happy holidays

Happy holidays everyone! It's been quite the year and I'm so glad you've all stuck around during my whining through my pregnancy and my lack of posting while I navigate motherhood.

Here's hoping 2010 is just as amazing as 2009 was. Cheers!

updates a'plenty

Guys, I am sick. Like for real sick, not just "I'm so tired I feel sick" sick. I even went to the doctor and got medicine. Liquid medicine that I'm actually taking, which is huge for me. Normally if a doctor prescribes liquid medicine I skip taking it because oh god, barf barf barf. I honestly would rather cough until I puke than take cough syrup, which is kind of dumb since either way puking is the outcome. I am smart like that.

Anyway, since I'm sick how about a random update for a post.

I never mentioned it but Truman's tests for his UTI all came back normal. The doctor has no answers for why he got the UTI, but at least he doesn't need surgery. Yay for that

I ended up wearing the sequined dress with some killer shoes to jparks holiday party. I was even brave enough to not wear tights and go bare legged. Scandalous!

You guys are fabulous and supportive and many more words that I can't think of right now. Knowing I'm not the only one out there that needs help has really done wonders for my mental state. Thank you so much.

And now I'm off to pass out. Oh codeine, you are so helpful.

waving my white flag

It's a well known fact that I'm stubborn. This means that sometimes I refuse to ask for help and get myself so overwhelmed that I can't do anything but sit and cry. For hours. You can imagine how much fun that is for jparks.

Since Truman's birth I've been struggling over how to balance taking care of him, taking care of the house, taking care of my marriage, and taking care of myself. I wish I could say I've figured out the balance, but I haven't and things like my sanity and marriage have been suffering for it. Jparks is fond of saying that it takes a village to raise a child and while I don't disagree, I'm wondering what do you do when you don't have a village to help you?

I often think about my grandmothers, who raised children while maintaining their homes and I can not wrap my mind around how they did it. All I can focus on is that I must be doing something wrong to feel this lost in motherhood. Jparks likes to point out that Truman is healthy and generally happy and that's what matters most, but it somehow feels like not enough. I want him healthy and happy in a clean house with a mother who is not exhausted and a set of parents that lovingly sit down to dinner every night. Unobtainable goals? Perhaps, but for some reason it's how I've decided life should be. I have friends that seem able to achieve this so why couldn't I? What part of the equation was I missing that kept leading me to feel like such a failure?

I spent a few days really thinking about how I was feeling towards being a mother and decided that something had to give because the road I was headed down was not healthy. I decided that while I admire my grandmothers and friends that could do it all, I'm not one of them. The first step was to get the cleaners to tackle the pile of clean laundry and the second was to hire a babysitter. While I always knew I would use babysitters to watch Truman for date nights, the one I found will also be paying me visits during the week. It took awhile for me to admit that I need someone to come once a week or so, for a few hours so I can do what I feel needs to be done; wash some dishes, take a nap, write a blog post, get a pedicure, whatever. I figured that if it takes a village to raise a child and I have no village around me, then I would buy myself one.

So there you have it, I've been missing partially out of a lack of time for posting, partially because I've been so embarrassed by what I viewed as a failure at motherhood that I couldn't bring myself to say anything, and partially because the lack of sleep has sucked the creativity right out of me. But I'm slowly coming back and from here out I refuse to see what I'm doing a failed attempt at raising my son. I'm doing the best I can and I won't feel bad about needing help. I may not be super mom but I am being the best mom I can be and that's good enough.

that star can twinkle

Oh internet, I am delusional. You see, today I was at the mall and I saw a sequined dress that I instantly fell deeply in love with. I'm very crow-like in that shiny or sparkly things draw me in and the ultimate in my mind is a black sequined dress. Nothing gaudy or too over the top, just a simple dress with sequins. Twinkling, light catching sequins. I've been obsessed with the idea of this dress for a couple of years now and almost bought one last year, but jparks' holiday party was much too casual for it.

Anyway, back to the delusional aspect of this story.

I was walking through White House Black Market when I stumbled upon the perfect little black sequined dress. And then I tried the dress on and saw that the word that needs the most stress in that last sentence is little. It is hella short. I tried it on, looked in the mirror, thought "holy crap, that's a lot of leg" and then bought it anyway because I am stupid delusional. This is the kind of dress that you either have to be 21 or Tina Turner to wear and unfortunately I am neither of those. But I'm keeping it and wearing it to jparks' work holiday party.

If I had one of those ever popular Life Lists "wear a sequined dress" would be on it. I know right now I'm not in the best shape to rock a dress with a "high hemline" but chances are, in the future I'll be in worse shape. I'm also well aware that this dress doesn't have to be the one that fulfills my desire, in fact Target has a really cute sequined dress right now, but I figure go big or go home. Or in this case, go teeny tiny hemline or go home.

So there you have it, I have lost my mind and bought a short sequined dress that is not meant to be worn by an adult of my size. And I have bought it to wear around jparks' coworkers. I'm considering it payback for last year's holiday party where jparks got drunk and yelled in the middle of the dance floor "I have poo issues! I can't poo if people can hear me! So what!" Honestly, I think what he did was worse. It's one thing to have an inappropriately dressed wife, it's another to loudly share the requirements of your bowel movements while people are trying to dance to YMCA.

Can anyone make a shoe suggestion to complete the look? Also, the model is wearing fishnets with open toe shoes, are we rocking that look now? I was going to maybe wear opaque tights so I don't blind people with my white legs, are open toe shoes okay with them? Is it acceptable with tights so long as they aren't reinforced toe? I'm so confused because open toe shoes with tights have been such a fashion no for me for so long that even the idea of wearing them together feels wrong. And can someone talk me out of buying this tank? So shiny!

I might be the only person that was happy for Monday

Well, this was a fun weekend here at Parks Place. Assuming the new definition of fun is "exceptionally bad or displeasing." Or "having undesirable or negative qualities" would work as fun's new definition as well. Either way this weekend was sucky. And crappy. And did I mention not fun at all?

Thursday night Tru started with a fever, which we managed through the night with tylenol and cool rags. Friday I took him to the pediatrician expecting to be told we were all clear and it was just a fluke spike in his temperature. Expect it turns out it wasn't just a fluke and the kid had swine flu H1N1. And because the flu wasn't enough, the pediatrician called a few hours later to tell me that Tru's urine sample came back positive for a urinary tract infection. I do want to give Tru props for being a trooper, as sick as he was, he was still smiling and generally in a good mood.

We're past the worst of the flu and now are left to deal with the UTI. Apparently UTIs are not very common in baby boys so when he's done with his antibiotics, Tru gets an ultrasound. Depending on the results of that we'll move on to a voiding cystourethrogram which involves a catheter and dye inserted into his bladder. I'm trying not to worry too much about this because what good will it do? We can't get the ultrasound for at least a week, and I refuse to obsess about it until then. I will not be referring to Dr. Google because that just leads to sleepless nights spent staring at the ceiling while I chew my bottom lip off.

While I was at the pediatrician and the bad news was washing over me, I kept reminding myself that at least Saturday would be a good day because it was New! Car! Day! A couple of weeks ago jparks and I decided to get an Audi Q5 and Saturday was the day it would be ready for pick up at the dealership. I spent a lot of time while we were considering a new car walking around dealerships, talking to salesguys, researching on edmunds.com, and test driving various models and the Q5 came out on top time and time again. For a bigger car it's sexy, it handles beautifully, and it comes with enough gadgets inside to make jparks happy. I felt like if I were going to be buying a Mom car, the Q5 was a pretty damn cool Mom car.

Saturday morning came and I called the dealership to make sure the car was ready for pickup when the salesguy dropped this bomb on me "My sales manager says I can't sell you the Q5 at the price we talked about." Basically he claims that the Q5 is in such demand that they can sell it at sticker and we had agreed on a price that was not sticker. We hadn't filled out any paperwork yet because they wanted us to take care of all of that once the car arrived and while I probably could have gone to the dealership and made a scene, I just wasn't feeling it. The disappointment of not getting the car I wanted and expected should have lit a fire under me, but instead I was feeling rather worn down and just told the dealer "Thanks, but no thanks."

It's safe to say that my plan to eat better did not work out so well this weekend. When life gets tough, pie and cookies are very comforting. I guess my new plan is that if I can't have a new car, I should eat until my ass is as big as one. Good plan!

improvements a'plenty

For the past few Novembers I've participated in National Blog Posting Month, and for a couple of days at the end of October I was stupid enough to think I would be able to participate again this year. And then the second day came and I stared at my laptop screen for a few minutes and promptly passed out. I never realized before just how hard it is to string together words into a post when you've had all the creative energy sucked out of you by an infant that enjoys made-up-as-you-go songs. Excuses, excuses.

