out of Kadesh

In the spirit of the new year, and because I am feeling inspired by my favorite blogger, I thought I’d comprise a list of the top events of 2009. It’s been probably the craziest year of my life so far, and it definitely deserves documentation.

1. I came back to Virginia after last year’s holidays with severe depression, and I realized it was because I didn’t want to wait another 365 days to be with my family and my friends. Lance and I started thinking about moving back southward. Me because of what I just said, Lance because he was tired of me crying while I made dinner. It made everything taste too salty.

2. I found out I was pregnant. Depression gave way to joy, but major anxiety began. Also major lack of bladder control.

3. My friends threw me one killer surprise birthday party; the theme was “Pretty Pretty Princess.”

4. Clinton Kelley from What Not to Wear told me to “work it.” (It = my hot body. Yeah, that’s what I said.)

5. I went to the Tony Awards. This stands alone, but let it be known that it’s also where Elton John asked me to marry him. (Ok, he only passed by me so close I could have reached out and touched him if not for his security detail and my crippling intimidation. So what if he’s gayer than Liza Minnelli’s fan club? If he only KNEW me, he would want me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

6. I quit my job. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I miss everyone terribly. I miss theater terribly. I even miss working, but not as terribly.

7. We moved in with my parents for two months. A scary decision, since my mom and I have never really seen eye-to-eye, especially when we see each other’s said eyes every day. But it was actually really good, apart from a few inevitable arguments. My parents’ generosity is what brought us where we are now.

8. We bought a house in Nashville. It took what seemed like forever, but we finally found one perfect for us. Also perfect for us was that $8,000 tax rebate, but I digress.

9. Lance got bit by a dog!

10. I had a baby. A big, beautiful baby boy. My cousin says having a child is like having your heart and soul on the outside of your body, and that is true. My life will never be the same. As insane as this year has been, I think it goes without saying that this is the single most amazing event of the year… actually of my life. (Well, apart from my one-night-stand with Elton. But he asked me not to tell anyone about it. He’s supposed to be gay.)

So there it is folks, my year in one sarcastic list. I’m surprised it’s only ten things to be honest… although I guess I left out some pretty significant things, like “got a TV for Christmas” and “ate at Rosie’s Mexican Cantina” and “resumed drinking glorious glasses of wine and eating mounds of raw fish post-pregnancy” and “made some new friends and reconnected with some old friends here in Nashville,” and “was told my blog is offensive by someone who keeps reading it regardless, then tells Lance how offensive it is and that she’s praying for my ‘behavior,’ even though the real solution is for her to just STOP READING THIS,” but I decided to leave many of those events out for the sake of keeping my list short and sweet. The point is, this year has been nuts but also so wonderful, and Lord I’m grateful to You for all the ways You blessed us that I didn’t even ask You for or imagine possible.

Happy New Year everyone! May 2010 be the best one of your life so far.

Well, the baby is three weeks old, and the nursery is almost finished. There are a bunch of decorator things I want to do still, like make a mobile for him, get a big stuffed giraffe, get this ridiculously cute hamper, and hang some family pictures, and it still lacks a rug, but other than that it’s coming along nicely. Noah doesn’t spend much time in here yet anyway, since he sleeps mostly in a bassinet beside our bed right now, and most of the time he falls asleep in his swing, which yes I realize is going to be a huge problem for us when we want him to learn how to sleep in his crib, but you make sacrifices when your baby has a cold and can’t breathe lying flat on his back. Sue me.

These insanely cute paintings are by the ridiculously talented Kelly Fly. Buy her stuff. You’ll thank yourself.

These puff balls are by Kelly Fly also. They were from my baby shower, and they were too cute to toss. Now they serve as a distraction when I change Noah’s diaper. Because he hates that. You’d think getting out of poopy pants would be a good thing, but he really doesn’t like his butt being exposed. Those other instruments of torture on the dresser are Q-tips and rubbing alcohol for cleaning his umbilical cord. Poor guy. He has next to no rights around here.

