Belated Merry Christmas

Christmas came and went with astonishing speed, considering how long the day felt. We finally got to go home! And... I had my first experience missing my flight. I won't go into details (mostly because it was embarrassing, even if it wasn't entirely our fault); the good news is that we actually did make it on to the next flight, possibly the only two standby passengers to do so. Christmas miracle!

Christmas day we started out with a baby blessing... we got up early because the Kiesters were performing a song, so we were going to rehearse with the pianist. However, five minutes before leaving, baby decided to have a diaper explosion - all over her little blessing dress. As it was, we made it just barely before church started. After church, we waited for the rest of Gary's family to come, ate brunch, and opened presents. The favorite present was at the end - lightsabers. :D Complete with motion-activated noises, including impact.

Next, we went to my family's house. There are advantages and disadvantages to having our families so close, but overall I appreciate being able to have two Christmases. We opened presents and ate a yummy dinner. Baby was much admired (though usually inconveniently hungry). Gary got sucked into a game of Munchkin while I chatted with Mom. We were up quite late... well, just past midnight, I think, but we had been getting tired around 8.

The next few days passed way too quickly, eating and visiting family and eating... Wednesday I was pretty sick, so Gary was a champ and packed everything. (Gary is awesome like that.) We only had a few things we couldn't fit in our bags, one of which is a griddle that I might have used for dinner tonight. Good thing I've learned how to do without it so far. I'm still getting over being sick... I might have gotten some stomach bug or possibly food poisoning. I just hope my digestive system rights itself quickly, because my poor baby is acting hungry all the time, like she's not getting enough milk. :-(

And, for the record, I still don't know what I'm doing about the baby and school (which starts, oh, next week), but the good news is I'm actually studying a little for an exemption test. Almost a quarter of the way done!...

My Happy Place

As everyone surely knows, being a mom isn't all sunshine and roses. However, yesterday wasn't going so well. Baby had been asleep a lot, so it seemed like I should be getting a lot done. But I wasn't. Then, she started to wake up and wasn't screaming. We played and she smiled and I just felt so much better! I only thought having her asleep was a good thing. I had missed her cooing and her smiles and her squirming.

Just wanted to give a shout out to my happy, sweet baby. :-)

Born this way?

I'll try to make this rant as short as possible, since it's on a controversial topic, and I don't like to fan fires.

People seem to think that homosexuals are born with same-sex attraction and thus God meant for them to be that way. I don't know whether or not they are born that way; to me, that is not the issue.

I would just like to take a moment to think about other things people are born with. Clef palates. Misshapen limbs. Genetic diseases. OCD. HIV. Sometimes birth defects are due to direct actions of the mother, such as HIV or fetal alcohol syndrome. Most of the time, though, there is no prevention.

Also, consider those who have chemical imbalances in the brain leading to depression. Some have severe aggression. Something in their genetic makeup led them to be who they are, good and bad.

So... does God intend them to be that way?

Does God intend for me to stay the same way I am now?

He wants us to become perfected through Jesus Christ. Is it easy? It was never meant to be. Most of us at some point don't like or understand what God asks us to do. That doesn't make it okay to assume we know better than God.

I know too many homosexual people to think they are inherently evil or anything ridiculous like that. They are no different than me, except that they have different demons to deal with. The trouble is, most of the world is convinced that those feelings are perfectly fine. I know it was a struggle for those I know to accept that they were having feelings for someone of their own sex, and it certainly isn't easy in our society to live that way. I would never try to belittle the challenges of those I love.

But God has made it clear that acting on homosexual feelings is not in His plan. Marriage is not meant for a man and a man or a woman and a woman. I think I know a few reasons, though I still don't completely understand why.

God never intended us to stay as we were when we were born. That's why we learn and grow.

I'm going to stop while I can. My last thought, though, is that God also never intended for us to hate our brothers and sisters. Only to love and to help.

Lots of words

As promised:

Turns out the jacket was a bit too big.

First attempts at capturing a smile. Cute, but elusive!

The onesie says "Baby's First Halloween." As I recall, she wore it for about three hours. C'est la vie.

Ruffle bum!

Personally, I think she looks a bit old-man-ish in this picture. Which I didn't think when she was wearing it.

Hello!

Showing off my strong baby. She held her head higher before the picture. Figures.

What a hard life... ;-)

They aren't horribly recent, but then times have been a bit rocky lately. I've taken her to waaaaay too many medical facilities these past two or three weeks. I tried to snatch a picture of her smiles yesterday (she was practicing laughing, too!) but of course as the camera came out, the smile turned into crying.

Tease

I was going to post a bunch of pictures of Baby, just because, but I couldn't find the cord to get some new(er) pictures on the computer. So I just looked at them instead.

At least I'm inspired to take more pictures. :-) When I find the cord, I think I'll just do a picture post. She's too cute.

One-track mind

Life right now is basically baby, baby, baby. (And hubby, too... he's just much less needy.) Most of the time I even don't mind - she is, overall, a very good, cute baby. It's even getting to the point where she takes less time to eat and I can generally plan ahead to make sure she eats before appointments and things. We haven't completely figured things out, by any means, but things are going smoother.

Maybe it's no wonder, then, that the thought of going back to school puts me on edge. In fact, most of the time I ignore it simply because I don't want to figure out how it'll work. I was planning on two classes, knowing Gary would be at work during one of them, but it looks like he might need to take a class the same time as my second class. We certainly can't afford a babysitter for all that time, and I don't have enough family close by to try and free-load (said with love). I might need to take her to class with me, which is, as most things in life, easier said than done. If she slept all day, I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad... however, she spends a little more time awake as the weeks go by. I guess at least she's not a toddler or something.

And then there's this insane part of me that just wants to try taking my four remaining classes all in one go. Wouldn't it be nice to just be done? And with a little work now, I could probably test out of one, so it would only be three classes. That's not so bad, is it? I suppose, if I really felt crazy, I could register for all four and drop them if it were too many. That option, though, could potentially create a financial mess, since BYU awards grants based on credit hours. Not to mention the additional homework. Sigh.

Even if I don't get it all done by April, I should graduate by August. That's something to be proud of. Not that I'll be the only woman at BYU to graduate with a child in tow or anything, but that hardly lessens the difficulty for any of us. If I had much more than twelve credit hours remaining, I'm not sure I could have been persuaded to do it. As it is, my husband's loving support (and insistence) is the main reason I decided not to just drop out.

On a completely random end note, I typed this up one-handed. Since it is getting late, I won't re-read it until later, so I take no responsibility for words potentially misspelled in context but missed by spellcheck. That is all.

The Early Show

I just really wanted to document this moment:

While entertaining a bit of vanity, I whimsically decided I should be the next Disney princess (based solely on a good hair day). The only problem? My life is kind of dull. So, I thought I could be the completely ordinary, gospel-centered life Princess. 

Yep, I really did think that just now. A real show-stopper, wouldn't you say?

However, since I don't feel very accountable for my thoughts at 4 in the morning, I wanted to write it down.

Baby, what would I do without you? :-D

Hey, Soul Sister

Second post? Today's not that boring, not yet anyway, I just had a memory that I was reminded of. The song "Hey, Soul Sister" came on my Pandora radio just now (even though it's a "Disney" channel... that's a story for another day I guess...). I have a very pleasant, almost dream-like memory associated with that song.

Last May, I flew out to Utah shortly after arriving home from my mission. I saw my boy for the first time in 18 months and we got engaged later that day. I stayed about a week, and early the morning I was going to fly out, I got the stomach flu. Ugh. So my boy went out and got me crackers and ginger ale, but he still had to go to work that day. After a nap, I woke up to the sun shining through the window, the sounds of people splashing in the pool of the apartment complex, and Hey, Soul Sister playing.

I find it amusing that I have such a pleasant recollection of a time that involved the stomach flu, but in spite of my inability/lack of desire to do anything but lie there, I was warm, the sun was out, and I was engaged to a wonderful man. Who, by the way, woke me up when he came back from work with a kiss. What a sweetie. :-)  And I guess I did get to stay another few days as a result.

Even if I got my fiancee (and the girls I was staying with) sick. Whoops.

Another update

One day, I aspire to add pictures. At this point, it isn't even lack of knowledge, just laziness. I haven't uploaded pictures for a while, so I don't have any recent ones of the cute baby.

You know, this whole mother thing has literally become my life. I don't always like it. (I LOVE being a mother - I just don't love that I let myself be consumed by it.) It's probably because she still doesn't have anything like a regular eating schedule... sometimes she eats every three hours, sometimes two, occasionally four, and even less than one hour if she didn't eat much before falling asleep or if she's fussing. So, with that, I don't get out much. I've still only had one "big" grocery shopping trip with her, and I didn't know where to put her, so I just shoved everything in the 'seat' section of the cart and the very front. Needless to say, I didn't end up getting all that much (oh I lied, I did use the bottom little rack for a few things, too). Yeah, I only leave the house if my husband needs something or if I've just fed her. Or doctor appointments.

