Coffee Junkie

Seriously.

My muscles are sore, like I've been moving furniture. It's 2:30 and I still haven't woken up. I had planned on using this day to do things, but right now I can't even think what needs doing.

We need bread. There. I'll go buy bread. That needs doing.

Shit, man, fuck. 'Cause you know what I'm doing right now, right?

Going to get another cuppa,
ephelba

The difference between the first and the third child.

With the first child you pack your bag for the hospital months in advance, using the list provided in "What to Expect When You're Expecting". You may go so far as to buy lotion to pack, even though you hate lotion, you never use lotion, and it costs money you could use on other things. The book says to bring it, and it knows things you don't. You pack an outfit to come home in, baby clothes, clothes to labor in. You pack a tennis ball and music. Diapers. A burp cloth. A baby blanket.
By the time you get to number three you're nine months pregnant and still haven't packed. When you do get around to it, you pack snack bars because you know the nurses won't feed you, and socks because you hate those booty things they give you. You don't pack any clothes other than a baby outfit and some clothes to come home in, because you figure if you don't pack anything else you won't have a lot of laundry to do when you get home. You do not pack lotion. Or tennis balls. Or music. Or diapers. You may not even pack a toothbrush, because you know they have a stash there. You fully intend to steal at least a baby blanket, and you're hoping to score one of those hideously pink basins. Technically this means you intend to return with more shit than you went in with.


With the first child you buy a ton of shit. Everyone gives you all kinds of advice on the best strollers-baby baths-cribs-walkers-toys to buy. You work and you scrimp and you buy one of each.
By the time you get to number three you have, like, four or five baby tools you use, and those are hand-me-downs from the other two. You feel sad you can't get the money back from the crap you bought for the first one.
ASIDE:
For me, those tools are a sling, a bouncy seat, and a bumbo. If I must travel, I am glad I have a pack and play and an umbrella stroller. Seriously, the rest of babies-r-us is a racket designed to empty your pocket.
GETTING OFF MY HIGH HORSE:


With the first child you show up for every appointment on time. You follow all the advice your OB gives. You read like a fiend. You worry.
With the third you find ways to miss an appointment here or there, because it eats half your damn day packing the famdamnily up to get there and back, whilst only managing to last for five minutes. You don't panic over most things your body does, even if they involve blood. You still read and worry though, because (in this case) you are me, but no more than usual.


With the first child you take a Lamaze class. You kegel. You squat. You practice your lamaze. You do the perineal massage.
By number three you figure everything's got to be stretched out already. If it's not supposed to be stretched out, you figure it's made it this far and seems to be holding up just fine.


With number one you worry about labor and whether you're strong enough for it.
With number three you know what to expect, you just wonder if you have enough energy.



Haiku for the day:

During labor you
focus. Breathe. Relax. Pulse.
You're busy. Consumed.

Afterwards you hold
your baby and pictures and
wish you'd done your hair.



Having discovered iced coffee and how much more you can consume when the lovely brown stuff isn't hot, for once she isn't feeling the least bit sleepy and is going to go get some more shit done before the caffeine wears off,

ephelba

All the latest Peanut news...

* She doesn't have velofacial syndrome. This is good.
* She has a duplicate of something on Chromosome 4. This could be good, bad, or indifferent (we think).
* She can hear. Technically, this is good, but it would be nice to have an issue that could be fixed easily with hardware, as opposed to something that could take years of speech therapy to work out.

Today Early Intervention came out and finally admitted that the girl is fine in most regards, but Damn-Why-She-Don't-Talk-Yet. She scored great in fine motor, adaptive, social/emotional, even receptive communication(Surprise!) but she sucked at expressive communication (No Surprise).

They'll be sending a nice lady out twice a week to help catch Peanut up. Which is great. It's nice to have somebody listen to you saying "Something isn't right here. No, really, it isn't right. Yeah, your second cousin/neighbor/son/dog didn't speak till they were three, but there's not talking and then there's NOT TALKING" Peanut DOESN'T TALK. She doesn't have a name for me, she doesn't have a name for milk. She doesn't have a name for her beloved Poppy. She does say "Woof" when she sees a dog. Or a cat. Or a sheep. I'm not sure if that even counts for a first word. She has just this week decided to say "Bubba" for Boy, which is definitely something, but damn Skippy! She's 20 months old!

So there you have it. People in positions of power have agreed that Something Is Not Right and are going to help us. I just wish we knew what it was that wasn't right. Makes me itchy not knowing...