Since I failed at NaBloPoMo before I even really got started, I've decided to take up another task, Slynnro's NoImYoSeMo. Instead of making a blog post a day I'll make a list of things I want to improve in my life, which oh my god there are so many, and then try my best to get the list done by the end of the month. Sounds easy enough, let's go!

Drink more water. I'm breastfeeding and I work out like crazy, yet I barely drink any water. Diet coke, yes. Coffee, yes. Water, not so much. I have a feeling that my life would be better with more water in it.

Clean out my bathroom drawer. The other day I was digging in there for a ponytail holder and found quite a few lip glosses I thought were lost, some expired medicines, and an unmarked airplane safe bottle of something, but no pony tail holders. That drawer is a pit and I need to do something about it.

Run. And then run some more. Meaning run longer, run faster, run more frequently. Run.

Put away the pile of clothes that has resided on my bedroom floor for weeks now. Make sure the pile doesn't come back.

One fourth of my closet is tank tops. No person needs that many tank tops. Time to clean them out. No mercy!

Clean out the kitchen equivalent of that bathroom drawer. Do I really need two sets of incomplete measuring cups? Do I even know what appliances half the attachments in there are for? God, I hate that drawer.

Eat better. I pay a lot of money to belong to a gym and have a personal trainer yet I've done nothing to change my diet. Eating like I do means I'm basically wasting the money spent in monthly fees. While I don't need to go on a full-fledged diet, I do need to be more mindful about what I'm eating. Maybe I'll even go crazy and start having breakfast.

Read a book. I've read one book since Truman was born and I guess that's good considering the circumstances, but it bothers me. Time to take back my kindle from jparks and read more.

Sign up for one of the half marathons I've been thinking about. I've had the registration pages open for the Kaiser Half and the Rock and Roll Mardi Gras Marathon open for weeks now, but I haven't been able to bring myself to make the commitment. It's time to man up and register for one or both

None of these are huge changes to my life but each one will help me in some way. And besides, I'm not certain right now is the best time to try and take on a huge change. I feel crappy enough that I failed at NaBloPoMo, I can only imagine how crappy I would feel if I weren't able to make an improvement in my life that I had told everyone about and that I wanted to accomplish. So drinking more water and cleaning drawers it is!

whoa, the boring might overwhelm you

Usually I'm up for celebrating Halloween but someone apparently peed in my Halloween corn flakes this year, because I was really not feeling it. I tried to get into it, I really did, but between the super crowded Google Halloween party and the disappointing Fall Fest I attended, my Halloween spirit died quickly. I did manage to dress Truman up once in his caterpillar costume which made me happy:


ohhhh it's the elusive Regan smile. No one make any sudden movements so we don't scare it away

On Halloween night I thought about hitting a local mall with a friend to see the kids all dressed up for a costume parade, or visiting a neighbor's house because they had set up their porch for a Halloween photo backdrop, or even just going to another friend's house to hang out but in the end I was lazy and stayed home. Since last year we had one kid come to our house I hadn't bought any candy and now that we were going to be home, and I would hate to get egged, a quick trip to the store yielded one bag of Mr. Goodbars, which are one of my favorites. Turns out we got more kids than I was expecting and when I lowered the bowl of Mr. Goodbars down for them to grab some, there were quite a few disappointed sighs. Who knew kids aren't into chocolate and peanut goodness. Sorry kids, I'm happy to share my candy with you but I can't promise our palates will like the same things. You should be glad I didn't hand out dark chocolate covered salted caramels since that's what I really like.

Maybe next year will be better. Tru will be old enough to stand up and act cute in his costume and I'll know not to buy Mr. Goodbars for the trick-or-treaters. Or I'll buy Mr. Goodbars but then get something else that kids actually like. Maybe I'll even go crazy and buy a pumpkin. Whoa, slow down self, you don't want to get too wild.

I have many more gym complaints, but I'll spare you

Can we talk about a few things that have been pissing me lately? Perhaps it's because I've been sleeping less but it seems like way more little things drive me out of my damn mind and I just can't take it anymore. And seriously, it's all little things that should not bother me. What can I say, parenthood has made me a cranky bitch. Now I understand what happened to my mom. (kidding, mom. Please don't cut me out of your will, I really want your jewelry.)

A radio station here has started playing what they call "Vintage Vinyl" but I call "Songs From When I Was In High School And Are Not Vintage By Any Means, Dammit I Am Not Old." When I hear the term "Vintage Vinyl" I expect songs that were actually released on vinyl, not songs that came out in the age of cds, which are not made of vinyl. I guess "Plastic from the Past" doesn't have the same catchy ring to it that "Vintage Vinyl" has. Also, that song from Kids is not vintage music! Neither is Closing Time by Semisonic! Don't make me send you a list of acceptable vintage songs Live 105, because I will. I have no life and have time to care about this sort of crap.

I've recently joined a new gym and many people there wear these abominations:

I honestly can't come up with words that accurately convey the level of disgust I have for those shoes. Those shoes are what happens when crocs and toe socks drink a bottle of vodka and then do something regrettable together. They are unnatural and should be eradicated from the Earth. I should not have to look at them while I work out and my mind will not be changed about this no matter what you say.

And speaking of the gym, are there rules regarding using cardio equipment too close to another gym goer? Today I was on a treadmill and there were at least ten other treadmills open to my left, yet a woman got on the one right next to me. Too close! Personal space! I don't want to be sprayed by your sweat! There need to be rules about this. I think we could apply men's urinal rules to these types of situations and everyone would be happier.

Has anything been pissing you off that you would like to share with the class?

tweed is good

Recently a pregnant friend emailed me a list of name suggestions because Truman was included on the list. And while finding his name on a baby name list is nothing special, finding it on a list of yupster baby names is. After reading the description of a yupster, a blend of yuppies and hipsters, I had to laugh because despite what I think I am, a yupster pretty much sums up jparks and I.

And since I want Truman to feel like he belongs in this family, I did this to him:

Future Accountant, originally uploaded by whitneybee.

Don't lie, right now you're dying from the cuteness.

Things that prove my brain is broken

I was searching for a part for my coffeepot yesterday morning and couldn't find it. After a minute I realized the part was in my hand

Searched for a netflix movie longer than was necessary because I swore I saw it on the coffee table. Couldn't locate it. Found it in that day's mail as it had just arrived. Who knows what I saw on the coffee table. Possibly a ghost movie. Someone call TAPS

Returned a netflix movie without the inner sleeve. Which I had in my hand while I packed up the disc. Let's hope they can sort out that I'm returning disc 3 of Mad Men Season 2 and not some other customer.

Twice packed up bottles so I wouldn't have to suffer through breastfeeding in public and twice, TWICE, forgot the bottle on the kitchen counter. And of course each time the damn kid got hungry and forced me to feed him. Call me a prude, but I hate breastfeeding in public.

Worked on another blog post for the past three days whenever I could steal a minute of time for the computer and then, on the fourth day, totally forgot the point of the post and decided to delete it. I should have just ended it by rambling on aimlessly but I didn't. You are so welcome.

Totally forgot that the dining group I am part of was supposed to meet tonight. At least everyone else in the group forgot as well. I have a valid excuse for forgetting, what's your excuse slackers?!? Too busy with your jobs and child free lives? (kidding, totally kidding. Please don't kick me out of the group. I like food.)

Bought 8 six packs of beer, 2 bottles of red wine, 2 bottles of white, 2 bottle of sparkling rose, and 4 22oz bottle of beer because I haven't had alcohol in a really long time. Well, since weekend before last. But prior to that it was forever ago. Man, I forgot how much I like beer. And wine. And sparkling beverages. mmmm, booze.

outcome not as expected

Saturday I packed up the breast pump and headed out for my first day away from Truman. Brace yourself for this next confession: I loved my day away from him. Don't get me wrong, I missed the kid like crazy, but the day was super awesome fun. I went to BlogHer Food because you know, I'm nothing if not a food blogger.

Okay, so yeah, not really a food blogger in the slightest bit, but I do read an insane number of food blogs and a lot of the panels could apply to any type of blog, so I decided to go. This decision worked out really well as I learned quite a bit (mostly that I am a blogging slacker) and I met and got to get drunk hang out with some amazing people.

The day started with Tracy and I heading up from the South Bay together. Once we checked in, we found Whitney and Megan. And then, around lunch time, we picked up a fifth: Joy the Baker. This was an incredible group of people to spend the day with as I don't think I've laughed as hard, or as often, as I did on Saturday in a really long time. By the end of the night, as we sat in the hotel room giggling over things that could only be funny to a group of drunks, it felt like we had all known each other forever.

