Grape Did It

Week 28

These pictures are actually coming a day early because I am off to Virginia for a baby shower and though I will never be above enjoying the gift GETTING part, I am most excited to see some of my closest friends. It is the best gift of all and I have no snarky, sarcastic way of spinning that. The only thing that would make it better would be permission to drink vodka but last I checked my doctor STILL frowned upon that one for baby's sake. I think she's gone ahead and given up on my liver entirely.

First picture, with shirt covering belly, feeling very large indeed. And...did I have to go with the head tilt? The answer would be yes, in the quest for a non-idiotic self-taken pregnancy picture I AM TRYING EVERYTHING.

Okay, here's the thing. I took this one and not only is the light impossibly low because I managed to capture the window light in the background, but you're right. You're ALL CORRECT. It does not do justice, in any way, to the enormity of my true belly right now. Some sample comments (true story!) from the past couple of weeks: "WOW, you've REALLY popped out!" "That's a big old belly!" (that last one was from Bud, last night. Thanks DARLING.) and "Ho yeah, you do look a lot bigger than your online pictures."

And SO. It occurred to me to TURN THE OTHER WAY and look! More belly! Bright light!

Nursery, part 1

When envisioning a nursery, I kind of shuddered at ALL PINK or ALL BLUE or the lemon lime combo of we've-decided-not-to-find-out-the-baby's-sex. I was equally bothered by cute characters lining the walls or changing table or bedding and, though I envisioned polka dots at one point, none of it felt quite right. A few weeks ago though I stumbled on these over-priced curtains from Anthropologie and it gave me a launching pad for what has become the nursery's look. If I can even say something like that because a room's "look" for me generally involves buying each and every piece based on my emotions on any given day and hoping it all somehow works out for the best. STRATEGY.

The overall feel of the room will be white - once I am finished re-painting every GODDAMN SURFACE IN THE ENTIRE ROOM - with bright and colorful accents. That's the hope. Curtains are still to be determined though because if you bothered clicking on the above link you'll note that each PANEL is on SALE for $50. Pht! I wave my middle finger in your general direction Anthropologie because yes, even though I know you strive for a HIGH END BRAND, they are. just. curtains.

On sale. Please.

I thought to share the nursery only when it was finished but Summer insisted that I would be glad to remember a piecing together of the room when I look back later. Thus, some pictures below.

The rug, from Ikea. I keep trying to describe it to people over the phone and it comes out, "um, you know, like, bright shapes? Um, just, SHAPES, I don't really know how to describe them."

One of two pastel drawings I made with leaves from the garden. These are squash stencils only I think they came out looking more like spades in a card game. You'll note the bare wood changing table the picture is standing on. NEEDS TO BE PAINTED.

We have a small banana tree next to the garage and so I used one of those leaves for the tracing in this picture.

Today I spray painted the small bookshelf and, once Bud gets home to help me carry out the changing table, that might be all of the furniture I will paint again. Ever. In my entire life.

Moments before turning to Google

Last week, when I had my blood sugar test, I was SURE, as in, NEARLY POSITIVE, my doctor told me they would have the results by Monday or Tuesday but not to worry, they would only call if there was a PROBLEM. So imagine my smug healthy-baby feelings when I came home to a message from the nurse at the doctor's office who mispronounced my name among other things, to give her a call back. Which I did but surprise! I only got her voicemail and so I called Bud in a panic afterwards, on the verge of pregnancy tears AGAIN, all, "I...think I may have...gestational diabetes." DRAMATIC PAUSE. When I assured him that I was pretty sure it wasn't a huge deal, that it didn't mean I'd have diabetes the rest of my life, nor would the baby but that I'd have to watch what I ate very carefully for the rest of the pregnancy, I could hear an audible sigh of relief and then he began to reassure me that it's okay, it might be they call to tell you you're in the clear. Which is when I replied, THE DOCTOR DISTINCTLY SAID THEY WOULD ONLY CALL IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM. WAIL. AND WAIL!

