CORNflakes!

Friends, I got nothin. I am so boring that even the Lord is like "meh," and he cares about everything. Here's what I know.

- Only 3 weeks til my due date. At my check-up yesterday I asked the midwife if she could estimate the baby's size, and after feeling around a bit she said maybe 7 or 7.5 pounds. If this seems normal to you, awesome, but to me it is hella scary. I was thinking she might would be 7 pounds when she came out and was none too jazzed about that, so now that I know we have probably passed that mark, I am extra freaky outy. I know millions of women do this, but I'm telling you guys, in terms of stretching and accomodating and expelling, it just doesn't seem possible. Also when asked if I was experiencing braxton hicks contractions, I said I don't think so, because there's been nothing especially unpleasant going on, but then she tried to explain how they feel by saying "it's like her rear end is pushing your belly and it gets hard for a minute," and I've been feeling THAT for about a month now. Soooo... I dunno what's going on.

- My right foot, and by about 5pm my left one too, is ready to cry uncle. Y'all, it is so puffy and fat that I can hardly wear a shoe. Any shoe. And I have the narrowest feet in the world, so in most shoes I've got a good bit of wiggle room. I know there are people who can't stand the sight of other people's feet, so I will spare you photographic evidence, but it is ridiculous.

- Fall. It is delicious, and it is coming. We've already made chili and cornbread, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin scones, and cranberry apple crisp. Much to the dismay of grocers everywhere, it would appear, because apart from Ocean Spray NOBODY sells cranberries in September. I looked high and low for them yesterday, at two different stores, and they are not to be found. What gives? Why not have frozen cranberries year round the same as strawberries and raspberries and blueberries? With all this shopping and cooking I've been doing, it's no wonder my feet swell up like blimps, but you can't not cook delicious things this time of year. The SC State Fair is coming up, and pumpkins and apples and scarecrows and Halloween and Thanksgiving and orange and brown and yellow, and I'm just so excited I could pop. Everybody wear corduroys and drink out of mason jars and have desserts with apples and butter and oats and cinnamon and ice cream! (Once at a mexican restaurant my sister went to, the 'fried ice cream' was a blob of grocery store strawberry ice cream rolled in cornflakes. Cornflakes! Probably do not allow this travesty to be a part of your fall food library.)

- My Mama had a birthday last week, on the 11th. She does not read my blog, because she doesn't know of it, but she is just too great not to talk about. She does every single thing more patiently and thoroughly than I could ever have thought possible and she doesn't complain, and she always knows what's most important and always makes time for her babies, and she gets up every morning to walk on the treadmill, and she does my laundry, and she loves the Sound of Music and petits fours and James Taylor, and she makes room for dessert, and she can take care of everything, and everyone would be lost without her. Most especially me.

Here we are decorating my Christmas tree last year. If you can just ignore the fact that I'm wearing rubber gloves (the tree was stabby!). Also my weird shape (cookies are delicious!). Mama loves Christmas (it was her mama's favorite time of all), and I love her!

but not breyers ice cream. bleck.

I'm getting to the point where most of my dresses are a little too snug for comfort. So except for a few dresses that have a lot of elastic, I generally prefer shorts and shirts. It's tricky, because I can still get my pre-pregnancy shorts on (thank you Lord for this blessing; I assume it's compensation for the ankle swelling and stabby rib pains), but the button side and the button hole side are always about 3 inches away from each other, with no hope of meeting, so I have to use my belly band (which Erin gave me, and it is the single most useful pregnancy item I could imagine) to hold them up, and stuff all the extra material as flat as I can get it under the band. It's a little bulky, and every time I have to go to the bathroom I dread having to get dressed all over again, but my shirts mostly cover the unsightly part, and it's nice to be able to wear shorts, cause I'm not fond of the way my legs stick together in skirts and dresses.

