion steps in either direction or that every improvement that’s ever been made to the house has been done piecemeal and patchworky and not at all matching. I also really, really, really don’t like the kitchen or… well… I could go on, but I won’t. The point is, everyone else LOVES my house—my husband, his parents, my parents, his friends, my friends—pretty much everyone but me, the person who spends the most time in it, trying to raise a small child without her getting hurt or me losing my mind.

ANYway, the point of all this is that while historically I’ve liked doing yard work, I’ve discovered that working in a dangerously steep yard with a two-year-old underfoot is terrifying and very slow going. And more to the point, working on this particular yard makes me bitchy. It funnels all my resentments and compromises and annoyances into one big tornado of pissiness—which is why I put out the call on neighborhood listserv for teenagers looking to make a little cash by raking leaves. Twenty dollars a pop is a small price to pay for bitchiness reduction—not to mention leaf removal.

It turns out teens in Seattle—at least in our upper-middle-class section of it—aren’t so keen on raking up soppy, mossy, heavy leaves on a Sunday afternoon. My posting got one bite, and it wasn’t the teen himself who responded but his mom offering up his services.

I thought nothing of it until they stood in my doorway and the mom gently asked her adorably/painfully gawky 13-year-old if he’d like her to stick around while he got started and he said, “I want you to stay the whole time because it was your idea and I don’t want to be doing this in the first place.”

Ahem.

Perfect.

Just what I had in mind. A 13-year-old and his mom raking my yard all afternoon.

Well, at least I’m no longer alone in my surliness toward our yard. And while I can’t think of much worse company than an angry, strong-armed, disempowered 13-year-old boy with terrible people skills, at least I’m not totally alone.

Photo courtesy kevinrosseel, morgueFile

For the Love of Toast

2011-11-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, I know, and I promise I will attempt to write something thoughtful and coherent and interesting(ish) soon.

In the meantime, I have a question for you: can anyone out there recommend A TOASTER? Nothing fancy, nothing special (i.e. no egg poaching compartment(!?) required), just a toaster that TOASTS. A toaster that reliably makes evenly toasted toasty toast without crazy bipolar mood swings that lead to pale, floppy bread some days and burned smoking ash other days?

Ditto a toaster oven?

Because for every review on Amazon that declares "This toaster toasts perfectly!" there is one that insists the same toaster can't toast worth shit. Why are there so many options? Why are they all so crappy?

The smell most likely to make me barf this pregnancy has been the chemically/burny smell of a gas grill or charcoal barbecue or LAME, CHEAP, SMOKY, PIECE-OF-SHIT toaster or toaster oven.

I cannot tell you the number of times I've barfed after Dr. Husband or I have attempted to make toast in the past few months. (At least ~~five~~! Make that ~~six~~ seven!)

I'm SEVENTEEN WEEKS (and three days) pregnant—I should not still be barfing, dammit. And if it takes replacing our toaster and toaster oven to make that happen, by god, then new small appliances, here we come.

photo courtesy cohdra, morgueFile

Seventeen Weeks

2011-11-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

Seventeen weeks (and two days). It’s gotten to the point where when people cheerfully declare, “Oh, you don’t look pregnant!” I’m offended. You think my body is just shaped like that? You think those Pop-Tarts you just saw me eat went right to my lower belly?

I’ve pretty much given up trying to hide my bump, opting instead for a giant round pin that says, “I’m pregnant—be nice to me.” (Oh, how I wish. If you know anyone who makes such pins, do tell.) I bought a sweet, heavy, swoopy dark grey sweater for our Iowa trip—one of those open-front kind with long, pointy tail-like ends. I learned from the saleswoman that one end can be tucked in over the opposite shoulder, making for a surprisingly flattering asymmetrical drape-type situation. It fit my new maternity clothing criteria—I can wear it both now and for many months after I’ve given birth and still have some poochiness to hide/obscure, it’s flattering, and I love it enough to justify the outrageous expense to myself.