From there I began wringing my hands and getting indignant. It's not like I sit on the couch all day and eat candy! How dare they call me and say I have gestational diabetes? Okay, so my diet in the past few weeks has consisted primarily of fruit and starchy products but so what! I had some walnuts yesterday. BRING IT.

Which is when. God I start a lot of sentences that way. I realized two things.

1. You (as in, One) is apt to be smug when you (one) believes you fall into the successful category of something. I can be as sympathetic as all get out when MY pregnancy is going just fine, MY relationship isn't falling apart, MY finances are in okay shape. It's okay if it's YOU and I'll sit here all day long and tell you it's fine, you're normal, it's all going to be okay SO LONG AS IT'S NOT ME.

I was just...amazed at my own arrogance. So then I started to think about how much it sucks when something does go wrong in your life and you just want to reach out and slap those people around you who do NOT have the same issue but are telling you it's all peachy. Listen up bitch! I thought I was normal once too! PS I DIDN'T EAT THAT MUCH ICE CREAM.

2. I have completely lost my train of thought after number 1.

I called my mother after Bud said, um, maybe you need to talk to someone, which is his polite way of saying I AM NOT FEMALE I CANNOT HANDLE THIS CALL YOUR MOTHER OR SISTERS. So I did and whined and told her I felt like a failure, I'd let my baby down and I was an ignorant idiot who apparently had eaten badly and nothing in my life would ever go right again. She laughed and shared something from her health history that she said also made her feel like a failure and I felt relieved as I so often do after talking to another woman.

Then the nurse called and said, "good news! Your diabetes test came back just fine but we would like you to add an iron supplement to your diet since it showed up a little low in your test results."

Overheard, coffee shop, blah blah

Three young women, maybe high school, early-college age?

"YA'LL!"

"..."

"Do you find it, like, annoying, I mean PERSONALLY annoying, when someone in the bathroom leaves without washing their hands?"

"Yeah, gross, I mean...like..."

"No, but I take it PERSONALLY. Like, please."

"ESPECIALLY these days with swine flu and all."

Moh-nah

For Mother's Day Bud got up and made me pancakes for breakfast, something I've been fiending for for a few days though you should know watermelon and coffee ice cream are also on that list and so is anything else that is utterly random. It will be pesto pasta until I've actually made the pesto and then last night it was Mexican food but by the time my dish actually showed up I'd over-done it on the chips and salsa (tomorrow: Is this a conspiracy?) and had to shove my plate at Bud after four bites.

In a fit of over-zealous Food Network gusto, Bud decided that, instead of many little pancakes, he'd save himself some time and just make two GIGANTIC cakes and cut them into four pieces each. There are reasons pancakes are not made this way but in the spirit of being a good steward to our marriage, I WILL NOT MENTION THEM. It was a sweet first Mother's Day breakfast, truly, though next year I am so looking forward to mimosas to go with the uni-pancake.

I have pictures I'll try and put up later this week.

The day went downhill from there as heartburn and this bizarre not-nausea-but-close set in so that by the end of the night I was breathing deeply through my nose and moaning that my belly hurt. It's...tough - and boring - to explain, but I'm not sure my body takes to pregnancy the way some women's bodies seem to. I'll not say I have it rough, I've heard so many stories of women who suffer through nine months of debilitating illness and I am unbearably grateful I do not fall into that category. But neither can I claim that pregnancy is this happy, shiny place of rosy skin and special feelings. In a good moment (and that is how I measure my days now) I feel slightly swollen and mostly myself. In a bad moment I feel trapped on a small elevator with four very large people who are all reminiscing about college days of yore. It's a long commitment, this pregnancy thing, but of course I am eager for this baby to fatten up and get good and ready in there. On the other hand, sometimes I just want my life back.

(What's that sound? The sound of so many mothers laughing at that last bit, the, I just want my life back?)