Before you start talking to me about how he shouldn’t have anything in his crib like stuffed animals or blankets, let me just remind you that he can’t move around very much yet, and when he IS able to, I’ll remove the offending objects. For now I think he appreciates having jungle friends in there with him.

Please excuse me, I didn’t have time or energy to remove the red from his eyes. I figured you’d be forgiving in light of his bad-ass outfit.

As if that wasn’t bonus enough, here’s Bonus #2: my kitchen! I promised pictures of it months ago, but I’m just now getting around to it…

It’s teeny, but don’t you just love this color? Makes it so much more cheery. And if you need any, I have loads of extra cabinet and counter space.

Remember what I said about the red-eye? Well the same is true for the blurriness. I went around this morning, while the kid was content in his crib for five minutes, and snapped as many shots as I could. Forgive the flaws, Reader. I mean I may not be the best photographer in the world, but check out my awesome eating/blogging/coffee drinking nook. The picture is of Rome, and it’s from a calendar. I had Lance put it in this frame with some matte board.

These swanky jars are from World Market.

Yes, those are dirty dishes in the sink. Sheesh. This is another Kelly Fly original painting, by the way. It says “Give us clean hands.” I thought it belonged above the sink. I cannot paint and I cannot craft, but I’m lucky to have a dear friend who does all of the above. I have a lot of her stuff in my house.

Like this painting in Bonus #3: One wall of my living room! And the hallway!

This morning, Lance took Noah into his office so I could shower for the first time in two days and I took advantage of him by sitting on the couch afterward with a cup of coffee and my thoughts. (Which I was having some of! For the first time in… how old is Noah? Three weeks?) No seriously, I’ve been processing about five blog posts in my head, all dealing with different topics, but I can’t sit down and write any of them, and today I realized it’s because I’m like, totally destroyed y’all. I need to completely alter my website, change its name to NOAH’S TIRED MOMMY or LEAKY BREAST MILK or HOW I STOP THE DOG FROM LICKING MY KID’S HEAD ALL THE LIVELONG DAY. I’m just saying, how does one write on one’s blog that used to be comprised of relatively boring thoughts and events that were grossly exaggerated for the sake of humor when one’s life has been completely and irrevocably altered by the birth of one’s first son? On the other hand, I find myself feeling desperate for a sense of my own identity again, something apart from just being a source of nourishment for this little person. I went to the grocery store today while my sister baby sat, and it felt really good to be out in the world of adults for about ten minutes. But then I started rushing around, getting angry when I looked at my list and realized I’d forgotten something in the dairy aisle WHEN I’D ALREADY BEEN DOWN THE DAIRY AISLE. I was wasting time! DIDN’T THE SOUR CREAM KNOW I NEEDED TO BE HOME WITH MY SON?! What am I, nuts? Or is this normal? Or is there no such thing as “normal” after you have a kid?

And Noah is growing. It’s hard to believe when I stick him up to my boob, he’s actually drinking milk that my body is producing… and he’s gaining weight! (He still seems confused where food actually comes from. He opens his mouth in midair like, “if I open wide enough, boob will be here.”) At last week’s pediatrician visit, we found out he’d gained over a pound and he’d grown a half inch already. Which means THIS week, he’s probably gained another pound and grown even more. He’s out of some of his newborn outfits already. And oh, my gosh, I never thought I’d discuss my kid’s poo on my blog, but I’m kind of a little bit proud: he has twice now projectile shat all the way across the dresser and onto the floor. We spend our evenings cleaning up crusty poo that finds its way into the most unusual places.

