on bad attitudes

When you have a bad attitude, whether because you are STILL pregnant or because you stubbed your toe one too many times today, it is important to try a few tricks to improve your outlook.  Here are my suggestions.

1. Clean your stove top.  It's amazing how this makes you feel like you have a new lease on life.  However, if you nested all weekend and you and your husband spent approximately 60 minutes total working on said stovetop and it's spotless, you'll have to try another method.

2. Accomplish a task that has been bothering you.  Dust off your chandelier or fan!  Get on top of your laundry pile!  Change all the sheets in the house!  What's that?  You've done that too?  Moving along...

3. Incorporate bacon into your life.  Bacon is delicious and fatty.  Two things that should make your soul sing.  If you've done this and it still hasn't done the trick, move to item number 4.

4. Take a shower and get pretty.  You don't feel like it?  Neither do it.  Let's rock the messy bun and yoga pants look out, girl!

5. Eat some chocolate.  Oh right.  You already ate it all.  That explains the exponential growth of your derriere.

6. Get out of the house!  It's another polar vortex, did you hear?  Doesn't that make you want to haul your whale-sized self out into the world to walk around the mall and dream about the clothes you don't fit into, or hit up the grocery store for either yogurt pretzels or the necessary ingredients to make rice crispy bars that your husband will not eat because he's started a new diet?  Me either.  But holy marshmallows could I go for a rice crispy bar.  Double the marshmallow.  

I see that I'm getting no where with this list, as you're being particularly stubborn today so I'm giving up.  I might suggest you do what Lady did and just go back to bed. Good luck!

still here

I've lost count of the number of people that have texted asking if the baby is here yet.

He isn't.  I got my pedicure last week.  I had about 4 nights of fake labor pains.  I nested ALL DAY on Saturday until I fell asleep at 5 pm.  We still made it for our dinner reservations though.  Justin ordered duckling.  I was pretty nervous it would look like a duckling.  Thankfully, it didn't.  I wore high heels to dinner.  I'm 11 thousand months pregnant and I wore high heels.  You can mail me my medal.

Yesterday I had a complete emotional meltdown about everything from my glasses being crooked to the fact that I'm still pregnant.  Funnily enough, later on that day my glasses broke!  I knew something was wrong with them.  We also went to the TJ Maxx and got a basket for to hide our blankets in the corner.  And then we went to the Lowes and got some lavender seeds for to detoxify our air.

I forgot to eat dinner last night.  Actually, I've got pretty much zero appetite [unless you're offering yogurt pretzels, then I have all of the appetite], except at 2 am I was pretty hungry but to stubborn to get up.  Other than the normal sharp belly pain where my poor muscles don't want to stretch, I feel excellent today.  Better than I have in weeks.  I can move around.  I have energy.  I have no heartburn and only minimal nausea.  No noticeable contractions.  I even bought a pair of 3 inch heels for my brother's wedding in a couple weeks.  I rock at this pregnant in heels thing... I think I'll probably be pregnant forever and this is my body resigning to it.  Crap.

Now because I have nothing else to say.  And because I should be studying for the exam that I'm taking two days after Mr. Oliver is due [double crap!].  Pictures!

This was on sale.  I died.  Then bought it.

Snuggle pooch.  He pulled her into this hug.  She loved it.

She just looks like she's trying to tell me something and I am not sure what it is.

This is the look you make when your person won't share his pistachios, even though you don't like pistachios.  

I will look back on this picture and think that I'm huge, but looking at it right now make me think "I'm not that big.  Am I?"

snnnnooooow

I'm tired of snow.  We've absolutely gotten dumped on this year.  I can barely see out of the driveway when I pull out the snow is piled so high.  When I went to let Lady out this morning, she saw it was snowing and started shivering before she was even outside.  She's pathetic.  Have I mentioned that yet?
Also I'm 38 weeks pregnant now.  That's a lot of weeks.  I thought I was in labor last night after walking around with my friend at the mall for two hours, but no luck.  The contractions stopped for no reason at all.  What a disappointment!

