quiet adventures

Babywearing contest!

2008-07-10T18:42:00.001-06:00

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

I love my various babywearing carriers, and this is an awesome contest. Click to enter!

Tongue-tied

2007-08-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

Poor blog. Neglected, lonely, bereft of new posts. It seems I've moved on to greener pastures, that is to say, Facebook. My brain has been rewired to think in terms of 25-word status updates instead of 400-word posts. So many times I load up this page and then stare blankly at it with nothing interesting (to anyone other than me) to say. And then I turn around and realize it's been over a month since I last posted. Somehow I missed the entire month of June. Does time seem to be moving as fast for everyone else as it is for me? Because I have never been happier in my life than I am right now, and I want it to slow down so I can enjoy it! Mairead is learning something new every day it seems. Like on Tuesday, she found her feet. Sure, you're saying, "big deal, so she found her feet. They were attached to her ankles the whole time." But it is a big deal. She didn't used to be able to grab them, and now she can!

And there is a perfect example of a thing that is interesting only to me. It doesn't make it any less special, but not exactly exciting for you to read. Somehow Rebecca Eckler managed to turn tidbits like that into an entire book, I have no idea how. Reading about some stranger's baby is very boring, and the only reason I finished the book was to gather more examples of the kind of mother I don't want to be. But I digress.

I feel bad, I really do. I've been keeping this blog for almost four years now. It's not that I don't still like it, I just don't seem to have the time, or the brain. The mummy dum-dums have taken over. I can barely put my pants on the right way forward some days. I've taken to wearing yoga pants so it doesn't really matter if I do or not.

Truthfully, I think it's because I'm rarely bored anymore. Blogging was always something to stave off boredom for me, and these days there's too much to do.I'm just at a different point in my life now, I guess. My mom used to love to say, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I guess I feel now that if I can't say something interesting, I won't say anything at all. And so I think I'll put the blog to bed for awhile, give my brain a chance to rest and learn how to be creative again. Farewell for now...

Dumb Criminals

2007-07-15T22:22:00.000-06:00

You have to wonder how some people make it to adulthood intact, they're so stupid. Natural selection should have weeded them out long ago, yet they're still around. At least they serve to give us, people with intelligence and common sense, some amusement.

So what with tonight's severe thunderstorm/hail/tornado warning (and we saw a rotating cloud right above our house and I saw what I'm pretty sure was a funnel cloud dropping out of the sky, although it didn't touch down. But that's another story.) I decided to move the car into the garage to prevent it from being trashed by hail. So I drive around back through the alley and pull up to our garage, when I see a giant pile of trash laying in front of the garage door. I'm talking rolled up carpets, two sinks, some rebar and some other type of metal bars. It looks like a truckload full of reno waste, and it's all been dumped at our house. So I'm completely furious. Not only can I not get into my garage, but this crap is way too big for the garbage men to take. No doubt it was dropped off because of the time and cost of taking it all the way to the city dump. So I'm totally livid about this.

So I go to take a closer look and to try and move it out of the way, when I notice one of the items is a suitcase. With a luggage tag. With a name and phone number on it. At which point I think to myself, "hahahahahahahaha."

This guy is the dumbest criminal I have ever heard of. He's like the guy who robbed a house and left his wallet behind. I mean, could you make it any easier? So I phoned the number on the tag and left him a message kindly asking him to come pick up his shit. And then I phoned the police. They advised me that if I call the city, they will come and pick it up and send the guy the bill. I only wish he'd written his address on the tag as well, so I could borrow somebody's truck and take it right back to his house and dump it on his front lawn. Unfortunately, he's not in the phone book either.

Interestingly, he is on Facebook.

Anyway, time will tell if he calls me back and comes to pick it up himself, or if the city's going to be doing it for him.

***UPDATE***

So the guy phoned today and we had a chat. He seemed pretty sincere about not knowing anything about it and says he donated the suitcase to charity a long time ago. Furthermore, he was out of town. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I believed him. Unfortunately, the city says that since it's on private property, we're stuck with the responsibility and the cost of disposing of it ourselves. Darcy's suggestion was to toss it all across the alley onto the little green belt and let them deal with it, but I don't think we will. I'm hoping against hope that the garbage men will take it on Thursday. We'll see.

On Being A Mommy

2007-07-10T21:46:00.000-06:00

Well, this blog pretty much up and died, didn't it? You'd think something happened that took away the brunt of my free time... I don't know who those mommy bloggers are who write daily missives of their parenting adventures. Maybe they dose their kids with cough syrup in the afternoon so they can have some alone time. As it is, I've got Mairead strapped to me in the Snugli, fast asleep, so I thought I'd make note of some of the many things motherhood has taught me so far.