At three weeks of age, Noah loves sponge baths, tummy-time, his pacifier, and his baby swing, and hates getting his nose suctioned, having his diaper changed, and being put down for a nap. He’s really hot-natured; he gets super sweaty and angry if he’s too hot. He’s so funny too; he has this little cry that’s like “uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh” when he’s sleepy, and a cry that is like “AAAHHHH!!!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!” which I’ve discovered means “BRING ME THOSE BOOBS! NOW!” He can already make little cooing sounds too, when he’s happy, which is like the highlight of my life. And he’s just now starting to focus on our faces, if we get right down close to him. When he’s not looking into our eyes, he’s trying to focus on his nose, which gives him cross eyes, which is really funny. Equally funny is when he smiles really big, because it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen but we know it’s probably just gas. He sleeps with both arms up around his head, like he’s in a hold-up. He makes a face like “oooooo.” He’s literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. It’s actually painful how beautiful he is.

As for me, I’m feeling about 90% better. Post-holidays are always a bit bluesy for me, but otherwise I’m doing alright. The Baby Blues, or post-partem hormonal crazies, are almost totally gone. I feel a world of difference between now and when I first brought Noah home, partly because we’re settling into a routine and there aren’t as many unknowns, but partly just because the hormones have calmed down and I’ve been able to mellow out a little bit. When we walked in the door with him asleep in his car seat for the very first time, I looked around my house and realized everything was wrong. There was dust on the furniture and a hairball in the corner of the floor, and pieces of dust were floating in the air in a patch of sunlight, and I just couldn’t take it at all. All this dirt and dust was too much for his tiny nose and WHAT KIND OF RAT-INFESTED HOVEL HAD I BROUGHT MY BABY HOME TO?! Then there was just the overall sense that I’d never get to sleep when I wanted, have sex when I wanted, have a date when I wanted, leave the house when I wanted, etc., ever again. That’s combined with the overwhelming fear of losing him to SIDS I was feeling too, and compounded by the complete exhaustion. It was intense.

Well, sorry this is so abrupt, but I’m afraid that’s all the time I have today folks. My baby just started crying from his crib and my boobs all but sprayed milk all over the keyboard. Time to go relieve the girls.

After I fed him for half an hour, Noah barfed on me. When I got out of the shower, I found him like this:

I’m getting skinnier every day, which is encouraging. I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans again. My tummy is still painfully dough-y. If I poke it with my finger, my finger disappears. On the flip side, the girls are ginormous! I heard about this, but was not prepared for the sight of myself in the mirror. I look better than I ever have before, although it occurred to me that might be because I’m used to looking in the mirror and seeing a protruding navel sitting atop a mountain of belly, and calves and ankles so swollen you couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Now I’m slender with huge boobs and my ankles appropriately taper again. I look like a porn star.

Other than that, physically I feel like I’ve been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. I’m dead tired, and my vagina still hurts. Also, for the first time ever, I’m constipated. I’m on prescription stool softeners, which I’m not sure are doing me any good. See, I have only ever known the pain of a diarrhea existence, so now I feel for all you constipated people out there. I consent – it’s equally painful. I imagined you just felt sort of annoyingly bloated, but when cramps hit me so bad this morning that I had to remove Noah from my boob to run to the bathroom, I realized how wrong I was. And trying to poo with a starving baby screaming in the background is not easy, let me tell you.

Also, I bet you didn’t know this. After having a kid, you have to wear a pad for like six weeks. I’m on a six week period, no tampons allowed.

Have you absorbed all the information you came here for today, Reader?

First let me just congratulate myself on having it together long enough to even write this first sentence that may some day be an actual blog post, when A) Noah could give a shit if he interrupts me, and B) my brains are so fried that all I have room in here for is WHICH BOOB DID I START WITH LAST TIME?!