I eagerly put it on our first day in Iowa, where it was in the fifties most of the time—perfect heavy sweater weather—and then proceeded to shed all over the fucking place like a long-haired cat on the first day of summer. It was outrageous—charcoal-grey fuzz everywhere, coating (which I just typoed as “catting”) my shirt, my pants, the seat on the rental car, my child’s clothes, my parents’ condo. When I found its dark grey leavings wrapped around the spout of my child’s sippy cup, I declared defeat, stuck the sweater in a plastic bag, and let my belly show the rest of the trip.

I'm pregnant—be nice to me.

13 weeks

Going the Distance...

2011-11-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

We’re heading to visit my folks in Iowa for an extended weekend, and since I’m not taking my computer with me and do not possesses the know-how (or patience or tiny fingers) to use my phone to post entries, you might not hear from me for a bit. I promise I’ll do what I can. In the meantime, I leave you with this to remember me by:

Because if you imagine the cosmos are corn stalks, this is more or less what Iowa looks like and what we will look like in it, overalls and all.

Sixteen Weeks

2011-11-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

Here I am at sixteen weeks and one day—not that anyone's counting. The baby is 2/5ths cooked, which annoyingly feels like less than last week's 3/8ths. Damn you fractions and your tricky ways!

I am now wearing official maternity clothes and am, ironically, happier—and cozier—for it. It turns out that elastic waistbands are so much more comfortable than regular denim ones—especially when you have AN EXTRA PERSON INSIDE YOU exerting pressure on your belly. It also turns out that the key to happy maternity-pants-wearing are those belly-band things that look like the bottom edge of a tank-top poking out from underneath your shirt but are actually giant soft rubber bands that help hold your pants up. I can’t tell you how much time I spent during my last pregnancy hiking up my pants. (So much time!) With my hands now full of toddler and toddler accoutrements, I really need my pants to stay up on their own this time around. I have a tendency to have overly high expectations, but I'm pretty sure that wanting your pants not to spontaneously fall off is not asking too much. Right?

I Am Svetlana, Hear Me Roar/Meow!

2011-10-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

According to one of the informational post-it notes on the “curriculum board” at my daughter’s preschool, one of the lessons they’ve been teaching recently is “Halloween costumes and decorations aren’t scary.”

I get where they’re coming from—two-year-olds are scared of the vacuum cleaner and the “crumbs” in the bathtub, the last thing we need to add is ghosts and witches and people dressed up like Rick Perry to the house of frights. But at the same time, really? Isn’t Halloween supposed to be a little scary? Like, pretend scary that we’re actually in control of?

I myself find Halloween terrifying. All that pressure!

On Thanksgiving and Christmas you just have to show up and be nice. On Halloween you have to be creative and relevant and sexy. I’m typically an anxious mess for a full month leading up to Halloween before settling on a costume that’s usually creative and moderately relevant and almost never even remotely sexy. My first year at my tiny little nerdy college I dressed entirely in green and went as a Whitman-inspired Leaf of Grass. (Only one person at the party I attended had the appropriate response to my costume, which was to laugh so hard he inadvertently snorted. No one else got close enough to ask what I was—and an explanation was definitely required.) The next year, I looked to the college’s Quaker history and dressed entirely in ecru and went as Quaker Oatmeal. I stuck bits of oatmeal to my face and wondered why no one asked me out—ever! The next two years I tracked down the resident Jehovah’s Witnesses and spent a quiet October 31st studying in the dorm.

Growing up in a small town in Iowa, I never got the sexy memo. When the sexy thing became obvious in college, I was mostly repulsed. Why do all these women want to be hookers for Halloween? I asked more than once. It’s not even creative. The part of me that wasn’t repulsed was intimidated and insecure. Why hadn’t anyone suggested that I should be a hooker for Halloween? Wouldn’t I make a good hooker? Aren’t I sexy? I mean, these overalls are definitely sexy. I’m sure of it!

I was scared to try, scared to fail—so I mostly stopped doing Halloween. For years I just sat it out, handing out candy to the one or two children who could find my various second-story-mother-in-law apartments in the eaves, and convincing myself I didn’t want to attend any parties. Halloween parties are dumb. Who likes dry ice in their punch?

