the trouble with names

We're now a month out from my due date and it seems jparks and I are no closer to picking a name for this kid than we were nine months ago. Technically we are right on track with our naming history as Truman was two days old before he had a name but this time we really wanted to do better. Sadly, we are failing at this endeavor.

Here's the thing: there's a name I really love but I'm torn about using it because it has become very visible and is now associated with a celebrity. And so I'm asking y'all for advice.

Let's pretend the name I love is Bella. (It's not) Would y'all think I'm some nutty Twilight fan (which I suppose I am as I've read all the books and went to a screening of all the movies back to back but that's beside the point) or would you think that I just really like the name Bella? I mean Bella was a legitimate name option for parents before Twilight ever came into existence. It wasn't just an emotionless Kristen Steward fawning over an inappropriately old sparkly vampire; it was a cute name for little girls.

What if we took it a step farther and I said the name I love is Oprah (again, I swear it is not). There is definitely an attachment of the name Oprah to the media proprietor Oprah Winfrey. Like I even needed to say that. Hell, her name didn't exist until she came around because her parents created it by reversing Harpo. But what if I really loved it? What if I could remove the tv personality from the name and see Oprah as the perfect name for my kid? Again, would you think I'm some nutjob that secretly has Oprah's face tattooed on her back?

So what say you dear internet friends? Am I dooming a kid if I use a name that is currently associated with a celebrity? Will everyone think jparks and I spend our spare time stalking said celebrity? Or can people remove the celebrity from the name and accept that we're not crazy? Is it really back to the drawing board for us? Not that we really ever left the drawing board in the first place.

(For the record, even if you say you can all remove the celebrity from the name, it's not certain we'll go with that name. Jparks doesn't love it yet which is how he feels about almost all the names I like.)

but I won't do that

I sort of hate all of y'all for not shaking me really hard when I mentioned I was going to have renovations done on the house while continuing to try to live in it. And while parenting a toddler. And creating another child with my own body. Friends, it is your job to talk me out of stupid decisions. Like if I announced I was going to name New Baby "Strawberry Pie Parks" because that's been what I most want to eat, I fully expect you to say "What the hell lady? Try again!" (Please note, this is not what I expect if I say we've already filled out her birth certificate using the name Strawberry Pie Parks. In that case make fun of me all you want but only silently or behind my back.)

Anyway, here we are 5 days into the estimated 5 week remodel and I'm about to lose my damn mind. Let me take you on a tour so you can also feel my pain.

Here's the master bathroom:

I like to think of the walls as a giant game of Tetris now. Also, you know what's fun? Playing "Shit, I forgot to move my toothbrush off the counter this morning, where did the painters hide it?"


Who doesn't love having a shop vac covered in drywall dust just hanging out in their living room all the time?


or random disassembled ceiling fans hanging out in a corner


Truman views the paper on the floor not as something we need to keep down for protection, but as something to shred and rip apart and sometimes draw on. The dog views it as a convenient place to pee.


While all of this work is enough to send me directly into a mental ward, there have been some nice moments about it. Like the other day when I needed a jar opened and couldn't get it on my own; I had a house full of men to assist me. I did not have to do without my jelly sandwich.

Or today when the whole painting crew broke out into song. What song? My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. It was truly an awesome moment. They've been really great about asking before they turn on music and I always tell them to go ahead. They spend their day painting to the Spanish radio station and today was no different. I usually zone the music out so I thought for sure I was wrong with I heard that opening flute part, but after a few seconds I knew not only was the station playing Celine but the whole crew was singing along with her. I was in my room really trying hard not to laugh at them. Some of the guys on the crew barely speak English but they knew all the words to the Titanic theme. How is that even possible? Why would the Spanish station play her? Why were the guys so proudly singing along with it? Next week can I expect a rendition of Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love" because that might just make all the dust worth it.

I am dumb dumb dumb

Oh lord, it has been a day.

At one point my living room looked like this:


Then I got a wild hair up my ass and made this happen:


I do not recommend renovations to your home when you're 33 weeks pregnant.

To decompress after some bad news about the master bathroom that sent me into a blind rage I watered my lawn:


I never thought I would be a person that enjoys using a decorative sprinkler to water the lawn but enjoy it I did! Now if my grass could just stop dying a slow death I would be really happy.

thanks to all the pumping, I have the arm strength of a lonely 15 year old boy

I will pay someone $100 to come over here and blow up a kiddie pool for me. No really, come on over, bring your lungs, and blow your heart out. I can't promise that you won't pass out from exhaustion but I can promise that if you do, I'll be sure to put a cool rag on your head until you wake up. I don't have smelling salts, but I do have fancy sea salt that I can wave under your nose while you're unconscious.

The stupid blow up pool now sadly lives on my back patio because a few weeks ago I realized that sitting outside while Tru plays causes me to become very hot. Like so hot that I use the hose like a gun and repeatedly shoot myself in the head.

And while hose gun does help keep me coolish, I thought I could do better. I'm not normally a pool type person so I didn't want anything huge or even close to semi-permanent, so I decided to go the blow up kiddie pool route. I figured we had an air pump so how hard could it be to inflate a kiddie pool?

hahahahahaha. I am so fucking stupid.

Here's the pool I bought:

I pictured lying in it, using the slide as a pillow with the little water spout sprinkling cool water on my swollen, disgusting ankles. Ah, relaxing.

Well, here we are after a week of kiddie pool ownership and this is what we have:

Turns out that damn pool has one of those bite valve things that you have to clamp down on while you blow* to get it to inflate. And the hand pump is pretty hard to use with one of those bite valve things. So every time I take Tru out back to play, I sit on the patio and pump pump pump. And then I pump pump pump some damn more. This has gone on for days and that's what the pool still looks like. By the time I get it fully inflated the summer will be over and I will have birthed this damn baby and no longer need a kiddie pool to stay cool.

So what do you say, care to come over with your lungs and blow up my pool? When you're done I might even give you a turn in it. Maybe. At the very least I'll let you use my hose gun on your head for a minute.

*come on, this is just dirty.

Trying not to burn my bridge yet

It seems the pregnancy insomnia has hit me hard and I'm so damn tired. Also it appears that no matter how little I drink before bed or how late I stay up, I wake up at 5:56am to pee. So yes, my nights have become a wonderful mixture of staying up until ungodly late hours, then getting up to pee a short time later and having to fight my way back to sleep. Basically I am a real peach during the day.

Speaking of being a peach during my waking hours, did you know we've lived in our house for two and a half months and we still have no mirrors in our bathrooms and no covers on our windows. This adds to the real peachyness I have going on. I just want a mirror! Do you know how challenging life without a mirror over your sink is? I can only imagine what my hair looks like. Thank god I have wonderful friends that don't comment on what is surely a rat's nest when they see me.

To combat the crankiness I've been self medicating with this:

Which you can imagine has done wonders for my weight. Is it bad to be 32 weeks pregnant and dreaming of the diet you are going to start once you squeeze out the kid? Because I am. Weighing pieces of food! I can't wait! And tracking calories! Why does this sound so exciting?

(also, you guys go to Target and get a box of that Reese's mix right now. It's so good and no bake! Please get fat with me!)