Life with a newborn is so much more challenging than I was prepared for. Throw in the raging hormones from birth and it’s downright overwhelming. I almost don’t feel like I have any business saying that – I probably had the easiest labor and delivery on the planet. Seriously, you’re going to hate me. I didn’t have any painful contractions – my water just broke. It was about 1am; I was in bed and I got up to pee and there was this cute little leak that happened down my legs. And I was all, “Lance! I think my water just broke!” and Lance and I are like hooray, yippee! Let’s call the doctor, how great, your water broke! And I was like “I think I’ll take a shower, that felt a little gross.” So Lance called the doctor and I washed off the cute broken water in the shower, thinking that was it! Then I got out of the shower and GUSHED AMNIOTIC FLUID ALL OVER THE FLOOR. I am so not kidding – they don’t tell you this about breaking water. It’s a constant flow of sticky fluid that pours out in rivers until the birth of your child. By the time we got to the hospital I had soaked through two pads and my sweat pants, and was leaking onto the rug in the floor of the car. Yeah, don’t ride in my front seat any time soon, by the way… when Noah is two or three maybe I’ll have time to shampoo it but for now, DRIED AMNIOTIC FLUID. SORRY. I walked into the hospital and my shoes were so squishy that it sounded like “squelch squelch squelch” across the floor. The check-in nurse was all “Oh my, you look terrible! Are you having painful contractions?” and I was like “Not at all, I’m just SOAKED and it’s GROSS.” And then she looked down and saw the puddle around my pants and thought to herself about how nice it would be to have any other profession besides one where she spent the wee hours of the morning cleaning up another woman’s amniotic fluid.

After I got checked in they put me in a bed with a huge puppy training pad underneath me (at least, that’s what it looked like) and hooked me up to a fetal heartbeat monitor and a contraction monitor, and then came the IV. Oh, my gosh, how I hate the IV. I know you’re thinking, are you kidding me? You’re about to have a baby and you’re worried about an IV? This is surely what the nurse was thinking when she was pressing around my hand to find a suitable vein. Also probably what Lance was thinking when he said “I’ll run out and get the rest of the stuff from the car, ok?” And I said “NO! DON’T LEAVE ME!” I can’t explain it, just something about having a huge needle stuck into my hand where there are so many bones… and having it stay there all taped up… it fucking hurts, ok!? Anyway, after that nightmare was finally over, they were like “Ok! Get some sleep! We’ll check your progress at 5:00.” So Lance and I slept. Yeah! We slept from 2:00 to 5:00! At 5:00 they checked me and I hadn’t progressed at all, so they shot me up with some petocin, which I was nervous about, but then I went back to sleep until a painful contraction woke me up.

Enter, BEST NURSE EVER. If you ever deliver at Nashville’s Baptist Hospital, I hope you get Toni because she kicks ass. She brought me Mr. Anesthesiologist, who is like the second highest paid medical personnel after Brain Surgeon or something, and he deserves it because he makes it all better. He gave me my new best friend, the Epidural. 20 minutes later my family was in the room with me and we were laughing and talking and they were all like “WHOA that was a big contraction! Did you feel it???” And I was like “Nope.” Also I was like “Oops, my leg just fell off the bed… Mom, can you pick it back up and put it back, please?”

So that was it… I went from being dilated to five centimeters to nine centimeters (you need to be ten to deliver a kid) in about 20 minutes. They came in, they told me to push, I pushed. Three times. My doctor came in, she told me to push, I pushed. Two times. Then Noah was born. Folks, that’s it. That’s my story. The worst part was the afterbirth… I bled too much and couldn’t hold Noah for what felt like an eternity because they had to massage the clots out of my uterus according to my OB (WTF!?) and I lost too much blood because the kid was OVER NINE POUNDS. Oh and his head was humongous because he has Lance and me for parents, so they had to give me an episiotomy (which, for those of you who don’t know, is what happens when your vag is too small for your baby’s humongous head so they cut your taint), and although I didn’t feel it at the time, it does hurt afterward, which is why they prescribed me about seventeen bottles of pain killers.

I can’t explain this in words, which is a problem for a blog post I realize, but I have never been so overwhelmed by anything in my whole life as I was when they held up my son for me to see for the first time. I just started crying, and I looked at my mom and sister and they were crying too, and Lance was cutting the cord, and then I got to say hi to my baby for a second before they whisked him away and my OB started squishing my uterus and making me want to claw her eyes out. Seeing him for the first time – hearing him… it was the most magical and precious thing I’ve ever known.