Then I moved to Seattle and into a building for low-income artists (and one writer), and the entire first floor was transformed into a gigantic bash hosted by various hardcore Burning Man people, and residents of the building were admitted for free—there was no way I could not attend. I bought some stilettos and a trashy-looking sleeveless red tulle-y dress from Ross and went as Svetlana—America’s Next Top Model. I’m not sure why I chose to be Russian-born (or accented), and I lacked the courage and the skills to do my hair or makeup half as crazy as they do it on that show, but regardless, I was a hit.

It turns out that like so many things in life, the key to Halloween is ALCOHOL!

Another memo never received!

Those Burners sure know how to party. They had this great room full of huge pillows—so kind to provide seating! so surprised was I later to learn the room had been dubbed the “Ecstasy Makeout Room”!—and this cute boy was hitting on me and I was having a great time—until he asked if he could kiss me because his girlfriend over there—he gestured toward one of the many hookers lined up on the other side of the room—she had texted him that I was cute and she wanted to watch us kiss. It was “sort of their thing.”

“Oh,” I stammered, dropping my awful fake Russian accent. “Um…Wow. I’m flattered. Sort of. But you know what? I really need another test-tube of that delicious, off-gassing green punch.” And with I excused myself to go upstairs to my apartment to shower and sleep and transform back into my normal, boring, understated self.

That was five years ago, and now I am preparing to dress up as a cat. Not a sexy cat in spandex, just a cute, floppy, pregnant cat in a crocheted hat and tail off Etsy. It’s not creative, I know, but my two-year-old chose the costume, not me, and she’s sort of cat-obsessed. Before she even knew what Halloween was she announced that she wanted to go as a cat and she wanted Mama and Daddy to go as cats, too—and who were we to argue?

I looked online and learned that girl toddlers are supposed to be sexy, too. (I’d read something to this effect before, but I didn’t believe it.) Even on Etsy, happy home of the crafty, the costumes for little girls were sexy-oriented—short black tulle tutus over skin-tight everything. Instead, I found a granny who crochets caps and tails of various species and ordered three sets. They’re super cute. In fact, I like my hat so much I’ve been wearing it out and about this week to keep warm.

“I think I might wear this all winter,” I announced to one of the moms at my kid’s preschool.

“So long as you don’t mind everyone thinking you just came out of a rave.”

I don’t think she meant it as a compliment—a pregnant 36-year-old emerging from a rave just sounds sad—and scary—but I’ve decided to take it as one anyway. I’m so cool I don’t look 36! Or pregnant! Or like a mommy who really, really needs her sleep!

I’m a cool cat, so sexy underneath this baggy black outfit, you have no idea. No idea at all.

I guess my kid's teacher is right. Halloween isn't so scary after all.

Photo courtesy phaewilk, morgueFile

Domestic Bliss

2011-10-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

Not my cat. But it looks like me, yes?

I know you all must be absolutely RIVETED by the storyline of the cat puke. Will she or won't she be able to get that mess out of that chair?!? Stay tuned!

So I give you this:
I used some sort of toxic pet-mess clean-up spray we had on hand, and it did, indeed, get the mustard-yellow stain out of the cream-colored chair. It was like magic, really—stinky, fake-floral magic—but magic nonetheless. (The rug didn't fare so well and is probably due for a professional cleaning anyway, as it's a hundred thousand years old and I'm pretty certain has never been properly cleaned. We think it's tan, but maybe it, too, is supposed to be cream-colored.)

But when I woke up this morning, I discovered that one of the decorative (upholstered) buttons on the upholstered chair had turned a crispy, autumnal brown overnight. WTF? The button was made from the same fabric as the chair—why did it have to freak out and turn brown? And was it from the cat puke (meaning add more floral magic) or from the floral magic itself? And it's not like I can start adding other chemicals to the mix, since I have no idea what's in Pet Mess Magic Floral Clean-Up Spray since the ingredients aren't listed on the bottle (isn't that, like, required by law? It should be.) and I'm too lazy/tired/nauseated/annoyed to scour the internet to find out but at the same time don't want to create an accidental chemical bomb in my living room.

Dr. Husband suggests just turning the cushion over and calling it a day—a low-key, low-impact, lazy-friendly attitude that I appreciate in theory, but in reality... what kind of respectable mom/wife/woman/person can't successfully clean up after an episode of cat vomit? And I worked so hard to get all that yuckiness out of the chair—must I now be forever tormented by a vomit-burned button permanently hidden on the underside of the cushion?

