Small Red Sneakers

Baby update

I had an appointment with my nurse practioner yesterday. I told her about the Bitch nutritionist and I was pleased to hear that I was not the only one who had found her to be unsavory. I mean, I'm not pleased that others have suffered at the hands of the Bitch. I'm just happy that it wasn't just me being an emotional and overly sensitive prego.

I got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I also got to hear the baby rolling around, swimming laps, and kicking me. Right now, I'm very excited when the baby moves. I have a feeling that I'll be much less excited about it a few months from now when the baby is playing soccer with my spleen.

Cake and Amish

Guess what I had today! Cake! That's right. I ate cake. Mmmmmm. Cake.

See, we're working really long hours so management has been bringing in loads of food. My friend Michele and I have been trying to keep each other from eating too much junk. And today, instead of wolfing down massive amounts of cake, we only scarfed down a small amount of cake because we shared.

I love cake. There is no food better than cake. The only trouble is that cake is not really what one would consider to be a "healthy" food choice. So I try to avoid it. When I do eat cake, I feel like I am committing the ultimate sin. That just makes the cake taste better.

At one point, I had to do the cake dance. That pretty much consists of doing the Cabbage Patch with the top part of your body and just sort of wiggling around in your chair. It can alternate with doing the Monkey or the Swim. Just as I started to do the cake dance, Michele broke into her own version. That just shows you that we were meant to be friends.

Speaking of friends.....when I got home tonight, I had a message from my friend Dana. I haven't talked to her on the phone for eons. I was wondering if she had secretly become Amish and shunned all technology including telephones. But then I realized how ridiculous that is because she would never get rid of her computer.

So, yay! A call from Dana. I'm going to save it on my voicemail and listen to it over and over again. Does that make me a pathetic loser who rarely has voicemail from her friends? Well, yes, it does. But I don't care.

SF Weekend

This weekend was deliriously, deliciously gorgeous! It went by entirely too fast. We spent loads of time driving around with all the windows down. I doubt I will ever be able to get a brush through my hair again.

We also went to San Francisco and took a loverly little hike. Cat got to take some pictures....finally.

When we first got there it was crystal clear, then the fog came rolling in. As many times as I have been in San Francisco, I've never heard the fog horns sounding. I don't know if I just didn't notice it before or if our location this weekend was perfect for it.

It was an incredibly beautiful and relaxing weekend. I'm feeling calm and well-rested just in time for a work week that is sure to be unpleasant (at best). Perhaps if I find myself getting stressed out at work, I will try to reenact the foghorns calling to each other in an attempt to recapture the calm that was this weekend. At the very least, I would think that making foghorn noises would discourage people from approaching me unless absolutely necessary.

Otch

I went to see a nutritionist today because I want to be sure that I am eating enough, and not too much, for the baby. I was hoping to see someone supportive and understanding and encouraging. I was hoping to see someone who could answer my questions and perhaps ease some of my concerns.

The person I did see, I believe in some circles she would be called.....um....what's the word? Oh, yes. A bitch! That's what she was. A giant, toad sucking bitch.

Here's a quiz for you!

Q: The nutritionist that Michelle saw today was:
A: Helpful
B: Knowlegeable
C: Compassionate
D: A BITCH!!!!!

As much as I LOVE my nurse practitioner and my doctor, I hate The Bitch a billion times more. I hate The Bitch with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Yeah. I just needed to get that out. Emotional much? Maybe.

So....I saw The Bitch this morning. Then, when I returned to work, I got ripped on by some jerk about something that had nothing to do with me. (Well, it didn't have "nothing" to do with me. It had next to nothing to do with me, but he chose to make it ALL about me.) However, when I asked him what he wanted me to do about his situation, he was unable to articulate exactly what he expected or wanted my responsibility to be.

My day did not get a whole lot better until I got in my car and started to drive home.

