single digits February 28, 2008

Random post:
*9 weeks until ridiculous and random date the baby is supposed to come. I just read a thing that says white chicks deliver 1 week late, generally. S is pretty white, but if this little girl decides to come early, it could be like 7 weeks. S looks like she’s going to tip over.

*By the way a YURT is a circular tent that usually has a wooden frame inside and a wood floor. It is a very ancient structure that hippies started living in in the US. Like people do yoga in yurts. But it has become a very cool modern, green, inexpensive structure for homes. Go here to see more pictures of yurts.

*We are nesting like mad. S’s version of nesting is to look at houses online and stress out that we need to sell our house and move, immediately. Crazy pregnant chicks. Where are our cleaning instincts? Why can’t we be those irritating people who clean, or worse, exercise, when they feel stress? Our coping mechanisms suck. TV? Eating? WTF? Bum deal.

yurts rock February 26, 2008

we stayed here:

we stayed in a different yurt, but this is pretty much what the views are like. it was very fancy/rustic. when we turned the lights off the flames from the small gas fireplace lit the tent along with the moonlight streaming in through the domed skylight in the middle of the roof. super romantic. but poor S gets one night in Big S.ur as her pregnancy trip, while I got 2 weeks in Kauai. but we are NOT complaining. we are in a WAY different financial situation and this felt quite luxurious. and there was a self serve waffle bar for breakfast in the lodge.

plus!!! we got some good news about getting a new mortgage.

things are solidly good right now, which always makes me feel precariously perched before a chasm of doom. but that is only slightly happening right now (thank you again, wellb.utrin!)

anyhoo. yurts rock.

going February 22, 2008

S and I are headed to our very first alone away from Smarty overnight. It is so beyond overdue that it is embarrassing. He’s almost 3 1/2. I have gone away, and S has gone away multiple times but WE have never gone away. I doubt it will be a night of sweet sweet lovin’, but one never knows.

Today S is still pregnant, exactly THIRTY weeks to be exact. It is insanely wonderful, when the fear is at bay, which it is right now. I’m going to attempt to enjoy an alone night with my wife tomorrow because we need all the refueling we can muster before we have 2 kids and never have sex again. Right?

the, um, panic February 18, 2008

as we approach a seemingly absurd week of pregnancy, week THIRTY, i am beginning to panic. i’m starting to think about the woman in my birthclass for Smarty who did not come to our birthclass reunion because her baby died in utero at 38 weeks for no reason. she had to give birth anyway. i’m starting to feel nauseated when i think about all our bills and how messy our house is and how totally unprepared it is for a baby who will probably weight about 7 pounds and who needs 94 pounds of gear. i’m remembering, just kinda, what long term sleep deprivation feels like and it ain’t pretty. i’m remembering how i only get 3 weeks off with this baby, 1 week sick pay, 1 week vacation, and 1 unpaid week. that is all i get because i’m not the freakin birth mom.

it is scary being so close to having something i so desperately want.

baby names February 11, 2008

Here is Smarty’s list, in order, starting with his first name ideas 3 months ago, ending in the present. This is not one of his talents, as you will soon see.

1. Carol

2. Waffle Recipe

3. Da-dé

4. Clem.entine (one of his fave fruits and the only not weird name)

5. Smarty (you know, but his real name)

Let us start with Carol. Can you think of a worse name for a little baby? It’s right up there with Judy. Here is my baby…Carol. Here is my baby…Judy. A 40 year old named Carol, fine. Totally fine, but an infant? It is dreadful and Smarty insisted that this was her name, followed by real tears streaming down his face, if we tried to tell him it was something else, for weeks. He wouldn’t even concede that he could call her Carol while we called her something else. Oh no. “Carol is her real name, mommy [sniff, sniff].”

Movin’ on. First name Waffle, middle name Recipe. Sometimes he would change it up, musing that Recipe Waffle was an equally fantastic name.

Da-dé. Pronounced Dah-DAY. I have nothing to say about this awful sounding made up crap.

Cl.ementine. Pronounced “ClemenTIME”. Fucking adorable. We actually considered this. We still are. Cute stuff.

Smarty. What does it mean that he is now insisting we name the baby his own name. He even said that we should have a 3rd baby and also name that his same name. There is no reasoning with him. He doesn’t care that no one would know who was being called or talked to. He just smiles and insists that her name will be Smarty.