I honestly think the reason I didn't spend the day upset with myself for leaving Truman was because of the fun I was having with these girls. They helped me feel like my old self and at this point that feeling was really what I needed. Sunday and today I didn't think about clothes or going to the gym. Today I was content to be at home taking care of Truman because I had been able to spend a day relaxing and just thinking of the glasses of champagne in front of me and not trying to remember when I had last changed a diaper or fed the kid. The day away from Truman did more to remind me that I am still myself than any hour on a treadmill ever could and feeling confident that I'm still me actually made me a better mom today.

I bought my conference ticket thinking I would go and hear some incredibly talented food bloggers talk and I did do that, but I also ended up making some new friends who really helped me feel confident as a mom. That alone was so worth the price of my ticket. Thank you BlogHer for creating a situation where I got to meet this ladies and thank you ladies for giving me confidence.

obsessed

Yesterday I went to have my eyebrows waxed for the first time since February. Don't judge me, while pregnant I knew would be suffering the pain of labor shortly so I decided to skip the joy of ripping hairs out of my face. This led to some very overgrown eyebrows, but whatever. It's not like keeping them shaped and groomed would have made me attractive, my huge stomach pushed me so far from that point that no amount of waxing could bring attractiveness back to my pregnancy body. Anyway, today I went and got my brows waxed, but before leaving the house I did something awful. I was hungry so I ate a tuna sandwich. Then I got in my car and drove to the waxer without even giving one thought to how awful my breath had to be and how close the waxer gets to your face during the appointment. Once there I realized what I had eaten and desperately searched for some gum or mints but I found nothing. I'm sure the waxer thought I was a total bitch when I only gave her one word responses to her questions, but really, it was for her own good.

Jparks went back to work on Monday leaving Truman and I to start our stay at home lifestyle. Things like the waxer situation where I act first and then think have been popping up all over the place because I am so disheveled. It seems the only thing I have a firm grasp on, and there's no chance in hell I'm letting go, is my wardrobe. I'm so terrified that I'll lose part of my personal identity to motherhood that I've become more obsessed with what I'm wearing than ever before. Basically I don't want to start down the slippery slope that ends with this:


Today I go to my OB and hopefully I'm all recovered from childbirth and am given approval to start working out again. I think part of the reason that I've developed my new clothing obsession is because while yes I have lost all my pregnancy weight, my body just isn't the same. My arms have gone flabby from not doing weights and my stomach is more pouchy than ever before. Also, my ass is huge, but that's always been the case. I don't even want to think about the leg muscles I've lost from not running in 10 months. During my pregnancy I hated that I had become such a stationary blob, and while I knew exercise some would be fine, I was just too sick to want to do anything more strenuous than walking from the bed to the couch. Now I feel like I have the chance to take control of my body again and I'm doing that by signing up for more fitness things than any person with a six week old should. I've found a 5K that I plan on running in November and a half marathon in February. I'm going today to tour the fancy new JCC because it appears to be the nicest gym in the area. And finally, I plan on getting information about a personal trainer because if you're going to go full force towards crazy exercise women, then you really need all the proper accessories.

I'm sure that shortly I'll burn myself out on being obsessed with clothes and working out, but until I reach that point Viva la Obsession! Time to wear my new favorite red heels and dig out my running shoes!

help wanted

Sunday night I placed an ad on craigslist under the domestic gigs category. Basically I had spent the day staring at my massive pile of clean laundry and just couldn't take it anymore, so I posted explaining that I was looking for someone to help me fold, iron, and put away laundry once a week, and if time permits, take care of some other light housework. I offered to pay hourly, but since I have no idea what this kind of light housework should pay, I asked people to name their own pay rates.

Before we go any farther, let me give you two pieces of advice:

1. If you ever want blog fodder, post an ad on craigslist, because the responses! Holy hell, the responses are awesome.
2. When you post an ad on craigslist, don't use your main email address. Even though I had them make my email anonymous, my inbox has been flooded with responses. Seriously, we're talking over 150 so far.

At this point I'm not certain I'll end up hiring anyone because really, can't I handle doing my own laundry? (ha, I couldn't do my own laundry before life with a baby) But I am certain I need to share some of the responses with you:

"I'm a proud American, born on American soil." Wow, is someone a little xenophobic? I wonder what part of my ad made them think I'm looking specifically for an American. And not just some pansy-ass-not-proud American, but a Proud! American! who was born on American! Soil! America, Fuck Yeah! How awesome would it be if this person found out they were born in Canada because their parents were on vacation and their mom went into labor while there? What would they put on their cover letters if that were the case? How could they live with themselves?

"I like to foil clothes. I like clothes to be foiled like in stores." Thanks, but I've got all my foil hat needs met at this time.

"I would like to work for you. I like to do laundry. I don't iron." Ironing is the majority of what I need done. In fact, it says it right there in the ad. Perhaps next you could apply to be an astronaut. "I would like to travel. I like spaceships. I don't want to leave the Earth"

"I have experience with basic housekeeping. I can help you for $50 an hour." So wait, let me make sure I understand this, you want $50 an hour to do my laundry? Is this code for a prostitute? Have I stumbled on to some kind of secret craigslist sex ring? "Hey baby I love doing laundry, can I fluff your towel with my mouth?" And if we're not talking about $50 an hour for sex, is this person crazy? I want to email her back and say that if I could afford to pay her that much wouldn't I already have a full staff to attend to my every need?

Out of over 100 responses, three look promising because they are college students who could potentially become baby sitters. The rest of the applicants are either too crazy to allow into my house or too expensive for anything other than sex. Who knew good help was so hard to find.

I would give up all of these shows for a solid 12 hours of sleep

I pretty much knew going into this parenthood thing that being sleep deprived for awhile would be the norm. What I didn't know was just how much I would rely on my tivo and netflix to get me through the wee hours of the night when I'm so tried that I can't focus on much. I tried reading but when Truman's stuck to my boob, drool is gathering in the corner of my mouth, and my eyes are half open, the last thing I can focus on is a book. Honestly, even a magazine is a bit over my head at that point. It's safe to say that if I didn't have a tivo I'm sure that I would have fallen asleep during a feeding and dropped Truman.

So because I'm tired and I refuse to cave and give you guys more Truman pictures instead of real content, here are my thoughts on random crap I've been watching at night:

On Food Network a new show called "What Would Brian Boitano Make?" recently premiered and it's so good. I had no idea Brian Boitano had a sense of humor about himself, but he does and now I love him. In one episode he says he loves figure skating, riding his bicycle across rainbows, and cooking, then they show him riding his bike across a cartoon rainbow. I don't care if every recipe he features is total crap, the biking bit won the show a season pass on my tivo. (For the record all of his recipes seem tasty, but I haven't made any of them yet) Mr. Boitano, I see you're local, can I come over for dinner?

People, one word: Hoarders. This is the most depressing show on tv and yet I can't not watch, unless we're talking about the cat hoarder episode, which I deleted from my tivo so I wouldn't be tempted. I think the most depressing aspect of the show is that these people aren't magically fixed at the end of the episode and you know within a year they'll be back in the same situation. I mean, won't pitching all their crap just make them go out and get even more crap, even faster. I'm fairly certain that once a hoarder, always a hoarder.

I hate Cake Boss. Buddy is no Duff and their cakes aren't nearly as interesting as Ace of Cakes'. We get it, you're Italian and you make cakes. You're like the Godfather of bakeries. Yay for you.

When pregnant I became obsessed with pregnancy shows like "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant." Now that I've had the kid, one would assume I would start watching shows like "Supernanny", but that's not the case. No, I've started watching wedding shows and my favorite is "Bridezillas." Basic premise of the show is that some women become crazy bitches about their weddings and their crazy bitch ways get filmed and aired for normal people to see. I thought the women on the show would be a little crazy, because if they were really crazy why would they sign up to air that on national tv? Holy crap, was I wrong. The women they feature are beyond really crazy. I want a behind the scenes episode where the producers tell how they find these women. Do they send in audition tapes and if so, can we see them? Also, can we have a follow up with some of the women? Did they watch their episodes and feel embarrassed? Did they manage to stay married? I need more info!

My baby can read but only if I buy him a five dvd set. Because watching tv is how most kids learn to read, right?

fine, have it your way

I woke up this morning feeling rather refreshed and decided to make a blog post. Then I opened my site and it was broken. Well, not broken-broken, just broken temporarily. (Was it just me or was the internet kind of sickly today? First my blog died, then gmail died, and then twitter died. Of course, twitter dies all the time but the other two things were really bothersome.) By the time my site was back up and running I was no longer feeling refreshed and blog post-y. So I'm caving to your cries of "Shut up about the broken fridge and post some baby pictures!" It's nice to know that no one cares about me anymore, now it's all about Truman.