Then again, what kind of sentient husband/dad/man/person with a cat and a young family buys a cream-colored upholstered chair in the first place? Leather would be one thing, I suppose, but cotton? All the Scotch Guard in the world could not have protected this chair from yesterday's festivities. Ironically, he got it off Craigslist on the cheap because the previous owner's dog had soiled the main cushion, which we had remade by a sewing/upholstering professional who keeps shop in the basement of her suburban Seattle home alongside her husband's massage parlor in the next room—right on the other side of floor-to-not-quite-ceiling, non-at-all-sound-proof shelves of fabric. Which is irrelevant, but randomly interesting, no?

It looks like I'll be heading back to the suburbs soon to get a massage—er, new expensive homemade button—and to wherever one takes oversized antique wool rugs to be cleaned. Goddamned cat.

photo courtesy: denverdesign, morgueFile

Feeling Bratty

2011-10-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

The good news is that I almost certainly didn’t contract listeriosis or some other horrible, food-borne, fetus-hating bacteria yesterday. The bad news is that I did come down with some sort of gastrointestinal virus on top of my still-extant pregnancy nausea and barfing.

When I called my OB for confirmation that my symptoms were likely viral (i.e. not from eating deadly turkey sandwiches) the triage nurse assured me that something nasty is “going around.” And as the mother of a preschool-going toddler and an emergency-room-working husband, I have ample opportunity for exposure.

I won’t go into detail, but...
suffice it to say that adhering to the nurse-recommended “BRAT” diet of bananas (fine), rice (fine), applesauce (yuck), and toast (usually fine but yuck right now for some reason) does not exactly jive with the fetus-demanded, barfing-prevention, high-protein diet of chicken, cheese, milk, and chicken.

The one area of overlap appears to be Gatorade. More fucking Gatorade. They should totally make a line of those drinks specifically marketed to sick and pregnant people. They could make them in slightly less garish colors (“red” is my flavor of choice, but it’s not my favorite color to see, um, reappear out of my mouth, if you know what I mean) and call it the GI-Series. I for one would buy a whole case.

To be fair, I don't feel that bad. It's not that bad of a virus, and nine weeks of nausea and barfing really lowers the bar for what "okay" feels like.

The other bad news, though, is that the cat isn't feeling well, either. The baby cries in distress when the cat makes those funny throat noises and when she sees messes—like, say, a giant mustard-yellow stain on a cream-colored uphostered chair—so it's been a pretty great day, as you can imagine.

Anyone out there know how to get cat puke stains out of upholstery or oriental (am I allowed to use that word?) rugs? If so, please respond ASAP. Otherwise, I'm going to have to Rit-dye both items mustard yellow, and I just don't have that kind of time or energy right now. I mean, I still haven't imported all my CDs into the laptop I got four years ago or begun to get our third bedroom ready for baby #2 or shopped for baby #1's second birthday gifts (3 weeks left!) or, ahem, done anything with my wedding photos from 2009, or Occupied Seattle or... ... ...

photo courtesy zabmo, morgueFile

Parenthood Has Eaten My Brain

2011-10-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

In my continuous Googling of warm, sunny places (an activity that usually doesn't become unavoidable until January but after our unseasonably grey summer has become necessary now even though, for the record, I prefer cool, somewhat overcast weather, even I have my limit of how low my vitamin D can dip before I go insane), I learned that Elmo lives at an all-inclusive Jamaican resort!
Who knew? (You'd think with all that fur, he might choose someplace cooler and less sunny—like, say, Seattle.)

The idea of a warm, beachy vacation in which Elmo swings by during breakfast to say a quick hello and give us all hugs sounds like HEAVEN. Who am I? Why would anyone want to ever encounter a five-to-six-foot-tall Sesame Street character, much less when on VACATION?

For the record, if I were contemplating a trip withOUT my toddler, an Elmo sighting would be HELL... Unless I had my camera with me... Then it would actually be kind of fun to photo-document and send to the toddler at home to show her that Mama is cool. Mama hangs with Elmo—even on vacation.