Maybe by 60 I can watch Oprah without crying

This morning I went to the doctor for a regular baby check-up and also to get my blood glucose levels checked in order to determine whether or not I have gestational diabetes. It is a routine test, there is nothing to suggest that I DO have the issue like, say, a 15 pound fetus already (my God there is such a thing. I found out yesterday from over-Googling that a 22 pound baby was born to some chick a few years back) or an addiction to ice cream, although my sweet tooth has increased with this baby.

(I am writing all this while polishing off yet another family size box of Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits but I am so not apologizing considering it could be a family size box of crack cocaine and WHICH WOULD BE WORSE?)

I don't know what I expected a BLOOD glucose test to be like. I'd been told ahead of time that I'd have to drink some sugary drink and then...I think from then on I just chose not to analyze very deeply how a doctor checks your BLOOD. Because when I was asked to sit down in the chair next to all of those BLOOD tube-collecting thingys I suddenly became very aware of what was going on. I might not be THAT QUICK BUT I KNOW WHAT THOSE TUBES ARE FOR. I asked the nurse if she had to take blood for this test? And when she answered yes I turned and stared at the wall for a minute or two, trying so hard to go to a happy place and wondering why I am having this ridiculous reaction. It's just. I didn't want to get stuck with a needle and know that my blood, my precious blood, was being sucked out of my OH MY GOD YOU BARBARIAN GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT THING.

It didn't end up getting that dramatic. I have begun to cope with these extra emotions during pregnancy, something you would have thought I'd learn to cope with years ago when all of that teenage angst began to bubble up with nowhere to go but a loudly slammed door and some loud Aerosmith, but no, it's taken me until now to begin to learn to HANDLE MY SHIT.

Whatever. Look at the table I painted in Daily Photo.

Last night Bud and I finished painting the baby's room, moved the furniture into place, unrolled the new rug and...it still looked undone. I have big plans to paint the changing table, add wall hangings, curtains to the windows and a few other details but still. I was hopeful the room would come together not unlike a show on HGTV wherein you look at the after picture and think YES YES THAT IS EXACTLY IT. Totally unlike the episodes where someone paints a chandelier pink and puts up a damask wallpaper but whatever.

Anyway, it doesn't look like I want it to and I keep walking back in there hoping something has changed. So far it has not. This is part of the reason taking myself to the coffee shop is so important. I begin to lose perspective with regards to the house and the baby and the things we need to do in the next few months and instead of doing what a responsible, normal adult would do - attack each project until they are finished - I tend to stand in the middle of any given room and sigh and wring my hands and wonder how all  of this is going to get done when I continue to have the attention span of a squirrel?

No, I am actually curious as to how over achievers do it. I just visited one of my favorite blogs and the author had posted this adorable DIY something or other and she's a published author and has a wonderfully cute apartment and child and vacation cabin and cooks cool stuff and has goals and lofty aspirations she is well on her way to achieving and waaaaaaaaaaaah.

RIGHT? Me? I took the pork chops out to thaw and gave the dogs heart worm medicine. SEVERAL DAYS LATE.

Initiation into the club

Today I wore the one maternity shirt that makes me feel just a little bit sexy, if you can say the words "a little bit sexy" while holding what amounts to a medium sized watermelon under your shirt. But it is blousy and loose enough that I feel like instead of the sound of a trumpet being played and several medieval looking flags waving as my belly enters the room, it is more of a tweet! tweet! She's probably pregnant IN A GOOD NOT CARRYING TRIPLETS KIND OF WAY.