Nutty child.

tattoos and piercings February 7, 2008

S is all tattooed up. you can see an unfinished one growing with her belly. we both have tattoos (S’s legs are almost totally covered) and we both have, at various times, had many things pierced. S used to work in a tattoo shop as a piercer.

oh the days when we were hot and edgy.

anyhoo, i LOVE seeing tattoos on her belly, it reminds me that we are interesting and weird. it makes me even more proud to be an alternative family.

and i want to pierce our girls ears. when she is a baby. i know this is very unpopular and my good friend just gave me the ‘don’t make choices for her body’ lecture, which i could have given someone else a few years ago. but now?

i wanna. it’s cute. after having a kid i see how many decisions we make for them anyway, even when we think we are not. how we influence every aspect of their person, their language, their palate. we surround them with colors we like, and our world view. we show them what it means to be loved and to love, because they watch us and absorb everything. they are going to learn how to feel about themselves not by watching how we feel about ourselves, not how great we tell them they are. they learn how to be treated by future partners and family by watching how our partners and family treat us.

so, i don’t know, it just seems normal to pierce her ears. i don’t see how it is really so crazy, for us, in our household. we are pierced. and weird. and i’m 1/2 mexican. haha! and honestly, if she doesn’t like it later she can take them out and have some 30 second futuristic laser surgery that will return her lobes to their virginal state.

S doesn’t exactly agree with me though. i think she’s afraid of hurting her. from what i understand it doesn’t really hurt them and it heals fast. now, people make this argument all the time about circumcision, which i am totally against, so i know folks will think i’m a giant hypocrite and a barbarian. iknowiknowiknow. beauty shouldn’t be painful. it’s shallow. let them decide. it’s sexist. blah.

but it’s soooo cute to me (and not because people will know she’s a girl - i don’t give a rats ass about that). and her pediatrician can do it. i grew up in a home where it was SUCH a big deal to pierce anything and SUCH a big deal to die your hair. even though my parents were hippies they were nature hippies and didn’t support altering your body. whatever.

but holy crap, i didn’t realize people felt SO strongly about this. and no i’m not going to tattoo her. i know you all think i’m barbaric anyway.

we’ll see how i feel when she’s actually here. i’ll probably chicken out. and S probably won’t let me anyway.

damn MIL February 3, 2008

MIL called this weekend and asked about the birth (read: can I be there?). S told her that we were meeting with the doula in February to work out the details and make all our decisions about it. She asked if were were going to do it at home. S said no. MIL then starts in with oh, thank god, I didn’t know how to tell you how much I didn’t want you to do it at home, oh good, that’s great. Um, do we care what your opinion is? Hells no. Shut it.

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Then she asks what we are going to do with Smarty. S told her we were not sure yet, and then MIL asks if he can go and stay with WTF and RM. Um, no. What? And why is she making suggestions about this anyway? And why that choice? Because they are our donors?? They live an hour and a half away from us and have 3 kids in their house. My best friend with no children lives 4 minuted from us.

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Then MIL starts in with how hurt her feelings were during Smarty’s birth. How left out she felt. And what does S say to her? Guess?

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“I’m sorry that was so hard for you.”

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S’s explanation to MIL? “Charlotte had needs, and I had needs to make sure she got what she needed.” Right. Apologize to her and make it my fault that she wasn’t invited.

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Poor S. When I got mad at her afterward (yes), she just looked crestfallen and said that she really doesn’t know what to say to her mom. MIL knows how to guilt. I am trying not to be mad at S, but it’s hard, folks. I felt so not stood up for during the birth and here we are 3 years later MIL is STILL making it about her and somehow SHE is being apologized to!!

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It just baffles me.

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When MIL and S were getting off the phone MIL said “Well, I feel like I won one and I lost one.” What? ‘Won’ because we are not having a home birth ‘lost’ because I guess she was hoping and expecting S to tell her ‘of course you will be there.’

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Oh, I almost forgot my favorite thing MIL said: “This is my last chance to witness a birth.”

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Same shit she pulled with me 3 years ago. Like we are supposed to have her there so SHE can have an experience. I want people there who are going to support us. It is as if we are slapping her in the face to not have her be there. It almost seems like this is a public humiliation for her. WTF? Crazy.

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Ug. S apologized to her! I am channeling all of my powers of zen and easygoingness (which are not, to put it mildly, my strengths) to be understanding and trust that S and I will work this out. After their phone conversation I spent a 1/2 hour alone decompressing, then talked to S about it in a reasonable fashion, then dropped it for the rest of the weekend. Fuck. I deserve a frickin medal.

i’m not a co-registrant February 1, 2008

I went to make a little registry at Ta.rget and the boxes where you enter your information both have a little pull down menu with choices “mother” and “father.”

Clicking on two “mother” buttons instead of “mother” and “co-registrant”…well it made me cry. 

It is this kind of simple change to words on a form (we got married in 2003, when one of us had to go in the “groom” slot) that makes all the difference in the world.