But anyway, back to what I was saying… life with a newborn is insane. There’s not a moment when I’m not thinking “when did he last eat” or “is he too hot?” or “is he too cold?” or “should he be napping, or should he be awake?” or “can he breathe?” or “is he dirty” or “is he wet?” or “what does he need, what does he need, what does he need!??” My already neurotic tendencies have taken on a whole new lifestyle all of their own. They are in Neurotic Heaven. The little sanity I once had is long, long gone. You always think you won’t be one of those mothers, the ones with dried breast milk caked into her hair, projectile barf and shit on her sheets that she only dabbed with a baby wipe before going back to sleep in them, the same pajama pants on for six days in a row. But the truth is you don’t have time for you. I sponge bathe HIM, feed HIM, change HIM when he’s soaked through his 11th onesie of the day, and Lance is on the same routine. It’s absolutely been the most difficult thing I have ever done, and he’s only eight days old.

Yesterday we did get out. We took Noah to my parents’ house so they could watch him while we finished up our Christmas shopping. The urge to call and check on him was almost overwhelming. I literally had my hand on my phone inside my purse. He’s eight days old and can’t do anything but cry and poop and suck on my boob, but I’m more in love with him than I can even begin to express. And when he keeps me up all night long and I’m so exhausted all I want to do is sleep FOREVER, but then for one second after his diaper gets changed he looks at me and coos, my heart is totally wrapped around him. I’ll have to do a post about the “Baby Blues” some other time, but one day last week, as I was nursing him, I leaned down and whispered “I love you, Noah,” and unbidden tears leaped to my eyes. Part of me knows it’s hormonal, all the times I start weeping when three seconds earlier I was laughing, but I realized, in that moment, that no matter how much he grows up and loves me, he’ll never be able to love me as much as I love him, and it doesn’t even matter. It’s an all-consuming, unconditional, does-not-need-to-be-reciprocated love. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Noah Linden Roggendorff

9.2 pounds, 21 inches

The doctor swears he’s ours, even though he was born without a beard.

His lungs seem to work…

He has my chin!

And Lance’s hair!

In short…. my Blueberry is effing perfect.

The night before I came down with the Horrible, Nasty, Unfair, Mean Plague, I read this verse in Psalms: “Don’t you know He enjoys giving rest to those He loves?” (127:2) It was so lovely and encouraging, and I showed it to Lance, and I went to sleep with a content little smile on my face. The Lord enjoys giving rest to those He loves! Isn’t that great? La la la.

Fast forward to 4:30am. I wake up, per normal these late pregnancy days, but with knives of fire inside my throat in addition to my full bladder and growling stomach, and I’m all, OH CRAP. Quick background: when I first met my doctor here, she gave me a list of approved medications for pregnancy, and I thought to myself, “oh, I won’t use any of those.” And until last week, I prided myself on having only taken a low dosage of Tylenol when an extreme headache persisted, maybe three times throughout all 39 of my weeks of child-carrying. Then last Thursday happened. Now my first instinct was to call on the Lord. With that verse fresh in my memory, I asked Him to heal me and take away the cold pronto, knowing that He not only COULD do it, but WANTED to.

Thursday night: the cold got worse. I was in pain, so I took some Tylenol. My parents and sister made me some chicken noodle soup and brought it over and I smugly thought, great, it’s definitely over after today! I took care and rested, drank fluids, and ate chicken noodle soup.

