Monday, December 27, 2004

Houston, we have labia

Today, I had a doctor's appointment. Though I managed to pack on another two pounds in the interim two weeks, I didn't have enough uterine growth to satisfy my physician, so it was off to ultrasound. There they did all kinds of different measurements and came to the conclusion that everything is fine, in fact, the estimated due date by this study was January 26 - just one day off my original due date (I never bought into that Feb. 1st crap anyway)!! While we were there, we asked for a "gender check," and indeed it looks like we can stick with the current super pink wardrobe.

So it is a girl, the size is fine and the due date is back in January. The only downside: my daughter has a huge head! Not exactly what I wanted to hear. The size of her head was about a week ahead of the rest of her - still within the normal range, but I would've preferred it to be on the small side!!

Saturday, December 25, 2004

One month to go

I passed the eight month mark earlier this week and have quite a belly to show for it!




One month to go!

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 24, 2004

Shopping Gets Better

Today the only thing I wanted to get done was to check out the Goodwill to see if we could find a dresser to use as a changing table. After taking all the necessary measurements (40" max length, must accommodate 32" changing pad) we set off.

The Goodwill has all of the furniture pushed together in large islands three or four pieces deep to conserve space, but I spotted something with potential right away.

"I think I see our dresser."

Mac headed for a dresser in the first aisle, pulled out the tape measure and came back with the verdict: "Nope, it's 46 inches long."

"Actually, I was talking about the dresser in the next aisle over." Mac headed over while I perused the rest of the stuff in the first section. When I got over to Mac, he informed me it was too short - only 30 inches.

We headed to the third and final conglomeration of furniture...nothing. "Are you sure my dresser was too short? It looked like it would have been perfect." I walked over with Mac following, knowing it wasn't right. He measured again while I looked on - "Nope, 30 inches."

As I looked down to corroborate, I noticed something sandwiched behind the dresser. "Hey what if we just buy this changing table instead!?" For there, hidden in the middle of all the old stuff was an actual baby changing table! And better yet, we decided it really didn't need to be painted, unlike all the dressers we had seen - ten dollars well spent!




"It may be a changing table, but I'll never change - I just see a new bed!"

Monday, December 20, 2004

Why Christmas Shopping Sucks

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Mac set out to put up our Christmas lights. We had two strands of lights that didn't survive the off-season, so when it came to decorate the tree, I didn't have enough lights. I headed off to Fred Meyer to get some more. Freddy's had an impressive Christmas set up, dedicating two aisles just to lights. "Perfect," I thought and I began my search for the standard 100 count strings of mini-white lights. Up and down the aisles I went, passing by the strands of all red, all green, even all blue and all orange lights. I found plenty of icicle lights, bobble lights, chili pepper lights, and extra large lights, but no white ones.

I headed down the street to Safeway where there were only a few choices - all colored. So back past Fred Meyer's and off to A-boy. There I found the the most technologically advanced light selection - fiber optics, ultra-mini's, and specialty twinkling patterns in addition to icicle lights but still not what I was looking for. Exasperated, I bought a strand of ultra-mini lights and left. Not only did I not get what I wanted, I paid $5.99 which further annoyed me as I got all my light strands for $1.99 last year (perhaps why the life-span was short).

Tonight we did our Christmas grocery shopping for Thursday's dinner gathering. I am making a peppermint cheesecake for dessert with a crushed candy cane topping, so of course, I need candy canes. Off to the Christmas section. There I found boxes and boxes of candy canes at $.99/dozen. The problem of course, was that they didn't have peppermint! There were oodles of rootbeer, tooty-fruity, and cinnamon candy canes, even Starburst and Jolly Rancher candy canes. The only box of peppermint that I could find was sugar-free. So I picked out a few of the big, thick, individually sold (and more expensive) single candy canes, but I didn't really want big, thick candy canes.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to bask in the glow of chili pepper lights while sucking on butterscotch candy canes. I want to celebrate Christmas with white lights and peppermint! Is that too much to ask??