This kid loves to wave his arms in the air like he just doesn't care:


I took him to Target and couldn't figure out how to deal with him and a shopping cart. I ended up putting him, in his car seat, in the shopping cart, leaving no room for the crap I wanted to buy. I figured out breastfeeding with no issues yet shopping at Target with a baby is baffling my mind. Here he is before I piled him under boxes of cereal and bottles of hand soap:


Whitney came over recently and took some pictures of Truman for me. Here are two of the ones she took, the others are going on his birth announcement and they haven't arrived yet, so I don't want to share and ruin the surprise.



Who would have thought that jparks and I would make such a cute kid?

why you should never buy Samsung appliances but should always shop at Lowe's

99% of you won't care about this and I'm fine with that. I just wanted to get this out on the internet so Samsung would know that I was not screwing around when I said I would tell everyone I could how poorly they treat customers. This is not humorous like dooce's similar post because I am not ready to find the humor in the situation. I'm sure soon I'll look back on this and laugh but right now I'm leaning more towards the stabby end of the emotional spectrum.

By now I'm sure everyone knows that dooce had washing machine issues and was able to twitter her way to a fixed machine. Well, on the same day that she took to twitter my eight month old fridge died. But because I don't have over one million twitter followers and I'm not a New York Times bestselling author Samsung basically told me to take my broken fridge and blow it out my ass. Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Tuesday I called Samsung to let them know that my fridge, which is still very much under warranty, was not maintaining a cool temperature. They arranged for a repairman to come out on Wednesday and I thought all was right with the world. Wednesday came and the repairman arrived, looked the fridge over and declared that the inverter was broken and the whole thing needed to be unplugged. He gave an estimate of Monday for repair. I promptly yelled a little bit upon hearing this, because Monday was unacceptable, there was no way I could function without a fridge for that long. The repairman, scared for his life and wanting to appease the hormonal crazy lady, said he could get the part and install it on Thursday. He swore the things in my freezer would be fine overnight and I tried my best to believe him.

Thursday morning arrived and the repairman was back at our house, inverter in hand. But upon installing it he found that it did not work. And he didn't know when he could get a new one. And now everything in the freezer was really doomed. And please crazy lady don't kill me. I was left feeling really helpless, what with more melting food than I could cram into my garbage can and the idea that no one knew when my fridge would be working again. So I followed in dooce's footsteps and took to twitter. Turns out Samsung wanted to prove that they know how to provide good customer service, unlike that evil Maytag that Dooce was dealing with and they responded to my tweet right away. Unfortunately all they could do was give me information I already had, so it was back to Samsung's customer service number for me.

The multiple calls to Samsung's customer service department started rationally, I calmly explained to the customer service rep that with a two week old, not having a fridge was not an option. I explained that we were being forced to go out to eat three meals a day and I had no way to store breastmilk. I explained that going out to eat that much costs a crapload of money and sucks up a lot of energy that I just don't have right now. But upon being told that all they could offer me was $200 to cover the cost of the food spoiled, I lost it and the tears started. I asked if they could express ship the needed part and was told no. I asked if there was anything else they could do and again was told no. At this point I was feeling rather defeated and was also crying into the phone. I had no choice but to give up for the day.

Friday morning brought a renewed desire to get the situation fixed, mostly because I had finally received confirmation that the inverter would be arrive on Thursday, as in six days later. And keep in mind that the first inverter didn't fix the problem and there was no promise the new one would either. Also, I have family and friends arriving on Thursday so not having a fridge was absolutely not an option. So back to Samsung's customer service line I went, but this time I got someone that understood why I was upset and, while she couldn't help me, she was able to pass me through to the highest level of customer service representatives. I was told that these reps are able to make decisions based on individual cases and she really thought they would be able to offer me an acceptable solution. She was wrong.

The rep that I was passed through to was the rudest, most uncaring and unhelpful customer service person I have ever dealt with. She barely listened to the situation before declaring there was nothing she or Samsung could do. When I asked if the part could be found locally instead of waiting for it to ship from New Jersey, she said "Probably but we can't help you locate it." I asked if we could put a plan B in place on the off chance that the new inverter arrived and did not work. This way I wouldn't have to wait another week for Samsung to figure something out, we would know exactly what we were going to do. She said no. I asked for a new fridge. She almost laughed at me. At this point I really lost it, which I think is totally understandable. I called the situation bullshit. I called my fridge a $2300 pile of crap. I told her I would badmouth Samsung to every person that I could and I would never recommend a Samsung appliance to another person. And then jparks came and took the phone away from me because I was not helping the situation.

At this point jparks was the more rational out of the two of us and took over explaining the situation and again asked for a new fridge. She gave him the same answers she gave me but with a little more explanation. Turns out Samsung's computer system is down until Tuesday and they are ceasing to function as a company until then. But she also pointed out that even once the system is back up there is nothing they can do to fix our situation. At this point even jparks was at wit's end and saw that the situation was not going to get better any time soon, so he gave up.

Now remember by Friday I had been without a fridge for three days and by Samsung's estimate I would be without it for another six days. (at one point I was told the part was on back order and no one knew when it would be available again) I had exhausted myself trying to get any kind of help or compassion from Samsung so I decided to try something that seemed like a long shot. A really really long shot. I called Lowe's customer care line because that's who we bought the fridge from and I was really desperate. The customer service rep listened to my story and then put me on hold. I thought for sure she would come back to the line and tell me there was nothing they could do, I mean that would be par for the course. But! BUT! She came back and connected me to my local Lowe's where the amazing manager informed me they would be delivering a new fridge THE NEXT MORNING.

After three days of the worst customer service from Samsung, to have Lowe's step up the plate with one five minute phone call blew me away. Keep in mind that Lowe's owed me nothing because the fridge was covered under Samsung's warranty. Lowe's could have told me there was nothing they could do and I would have totally understood, but they didn't. Their customer service has officially blown me away and in the future I will purchase all my appliances from Lowe's, although none of those appliances will be Samsung.

As I type this, Lowe's delivery men are in my kitchen installing the new fridge. (also, Samsung discontinued my fridge. Lowe's only had the upgraded, more expensive one in stock and that's what they sent me. Because they are not jerks) I can not stress enough that if you are interested in new appliances you should buy them through Lowe's and stay far away from Samsung. I repeat, for the sake of this popping up in Google searches, do not buy Samsung appliances. The experience I had with their customer service department is unacceptable and I would not wish that on anyone else. It's great that Maytag stepped up to the plate for dooce and her washing machine, but that's the kind of customer service we all deserve, even if we don't have one million twitter followers. I may not be famous, but I deserve the same level of care as someone that is. The $2300 that I spend on my fridge is not somehow magically less than the $2300 a celebrity would spend.

Samsung, you have screwed up and it is unacceptable. I hope you learn from this that all customers matter, all phone calls to your customer service line should be met with a caring representative who actually has the power or know how to fix the situation, and you should believe an angry customer when they say they will tell everyone they know how crappy your service is.

small victories

Today was a good day, yesterday was not. Today jparks and I took Truman to Target and Whole Foods and not only did we shop, but we actually managed to eat a meal while out. I know this seems like nothing special but considering yesterday I spent most of the day either in tears or on the verge of tears, I'll take any small victory that I can.

I knew bringing home a newborn would be difficult, but holy crap it's really a challenge. My hormones are all over the place, I'm sleep deprived, and while Truman is cute, that kid has got some lungs on him. We're working on getting him to sleep in his crib, but right now his limit there seems to be ten minutes. And did you know that it's possible to go through three diapers in five minutes? And that one of those diapers will get used before you can even fasten its tabs?

But it's not all bad. I'm fairly certain I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. (only fairly certain because all my jeans died holey deaths around the start of my second trimester) A friend gave me a zappos gift card and whenever I feel completely overwhelmed, I zone out for a few minutes while staring at shoes. I'm currently thinking these might be nice to push a stroller in. Or these. Don't judge me, I love heels and don't plan on stopping loving them just because I may have to visit playgrounds frequently.

Here's where I could say something profound about maintaining my personal identity while becoming a mother, but I won't because that's not really my thing. All I ask is that you bear with me through these first few weeks of all Truman, all the time and things will eventually begin to normalize around here. I'll figure out how to easily leave the house to do things again. I'll go back to whining about things I want, but can't have. At some point soon jparks is bound to squarely plant his foot in his mouth and I'll be there to blog about it. Just hang tight until I gather enough sleep to reach those milestones and you'll be greatly rewarded. Until then, have I mentioned that child rearing is hard? Or that Truman is cute?

truman oliver parks

Hey, guess what! I survived labor and it only took me a week of recovery to have the energy to make a blog post announcing that Truman Oliver Parks has arrived.