1. You don't understand how much your own mom loves you until you have a baby of your own. You just don't have a clue. I love Mairead so much it hurts. Sometimes it makes me cry, all the while smiling through my tears as she looks up into my face with utter trust and love. This is the single most important thing I've learned. Possibly in my entire life.
2. A baby can poop their own weight in a day. And then there's the pee.
3. Sleep is actually an optional activity. If it was necessary, I would have died in the first week. That said, I'm told I shouldn't brag too much because other moms will hate me, because Mairead has been sleeping through the night since she was four weeks old.
4. It's impossible to be selfish and be a good parent. After years of living a self-absorbed lifestyle, suddenly I'm not the most important person anymore, which is a hard change to make, especially after being pregnant when all the focus was on me. I'm going to have to retire my "Me Me Me" shirt, and make way for Mairead's "It's all about me" onesie.
5. Babies are like bonfires. You can stare at them for hours, even if they're only sleeping.
6. Every baby smile is precious. Each one fills me with joy.
7. All your principles and convictions go right out the window after you have a baby. I use disposable diapers (the cloth ones we bought don't fit yet), the air conditioning in the car, I'm late for everything... none of it matters. The only thing that matters is that your baby is comfortable. Oh, and everything she owns is pink. I always swore I'd never be one of those moms who dressed her daughter all in pink, but I do. Shamelessly.
8. I'm not going to be writing a book while on maternity leave. I didn't have the slightest inkling how much time being a mother to a newborn involves. Even getting this far on this post has taken over three hours, due to various baby needs (crying, changing, feeding, playing, putting to bed, etc.). I figure if there's going to be any book-writing going on, it will be once my kids are in school.
9. Getting out of the house every day becomes monumentally important. I can't stand it if I have to stay in all day. Thank god it's summer and we can take walks every day. I have no clue what we're going to do in the winter. I do not want to become a mall-walker.

There's so much more, but my addled, sleep-deprived brain (Mairead may sleep through the night, but I'm compelled to check on her every hour or two, so I'm up and down a lot) can't think of them right now. Suffice to say I like being a mommy. It feels like this is what I was meant to do, which is something that I've never really felt about any job that I've had. It's just right somehow. How people hand their kids over to nannies or daycares is beyond me.

I'm going to try and keep this more current in the future, and while the lion's share will be baby-related, I've no doubt, not all of it will be. No more six-week breaks in between posts. I'm not my sister, after all...

And as a point of humour, one of the suggestions the Microsoft Word dictionary makes for "Mairead" is "Airhead." Don't tell her...

My Birth Story (and Mairead's Birthday)

2007-05-27T17:48:00.000-06:00

Some may find it interesting, some may not, but I want to record it while it's still reasonably fresh in my memory, both for myself, and hopefully for my daughter to read someday. She should know everything I went through to deliver her into this world, and hopefully will feel bad enough about it that she'll always behave herself and listen to her mother. And it's in a fun first-person stream-of-consciousness narrative!

May 15, 2007

10:00 p.m.

Sigh. I'm still pregnant. Why am I still pregnant? I'm huge. My hips hurt. My back hurts. Doesn't this baby want to be born? I wonder what we have to eat.

10:05 p.m.

Oh, great. I just wet my pants. Life could not be better.

10:06 p.m.

That's. Not. Pee. Neat! I'll go tell Darcy. Hmm, he has his headphones on and isn't paying any attention to me. I guess I'll tell him over Messenger. Yes, he's only four feet away but I have to use Messenger to deliver the news that my water just broke.

10:10 p.m.

Shouldn't something be happening right now? Like contractions? Or am I just going to leak all night? Time to call Helen.

10:15 p.m.

Helen says labour should start in the next 24 hours, and in the meantime, to get used to the leaking. Gross.

10:30 p.m.

Oh, owwwwwww. Oh, this sucks. And this is only the beginning? I am totally crazy for thinking I could do this without painkillers. This is the worst thing ever. I'm going to walk up and down the hall now.

11:30 p.m.

Still walking up and down the hall. Still in horrible amounts of pain.

May 16, 2007

12:30 a.m.

Still walking up and down the hall. Okay, this is lame. We're going to the hospital now and I'm going to make them put a nice big needle in my spine and make it all go away. I don't care how scary it is. Make it go away.

12:35 a.m.

I do NOT want to get in the car. There's no way I can stay sitting down for ten whole minutes. I'll just walk in circles on the front lawn.

12:40 a.m.

Okay, we're in the car. Darcy's knuckles are white as he's gripping the steering wheel. I'll try to be quiet so he doesn't roll us. He's talking about what the plan will be once we get there. Something about dropping me off while he parks. I'm not listening.

12:50 a.m.

Okay, we're here. Had I been in better spirits, I would have laughed at the triage nurse in emergency, who took one look at me, said "oh, we don't want you down here," and opened the door so we could go up to the labour and delivery floor. Funny stuff.

12:55 a.m.

Okay, I'm in the labour and delivery triage room. I'm in a very roomy hospital gown. Helen's here now too and I get to have my assessment. They'd better not try and send me home. I'm not going anywhere.

1:00 a.m.

Seven centimetres dilated! That was fast. Baby is coming quickly. I'm going to a proper delivery room now. Ooh, it has a couch. It looks really comfy. Too bad all I can still do is pace back and forth. I have my own nurse now too. Her name is Melanie. I'm wimping out on the epidural though. I can't go through with it.