Friday morning wee hours: woke up with fever symptoms. My skin ached; my muscles ached. My throat was still on fire, and I couldn’t breathe. I had gotten maybe a collective four hours of sleep. I was miserable. Lance pulled out that list of medicines considered safe and gave me some. I don’t remember what it was, because since Friday I have taken Tylenol, Tylenol Multi-Symptom, Mucinex, Mucinex DM, and Afrin. I’ve also sucked my way through the baby’s weight in Riccola Lozenges and slathered myself with more Vick’s Vapor Rub than I’d have imagined possible, taken 30 minute steamy showers and stuck my head over steaming pots of water, used up an entire bottle of Nasal Saline Solution, drunk two gallons of orange juice and probably as much cranberry juice, taken Vitamin C several times a day, sipped hot chicken broth and tea, sucked on about a dozen popsicles, and gone through two boxes of Kleenex. I have even GARGLED WITH SALT WATER, which is the absolute most revolting thing of all time besides spraying Chloresceptic spray, which I have only ever attempted when I know my choice is between that and the Apocolypse. And Reader, I’ve sprayed FOUR SQUIRTS THIS WEEK. IN MY MOUTH! I’ve spent entire days in bed or on the sofa, trying to scare the cold away with enough rest. And guess what.

IT’S DAY SIX. IT’S STILL HERE. And it’s showing no signs of stopping, since last night I woke up with those knives of fire in my chest now, too.

Ok. All the time that I’ve been sick, I’ve spent my waking hours begging God to heal me. It would take Him like two seconds. Yes, I know there are people way worse off than me, I mean my gosh it’s just a little cold. Let me say this though: I have asked God to instantly heal the following: headaches, a swollen eye, and anemia, and He has done it. It’s always miraculous. One second my head is pounding, the next second the pain is completely and totally gone. One minute doctors are telling me I need prescription iron pills for the rest of my life, the next they don’t know why my iron levels look fine. So I have experience with God’s instant healing power, and I believe He doesn’t care how tiny the problem is; He still can and will take care of it. After all, if I can’t trust GOD to heal something tiny like a sore thumb or something, how am I going to trust ANYONE to heal things like cancer? So I keep asking Him about this cold. And few things test my faith, Reader, but this truly has. I started doing something I almost never do: questioning why. Why is He allowing me to go through this torture? Why isn’t He doing what, according to that psalm, He would ENJOY, and giving me rest?

I posed this question to Lance this weekend while he was drying dishes and I was, worn out by the journey from the sofa to the kitchen table, sitting there watching him. I said “God knows I will worship Him no matter what… and I know He’s not like a slot machine or something, but I just don’t understand why He won’t zap this cold. Is He ignoring me? Am I supposed to be learning something from being sick?” And Lance, with the calmness and wisdom of Calvin’s tiger Hobbes, goes “Maybe God IS giving you rest. If you weren’t sick, you would be running around like crazy trying to get all this stuff done. Maybe He’s just making you slow down during these last couple of weeks before the baby comes.”

And I, similar to the aforementioned comic strips, sat there blinking like Calvin in the truth of what he’d said. Would I, if I weren’t sick, be spending 90% of my life in bed, drinking lots of fluids? (Um, no, I would not, because it’s really boring.)

DON’T GET ME WRONG, I still plead with Jesus to rid my face and chest of all the EXTRA FREAKING MUCOUS that currently resides there. And I went to the OB today and told her about the Horrible, Nasty, Unfair, Mean Plague and how it refuses to go away, and she was like “Yeah, it’s a lot harder to get over something when you’re pregnant. I can give you an antibiotic and you should make sure to take Mucinex every 12 hours.” I was all “But I’m scared of all the medicines I’ve been taking hurting the baby,” and she was all “The medicine won’t hurt him, but not getting enough oxygen because his mom has an upper respiratory infection will,” and I was all “Where’s my prescription?”

But even though this cold cannot be gone soon enough, I’m starting to realize that God giving me rest doesn’t necessarily have to look the way I thought it would. Now, am I saying God MADE me sick? No, not at all. I’m just saying that even though I don’t understand Him all the time, I believe He’s a loving God with our best interests at heart, and maybe what looks like His apathy is really more like His love. And truly, if I COULD understand Him, would He be God?

