Off To Learn Stuff July 23, 2008

I’m leaving for a few days, and WHAT am I going to do without Joey to cut up my meat for me, and get me water at three in the morning, and baby me ridiculously? I simply cannot wrap my mind around it yet. But I have a conference on classical education to go to, with some of my favorite Fabulous Work People, who incidentaly, I realize would need less than five seconds to identify me if they stumbled onto this Super Secret Anonymous Blog.      *Hi! Don’t be mad at me! I think I’ve only used naughty words like, twice ever!*

I may be pretty crafty with this whole fake name thing, but I realize I’m actually quite specific with everything else. Eh.

 

So anyway, I’ve spent the day packing, moping about, and preparing in general. And complaining about how much I will miss my husband. Not just because he spoils me, though. I like other stuff about him too! Like how he’s cute! And my soul mate! And cute! He took me out to dinner tonight, so I could get my steak fix for the day, EVEN THOUGH I had already eaten an entire bag of beef jerky earlier. This is probably a VERY bad idea, gastrointestinally speaking, but beef…nom nom nom!!! And strangely enough, the steamed broccoli that came with my meal? Smelled so disgusting that I had to wrap it up in a napkin and banish it to the other end of the table. Which is not very much like me. This baby is going to be it’s father’s child, all right.

So I’ll be back this weekend! With funny, somewhat veiled stories of me rushing out of important lectures to vomit in unfamiliar bathrooms, and pictures! But not of the vomit stories! Oh, and maybe some, like, educational enlightenment, or something. Yeah.

Steak: It’s What’s For Dinner. Also Breakfast, Lunch, And Random Snacks July 21, 2008

A VERY important, and also unpredictable discovery was made last night.

 

Steak? Is AWESOME.

 

 

I spent yesterday alternately cleaning and crashing. Usually I’m one of those weird people who really kind of enjoys the housework. Am a big freak, yes. But lately more and more of it has been falling either to Joey or to the wayside. Although he has stepped up wonderfully. But yesterday I decided to Clean The Apartment, and even though this would ordinarily take me about three hours, I spent eight. But it is done, except for the mammoth pile of clean laundry on the couch which I am studiously ignoring.

 

So needless to say, I was exhausted. And more than willing to have my husband fed at his parent’s house when they invited us over because they were grilling steaks. “I’ll have a bite, too.” I said optimistically. “Good!” Encouraged my love. “You could use some protein.”

 

Now for a little bit of back story, I have been a notorious meat-hater since the dawn of time. There is an infamous family legend of how I, an innocent and trusting four year old, was watching my mother make meat loaf and asked, “Mamma, what is meat loaf made out of?” And my mother, who cannot pass up a joke, responded, “Well, honey, it’s made out of little cows with big brown eyes just like yours.” My mother insists that most of this phrasing is my own dramatic embellishment, but I REMEMBER and I was REALLY TRAUMATIZED. Also, ewww, meat loaf.

 

But I also remember being very young and watching a Shirley Temple movie where she sang, “You gotta eat your spinnach, baby.” and thinking spinnach must be some form of sausage if it was so disgusting that there needed to be songs to cajole children into eating it. It never occured to me that spinnach was a vegetable, because I have always LOVED vegetables.

 

And lets not forget the Sloppy Joey Incident of 93. Because, you can’t MAKE me eat this awful disgusting-ness, not even if you TORTURED me, not even if you CHAINED me to the table ALL NIGHT. I would rather DIE sitting  here!!

And maybe I then chewed some of it up a little and spit it back on my plate with dramatic vomiting noises, because NO ONE could be expected to eat food with BARF on it.

Traumatize ME with developmentally-innapropriate anthropomorphism, will you, mamma?

 

And while I am much more mature and less dramatic about it now, I have never really learned to like meat much. I like bacon, if it is very crispy, and fish is usually safe (does that count as a meat?) and chicken can be somewhat tolerated if I can politely ignore any bits with unpleasant textures. But hamburgers? Are the devil’s food (don’t get me started on meat loaf) and really anything with ground beef is out. When Joey orders a steak at a restaurant, I will have one small bite because I like the flavor, but no more because it is too chewy. Really, I think texture is my biggest problem.