He was born on August 14th at 10:59pm, weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. My labor was 19 painful hours, jparks' arm was almost broken once, along with a finger, I totally confused an anesthesiologist, and had a breakdown 15 hours in when I decided that I was done and was walking out the hospital. Ah, good times.

induction! finally!

Greetings from Good Sam Hospital! We checked in this evening for an induction because this kid doesn't seem to want to take leave on his own. I mean, come on kid, we couldn't find a brighter flashlight, why would you not move towards it?

So we're here, we've been here for four and a half hours, jparks has almost broken some probably very expensive medical equipment, and I've been given a drug to start labor but we won't have any changes for at least a few more hours. In fact, I don't suspect there will be anything interesting going on in my uterus until midmorning on Friday.

And that's all I've got for now. Thank you to everyone that sent well wishes my way over on twitter but really you might all want to pray for jparks since I'm not sure how well he'll fare once the contractions start. I might not be at my pre-pregnancy strength but I'm fairly certain I can deal some serious damage to him. Thank goodness I found where they keep the smelling salts in my delivery room. Actually they're in a drawer with some medical tape, so maybe I'll grab both and tape the salts to his face. That way when I punch, not only will I take him out, but I'll open the salts at the same time and he'll be back on his feet almost instantly. I don't want to toot my own horn, but crap, this plan is brilliant.

the girl that cried wolf

Friday, the day my OB suggested inducing, has come and gone and I'm still knocked up. Sunday, my due date, has come and gone and I am still knocked up. Folks, this is getting old really quickly.

I honestly don't want to chat your ear off about still being pregnant but every thought I have lately goes something like this "Dammit kid, OOOOUUUUTTTT" or "I'm going to be pregnant forever. It could happen, I read about it on the internet." And speaking of the internet, one of my new hobbies is to research ways to induce labor online. I've found plenty of the old wives' tales; spicy foods, sex, and walking, but so far my favorite suggestion is to take a small flashlight, turn it on, and shove it into your vagina. Why? Because babies like to move towards light. Yes, according to the internet you can lure a baby out of your womb by making him think God is calling him towards a holy white light. How pissed would that kid be when he realizes instead of heaven, he's ended up in a hospital room with an idiot mother that shoved a flashlight into her vagina?

Of course, I've asked jparks to run to Sears and get one of those multi million candlepower spotlights. It's a bit big to shove up there, but when we're back at the OB's in a few hours and we're in the room waiting for him I'll have jparks grab a speculum and give the kid a good shining. It might be a stupid idea, but I read it on the internet so it must work. Now if only jparks still had long hair we could dress him up like Jesus so the kid wouldn't be too disappointed upon being born.

this post might use up my monthly ration of exclamation points and caps lock

The end is nigh! My due date is Sunday! Start boiling some water and ripping sheets because I plan on birthing a baby soon! Someone bring me a leather strap to bite down on! (For the record I am going to attempt a natural birth. It's okay to laugh at me, I know it's insane. But I also know that the drugs! They will be right there! Stick them in my spine now! Either way, natural or drugged out of my freaking mind, as long as the kid takes his leave of me I'll be happy.)

Jparks and I went to the OB yesterday and it seems there are lots of things going on with this pregnancy and none of them have anything to do with my body being ready to shoot this kid out. My cervix is still shut up tight yet my blood pressure just keeps right on rising. I had some blood work run and while we wait for the results I'm on bed rest. Doesn't bed rest sound like the best thing ever? In theory I suppose it is, in real life, not so much. Now that I'm stuck on the couch I see that there is so much to do, like the dishes. Who knew you could actually want to do the dishes? Or the ironing. The wrinkled clothes are calling my name.

The bed rest is to help keep my blood pressure low and ward off preeclampsia. Should my blood work come back positive for signs of preeclampsia then I'll be facing an induction on Friday. If it comes back normal and the bed rest does its job, then I can probably escape the induction. Don't get me wrong, I really want this kid out but I would ideally like to avoid an induction since that raises my risk of having a c-section. I've watched a midget get a c-section on the Discovery Channel and it was not pretty. I would like to avoid having my intestines removed from my torso and then shoved back in if possible.

So that's the latest news on the condition of me and my uterus. I wish there was more to tell but my stubborn cervix hasn't received the memo from the rest of my body that this kid needs to get out. OUTOUTOUT. I swear if I have to unhook a foot from a rib one more time I might just lose my shit. And it won't be the kid that suffers my wrath, it'll be jparks because this is all his fault.

highly inappropriate

jparks: "You're going to make a great mother!"

me: "Thanks! You're going to make a great motherfucker!"

two very unrelated things

Have ya'll seen the ads for G-Force, the latest bit of movie awesomeness from Jerry Bruckheimer? I swear I saw the trailer, heard Tracy Morgan voicing one of the guinea pigs, and thought "There is no way this is a real trailer. It has to be an ad for 30 Rock." I guess I just couldn't believe that a movie about spy guinea pigs could actually exist and that real actors had signed up to star in it. I have no intentions of seeing G-Force, but I would be the first in line if 30 Rock Tracy Morgan were starring in it. In fact, can someone make that movie right now? And instead of a regular guinea pig, have it be Tracy's head CGI'ed onto a guinea pig's body. Genius!

Now that I'm nearing the end of pregnancy I've been browsing regular clothes and day dreaming about what I would buy if I knew what size I'm going to end up. Tonight I found this dress that I love:

It's cute, right? But then I clicked to see more views of it and I think the dress has a vagina:

The description makes no mention of this random opening and I can't see any reason for it. Is there something obvious that I'm missing?

derailed

You know, I have no excuse for posting so sporadically and then when I do post it's all baby crap and no one really cares about that expect for jparks and I's moms. So I started a post tonight and then was instantly sidetracked when some friends started twittering about 16 and Pregnant, specifically the adoption episode. Have you seen it? No? Dear god, you should. But be warned: have kleenex ready.

Anyway, so my other post got derailed and I forgot what I was talking about and have decided to resort to a picture:



Those booties are killing me with their cuteness. KIIIIILLLLLIIINNNG.

Also, in about 2.5 weeks I'll have someone to wear them. Well, someone besides Lily. She's getting pretty tired of trying out all the baby stuff.



Yeah, I am that person. Whatever.

my possibly imaginary injury

Do women have a groin muscle? If so, is it possible to pull it? Because holy mother of god, the PAIN. Also, if females can pull their possibly imaginary groin muscle, how long does it take to stop hurting? Because if I have another week of this then I might just die. No wait, there is no might, I'm 100% certain I will die. My obituary will read "Regan Parks died of a injury that no woman has ever suffered from before. She will be fondly remembered and laughed at forever because really, a groin injury?"

The other night I was trying to crawl out of bed and was instantly knocked on my ass by pain. Jparks is normally a light sleeper but somehow he slept through my very loud cursing and screaming. I'm not certain he was actually sleeping as much as ignoring me because nothing says fun like a preggo howling in the middle of the night. I am now fairly certain that if I go into labor at 2am I will be left to my own devices until a respectable hour, say 7am or so. And before he is able to fully function as my labor coach he'll need to grab an iced latte and a danish. Not that I'm bitter about this or anything, nope, not me. Don't mind me honey, I'll just be over here laboring away while you enjoy your cheese danish. Perhaps you could hand me a knife to cut the cord with when you're done?

After the pain subsided enough for me to finish dragging myself out of bed, I spend the next 30 minutes slowly walking the 10 feet to the bathroom. And then the 30 minutes after that was spent lowering myself onto the toilet. Who knew a pulled imaginary groin muscle hindered a person's ability to move so much. Since that fateful night I have had the worst time getting out of bed because that's when the pain is at its most unbearable. I imagine I look like a roach flipped over on its back, legs and arms flailing about as I try my best to make any progress at all. It's enough to make me cut out any liquids after 8pm so I don't have to perform this lovely dance more than once a night. And, in case anyone is wondering, I usually only have to pee once in the middle of the night and that's if I have to pee at all. Apparently this is strange for someone as knocked up as I am. Yay for me and my wonder bladder!

entering the final phase

Today is July 9th, which means I have one month to my due date. One month to accept the fact that I'm terrified of newborns and yet I'm going to have one of my own. One month to enjoy sleeping in more than two hour blocks. One month to come to terms with the fact that I might crap on myself in front of a room of people.

In the past few days my nesting instinct has kicked in and I've become a whirlwind of do-do-do and buy-buy-buy. Technically we have everything we need, yet I'm not feeling done. I routinely look at my registry and debate if I want to buy the wipe warmer or if I want to live without it. Do I need the bottle drying rack? Or any other number of things that seem excessive, but how can I survive without them? I doubt my mom wiped my ass with a warm wipe and I'm a seemingly normal and well adjusted adult, so do I really need to wipe my kid's ass with one? After spending time thinking about this I want to punch myself in the face, because why am I wasting brain power debating warm wipes?