1:30 a.m.

Still pacing.

2:00 a.m.

Still pacing. I like Melanie and all, but she needs to stay away from me with her monitoring stuff. Being monitored means not being able to walk. I need to walk.

2:30 a.m.

Jesus. When transition hits, I'm not going to be able to take it. This is the most sucky thing that I've ever experienced. I'm re-reconsidering the epidural. I wonder if I can have it in the next two minutes? Probably not.

2:45 a.m.

I am so, so ready to start pushing. That whole thing a few minutes ago... that was transition. Who needs a needle in the spine now? Pushing feels great. Finally I get to do something.

3:45 a.m.

Still pushing.

4:45 a.m.

Still pushing. I'm in the bathroom, sitting and pushing on the toilet, along with Darcy, Helen, Melanie and Melanie's monitoring equipment. I don't care in the least.

5:45 a.m.

Still pushing. I have pushed in every possible position. I'm getting a little tired of pushing. Hey, it's Dr. Chappell! She's been my pre-natal physician and she's here for a visit. She wants to give me a quick exam and find out why I didn't push out a baby two and a half hours ago. And Dr. Allen is here too! He's the obstetrician on call tonight. He also wants to take a peek. Only his peek is quite ouchy.

5:50 a.m.

Dr. Allen says the baby is posterior, or face-up, and has her head tilted back in a brow presentation to boot. Consequently, the baby's stuck on my pelvic bone and isn't moving, which explains how three hours of pushing has not produced a baby. I have two choices: a) epidural and more pushing, or b) c-section. He says no to trying forceps and says that frankly more pushing probably won't do any good. He's going to leave for a few minutes to let me think it over.

5:51 a.m.

C-section, please. I am so done with this labour thing. But in the meantime, I have to keep pushing. It hurts so much to not push.

6:00 a.m.

Off to the operating room! It's cold. More monitoring and blood-taking and whatnot. Who cares. I'm too tired to be annoyed.

6:10 a.m.

Eww, I still have to have a giant needle in my spine, although not an epidural, just a spinal anesthetic. Still, very freaky. This was the one thing I really, really didn't want. The anesthesiologist looks like a very nice man, but that's my spine he's injecting drugs into. Hey, it doesn't hurt at all.

6:15 a.m.

I love you, Dr. Anesthesiologist. I mean really love you. I have no more pain. I have only good happy feelings. Suddenly I'm in the best mood ever. It's baby time!

6:20 a.m.

Hee hee, Darcy looks hilarious in scrubs. I'm actually joking with the doctors about what a turn-on they are and asking if we can take them home. The change in my mood is surreal.

6:25 a.m.

Wow, they're already messing around behind that sheet. I can feel pressure and movement, but no pain. Bizarre. Again, I love Dr. Anesthesiologist.

6:30 a.m.

Oww, owww! Dr. Chappell is pressing really really hard on my ribcage for some reason... that part's not frozen!

6:32 a.m.

Baby! I can see my baby girl! She's crying! Now I'm crying. And laughing. I don't know what I'm doing. She's huge! Oh, they're moving her away. I can't see her anymore. I want to see my baby!

6:33 a.m.

Dr. Anesthesiologist is helping hold the sheet aside so I can see her at the warming station. He wins my vote for Doctor of the Year.

7:00 a.m.

All done! Off to the recovery room!

7:15 a.m.

Yay, my baby's here! I get to nurse her now. This is so cool! I'm a mommy!

So that's how it went, as far as I can recall. The times should be fairly accurate, as there were clocks everywhere we went and I became a serious clock-watcher. It maybe didn't go quite how I expected or wanted it to, but I ended up with a healthy baby, and that's the only thing that really matters.

Stay tuned for details of our first week!

So Then...

2007-05-10T15:51:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of free time on my hands and not much to keep me occupied. After I wrote my last post I also went to the Dairy Queen website and filled out their customer comments form outlining my concerns about the commercial about me. The letter went like this:

I was a little bit upset to see that Dairy Queen has apparently made a commercial about me without asking for my permission. The one I'm talking about is the one for the Mother's Day cakes that features a woman named Nicole who is about to go into labour on Mother's Day. Well, I'm about to go into labour too and it could very well be on Mother's Day, who knows? Seeing this commercial and thinking about having to wait another five days to give birth when I'm already four days overdue made me cry for a long long time and my husband had to change the channel because the commercial played so many times and each time I got more upset. If you could at least change the name on the cake to something else, that would help because then it wouldn't seem like it's about me so much. Having to wait so long to have a baby gives you enough things to cry about without having Dairy Queen steal your identity for a commercial. Thank you.

So then DQ phoned me at home yesterday, and when they couldn't talk to me in person because I was out, called back again today. They wanted to make sure I knew that the ad wasn't actually about me, and was in fact made several years ago and they play it every year around Mother's Day, but they still apologized that it upset me so much and wanted to make sure everything was okay with me.