Now I need to be positive about something.  Hmmm.  I slept from about 10 pm to 3:57 am without waking up once last night!  Which is amazing.  Lady and I didn't really get in a fight today.  Which is also amazing.  It's only just now getting dark at 5:55 pm, bringing hope to the future that spring may come.  Also we have warm weather in the future!  [35 degrees is pretty much tropical after this winter].  Let's melt that snow!

Bump update:

Pardon the shirt that doesn't fit.  I have about 2 shirts that fit.  I wish I was kidding...

This is what we did all day.  When it isn't sunny out, she decides she's allowed on the couch.  She was in bed, but got lonely and started crying and had to come down to join me.  Seriously, pathetic.

happy valentine's day

I'm making a flipping ice cream cake.

I told Justy B. if this baby didn't come by today, I was making a dang ice cream cake.  Except I sent it via text.  And when I text, I spell things wrong.  And one of the things I spell wrong is ice cream.  My texting brain thinks it's one word [it also thinks "every time" is one word.  It's a phenomenon I cannot explain].  I accidentally taught my phone to spell "ice cream" as one word.  However I taught it in caps lock so I told Justin:

If this baby isn't here by Friday, I'm making a dang ICECREAM cake

Anyways.  Layer one is in the freezer.  I bought gluten free chocolate cookies to make into fudgie crunchies.  This is going to be unhealthy.  And contribute to the three pounds I gained in the past week.  Seriously, I'm winning at gaining weight.  I can't wait for dessert.  I don't even care about dinner.  Which is steak on the grill.  Which we're having because I love Justin.  I'm still not sure how I feel about the grill.

Also we meet with the doula tomorrow.  And I'm going to try and find someone to walk around the mall with me.  And I'm getting a pedicure next week.  And I'm in such a better mood today and yesterday than I've been in lately about being pregnant.  Also, don't even start a sentence with the word "and".

For a final comment on the day, when I was at the old Hyvee grocery store, there was a creepyish guy walking around with ZERO groceries.  He just kept popping up.  He gave me those creepy, skeeved out feelings.  I was on the phone with my mom, so someone would know if I got abducted.  Although I'd be an annoying adductee, all pregnant and whiney like this.  Anyway, as I was walking to find some tea tree oil, I looked ahead of me and lo!  There he was, with his hand down the back of his pants scratching his bum.  And now you're skeeved too.

the toaster situation

I'm not particularly fond of toasters.  I don't go around eating much toast because A. I don't make my own bread very often. B. When I do have bread, it's usually store bought and that's expensive as all get out and C. I prefer french toast than regular toast.

I went off toasters in college when I lived in the world's smallest apartment with a teeny kitchen closet.  Not a closet in the kitchen.  The kitchen was in a closet.  You could see where they took the doors off, the hinges were still there.  Anyways, there was about 1 square foot of counter space and I added about 6 square feet more with a microwave cart that I set my microwave upon and effectively ate up about 4 of those square feet.  Also the 2 square feet left folded down so I had more room to get around the world's smallest apartment.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I couldn't bring all of my kitchen accouterments to live with me, so the toaster was eliminated.  She stayed in a purple rubbermaid container for about 2 and half years and was forgotten.  I learned to make toast under the broiler.  This is a thrilling endeavor because it's either not done enough or burnt to all hell in a period of about 48 seconds.  It takes a while longer than a toaster, but with some planning, it's not a big deal.  Plus if you want 3 pieces of toast, then you can make 3 pieces on one go, dangit!

I come from a house that possesses two toasters.  The "gluten" toaster and the "gluten free" toaster.  Oh the stress and hassle.  In my current house, we don't have this issue because the only gluten items are the beer in the basement and the dog food [also in the basement].