Way to Glow

2011-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you, lovely women, for sharing your bad hair days with me last week. You cheered me right up, and I intend to reread your comments every time I start to feel a little awkward and frumpy and middle-school—that is to say, every day for the foreseeable future.

Because I was giving a public reading that night, I had a vested interest in being not terrible to look at AND not having the self-confidence of a hamster. I nervously took myself shopping—not for maternity clothes, which were sure to make me feel frumpy but for regular clothes, which is still a dicey proposition for someone (this someone) with a fifteen week belly. I searched for the perfect drapey top, to no avail. The perfect stretchy skirt? No dice. The perfect uterus-obscuring dress? No.

I did manage to find some concealer (hello, pregnancy acne) as pale as I am and a cute little bottle of “all over shimmer liquid luminizer” with tiny sparkles in it. I’m a makeup novice, unable to apply anything other than lip gloss properly, but I was determined to buy something other than spackle for my acne on this cheer-myself-up shopping expedition. Being fond of sparkles, I asked the young, black-clad, heavily made-up Sephora woman what “liquid luminizer” is for.

“It’s a luminizing cream,” she clarified. "A luminizer."

(Which for some reason I kept misreading/hearing/thinking as “volumizer” and picturing my face getting bigger and bigger the more I applied.)

“Is ‘luminzing’ a word?” I didn’t ask. “So….”

“It, you know, luminizes you.”

???

“Makes you glowy.”

Sold! I might not feel glowy, but for $28 (!!???!?!) I’m going to look it, dammit.

Fifteen Weeks

2011-10-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

This is what 3/8ths of a baby looks like, friends. Well, 3/8ths of a baby plus a whole lot of cereal. (Though it looks sunny there beyond that tree, don't be fooled. That's just some sort of weird Seattle trick of the light. It's actually quite chilly and pouring rain. I can't stop Googling the Bahamas...)

On Saturday I managed to go three whole hours without eating (or barfing from not eating (one of the many beautiful paradoxes of pregnancy), which was really convenient as it allowed me to get a bunch of errands done without having to stop and feed the fetus all the freaking time, and I thought maybe I was out of the woods with the whole nausea/barfing thing, given that I am IN MY SECOND TRIMESTER and all—but no. Not quite. It was just a blip. A heavenly day of feeling okay. I look forward to more of them soon. Right, pregnancy gods? Soon?

EXACTLY What I Expected This Pregnancy to Be Like

2011-10-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

I know pregnancy is supposed to be a time of supreme glowing joy, one's entire self feeling radiant from the miracle of life growing within, but I have to ask: did anyone else out there who's ever been pregnant sometimes just feel gross? Aside from the nausea and barfing and constipation and acne and sore uterus-stabilizing muscles, I mean. Did you ever have a day where your clothes fit wrong and your hair looked wrong and your your face felt wrong? Even if you've never been pregnant and have ever felt this way (i.e., if you're a woman), I want—need, even—to hear about it. Please. Click and tell below.

Happy Pregnancy Smell #1

2011-10-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

I took a walk around my neighborhood this crisp, fine autumn morning, and the air smelled inexplicably like doughnuts. Fried, sugary morsels of deliciousness. I wanted to eat the air.

In other scent-related news, my friend nosy girl is giving away a novel by her fancy National Book Award finalist friend Jesmyn Ward and a pot of body pudding (whatever that is) here. Mmmm... pudding.

My Other Day Job

2011-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Not my silhouette...

My postings are going to be a bit spare this week, as I'm preparing for this reading on Thursday night. If you live in or near Seattle, please come and say hello. (Hugo House on Capitol Hill, 7pm.) The event is free and the venue has a bar and a creative drink menu.

My essay involves bitching about strollers and invokes the word "vulva" at least once—my self-imposed required minimum for public performances.

What a Card

2011-10-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've officially rejoined the world of the Important and the Technologically Savvy.

My practically free business/mommy/calling cards arrived in the mail.

Check out that QR-code! It even works! (And I know what it's called!)

Now I can, like, go to fancy dinners and get my meals paid for and charge the taxi home to "the account," right? Hello? Boss? Employer? Yoo-hoo!