I gave her bangs today. She's got such wispy baby hair- I thought it might help her look a little older. Honestly, you can't even tell I did anything. I suppose that's good, because it means I didn't fuck up her Do.

Am tired. Will post picture of my ludicrous belly soon, I promise,
ephelba

On a roll...

The belly is huge.
Who needs to see their own knees,
much less their own crotch?

Not I,
ephelba

How frigging cool is this?

Someday I will have free time, and I will riff on this idea.

Because I love the idea of light being a thing you can hold,
ephelba

A Very Small Freak Out.

Oh my freakin God -
Six weeks left till the due date!
Too much left to do....

Haiku dropped by ephelba

The Tether's End

That's where you'll find me these days. I think I'm actually doing better lately, but if you need a frazzled women to raise her voice to near supersonic levels and go off at the drop of a hat, I'm your girl.

For one thing, there's this belly I've grown. It's truly ludicrous. Absolutely silly. The floor keeps getting farther away, and I have to bend at the waist to reach Simon for a kiss.

Then there's The Thing, formerly known as Peanut. I can't stand holding the girl, who loves to stand or sit on the belly. She's had a cold (yet another!) and has required much holding by me, but there's no good way to get her up to the shoulder for a snuggle without squishing the belly and making me wince. And she's growing, too, so I find myself putting her heavy thing down when I really shouldn't, like, in the middle of stores full of shelves of things she can get into.

Then there's the Boy, who is almost as psycho as I. I can't describe the torment that I go through in a day with Him Who Means Well But Takes Four Hours To Do A Twenty Minute Task Then Does It Wrong Because He Didn't Listen Or Thought He Had A Better Idea And That's If He Remembered To Do It At All.

We started school today, and I've just now gone apeshit on his ass because when I told him he'd forgotten units and he could go fix that real quick, he threw his notebook in the room and said "That's bullshit."

Oh yeah, there's a good idea, Boy, that'll go over real well.

I think I've now made it very clear that that was egregious, it's behavior befitting a toddler, and IT WILL NOT BE FUCKING TOLERATED.

K?

Alrighty then.

My throat's scratchy now.

So.

It would seem I'm not the only one at the end of my tether. All my local girly friends have their plates so full stuff is falling off the edges. We're all feeling pulled many directions. None of us have enough time. etc etc etc

At least there's the comfort of knowing I'm not alone. Sometimes I'd look at what these amazing women had taken on, and I'd feel soooo, well, underaccomplished. I couldn't get my dishes done over the head over my toddler, but two of my friends were running farms whilst raising three kids. It's not schadenfreude- I wish things were easier for all of us - it's just comfort at the thought that I'm not defective because my kids make it hard to do a damn task from start to the fucking finish, thank you very much.

One of my friends went to visit family, and I helped her out by collecting and washing eggs from her chickens. Boy watched The Thing sleep so I could go by myself. As I sat there in front of the sink washing the eggs I just felt so damn happy. Each egg was unique and pretty- reminded me of rocks, really, and I realized that even more than the eggs I was enjoying doing something without someone needing anything from me. I was doing uni-tasking, for once, and it was wonderful. I hadn't realized until then just how badly I needed a break from the children now and then.

Because you know what- you don't get a break from Momming very often. Simon sends me off for Girls Night now and then- I shudder to think what would have happened by now if he didn't. He's so wise. But other than that you don't get a break when you pee (the Thing screams if I go in the bathroom and she doesn't, because, don't you know, the bathroom is super-happy-magical-fun-land), you don't get a break when you shower (She usually showers with me, unless I swing a shower at naptime or Simon watches her), you don't get a break at night (She still wakes up a couple of times a night, although she doesn't always need me for anything...). You don't get a break when you eat or when you're trying to clean the house or when you'd really just like to sit still for a minute. I know Simon doesn't want to get stuck with The Thing and The Boy right when he walks through the door, but some days I'm just sooooo through.

I suppose that just about sums up what's going on with me these days. In other news:
* Poor Simon has to get a ton of dental work done. With much poking of sharp things in his mouth and whatnot. The special insult to this injury is that we have to pay someone for the pleasure:)

* Still no news about the Peanut. We've reached the point that we don't care what the news is. She's got a speech delay, for whatever reason, and we're just going to have to work on that. So we will. We're starting with a hearing test, and early intervention is coming back out this month. We haven't done the full, all out Google fest that we should, but I figure there's no real rush.

* Simon and I are going to attempt VBAC. Doctor says I'm a good candidate. Feel like a better candidate than a mother because I haven't been squatting or practicing my lamaze or calling the Doula back....