They went to a lot of trouble to find me, since I never gave them my phone number, only the city I lived in. The lady I talked to, Jean, was very nice and told me how emotional my letter was and how all the ladies in the office were upset by it because they're all moms too. Anyway, I felt a bit bad about that so I told her that I understood now that the commercial wasn't really about me and I'm just a bit hormonal. So she asked me to email her when the baby comes so they know everything went well. No offer for a free cake though, damn.

My mom says I'm a brat. She's right.

Can I Get Some Royalties?

2007-05-08T13:14:00.000-06:00

I am the victim of identity fraud. My life's experiences have been stolen in the name of commericialism, and are apparently being used to shill delicious frozen treats, and all this without any consultation or permission from me.

Have you seen the latest ad from Dairy Queen for their Mother's Day ice cream cakes? Allow me to walk you through a step-by-step comparison.

DQ Ad: Starts with a close-up of a cake that says "Happy Mother's Day Nicole"

My Life: My name is Nicole! I'm going to be a mother!

DQ: A woman, supposedly "Nicole" sitting in a wheelchair, heavily pregnant and rushing into the hospital, obviously in labour.

Me: I'm heavily pregnant and supposed to be going into labour this week! (Well, technically last week...)

DQ: "Nicole," who by the way seems to think labour involves looking beautiful and panting a bit, is holding the same cake seen at the beginning of the commercial and talking about how she's not a mother quite yet but they stopped and got the cake on the way, just in case.

Me: Getting a DQ ice cream cake on the way to the hospital is totally something I would do! And it's totally realistic that I could go into labour this Sunday!

Do you see the similarities here? Now why Dairy Queen would choose me as the focus of one of their ads is beyond me, since I don't even go there very often, but I'm a little miffed about it. (I tried to find a clip of it on YouTube or on the DQ website, but it doesn't seem that anyone's posted it. CTV plays it a lot during prime time, you can't miss it.) Further to that, the first time I saw the ad I cried and cried, because it made me think about having to wait another five days before having the baby, which is not something that appeals to me, already being four days overdue. At the very least, I should get something for the emotional distress I've suffered.

I wonder if I could go into a DQ, say "I'm Nicole, the pregnant chick from the commercial," and get a free cake?

I Feel Like A Girl Again

2007-04-30T18:21:00.000-06:00

It's incredible how a little personal upkeep can make you feel like a whole new person. Having just shaved my legs for the first time in about three weeks, as well as doing a full-body exfoliation and other grooming activities in a very long, hot shower, I feel very, very good in ways that I haven't felt in awhile. Next I'm going to paint my toenails. It's like the feeling you get when you've just gotten your hair cut and styled and you're walking down the street thinking about how hot everyone thinks you are because they also did a mini make-up touchup and you've got a new colour of lip gloss on.

It's easy, being at home all the time, to fall into the trap of not really caring what you look like. Why bother to get dressed if you're not going out, when it's so much easier and more comfortable to just wear pajamas all day? Why take the time to shave your legs when they're just going to be covered by the aforementioned pajamas all the time?

Because it feels good when you do, that's why. This has been my life for the past few weeks, and today I got a little fed up. There comes a point when you have to do that stuff for yourself, even if no one else is going to notice or care. And now that I have, I'm in a good place and feeling better than I have in awhile.

I wonder if this is my nesting instinct? Like some women feel the overwhelming urge to scrub their house from top to bottom and cook enough meals to freeze and eat for a month, whereas I suddenly just want to make myself smooth and pretty. Pretty funny if it is, because now the bathroom's a mess and I have no desire to clean it.

Correction

2007-04-19T17:55:00.000-06:00

So last week when the doctor said the baby was around eight pounds, she meant WOULD BE if I went to term, not currently. There was a little miscommunication there.

Currently, the baby's about six and a half pounds.

We can all start breathing again.

Oh. My. God.

2007-04-12T15:40:00.000-06:00

Funny story about my doctor's appointment today. I asked her if she was able to estimate the size of the baby right now to see how it compared to the average baby size for how far along I am. For 37 weeks' gestation, the average baby should be between six and six and a half pounds. Babies gain about half a pound a week in the last month of pregnancy, making the average baby about 7 1/2 lbs. at birth, maybe a little more. A nice and reasonable size for a baby.

But not my baby. Average isn't good enough for her. After much prodding and feeling, the doctor throws out a guess of, in her words, high seven or low eight. So already the baby's bigger than most babies are at birth, and I have another three weeks to go. At half a pound a week, we're looking at around 9.5 lbs.

Nine and a half pounds.

And since the baby hasn't even dropped yet, something that usually happens at least a couple weeks before birth, if not earlier, I'm nowhere close to going into labour.

No wonder I've gained so much weight.

Wouldn't That Be Weird?

2007-04-06T16:40:00.000-06:00

As I've been all by myself today with no one to pester or amuse me (I notice Darcy's work days at Jay's have increased since I've been home on leave) I was going through my bookmarks to see if there was something interesting to keep me occupied for another three minutes when I discovered something that's actually really cool, or will be, if it happens.