Fortunately, Santa's elves were looking out for me tonight. Heading to the check-out line, I spied a box of candy canes on the floor, under the gum rack. Deftly swooping down to check it out, I was rewarded with a box of peppermint candy canes! I felt pretty triumphant to find the only box of regular candycanes in the whole store - in fact, i was downright merry!

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Hangover

This morning, after a fun but late night at Jeremy and Jennifer's Christmas party, I woke up with a "hangover:" dry cottony mouth, hungry-gurgly stomach, sore restless legs and a bit of a headache. Who knew the sparkling cider could be so dangerous?

Morning sickness in men is a well reported phenomenon during a partner's pregnancy; it even has a fancy French name (that I can't recall). The reasons are unknown - some suggest extreme sympathy, others extreme fear and worry on the part of the father-to-be. Perhaps I experienced a similar phenomenon as Mac took full advantage of having a designated driver last night. Perhaps after watching him pass out in the car, stumble into the house, and throw back a few prophylactic Advil tabs followed by a large tumbler of water (a bedtime routine I hadn't seen in many years), I could only sympathize and fear what was to come to the point of my own unease. Or perhaps after twelve months of abstinence, I was intoxicated by Mac's alcoholic breath as he slept beside me. Whatever the cause I was feeling a little sluggish this morning. Mac, on the other hand, jumped out of bed feeling great and in a disposition sunny enough to match the beautiful morning. Perhaps I should have taken some Advil, too!

Friday, December 17, 2004

40 days - sort of

For those of you who are interested in the countdown to delivery, today is 40 days out. Except for one problem: my OB moved the due date back!! I've been running a little on the small side the past two visits, but the rate of increase has been steady so she didn't think that there was a serious underlying problem. Instead she reviewed all the generated due dates from the different ultrasounds that I had and decided Feb. 1 was probably a better estimate, not Jan. 25 - it nicely explains why I'm "small." (I am not sure anyone with a 17 pound bowling ball in the abdomen should be called small). So now even the end of January will be "early."

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

The Interview

Monday I headed down to Salem for an interview. It was a nice first interview as I was already acquainted with a few of the people working there, plus I had visited the lab before so I knew my way around a bit. The only real downside was the timing as I had not planned to do any interviewing while so massively pregnant. I quickly learned that pregnancy and professional attire don't readily mix. Fortunately, I was able to come up with something I thought was fairly acceptable based on things I already had (plus some new jewelry from Santa).




As you can see, I had to make some accommodations for my pre-pregnancy skirt. Fortunately, those extra long maternity shirts kept my un-zipped state unknown.

I thought the interview went quite well and I was impressed with the operation. Everyone seemed to get along well. And despite all the nasty things people have been telling Mac about Salem, everyone there seemed to think it was a great place to live.

A lot of the interview day was spent describing different aspects of the job. The docs all work the standard pathology week (4.5 days) when they aren't enjoying their ample vacation time. In the off hours the pathologists are engaged in activities like building mansions, buying horses, and driving Porches. I think it would be a struggle, but that I might, in time, learn to tolerate that kind of thing. Anyway, I am hoping they offer me the job, which is why I am off to write a suck-up thank you letter (even though I really should be writing thank you's to my family for all the nice shower gifts).

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Zoo Lights

On Sunday we had the distinct pleasure of joining Harrison's birthday celebration at the zoo lights. Mac and I had never been and I was quite anxious to go this year. I started out very cranky and worried about my sore back and my big interview the next day, but as soon as we got into the zoo, I was so glad we had said yes.





I was a big fan of the crocs.


This was me, trying to be cute, but it just started a kid fight over who got to climb the goat next. We went to sit down and left Jeremy and Jenn to deal with it. :)

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Christmas Tree

Last Sunday we got our Christmas tree, a cute little thing just about my height. Wednesday I finally got it all decorated.