Besides getting rest, I’ve also noticed that I’m gaining superior ab control from blowing my nose so often, and I’m doing probably a hundred Kegels a day from all the coughing. Now I don’t know about you, but I would NEVER be doing that many on my own. When I told that to Lance he was all “You must cough really weird,” and I was all “I have to squeeze when I cough to keep myself from squirting pee.”

I can’t WAIT to see the popular web searches from this post!

In my defense, the doctor said the average weight gain of a pregnant lady over Thanksgiving was 8 to 10 pounds. Mostly, she says, because of all the gravy and other salty goodness that such a pregnant lady consumes. Which means it’s all “water weight,” or weight that comes from retaining an inordinate amount of fluid that a pregnant lady, such as myself, would normally be able to shed. The weird thing is that when the doc measured my uterus, it was the same as last week. In other words Blueberry, apparently, gained none of my Thanksgiving weight. That was ALL ME, BABY. And if you look at my cankles or sausage fingers, you can totally see it. The other day I pressed down on my shin and when I took my finger away? THE SKIN STAYED PRESSED DOWN. FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES.

All this makes me feel slightly better, knowing that once the baby is born, the excess fluid weight should go away. At least, it WAS making me feel better, until Lance and I were in the waiting area at the doctor’s office on Tuesday. In walks this skinny girl with a tiny bump around her midsection, and the nurse starts taking her blood pressure. At my doctor’s office, the routine for the OB patients is to go to the bathroom and pee in a cup, put the cup in a little window that Pee Elves magically take away and never mention again, and weigh yourself. Which is A) nice because the nurse doesn’t weigh you then scream out your weight for the entire office to hear, B) nice because you can weigh yourself without any clothes on, which makes you weigh a pound or two less, and C) stupid because the temptation to lie to the nurse (and myself) about how much I weigh is almost overwhelming. Anyway, the nurse asked this tiny girl what her weight was, and she said this: “122.”

BOOM! Lance and I just looked at each other with our eyes all wide and exchanged an eyebrow message. Lance’s clearly said “WHAAAT?” whereas mine clearly said “BIIIITCH!” One hundred and twenty-two pounds!? I think I weighed that in third grade. I think my cat weighs that now. It’s times like this that I start feeling very sorry for myself, and the only thing that helps me feel better is Chipotle. So we drive over there after the doc appointment, and I’m going to the loo, and guess who I run into on my way out. HER. 122. She smiled at me, clearly recognizing me, and I think I tried to smile back at her but judging by the sudden look of abject terror on her little tiny face, it must have looked more like this:

Yes, I believe I pulled a Bilbo on the poor girl. I hope she didn’t go into early labor. But it’s cool, I mean I’m not self conscious or worried about never looking like myself again, no not at all. In the meantime, I have a deal with myself to only eat lettuce from now on. Starting tomorrow.

Seriously, this baby is going to be born any day now. And even though his room isn’t done and we don’t even have a dresser yet which means I’m still digging around for undies in a box, and I’m all HOW DO I BE A MOM and everything, I am SO. FREAKING. READY. Like, if I went into labor today (after catching up on last night’s episodes of Glee and Modern Family)? I’d be like, Holla! No more alien life-form in my uterus! Cause y’all, getting up in the middle of the night to feed the baby has GOT to be better than getting up in the middle of the night because I’m so uncomfortable that I can’t lie still any longer and even though it’s 4:30am I’m already hungry.

In the spirit of moving things along, I’m going to pack my suitcase today. Last weekend I bought some nursing bras (let me tell you, those things are SEX-AY) and also some reusable nursing pad inserts. These, I guess, are to put inside my nursing bra to catch all the extra dripping milk so my shirt doesn’t get all soaked and I don’t start bringing all the boys to the yard, if you know what I mean. YUMMY. So I washed them all and laid them out to dry on the dining room table, and last night Lance goes “what are all these coasters doing on the table?” And I’m like, yeah, just TRY leaking through to the table on THESE coasters, sweaty glass of cold water. JUST TRY.