I use a date calculator to remind myself how much longer I'm going to be pregnant, because I like to know stuff like that but am bad at math and can't figure it out myself. Anyway, upon figuring out that I'm supposed to be pregnant for only 28 more days if all goes according to plan (which it never does, you don't have to tell me) I noticed that they also have a Useless Dates thing which, if you plug in your day and time of birth, will tell you all kinds of quasi-interesting things about how old you are in seconds, etc. etc. So I plug mine in, and in a bit of strangeness, it turns out that I will be exactly 10,000 days old on May 3, which is a day before the baby's due date. And I think it would be cool if the baby was born when I was exactly 10,000 days old, so now that's the date I'm rooting for.

So at some point later in the day on May 2, it would be nice if everyone started willing me to go into labour so I can make this happen and have a fun/pointless little anecdote to tell afterwards.

I (heart) the Calgary Farmer's Market

2007-04-02T13:12:00.000-06:00

I am seriously in love with the Calgary Farmer's Market these days. It's better than a trip to Disneyland. It's like the anti-Superstore, where everything is homogenous and regimented. You never know what you're going to find when you go to the farmer's market, whether it's a new vendor, a delicious tasty treat or even, as we discovered last weekend, gourmet organic baby food which I'm very excited to try out in about six months' time. We even tried a fruit neither of us had ever heard of before, called kiwi berries. They're like kiwis, only the size of grapes. They only grow for two weeks a year, and come from New Zealand. Who knew? You can bet they didn't have them at Safeway.

There's also the fact that the produce is way, way better than at the big grocery stores. Tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes, nice and acidic and flavourful, not the watery tasteless things you get at the grocery store. Most of it's organic. A lot of it's grown right here in Alberta or BC too, which makes me happy since I've been reading about the 100-mile diet lately. I've never tried the meat from the butcher's before, but I'd like to get some bison since I hear it's better for you than beef. The fish market looks like it has a great selection too, although I'm fairly certain none of it's local...

Plus the food there is to die for. Have you ever had a Simple Simon shepherd's pie before? Delicious. So are the crepes from the crepe place, whose name I can't remember right now. We had them last time we were there and I haven't had a crepe that good since I was in France, no word of a lie. I always make sure we go over lunch so we can have a bite to eat while we're picking up our produce. We missed going this weekend and I'm feeling a little empty inside. I really really wanted a crepe too. Ahh well, there's always next weekend, and the weekend after that, and the weekend after that... because they're open year-round! And it's much better than the Crossroads Market, which is more of a flea market with some vegetables. They do have Artspace though, which is cool.

The best is when it's summertime and we can ride our bikes. I suppose this year we'll have to get a trailer for Darcy's bike so we can bring the grom along with us!

That's all, just wanted to express my love. Allow me to borrow a line from Winners: "you should go."

Ooh, I'm Purdy

2007-03-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

So I'm 86% as hot as Jessica Alba... I guess the remaining 14% is why she's on the cover of Maxim and I'm not.

Does anyone else think this lookalike thing has more to do with facial angle and expression than actual similarity? I put in other pictures and I get completely different matches...

...like Ross Perot.

Mail Call!

2007-03-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Have I ever been getting some weird mail lately, both of the spam and snail variety.

For example, last week, in a strange and incredible run of good fortune, I logged in to my email to discover a note from Manager Thomas Chess saying that I had won the UK Online Lottery! Even though I don't live in the UK and don't even remember entering! I'm anxiously awaiting their response. I'm also sure there's a very good reason why the email originates from Israel. Maybe they have a branch office there or something.

Then, immediately following that email was some very good news from Barrister Greg Friggs that in another random draw, my name was selected from a pool of philanthropists to share in the estate of one late Mr. Philip, who tragically died in a plane crash, leaving behind no clear instructions on how his vast fortune was to be divided other than some apparently vague notion to just find someone to give it to. But I only have two weeks to claim the money or else the evil Nigerian government will take the money for themselves! I am also waiting to hear from Mr. Friggs.

Then I check my mailbox to find a personal invitation from none other than Donald Trump, who says I was hand-picked to attend one of his wealth-building seminars, "The Trump Way to Wealth," and he even enclosed two free tickets! I didn't know Donald Trump even knew my name, much less considered me worthy enough to share his vast financial knowledge with me. What an honour! And before you say it's just a mass-marketing ploy, it's not. He signed my invitation, see?

If that isn't convincing proof, I don't know what is. Sadly, it doesn't look like the Donald is going to be able to make it in person, but he is sending a "hand-picked member" of his organization.

(Incidentally, I love how the tickets point out that "seating is limited." Is there any scenario where seating is unlimited?")

Finally, yesterday the postman once again brought me strange tidings. This, however, was not news that I was expecting or am happy about.

You see, I found out I'm going through menopause.

I thought that at age 27 and nearly eight months pregnant, menopause would be decades away, but this letter tells me otherwise. But there's good news: the letter advises me that a clinical trial is underway which may be able to relieve my bothersome hot flashes. And if I participate in the trial, I will receive, at no cost, medical care, lab tests, electrocardiograms, medication and compensation for travel costs! I'm hoping they'll even throw in a sandwich or two. It makes dealing with the shock that I'm menopausal so much easier to bear.