I hesitate to write any of this, even the story that is about to follow, for fear that I will get the same kind of reaction I got last time I posted pictures of my belly. It was as if, instead of the title "24 Week Belly" I had written FISHING FOR COMPLIMENTS but let me explain. I have always thought the site of a pregnant woman is cute, sweet, even pretty. I realize I look more pregnant than I do fat and hey, if you can't gain weight now, when the hell can you so TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE, right? Well, full advantage without putting on the weight of a small car, but you catch my drift. Here's the thing. That is all well and good until it's you. I'm not saying I feel ugly (I don't) and I do like the sense that I am doing and creating something special. Also, the closer parking spots are nice and the parting of the masculine seas wherever I walk is fun. But still. When your belly reaches out to lovingly caress the ass of your brother in law AND YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ITS WANDERING HANDS, you feel a little less than bikini ready. No really, this actually happened, and I had to mutter an "excuse my stomach, I swear I did not just brush your ass."

Today I walked into a burrito shop and before I was halfway to the counter the woman behind the register hollered out, "I just have to tell you, you look ADORABLE!" Then I was all, thank you, you made my day, I feel huge, blah blah the way girls talk to each other and she chirped, "I know you do! But no, you look great!" I had a feeling then that I must be talking to a fellow mother because she got it and got that your belly sometimes takes on a life of it's own whether or not others think you look like you just ate a house or not. I almost burst into tears except that her demeanor was so infectious I started to ask instead, "so where's the party? I can scramble around for some Tequila if you're down," before realizing that alas, I'm pregnant and she's a stranger, so that question would be wrong for many reasons. STILL.

We began to chit chat about giving birth which is when she encouraged me to go natural as she had with ALL FOUR of her children (this woman looked just shy of her 23rd birthday I SWEAR). As I nodded that ideally I'd like to try (with the full knowledge that every intention may go out the window once I actually go into labor), a slew of new customers came in the door. She didn't look annoyed in the least, just motioned me to her side and intimated that she'd like to keep talking after she helped these people. Sounds kind of presumptuous, right? But no, I found it endearing that her social barriers weren't set to HIGH ALERT and that she wanted to keep talking so I obediently stepped over to the side of the register.

When she had another moment to spare she sidled back over to me and whispered, "Have lots of sex. Take lots of walks. And then do these kind of squats (demonstrates squats)."

I was just encouraged, by a total stranger, to HAVE LOTS OF SEX. I am so in the motherhood club.

Texting

Hope: Do you have swine flu?

Georgia: Yes.

Hope: Good thing I live so far from you then.

Hope: Wait. Really?

Georgia: What?

Hope: Do you really have swine flu?

Georgia: No, sheesh.

Hope: That's a rude thing to joke about.

Georgia: You're rude.

Hope: If I had a peso for every time you told me that.

Portable comedian

Yesterday we visited the Cincinnati Ikea in all of its glory, I am still trying to find a few pieces for the house and when I saw "a few" I mean, "a lot" but that is called denial psychology. Something I have been working on my whole life. So far it works well.

As we moseyed through room after room after room set up, Ella insisted on trying out half of the "baby tables" and "baby beds" and I was obliged to stand next to one as she actually put the model covers over her body to "petend" she was sleeping there. Somewhere around thirty seconds into watching her petend sleep I realized perhaps this wasn't normal adult behavior, perhaps indulging her in actually living out her sleep fantasies at a giant home goods store was somewhere under the "don'ts" in a parent hood book. Nonetheless it is tough to say no to a child who's JUST TRYING TO HAVE SOME FUN YA'LL.

We continued through the store, at this point Ella had tired out and was in the front of the buggy. One of my favorite things about toting a toddler around on errands is when they sit in the front of a cart and you can chit chat with them. Sort of like when parents say their favorite time with a child is during a car ride. Defenses are down and conversation seems easy, fresh. Funny I should choose the word fresh for the following conversation.

"OH. MY. GOD." (this is me, holding my nose)

Ella in a whisper "oh. my. dod."

"Ella, I think someone has gas."

Ella holds her nose and then we both start laughing hysterically.

Hope, "I think it's the old people in front of us."

Later that day:

"Ella? What was your favorite part of Ikea? Did you like going down the little slide? Getting in the tent in the kids section?"

"We melled das."

"Who was it?"

"Da old people."