Pillow Princess

The last few months I have had a terrible time sleeping. The bowling ball abdominal attachment I am sporting these days just makes things really uncomfortable. Many people have advocated the use of multiple pillows to alleviate some of the discomfort, but the suggestions didn't really help. Putting a pillow between my legs seemed as uncomfortable as having a sack of potatoes between my knees. Sleeping with a pillow on either side of me not only hogged more of the bed than Mac usually takes, but also made me like I was rolling over the cats all night long. This week I finally found a pillow configuration to help. I gathered almost all the pillows in the house (one night Mac had to go on a hunt for a new one) and built a huge pilllow tower at the head of my bed, an inclining slope starting at my back and terminating in a stack of four pillows at my head. It's a little awkward for "pillow talk" with Mac on the mattress flatlands a good two feet below, but it is so nice to be able to sleep on my back again!


Tuesday, December 7, 2004

50 days

Today is 50 days from D-day - but I am taking an optomimstic view and hoping I won't have to make it that long before popping out a little human. In fact, the little one seems to be trying to find a way out on a near continual basis, kicking me in every possible direction, sometimes quite forcefully.

Monday, December 6, 2004

De-light-ful

Yesterday Mac put the lights up on the house. After trimming the eaves in white, he went to add one strand of colored lights. As he plugged that strand in there was one glorious millisecond before everything shorted out. Fortunately, the fuse was easily fixed and the colored lights now have a different power source.




We also took dinner to the Cronks yesterday, which served as our first chance to meet Henry. Courtney kept telling me how much better it was to have him out than in, but I didn't need any convincing.




Saturday, December 4, 2004

Over-pinked

After two surprise showers (with two full suitcases worth of stuff), Mac has been feeling over-pinked. I used to hold up outfits at random times and say, "Look how cute this is!," and he would at least nod in acknowledgement. Now he just replies in a flat voice, "It's pink." At the showers I tried to psyche him up with each non-pink gift: "Look, it's not pink," but that got tougher, too, when he declared, "Lavender is the same thing as pink." I tried to employ J. Crew tactics, using names like periwinkle and melon, but he wasn't buying. Mac did warm up to one pink outfit - a cute little T-shirt printed with the words "Daddy's little princess."


I still love all the pink. I feel like I get to live a vicarious girlie childhood after spending mine as a tomboy. But after taking pictures of everything, I am amazed at how fast we have accumulated so much pink in our house.

Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Thanksgiving

Mac and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday down in Southern California visiting all of our extended family. Since leaving for college, I haven't traveled "home" for Thanksgiving, opting instead to go for the longer Christmas break. But I'll be too preggers to travel at Christmas and so it was Turkey Day with the relatives this year.

Our plan was ambitious, but well crafted to include visits with anyone we are even remotely related to. First it was Thanksgiving dinner with the Smiths (22 people), then we were off to Lake Arrowhead after dinner to spend a few days with the Siechert clan (15 people), all of whom were camped out at my aunt and uncle's three story mountain home for a couple of days. Saturday we were down the mountain again and off to my grandma's for an early Christmas celebration. Afterwards it was dinner at Mac's with my immediate family so that everyone could catch up and all the grandparents-to-be could talk about the baby. Finally, we had a Sunday visit with Mac's uncle who couldn't join us for TG due to a recent quadruple bipass and then it was dinner with my aunt and uncle who we hadn't yet seen due to work conflicts. Whew!

Highlights of the trip included two surprise baby showers (one at the Smith Thanksgiving and one at Arrowhead), lots of cards and games with the cousins including a whopping four dollars of winnings at Texas hold'em (the Smith card sharks cleaned up as Mac came away with an extra six bucks. My dad was the only other winner from our high stakes five dollar buy-in game), and the very successful Proffitt family new gift exchange (we drew one name only this year).

With the Thanksgiving rush behind us, we are now looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home!

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Dr. Smith to the Rescue

Last Tuesday morning, I was sitting at PDX when an announcement across the hall caught my attention:

"Is anybody in this area a doctor? We have someone in need of assistance."

Since I wasn't actually in that gate area, I thought I'd give any other MD around a chance to respond first. No luck. About a minute later the same announcement could be heard in our gate area. After a few seconds of hesitation, I presented myself to the gate attendant as "Pam, a doctor," careful not to mention that most of my patients are already dead.