Up until this week I was managing to not look too hugely pregnant, but today I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I swear it's like I'm hiding a basketball under my shirt. I suspect this last month is when I'm going to put on all my pregnancy weight since all that's left for him to do is get fatter. Right now he sits high, cramping my organs and kicking me in the lungs. I am impatiently waiting for him to drop lower so I can breath again, but I don't think that's on his agenda for anytime soon. In fact, if anything I think he's climbing higher and possibly plotting an escape through my throat.

At times one month seems like forever and I can't understand why I feel so compelled to rush around like a mad person trying to get things done. But then the next minute hits and I freak out even more because one month is not that long. 30 days? IS THAT ALL? How am I supposed to organize an entire house in that time? How am I going to find the time to categorize his clothes by type of outfit and then by size with only 30 days? I can't wait for this month to be over with just so I can finally have some relief from this neurotic nesting and can move on to other things. Like trying to figure out how to keep my nipples from cracking and bleeding. Wow, parenthood is going to be fun.

celebrating three years of wedded bliss. also, mini doughnuts!

You know how most people like to recap their weekends in blog posts on Monday? Well, I'm bucking the trend and doing it on Tuesday. I'm such a rebel! Who knows what you'll find over here in my corner of the internet!

Friday was jparks and I's wedding anniversary and to celebrate I booked us a room at the InterContinental and bought us tickets to see Spamalot. On a whim we decided to grab dinner before the show at Out The Door and holy crap, was it good. I could easily have their cellophane noodles with crab every night. Spamalot was incredibly funny and the hotel was incredibly nice. I was a tiny bit worried that I would be miserable without my four million pillows, including a full body one, but the fact that I could turn the air con down to 65 degrees, guilt free, really helped.

On the 4th we went and saw Transformers in IMAX and I can't come up with anything to say about that piece of crap movie that isn't already said here. The only good thing about seeing it was the coffee shop in the lobby that sold mini cake doughnuts. I think I might start a petition to get mini doughnuts sold in more places because they are the perfect treat, big on flavor and tastiness, but small on size.

Sunday I had the best intentions of getting up and acting like a normal human, but I was hit with another wave of "Perhaps I should stay near the toilet or maybe this bucket." I'm really loving that morning sickness can pop its head back up late in pregnancy as a bonus treat. Nothing says fun like trying to make a mad dash to the bathroom when getting out of bed takes at least a minute thanks to a large stomach and a bad sense of balance. This is how my whole day looked:


Despite the breakdown on Sunday, yes there were tears because there's only so much feeling like crap that I can take before I hit a wall, the weekend was a great one. Jparks was very proud of himself for making it through three years of marriage without me killing him but I told him the true test will be this next year when I'm sleep deprived and extra cranky. If he survives this year then I think it's safe to say we'll be together for life.

I'm ranty which I should blame on the hormones but really I'm just a bitch

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading (shout out to my kindle!) and I've got to admit that I just don't get David Sedaris. Specifically his latest book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames. And possibly even the one before that too.

Before you start telling me that I have no sense of humor or that I'm obviously an idiot let me explain that I really loved his earlier books. I can't make it through a Christmas without reading Holidays on Ice and yet his latest books have left me feeling meh. I just don't see the funny in them. Can anyone explain to me what I'm missing?

In addition to lots of reading, I've also been watching lots of tv without the use of tivo. I know, what the hell kind of third world country am I living in? Since I'm lacking the tivo I can't pause and then fast forward through commercials and it seems I've forgotten how annoying commercials can be. First they are so loud. If the show's volume is here, the commercial's volume is HERE!! And god forbid it's a commercial featuring Billy Mays because then the speakers blow out and my ears bleed. But I doubt that'll be a problem anyone more. (In tribute to Mr. Mays I'm pouring a little OxyCean into every load of laundry I do this week. Which I mostly do anyway, but now it's a touching tribute and not just an effort to eradicate stains.)

Besides the volume issues, I'm slowly being driven crazy by commercials for various technical colleges where the recent graduate proclaims "If I can do it, you can do it!" This pisses me off to no end because it does not work as a sales pitch. That's what you say when you are totally pathetic at something yet can still do it, so the speaker is admitting that she's a moron. Right? "I'm a burn out loser/total fucking idiot/have the attention span of a gnat but if I can do it, you can do it!" This does not entice me to sign up for dental assistant classes. The only thing that makes me more angry is when it's a voice over saying "If she can do it, you can do it!" Really Mr. Voice Over, you think the person is an idiot? Do they know what you think of them or do they only find out once they've gathered their family around to see their commercial debut? How embarrassing for them. I hope you end up going to their dental clinic and they get to scrape your teeth and gums with the pointy hook until you bleed.

Unrelated, I'm feeling incredibly huge today. And I think I'm getting fat in the neck. How does a neck get fat? How does one lose weight from their neck? I miss working out and running. whhhiiiinnnneeee

regan is wondering

This should come as no surprise to anyone around here, but posting has been light lately. I'm blaming this on the fact that I'm no longer working and therefore am not confined to a desk for 8 hours every day. It turns out that I'm a day time blog poster, not a night time one, because at night I'm so busy watching crap shows on Bravo spending time with jparks that I can't find the time to post here. This does not mean that I'm abandoning the blog, it just means that I suck. Sorry.

Even when I was at my best with posting here, I failed miserably at updating other social networking sites. It's actually embarrassing how little I use my facebook account. The other day I uploaded a picture there and discovered that some of my contacts didn't even know I was pregnant. The point of facebook is for people to easily keep up to date with their friends' lives, yet I apparently don't understand that concept. But wait, isn't that why I have a blog?

I guess what I'm wondering is, what are the rules for blog and facebook crossover? Is it annoying to post to your blog and then link to that post in your facebook status? Is there an app that does it for you? Does it come off as a desperate plea for attention? Or should I assume that the people that are my facebook friends know about my blog and if they wanted to read it, they would? I mean, the more people are all "whoa, I didn't know you're pregnant!" over there, the more I feel like an ass of a friend. But I fail at updating facebook. Really, I tried, but I'm no good at it.

So, internet, what are the rules for this sort of thing? Do it and possibly come off as an attention whore? Or stick to posting updated statuses to facebook every 6 months or so? Or is it totally acceptable and I'm just over thinking it like I do about most things?

showered!

This Saturday was my baby shower and before you go thinking that it was just another typical baby shower, let me say that it was not. It was a totally awesome BBQ baby shower, also known as the BaByQ. There were burgers, jalapenos filled with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon, oreo truffles, and booze. Also otter pops, but I think I was the only person that ate those since it was actually cool out and no one was suffering from heat stroke except for me.

It was truly the ideal shower for me because I get nervous and make bad jokes when I'm the center of attention. And really does anyone, mother-to-be included, enjoy sitting and opening all the gifts in front of the guests? Is it just me or is that a weird custom? Also baby games make my skin crawl. "Hey, I'm feeling really fat and cow like! Let's all guess how big I am! That totally won't kill the last bits of self esteem that I have!" Wow, am I ever a bitter person.

Lots of our friends at the BBQ asked if I felt ready for the baby and I had to admit that sometimes I do feel ready but those times tend to get beaten into submission by the times when I realize that oh holy hell, a baby will be living with me soon. A baby that needs to be fed, changed, and bathed. Since I have the best friends ever, they were quick to tell me that jparks and I will be great parents, which makes my hormone filled brain go fuzzy and possibly makes tears fill my eyes. It's one thing to hear jparks repeatedly tell me that we'll be good parents, but it's another to have people that aren't legally required to tell me that say it.

One friend likes to remind me that 16 year olds in high school bathrooms are giving birth and raising babies and if they can do it, then I'll be fine. Since I like to take things as far as I can, I've started tivo'ing MTV's new show "16 and Pregnant" because it eases some of my fears. My other favorite show is "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" which causes me to hate myself for not being able to remove it from my tivo's to do list. Both of these shows make me feel like I'm bound to be a good mother because A) I'm not 16 and fighting with my baby daddy about if we should spend money on formula or getting the kid's name tattooed across our chests and B) because I'm well aware that I have a baby inside of me, am getting prenatal care, and won't go to the bathroom one day only to look down and find a baby in the toilet.

And speaking of being a good mother, I may not know how to bath or swaddle the kid when he gets here, but he will have the freaking cutest socks ever. Also jparks is now the proud (extremely proud) owner of a diaper dude bag so really we're 100% set for parenthood.

does this mean I have sister-wives?

