I'm defective

This afternoon I stopped by my midwives' office in order to get my paperwork and stuff all set for this pregnancy, since I'll be hitting the twelve week mark on Thursday (hooray!). The office manager lady was going over my paperwork and history when she suddenly said, "Oh, just a minute" and left the room. She came back a little while later and told me that I am probably now classified as "high risk" and that they probably won't be able to treat me during this pregnancy. They need to confer with their back-up doctor and get back to me, but chances are that I'm going to have to switch to the doctors. They're great doctors and they did a wonderful job with my c-section, but I like my midwives a lot (pout).

The reason why I am now considered high-risk is because during my last pregnancy we discovered that my uterus is defective. The inside is supposed to be like a cozy little round room, but mine has part of the room blocked off and the roof partly caved in. S-Boogie did all right in there and didn't want to leave, but apparently this defect can cause babies to want to exit early, so it's considered a high-risk condition. Also, because I had the c-section before and because I had a poor history of contractions (rather, no contractions) and bleeding, we're planning on another surgery this time around. And the midwives don't do surgery or high-risk cases. Which is too bad for me. I like the atmosphere in their office and I don't feel like having some old guy poke around my private areas. Hopefully they'll decide in my favor--I should know in a week or so what the verdict is.

In my blood

Last night I dreamed about the ocean. It was a fairly disjointed dream, but from what I remember I was exploring an old house and kept happening upon random family pictures from my childhood. Every time I picked up a picture, I would end up on the beach during a raging winter storm. I was just past the edge of the water and I could feel the mist from the breakers on my face. It was exhilarating.

I grew up in California, right on the coast. We lived there until I was 17 (more or less--there were a few years in Idaho that we would all rather forget). I haven't lived by the ocean for ten years now, but I still miss it so terribly I want to cry sometimes. I've tried to love the mountains, I really have. But they just don't do much for me. It's not the same. I can't even explain the feelings that I have about the beach. I don't care much for swimming in the ocean, but a nice walk on a blustery winter day does wonders for my soul.

I fear that I will not end up living near the ocean and that I will always feel like something is missing. That's part of why I keep rooting for us to move to Hawaii--it's not quite the same as the beaches in California , but the ocean is still ever present. I need that.

Long weekend highlights

I really should learn from my past and stop planning my long weekend time as an opportunity to get ahead on my homework. It never happens. I still have several large research papers looming over my head. But, it was a fun weekend over all and quite a lot of good things happened:

As you can see, Master Fob proved his manliness by picking out a lovely Christmas tree and putting it up in our living room. This is the first year we've bought a real tree and I totally love the smell. S-Boogie is also beside herself with joy at having her very own tree with lights.

We had a delicious dinner with Master Fob's family at his brother's house. And we've been enjoying the leftovers for the last few days as well.

I was surprised by a little package from my mother-in-law this morning with a yoga for pregnancy DVD that I had put on my Amazon wish list.

My parents were in town and they treated us to Thai food on Friday night. They also gave us a nice anniversary gift in the form of paper. Master Fob and I just used it to book reservations at a nice hotel in Salt Lake for next Saturday night. My parents are awesome.

S-Boogie got sick, but has managed to avoid wheezing or any trouble with her breathing, so the investment in asthma medication is obviously paying off.

Also, S-Boogie got a beautiful new coat with kitty cat pockets, pictures of which can be seen here

And, the snow was lovely. I like snow because it covers the brown ugliness of the barren trees, clears away the inversion, and justifies the freakin' cold weather.

We're ba-ack!

We are now back online and once again able to communicate with the outside world. After deciding the other day that all the people at Utopia are complete morons, I decide to repent when three vans full of repairmen showed up at our apartment this morning. They were even here before 9:30--simply amazing! They fiddled with things for a while and then declared things fixed. I picked up the phone, and they were! I called my dad on his cellphone and he was delighted as well. So now we are back in the real world and I can return to wasting my time on the internet. Hallelujah!

I'm not dead yet...

Just about ready to kill myself, though. Life hasn't been that bad, yet--no major illnesses, natural disasters, or anything like that. But, all the little annoyances are adding up way too fast for me. Like we're suddenly having major issues with appliances--last week our toaster spontaneously combusted, then Master Fob's electric shaver exploded, and this morning I noticed the washing machine making a rather ominous thudding sound during the spin cycle. Our electronics have turned against us. And I have terrible acne, bad gas pain, and none of my pants fit anymore (they are either too big or too small). Sigh. Oh yeah, and then there are the 3 different 12-15 page papers that are due within the next three weeks.