 

And that leads us right up to now. Last night we got to his parent’s house, and after I frightened my poor little sister by interrupting her mid-sentence to go throw up, Joey kindly fixed me a plate. Heavy on the mashed potatoes, and a few little pieces of steak for his delicate bride.

 

And I discovered that steak is the best food in the whole world. I was in some strange, steak-induced delirium where I asked for more, more, MORE steak repeatedly. I may even have gone so far as to call my husband on his cell phone when I ran out of steak and he wasn’t in the room. I ate more than anyone else last night, something like two WHOLE pieces of steak. And then I Had Energy! And Wasn’t Nauseous At All!

In spite of being exhausted from a hard day of actually moving around, I stayed up until 12:30, talking. I felt GREAT! And Joey and my mamma, who both know how I ordinarily feel about beef in general, gaped in amazement and asked each other, “who is this T-Rex and what has it done with our Lucy?”

 

We took some leftover steak home in a bag. And I ate some of it for breakfast? And lets just say that Joey hasn’t had such a nice morning since, oh, May 17?

 

It is agreed now that I must have steak. Every. Single. Day.

Nesting July 20, 2008

It may well happen that Joey and I end up moving in the not-so-distant future. Out of our pretty little apartment that is so cute, so close to work, so close to a beautiful park. Also so expensive, so upstairs, so not big enough for three, so full of uncompromisingly WHITE walls. I’m sure there are pros and cons to every move. Joey’s parents own a second house, actually the one that Joey grew up in, which they have been renting out…only not receiving the rent. We have discussed the possibility of us living there on and off, but the conversation seemed a lot more definite yesterday. Joey and I drove to that neighborhood today, and sat in front of the house for a while, observing it.

 

 

It isn’t perfect, but there are a lot of reasons why this would be good for all of us; although I’m not entirely sure I can ‘get out’ of our lease. I’m hoping the fact that my due date is literally the same week as the end of the lease will sway the Apartment Gods. And I could cry, I suppose. But it still isn’t really decided.

 

This does NOT stop me from having vivid fantasies of nesting and home-making. The thought of Walls! That I Can Paint Colors! is enough to thrill me into not feeling as nauseous. Joey drew a map of the floor plan for me, and I have spent the afternoon plotting and scheming. Also, reading my favorite home-y book, Nesting: It’s A Chick Thing. I meant to read only the decorating section, but before I knew it I was halfway through Entertaining, and planning a double feature romantic movie party to host at our new house.

 

 

I’ve been planning the nursery for a while now, but its more fun if I get to imagine a nursery with pale, pale pink walls. Not if the baby is a boy, but I really think I’m having a girl. I spent a few hours last weekend searching the Internet for vintage children’s illustrations, and settled on a collection of mermaid pictures. NOT the Disney Little Mermaid. More like this:

 

 

and this:

 

 

I’m going to print them out on nice photo paper, and matt them and frame them in those really cheap wooden frames from Ikea, with DIY cherry finish to match the hand-me-down crib I’m getting. I’m not 100% sure what else I want, but I know it’ll come together. And right now, nothing makes me happier than daydreaming about putting together a REAL home.

First Midwife Appointment July 19, 2008

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually made my birth center appointment a few weeks before I conceived. It was supposed to be a “preconception counseling” and women’s exam appointment, since Joey and I were in the talking/planning stages of starting our family, and I just felt the need to make sure there were no unknown problems with my body.

 

 

Right. No problems there.

 

 

A friend of mine teases me that with all my baby-related research and planning, I jinxed myself into getting pregnant. I was convinced that I was jinxing myself in the completely opposite way, planning and plotting away and then my ovaries would say, “That’s so cute, you made plans!” and then contrarily deny me the fondest desire of my heart.

 

 

ANYWAY.

 

 

When I called the birth center after the first positive home test, they wanted me to reschedule for a later appointment, saying that if I did that, we could hear the baby’s heartbeat. So, although I was in desperate need of a medical person telling me that everything was fine, I agreed. And have been clinging to the date July 18 with much hope ever since.

 

 

Yesterday? I took my own sweet time getting ready for the appointment, because I had a date with my baby and I wanted to look nice. And I had a whole entourage along; Joey, of course, and both of our mothers. I got a friend to babysit my littlest sister for us, so there was slightly less mayhem than there could have been.