I guess that's the only part I don't like. I let my fears about motherhood keep me cooped up inside. What if it's too cold to take her on a walk? I can't take her to busy places, which is just about everywhere that's warm, so I'll just keep her at home. What if she gets hungry and starts crying when I'm out? These fears aren't completely controlling me anymore, but they still have a firm grasp on me. More often than not, I just stay home. I also hold her a lot because of my mom fears. With acid reflux, she spits up a ton, so I don't want to put her down too soon after nursing. I let her uncertain sleeping schedule prevent me from taking naps (she might wake me up in five minutes to feed, anyway!).

I guess I'll get used to it eventually. She really is a joy. Sometimes I remember that better than other times... but she is so darn cute that it's hard to be too upset if I'm really looking at her and loving her. She's got these amazing chubby cheeks, a little pouty lip (not usually pouting, though), a cute smile, and this funny refusal to let her arms and legs be tucked in for very long. She loves her arms up by her face or head, and she makes the funniest little grunty noises. She doesn't fuss much, even when she's fussy.

Basically, the award for Best Baby EVER goes to Emily. :-)

Brief thought on motherhood

Maybe it's because I didn't have a lot of contact with my baby for the first week of life - I wasn't even able to hold her the first 24 hours or so. I barely caught a glance of her after giving birth until, after an hour of recovery, they wheeled me over to the NICU to look at her. Just look. Maybe it's just a natural thing. I wasn't immediately in love with my baby. Oh, sure, I "loved" her because she was precious. But... I don't know, infants take a while to develop an attachment with caregivers... perhaps it's mutual. I didn't have an immediate bond with this little girl. When she came home I dutifully got up every few hours to feed her, thinking that at least she was cute, even if I was exhausted.

I guess I sort of expected this great maternal instinct to well up in me and start making me superwoman, or especially Christlike towards my daughter or something.

I have a guess, though, that this is just what motherhood is: learning to love the small things and getting through the frustrating ones. Toughing it out through the spit-up and the nightly feedings and the fussing because it just needs to be done. Learning to love the little person that my daughter is in spite of all that.

And I do like what Glenn Beck had to say about it - cuteness is a defense mechanism. "Thou shalt not kill anything cute!"

Because at 3 AM when she falls asleep while feeding (again), I just focus on how cute she is.

Unprepared

Just so you know, this is a post about my baby's bodily functions. Possibly an unnecessary post, but it's for posterity's sake, right?

My husband graciously changed Baby's diaper while I was, umm, doing something to get ready to feed her. I was walking by our little changing station when all of the sudden.... she exploded. A stream of poo flew out her bum, leaving a six-inch streak across the changing pad and even flying off the changing table. It was so sudden we couldn't help but laugh, even though it was pretty gross (you probably don't need to know this, but most of the time her poo is bright orange). And then, while we were trying to figure out what to do and with no diaper handy, she started peeing -- at least this time it wasn't a big stream splashing all over everything, but just puddling underneath her. Oh man. It probably could have gotten worse - I mean, with her acid reflux, she could have started spitting up all over - but we fortunately were still laughing, because that was ridiculous. After the explosive poo, though, she was just quietly looking around like nothing happened.

Seriously... it was hilarious. I'm glad we could laugh.

She'd sort of poo'd out of her diaper when she was still in the NICU, but then it was just a little spot on her bassinet and while surprising, not a huge deal. This was serious. Oh well. She's still breastfeeding, so her poos aren't especially stinky. It's still poo; it just could be worse.

Sorry if you don't like to hear about bodily functions. I just couldn't believe that happened.

Not enough naps

After a rough night, followed by a fairly rough day (or at least a day with a bit of fussing and lots of intermittent eating), I come to the end and realize: I'm not sure I'm ready for another rough night. I mean... who is, right? She's been pretty nice to me lately and seems to have had alternated between good nights and bad nights. However, her days are usually pretty good, I think. What does that mean about tonight? At least after being awake with her for quite a while this morning my mom got up at 7 and held her for the next three hours while Gary and I slept. That was pretty nice all around. Also, I had a nurse with a public health group call me and discussed her acid reflux and things I could do that might help. I am super encouraged, now, though the reflux she said could last up to four months. I don't know if her suggestions have made a significant difference yet, since I only talked with her late this afternoon, though I have gotten more burps out of her than I normally get. And now that I think about it, at this very moment she isn't making quite as many of those funny throat-clearing-like noises as she made earlier. Could be because her sleep is deeper, though.

Anyway. Rambling paragraph over. I just woke up from a nap; perhaps that is why my thoughts aren't very collected, and why I feel so sleep-deprived (am I the only one with this sensation after a nap?). Almost time to feed baby again. :-)

Oh. And. A couple random notes: I have an idea why postpartum recovery is so long... the only time you go through the equivalent of a major surgery and instead of being told to get lots of rest, you are told to wake up every three hours. 

Also. I got peed on today. Big time. Like the diaper was still on, and I was feeding her, when suddenly I feel this warmth travel down my lower abdomen... not cool, Baby, not cool. Worst part is that I just had to sit there and wait for her to finish up. And that I had put her in this super cute onesie and had to change her... :-)

Nicknames

Compliments of my husband, our baby is now a "bug." I remember while changing her diaper in the hospital that I would say things like "hush-a-boo" and, you know, other soothing things. This may be compliments of my husband, or perhaps influential to my husband, who calls her "bug-a-boo." Which I think is ridiculously cute. So, here is an abbreviated list of things that I call her:

Bug-a-boo
Bug
Bug-a
Emmy-bug
Miss Emily
Squishy baby
Bright eyes

I like to call her squishy baby when she does that cute thing where she curls her legs up to her torso, especially in what one of the nurses liked to call the "second womb," up on my chest. It is soooo adorable, but it's also cute when we're just holding her and she pulls her legs all up and tucks her arms in.

Basically, we have a really, really cute baby. Even if we had a rough night, my husband let me nap a lot this morning (and... I might go take another one because the warmth from the oven is making me drowsy), so I'm quite enamored of her. I just hope all the sleeping she's doing now doesn't mean she'll be awake all night... However, I have a feeling she didn't just want to be awake, but that she was having a rough night with spitting up and having an ucky tummy, so she fussed every time I went to put her down. Poor thing. She is just so darn cute, though. And she's getting to be a little bit of a chunker. It's like I see her getting bigger every day. Two weeks old! And probably more than half a pound above her birth weight - she was 7 oz above it on Friday morning. My biggest comfort during her spitting up ordeal is that I'm pretty sure she's digesting because she keeps growing and, well, she keeps needing diaper changes.

Having a baby is pretty great.

Not sleeping makes you tired

Yep. Just making that discovery. Most of the time I don't feel too bad, just real drowsy at times, but early this morning I realized that being tired isn't always just feeling tired. I started to do some dumb things. Like think to myself, I'll just run these diapers over to the diaper pail WHILE MY BABY IS SITTING ON HER CHANGING TABLE. Yeah, not a great idea. I guess if for no other reason, that's a pretty good incentive to take more naps during the day. I shouldn't need incentive, yet here I am... blogging. It's only for a few minutes, right? After finishing my breakfast...

In other news, I think she decided to sleep for four hours. I'm not sure that's great, since she's not even two weeks old. Another reason I should probably sleep more? What if I just ignored her too long? Well, she's got some good lungs, so I don't think I'd be entirely to blame. She's the boss, right? Poor thing had a bit of a rough night. So did I. At least she is super cute. She probably is the best baby in the whole world.

Home

Well, I went in for a feeding yesterday around 2 and the charge nurse was there and basically told me she saw no reason to keep the baby any longer! So I fed her and we had a somewhat frantic chain of events as they worked to make sure they could get us all discharged. Gary (who had just gotten to work) got the rest of the day off and within an hour and a half, we were walking out the hospital with our little girl! It's been fun having her home, but it's been really hard, too. She fussed a lot at about 2:30 last night, which made mom and dad a little grumpy. I think she fed every two hours. I went in to the doctor today, and she weighed about an ounce more than she did at birth - and just the day before the hospital told me she wasn't quite back to her birth weight! Could be inconsistent weighing, but I personally think it's cause she ate so darn much. Which is okay, she just took a long time to feed at night (and I wasn't very quick to wake her, since I was falling asleep myself), and then I'd sleep for about an hour and she'd wake up and want to eat again.

I've come to the conclusion that she associates waking with eating. I almost always see some feeding cues when she's awake, but it's still fun to see her wide awake. The lactation specialist/nurse told me that I really should let her sleep a lot of the time she wasn't eating, so it's been hard for me to want to play or hold her for long periods of time (except... while she's eating...). I think, though, that she mostly needs it the next day or maybe two to make sure she recovered well from whatever was keeping her in the hospital.

I really should be napping, because I'm not really looking forward to tonight and waking up. Maybe she'll eat quicker and sleep a little longer? I can hope. :-) My consolation is that she won't do this forever.... I hope it won't last more than a week or two, or that we'll at least have more of an idea of her schedule pretty soon. I guess we were finally initiated as parents! I kind of miss that hospital sleep room, though... ;-)

Oh baby

I should probably shower right now, but it's nice to be sitting at home. I spent last night at the hospital in a sleep room (which is a wonderful idea for parents whose babies are getting ready to come home) and, aside from the first feeding where I just didn't want to put her down, I would just go back to the room, sleep, and they would call with the room phone and I would go down and feed her. What was nice is that she was mostly awake by the time they called me, so I fed and went back to sleep.