* Simon is pretty sick of his work place. He'd like another, if you've got a spare with benefits that doesn't involve us moving.


Going to be the Bad Witch,
ephelba

Question.

Hypothetically speaking, if you went and knocked on your neighbor's door, and it had a large window with no curtain, and you could see in their house, and you saw the lady of the house and waved "Hi!" and smiled, and she left, and then her boyfriend came out from the bedroom holding a steak knife, then he answered the door perfectly friendly like (whilst still holding the steak knife), then he was very conciliatory about turning the music down (whilst still holding the steak knife), and you were all understanding and grateful (whilst wondering about the steak knife), but the entire time he kept holding a steak knife (and by holding, I don't mean, like, kinda fiddling with it or holding it like you're about to wash it, maybe, or you were just using it in your bedroom to, ummmm, open the packaging on your new bedsheets, I mean, like, holding it tightly gripped in the fist, with the pointy end pointing at the person at your door- a person who is one of those scary pregnant ladies that jump you and kick your ass and waddle in your house and steal your new bedsheets) .....

(inhale)

Would you think it odd?


Trying not to, but thinking it odd anyway,
ephelba

Rant against LJ

Can I share how much I hate Live Journal? I can never follow the comments: pages of comments sliding back and forth across the screen and referring to people and sites I've never heard of... I can never find my way around a person's, umm, blog? page? entity? there- like how the fuck do you email somebody? Jesus! and when I try to comment it ends up in the wrong spot. And it seems like a real pain in the ass to change your format.
Why the hell do people blog there?
I wouldn't read a thing on it if it weren't for rss feeds. I can't tell an entry from a comment half the time, and I certainly can't keep straight what the hell page the entry is going to show up on.

Grrrr.

Ok. I feel better now. It's just I clicked through my feed to an actual journal and I was going to comment but I had a hissy instead so I came back home where blog formats make sense and all the comments fall nicely down the page.

loving blogger,
ephelba

Of course I did.

Googling is next to godliness- of course I googled. I'm proud I waited as long as I did. I only read two sites. That was enough. I can totally see why he picked this syndrome as best candidate, because if you take all of Peanuts quirks and write them down in a list, you can find all of them on the list of symptoms/conditions for this syndrome. Thankfully, all of the symptoms and conditions on the list cannot be found in Peanut. Some of them are harsh.

What is most upsetting to Simon and I is that (almost all?) kiddos with this syndrome have learning disabilities. Lower IQs than average. (Arguably) higher rates of mental health issues. Of course, the severity of the problems varies with the kid, but, of course, we don't care, we don't want Peanut to have problems at all.

So now we wait. Two weeks. At least. Results should be in around then, and then if the news is bad I do the full, all out googling and we make The Trek again.
If it's good we thank our lucky stars. A lot.

Crossing my fingers,
ephelba

Micro Deletions

I had been taking Peanut to a Dr whose entire approach to medicine could be summed up by the words "Wait and See". I can't really argue with that, but I find myself doing all the worrying that I don't see the Dr doing, and I turn into a nutty mom who worries about every little sneeze and twitch. We switched to a Dr who takes Everything Very Seriously, which means I don't have to, which means I become the kind of mom who forgets to take her kiddo in for a weigh check(she feels HEAVY to me), blows off missed milestones (She'll get around to it soon), and almost cancels the geneticist appointment that was scheduled, oh, four months ago.

It is such a pain in the ass to go to the city where the geneticist is. It's a two hour drive. Not a big deal for you and I, but add a baby to the mix and suddenly you're figuring out how to work the baby's daily bottles, naps, messy meals and poos in to a day trip on one of the hottest days of the year. Just planning and packing for the day could wear you out. Just to add to the fun, though, take this trip in a compact car with the whole family and no air conditioning. If you've an imagination (or children of your own) you can see why I was second guessing the need to do this.

I was convinced the Dr would look at Peanut and laugh. "Why have you brought this child here? Everything can be explained by low birthweight! Silly anxious mother! Ha! You have wasted a day of your life for nothing! Enjoy your trip back home!"

Instead we had a two hour appointment (albeit, with a fair amount of waiting involved) where they asked about Simon and my medical histories, peeked in her mouth, measured her birthmarks and said there are several syndromes we need to rule out.

Frankly I was shocked as shit.

He had a personal favorite. We took her down and had blood drawn to test for that. The other one (or more?) we'll rule out as need be. I have not Googled a thing yet, because I don't think it wise to work myself up over something she may not have. Also, a new label isn't going to change who she is.