I guess you could say that my day sucked. I'm feeling a bit tetchy and even sort of fragile these days. So, a day that previously would have qualified as "bad" now borders on "a whirling, twisting, eddy of dispair".

*Sigh*

In other news, I'm attempting to make lentil soup right now. I love lentil soup AND it is good for me. It gives me a few servings of different veggies and I get protein from the lentils. I've never made lentil soup, though I confess that the smell is making me feel optimistic that I may be able to pull this off.

Besides, the rest of my day was so crummy that I figure there has to be at least one thing that turns out ok.

Alien Fruit Baby

We had another ultrasound on Friday to confirm how far along I am.

This is what my baby looks like now at 16 weeks. That's right. I'm giving birth to an alien.

Sources who enjoy comparing unborn children to fruit say that the baby is about the size of an avocado.

As for me, I am feeling about the size of China. I'm not getting sick anymore (with the occasional exception of tooth brush induced gagging). I've been having trouble sleeping lately because my hips are aching. I have not yet figured out the proper pillow configuration to get me through the night. This is quite a change from the days where I was sleeping nearly 16 hours a day. I'm trying to remain optimistic and think that this might mean I could actually accomplish something. For example, instead of spending the entire day sleeping on the couch, today I cleaned my bird's cage and did several loads of laundry. It isn't much, but it is a start.

Stalker

There's something you need to know.

I love the Barenaked Ladies.

If I were to become a crazy stalker, they would be my "stalkees" of choice. I am about this close to looking on e-bay for "Ed's Sweat Stained Bowling Shirt" and "Steve's Nasty Puss Covered Finger Bandages". I've seriously considered names for my baby gleaned from BNL songs. Who thinks Elwyn is a good choice? How about Enid? No?

So imagine my utter delerium when I discovered today that they have their own blog.

Introverted Extrovert

My family has an odd talent. We are introverted extroverts.

None of us are very social, yet we are more than capable of putting on a social face when the situation warrants. We do not fear public speaking. We can hold up our end of the conversation. We can entertain. We can debate. We make appropriate eye contact while conversing with others. On the surface, we look like we enjoy socializing.

But we don't enjoy being around other people. Not in general.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not entirely anti-social. I have friends. I have friends who I love dearly and who I will happily and comfortably spend time with. But the majority of my time is spent either with my husband or by myself. And I'm perfectly ok with that.

Some of my friends are very social people. They are the sorts of social people who think that parties are big fun and that meeting new people is a good thing. Parties and meeting new people are not my idea of fun. Parties and meeting new people are my idea of reasons to take Xanax.

One of the things about being pregnant that I fear the most is the Uninvited Belly Rub. See, I live in fear of the Uninvited Touch on a day-to-day basis. My personal space bubble is larger than most. Having a big ol' pregnant belly pooking out ahead of my every step is like wearing a billboard that screams, "I have no personal space bubble! I am now public property! Feel free to touch me at whim!"

I don't know how I'm going to feel about anyone touching my pregnant belly. I've never had a pregnant belly before. I know that I would definitely not allow anyone to touch my non-pregnant belly unless there was a serious medical reason for it and that person was a doctor. I think I might be open to letting some people touch the pregnant belly. "Some people" being very close friends and family and not some slightly stale smelling elderly lady in a grocery store parking lot.

Canadian Music

Today I'm introducing the baby to Canadian Music, compliments of a mix CD from his/her AuntieDana.

I'd have to say that the baby's favorite song so far is "Green Eggs and Ham" by Moxy Fruvous. I'm thinking of trying to get Dana to cut her own version of this song so I can play THAT for the baby.

Fun

I may have mentioned before that there's this Project From Hell at work. Yeah. I may have just brought it up in passing a few times here.

So, anyway....

I've had a lot of meetings lately. The meetings consist of me trying to figure out what is going on. The biggest challenge so far has been that the attendees in the meetings don't know what's going on. This results in the "what's going on" portion of the meetings changing completely from meeting to meeting.

