Archive for November, 2009
3-Day Week
Nov 23rd
I am so happy there are only 3 days of work this week I can hardly stand it. I am anxious to go home, and excited to see my family (although I’ll miss having one of my sisters and her husband and kids there). There will be lots of laughing and eating and baby talk, I’m sure. Now, if I could just get someone to come do all this work on my desk before Wednesday…
Speaking of baby talk…well, there’s not much to say. We still don’t have a name picked out, or even any serious contenders really. I’ll be 28 weeks tomorrow or Wednesday (depending who you ask), and we have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. We have one more month-long break between appointments and then we start going every two weeks, which seems crazy. Crazy in how quickly time flies, not crazy that we would see the doctor that often. It’s getting to the time where I should be coming up with questions about labor & delivery and stuff, but I don’t have many questions so far about that. Or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. I plan to do a natural birth with no drugs. I know other people who have done it, and I’m a big believer in the “you can do anything for a (relatively) short period of time,” philosophy. I need to sit down and write out a birth plan, mostly because it will make me feel more organized, but also because it will be something to refer people to when they are asking me questions and I can’t remember what I wanted because I’m focused elsewhere. I also plan on staying away from the hospital as long as possible. I don’t want to go in too early, and I’m sure time will pass more quickly if I’m doing something other than hanging out in the birthing center. Considering we live only 5 minutes from the hospital I’m not worried about waiting too long.
All of this is a little overwhelming to me, but exciting at the same time. I remember when we first found out I was pregnant, and thinking how far away all of this seemed. Like it would take forever to get to this point. And yet it feels like time has flown by. I’m almost 7 months pregnant. There are only 3 months left. And I am so excited to meet our little guy.
Now if he would just tell us what his name is…
Funny
Nov 19th
I just saw this blog entry, and I think you should check it out because it is frickin’ hilarious. Ninjas. heh.
Also, I was just sitting here, browsing the internet when Ryan says out of nowhere in a high voice, “Look! It’s my little polar bear friend!” Um…yah. On World of Warcraft he has a pet polar bear. And a pet penguin.
Completely unrelated: we are planning on doing as much of our christmas shopping online this year as possible. The stores are already insane, and so as much as we can we would like to avoid them. It’ll be a challenge, but fun, I think. And theoretically it’ll mean we’ll get things done early since we need to allow time for shipping. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I just saw another add for New Moon. I read all the Twilight books, and really enjoyed them for their escapist feel. But those movies all look kind of ridiculous. Maybe they are better than they appear, but even reading the books I was thinking “this would be almost impossible to portray in a movie without getting totally CGI/totally cheesey/whatever.” Anyway…if you’ve seen the movie/movies and thought they did the books justice let me know.
I want to talk about the books I’ve been reading, but I don’t know what I want to say right now, so maybe I’ll wait a little while.
As a final note, the commercial for Al Gore going on 30 Rock is cracking me up. “There is an old African proverb that I invented…” HAHAHA.
Things that make my day:
Nov 18th
Aside from this cold hanging on by it’s scratchy gross fingernails, I am having a great day. There are a few things contributing to this:
- My friend, Gwen, sent me pictures of her son, who is just over 2 weeks old. We saw them the day he was born (it was the day we flew out East), and he’s just SO CUTE. I can’t wait until I can hold my little one.
- It is Wednesday, which means that there are only 2 1/2 days of work left this week, and next week is Thanksgiving. Only a week left until we get a nice long weekend to go visit family.
- My mom just informed me that she plans on making potato dumplings on Friday while we are home. I LOVE potato dumplings. And in case you have never had the pleasure of trying them, they are basically ground up potatoes mixed with flour and boiled. You serve them with butter and salt and bacon (or side pork if you can get it), including “drippings” (aka grease). They are extremely heavy, but they taste sooo good. And in the morning, if there are leftovers, you slice them up and fry them and they are even better. You can’t get them in restaurants (at least not outside of my hometown, that I’m aware of), and so the only time I have them is when we go home and mom makes them. One of these years I want to get the grinder attachment for our kitchenaid so that we can try making them. But until then it will be a once or twice a year treat. Considering how we eat them it’s probably better that way anyway.
- Ryan and I have our first baby-related class tonight. I’m a little nervous about it, but it makes me excited that we are at that point. In a related item, we will be picking up some baby stuff from my sisters over Thanksgiving, and so we’ll be one step closer to getting the baby’s room ready. I remember when Thanksgiving seemed so far away. Not anymore!
So, I’m in a good mood. Now I should take advantage of it and get back to work.
Baby purchases
Nov 16th
Ryan and I have our first baby class on Wednesday. It’s the breastfeeding one, and they want you to bring either a doll or a teddy bear that’s “baby size” to practice holds. We don’t have any dolls or stuffed animals around here, so we decided it would be a good opportunity to buy something for the baby. We haven’t actually bought ANYTHING yet, so it was kind of exciting. And we are now the proud parents of a cute, soft teddy bear. He’s a little bigger than a newborn, but what are you doing to do? I don’t mind the idea of our son playing with dolls really, but dolls aren’t soft and cuddly, and since this was our first purchase for him I wanted something that made me thing “baby.”
Anyway, it’s exciting to me. And it will be a great story for when he’s a teenager. When all his friends are over. “Yes, that teddy bear you’ve had since you were a baby was actually bought so that I could practice breastfeeding.” I am already excited to embarrass my children, and the first one isn’t even born yet.