Last Thursday jparks picked up and built the latest addition to the nursery, the crib. And then on Friday I went to an OB appointment and was told that I've reached the point in the pregnancy where I have to go in for check ups every two weeks. Because apparently we are having a baby soon. Both of those events sent my mind reeling because a baby needs things and I don't have things! Also, what do I know about babies? I'm afraid to even hold a newborn because they are breakable. Ask our friends that have kids, I won't touch the baby for a couple of weeks because I didn't want to be the person that is responsible for giving the kid a soft spot noogie on accident. And yet it appears I'm going to be bringing one home in about eight weeks.

This realization led to me scouring Baby Bargains for product reviews and then heading over to my registries to add and delete items obsessively. After searching for my Babies R Us registry I noticed this:



Whoa, jparks gets around! He's a man whore with babies all over the country!

And then on Amazon he has a few more baby mommas:



I feel so cheap and used. And a bit scared because here I thought I was just unleashing one mini-jparks onto the world, but I was so wrong. There will be many and, my god, the world is not ready for that.

I never would have guessed that I'm a SoCal kind of girl

Despite living in California for three years, I've never really ventured outside of the Bay Area. When jparks and I plan vacations, we tend to want to travel to places that require passports and plane rides or we head back to NOLA to visit family. We've both been itching for a vacation and since I had to make the drive down to Los Angeles to pick up my limping husband, I figured we should make a short vacation out of it. After consulting with someone that actually knows about Southern Cal, I booked us three nights in the Laguna Beach/Dana Point area. Holy crap, that Whoorl will not steer you wrong on vacation advice because the whole area was gorgeous.

Jparks' knee was really swollen and walking on uneven ground was not really an option, so we never made it to the beach, but that didn't stop us from lounging about while doing nothing. Our hotel room had two patios and one was large enough for two lounge chairs and a table, so we spent one afternoon on it, soaking up the sun. Or in my case, soaking up the shade while wearing SPF 50 and still getting sunburned. The only thing missing was a bottle of champagne.



We also carved out time to see a movie (The Hangover, which was pretty funny although totally ridiculous) and jparks was treated to a pedicure. When I picked him up from the ride he leaned in and whispered to me "I'm really looking forward to the pedicure" so I knew that even though I hadn't made us pedicure appointments, I would have to find a place to fit us in. And what do you know, I found a place:



The woman giving jparks his pedicure offered to give him a clear coat of polish but he was not on board for that. I didn't understand why not, I mean if you're getting a pedicure you might as well go all out. And it's clear polish, not red like I got.

All in all the four days away was wonderful and I am now hopelessly in love with that area. I expected extremely hot weather but was treated to temps lower than here in the perpetually cool Bay Area. Also the whole area was green and lush and I kept telling jparks that I want to live in Southern Cal where they take water for granted and have plenty of plants and trees. Not that we don't have green around here, but it's not nearly as wide spread. Damn us and our water conserving ways.

I can't wait to go back and hopefully next time jparks won't be a gimp so we can visit the beach, although I was told the water is too cold to go into without a wetsuit. Also, I can't wait to go back so we can go to Harbor House Cafe and have another monster banana split.

lackadaisical life

So it appears the crazy got turned down a couple of notches after I talked about it but in exchange my laziness went up a few notches. For example, we have three toilets in the house. Two have been out of toilet paper since Tuesday and the third was running dangerously low. I had toilet paper in the garage, but holy hell that's two flights of stairs away from some of the bathrooms. Instead of bringing the toilet paper into the actual house I just stopped using the two bathrooms with no paper. Now I do enter the garage at least two or three times a day yet it never occurred to me grab the toilet paper until I was in the house and by then I'm not walking back down the stairs. That's way too much activity for me.

I did finally cave and brought the toilet paper inside but only because I hit a point of no return where it was either bring it in or start using the baby wipes that a friend gave me. And since I'm fairly certain baby wipes aren't flushable and that's not a road I wanted to go down yet, toilet paper it had to be.

Besides my toilet paper laziness I have delayed packing for my trip down to Southern California until tonight and I leave in the morning. Also, I'm delaying it even more by typing this pointless post. On top of that I still have to take the trash out, fill out my unemployment form, and figure out directions to the VA Center in L.A. where jparks' AIDS Lifecycle ride ends. Maybe I should put some extra food out for the cats too. I'm also pretending that I didn't have a running list of errands and tasks to complete around the house this week because I only did one of them. Maybe. I can't really remember. Wait, yes, nap was on the list and I did that.

My crowning laziness achievement was when I went to the dry cleaners today to pick up some pants I had there. Turns out the pants were so far past their pick up date that the lady behind the counter said they don't usually allow people to pick up items that at this point, but because I'm pregnant and obviously have a lot on my mind, she would let me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I knew they needed to be picked up and even though I live within walking distance I just couldn't be bothered. Or that when I was at the grocery store numerous times in the past month the extra five steps to the cleaners would have killed me. I'm just too damn lazy for those five steps. I did however tell her that it was jparks fault, that he was the one that forgot the pants, not me. This of course, is totally not true in any way and I doubt he even knew the pants were there. When I told her that she shook her head, laughed, and said "That's husbands for you, always forgetting to run errands!" Ha, yes, husbands, darn them for being so lazy!

Now you'll have to excuse me as I end this abruptly because coming up with a coherent conclusion is obviously way too much work.

I remember when I lost my mind

With jparks being out of town this week (in case you're wondering he's doing okay. He hurt his knee today and now has to shave his leg so the medics can tape it up for him. I can't wait to see the one shaved leg look) I was expecting the level of crazy that I have to deal with to be at an all time low. I was wrong.

It started on Monday when I went to Whole Foods. I parked, was getting out of the car when an older man, maybe around 70, walked in front of my parked car and started yelling at me that I had almost run him over. I was a bit confused and asked if he meant while I was driving through the parking lot. He responded with a very yell-y "No, just now when I was walking in front of your car!" So yeah, I almost ran over a 70 year old with my parked car, while the keys were in my hand, the driver door was open, and I was halfway out the door. It's a talent I have. Not knowing what else to do, I apologized and headed towards the store. The whole walk across the parking lot he was yelling at me while people looked at us bewildered. I'm surprised I didn't come back to a car that had been keyed or at least covered in organic, free range eggs.

No, I'm not that lucky because what I came back to was way worse. As I exited the store I saw two people dry humping on the trunk of my car. My first thought was "damn teenagers!" but as I got closer I realized that this wasn't horny teenagers, this was horny 40 something year olds. Dry humping! On my car! I mean, come on people at least do it on your own cars, which were plenty of big enough to dry hump on or in. (Mercedes wagon, BMW 7 series. Plenty of humping room in those.) As I approached, still not quite knowing what to say, the couple noticed me and scurried back to their own cars which were parked on either side of mine. They never went in the store (neither car was there when I parked) and this leads me to believe that they were having an affair and decided to meet at their local Whole Foods for a little dry humping. Because nothing is sexier than a Whole Foods parking lot.

The final bit of crazy I've encountered this week was tonight when I went swimming at our neighborhood pool. Normally I try and go early in the morning or around 6:30 in the evening so there aren't many people there to be scared by my stomach. Tonight I got there and a woman was swimming laps, which is pretty common. She was swimming freestyle the whole time and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about her. Another couple showed up after 30 minutes and were sitting on the deck when lapper climbed out of the pool. Revealing that she was topless. And at least 60 years old. With droopy boobs. I nearly drowned because the shock of it was too much. The other couple was obviously shocked too, but thank god they still possessed their ability to speak, unlike me. As Droopy Boobs stood on the side of the pool drying off, the guy politely told her that this was a pool that is open to the whole neighborhood, that lots of kids come here to swim, and that it might be considerate for her to swim with some sort of top from now on. She thanked him for the advice and explained that she had just moved here and that she's used to topless swimming. Of course, she was topless while she explained all of this which was totally not awkward.

Dear crazy people of the Bay Area, I'm tired. And while I appreciate you guys going all out to keep me entertained while jparks is gone, do you think we could tone it down for the rest of the week? I don't have the energy to deal with anymore dry humping or dropping boobs. So let's reign it in and take our meds. Or at the very least, give me a few days on sanity and resume the crazy on Friday. Deal?

I'm told I'm measuring on schedule

Apparently something happened this week and I have shifted from "Is she pregnant or fat? I better just stare at her wild eyed and not comment since I can't really tell" to "Whoa she's pregnant. I better ask when she's due so if she goes into labor while I'm ringing her up I'll know what's going on." I don't know if it's because I finally caved and bought real maternity shirts or because holy crap I'm huge, but every day strangers have approached me to ask when I'm due.