They directed me across the way where a passenger had had a siezure while loading onto the plane and had fallen backward causing a bloody gash in her scalp. A nurse, medical assistant and gate attendant were already in attendance and were applying pressure to the wound.

The nurse filled me in. "She's had a siezure, but I already cleaned out her mouth and scanned her with the her vagal nerve stimulator." I had heard of these, but didn't know they were routine. Had I been the first to see the scanner on her bag I would have thought it was a magnetic security card.

"Is she continuing to sieze and do we have anything to put in her mouth if she siezes again?," I asked thinking I could contribute.

"Do you mean a bite stick? Nobody uses those anymore!"

"Yeah," the medical assistant chimed in, "they don't help and people end up with chipped teeth." He then handed me a pair of gloves, "here you go, doctor." Though this action was meant to be helpful, it made me feel about two inches tall as the gate attendant needed no help applying pressure so I just held the gloves impotently.

When the paramedics arrived they had many questions for "the doctor."
"How long was the seizure?," "Was it tonic-clonic?," "How did she hit her head?." After each question they looked at me expectantly, but since I hadn't witnessed the event I had to keep directing them to the nurse, who saw the whole thing.

The paramedics then took over putting all their equipment to use, taking her blood pressure, pulse, and applying bandages. I just stood there, lamely holding my gloves. After about 5 minutes more of this complete ineptitude, I slunk off to the bathroom and back to my seat across the hall, feeling like a complete waste of human space.

A decade of medical training and I was as useful as a pumpkin! Perhaps next time the passenger will need an emergency bone marrow biopsy!

Monday, November 22, 2004

Dreams

In the last couple of weeks, I have been having all kinds of weird pregnancy related dreams:

- I actually had twins, but Mac and I argued over the sex of the second one (he thought it was a girl, I thought it was a boy).

- I came home from the hospital with a plastic doll instead of a baby.

- I got a "preview" day, where the baby came out and we got to hold it and check it out, but then it had to go back in.

- We took the baby to the snow and its feet started turning blue. We couldn't get them to warm up because she kept kicking off her booties and blankets to expose her feet.

- The baby came while we were on vacation and we didn't have any stuff and we had to try to borrow everything.

- I went out binge drinking with my high school best friend, not remebering that I was pregnant until the next morning.

Then last night I had this weird monster montage that had nothing to do with babies. Go figure...

Small potatoes

My victory was short lived - today I got hit with over 100 new spam comments. What I really need is a way to block ceratin words in comments (say "wonder112" and "bob"), which would circumvent the whole changing IP address issue.

JD - I am ready for your help on this one.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Say what?

Recently people have gone from telling me I am getting really big to saying I am not that big for someone who is seven months pregnant. I personally like this latter vein of remarks much better than the former, but I must say some people have an interesting way of being complimentary.

On Wednesday I got two very similar bizarre remarks. After saying I was seven months along, one guy said to me, "Well, you're not a house yet." Not knowing what to say, I came up with something equally stupid,"Yeah, I am more like a condominium." We both (pretended) to laugh and I walked away. Later that afternoon, a woman said to me, "Wow, by seven months I was a tank!" Having curtailed one conversation with a come-back stupid simile, I decided to try again, "Yeah, I am more like a Hum-vee." I am blaming my stupidity on pregnancy; I don't have an excuse for the other two.

The other comment I got three times this week was "You don't look pregnant from the back." I didn't make any responses to this one, but a myriad of smart-alec remarks ran through my head:
-"That's 'cuz my uterus isn't in the back."
-"Yeah, my butt has always been big so it is hard to tell."
-"You can't tell a person has a cleft lip from the back either."
-"Um, do you remember that I used to have a waist, even from the back!"

But I just smiled, and tried not to waddle as I walked away.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Yo Triumphe!

Starting a weblog came with rapid positive reinforcement: new comments! I was so excited when I got my first couple of comments; they serve as an affirmation that people actually are reading. I was so caught up in getting comments that I gave my mother-in-law and my dad specific instructions on how to leave a comment when they tried to make a web-log related remark to me directly (over the phone - gasp!). But then the bubble burst ... I got my first blog spam: coolbob wanted to let me know about my on-line poker options.