She's so on track to come home soon! We've done everything except all oral feedings for 48 hours, but we've done 24! Yay baby. Oh, and I still need to give her a bath, since they didn't do it last night. So excited!!

I admit, I'm a little bit jealous when I see people taking their newborns home or seeing pictures of getting home.

The good news is she's breastfeeding really well.

The less good news is she has to take all oral feedings for at usually 48 hours before we can take her home. Makes perfect sense. Isn't perfectly convenient. Gary wants me to see if a bottle would be okay once or twice a day - I'm really worried it will make breastfeeding more difficult. I want to see if I can stay in one of the sleep rooms at the hospital, but there are only two and I've always seen them occupied... and I don't want to wait for them. If the lactation consultant says she probably won't be hurt by a few bottle feeds at night, I might do it just so we can get her home.

And because I'm tired.

I'm anxious to breastfeed her, and at first I jumped and said I would drive over every three hours just to feed her instead of having the stupid tube do it for me.... but I also like to sleep a little, and I still pump after her feedings, so when I feed her I'm spending usually at least an hour and a half at the hospital. So unless I can find a place to sleep there, getting maybe two or three hours of sleep all night doesn't really sound all that appealing.

Maybe I could do it for just two days.... I used to do stuff like that for school, right?.... hah.

Really, though, feeding her is like magic and I love it.

We want her home so bad.

Sleep

This probably won't be a shocker to moms, but I decided today that I definitely sleep more now than I would be if our little girl was at home (which she should be soon!). I had two very successful feedings, which is a big deal, but they lasted at least 45 minutes each. Now, with the cleaning up and measuring and such that comes with pumping, I can take 45 minutes if I'm slow or if the pumping takes long, but usually I pump about fifteen minutes (thank you, hospital-grade pump rental). So sure, I wake up every three hours and don't love the sound of my alarm going off, but I'm usually back to bed 30-40 minutes later. Much as I love staring at my little girl (and a little aside here - having her breastfeed is possibly the most beautiful thing, especially since I couldn't even try until almost two days after she was born), it seems like a 45-60 minute feeding at three in the morning would be less than fun.

Oh sleep. How I will miss you. But it will be totally worth it if it means having our little baby home.

Just another update

This will probably be a quick update, because I'm a little torn between not wanting the whole world to know and yet really wanting to talk it through a little bit.

I had a baby on Sunday! My water broke bright and early (whoever said it wasn't gushing LIED TO ME), and eventually out little baby was born Sunday around 5:30 PM. However, near the end of pushing, her heartrate dropped and didn't really go back up again between contractions. So the doctor came in, got some forceps (because she was also facing up instead of the preferred down), and pulled her out. Well, helped me push her out faster. Turns out the cord was wrapped twice around her neck so her apgar was quite low - color, tone, and umm I can't remember all the categories right now. She went straight to the NICU to help facilitate her breathing, which wasn't going well.

She was off the respirator pretty quickly (maybe 36 hours?) and her breathing and heartrate and everything were great. However, possibly due to her body's trauma, she wasn't taking in food very well at all. So she's still there, trying to get off the IV and gain weight. I go in twice to try and nurse her, but nothing really happens. She latches a few times, sucks for a minute if I'm lucky, and usually falls asleep or gets fussy and just wants to cuddle. She wants to suck, but I don't blame her for wanting the soothing motion of sucking without any more food to add to her poor tummy. It's sad... but I am glad I get to go in and hold her, that she's stable in just about everything else. They moved her to the transitional room late last night, having already moved her into a "well-baby" crib yesterday afternoon (though she was moved into the transitional room mostly because they had a lot of babies to admit to the NICU last night). We're just waiting for her to start taking that food.

So here I am, a pumping mom without a baby at home. She is the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen and we want her so bad. We're just grateful that she is at least not doing worse, and that she's being taken care of. I think I'd rather have her in the hospital with an IV than at home losing weight and being miserable. Just not something I ever imagined would happen. Especially because all during pregnancy, we were focused on something completely different. They never even talk about her kidneys or hydronephrosis. A bit of a shocker, and hard in an unexpected way, and almost difficult to believe I really am a mother. At least I have a little baby to cuddle when I go to the hospital.

On a roll... almost

I've felt so dang domestic lately. Possibly because most of this weekend I felt really out of it and did, um, pretty much nothing. Really. My husband was wonderful and even cooked for us, cause I didn't want to. Things have been looking up, though! I've actually been making us lunches (I planned one today, and even got the rice all cooked, when Gary called to tell me his work was feeding him lunch), I made granola bars yesterday, Gary and I (mostly Gary) washed dishes yesterday, and today I tried a snazzy new way to cook brown rice and wrapped up the majority of the granola bars to go in the freezer - I made a real big pan for that purpose. We still have at least 5 or 6 in the fridge. (They're moist but crumbly, and I figure they'll hold together better if refrigerated.)

I just noticed I have a ton of asides just now. Half this post may or may not be in parenthesis.

Anyway, an unfortunate downfall of my domesticity is that I try and get it all out at once, so when I'm done, I'm kind of tuckered out. I think, Oh, I'll feel better in an hour or so, but perhaps by the time the hour is up I'm used to sitting down, or I'm still tired, or what have you, so I just continue to not do more.

What am I complaining about though? Productivity that makes me tired? At least I'm getting something done, I'm definitely excited about that. Maybe I'm just complaining. The activity brings out my lower back pain, especially when I'm bending over or hunched over cooking (I don't know why I feel my face has to be so close to the food, but I find I hunch over a lot cooking), and the pain in my back is only sort of relieved when sitting. Maybe I should try lying down in bed reading?

Heh. Random aside: the doctor asked about swelling on my last visit, and I told him I'd been a little more swollen-feeling than usual. He informed me that I could try lying on my side and try not to be on my feet, that would help. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hadn't been on my feet hardly at all the past few days, or that while I don't lie down very often, I usually sit with my feet propped up, either on the couch next to me or a little stool in front of the couch. I figure the swelling had something to do with my funk this weekend (though I'm glad my blood pressure was still really good!), maybe that I was a little extra swelly because I was so very inactive.

Well. I'm done with any complaining, I think. I really am pretty proud of what I have accomplished, I just have so much left still to do! My dear husband tries to comfort me with things like, "You're pregnant, you aren't supposed to do anything," or, "It doesn't need to be done right now, you're fine," but those don't really help... I just gotta take baby steps I suppose. And lest I don't give my husband enough credit, he makes me laugh all the time and does make me enjoy life more. Those particular comments just weren't helpful to me.

Take it all back

I think I can gracefully eat my words. Weeks 35 and 36 were pretty great... sometime in between, however, a switch flipped and I am perpetually uncomfortable. Maybe it's just the past few days - I was sitting for about 5 hours at a prenatal seminar on Saturday and yesterday I felt pretty funny. Today so far isn't a whole lot better, and the worst part (for me) is that I really don't want to do anything. I mean, I really do want to get a lot done, since I don't plan on having a lot of time to run errands the first few weeks of Baby's life, but then I think about moving my body around and motivation is gone. I half-heartedly offered to drive my husband to school this morning because then I would be able to go to a few places (like Walmart and Babies 'R' Us), but first off I didn't really want to (though I think I might have been able to just sit in the car, which is why I even offered at all), and secondly by the time I offered I think we both knew he wouldn't be going anyway. I'm so nice.

I guess I thought the biggest reason women were so anxious to have their babies (aside from, you know, actually wanting the child) was because they got so big. Well, I'm not massive, even though I feel like it, but I think I understand that it isn't the biggest part. Just the discomfort. Oh well. At least it's still mostly fun to feel her wiggling around in there. Three or four weeks really isn't that long, right? And most of my "discomforts" haven't been serious for more than a day or two.... maybe this episode won't be any different. (I'm pretty convinced that God was extra nice to me during pregnancy because of Baby's medical condition - she only has one complication and appears very healthy otherwise, and I've really had things pretty good, especially after the first trimester.)

And you know what? I probably wouldn't be complaining much at all if my poor husband were feeling better. We can't both be sitting around doing nothing... though he was extremely nice to me yesterday and made us dinner. However, I feel bad asking him to do things I really feel like I should be able to do when he has been working so hard and feeling so gross. Aaaah, well, we aren't starving anyway.

Too much information

So... I have this feeling like I'm Too Much Information Woman lately. Let's face it - there's a lot of unpleasant things about pregnancy, things that aren't normally dinner table appropriate but since it's just me and my husband, I feel pretty welcome talking to him about it all the time.

And sometimes, I feel like that makes me feel open to talking about it all the time to everyone.

Sorry if I've already been like that. I do try and reign it in, but really, it's all that's on my mind. I think perhaps other pregnant women/mothers are more open, but even then I wonder if they really feel comfortable about it. (I wouldn't mind hearing some otherwise "TMI" details; maybe that's why I feel so open...)