Fourteen Weeks

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I was in the shower today and looked down and realized I couldn't see much of my feet (already!) and thought I'm not going to get much bigger than THIS, right? Hah hah hahahahhahaahahwaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Me the day before my "due date" last time—eleven days before I gave birth:

For the record, I'm officially in my second trimester now—and still barfing. How much longer, Papa Smurf?

13 weeks

Not Quite What I Expected When I Bought a New Fridge

2011-10-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Maybe not the tastiest advertisement?

So, a month or so ago, we got a new refrigerator. Our old, ugly, inefficient, eighties-"almond"-colored one (with wood veneer handles!) had a crappy, non-sealing seal that kept it from closing properly, and after too many nights being left open partway and too many green onions left languishing by my thrifty husband, the thing stank so bad that opening it literally made me puke.
Granted, I’m pregnant (have I mentioned that here?), but the smell was intolerable, even to a normal person. (Or so I’d guess, since my thrifty husband pled the Fifth on the whole thing and I never invited anyone else to smell it.) It was old and ugly and the little metal bars in the door designed to hold in all your condiments were loose and kept falling off (how many fish-sauce spills does it take to inspire a person to buy a new fridge?) and due to be replaced by the end of the year—the puking just sped the process up a bit.

So I found a new one that fit into the tiny space allotted by whatever sadist created our current plenty-large-but-not-thoughtfully-designed-and-therefore-lots-of-tripping-over-the-baby-and-her-toys-while-cooking, drives-me-crazy kitchen arrangement, and within the week it was ours.

It’s a thing of stainless steel, (mostly) unscented beauty.

Pulling the milk containers from the chest-height top shelf of the door (instead of the shin-level bottom shelf of the body of the old one) makes me happy every time.

Except that bad freezer burn has been forming already. And the freezer door flies open when you close the fridge door. And the handles do not line up entirely properly. And some cream went bad really quickly (which was possibly not the fault of the fridge but the fact that it was kept around longer than usual as my husband is now the only one in the family drinking the stuff since the baby-in-the-making has made coffee a very unpleasant experience for me).

We ordered the fridge from a small, locally owned company instead of the thriftier internet for this exact reason—if something went wrong, I wanted to call an actual person who could come out and take an actual look at the thing and be all nice and friendly and locally-owned about it. That’s just how you do shit when you’re from Iowa.

So a fridge guy came out and worked on things for a while. A long while. Like half an hour. And while he was in there he kept talking to himself, like talking himself through something. I was trying to get work done in the other room so wasn’t paying much attention and assumed he was talking to a supervisor on his cell phone—except that he wasn’t.

After much muttering, he called me in to offer this: the fridge was, in his opinion, tilted back a little too far, so he fixed that. Also, the seal on the fridge is “too compressed” which is why the handles don’t line up and we should not store ANYTHING HEAVY in the doors, so he moved the MILK CONTAINERS to the SHIN-LEVEL BOTTOM SHELF of the body. Also we should try turning down the freezer and seeing if that takes care of the freezer burn.

In short, nothing that couldn’t have been conveyed in 30 seconds over the phone probably. But, whatever, it was nice to have an actual person assess things—no matter how slow or muttery he was.

But it was not a satisfying solution. For $700, you bet your ass I’m going to STORE THE MILK CONTAINERS ON THE TOP SHELF OF THE DOOR. Or else! You really want to stand between a pregnant lady and her delicious, ice-cold milk? Really?

Due

2011-10-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Who invented the concept of due dates? Who’s ever born on their due date? Almost no one, that’s who. (Our friend Mr. Internet tells me 90–95% of women don't deliver on their due date. Am I still bitter than my first baby came out 10 days late? Hell, yes.) A friend of mine went into labor on her due date and was completely convinced it was false labor because she, like me, knew that no one delivers on their due date. Due dates are notoriously fuzzy anyway since menstrual cycles shift and ovaries sometimes have a mind of their own, particularly as you get older. God knows if you’ve had a baby in the semi-recent past, your cycle is hardly regular. For the months leading up to this pregnancy, my cycle was 22 days, then 29, then 27, 26, 22, 31, 24, and 30 (not that I was keeping track or anything). And though I got my period on July 16, I spotted on the 13th—so, really? We’re going to put that information together and say with any kind of certainty whatsoever that my baby is due to be born on April 21st, 2012?