My belly picture photographer left me in the lurch last weekend when he moved to Arkansas, so I'll need my parents to fill in for the remainder of the pregnancy, which is 42 more days. Forty. Two. DAYS. You know how sometimes your computer freezes for a few seconds and then does several commands rapid-fire to catch back up? That's how I feel when I think about how little time is left. Wha--- OMG42daysbutIdon'tknowhowtohaveababyletaloneholdoneandchangeherdiaperandgethertoeatandsleepwhatdoidowhenshecries.
On the whole, I'm not too stressed about the baby. There's tons of stuff I don't know, but I think that's probably always the case, and I'll just do my best and figure it out as we go. What I'm anxious about is that Mike won't be here with me for the first few weeks. He has to be in Arkansas to teach, and I'm having the baby here so that we can keep my insurance and the midwives I've been seeing all along, and so I can have help from our moms and families. They're experts, so it's not that I'm scared about doing it all ALONE, I just want Mike to be here too and not to miss out on stuff. I know there are tons of families who'd gladly trade for circumstances like ours, and all we can do is make the best of it until the baby and I can move out to Arkansas. I just wish things always went precisely like I wanted. Is that so wrong?

This weekend Mike's mom's friends threw me a baby shower, and it was fabulous. The food was great and we got TONS of stuff, and these ladies did the most awesome thing. While I was opening presents, one of them wrote down what the gift was and who it was from, and stuck it in a thank you note that they had ALREADY ADDRESSED FOR ME, so all I have to do is pull out the card, read the post-it to remember what that person gave me, and write the thank you note. I am the worst about thank you notes. Over half of my wedding ones are sitting at my house, thanking my friends and family from inside a cardboard box for the beautiful trifle dish. I always tell people NOT to write me a thank you note, because I know the trouble I have with them, and I have no interest in inflicting that on anybody. I am a very polite and thankful person, and I make a point to convey my extreme gratitude to people in person when receiving a gift, but thank you notes are just not my bag. I will do them for this child, though, so people don't think her rude. But she is gonna owe me. And with all the awesome stuff people are getting us, writing a note and buying stamps is the very least I can do. My aunt Julie even found us a Star Wars baby book. You can guess which parent will choose that one every night. And Mike's mom (GiGi to the baby) has already made the baby two quilts and she's not even HERE yet, so by the time she's mobile we should have her whole room padded a couple layers deep. My dad (Chief to the baby; he's a fireman) was not too far off when he said this child isn't going to need to buy anything for herself until she's forty. That's a lot of years to perfect her thank you notes.

She's been kicking and shifting and hiccuping like a banshee lately, and I fear that she's looking for more room to grow in there, when really, isn't 4 pounds more than enough for anyone to have to expel from their body? My belly button is stretching a little more every day (for some reason it really skeeves me out), so it can't be long now until it pops out. At my last appointment, the midwife told me that the baby is head down (woohoo!), so I suspect that the part of her that periodically presses against the middle of my stomach and makes a funny little protrusion is her rump. I also think she tends to stay to one side (my left), but still somehow she's taking up all my stomach's room, so I have to cut waaaay back on my portions at mealtimes, excpet usually I don't, and boy am I sorry twenty minutes later. And usually by the end of the day, I can't see my ankles anymore, and I have to get up 3 times every night to pee. Also I could fall asleep at any given moment throughout the day, and often do nod off at my desk. But that's it for pregnancy issues. So far she's been a very easy baby. And I can already tell she accepts ice cream in lieu of thank you notes.

What do you mean, my mothering skills have more to do with how she turns out than my baby registry?

The last few weeks, all I've really been doing is registering for baby things. It's a little silly how much stuff there is for babies, and I'm doing my best to research what we really need, which brands get the best ratings, which things lots of moms seem to love, and where to find things the cheapest, but even with all that work, it's still just a big guessing game, because there is no guarantee that any of it will work for THIS baby. Maybe she'll hate being in a sling and love taking baths, or maybe the clown toy that ALL BABIES LOVE! will scare her senseless. (It is a little creepy-looking, I'll admit.) Having a baby is a lot like saying "you know my life's all right, but I could really go for some more mysteries and surprises."