Ah, well. Maybe I'll just blame pregnancy itself. Hormones can do weird things to a girl, right?

Staying at home

One day I'll get this stay-at-home business down. At least I'm doing laundry right now, hooray! And I have some distant plans to go to the grocery store, but in all honesty I could do that tomorrow and be perfectly happy with my life. (Unless I was a total slacker all evening - but how can I be, I'm doing laundry! heh..) I just get so distracted and unmotivated so easily... I really do want to at least start some dishes, but so many other things are more fun. Even the laundry is more fun. Or I sit down with my laptop while munching on some food and don't get up again for another twenty minutes or so.

Or I decide to write a blog post for no apparent reason...

On the brighter side, I got a package from Amazon today. I scored a pretty sweet deal on a pump and some bottles/accessories. It was like getting a new toy, but a really weird new toy that I don't know what to do with. And that I'm pretty sure I have to clean. Hah. It was still exciting, though - once that crib comes out of the box, we'll pretty much be set to go (and getting that crib mattress.... yeah). Pretty soon I'll trek over to Babies 'R' Us for my "completion" discount, using up the last little bit on our sweet gift card.

Just a few more weeks.... I can't believe it. I feel like I should be more excited than I am - right now I'm pretty content to just have her cooking away in my tummy, feeling her squirm around. Don't get me wrong, I can't even imagine how much more amazing she'll be once she's here and how much we'll love her, it's just... I know our lives will change forever the minute she comes out, and that's pretty intimidating. I just went to a class on nursing and it sounds like that's all I will be doing for the first two weeks of her life (or more).

At least maybe this way I won't be impatient if she comes 'late,' though maybe the anticipation of her being 40+ weeks is what keeps me unprepared for her imminent arrival.

Well, I think the whites are done and I should probably fold them while I still have incentive. Hooray for laundry!

Looking back, looking forward

Today, of course, is pretty historic. I kind of hoped I'd written down something in my journal on that day, but that was before I was very consistent. I still might have... however, I packed the journal it might be in underneath a bunch of other boxes already.

My story is a little different: I was in Switzerland with some family and we had spent the day out sightseeing. As we got in the car (maybe around 6 PM?), my uncle turned on the car. I remember hearing some words I actually recognized (like "American") but didn't think much of it until we got back to where we were staying and my uncle turned on the television. He told us that two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and I remember looking at the image of two towers in flames. It was a pretty quiet night. Most people we talked to after that, upon finding out that we were American, were sympathetic. However, our main concern was that we were planning on travelling home soon, and would we be able to fly out when scheduled? Maybe that was very selfish, but being away from it all and certainly not putting a damper on a vacation, we didn't dwell a lot on the event.

Today, Gary showed me some footage from the live news coverage. I actually saw a plane fly into one of the towers, which I'd never seen before. And I wondered how someone could do that, and felt that sort of sickness I'm sure everyone already felt thinking about the people on the plane and in the tower. I realized the bravery of the first responders who tried to help those in the buildings and surrounding areas, not knowing that they would collapse.

It's funny how ten years later, I think I'm more impacted than I was on the actual event.

However, I'm grateful for where we are. I don't know how I feel about this war on terrorism, but I hope that the world is at least a little better for what we have done in the past ten years. That we are better. Sometimes... well, I don't always feel that patriotism that I felt back then as we all pulled together to show our support and take strength from each other. Sometimes I feel things are worse than ever in the government. And that they'll only get worse. But maybe we'll continue to stand by each other, in spite of how we feel about politics. Who knows.

In other news, I'm in the "home stretch" of pregnancy and looking forward to a new little life. And I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to raise her in a good home, that she'll be relatively safe, and that we can teach her the morals and ideals that I knew and loved growing up.

So at least a terrorist attack didn't change our fundamentals. Take THAT.

40 weeks?

Is it normal for expectant moms to get antsy around 38 weeks? I'm pretty sure my "due" date is at 40 weeks, but I was talking with a woman at church on Saturday who just had a baby and both her kids were born just after 38 weeks. I was a little concerned (as I think I mentioned) that for some reason my baby might come early due to health reasons; however, I did talk to my doctor and he didn't see any reason why she should be early. AND my family (both our families) have a history of being later, rather than earlier. I don't think my husband's mom was very overdue, but my poor mom was, usually by several weeks. I'll be content with 40 (I say at an easy 35. My life really isn't horribly inconvenient just now.)

I bring it up because one of my husband's co-workers friended me on Facebook and she's about a month ahead of me, pregnancy wise. However, for the past week or so, maybe more, she's been posting about how she's ready for her baby to come any day now.... and she's barely over 39 weeks. I guess the babies come any time between 36-42 weeks, but why would the "due date" be at 40 weeks if it weren't some sort of norm? I mean, as "norm" as you can get with little babies and giving birth and all that.

Probably just me. I'll probably change my mind in a few weeks (is it really only 3 weeks until I'm at 38 weeks??), when I hear I'll be 'done' being pregnant. However, as of right now, I'm really content to let my body do it's own autopilot take-care-of-the-baby thing....

Grocery therapy

So.... money is a little tight just now - don't you hate it when you don't budget adequately for the beginning of the month and all those payments? - and I just happened to get some cash for a uniform deposit refund. Refunds are sneaky and nice like that. Anyway, I thought to myself, I am just going to use this cash that I have to buy a few groceries until we get paid again (or find out that we actually have more money left than anticipated. I can dream, right?). Okay, so I guess the real scoop is that I wanted to make this amazing chocolate peanut butter cake for my husband's birthday and didn't want to spend "regular" grocery money getting the extra ingredients we didn't already have.

It took kind of a lot of guestimating and pre-planning, but I gave myself 30 dollars to spend and I spent almost a whole dollar less. Even with a few substitutions. PS I love buying food in bulk - even if it's the same price as what is prepackaged, I can buy just as much of it as I need. I guess that whole "pay with cash helps you save money" thing is true... but I don't know if I'll keep doing it. I seem to recall my mom getting actual grocery money from my dad when he got paid, so maybe that's something we can do. We don't ever have cash, and it's less convenient especially when you start using change, too, but I really thought about what I was getting and passed by things that we miiiight have needed in the future, but maybe would have only been a luxury.

Well, I was proud of myself.

Now all I need to do is tackle the kitchen the way I tackled the grocery list. I'm not really looking forward to dealing with some of the things I pulled out of the refrigerator. Or taking out what looks like a heavy garbage bag.... I'm such a wimp, especially since pregnancy (though admittedly I probably was before then, too).

Now for something completely different!

Okay, so I don't think my hubby reads this, but in case he does I'll be a little cryptic. Part of the reason I wanted to save money on groceries, in addition to paying rent and insurance, is so that I could do a little secret something special for his birthday. Just little things, mostly, but I didn't know where the money could come from. Well, the beginning of the school year came around, so I thought, hey! My textbooks! I should be able to sell those to students. However, several attempts at selling the books fell through, and the arrangements for the secret weren't lining up as fast as I'd hoped and, well, I got a little discouraged. Should I give up on the secret? Should I not plan on having any extra money from textbooks?

Well, I'm still waiting, but things are looking up. I got emailed three times about the same book (which is actually kind of distressing - what if the first person doesn't get back to me and the others find another means to get the book?), and I realized that some people might not have added all their classes yet. There's still some hope on that front. And I've gathered a little more on my secret, so as long as I don't procrastinate too much it should work out (speaking of which.... maybe I'll tackle that next instead of the kitchen :-D).

It's funny, too, because while I was discouraged, I remember thinking about a lesson from Sunday about trials and how sometimes hard things precede really good things. Not that it was excruciatingly hard or anything, but I wondered if perhaps I should just trust that things would get better if I kept trying. Maybe it wouldn't work out the way I hoped, but there was no reason to give up.... well, I'm glad I didn't. Even if the secret only goes as far as what I have now, I'm sure Gary will love it. Even if I don't sell my textbooks immediately, we'll get by. The future? I see many more financial difficulties to come (read: childbirth!), and for the moment, I'm sure we'll get through them somehow. It's a good feeling.

Sunday's the day to blog

At least, that's what blogger told me this morning when I found significantly more unread blogs than usual. Maybe it's just this weekend. Big things are starting to happen all around (getting ready for the school year, for whatever reason) and hey, let's blog about it!

Not much exciting is going on on this front, actually. I had my last day of work yesterday (an odd feeling, let me tell you), and the next big thing on my agenda is giving birth.

Yes. Giving birth.

Whew. It makes me a tiny bit nervous, especially because I don't know when it will happen. I think our baby will probably be overdue, because that's how my mom was (and I think Gary's mom might have been, though not as bad), but as I think I've mentioned, our baby has health concerns. She seems to be doing fine, but what if the doctors don't want to let her go past 38 weeks? Actually, from what I've read about being induced, I might not go along unless it's really a medical hazard for her to keep chillin' in there.