Is the world really this full of suckers, or have I earned some sort of reputation?

Go, Hormones!

2007-02-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

So sometime in the last week or so I seem to have lost all control over my emotions. I understand that it's common during pregnancy to become a little volatile, but I think it's funny that it took almost seven months before it hit me when it's supposed to be at its worst during the first trimester.

I have cried at least once every day this week. Yesterday I cried three times. It's not always full-on sobbing, sometimes just a welling of tears which subside after a minute or two, but most often it's a good ten minutes of tears, hiccups and snot. I cried myself to sleep last night, much to Darcy's disgust as I'm sure he wanted to be anywhere but in bed with me and my carrying-on.

These are some of the things that have made me cry:

- E.R.
- Grey's Anatomy
- "Lightning Crashes" by Live
- A news story about a woman with ALS
- Anna Nicole Smith dying (and I don't even like her, I just feel horribly sorry for her poor baby daughter who has to grow up without a mom)
- "The Last Whale" (a scene from Famous Puppet Death Scenes which we saw the other night)
- Talking about how I'm crying so much

Yes, even thinking about how much I'm crying makes me cry. Mostly I've become hyper-aware of my own mortality and how at this point not would I be faced with my own death if something awful were to happen, but the baby's death as well. It's a pretty gut-wrenching thought. All of a sudden I'm super-protective of the baby and am realizing that she depends on me 100% for life, up until the point where she's born and other people can take care of her if necessary. It's freaking me out a bit. I think ever since I reached the point where she was developed enough to be born (which was some time last week) it's been on my mind. It's like it's so close to being time until she's born but we're not there yet, and in the meantime some horrible thing could happen and I really don't want it to.

It's weird, I've always been pretty afraid of dying, but this is the first time I've been more afraid not for myself but for someone else. I don't even really care if something happens to me anymore, as long as she's safe.

So this is what it feels like to be a mommy, I imagine. I don't know if the feeling ever goes away... it's mind-boggling.

Oprah would say I need to stop focusing on the negative and start inviting the positive into my life. Oprah obviously doesn't know anything about me, but in this case I think I'm going to have to try, otherwise these last 12 weeks are going to be a real treat for everyone around me. So, can anyone suggest some positive thoughts I can use? I like the "getting to meet my healthy baby girl for the first time after a quick and easy labour" one, but any other suggestions are welcome.

I Just Had A Warm And Fuzzy Thought

2007-02-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

...as I was reading through the post I just wrote I glanced over at the "vitals" part. Under "aspirations" I currently have "mommy."

Well in 13 weeks (please, no more than 13 weeks!) I will be a mommy!

I Am So Lazy

2007-02-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm loading up some new music into iTunes for my iPod, and rather than walk down one flight of stairs to where we keep all our CDs to rip them from there, I'm instead trying to download them from Limewire. And it's frustrating, because half the songs are loading at about 1kb per minute and the other half are bad files or mis-titled and it's taking an extremely long time to get anything done at all. But not so frustrating, apparently, that I'm willing to make the effort to get off my ass and get the CDs. If Darcy was here, he'd be laughing at me.

I'm also starving, but too lazy to make myself dinner. That's truly retarded, I really need to eat something, but I just don't feel like cooking anything. Even something as simple as soup. This is probably going to end up as one of those nights where I eat a bowl of cereal for dinner.

I also have a sink full of dirty dishes and several loads of laundry to deal with. I'm not sure what this whole "nesting" thing is about, I sure haven't experienced so much as an inkling of desire to clean my house from top to bottom in preparation for the baby. Maybe that's still to come, but in the meantime my house is going to continue to be a barely contained disaster.

But hey! It's the weekend, what more do you expect?

Therapy Time

2007-02-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so some people get rid of mental tension and aggravation by punching things (which Darcy made me try, no such luck), some people eat, some people exercise, and me, I need to put it all down in words. So welcome to my therapy session, getting this out of my head is the only way I'm going to get to sleep tonight.

So I started the day in a really good mood, I'd been to the doctor's, and my checkup went really well, I'm healthy, the baby's healthy, I passed my diabetes test, everything was super good. And because of my appointment I had a short day at work, which is always nice. I even got a really good parking spot. Today I was working with my training class for four hours, which meant that because of my late start, I only had to talk to customers for about two hours. So all in all, I was a pretty happy person and figured this would be an nice, easy day.

Yeah, not so much.

So like my second or third customer of the day immediately demands to speak to the retentions department, which deals with collections accounts. They don't talk to customers and don't have a transfer number. They are the Unreachables. So I let this guy know that, but he says he just got transferred to them earlier in the day and he wants to talk to them again. Again I tell him that there's no way of transferring and they never, ever take customer calls. Period. And I ask him if it could be another department he was looking for. So he says he wants to talk about cancelling his account. That means it's actually the relations department he wants. Retentions, relations, I can see how you can confuse the two. So I tell him I'll put him through to relations and explain to him that they're the ones he must have been talking to earlier this morning. And he goes absolutely ballistic. He wants to speak to my supervisor.