 

 

There was still plenty of mayhem, though. Our mothers wandered about the birthing center, taking pictures (it is a very cute place, a yummy Victorian house with a very antique, girls-only vibe) and examining the decor, and discussing how how there is no way that they feel like GRANDMOTHERS. Joey sat quietly, after discovering that no, there was no section of the ancient wood floor that he could stand on without producing horrible creaks and groans at every shift of weight, and read a fantasy football magazine.

 

 

So fun was had. BUT. The nice midwife who was examining me uttered this sentence: “Hum, you really are too early along for us to hear a heartbeat today. We’ll try, but I don’t know why they didn’t schedule you for a couple weeks later.” Even the fact that she was guardedly optimistic because I was “so slender” didn’t make up for the fact that I had to suffer through a pap smear, an internal exam (and no, I really couldn’t relax anymore than I was, I SWEAR) and the drawing of my precious blood, and there was NO BABY HEARTBEAT TO MAKE IT BETTER.  Also, we don’t know how exactly we are going to pay for all of this.

 

 

The nice midwife understood, though. She suggested that if I was ‘in the neighborhood’ in two or three weeks, I could stop by and they would hook me up to the Doppler without an appointment. Which means that in a few weeks, we will be driving an hour out of our way to be in the neighborhood. She also had someone give me contact information for a sonogram place, where for $95 I could go and see the baby and its heart beating. Midwives must have a finely tuned sense of when a pregnant person is mentally freaking out, because I swear the worst external panicking that I did was to ask quietly if not hearing the hearbeat meant that anything was wrong. Which, given my amazing propensity for freaking out, I should get some credit for.

 

 

And we all went home (really, we went to Joey’s parents house) and I proceeded to throw up, then layed on the couch and obsessed. I even suggested that I have a sonogram for my birthday, but my husband was having none of it. Because the baby is fine, he said, and we will save the sonogram for when we can tell the gender, and blah blah blah sensible-cakes.

 

 

My mother commented on how wonderfully we even each other out. I agree, really, but at the time I sarcastically commented something like, “Why, because I’m neurotic and he doesn’t care about anything?”

 

 

And he still made two separate runs to the Jade Cafe to get me egg drop soup.

 

 

In less crabby news, woo-hoo! My mamma is officially moved here! She and my baby sister are staying with Joey’s parents until she gets everything settled. Our mothers get along like long-lost sisters, and are similar in more ways than I can count. They have no end of fun together, and as Joey’s dad remarked, “Now there are two people to cook dinner!” Which is funny, since neither of them really cooks much. But now I have more people to baby me! And they are both really good at that.

(Barely) Surviving Monday July 14, 2008

2:35 AM: Must pee! NOW!!

5:00 AM: Very awake, but it is still dark out.

7:10 AM: Of course the alarm goes off TWO MINUTES after I’ve fallen back asleep.

7:15 AM: Stumble around, curse at cat and make ineffectual kicking-type motions in her general direction because FOR THE LOVE OF GOD shut up!

7:20 AM: Check email.

7:30 AM: Look.

7:40 AM: At.

7:50 AM: The.

7:55 AM: Pretty.

7:50 AM: BLOGS!

8:00 AM: Must actually stand upright and put on makeup and such.

8:01 AM: Good thing my wonderful husband washed some clothes for me last night! There is an outfit, there in the dryer, looking perfectly good enough!

8:02 AM: Standing upright SUCKS and makes me vomit. Will gladly kill whoever invented this upright-standing thing.

8:05 AM: To distract self from the horrible, dreadful malaise of morning sickness, will think of kind and diplomatic ways to suggest to someone that they are being stupid, while half-heartedly applying makeup.

8:15 AM: Discover that I am neither diplomatic or good at applying makeup. Also, WHO CARES how I look, I will just be rushing around vomiting all morning, which is endlessly amusing to my students.

8:15 AM: Wake up my boy-toy so he can drive me to work in a semi-conscious state.

8:20 AM: Which is okay, since we live seriously a BLOCK away from where we work.

8:30 AM: Good morning, fabulous co-worker! Chat, chat, chat.