So maybe my concerns are for naught. BUT the reason I kind of panic a little is because the doctors I see keep throwing around 36 weeks like I will barely make it that far. And people, 36 weeks is TWO WEEKS AWAY. I don't think I'm ready to have a baby in two weeks. I don't think I'm really ready to have one in 6 weeks, but at least I think I'll be more physically prepared... since I've stopped working I'm hoping I'll use the time to pack away little things in the freezer, to finish organizing the baby's room, and pick up a few extra necessities (like nursing clothes, because let's face it: not having them would be like leaving on vacation and forgetting to pack underwear. It would be better for everyone to get these things before hand).

Well, at least I have my actual doctor appointment tomorrow, so I can ask some questions and hopefully not have to worry so much. In the meantime, my poor hubby got called in to work and I have a cake in the oven (for when he gets home!) and a few more things I'd like to do while it's baking/cooling. Like washing dishes.

And putting together something for our child to sleep in. You know, just in case....

Happy anniversary

Well, my hubby and I have been married a year now. It's been kind of a funny weekend, full of work and not a ton of celebration, but I would say it's been fun nonetheless. Gary awesomely bought me a sewing machine, and I somewhat less awesomely got him a CD that he wanted a while back and the Star Trek: Next Generation movies on blu-ray (in a box set - he's really big on box sets).

I think my favorite part of our prolonged celebration was Saturday night, after we had gone out to eat. We ended up sitting in the second bedroom which I had gutted the day before, so all sorts of stuff was scattered across the room. We just looked at old stuff from our respective pasts - some of my high school things, a few things from his missions, these funny "commercials" he had recorded... It was pretty fun. Even if sitting on the floor got very uncomfortable after a while.

It's funny to think, though, that if we do that in years to come, more and more of that stuff we look at will be our mutual past. While I don't expect us to share equally in everything or consider certain things "mine," the memories will be shared to a certain degree. That'll be fun, too.

A quiet fear

I'm not sure why I was thinking about it this morning, but I was reflecting on the end of my mission. Specifically, this stretch of almost four months where life was pretty much one big headache. Literally - my head hurt almost every single moment of every day.

It was a mystery. I saw a doctor at least three times. I was getting pressure near the end to get a CT scan. Instead, a doctor gave me some chronic pain medicine. Eventually the headaches began to ebb away until sometime last summer I began to feel like I was living a normal life again. It's not that I had headaches constantly until that time... but I felt like my headaches were still more frequent and I felt debilitated when I had them until sometime last summer.

I remember, probably during early pregnancy when I felt yucky and nauseas anyway, crying to my husband during an intense headache because I worried that the pain wouldn't go away. Fortunately most of my headaches are now run-of-the-mill, go away in a few hours, usually helped by drugs kind of headaches, and if they happen more than  few times a week I don't even think about it because they're pretty mild.

However... I really feel like some day it will happen again. We never did figure out why I was having so many headaches (I never did get any scans or anything). I live with a quiet fear that I will ever feel the way I did during those months ever again. You wouldn't really consider a mission to contain the darkest moments of your life, but I guess considering the lack of personal trauma that I've experienced, I have never felt worse than I did during that time. And I never want to feel that way again.

Sorry if that was depressing. I just wanted to get it off my chest. Maybe it's because I was looking at some mission things last night - always bittersweet, because of how it ended.

On the bright side, life is pretty wonderful right now. The sun is shining, we have air conditioning, and I have a wonderful husband to take care of me. And we're having a baby. :-)

Ultrasound

Today was my monthly trip up to the hospital to have an ultrasound. And I'm happy to report that everything is going well! I mean, everything else. Her kidneys aren't much bigger and everything else is developing just fine. Her (well... my) fluid is great, and she's big for her age. Now, the nurse/technician said that she is 1 week and 2 days "ahead," which probably means that she's that much bigger than babies typically are, but I'm sort of secretly hoping that means she'll come just a little sooner than her due date. I'm not super sure about my mother in law, but my mom had babies way late... as in, I think I came soonest to my actual due date and that's because the doctors induced her ten days after I was due. Whew. And both sides of the family have a history of big babies. Maybe if she came sooner she wouldn't be quite so massive? I mean, she's still got a good two months and she's already 4 pounds.

When the technician was looking at the heart, she pointed out that it was difficult to see because of shadows being cast by Baby's bones. She informed me that as the bones calcify and become harder, they cause a "shadow" because the ultrasound technology doesn't see through them. Cool! I mean, it could have been inconvenient because she really needed to see the heart, but fortunately our little girl is a mover and so they were able to get the images they needed.

Speaking of our little mover... The doctor came in to take a look also and right near the end, Baby gave a little kick. She went "whoa!" and later said it felt like she was beating me up in there. I informed her that the kick she felt really wasn't that hard at all... just typical baby movement to me. So it turns out that our child just really likes to move. Or hit me. Last night while I was lying in bed, she practically exploded. It really felt like she punched me with all the force her little body could. I wonder if she gets upset with me, or if she's just saying hi.

And, friendly aside, I really liked this doctor. She was friendly, informative, and encouraging. She believes Baby should come to term just fine (what she actually said was that "we will grow the baby" until at least 36 weeks), the check-ups are just precautionary to make sure her kidneys don't fail. Which I totally appreciate. And she encouraged me to call the doctor that I will be going to see after she's born - and part of the reason I hadn't called was that it almost seemed like I was discouraged last time I went, as if that doctor wouldn't have much to say to me until the baby was born. Anyway. I always like good doctors, instead of what seem to me to be 'routine' doctors. She also pointed out that I could get my weekly fluid/heart rate test at my clinic if I wanted, instead of at the hospital, which would be nice since the copay is twice as much at the hospital.

While it's intimidating to think of being new parents, I'm mostly excited to have our little baby girl. She might have a rough first few months, and poor Gary might be stressed out of his mind with work and school and baby complications, but... it's going to be so much fun to have her outside of my belly and in our arms. Just two more months!!

Hello, Friday

Weekends are kind of a funny thing for me. I love them like the next person, though I do usually end up working for a short time on Saturday. (And you know, working just makes it feel not like a Saturday.) This weekend is especially odd: for one thing, I have a final on Monday that I keep feeling like I really ought to study for. I mean, why am I blogging when I could be studying for my final? (Oh, yeah, maybe it's cause I've spent the past few days trying really hard to do a couple journal article reviews. My lack of motivation is incredible.) On the other hand, though, I have a final on Monday, meaning that Monday is my last day of class. And it's not even really a day of class... it's just getting together for convenience of proctoring the fact that we'll all be sitting around for over 90 minutes typing away.

I'm kind of sad about it.

Not to say that I'll miss homework, because I won't. But I enjoyed the teacher, my class mates, the material... and while I like that it was short and thus relatively easier, I'm kind of sad that it was so short and I won't be taking classes for... umm... a while. I'd wonder if I'll feel like this at graduation, but I'm hoping I'll be sufficiently immersed with our little girl that I'll be happy to finally be finished. Preparing for our little girl could keep me sufficiently entertained, I think, except that I keep stressing about my class. I have this sort of weird philosophy (that really isn't true and I know it) that if I don't let myself get very involved in non-homework activities, that I'll somehow start doing my homework. Lots of cleaning? Can't, I've got homework. Trip to the grocery store? Maybe after I've done my homework. Here's how I go completely off the deep end, though: I stay on or around my computer. Homework? Maybe after I watch this youtube clip. Or check facebook (again). Or read a blog entry.... yeah. I think I was on drugs when I decided that was a useful way to do homework.

Hello tangent! So anyway, I'm sad that school is ending. But I am pretty happy that I'll be able to focus some attention elsewhere. Like the dishes. And the nursery. Oooh the nursery.

Here's hoping I use the new-found freedom well.

Self-reflection

Technically family studies, my major, is an "easy" major. It isn't very credit-heavy and with my emphasis the required courses are pretty flexible (take twelve credit hours within the major that are 300-level or above - that is one of my requirements). For many, it's a plan B to graduate sooner of if they don't get into a first-choice major. I guess it technically was for me when I realized I didn't actually want to major in what I was doing, but it wasn't because it was easy... it was cause I liked it.

And, you know, in a way it isn't that easy. It's a very personal major, at least my emphasis. From the very basic classes to the more advanced ones I'm choosing now, we are required almost every day in class and in assignments to reflect on our own family situations - what was good, and what wasn't so good. That can be surprisingly difficult. The class I'm in now, forming marital relations, is no different, except that I also look into the future a little and not just the past. It's interesting taking this class without my husband, because I sort of wish he knew what I knew about what is generally a good idea for couples.

It's hard enough to look back on family rituals and think about what we could have done better, knowing that it's in the past. It's even harder to look at current events and think about what we could be doing better now, yet noting that it isn't generally a good idea to be the know-it-all in a relationship. I hope I remember that when we're raising children, too, that just because I took a child development class doesn't mean I know everything.

That said, my husband came home and was on the phone, which sometimes distresses me and I was tempted to just keep doing what I was doing, even though I like to get a hug and a kiss when he comes home. I decided to just go over and hug him anyway and he just kept giving me a million quiet kisses, as if to let me know that he was aware I might be distressed but he really did love me. He's pretty great. And he doesn't even have to take the class. :-)

And I suppose that's the benefit of doing all this research: I see a lot of the bad and unfortunate things in relationships... and I realize how good we have it. Sure, marital satisfaction is usually pretty high the first few years (though it does tend to dip after childbirth), but I mean... indicators of unstable relationships start before marriage. We seem to be doing pretty good. And I am really, really happy.