Umm, what? He says I have a bad attitude. How's that, I wonder? Like I am totally baffled. He was a little confused about who he wanted to talk to, I figured it out, I told him I'd transfer him, and he wants to speak to my boss? So I tell him that's no problem but I need his account information first. Standard policy. He says no. I say sorry, but no supervisor will talk to you without reviewing the account first. So he says he doesn't have an account. Okay, so you're calling to cancel an account you don't have? What am I, retarded? But all he will say is "get me a supervisor, get me a supervisor, get me a supervisor." His vocabulary has been reduced to four words. So fine, whatever.

So then I get one, and he goes off and starts telling all this bullshit about how I called him a liar to his face and have made him so angry he's cancelling his account and I should be fired because I have the worst attitude of anyone he's ever talked to at any company ever.

First of all, his original purpose for calling was to cancel, that's why he wanted "retentions" (relations) to begin with. So it's not my fault and I have nothing to do with it. Second of all, I never called him a liar, just corrected him. For his own information. Thirdly, what I gave him was not attitude. If I was giving him attitude, he would know it. And I wouldn't mind if he complained about it, because I'd deserve it. But all this is total crap and now it's eating away at my brain. I've never had anyone complain about me before in all the time I've worked there, and I'd expect that if someone did, it would at least be for a valid reason, not this nonsense. And what's worse, he hung up before the supervisor could even tell him that I was right, and retentions wasn't the department he needed for his concern. That, maybe, is what's bugging me most of all, that I was right and he doesn't even know it and is probably sitting at home still thinking what a crap person I am.

I think maybe I'm more sensitve to shit like this because I know I'm not supposed to get upset, and then I start worrying about how upset I am and that it's bad for the baby so I get more upset. Or maybe I'm just having a bad week, because I've had to deal with about ten other equally stupid people and their irrational, unfathomably obtuse attitudes and demands. Stuff like this used to just slide off me and I wouldn't give it a second thought, but now everything is getting under my skin. I'm feeling so burned out right now. I can't wait until my mat leave starts.

Okay, session's over. Hopefully now I can go back to bed and stop fidgiting so Darcy can get some sleep. I need to work on focusing on the big, important, happy things in my life and let the little, petty, lame things like this go. Thanks for reading, if you still are.

(and FYI, if anyone so much as utters anything about "the customer is always right" they'll get a healthy heaping of the attitude that I was falsely accused of adopting earlier)

Behold

2007-01-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

My phenomenal girth.

Kinda cute, innit? And although you can't tell, I'm wearing the pregnant (not fat) shirt too.

Buyer's Remorse

2007-01-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went shopping. We both had some Christmas/birthday/graduation money that we'd been hanging onto until after the Boxing Week rush was over and we had some time together to go spend it. And spend it we did, in a highly materialistic fashion. Darcy even bought $150 jeans, which had better last until the end of time. I spent most of my money on clothes too, because I was getting a little sick of my current rotation of four pairs of pants and five shirts. Anyway, among other things I bought this shirt which I thought was highly funny at the time. It says "pregnant (not fat)" on the front and I thought it was quite clever, especially since certain people lately have been ribbing me about how I over-indulged with the turkey dinners over the holidays and making all kinds of other witty comments on my size.

But now I'm having second thoughts about the shirt, although a part of me wonders if I'm being a little too PC. I still think it's a funny shirt, but I'm worried that some people, overweight people, will find it kind of offensive, like I'm rubbing it in their faces that I'm not fat. Is that overreacting? Complete strangers I don't much care about, because you can't make everyone happy no matter what you wear and I'm sure there are people out there who are offended that I'm wearing pants instead of a dress and bonnet, but I don't want to hurt the feelings of people I know and like. So I'm wondering, do I take the shirt back (which I don't actually think I can do because it was on sale), or maybe just try and be sensitive about who I wear it around, or just screw it and wear it whenever I damn well feel like?

Why do I get the feeling that guys just don't worry about things like this?

I'm Not Dead

2007-01-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

I just have nothing going on of interest these days. I have no thoughts. I have no ideas. I just work and sleep and work and sleep. And a whole lot of eating gets crammed in there as well.

For, yes, I'm a giant pregnant woman. My girth is astounding. I can't see my feet when I look down. And I'm only going to get bigger.

I almost might as well be dead though, I started prenatal yoga last night and realized how grossly out of shape I am. It's like a level 1, basic easy yoga class, and I came out hurting. I mean hurting. My ab muscles (what's left of them) were just burning. I don't think they want to accept the fact that they're not all tight and hard and compact any more. They just need to let go. Just let go and face the facts.

Anyway, more to come when something interesting occurs, and perhaps a pic of my ever-expanding belly, which is kind of cute now that it looks like a baby. I just wish people at work would stop saying things like "you must be due any day now!" They ain't seen nothing yet.

Say Hello!