From there the spam went up exponentially, mostly pushing on-line poker and popular prescription drugs like propecia, prozac and prevacid. On Monday when I was hit by 15 new spam messages, I was ready for war. Instead of invading an oil-rich nation, I had Mac teach me the ins and outs of IP blocking and I quickly black-listed three addresses. I have now gone four days without a single piece of spam! I admit I am a little disappointed that the spammer doesn't get a pop-up window saying, "your banned, mother-f#$%er!" (possibly followed by a large dose of genital radiation to prevent reproduction), but for now I'll be content with my little triumph ... until the next spam wave hits.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

The Big 3-0

Today I started my thirtieth week. I have rapidly come to the conclusion that there is no real need to make it all forty weeks; lung maturity is acheived by 35 weeks. Everything after that is just time for the baby to fatten up, making it harder to get out at the end. So my all Chinese food diet starts Dec. 18th. Anyone up for a labor inducing death-march hike that morning?

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Veteran's Day

Mac had a very productive Veteran's Day. He got up early and headed off to 6 am spin class. He got home and climbed back into bed to read just as my alarm was going off. As I headed off for work, Mac was still in bed with The Streets of Laredo, and I figured he had a lazy day off planned for himself.

When I got home from work, Mac was gone - this time at the 6 pm spin class! I put my bag down and headed to the kitchen and was immediately struck by its cleanliness: dishes done, counters wiped, sink scrubbed, floor swept. "Oh, wow!," I thought, "I wonder if he cleaned our bathroom, too," - something I had been hinting at for a while. Turns out he did! As I headed back to the kitchen I got a glimpse into his room. "OH MY GOD!" - this time it wasn't a thought; I said it out loud - Mac had cleaned the whole room, INCLUDING THE DESK! I admired the rarely seen wood surface a few moments before deciding I better hang up my small clothes pile to avoid criticism. One of Mac's sweatshirts was in the pile so I went to hang it up - HIS CLOSET WAS ORGANIZED, with a pile of stuff out for goodwill! While looking at the stuff on the floor, I noticed something else: VACUUM TRACKS!

Back in the kitchen I set out to make dinner, but took extreme caution to be neat and not use many dishes. When I went to put some recycling in the garage, my eye immediately fell on a light fixture box. "No way!" - I ran to the guest bath, empty can still in hand, and saw a beautifully installed (and more important, unbroken) new light fixture above the mirror! At that point, I figured I better make dessert, too!

Too bad we don't have a few more military holidays throughout the year!

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Tough Tittie II

On Monday night we went to a breast feeding class. Mac and I got there a couple of minutes early and the instructor was still in the process of setting out the hand-outs. As she put one down labeled "Prevention of Breast and Nipple Soreness," I made sarcastic comments to Mac about how his mom would love that. The instructor wondered what I was sniggering about and so I summarized my mother-in-law's advice. The instructor assured me that no pre-treatment was necessary, I would be just fine without doing anything ahead of time. Unfortunately, she didn't have the same "no experience necessary" attitude when it came to positioning and holding a baby for feeding. She handed out some plastic dolls complete with gaping mouths and told us to practice. As I demonstrated bringing a baby to my breast using a proper "football hold," Mac couldn't help but point out my discomfort - "You are bright red! Are you embarassed!?" Ok, yes, maybe a little bit (ok a lot), but at least I didn't have to go home and do nipple exercises!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Flu Shot

Last Tuesday I finally got the very elusive flu-shot, a recommendation for all pregnant women this flu season. I was fairly resolved that I would have to go without when I got an e-mail saying the VA has a surplus and would vaccinate any OHSU residents who were going to rotate at the VA in the medicine or ICU departments (to keep the Vets safe, not the residents). Since I fit none of these categories, I headed over to the VA, where Nurse Ratchet was in charge of distributing the vaccine. She did not like that I didn't work for the VA, that I was a pathologist, that I was pregnant, and she ceratinly wasn't buying my story about pathologists seeing Vets to do FNA procedures. Fortunately, Florence Nightengale was working back-up and kept winking and waving me over to her side, where I got my shot.