Of course, not Googling is hard. Maybe I'll Google just a little.

No, I'd work myself up over nothing.

But it would be nice to know what we're talking about.

The Dr said not to Google. He said you only hear the bad stories.

How bad are they?


Fighting the urge,
ephelba

Chirrrrrrp Chirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp

I am not at Blogher.

It feels lonely here in the blogiverse.



You can hear the crickets.








I really wish I were in Chicago, but then again, it'll be more fun some other time when I can drink, I suppose.










Ummmmmm. Simon is fixing his truck. Boy is reading Harry Potter, when he's not getting into trouble and being grounded from it. Peanut is being terribly cute and singing nonsense songs. I'm being terribly and inexplicably totally and unbelievably tired.






Yeah.












So.




My Aunt sent me two Moo Moos. Hawaiian print and everything. Anyone know what to do to a moo moo to make it wearable in public?





Yeah, me neither,
ephelba

Neener Neener

Ok, maybe you live in Europe and you got the book before us yankees did, or maybe you stayed up last night to get the book first thing. Maybe you even downloaded the pdf files of the book off the internet.
I say "Neener Neener", because I read fast and I'm done.

Knowing whether you can Trust Snape,
ephelba

Chicken Guts

Warning: Graphic discussion of chicken innards follows.

See, the first thing you have to know about me is that I'm almost, but not quite, completely neurotic. I have all the makings for being the kind of person who wears latex gloves 24/7 and never leaves the house. They (the makings) sit inside my head and make rude or worrisome comments as they see fit. I figure the reason I can claim to not be completely neurotic is that I don't wear latex gloves 24/7 and I do leave the house.

There are exceptions, though. Things that have the little neurosis in my head standing up to scream, and on these things I generally concede the point and let them have their way. One of these is meat. More specifically, raw meat. Actually, raw meat in my kitchen. Gives me fits. Anything the meat looks at, nay, thinks about, must be washed repeatedly with bleach. Back when I was single woman I just didn't bother cooking it; too much work. Since there's been a Simon, and since Simon is a big fan of the meat, Simon has generally taken over the job. And because he's so sweet, and because meat germs are scary, he goes through all the rituals my neurosis require. The "No touching things with meat hands", the "Put that plastic straight in the trash", the "Meaty things are quarantined in the empty sink", and the "It isn't done till the thermometer says it is" rituals. Usually I sit in the kitchen and stare at him while he bustles about the kitchen, ready to squeal if a ritual is forgotten. Sometimes, Simon banishes me.

I've said all that to say this: I have spent two, count them, TWO days gutting chickens. Maybe I can do it because it doesn't happen in my kitchen, but at my friend's farm. She has a tent set up, and tables, and things, all under a tree by her barn. Her kiddos chase the chickens and put them in crates. Her husband sticks them in funnels and slits their necks. Then he dunks them in boiling water- dunk dunk dunk, and sticks them in the Whiz-Bang-Chicken plucker. (The Whiz-Bang-Chicken plucker is a tub with little rubber fingers, and the bottom whirls around and the chickens get plucked by all the little fingers.) He puts them in a bucket of water to wait for us to gut them. We gut 'em and put them in a bucket of water to rinse off and cool. After they've cooled a bit, we put them in ice water to chill. Then we put some guts (livers, heart, neck) back into the chicken and bag it. Then the kids put them in the fridge/freezer.

My friend is the fastest- she can do 5 chickens in 15 minutes. I haven't timed myself yet, but I think I might could do 2. Someone else was helping and she could do 3. It's tricky, because chickens are made with their parts remarkably well attached. You start with the feets. This part is easy. You can't do it wrong, the anatomy is simple, and it goes quick. Then you cut off the head. Also easy. Then you find the trachea and the esophagus and unattatch all the layers of fascia. This is where it starts to get trickier, because nothing is color coded. The esophagus doesn't look that much different from the fascia or the skin. I'm also never too sure, once I find it, how far to carry on with the separating. I usually stop when I get to the crop, which also looks just like everything else, but has the advantage of being an enormously stretchy little bag, which noting else up there is.