I will admit that it's nice to finally know that people aren't looking and wondering if I've ever heard of the 30 Day Shred but at the same time it is very unsettling to have random people approach me to talk when I'm shopping at Target. Thankfully no one has gone for the stomach touch yet because seriously, friends only! And even letting friends do that took awhile for me to become comfortable with.

I think part of the reason that these questions and comments have caught me so off guard is because I am having a hard time seeing how big I'm getting. I mean, I know I'm big and I routinely walk around the house mooing at jparks, but knowing just how much I've grown week to week is a challenge. Thank god I don't wear pants with stretchy waistbands when I'm not pregnant because I would probably weigh 400 pounds and not even realize it.

Anyway, I'm tired since I skipped my nap today (woe is me) so let's just give the people want they want: evidence of my fatness

my own Lance Armstrong but with two balls

Last year when I decided I wanted to run a marathon, I asked jparks if he wanted to run it with me. He laughed and said no, not because the training would be too much, but because running was boring. I tried to tell him that running is not boring, especially if you run with a partner and even running alone is fun because of magical inventions called iPods and podcasts. He still couldn't be swayed and I went on my merry running way without him. Somewhere along my training jparks decided that maybe he should get a bike and this quickly spiraled into me meeting him at work one day where he was smiling like a fool and announcing "I'm going to ride my bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles!"

It's safe to say that when he first told me that I might have laughed because really? Have you guys met my princess of a husband? He was going to ride from SF to LA? No. No fucking way. I tried to explain that maybe this wasn't the best idea because if he thought running was boring, what was he going to do to entertain himself on really long bike rides where it's illegal to wear headphones? In fact, what was he going to do on really long bike rides when he actually had to you know, ride the bike? He refused to listen to me, mostly because he had already paid the registration fee, and started training.

That was back in November and since then he has really (surprisingly) committed a lot of time to training. Of course, since he's jparks there have been times when he wanted to quit, but did you know cycling is way more expensive of a sport than running? And nothing can motivate him like me getting upset over the cost of his bike, jerseys, or other random crap required for rides. For once my nagging skills were useful.

Since this ride is in support of the AIDS foundations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, jparks had to raise at least $3000. I'm not going to lie, I thought I would be the one raising the money for him and was a bit annoyed. But Whitney came to our rescue and designed some posters for jparks to hang around his office that helped him come up with the money in record time. I think it was because we hit on the perfect sales pitch: "Want to get rid of jparks for a week? Donate here!"

After months of training, fund raising, nagging from me, sores knees, sunburned stripes on his bald head, and countless gu packs he leaves on Sunday morning for a 545 mile trek down to Los Angeles. For seven days jparks will ride most of the length of California, sleeping at night in a tent (did I mention the camping? oh yes, camping. hahahaha) and eating whatever is served in the food lines. Honestly I can't imagine jparks doing any of those things but I know he will because he's too stubborn to quit at this point. And besides all his coworkers donated so they could be jparks free for a week and I'm surely not going to let him sit at home and pester me all day so they can have their week of quiet.

Like I mentioned, he has reached the minimum amount of money needed to go on the ride, but if you want to show your support for jparks or the AIDS foundations, donations can be made here: To Fight HIV.

I know how hard and time consuming training for something can be and I'm incredibly surprised that my ADD husband was able to stick with this for the past seven months. I gave him a lot of crap throughout his training because that's who I am, but honestly I'm really proud of him. Even if now he has little chicken legs and weighs less than me.

never before have I seemed like such a spoiled brat

For the past month or so I've been telling anyone that will listen that jparks and I are becoming a one car family at the end of May. While it might have seemed like I was bragging because I am so green with my one car and you're not, you Earth killer, really I was just trying to get myself excited about the idea of sharing a car, which is something I have never had to do before. Because I am a spoiled brat I got my own car at 15 and have had my own car since then. Throughout our relationship jparks and I have each had our own cars and we've never had to plan ahead to make sure the other person has transportation. So basically having one car is going to be quite the lifestyle change for us and that change is finally here.

Up until yesterday I was pretty okay with the idea of having one car. The lease was ending on my car in May and in February, when we made the decision to only have one car, that was hella far away. Tonight my car goes back to the dealership and we attempt to walk away without Volvo pushing another car on us. I think it's safe to say that I would be the easy sell on a new car and jparks might actually end up being the sensible one in this situation. My plan is to bring a book and stick my nose in it, only looking up to explain why my rims are scraped to the point of unrecognizable (I love nothing more than running them into curbs) and to sign the paperwork.

While I would like to claim we are dropping one car to be more environmentally friendly, the truth is that since getting laid off we've been looking for small ways to spend less and ditching a car seems like the easiest way to go. We're also not saying that we will never again have two cars because honestly I think this can only last so long before one of us (read as me) loses their mind trying to juggle our schedules. My goal is to make it until January with one car and if I haven't lost my mind by then, we'll reassess and try to continue for a few more months. If I have lost my mind, we'll start the debate over what kind of car to get. That's when everyone will see that I'm not really the spoiled brat in this house, and that jparks, Mr. I Want A Tesla, is and all will be right in the world again.

ready for the worst

If there was ever a website that I didn't need to know about, it's Quake Prediction.com. Actually, knowing about the site isn't the worst thing in the world, but knowing about and following the guy's twitter account might just be the dumbest thing I've done recently. As if I didn't obsess enough about earthquakes before (I actually asked jparks what would happen if I was getting an epidural and an earthquake happened during it and I became paralyzing from getting my spine nicked. The instructor at our child birth class looked at me like I was insane, but I swear that is a valid concern.) now I can have earthquake predictions sent directly to my phone! And look, the Bay Area can expect an earthquake in the next couple of days! Joy of joys now I get to spend three days wondering when my house will collapse.

I have a flair for the dramatic.

I'm not blindly believing whatever predictions this guy throws out, I'm believing him because he predicted the quakes in Los Angeles earlier this week and one right predictions makes you an earthquake genius in my book. And speaking of those quakes, let me confess to being a self centered asshole. When I read that they had just happened, I didn't think "I hope no one was hurt!" No, I thought "Thank god they happened now and not when I'm in the area in two weeks! And this means the pressure will be released and I'll not have to worry about any while I'm there! win-win!" So yeah, I'm an asshole.

After I told jparks about my new web obsession and his eye rolling stopped, he showed me an app for the G1 that alerts you to earthquakes around the world. Because even if the earthquake happens 10,000 miles away I need to know about it. And the best part about having this info on my phone is that when it alerts me to an earthquake in another part of the world, I can look at my current surroundings and figure out what thing would crush me if the earthquake had happened to me right then. So far CostCo, Lowe's, and Home Depot seem like the scariest places to be during an earthquake. So many heavy items stored high above my head just waiting to crush me. Fun!

Some might call this a sickness, I call it a hobby.

so close, yet so far

Holy shit, I'm 27 weeks pregnant. The other night I turned to jparks and said "I've been pregnant forever and I still have to be pregnant forever. Fuck this." I just keep waiting for the magical part of pregnancy to start, but instead of it I seem to get the heartburn, crazy hormones, oh my god why am I so damn hot all the time part of pregnancy. Over and over and over again. Seriously body, enough with this crap, when will I start pooping rainbows and seeing unicorns? When will I glow? Do I need to sacrifice an animal to get some magic to happen over here? Because it could be arranged, just give the word.

The newest pregnancy related developments are that jparks was finally able to feel some movement and I've hit what I call the hibernation stage. As far as jparks feeling his first kicks, he was super excited of course. I've been offering to poke him anytime his kid kicks me, but apparently that's not the same as actually feeling movement. The funny part about jparks getting to feel kicks is that normally the kid stops moving whenever he puts a hand on me. This is great for when I'm trying to fall asleep and the kid is playing dance, dance revolution on my organs. Jparks puts a hand on my stomach and it's game over and I can sleep. So finally feeling kicks is great for him and mildly annoying for me. Now how am I supposed to calm the kid down? Maybe whiskey would help him relax.

Throughout this pregnancy I've been nap resistant. It's not that I feel the need to go go go all the time, but it's more that I'm unemployed and really want to be able to tell people that I did something other than sleep the day away. But in the past few days something has changed and the naps will not be stopped. I'm sleeping in much later in the mornings and afternoons are now for naps whether I like it or not. Yesterday I sat down to pet the cat for a minute and woke up an hour later feeling confused and holding the cat in a death grip. Lesson learned, the nap is not to be avoided.

And really that's about all the new with the whole pregnancy thing. I'm finally showing although I still think I just look fat. We haven't done anything else to the nursery since buying the dresser. I should probably get around to ordering a crib and maybe buying some diapers or something, but like I said before I still have forever left in this pregnancy. Plenty of time to shop and enjoy the miracle of life disguised as heartburn and gas.