Yesterday was my work baby shower, and we really raked in the goods. I've got some very generous coworkers, several of whom have had babies since I started here, and they know what they're doing as parents, so that's been great for me. One of the moms apologized for getting me something that isn't on my registry (stacking cups for the bath, one of which she says is really useful for rinsing out shampoo). I made no bones about informing her that I don't know WHAT I need, and she should feel free to make whatever suggestions she pleases. I'll take all the help I can get, here, people. Her daughter has made it safely to 18 months, and if those bath toys will put us on the same path, then bring them on!


In real estate news, our house is finally ready to go on the market! So say a prayer that we can sell quickly and for close to what we owe, because SC house mortgage + AR house rent + new baby - Erin's income is not a desirable equation. It's a great house, and I'm really going to miss it. I already do, in fact, though I know it's far from an ideal setup for a baby. The master bedroom is the only downstairs bedroom, so we'd have had to convert the closet (which is way big enough) into the baby's nursery for a while. And while that would have worked great and been totally fine with me and Mike, I don't think my Granny would ever sleep again if she thought I was keeping my baby in a closet. Speaking of the nursery, here is the one item we have purchased for it. Try not to die of cuteness.


Mike is getting ready to head to Arkansas to start teaching, and since I won't be joining him until October at the earliest, I feel like I need to make him a bunch of food to last him until we get there. Not that he's used to home cooked meals every day, but if I can't be there, I can at least send him with enough food that he can eat every time he misses me. I quite like cooking, but can I tell you how much better it would be if I could sit down the whole time? And not because I'm pregnant, either, although my ankles have started swelling at night if I'm on my feet a lot during the day (and my shins feel really tight- is this normal?). I just hate standing up for that long. For my money, standing is just something you have to do in order to get from one seat to the next. But it's tough to get things done in the kitchen without being on your feet, which explains how the inventor of Crocs is laughing all the way to the bank. Anyway so I'm trying to find recipes that freeze well, both to send with him and so I can fix a few things before the baby (for whom we still have not settled on a name) arrives. Got any suggestions?

Here you go! Don't say I never do anything for you.

Hey look! Pictures!!

So the first one (below) is 17 weeks. I know there's a bra hanging on the door, and I'm sorry, but I can't crop things.
Then this one is 20 weeks. We didn't know it was a girl yet, and I have no explanation for the weird gaps that appear in my hair, or the lack of make-up. Or the horrendous pile of laundry. I wear that red dress on a weekly basis because it's really soft and comfortable and is one of the few dresses I own that hasn't become too tight for me to take a deep breath. Elastic is my closest friend. This one was 23 weeks, so now we know she's a girl. I do not know two people who are less inclined to take pictures than Mike and me. We are awful at it, which is why there's such a gap between weeks. Also the change of scenery is because by this point we had moved in with my parents to try and clean our house and get it sold. It's still not on the market. If you are fairly lazy before pregnancy, I can tell you now that you don't have a prayer of accomplishing anything when pregnant.

Here is 27 weeks. Raggedy Andy looks on, probably fearing for the well-being of the child who has this pale, frizzy goober for a mother.

And finally, here is 29 weeks. I'm really sticking out now and strangers ask me when I'm due and how I'm holding up in the heat. I do not ever advocate talking to a woman as if she were pregnant unless you are sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that there's a baby in there, but since I am in fact pregnant, I don't mind it too much. The pan on the stove in the background is mine, and it's glorious for cooking pot roast, but a few months back I scalded the fool out of it by turning on the wrong burner, upon which the empty pan was resting, and leaving the burner on for upwards of half an hour before figuring out a) why the pan of beans I was TRYING to heat was still cold, and b) why it smelled like hot metal and I kept hearing strange popping noises. I'd like to be able to blame this on "pregnancy brain," but I've been turning on the wrong burner on that stove for far too long on my own for that to be the case.