8:45 AM: Turn on lights, fishtank, cd player, et., in classroom.

8:47 AM: Escape stepping on a gigantic, prehistoric, revolting, omigodomigodomigod ROACH by MERE INCHES. *

8:48 AM: Die.

8:50 AM: Call Joey, and explain predicament in perfectly calm, reasonable tones.

8:55 AM: Tell Joey that it is okay that he doesn’t want to come kill THE HORRIBLE BEAST for me, even though I can’t currently set foot in my classroom. Possibly use the sentence, “No, of course I won’t be mad if you don’t come. I just won’t be as impressed as I would be if you DID come.” Reassure him again that it is OKAY, AM A BIG GIRL, and I still love you anyway.

9:00 AM: Search for a heavy container to trap the T-Rex sized bug with.

9:03 AM: Realize that a.) there seems to be nothing heavy enough to prevent this beast from moving, and the thought of a cup skittering around the classroom, propelled by a mutant roach is too terrible to contemplate; and b.) that plan would involve going over there, next to the roach.

9:07 AM: Hover anxiously near front door, waiting for any hapless students of the boy variety to wander in.

9:10 AM: Is that my husband? Walking up to the school? Looking somehow both irritated and amused? Yes it is!

9:11 AM: CRUNCH.

9:12 AM: Knock innocent bystanders over in my rush to GET TO THE BATHROOM and THROW UP.

9:20 AM: Hug and praise wonderful, fabulous, amazing husband, who totally WINS at being married.

9:30 AM: Actually teach some children some stuff.

10:00 AM: Throw up some more.

10:10 AM: Resume teaching.

12:30 PM: Dismiss students with varying admonishments, including a stern lecture about how the next person to leave his McDonalds lunch in my classroom over the weekend (and thereby attracting hideous insects) will die a slow and painful death.

12:35 PM: Chat with the fabulous peoples some more. We talk a lot.

1:00 PM: Arrive at home, nearly passing out from walking up TWO WHOLE flights of stairs.

1:05 PM: Make valiant effort to eat an Arby’s Beef N Cheddar sandwitch so kindly provided for me by my darling husband.

1:07 PM: Decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and take to my bed after three bites.

1:20 PM: Allay Joey’s fears that I will NEVER want to get pregnant again. Am miserable but it is SO WORTH IT.

3:00 PM: Get up and quickly find something to eat before the rigors of standing upright make me throw up some more.

3:05 PM: Eat leftover artichoke and spinach dip, and do not vomit it right back up. A Christmas miracle!

3:30 PM: Read The Captiveby Scott O’Dell. Reading that is actually for my job! Life is too amazing for words!

4:30 PM: Weirdest, suckiest ending EVER! I was all into the book, too, but spare me from an abrupt, ambiguous ending! Did he do that with Island of the Blue Dolphins? Surely I would remember.

4:40 PM: Will now work on more work things, on the computer.

4:45 PM: But first must check my email.

4:50 PM: Look.

4:55 PM: At.

5:00 PM: The.

5:05 PM: Pretty.

5:10 PM: BLOGS.

5:15 PM: Decide to commemorate Joey’s rising above and beyond the call of duty with a True Wife Confession, my first one ever!

5:25 PM: Decide also to write in blog, to be disciplined and also dedicated  to keeping a record of the fascinating minutiae of our lives.

5:30 PM: Even though this is really just about me.

6:15 PM: Dear God, the Internet EATS TIME FOR BREAKFAST! I have WORK to do still, lots and lots of WORK and also I need to SHOWER and maybe try to eat again! And then do everything all over again.

6:17 PM: Except the part with that revolting bug, pleasepleaseplease God?

* Yes, am a girl, a wimpy, helpless GIRL. But roaches have alwayshad this effect on me! They are the creepiest, grossest things ever. Last year? Joey and I were in our old (ghetto) apartment, sitting in the dark living room watching TV? And haha, the cat kept sniffing at my legs like a weirdo? And like ten minutes later, I felt something on my bare foot. And like any reasonable person, I leaped ten feet into the air, shrieking at the top of my lungs and stripping all my clothes off, for lo, it was a huge revolting roach  on my skin. Poor Joey ran around frantically, looking for my seizure medication, before he realized that I don’t have seizures, so there was no real explanation for what was going on until he picked me up bodily and demanded to know what was wrong with me. So precedent had been set already, M’kay?