Now to my point, last night, Justin informed me that he wanted to buy a $10 toaster to bring to work.  This sounded dumb to me because don't all work places have a break room with a toaster?  [the break room is far too far away].  You don't need a toaster because we're going to try and eat healthier once this baby comes and that certainly doesn't involve toast [but can't I toast paleo bread?] <- Joke's on him, that stuff will fall apart so fast, his head will spin.  Well fine, if you feel like you need a toaster, just take our's. [BUT THEN WE WON'T HAVE A TOASTER HERE] Of course my rebuttal was that we have an oven which is better than a toaster anyways.  He disagrees.  So I guess that joker is going to buy a toaster for work.  Also I'm supposed to be hardboiling eggs as we speak because I said I would if I didn't go into labor and would you look at that?  I'm not in labor.

This is all very uninteresting.  Just wait until I get inspired to write about the butter knife that I don't trust in my drawer.

on your mark...get set...wait an indefinite amount of time.

Welp. 37 weeks. Here we are. You and me and a baby still cooking in my belly. Today I unsubscribed from Motherhood Maternity emails, which I'm sure cemented this gestational period as lasting until 152 weeks. I'm just done. I have zero maternity clothes on today, which means I have the underbelly of a fat alcoholic bald man. And I'm ok with that. I'm not going anywhere. 

The only labor signs I've had are all fake. The backaches and hip pain, cramping, nausea, over emotional states, and extreme anxiety about repotting my houseplants are just nothing. I figured out yesterday that I'm never going to have this baby. I'll be pregnant until the fat lady sings and the cows come home and until I can think of another cliche. Which will take forever because I'm too tired. 

Ollie is flipping and flopping around my uterus like a pinball. Left and right. High and low. He's well acquainted with my liver and my bladder. He's made friends. Plus it's warm in there. Why leave? 

I realize that pregnancies last 38-42 weeks. And that I technically have anywhere from 3-5 weeks left but holy cow. I didn't realize the 5 weeks part actually. Excuse me while I go cry. Do jumping jacks. Hold a seance. Eat a whole pineapple. Etcetera and so forth. Can you tell I'm getting desperate? 

Zero effort put forth towards my appearance. 

Lady is tired of being pregnant too. Also she gets the pillow when I'm done with it, right?

following directions

The other day I freaked out and ordered a bunch of stuff for Baby O [new nickname ala my co-worker's kids]. Today I got the pack and play amongst a host of other things that Lady had to examine and be suspicious about. She's watching you, diaper pail! 

Our previous try at a temporary sleep solution took us two days to assemble [someone doesn't utilize instructions], so when we ordered this one J said "you put it together." 

Challenge accepted! It wasn't a challenge though. It took about 5 minutes. The instructions were just pictures with arrows. Needless to say, I'm happy we exchanged the old one for this one. 

Lady was a big help as you can see. I'd be lost without her. 

36 weeks!

We made it to 36 weeks!  I can officially do whatever I want.  Go to a rave?  Ok!  Bungee jump?  Go for it.  Go to work?  Yeah, that probably isn't going to happen.  Along with the other things, since I can barely walk around Target without feeling like my feet are going to fall off and like my back is breaking.  Plus I don't feel safe being this pregnant around potentially violent adolescents.  And walking around on ice/slush/snow.  I almost fell last night on our friend's driveway leaving their Super Bowl party.  Justin yelled at me.  Because I was trying to fall down...

I have my first exam for school this week, so hopefully I can get that taken without Ollie intervening beforehand.  I do have to say, these contractions are getting stronger.

I especially noticed them today when I was out putting together the perfect outfit for this kid for my older brother's wedding in April.  It may seem like I'm rushing a little bit but apparently this is how I nest, plus I had a coupon.  This is what I came up with.

Best dressed baby in the history of all the babies.

He can come any day now, he's allowed.  No one is going to stop him.  We'll see iff he wants to cook longer or if he wants to bust out to freedom.  I know which one I'm hoping for...