So there you have it. If we've learned anything from these pictures, it's that pregnancy has caused me to stop putting any effort whatsoever into fixing my hair. This does not bode well for my appearance once the baby actually arrives, so this may well be the last set of photos you ever see of me.

So do you have any frozen chocolate-flavored glucose drink?

Well Mike found the camera-to-computer cord, so I'm hopeful that soon I can get you people some belly pictures! Though I will say now, they are nothing special. I am not, for instance, wearing the same thing every time, or holding something that's equal in size to the baby, or taking pictures with any regularity, or any of that fanciness. So. You've been warned.


This weekend Mike and I hung out at his parents' pool with some friends of ours and their two kids, who are 5 and 6. For some reason the 5-year-old calls Mike Frank, which I find hilarious. And he announced to us that he was going to change into a girl. Named Teresa. Which Mike found hilarious. Kids are the best, right? And, out of the 6 of us, only I got sunburned. ::sigh:: I know. But I would like to point out that I applied Mike's sunscreen for him and HE didn't get burned, so. You don't have to worry about me slow-roasting our children. Only myself.


These days, I'm trying to map out a 4th of July menu and figure out if we can swing a beach trip before summer is up (it's not looking good for us, atlantic ocean) and register for baby things (us either, financial viability) and not eat all the chocolate ice cream in the land. It is so hot, and this baby is a chocolate ice cream fiend. The other night we went out for ice cream, and I ate all of my rainbow sherbet and drank about half of Mike's chocolate peanut butter shake. And that was after I ate half his onion rings. That might help explain why I got fussed at by the midwife this morning for gaining too much weight. : ( I'm up 23 pounds since my first appointment at 8 weeks and am on track to gain a pound a week from here on out. That makes 37 pounds by the time it's all said and done. Yikes. She did say I was "way underweight" to start out (which, HA and OH BLESS YOU), but right now I'm 5 pounds over what I should be. I do think I'm taking in more calories now than I ought to be, mostly in the form of starches and salt, and I know I'm eating more sugar than I ever have before, so I can cut back on that and eat more fiber so that I fill up faster. But, my question is, how feasible is it really to expect to LOSE any weight during pregnancy? I'm probably just going to have to work like a beast to drop the extra weight afterwords, right?

Stop being so unpleasant, I'm trying to love you!!

My parents have been out of town this week, so I've had to plan meals not only for Mike and me but for my Granny too, since she's at a point where she can't really cook anymore. She'll put biscuits in the oven, sit down to wait, fall asleep, and wake up 30 minutes later to burnt biscuits. She can't stand long enough to mix anything up or even watch a pot, so she relies fully on meals we provide for her not just at dinner but also for her lunches, when we're all at work. And her memory is a little fuzzy, so she'll forget we've left her a plate in the fridge or not realize it's lunchtime and go all day without a real meal. It's frustrating for us having to take extra measures to be sure she doesn't starve or only eat snack food, particularly when my mom and I are both trying to get ourselves ready and out the door in the mornings, but mostly it makes me sad. Growing up, whenever Emily and I spent the night with Granny, she'd cook anything she could think of that we might possibly want. She would make huge meals for the whole family, all by herself, and never complain. She loved it. She still tries to be that person, offering to help in the kitchen and always asking "what can I do?," but she's just not capable of doing most of what needs done. I know she'd give anything to feel like she was contributing, and she can't stand feeling helpless or uninvolved, so I try to be patient and find ways to include her. I'll take all the help I can get, but when it takes 20 minutes to cut a bell pepper it's hard to classify it as 'help.'