Driving slow on Sunday morning

It's been a busy past few days! Which I don't really mind, except that I haven't had a lot of time to review for Monday's in-class study session. Knowing me, though, I probably wouldn't have studied this weekend anyway...

Friday we took our downstairs neighbors up to Bountiful for a little going-away party. Well, for their going-away party. First off, their little girl was soo cute on the drive up. Second, as the wife confided in me later, Gary's a little bit crazy when he starts to talk and drive at the same time. We all made it though. :-) It was a fun little party, and funny because it was pretty much divided by girls and guys the entire night. Our husbands are all so loud, though, that it worked out all right. We didn't get home until after midnight... I was definitely ready for bed at that point. Our poor neighbors, too - they moved on Saturday.

Of course, that meant I rolled out of bed at 9:30 the next morning and went down to help their little moving party (at 10)... in what ways I could. (However, I bet our neighbors got up long before to make sure everything was ready for the move. They're such good sports.) Really, I didn't do much. Fortunately there were big, strong men there to help out... I just kept the wife company pretty much and helped pull stuff into the main room so nothing would be forgotten. I still managed to go up and down the stairs a lot, and it was pretty hot even at 10/11, so I was pretty worn out by the end. I think, lucky dogs, they headed off this morning, hopefully early. Maybe their daughter will sleep in the car a little...

Gary wasn't feeling very well Saturday morning, so he was worn out, too, and we had a few chill hours. Played a computer game together for a while, and decided to use these sweet movie tickets I'd found (for cheap!) and go see Cowboys and Aliens. Which... I still personally am not a big fan of the title, but I guess it's based off of a comic or something by the same name, so some fans might have been upset if they changed the title. Speaking of fans, I had this funny couple sitting next to me, where mostly the wife but occasionally the husband would get really into this movie. From the beginning throughout I could tell when she liked what happened cause she would start clapping. Not loudly, fortunately, but she was so animated. It was almost too funny to get annoyed at. It was a good movie, though - not too intense or scary, yet still leaving me wondering how they were going to resolve it right up to the end.

I heart date nights, by the way. We had fun. I didn't go right to bed after... but pretty soon. Soo tired. And I vaguely remember Gary waking me up when he came in (and I think it was my fault, since he probably tripped on the cord of my hairdryer), but I fell back asleep real soon after that, too.

And now I get to go to work. Yay for missionaries needing to eat. Hopefully this will be one of the easier ice cream shifts.... But you know, at least I get to work with ice cream. Yummy. And I get off in time to go to the last hour of church, which with our current reverse-block schedule is the most important. (Especially because I'm supposed to lead the music!) I think, though, that I'll try and get the last Sunday shift off... Baby belly is starting to make things difficult, and not just because I'm tired.

Baby steps

Today has barely begun, or so it feels like anyway, yet I've actually accomplished some things. I haven't accomplished the remaining 20 pages of my reading for class today (which is what I should be doing...) but I finally put the stroller together and figured out how to get most of it to work. I also made it to Babies R Us and bought a monitor, since they sent me a coupon. Every once in a while, I consider buying something I'm not sure we'll need just because they sent me a coupon, and then I realize they send me an email almost every single day telling me about deals. But 20% off is a pretty good coupon, and we've decided by now that a baby monitor would be a good thing to have.

Here's something funny, though: we got this sweet gift card to Babies R Us, which is why I don't really look very many other places for baby things just yet, and last night when I planned this trek, I fully intended on using it. However, when I got there today, I looked at the baby monitors, checked out a couple other things, and when I got to the register, pulled out the debit card and payed. "Gift card" did not even cross my mind. Maybe it's cause I was tired. And I didn't realize what I'd done until I was half way home. I just laughed at myself.... If "pregnancy brain" really does exist, I definitely have it.

Okay. Time to continue on with those twenty pages. (Side note: the textbook assignment was 40 pages, so I'm not just complaining about a fairly reasonable twenty-page reading. I chauffeured my grandma and her husband (and his seeing-eye dog) to my cousin's wedding reception yesterday up in Salt Lake, so I haven't had all the time in the world for the reading, though I've probably had enough that I just didn't use well. I wasn't complaining about the chauffeuring, either, I only meant to imply that it took up a little more time than your usual jaunt up to Salt Lake for a ring ceremony/reception.)

Not exactly getting it off my chest

Today hasn't been the most splendid of days. I thought I was okay (though tired) when I first woke up, but it appears that my somewhat rough evening was rougher than I first imagined. Either that or the humidity really got me down.

One really great thing happened today, though. I had been at work for about half an hour and was uncomfortably folding ham slices (such is the glorious nature of food service) and thinking about all the homework I hadn't done when one of my co-workers came up to me and basically asked if she could work the rest of the shift for me. I do kind of need the hours and don't really have a way of making up for them this week (maybe next week?) but ummm I totally agreed. It freed up several hours, allowing me to at least get half my assignment done and a (small) start on the reading. I'm glad I looked at the reading assignment well ahead of time; probably due to the long weekend, it was quite a long reading, and I probably would have panicked if I tried to do it all tomorrow morning.

ALSO another lovely thing: I got an email from my professor saying we had until 5 to email the assignment to the TA. Awesome. Class gets out at 2:40, so it's not like that's a monumental amount of extra time, but don't you just love getting a few unexpected hours to finish something stressful? I sure do.

.... Of course, I'm clearly having a difficult time sticking to my guns and actually finishing the assignment, hence me writing this. I think I'm going to take a little "break" and do some more of the reading for tomorrow, since that one is "due" at 1 instead of 5.

I think looking at a couple positives made my evening just a little more pleasant. It really hasn't been a spectacular day. My eating habits and procrastination surely did not help, but I like to think they were partially a result of the icky feelings I already had and not solely the cause of icky feelings.

At least I sort of have a game plan to make our lunch tomorrow. It might even be healthy-ish. I might have to recruit my poor hubby to help me do some dishes before then, though, or it might not happen. Poor hubby... I'm such a broken wife right now.

Oh, and random sidenote: I finally took the wedding ring off. My poor swollen fingers were making it uncomfortable. Aaaah.... pregnancy. I love being pregnant but I don't love a lot of things about pregnancy.

Is that what nesting is?

It's funny; the past few days I guess I got tired of doing my usual nothingness, so I decided to tackle our second bedroom ever so slightly. The funny part is that it's not like I don't have other things to do; I have a summary due on Wednesday and a kitchen fuuuuuull of dishes that need to be done. (Maybe that's why I went with the less intimidating project....) I had a small little shower so I started by organizing/putting away the things I got there, then I cleared out the hall closet so I could have a place to put more diapers (also, all the gift bags I've been hoarding). Today I cleaned up the pile of moving apparatus that has probably been sitting on the floor in there since, ahem, we moved here. They don't really have a home, but at least they're tidied/folded/organized. I just have to figure out what to do with the mini Christmas tree and some other random boxes of stuff. And.... a lot of other things.

Oh, and today I also finally took the travel system we bought out of the box! (Stroller, infant carrier/car seat, and car seat base.) The stroller still doesn't have the wheels attached and I haven't taken off any tags really, but at least they aren't just chilling in a box. Next big project? The crib. We just need to actually make a space for it first.

Yeah, this is way more fun than doing dishes. I don't know if this is technically what nesting is, but it makes sense to me. I guess it really hit me the other day when someone asked how much longer I had and I told them about two and a half months. They told me, as most do, "She'll be here before you know it!" Oh. Right, she will. And she'll need somewhere to sleep, and a car seat to come home in. Riiiiight. Still lots to do, but like I said: way more fun than dishes! That's some incentive, anyway. :-)

Back to the scholarly

Well, not having had class so far this week, I honestly have just been taking it easy. Probably both mentally and physically. I still went to work, I still went to the research lab (which is where I am now!), but prior to today I haven't looked at a scholarly article or textbook.

However, since I was supposed to be working on an assignment those days when I didn't have class, I decided it was high time to at least pick a topic and find some articles I could review, even if I wasn't immediately going to start writing. (Of course... I'm doing this in my research lab, where I'm technically supposed to be looking up journal articles on the infant still-face effect. We've been looking up those articles for at least six weeks now, though, so I don't really feel a specific obligation to do so every minute I'm here.)

So here comes the nerd in me: I found some journal articles that I'm genuinely excited to know the results in. Hello! Journal articles are real boring. Even the interesting topics seem to be stifled in journal lingo sometimes. But not always, and it's a trend that is diminishing. I'm probably going to read a few that aren't exactly on my topic just because I think they're interesting (emerging adulthood - or, really, extended young adulthood - is fascinating to me). Maybe I'll find I can do the reviews on them anyway, maybe I won't. I don't do a real thorough job at reading journal articles the first time, anyway, cause I want to find out the results and then how they figured it out, if I need to. Basically I read the very beginning and the end, sometimes the beginning/middle. (For those familiar with journal articles, I almost never read the results section. For those unfamiliar, the results section is pretty much all the statistical analyses, which I could probably understand, but it's much easier to skip to the 'discussion' section where they just say flat out what their statistics meant.)