And then, our internet and phone died on Friday and have been dead ever since. Customer service has been less than helpful, since their "contractors don't have to work over the weekend". Yuck. Maybe I should just eat too much turkey for Thanksgiving and put myself into a stupor that will last me until Christmas.

Party animal

I think I get a little bit giddy when people come over. Last night I managed to tell people that I have been logging my bowel habits online, that sex is a wonderful free present for birthdays and holidays, and that I needed to eat more cake so that I could "fill up my pants" (I really did mean to say "fill out my pants").

Master Fob the handyman

This is a picture of the wonderful new shelves that Master Fob installed in our bedroom. We have similar ones in the kitchen, because we don't have very many cabinets. Now our CDs will be able to remain in pristine condition, organized by genre and alphabatized by artist. And there will be no more playing with tape, throwing staplers, or sucking on glue sticks. Aaah!

Impulse buying

This afternoon I went to Target to get printer ink. I came out with:

Clorox sanitizing wipes
Organic fruit leather
Cinnamon rolls
1 toddler toothbrush
2 packages of Christmas stationery

And, no printer ink. They were out of stock.

In the time it takes to do this, S-Boogie will have destroyed most of our home

Since Master Fob made me do it....

2 names you go by: Mama (must be yelled very loudly) and Faye (my mom made that one up and she has no idea why)

2 parts of your heritage: polygamists and bootleggers

2 things that scare you: having another c-section; causing a car accident

2 things you are wearing right now: maternity pants (my belly has decided to do a preemptive expansion) and underwear

2 of your favorite bands or musical artists (at the moment): Emmylou Harris; U2

2 favorite songs (at the moment):
Roses in the Snow by Emmylou Harris; China by Tori Amos

2 things you want in a relationship (other than real love): lots of laughter; physical contact

2 truths: I still pick my nose sometimes; my feet are too big to fit into S-Boogie's socks

2 physical things that appeal to you (in the opposite sex): good looking hair (on their head); no extra hair on the back or fingers or any other place that hair is not supposed to be

2 of your favorite hobbies: reading; cooking

2 things you want really badly: an immersion blender; to have my thesis written and defended

2 places you want to go on vacation: New Zealand; a cruise anywhere (Alaska would be nice)

2 things you want to do before you die: go back to Spain; see my grandchildren

2 ways that you are stereotypically a dude/chick: I guess I'm stereotypically a "chick" because I cry very easily over stupid, maudlin things like McDonald's commercials (it's even worse now with all the hormones surging through me) and I like to talk a lot

2 things you are thinking about now: "why is my daughter obsessed with taking her pants off?"; "why is she hiding under the covers yelling 'cock-a-doodle-do'?"

2 stores you shop at: Target; Borders

2 people you would like to see take the quiz? skyej; Cicada

I have been indoctrinated

This morning I spent four hours (yes, four hours) at "basic" training for Cub Scouts. I actually don't do that much with the scouts, but as president of the Primary I supervise programs so I must be properly trained and registered. This morning's experience mainly helped to solidify why I don't really like Scouting all that much. If I have a boy who wants to be a Scout, I will support him in his wishes and help him with it. I think that it's a great program in its concept and its ideals. I really do. But, the bureaucratic stuff drives me nuts.

Let's compare it with Activity Days, which the Church started doing for girls that are the same age as the Cub Scouts. You can explain that program in about 2 minutes. The girls start when they are 8, they end when they turn 12 and move on to Young Women. They have leaders and meet twice a week to do fun things together. They have a little guide book and get to set meaninfgul goals that they work on. They even get a little certificate at the end of all of it (yay). That's it. The end.

On the other hand, we spent half an hour today just talking about uniforms: what colors, what patches, how to wear them, whether you need official socks, etc, etc. That's the way most Scouting meetings I have been to have been--layer on layer of signs, and rules, and rituals, etc. Every other meeting I go to that involves talks about how we need to simplify programs and streamline things. We need to keep stuff easy and flexible and cut down on meetings. Apparently Scouting doesn't count for any of that.

Also, Activity Days doesn't require that many leaders to run it--for most groups just 2, maybe 4 if you have a lot of girls. For scouts I need at least 10 leaders: 2 for each den, a pack committee chair, and committee members. That's a lot of positions to keep filled, and it's hard to find people with the kind of time and enthusiasm to commit to Scouting. Plus, all the different people have different meetings that we have to go to.