Today, one person is absent from work with the "flu" and another thinks she is coming down with it. Meanwhile, I am feeling much better about my VA escapades and I hope I'll be fairly safe if the flu does circulate at work.

Sunday, November 7, 2004

Yard Work

This weekend, in an attempt to get everything cleaned up fot he winter, I spent about five hours outside, cutting plants back. Being especially aggressive this year, I wound up with five huge piles of debris. Mac was out for a bit, too, doing some mowing and seeding - possibly the last grass haircut until spring.

Since the garden is near dormant, I gave the chickens a special treat and let them out to "work in the yard" as well. They had a great time.




Wednesday, November 3, 2004

An Egg-regious Tragedy

Yesterday, for only the second time in nearly two years, I had to buy eggs (the first time was actually due to a conflict in my egg generosity and my baking schedule, not an actual shortage). Ruby and Ada had an impressive egg record since they started laying, but they are getting old and the decrease in sunny hours hit them hard this year - they haven't laid in three or four weeks. And Pearl has always been a bit of a disappointment - still a little too wild (and smart) for our domestic egg desires. I suspect the spring will rejuvenate their ovaries a bit, but I think the height of fertility has passed them by. And while I wait for spring to come, I will begrudgingly fork over $1.39 for mere AA large eggs and remember fondly the time when I used to gather three super-jumbo sized eggs in a single day.





Tuesday, November 2, 2004

Pure and Noble

I consider myself highly ignorant when it comes to computer stuff, which is why I am always astounded at the depth of computer inadequacy below mine.

Yesterday at work, two people were standing around the printer complaining about its annoying malfunction. I came up to the communal device after attempting to print my own material. "The printer is broken," they told me. "We've tried several times, but we haven't been able to get our stuff."

Noticing the "out-of-paper" light was blinking, I deftly inserted a new stack. Instantly, repetative copies of my colleagues' desired document began to roll out. Feeling especially magnanimous after saving these damsels in distress, I immediately ran down the hall to tell the first person I could find how retarded these two were; ah, yes, I make such a noble heroine. ;)

Monday, November 1, 2004

Adult Costumes

On Saturday night I went to a Halloween party thrown by a friend at work. Due to restrictions in size, energy, and time, I recycled an old costume and headed off into the sunset.



My department has a theme-based costume party every year, but I don't think I've celebrated Halloween to its full extent since college, which is possibly why I was unaware that adults fall into one of two categories at Halloween:
1) those that put on a wig or silly hat and call it a costume, and
2) those that dress in black, goth, or some sort of raised-from-the-dead costume.

With this in mind it seems I should have forgone the knocked-up cow-girl costume, and instead gone as a zombie-vampiress impregnated with the devil's child.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Very Scary Halloween

Several people have actually requested this and since it is by far the scariest thing I could come up with for Halloween, I relented. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for!


This picture was actaully taken a week after the "official" six month mark. At that time four of Mac's relatives were staying with us and I was too modest to parade around half naked in front of them. So instead I waited until I had some privacy and then posted the picture on the internet.

It's amazing that the Sports Impregnated Swimsuit Edition doesn't have the same widely anticipated release as the non-gravid alternative!


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Friday, October 29, 2004

Midnight Snack

Tonight I woke up starving. More accurately, I woke up to pee (for the third time), but then was way too hungry to sleep. Worried that the lining of my stomach might auto-digest, I headed off to the kitchen for something to eat.

Once there, I decided on the midnight snack of the stars, or at least Bill Cosby - Jell-o pudding. Careful not to wake Mac, I assembled the necessary items and made the pudding in the dark, measuring the milk by the light of the microwave digital clock. Then I headed to the living room with my freshly whisked concoction to drink the mix straight from the bowl before it congealed to its final semi-solid state. No, this isn't some weird pregnancy thing, just a weird Pam-thing.