Just thought I'd share my little moment of nerdom: I'm excited to read "Ready or not? Criteria for marriage readiness among emerging adutls" and "Nest-leaving patterns and the transition to marriage for young men and women." Just glad I picked the right major, I guess...

PS. I made a yeast-free, "no-rise sweet roll" (orange rolls!) recipe from Our Best Bites last night, and maybe it's because I've eaten them on a relatively empty stomach both times, but oh man. They are giving me some serious heartburn. I think I'm going to try and call my doctor office today to see if I can take some pill for heartburn, because I get a ton of heartburn and Tums doesn't seem to make it all go away. (Sorry if you really don't care about my heartburn. I'm sure you'll get over it.)

My "new" favorite way to cook quesadillas

Okay. So I'm a compulsive blogger (seriously. I feel like I need to restrain myself sometimes) but lately I guess I haven't been feeling up to it. Why? I don't know. I really did think up a whole rant about why I dislike cyclists (not all of them, just... well, that's another story) and just haven't felt the need to share it with anyone aside from my hubby. I rant to hubby all the time.

Today, however, for lack of a desire to write about anything else, I thought I'd share this amazing tidbit I found on the internet one day while looking for ways to make chicken quesadillas. I used to be part of the "put everything on the tortilla and warm it up for a few minutes" camp, but I have changed my ways and never been happier. I wish I could find the actual website that was my guide, and if I do, I'll umm post it somewhere. I've been doing this most of our marriage now, as I have relied on the internet to help me try new things (with very very mixed results), but since we've been married less than a year, I suppose it's still "new."

Heat your pan on high. Yep, high. I think perhaps if you have a lot of heavy or cold ingredients to go inside, you might want to go with medium high and cook it longer; I haven't been very good about testing this though. Don't wait too long, just till it feels all toasty, and then warm your tortilla about 10-15 seconds per side. Generally after the first side, I like to put my toppings on while the other side is warming. (So I guess that means only really "warm" the one side 10-15 seconds?) Put the toppings on half of the tortilla, cover the pan (don't fold it over!), turn the heat down to low and wait about a minute to a minute and a half, depending on your toppings and how hot the pan was/how puffy your tortilla was. If it didn't start to puff up, wait a little longer for your tortilla to get crispy. When the toppings are melted, you may fold over your tortilla and bask in the crisp outer layer!! I love it.

The only disadvantage is you can only do half a quesadilla at a time. I am willing to work with it though, and besides, I've always made a mess when I try and use two tortillas and lots of toppings. Sometimes I let the pan get too hot and my tortilla puffs up way quickly while my toppings are things like cold meat that I've refrigerated/had leftover. Whoops. You either get a very very crispy and almost burnt-looking tortilla or sometimes I turn it down when I notice it starting to puff when I haven't even finished putting on those stubborn toppings. I'm not exactly a pro at it, but really, I love it so much more than cooking a folded quesadilla for a long time, flipping it to make sure everything heats evenly. And sometimes, when I make a certain meat quesadilla, the salsa I put in with it makes my tortilla super soggy. Unless I do it this way! Hah! Take that, soggy tortillas.

So, in case I was really confusing, get the pan hot, heat up the tortilla a little, and make sure and cover it and turn it down once the toppings are on. Covering it creates a little mini oven from all the heat built up that will melt the toppings while letting the entire tortilla rest on the pan to get crisp on the outside, so you don't have to constantly flip it (and get toppings all over the pan... which is what I do, anyway). I think the internet told me you could pile all the toppings on the middle and just let them squish out when you fold it over; I just find it more convenient to have them on the half you already intend them to be on.

See? I can be very prolific about nothing, when I have a mind to do it. (And all this rambling and lack of pictures is why I'm convinced I would be a horrible, horrible food blogger, even though I still think it would be fun.)

Never thought I'd say this...

I'm going to preface this with a note: I am not a lightweight person. I started my pregnancy probably around 155. That said, today I clocked in at 170 and 30 cm (the vertical length of my baby bump). I've never been so happy to weigh so much. It's sort of been hard for me to gain weight, since food and I have a love-hate relationship during pregnancy. (I love to eat it, I hate to prepare it. Or even choose what to eat.)

I just wish they told me to get my little blood test done sooner so I could know the results. I rescheduled my doctors appointment to make sure I had the "couple days" the doctor's office told me to have... but today the assistant told me that the BYU health center usually takes about a week to get results back. (So why didn't they tell me that before?) Gestational diabetes isn't extremely common or anything, but it would still be nice to know I don't have it.

Huh. Why am I still awake?

Dear IRB...

You know, if I could do a study right this very minute, I think I would do it on nutrition intervention. (I say right now because I haven't taken the time to see what sorts of studies have already been done in this regard....) I just read an article about potentially taking severely obese children out of the home to help them have a better lifestyle and lose weight. They mentioned at least three different cases where the child lost significant weight within a year. However, two points were made that I think are more significant: one mother fed her son McDonalds because she worked two jobs and didn't have time to cook. The article itself said healthier food is often more expensive. I suppose that might be true... if you only wanted to eat ramen and mac and cheese. (Even then, I bet I could argue that buying pasta and sauce would ultimately be cheaper.)

So what I'm interested in now is do nutrition classes work? I have very mixed feelings about removing a child from their parents/caregivers, and that seems like the next most logical conclusion. One of the commenters suggested nutrition, budgeting, and meal planning classes. Sounds brilliant... but would it really work? I mean, parents of severely obese children tend to have their own weight management problems, so it could either be a win-win or a completely unwinnable situation.

On a random tangent, that mother who worked two jobs and fed her child fast food might be interested to learn that sometimes working two jobs can add up to being more expensive than just working one. I watched an interesting little clip for one of my classes where this finance guy looked at a two-income household and found that between commuting, daycare, and the cost of fast food from not having time to prepare lunches and things, (and apparently second incomes get taxed more than primary) this woman was bringing in only a few thousand a year. Wow! Not to mention the sacrifices in time they were making, because they had to juggle two children, so the couple rarely saw each other except on Sundays or something. Is it worth the extra 3000 a year? Anyway. Long random tangent.

I would be very interested to see if having families (yes, the whole family) attend a sort of nutrition class for a month would ultimately affect their eating and health over the course of a year or five years. Because really, if it would, then it seems a much better solution than removing kids from the home. Even if it were only temporarily, as the article suggested, wouldn't the problem come back once the kids returned home anyway?

The downside? I also read an article about government spending and the debt ceiling. People who feel they can't spend money on "healthy" food (which I still maintain is usually cheaper than premade food, it just costs extra time) probably won't find the money to attend a nutrition class. So who would pay for it? I guess it would probably cost less than throwing more children into foster care.

Sometimes I look at the state of people in America and it makes me sad... I guess I just have a lot to be grateful for, even when things aren't going as smoothly as we hoped.

Glucose

Today I had another pregnancy adventure! The short glucose test to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes. Found out my aunt had it with her last pregnancy... but I guess it goes away after birth. I could handle that. I sort of thought it was a life time thing, and I thought, that would be such a bummer! I should probably eat more like a diabetic anyway... I don't want to think too much about that though.

So - the test! All I knew is I would have to take a glucose drink and then an hour they would draw my blood. I'm discovering that I must be somewhat paranoid, cause I thought that I was forgetting about all sorts of rules and what I couldn't eat and that this drink might be thick and nasty and, and, and.... I wasn't looking forward to it. All in all, it was relatively painless; the worst part was that I had to wait an hour in between, and while I meant to be studying, I just watched the food network that was playing in the little lobby, and the cute little kids that came in, too (poor things I think all had to get "poked"). The glucose drink was described to me as watered-down Sprite, but since I'm not exactly a Sprite connoisseur, I can't judge the truth of it. All I care about is that it wasn't even close to a gross medical brew. It was, well, very very sweet. Almost unpleasantly so, by the end. Fortunately it was only about the size of one of those mini water bottles, otherwise it would have been harder to drink. The taste was pleasant, and I would have enjoyed it all if it weren't so sweet. Haha. Go figure - a glucose drink is sweet...

Anyway, I'm going to find out the results of my lovely test on Friday when I go see the doctor. I could possibly find out sooner, but I don't feel like investigating. I'm just glad it all worked out... (I forgot my doctor appointment was this week, and they wanted me to do it "a few days before," and I lost the lab test order... fortunately they were able to fax it over).

Next test.... midterm. I can't just sit around for an hour and watch Food Network for that one, unfortunately, so I need to study. I think I can, I think I can....

Emotional

I saw a pregnancy comic the other day where a husband was standing by his crying wife in the kitchen. The text underneath is simply, "The water's just taking so long to boil..."

That's how I feel right now, except replacing water with something equal silly. Maybe not quite that bad, more akin to when you were a kid and found out your friend couldn't make it to your birthday party. Like it was the only day the whoooole year you would see them. Such trauma.