Today one of my meetings took place in the project room of one of the sub-teams. I like this team. They are fun people. These are the people you want to be working with in hour 37 of a "YOU HAVE NO LIFE" weekend.

The meeting itself wasn't that fun. No, fun is not the description I would use. Mind boggling is closer. But after the meeting, Mindy demonstrated her most excellent hula-hooping talents. I also got to see some of her wedding dress choices.

I wonder if I can make hula-hoops mandatory during out upcoming integration testing cycles (AKA: several consecutive weeks of hell). Then again, that would probably not be a good idea because not all of our teams are that fun.

My boss has directed me to come up with ways to keep morale high during integration testing. To that, I say, it is too late. One cannot "keep" something that doesn't exist. The prospect of trying to build morale amongst many extremely disgruntled and burnt-out people is a bit daunting. Especially when I AM one of those extremely disgruntled and burnt-out people and the only thing that boosts my morale is the thought that someday this nightmare will be over.

But now I'm trying to come up with ways to inject a little fun into the whole ordeal. (Wait. Perhaps referring to it as an "ordeal" isn't the best way for me to spread the happy.) The teams that will be involved are so distinctly different in every single way (personalities, ideas, work ethic, culture, star signs) that I'm not sure how to approach this.

Hula-hoops in one corner, chess boards in the other? A staff of masseurs on one side, a fully stocked bar on the other? Door prizes? Barbershop quartet? Food? Little nappy cots? Performing animals? A boxing ring?

Here are my two favorite quotes from today which illustrate how "fun" this project is:

"Of course we'll be set up to fail. But would you rather be hanged or shot?"
"When will you pass out the razor blades and cyanide?"

Oh, yes. These people are just prime for the happy.

Perception

I used to look at pregnant women and wonder, do they think about the baby every moment of every day? I thought for sure that I would. The truth is that I only think about the baby every other moment of the day. Ok...maybe it is really more like every three out of four moments of the day.

I was at the store the other day and there were babies everywhere. A couple of them flashed me great big toothless grins. I found myself thinking, "They know. They know that I'm going to have one of them."

I am not pregnant enough to look pregnant. Still, people who know tend to look at my belly and smile. And I imagine that they aren't smiling at me at all. They are smiling at my baby.

My aunt asked me today in an e-mail if I was feeling any fluttering butterflies right below my belly button yet. It is too early, I think, to feel anything. Still, I confess that I do spend a lot of time lying very still and concentrating very hard to try to feel that tiny thing moving around in there.

I am still the same me I was before I got pregnant. At the same time, I'm changed. I know this is nothing compared to the change I will ultimately go through. But there it is. I'm different. Already.

I've gotten some incredibly heartfelt, touching e-mail from family members in the last few days. Even my perception of my family has changed. Believe me, there are still things about my family that make me utterly insane. But these people have been so loving and so free in their expression and so good with words. I have been told every perfect thing that I needed to hear.

Lame

I was so sleepy on the way home from work today. I was doing the whole roll all the windows down, blast the music, slap myself in the face thing to keep awake.

When I got home, I headed straight for the couch and my fluffy blanket that have been lovingly greeting me every day since I got pregnant.

God, I love to sleep. I do. It is almost sinful how much I am loving sleep.

I didn't want to sleep all the way through until tomorrow though. If I did, I would miss the very important television program that will be on tonight. You know what's on, right? American Idol: Uncut, Uncensored, and Untalented. If there's anything I love as much as sleep, it is laughing my arse off at hilariously untalented people who are not in on the fact that they are untalented.

So, anyway. For once, I actually wanted my husband to wake me up when he got home. So, I made a note that said, "Please wake me." I put the note on the coffee table.

But what if he didn't see the note? What if the note went unnoticed and I slept through the terribly awful singers? How tragic would that be? How could I be sure he saw the note?

So I strapped the note to my head with one of my hairbands and then fell sound asleep.

Pregnant women are weird.