At this point you turn the bird around and start on its butt. You pinch the knucker hole closed and cut very, very carefully around it. The goal it to cut knucker out without slicing into the poop chute, which is as easy to slice through as wet paper. Once you manage that, you just pull the intestines out and let them hang into the slop bucket. Then you stick your hand right in the bird. It's warm. It isn't bloody. You feel for the gizzard, which is hard and on the top right in there. You wrap your fingers around that and give it a good yank. This pulls most everything else loose enough that it can come out the bird, but this is where us amateurs are slow and my friend is fast. Some of us like to loosen everything up in there and pull it all out at once with a great slurpy noise. This is a trick. It is also slow. I tend to gently caress the liver and worm it out, hoping I don't break the gall bladder on the way. After that I can just grab whatever's in there and pull. If you've been successful the bird now looks as empty as the one you get in the store. You can see daylight through it. It's lovely.

There can be excitement though, if you cut into the intestine, or the gall bladder breaks. Both require immediate washing of the bird. And then lots of times I break the trachea or the esophagus and I have to go hunting for it. Lungs are hard to get and easily forgotten. And sometimes there are stupid feathers that won't come out, no matter what you do. Nothing like trying to tweeze a dead bird's ass.

Maybe now I've explained enough for you to grab the enormity of the fact that I have done this thing. All of this handling of chicken guts. Raw chicken guts. I myself, who still asks the husband to do the cooking of the meat, have cleaned the very meat itself. I have stretched myself. I have done a new thing. I have cleaned a bird.

Sorry, I do tend to carry on when I'm proud of myself.

Still growing up,
ephelba

Lucky me.

The other day Peanut slept for eight hours straight. I slept for seven of those hours. We both slept a few more hours after that, once she'd had a bottle. Then Simon was generous enough to let me sleep a little more.

You have no idea what kind of heaven that was.

I look back at that lovely event with misty eyes of longing. God knows what serendipity allowed such a thing to happen. It could be years before she sleeps like that again, but every night I say a small prayer that the lightening will strike twice and I'll get my sleep in one largish chunk.

On another note, I had naively thought I wouldn't need any maternity shirts for this pregnancy. A tshirt is just a tshirt, right? I've been wearing the same 3 xlarge numbers for so long they walked into the laundry themselves, so today I was forced to try on some of my others, the ones sized m and l that I wore pre-pregnancy. It was like wearing cling wrap. Having one's shirt plastered to one's belly is one thing- showing off the largess of one's n1pples is another. I had to borrow one of Simon's shirts. Maybe I'll just keep that up- I balk at spending money on clothes I can only wear for three more months.

going to sleep now, wish me luck,
ephelba

It's like this.

I set out to wash a few pans. They've been waiting on me to wash them for more than a week (badmombadmombadmom). It's about 4:00.
First I have to get to the sink, so I set about finding homes/washing the crap that's piled there. I hear a hullabaloo in the living room as Boy's guest finally succeeds in pissing the dog off enough to get her to snarl at him. Simon yells at Boy, asking him what the guest was doing to the dog. Boy defends the guest. Simon and I both ask for the dog to be put in the cage.
I remember there's laundry in the washer and go to put it in the dryer, but realize there are diapers in there, so I sit down to fold them. Boy argues with Simon. I ground Boy, tell him to tell his guest "Goodbye" and finish folding the diapers. Boy gets highly upset. Guest leaves. Simon wonders why Boy is grounded.
I put the diapers where they go, then proceed to go off on the menfolk, blah blah blah "solve this problem" blah blah blah. Get mad enough to spit. Return to the kitchen. See the sink and remember what I'm supposed to be doing. See more things in the kitchen that need to be put away elsewhere. Return to the living room with books and baby toys to discover the menfolk sulking and typing and otherwise not solving anything.
I go off again- blahdee blah blah. For a while. End up leaving the room again, returning to the kitchen to discover I still have the crap in my hands. Return to the living room again and manage to put stuff away while I carp.
Back in the kitchen I'm to the point I can fill the sink with water and soap and pans, but even as I do it I know I'm not going to get the damn pans washed before the water cools, and it makes me sad. I hate putting my hands in cold dishwater. It's 4:30.
My memory is shot right now, but if I remember right it is about this time that the baby has a meltdown, which reminds me she needs a drink. I need a drink too. She gets milk and I get water. What I want is a beer.
Simon and Boy come up with some solutions. They are discussed whole-family-style and agreed upon by all. Simon notices it is time to make dinner. He decides to help, being the saint he is, but he'll need a pan, which sends me back to washing.
I get the one needed pan washed, but I have to leave the project for a while to make the tzatziki. And pee. I get my hands back in the water and the baby comes out to the kitchen to cry at me and let me know she's pooping.
So.
I put down the pan and take her out to the changing table. She borders on constipated, and she hasn't sat down yet, so when I take off the diaper the turd is still between her cheeks in a firm little bundle. I try to use the diaper to swipe it safely into custody, but the baby squirms and sends the turd flying. In a desperate attempt to avoid the shit I yank my foot out of the way. Too slow. I now have shit on my foot and a bruise on my heel, because I kicked something behind me. Meanwhile the baby's crying (she hates diaper changes) and I'm laughing and the poo's lurking on the floor, just waiting for the dog to come eat it, or Boy to step in it, or some other event to prolong the excitement.
Boy comes to my rescue and cleans up the poo. I clean up the baby. Simon works on dinner. We're now approaching 5:30 and I still haven't washed the pans. I still can't wash the pans because now I'm getting stuff together for dinner, helping Boy clear the table, getting stuff out of the fridge.
In fact, it won't be until after dinner that I manage to wash the damn pans. The dishwater is, indeed, cold. I never did remember to move the laundry into the drier.
I had wanted to wash the cutting boards and the fancy glasses too, but they're still sitting there cluttering up the counter (badmombadmombadmom). Seeing as how it took me almost three hours to wash four pans, I think it's understandable. Nonetheless, I am frustrated. I like to start a thing, work on the thing, finish the thing. I do not like to multitask in the truest sense of the word. I feel like a failure because the damn house is a fucking wreck. When I really think about it honestly, it's not that I'm not doing things. I'm doing plenty of things. It's just not the things I set out to do, and I get sidetracked easy, and stuff comes up. Life happens.
I stubbornly refuse to believe that this means we have to live in chaos though. Surely if I just drink a little more coffee and try a little harder I can whip this place into shape, right?