I should get over it, I just feel like I'm going to start bawling at work, which would be really unfortunate. I mean, I haven't heard much about health codes and crying while preparing food, but I imagine it's frowned on. (Don't worry though; like many silly things, I'll probably stop worrying about this one soon enough.)

It got better

Well, one day I might not fail at this whole procrastinating thing. For class, each student does a presentation on one of the sections we're reading, and the professor needs a copy of the presentation at least 24 hours before class so he can prepare, too. I hoped to get it to him sooner, since I don't know if he does stuff like this on Sunday, but as it is my presentation isn't quite done. And I can't actually work on it tomorrow morning, since I'm going to be at work getting ready for the missionaries to stuff themselves with ice cream and delicious toppings. (Mostly we do the toppings stuff in the morning.) At least what I'm teaching is pretty set? Hopefully that will be sufficient for my professor to feel like he can prepare... and not dock me points. That would be nice. :-)

So both Gary and I work tomorrow. Bummer. The worst part is that we don't work at the same time. I work from 9:30-2:30 and he works from 2-6. Sad day. Kind of like today I worked from about 11-2, and he worked 2-10. But at least we had a little time this morning. And, likewise, at least we'll have some time tomorrow night. I have a crockpot meal planned just for this occasion. I think. I've seen several recipes, and I can't decide if I need to cook it for 6-8 hours or for 4 hours. So I'm kind of compromising around 4.5-5...

Yeah. My life is so exciting, isn't it? I'm sorry to say that the point of this blog is mostly selfish, because I find that writing about random stuff/frustrations/excitements soothes me and makes me feel better about life. The funny part? When I go to bed... hopefully soon... yikes... I'll write in my journal. Maybe I just like to write about myself?

Too much food on my plate

Today is the day... for Gary's colonoscopy. You know what? I'm nervous. I don't think anything will go wrong, but my poor boy is not going to be a happy camper, and probably won't be fully recovered until sometime tomorrow. At least, from what I've looked at so far, nothing is going to prevent him from eating real, tasty, solid food when we're done. Except perhaps personal discomfort... I guess doctors pump a bunch of carbon dioxide into the colon so they can see better? Helloooo gas pain and bloating. Ugh. At least he'll be sedated in some form or other, so perhaps the discomfort won't be too bad while the sedation is wearing off.

I confess, though, it all has me very distracted. Why? Couldn't really tell you. Probably because I keep trying to imagine what he's going through. I don't want him to feel like he's doing it alone, you know? But at the same time I already have pregnancy discomforts (I mean, they aren't that bad yet but I still have them), so compounding the few discomforts I have with trying to imagine what he's doing isn't going so well for me. I'm pretty glad I dropped my other class because of all this doctor nonsense... though it turns out that I only "dropped" the class, because I'm currently still registered so I have to petition to get it deleted... sigh. At least one person I've talked with though seems to think BYU handles petitions pretty well, so that should happen. Especially if I mention my husband's medical conditions, right? And my pregnancy I guess.

Speaking of pregnancy, I also need to get a counselor. Um, not that dramatic, I mean one for school. One who can help me decide what's best financially and if I could perhaps take one online class in the fall (just so that financial aid can mostly pay for it). Cause I was looking at the way that BYU awards pell grants, and what they would give me, at most, for the credits I plan on taking, wouldn't fully cover the cost of those credits. Which is fine, I guess, since my scholarship was only half-tuition anyway; the biggest problem is that we're going down to one income this time. And I don't have my sweet summer job to pay for most of the other half of tuition. It isn't that bad, really, I just wish it were a tiny bit more to help pay for a few books and, well, the baby expenses will be having. At least Gary should be hired on this fall, complete with benefits and pay-raise. (He's technically contracted right now, but they're still really nice to him and letting him work overtime and stuff.)

Okay. I'm starting to feel like I'm complaining. I just want to get it all out, you know? Release some anxiety. Distract myself from the fact that I'm stuck in this office with little motivation to do anything productive. (Though I partially blame lack of motivation on anxiety... hence the blog post!) So, on the bright side, I got to get another ultrasound yesterday, and I got it recorded on a DVD. And they gave me some real cute pictures of her profile - complete with a tiny fist by her mouth! I wonder if she sucks on her thumb already. :-) Gary gave me a hard time yesterday because I kept calling our baby cute, and he only saw the alienishness of the ultrasound. But golly, feeling her move and then seeing her in there, moving, with her little arms and legs and beautiful face... Yeah, I think she's pretty cute. I just hope her abnormal kidneys don't cause her any pain, cause that would be so sad. At least the doctor said everything else looks just great. Yay for a mostly healthy baby!

Doctors

Whoo boy. Let me make a confession. We have a lot of doctor going on right now in our (small but growing) family... and it sort of stresses me out. I feel pretty lucky to go see my little girl again via ultrasound, but the co-pay at the hospital is pretty high. Gary's colonoscopy is a little stressful cause they're going to sedate him and there is potential that something could be wrong in there. But you know what stresses me out more? The co-pay, which is even more than the co-pay for my ultrasound. Not to mention if there is anything wrong that some insurances don't fully cover the procedure. I don't know about Gary's though; whatever the case, we hope to find out what's wrong and that he'll be just fine.

I love modern medicine. It does lots of good. And I really love insurance. I... just don't love the way we've handled our money necessarily. Paying cash for our car seemed like a really good idea at the time. Until the car suddenly got a little more expensive. Oh well. I guess every couple should go through financially trying times, right? It builds character or something. On the bright side, we aren't really overwhelmed with debt, just... not quite financially stable. This month should be a better month. That is, unless our doctor visits significantly increase again. Oh the joys.

It's happening

You know those funny moments, when you sort of catch a glimpse into the future and begin to realize things are really going to change? I had one of those yesterday, as we stood in Babies R Us and picked out a crib and tested a stroller. Bought a couple of crib sheets. We won't have the crib for another few weeks and the stroller/travel system is still in the box, but they are ours. Weird. Next up I consider stashing up on diapers... yikes.

Since I'm sooo educated

I read a lot of potentially worthless things when I'm bored. Or, in this case, when I'm too tired to want to do anything besides sit here. Anyway, I've seen quite a bit of hype about toys and kids meals at fast food restaurants. Look at child obesity! McDonalds, we blame YOU and your little toys and attractive packaging!...

(Well, not to point fingers or anything, but it's not like the kids walk in and buy it themselves...)

All blame aside, though, based off my purely personal experience, when I wanted to go to a fast-food place, my mom usually wouldn't buy us the kids meal with the fancy toy. We were lucky if we got to go at all. So, in my mind, I wanted to go for the food. Still, most of the time my mom said no. Probably not entirely based on health, since with five kids fast food became expensive food. As we got older, occasionally we would take our own personal money and go buy fast food... again, not for the toy.

Basically this was a really long way of saying that I don't really think it's the toys in kids meals that lead to childhood obesity.

And lets be real... they don't have toys for adults, so what are we blaming for our obesity?

On a more positive note, my baby is kicking around so hard I literally see my stomach twitching and bouncing. Fun!

Pregnant face-off!

Okay, not really. Last time I worked on a Friday, my nice supervisor was there and made me cashier. Tonight, not only was nice supervisor not there, another pregnant lady was working! And I'm assuming she's actually scheduled on Fridays, so she cashiered. Sigh. I could have used it, but maybe the hard work made my headache go away. Working on salads is my next preference, mainly because it doesn't involve a lot of lifting and it isn't next to hot foods. Tonight, however, it wasn't as pleasant as usual because, first off, the supervisor was a little behind so we didn't even get job assignments until 5 minutes after the shift started (usually it happens at least five minutes before, if not fifteen), and second, the other guy working salads with me had never done it before. Oh well... hard work is good for me right? Serving probably would have been easier, since it was just pizza night, but last time I "just" served, I got soo hot from the food and everything that it wasn't fun, either. Maybe I'm just pathetic. :-)

On the bright side, today started out... not very nice. I would say perhaps I had a minor bought with depression (that I totally blame on hormones) where I didn't see the point of doing anything and just felt bad. Fortunately, I had class which forced me out of the house (and possibly my gloom) and into the sunshine. Class started great, but we ended it with a lecture about statistics... and don't get me wrong, I find a lot interesting about statistics now that I've taken it, but the presenter went a little too much into the theoretical "why we have statistics" for me. Ended with a headache. I feel better mentally, though! Just tired. Real tired. Work did feed us dinner, though, which very rarely happens.

Speaking of dinner, poor Gary had an incident at work today. Well, incident implies he had something to do with it... turns out they cleaned out the fridge at work and threw his dinner away (tupperware and all!). I was able to pick up a burger for him, and, humorously, for two other co-workers, but he was understandably upset when he found out (since it was late and he was hungry!). I learned that... when he was angry with what happened... he managed to put a dent in the fridge. Hah! Am I a horrible wife for thinking that is hilarious? My husband dented a refrigerator. I am sorry the cause was anger/frustration... but... hahahaha there's a dent in that fridge now. I'm just glad it isn't ours.

Well, I'm going to stand under the swamp cooler and cool down for a few minutes. It's good to be home. Next big decision: do I work two shifts tomorrow or just one?...