Here’s my idea: how about delivery windows?
I know it doesn’t alliterate, but it’s so much more realistic. Here’s a four-week timeframe in which you’re most likely to go into labor, and at the end of this window, if you haven’t gone into labor spontaneously, you will be shot full of drugs until the baby comes out, ready or not. Did you even know that your baby’s not considered “overdue” until two weeks after your due date—which is less the deadline that it feels like and more a RANDOMLY GENERATED DATE pulled out of your healthcare provider’s ass—er, desktop roulette wheel?

There would be SO MUCH LESS FRETTING with delivery windows. Friends and relatives would get off your case and you wouldn’t feel a sense of being overdue because there would be no such thing. (A quick internet search suggests that delivery windows are, in fact, how things used to work before this whole business of baby-having became the province of the medical establishment. I am not generally a woman to pine for the medical practices of the past—lord knows I’m all about the epidural—but this particular issue is a definite loss, rather than progress.)

I was all about saying “my baby’s due toward the end of April,” but people want a date, dammit. They know there is a date, and they want to know what it is.

So: mine is April 21st.

Or, more recently predicted, April 16th.

One or the other or sometime in between or two weeks before or after either one.

My baby will be welcomed to the world with cherry and plum blossoms and tulips and maybe the plagues and macaroons of Passover, the creepiness and jelly beans of Easter, the W-2 forms of taxes, or the earths of Earth Day. His or her birthstone will like be a diamond (lucky!), and he’ll probably be an Aries, or possibly a stubborn little Taurus like his (or her) daddy. Whatever the case, he or she is most certainly going to be born in April, by hook or by crook, by nature or Pitocin.

Just 27 (or 28 or 30 or possibly 25) more weeks to go.

Thirteen Weeks!

2011-10-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

I just had my second ultrasound and aside from the less-than glam moment of the sonographer not being able to find my ovaries because of “matter in my bowels” (so glad my husband was there for that), the experience was a treat, and I’m bursting with good news:

The best news first: the sonographer pronounced me to be 13 weeks pregnant instead of 12!

Me at thirteen weeks:

It’s like Christmas, my birthday, and Chanukah rolled up in one. Pregnancy weeks go by soooooooooooooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooooooooooooowly—to have one vanish entirely is more than more than a nauseous, barfing girl could ever hope for. As hard as those last weeks of a pregnancy are—especially for those of us with latecomer babies—barfy first trimesters are the worst. And mine might only last a few more days. Praise Whomever-Is-in-Charge-of-These Things.

Other good news:

The baby-in-the-making is alive! Heartbeat, kicky legs, and a power-to-the-people fist salute, which I already know will be his (or her) trademark greeting for life.
The baby-in-the-making appears healthy, with all extremities intact.
The baby-in-the-making photographs well, fist salute and all.
The baby-in-the-making is moderately compliant, eventually switching positions when asked nicely (a few times) by the sonographer.
My OB is still my favorite doctor in the world—other than my husband, of course.

The ultrasound experience was, contrary to expectation, even more fun with this pregnancy than the last one, because I’m no longer a nervous wreck every time I set foot inside a medical complex. Sure, I get twitchy when I see anyone sick or debilitated-looking in the hallway or elevator, but I’m able to calm myself much faster than before and get on with things. They’re not in actual pain—they’re just practicing that look for Halloween!

With the fear of the unknown removed from the equation, I was able to just lie back and enjoy the belly massage as the technician searched a little harder for my clearly extant ovaries—which she did eventually find, and which I was far less interested in looking at than my little protest-baby-in-the-making. He (or she) is the 99%.

Twelve Weeks

2011-10-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this is the point when normal people tell their friends and families (and blog readers?) that they are pregnant, rather than, like, five minutes after conception. Seems kinda hard to hide. I mean, aside from the barfing, there's that belly. I mean, man, Wilson's been eating a LOT of cereal—and it all seems to be hanging out in her uterus.