2006-12-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

I had my 18-week ultrasound today, at the fantastic Calgary Women's Imaging Centre and they gave me some pictures of the baby which I thought I'd put up because I'm a proud mommy-to-be. We also found out the gender, but as not everyone wants to know, I'll give you the opportunity to find out only by highlighting the next row. If you're the weird type that likes to keep things a surprise, just skip over it and keep reading.

It's a girl!

All right then, there's that over with, and on to the pictures!

A nice side view of the baby's head and torso.

Flipped over - the spine, which looks nice and normal.

Aww, look at the little footy-wooty!

Yes, I've become one of those people. What's worse is the baby's not even born yet...

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a thumbsucker.

We also got some of those cool 4-D pictures that you've probably seen in the news lately, which was a nice surprise. The detail on them is amazing!

This is the first shot we saw. Clearly, the baby's telling us to go to hell and leave her alone. (Whoops, did I say her? Guess the cat's out of the bag... Meh, I know you peeked anyway.)

Clearly, we have one hip baby. 18 weeks old, and already flashing us the peace sign.

Much better! Who do you think she looks more like? That definitely looks like Darcy's nose. Isn't she beautiful?

There are a bunch more pictures if you're truly interested - email me and I'll forward them off to you. It's so more real to me now that we've seen the pictures and I can feel her bumping around inside me sometimes. Oh, and the fact that my bellybutton is starting to pop. 22 weeks can't come soon enough!

Party Party Party!

2006-12-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't get the email somehow or you're looking for a refresher on the details, we're having a Birthmas party December 15, starting at 7 p.m. or so.

That's a Friday, so you'll have lots of time to go home and get spiffy, because it's a dressy-uppy party! Maybe not tux and tails dressy-uppy, but smart-cas would be nice. You're all such attractive people! I'm even going to wear mascara!

My end of the bargain will be to provide a location (and if you don't have my address, email me, I'm not publishing it online) plus a few nibblies, some mix and a sizeable selection of hard liquor, as well as music, foosball and possibly a crackling fire. Your end of the bargain will be to bring an appetizer for 12-15 people (no full potluck this year, I'd rather have a finger-food party) and any beer or wine you plan on consuming, keeping in mind that you don't have to bring extra this year because the hostess is pregnant and won't be stealing from your stash (although if someone brings some Quelque Chose I might be persuaded to have a snifter's worth. Try not to be scandalized).

RSVP via email to me if you're coming (while random visitors and partycrashers can be fun, this party really is only for people I know, sorry stalker-wannabes) and who you're bringing along with you.

Consider yourself invited to Birthmas 2006. I hope to see you there!

Call The Militia...

2006-11-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

...my breasts are about to destroy Tokyo. In fact if I didn't know better, I'd swear they were exposed to some sort of Godzilla-esque radiation, they've grown so large.

The funny thing is, I hate them. I always used to want to have huge boobs and cleavage instead of the fairly average portion I was meted out and even swore that when we could afford it, I'd get implants. But after having experienced them firsthand, I have to admit I want my little boobies back. And to make things worse, they're getting bigger. The $75 bra I bought two months ago is already too small, and I have no idea where I'm going to find a bigger one, since F was the largest cup the lingerie store had in a 32 size. Never mind the fact that I don't particularly want to spend another $75 on something I'm going to have to replace another two months down the road!

Not only that, but they get in the way of everything. I can barely button up my winter coat, my sweaters are all stretching unnaturally, and even when I'm not wearing clothes, they're a pain. I have to sleep on my side now, being too big to sleep on my stomach and not allowed to sleep on my back, and they're always resting on my arm and making it fall asleep, and I wake up two or three times a night because it's all pins and needles.

Further to that, Darcy thinks they look, in his own words, absurd, and he's a big fan of the big boobies. I can only agree, they're completely ridiculous.

Well, Great.

2006-11-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

So I had to take Frances to the vet's yesterday, which itself is no fun task: getting her stuffed into the kennel at home, and then persuading her to come out of the kennel once in the exam room is a battle royale, not to mention the anguished "mom, how could you?" expression she puts on the whole way there in the car. By the time she's de-kenneled I'm usually wracked with guilt, even more so when she starts clawing and biting the vet.

But this time I feel extra-super-mega guilty, because my poor kitty has an infected, abcessed tooth which she's apparently been suffering from for some time, without my having the least idea. It's all loose and rotten and apparently quite painful (not so painful that she's stopped eating however, on the contrary she's managed to gain about a pound and a half). And I've been putting off her vet visit for about a month because I didn't feel up to taking her with the whole morning-sickness/exhaustion thing.

So now the tooth has to come out, which means in a week I get to stuff her back in the kennel, drive her down to the vet's again and leave her there for a whole day while she undergoes a general anesthetic for the extraction. And if I thought she was grumpy yesterday when I brought her home (she walked around hissing at everything and nothing, which was pretty funny actually) I can only imagine how she'll be next week. I'm really not looking forward to it.

Nor am I looking forward to having to pay for it. $500, a month before Christmas, with a baby on the way, is a lot to swallow. Good old Visa will have to pull me through this one. Bad timing all around, is what I say.