And, of course, as much as I am trumpeting Activity Days I do have to say that I chafe a little at the inherent unfairness between the boy's program and the girl's one. Our ward's leaders are great at making the program cool for the girls, but those girls still know they don't get little patches and beads and cool uniforms. I think that's sad. If we're going to simplify everyone, let's make it fair across the board. Eight year old girls aren't stupid--they know they're getting the shaft.

Random Thoughts

I'm really going to hate myself tomorrow for blogging instead of going to bed, but I needed two share two random stories precipitated by posts on other people's blogs.

First, Miss Hass posted a story involving giant spiders in her apartment. Recently we had an encounter with a spider in our kitchen. I was cooking and I turned around to see S-Boogie crouched on the floor next to a very large spider. She was very excited about it and even started singing "itsy bitsy spider" to it. It was all very cute and I thought it was neat that she didn't seem to have any fear of spiders. But then I realized that it looked kind of like a hobo spider, and I should probably get rid of it. I tried to get it onto a piece of paper, but it wouldn't cooperate. So I squished it. I probably also squished a lot of S-Boogie's wonderful love of spiders too; I felt horrible about killing something right in front of my daughter. And then she spent the rest of the evening saying "bye bye spider" very sadly.

Then, Savvymom posted about dealing with poop in the tub. This reminded me of the fact that when I was 5 or 6 (way too old to be pooping in the bathtub) I had a little accident while bathing. Being the bright child that I was, I hid it under the bathroom rug and then blamed it on my little brother when my mom found it. My family will never let me forget this story and they bring it up often. No matter what else I may accomplish in life, it will be overshadowed by the fact that I pooped in the tub, hid it under the rug, and lied about it.

A breakthrough

I have a little confession: I have really not been very excited about being pregnant. I know I posted a while ago about feeling very baby hungry, but those feelings wore off and we decided to wait for a while. I made some plans for next summer and got very excited about them. But, we didn't really do much to prevent pregnancy, although I really didn't think our timing was right when it happened. So, no, not really a surprise, but not what I was expecting either. And I have spent the last few weeks feeling exhausted, nauseated, and constipated pretty much all the time.

But, last night I saw someone on campus walking around with her cute little snuggly baby wrapped up in a flannel blanket and I thought "Hey, I want one of those!". I really did. And then when I got home S-Boogie came running up to me and shouted "Mama, hooray!" and I thought "I could have 2 little people that shout 'hooray' every time they see me". So, yeah, I think I'm getting a little more excited about the whole thing. Now I just need to get over feeling nauseated and constipated all the time. Food doesn't want to go in, but once it does, it never wants to come out again. Sigh.

Stop the giggling already!

So I am taking a Spanish class that is called something like "Film Noir and Postmodern Literature in Spain". We are reading contemporary novels and looking at how film has influenced them. It's a very interesting class, but I'm getting a little tired of some of the immature people in there. Most of them are guys, and I'm assuming they are all returned missionaries since they speak Spanish. I am well aware that serving a mission does not make you a grown up, but if you are going to take an upper-division Spanish class that focuses on contemporary fiction than maybe you should grow up a little.

Case in point--we've been watching a movie during part of class over the last few days. I'm not totally sure why we're watching the movie, but it's based on a book that most of us have read before and we're reading another book by the same author. It's in Spanish, without subtitles. There's an old guy that likes to use very colorful language at times, and every time he does, three or four people in the class giggle/chortle/snort (whatever you want to call it). Also, the two main characters are a boy who is about 13 and a girl who is about 14. She has tuberculosis and he starts visiting her at home (the movie is set in the 1940s). Well, the other day she asked him if he wanted to listen to her lungs, so she ended up pressing his head to her chest. Ooh, sexual tension--let's all laugh nervously. Aargh, it's seriously driving me nuts. The movie is not meant to be a comedy, but someone is always giggling or making little incredulous comments. It's not like there's even any nudity or anything, it's PG! (Well, if they put in subtitles it would get up to at least PG-13). Urgh, some people in my class really need to get over the fact that people sometimes talk about sex and sometimes they even want to have it (oh the horror!).

What not to wear

I lost the battle this morning. S-Boogie is now wearing her alphabet pants and a purple striped shirt. And while I was busy she got into the closet and put on her church shoes. Sigh. I should just get rid of the alphabet pants if I don't like them that much.

Happy, happy birthday!

...to my great big pineapple of love :)