Ryan has informed me that it is my bedtime (I told him to put me on an internet curfew). I’m kind of relieved. I like going to bed.
The cold that just won’t die
Nov 16th
I am still sick. I feel about 4 times better than I did when we got back from vacation, but I’m still not feeling great, and I still spent about 1/2 an hour last night coughing when I went to bed. I finally got a cough drop and that helped, but I don’t like doing that at night because it means either getting up after it’s gone and brushing my teeth again, or leaving them but knowing that the cough drops have coated my teeth in sugar to sit all night. I don’t like either option.
I bought some organic unpasteurized apple cider vinegar this weekend. I is supposed to help with all kinds of ailments, but sinuses and sore throats are supposed to be 2 of them. You mix a tablespoon or so with 8 oz of water (and honey if the taste is too strong) and drink it. I haven’t done it yet because I’m kind of a chicken, but I really should try it because if it helps it will totally be worth dealing with the icky taste. Has anyone else tried this before? Recommendations?
Being sick has also pulled a number on my productivity. I’m tired a lot of the time and just not feeling as “with it” as usual, and so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like. After being gone for a week that’s not great. Hopefully I can get back into the groove soon.
ps. Can we all agree that it seems insane that Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK already? I’m super-excited, as we will be going to my parents’ place and I haven’t been there since August, but still…crazy.
Seriously?
Nov 13th
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this previously, but in our apartment building, the upstairs apartments control the heat for both the upper and lower units. In theory, this makes sense because heat rises (especially in old, drafty buildings like this one), and last winter it was never a problem. We have electric baseboard heaters if we get too cold.
New neighbors moved in recently, and apparently they brought a penchant for leaving their windows open with them, because it is currently 75.8 degrees in the coolest room that has comfortable seating in our apartment, and the heat has been running steadily for at least an hour (that’s how long I’ve been lying awake). I think it must be at least 5 degrees warmer in our bedroom. It’s enough different that it felt cool when I came out to the living room. They also brought a child that is part horse, but that’s a story for another day.
Normally, when the heat runs like this, Ryan goes down to the basement and shuts the furnace off until morning (at least). But he is sleeping, and I don’t want him to be lying (laying? I am too lazy tired to figure out which is correct) awake because I was too chicken to go down to the basement by myself. I am too chicken to go down there, so I haven’t gone either. Also, I am paranoid that I will do something wrong and break the furnace or something else down there. So instead I am sitting here awake at 4am complaining on the internet. After I’ve been sick for a week and know I should be sleeping. Because I’ve got good Catholic guilt combined with Minnesota nice like that.
**He just woke up and is going to shut the furnace off. Thank God. And I didn’t even wake him up! It’s win-win. Other than the whole apartment being a million degrees and both of us being wide awake during the middle of the night thing.**
Bed time. Again.
2 things
Nov 11th
1.) I got my glucose screening test results back while I was on vacation, and all your positive thoughts worked, because my sugar was at 101, which they said was good. Or good enough. Whatever. I don’t have to do the extra test. Yippee!
2.) I have come up with the best idea EVER. Workplaces should be more like airplanes. And I don’t mean being strapped into a seat right next to/on top of the person next to you while breathing germy recycled air. I think that every once in a while someone should come around with a cart and offer you something to drink. Seriously – I am a genius, I know.
On that note, back to the grindstone. I need a job where they pay me to read novels. Or even non-fiction books. But some sort of real books. Not insurance policies. And I would like to do it at home while lazing around in my pajamas drinking Dr Pepper and eating ice cream with the yummy (accidental) chocolate fudgey syrup that I made (yay for happy cooking accidents!). Is that too much to ask, world? I would probably eat some “healthy” food too, if that would help my cause. No? Fine. Water while sitting in my cubicle it is.
We are home!
Nov 9th
And I have the plague! I’m pretty sure I caught it from a hobo in New York City, although I don’t remember seeing any hobos, which means that either they don’t live in the touristy parts of town or I am EXTREMELY unobservant. Um, let’s think this through for a moment…which is more likely? Unobservant for the win!
Fortunately it is not the flu (no fever), but it is kicking my butt. It would help if I could take something so that I would feel human during the day, but they don’t make any of the good drugs for pregnant women. I went in to work for an hour this morning, just to make sure there wasn’t anything that had to get taken care of right away, and I think that I’ll probably go in late tomorrow since I’m still feeling pretty crappy. But I obviously can’t be missing a bunch of work right after I just got back from a week’s vacation.
You can tell I’m not feeling well because I’ve been very quiet compared to my normal self. Also, I haven’t gotten around to posting any pictures, and my answers when people ask about our vacation are short. We had such a good time all week, even after I got sick, but I just don’t have the energy to describe it all right now. Plus, whenever I try to talk for more than a couple words I start hacking up a lung.
Today is Ryan’s birthday, and he’s 30! We went up to Best Buy and got his birthday present (a new receiver for the living room). And for dinner we just had fried chicken from the grocery store deli. It has been a very laid back evening. I think we’ll be going out for dinner later this week with friends, which works out well – hopefully I’ll be feeling better by then so he won’t have to deal with sicko-wife and her smokers’ cough.
Anyway, time for bed. It’s amazing how energy sapping laying on the couch is.