Having nearly finished before the mix became undrinkable, I headed back to bed, no longer hungry, but still not sleepy either. It is pointless (and maybe a little inconsiderate) to try to rouse Mac from comatose to coherent, so I am just killing time until my delectable milky drink induces slumber, but hopefully not dreams of Bill Cosby!

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Writer's Block

Dante is very supportive of my web logging activities.



"Can I play with the mouse?"

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Moo-Moo

Today I did something awful: I wore a mu-mu (perhaps better designated moo-moo). The mu-mu was probably my second biggest fear of pregnancy (after the delivery, of course), but after trying on three other frumpy shirts, I willingly chose the mu-mu shirt.

Sure, maternity retailers will try to fool you with regal sounding terms like "empire waist," but what they really mean is that your waist is as vast as an empire! Time to call a spade a spade - these shirts are just shorter versions of the dresses made for the morbidly obese and still about a foot longer than any normal shirt should be. The standard alternative is not pretty either, what I designate as the "tent shirt" - a shirt that starts from the shoulders and then balloons out from there to form the perfect canopy for a three ring circus (or at least the little acrobat growing beneath).

I can't help but ponder the discrepancy between maternity shirts and pants. The three pairs of good maternity pants I have are not only unbelievably comfortable, but they are more stylish than any other pants I have in my closet (perhaps this isn't saying much or perhaps I should let my mother-in-law shop for me all the time). In the mornings I can always find pants that I am happy wearing (note: it helps that I do only have three pairs), but I can't seem to find a satisfying shirt. It seems I will have be resigned to the mu-mu and the baby-bivouac for the next 10-13 weeks.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Not a Car Seat

In addition to the mountain of baby stuff in the "nursery," we have a few items in the living room hidden behind a big chair. Dante is pretty certain we are misspelling the name of one of the items: from his point of view, it is really better called a cat-seat.




Sunday, October 24, 2004

Blog Blog

This entry is dedicated to Mac, Joel, and all the other science dorks who find this stuff interesting.

Mac and I are fascinated by doublespeak species - creatures with the same genus and species name. Perhaps this is what cemented our love, as I can recall a memorable zoo date when we scoured the signs for animals that fit: gorilla gorilla, iguana iguana, bison bison. True success came when we hit upon a taxonomy trifecta - naja naja naja - the common Indian cobra with matching subspecies! - Who says romance is dead?

Over the years we have added a few more and Joel has joined the search as well:
alces alces (moose)
troglodytes troglodytes (winter wren)
vulpes vulpes (red fox)
mola mola (sunfish)

Do you have any to add?

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Tough Tittie

For the last five days Mac's mom, dad, aunt and uncle have been staying with us. Thursday night while the guys headed off to the coast to fish, the girls stayed up talking. Mac's mom and aunt were full of excitement, anticipation, and advice for the upcoming baby. Mostly it was a lot of fun hearing stories about Mac and other family members when they were babies, but on one piece of advice they were adament:

"If you are going to breastfeed, you need to toughen up your nipples starting now."

"WHAT?!?!" I instinctively hunched my shoulders and crossed my arms in a protective fashion.

"Oh, yeah, you need to toughen them up," they chorused. They then proceded to tell me all sorts of breastfeeding horror stories.

I could only bring to mind a cartoon my mom had on the refridgerator when I was growing up:

10 WAYS TO PREPARE FOR A MAMMOGRAM
1. Open your biggest book, then slam it shut on your breast.
2. Chill your iron, then flatten your breasts with it.
3. Close the waffle iron on your breast.
4. Place your breast on the driveway and ask a friend to back the car over it.
...

I couldn't come up with anything more logical than these ideas. "What am I supposed to do, use sandpaper or have Mac bite them, because I am not doing either!"

They laughed at my stupidity. "No, silly, with a washcloth in the shower."