Today’s Menu: Whine and Cheese July 13, 2008

There were pretty, pretty flowers brought home to me, for the record.

And no, I’m not feeling better. Am feeling much WORSE. I keep wondering how I’m going to do this Next Time, when I will have a small person running about needing things, in addition to a house to run and a job to do. HOW? I don’t know! Yesterday I spent four hours helping price and sort donated items for a garage sale fund raiser. The perks were being encouraged to take ALL of the baby-related items that I liked, and getting to spend time with my fabulous co-workers. The…un-perks (?) included having a strong vomiting reaction to what seemed to be an perfectly innoffensive (albeit ugly) comforter, and getting so tired that by the time I finally gave in and called Joey to pick me up (BEFORE anyone else left, and I got there two hours AFTER they started) all I could do was heave violently in his parents toilet and then dissolve into tears on their couch.

I hate not being able to do stuff!!!

But I have it on good authority that things will get better. And my mamma will be here soon! She and my baby (literally, she is three) sister are going to come stay with Joey’s parents until she has enough saved up from her new job to get their own place.

Pregnancy = grrrrblaarghurrp. July 6, 2008

So remember when I FIRST got knocked up, and was all “I can’t write in my blog! Even though I love it! Because that will jinx me!”? And then, haha, I took a bazillion pregnancy tests and they all said “YOU ARE PREGNANT, DOOFUS” so I had no real reason to not write.

Although, I think I only wrote once.

Well NOW let me introduce you to an even better reason to ignore my blog which I love. I call it Amazing Projectile Vomiting and sometimes Woe, Woe, I’m Glad The Baby Is Healthy, But Woe.

Seriously, have lost TEN POUNDS so far. I would have LOVED to lose ten pounds before now! I tried! Really hard!

Yesterday? I had to go be on an interview panel for work? And about twenty-ish minutes beforehand, I was spewing green beans like a demon-posessed person. There may have been green beans in my hair. Needless to say, ever morning I wake up feeling EVEN WORSE and so every morning I begin to feel a little bit sorrier for myself.

This morning I got up (got up again, actually, since I had some serious insomnia all night) and asked my darling husband to make me some malt-o-meal. Because I now actively plan my morning meals around what will be fairly easy to handle when I throw it up. Joey faithfully followed the instructions on the box, although he could not find a tablespoon measure or the salt, and didn’t know which bowls were microwaveable. This SHOULD NOT bother me! He never does anything in the kitchen, and is BEING NICE TO ME. But did that stop me from being bothered? Obviously not. By the time he wanted to know how much butter to mix into the finished product, and didn’t find “Just a slice” specific enough, I snapped at him. And he snapped back. And I started to defend my snapping (I think I had a vaguely formed idea that this showed that he was NOT HELPFUL) but then realized that I was making no sense. So I said, “I’m sure you’re right, and I’m sure I’m being a jerk, but right now I-” and then burst into tears and fled the room.

And Joey came and held me, and asked if it was all just too hard right now, and yes it WAS! And then my crying made me throw up, so there may have been some sobbing/vomiting, in my bathrobe and with my messy hair, and yet he still did love me, despite my not-so-alluring appearance.

And then I composed myself, and we cuddled on the couch and watched TWO episodes of Shear Genius, which he was to all appearances fascinated by. Because that is just how much my husband rocks.

Now he is grocery shopping, all by himself, because the thought of entering a grocery store makes me weak. As does the thought of doing the dishes, but I will do THAT today. I WILL.

Ugh. He just called to say that Wal-Mart doesn’t have a lot of the stuff on my list. Because I always go to Kroger. Because Wal-Mart is a soul killing place, and also doesn’t have stuff. And no, he doesn’t really feel like going somewhere else to get the rest of the things on the list. So let me just take a moment to regain those warm fuzzy feelings that were spurring me on to write this post.

….

Lets hope he remembers to get fresh flowers. I didn’t put them on the list, but he KNOWS that I always buy flowers, and he even usually writes them on my grocery lists for me. Lets hope.