dreaming the impossible dream,
ephelba

Hmph.

I have a gazillion posts to write, about Drs, and chicken guts, and trash picking and I don't know what all.

Instead, I will divert your attention with this. I can't watch it enough. I think it's the cutest thing, like, ever, and hope that our girls will grow up like this.

Yep, Moon Unit, or Pook, as we've taken to calling it, is rumored to be a girl by the sonographer. Boy is outright sad. Simon is taking it well. Peanut doesn't know she should be pleased that Team Girl has won.

Cockaboody to you too,
ephelba

Just thought I'd share.

Best news I've had in a long time.

Most disgusting thing I've seen recently.

Best recent site find.

Good waste of nine minutes you may or may not have, but will spend anyway because you're procrastinating, aren't you. Look at the archives if you need more than 9 minute's worth.

ttfn,
ephelba

So,

Boy goes into the kitchen and asks, "Can we put the silverware back in the drawer now? The mice are all gone, we haven't caught one in days."
At which point, he opens the drawer to find a dead mouse.

Keeping her silverware on the table,
ephelba

A First

Yesterday I met up with someone I hadn't seen in many months, and they noticed I was pregnant. I'm at that stage where you feel, and look, more fat than pregnant. You don't feel particularly glowing either. She knew just by looking and it made me feel good.

I have the sneaking suspicion I am going to end up gaining more weight than I want on this one. With Boy I had about 10/15 lbs to lose. With Peanut I had 30 lbs to lose, which was a cinch, because it was all water. I ended up losing weight by the time she was done nursing (if you can call it that). I think this time I'm going to end up with some reserve. I'm bound and determined that this kid is going to nurse really well in the good old fashioned belly-up-to-the-bar way, so by the time he/she's done maybe the weight will be off. We can but hope.

Yesterday I read someone describe how easy their pregnancy was. They attributed it to their vegan diet. Ha. The truth is they were either young, or in shape, or both. I am not as young as I once was, and I'm not in shape. I keep meaning to get in shape here soon, because it does make a world of difference. It's just hard when you're so damn tired. Of course, if i were in shape I wouldn't be as tired, right? And around, and around...

Regarding our plagues- The mice seem to have sworn off pepperoni. Either that, or we're fresh out of mice. The baby's bites are healing up quite nicely. Apparently drool is an excellent salve- She is a walking slime monster right now. Poor thing either has allergies or a cold, so she's dripping from the nose, then she has three teeth coming in, which makes her drool like a basset hound. She wanted to kiss me the other day and it was very, very hard to let her do it. I end up nearly as slimy as her chin because she likes to use me for a kleenex.

Which is all to say, nothing much new here.

Oh! Except my best friend ever is, like, getting married this weekend and stuff. I'm not there because they're doing the eloping kind of thing. Hooplah will commence sometime in the future. Simon and I are still trying to think of something lovely to do, because we like to put things off till the last second (not!).

Going to bathe,
ephelba