Ok, maybe that didn't sound as bad as what I had in mind, but somehow it didn't quite make my 'To Do' list for today either.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Hic-Hic-Hiccup

On Monday night I felt some rhythmic small pings on my belly wall. Certain that these were way too regular to be random baby movement, I thought I must be feeling heart beat transmissions. I knew immediately that this tapping was way to slow to be the fetal heart, but a quick check of my pulse showed that they were too slow to be my heart either. About that time, they went away; I went to sleep.

Last night, the same thing happened - only it kept going. Like the rap, rap, rapping, tap, tap, tapping of Poe's raven, it was a bit erie. After a few minutes of fascination, I turned over and it went away.

This morning I tried to find out what was going on. I finally came to a diagnosis: my kid has the hiccups! This is supposed to be really common when the fetus is going through lung development - as the neophyte breather works on technique the young muscles and nerves become uncoordinated, ergo HICCUPS!

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Mt. St. Baby

Like the nearby Mt. St. Helens, our mountain of baby stuff is growing at an alarming rate. It's hard to believe an eight pound baby needs three tons of stuff!



Monday, October 18, 2004

Baby Shower

Sunday's baby shower with my co-workers was quite nice. There was good food, games and lots of gifts.



This is me and Julie (8 months pregnant) getting an "official" combined measurement after everyone tried to estimate our total circumference. Sadly, all but one person overestimated, meaning we look bigger than we actually are! I'm blaming that on Julie!




Sunday, October 17, 2004

Getting Organized, Phase II

At the end of the weekend, here's where things stand:



I'm done with my half. And Mac, well, there's been some progress, but...



still a bit of work to go.

Getting Organized, Phase I (aka Hit by Hurricane Ivan)

Though my due date is still three months away, Mac and I know the time will go quickly, especially with the holidays, so we are trying to tackle a few projects ahead of time. The biggest one so far has been moving the guest bedroom into the den in order to free up a room for the baby.

Last Sunday J.D. helped Mac move the desks around while Kris and I supervised and drank tea. Because Mac and I were exchanging desks, we both had to empty everything out of all the drawers. This ordeal left us too tuckered to actually start putting things away, so things have been in a state of disaster for the past week.

Fortunately, we have good incentive to get things back in order (besides the baby!) - Mac's parents, aunt and uncle arrive Tuesday for a five day stay!

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Becoming a Geek

Really I hate computers. There's all that gobbledy-gook code stuff that I just don't understand, and really never cared too, either. I could check my e-mail and search on Google and that was about all I needed.

A while ago J.D. used to call me a geek-in-training - the potential was there, but I lacked development. I was certain he was wrong, engaging him in long dialogues about how lame the weblog community was. But lately I have come around, mostly after seeing the appealing format of Lisa's blog and the opportunity it gives her family to watch Albert grow.

Friday Mac introduced me to moveable type and I posted my first entry. Today I made him show me how to change the colors and post pictures. Afterwards, I checked out Jenn's new blog entries and left a comment, complete with a signature link. Then I got up and ran aroung the house laughing and yelling at Mac, "I made a link! I am such a geek! I made a link!" - in the process truly confirming my geek status.

October Showers

Tomorrow some of the women from my work are getting together for a baby shower. Unlike many of the work showers in the past, this one is a bit more traditional as the guest list is limited to girls only (and kids). Mac was more than happy to be off the hook for this one, but apparently his exclusion left him a little confused:

After work one day last week, I was getting ready to shower. Due to a lack of counter and hook space in our master bath I often lay my post-shower attire out on Mac's dresser, which is located right outside the bathroom door. On this particular day, I became distracted after getting out just my underwear and didn't immediately bathe. Mac came into the room a few minutes later.
"Why are your underwear on my dresser?"
"I laid them out for my shower."
Mac was dumbfounded. "What are you guys doing at that baby shower that you need to lay out your underwear ten days in advance!?"

Friday, October 15, 2004

Under New Management

Are you sick of clicking on minutus.net, hoping for something new, only to find the same scary alien baby picture staring back at you? Me too, and it's my kid even! So I am taking over. No promises - this may just be a passing fancy, but at least it'll offer something new on this site for the time being.

Pam
Incoming CEO at minutus.net