She's also become a lot more blunt in recent years, making disapproving faces when she doesn't understand something we're making or hears that we're having any sort of pasta or chicken. (She does NOT like chicken, which she will passive-aggressively remind us of by saying "we've had enough of that lately!" when she hasn't had any in weeks. I guess maybe it doesn't have any taste for her so she's not interested.) She'll start eating from her plate the second I put it in front of her, even though nobody else has been served or seated and we haven't said the blessing. (Mike will attest that this sends me into a rage. OMG SO RUDE.) She struggles to breathe when she's eating, so meals are always a smack-y, noisy affair, and we can count on at least one bout of coughing and choking per meal. She takes pills with her meals but often forgets to bring them and will ask "did you remember my pills?" or say "we need a supper pill" and tap the piece of table where she wants them to be, as though it were anyone else's responsibility but her own and how could we be so stupid? And no matter how much is on her plate, she will finish every. single. noisy. bite. and then give us the "where's dessert?" face. Sometimes it's a lot like having a 79-year-old preschooler. I love cooking and I really love eating, but those tend to be the most stressful, tense parts of my whole day when Granny is involved. When I do get frustrated, like I was last night, I try to tell myself that she has done way more for me than I will ever do for her, and she doesn't WANT to be this way, and then I feel like a huge jerk for being short with her and give her extra ice cream with dessert and aim to do better next time, because when she's gone I don't want to worry that she so much as entertained the idea that we'll be better off without her.

Anyway I started writing this to tell you about the dessert I made last night. It was so awesome. I got the recipe from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. I bought blueberries on sale last week without a plan for how to use them and I didn't want them to go to waste, so I was really excited to find a recipe that wasn't for scones (so time-consuming) or pancakes (so blah). It's got pretty much the best name I've ever heard for a dessert, and it is delicious beyond my capacity to convey deliciousness. We had it with ice cream, because I was worried it would be cake-y and rather dry, but I wound up eating most of it by itself because it just didn't need any ice cream. And then I had more for breakfast. And I'm wishing I'd brought the whole pan to work so I could have it for a snack and lunch and then another snack too. Seriously, make some.

It's true she IS growing!

Well.

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!

We found out yesterday. And I can hardly believe it. She seems so REAL now!

Only a couple people are allowed in the ultrasound room at a time, so I went back with Mike and his mom first. The plan was for the three of us to find out what the baby is, then switch out and I would tell my mom and Emily. So the ultrasound tech did all the routine anatomy and measurements (1 pound 3 ounces!) and said "okay, we can switch out now." I figured maybe she was planning to do all of it over again for Mama and Emily, so I guess it didn't occur to me that hey, she didn't say what it is yet. Mike was like "uhh... when do we find out the sex?" Oh right. That. ::sigh:: Can't the momentous occasions in my life not be marred by awkwardness as a result of my not knowing what on earth I'm doing? I mean, what is my deal? Before me, has anybody in the history of babies ever attempted to shoo their husband and mother-in-law from the room before they've heard whether it's a boy or a girl?

So the tech starts looking, but our sweet baby had its legs all stuck together (mermaid baby?). I wish I could remember the tech's name, but hello, clearly I'm awful at this, so I have to call her the tech. The tech smashed the doppler wand around on my belly to get the baby to move around. It worked, and she said rather softly "it's a little girl!"

Y'all. I was floored. I actually said "no it's not!?!" because I was so sure she was going to tell me it's a boy. I had a very quick moment of prayer that took a lot less time to think than it takes to read through. "Does this pregnancy's awesomeness know no bounds? October, arguably the best birth month. No agonizing trials or years-long wait for my baby. No morning sickness, nothing worrisome or abnormal or painful. AND I get to buy tu-tu bathing suits and watermelon dresses???" I am seriously in awe of how much love God has for me. Back in April for my birthday, my stellar friend Brock gave me some ballerina socks for my baby. We had no idea what it was yet, but she said she just couldn't resist. And I thought Lord, if this baby is a boy, I'm going to ask that you take away my love for these socks. If I were a better listener, I'm sure I would have heard him being like "Woman. Stop stressing out. It's me, the God who loves you so much that I give you exactly what you need." I'm not proud that I had to be reminded of that, but I can't think of a more awesome way to be reminded.

And look what her aunt Emily bought her!