Now What's the Deal, Here?

We're home and all good! Too much to do to post, but I must tell you that lots of it involves different shades of poo. Will update later.

Baby Piglet

Isn't he beautiful?

A Hearty Welcome to Baby Boy Piglet!

Greetings from guest blogger Eddie!

Pigs delivered a baby boy this afternoon at 12:36pm (central time) via C-section. He weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was 19.5 inches long. I haven't gotten to see a picture yet because there's no internet access in the hospital and no one in the Pigs family has a cameraphone. However, I'm sure he's the most handsome baby ever to grace the great state of Texas.

Mom, Baby, and Dad are all doing great!

Of course!

Waiting tables. I've done it. It's a hard job. I do not, however, think that it is exactly rocket science. I'm a pretty good tipper when the service is adequate, but I do not subscribe to the theory that every waitron (love the word waitron) deserves an automatic tip regardless of the service they provided. I do think that if they go above and beyond that you can feel free to tip them more.

It would be a rare occasion that I would completely stiff someone, or leave only a penny, which I was always told was worse than no tip at all. I know that wait staff work for only a partial wage and that their tips make up the rest of their salary. Friday I left my first low tip in a long time. My friend and I went out to lunch. My friend, me and her 4 month old. We went fairly early, so it wasn't very crowded.

You could tell from the start that this woman was going to be a problem. She was the loud, over-eager, asked too many questions type. She had big fluffy multi-colored, over-processed hair and lipstick that went outside the lines. Not that you should judge your waitress by appearance, but come on.

Waitron: Heeeeeey! You're going to have a baby! And you already have one! Wow!
Me: Uh huh.
Friend: Yep.
Waitron: Are you going to have an epidural!?
Me: Um....can I have a brunch menu, please?
Waitron: Of course! (hustles off)

[ten minutes pass]

Waitron: Are you ladies ready to order?
Me: Um, can I have a brunch menu please?
Waitron: Of course! (returns with menu and water)

[ten minutes pass]

We finally order and actually receive our meal in a reasonable amount of time and all food is correct. Waitron does not bother us for the entire meal. The end of the meal arrives and we are ready to go. Waitron has disappeared from restaurant. She is no where to be seen for many, many minutes. We chat.

[fifteen minutes later]

Waitron: How was everything?
Me: Great! Can we just get our check and a to go box please?
Friend: And some more water?
Waitron: Of course! (scuttles away)

[ten minutes later]

Waitron: Are y'all ready for your check? Would you like one or two?
Me: Two would be great. And a box. And some water.
Waitron: Of course!

[some more minutes]

Waitron arrives with two checks and stands there and watches us while we fish out money and credit cards. Takes checks away. Returns quickly and passes out receipts.

Me: Um? Could we get that box? And some water?
Waitron: Of course!

She did eventually bring a box, but we never did see the water. She also at some point regaled us with tales of her granddaughter's birth and complimented my friend's baby's impressive leg rolls. My bill was $8.65. What would you have tipped?

Do Not Panic

The fetus remains intact. Repeating....the fetus has not left the building. You will be properly alerted when the event transpires. It's amazing the volume of phone calls and emails you receive when your due date approaches.

Of all times.

Why must my garage door opener choose to go out this week? You might remember that back in the spring, I somehow lost garage door opener #1 to a peanut butter chocolate shake. I bought a replacement opener and all has been well until about a week ago.

The darn things waits until I'm ten months pregnant and then decides to take a hiatus from doing its duties. My current ritual that I must endure is to pull up to the garage, turn off car, unlock front door, walk inside to garage, open garage, get back in car, start car, park, then go inside. Reverse that for leaving. It's a huge pain and I'm not very good at getting into or out of the car as it is.

Bought a replacement battery at Target, figuring that's what was wrong with it and of course it still won't work. It hates me. My garage door opener and my fish just hate me. Grrrr.

It's Always Tuesday

I noticed while watching Ellen today that Mario Lopez is no longer the mullet bearing, Hammer pants wearing AC Slater of Saved By the Bell Fame. He is HOT! I just don't know if I can stoop to watching Dancing With the Stars. There is something about that show that just makes me want to read a book. But Mario Lopez?? Hmmmm...

Completely unrelated story: I established an all time top score on the Gross-o-Meter today when I simultaneously had three unfortunate bodily functions coincide. Being pregnant can be dangerous. I've had a lot of, um....acid reflux, shall we say, going on in the last week or so as the Piglet has smooshed by stomach higher and higher into my neck. I have also been suffering from some unusual late season allergies, thanks to the September wilds of the Texas prairies. While at the doctor today, I felt a belch/possible vurp coming on and attempted to quietly release and squelch, not anticipating the 8.3 Richter scale sneeze that snuck up on me at the same time. The coordinating effect of these two events was of course for me to pee myself. I don't think I can sink a lot lower. It is, of course, a Tuesday. Don't think that curse let us just because I'm not working.

Bored.

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. Fo real. Everything is done. I'm supposed to "take it easy" and relax. Relaxing? Is boring! I'm not good at sitting around watching TV because my attention span is too short. I've already read 250 pages of a 900 page book in two days. I'm out of magazines, my Netflix movies have been returned, the house is relatively clean, I have nothing to write about, the baby book is as filled in as I can make it, I'm bathed, the nursery is done, the dishwasher's unloaded. I even made some hotel reservations for a wedding in April. What's a body to do? I am living for my book club meeting at 7:00 tonight. I get to see people! Yes!

Gus committed his first act of vandalism upon the nursery today. We knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when. He absconded with a small stuffed pig from the bookshelf and disappeared under the dining room table to show it who was boss. Crawling around under the table after him was about the most exercise I've had today. We are not currently speaking. He keeps casting pouty looks my way and won't come sit with me. Twerp.

My fish hates me. I hate my fish. The fish, you might remember, was lovingly bestowed upon me for my birthday in April because my classroom had a fish theme. I like to decorate with fish in hopes that I might have a beach house someday when I'm rich and famous. I also like to eat fish. I do not, contrary to popular belief, like to own fish. Especially single fish in small bowls like a betta. My over-riding guilt complex kicks in and I pity them for being stuck in this cramped jar and feel like I should have to entertain it. It's hard to entertain a fish. You can't pet it or teach it tricks or tie its ears together. Nothing. It just eats and quite honestly, this fish isn't even very good at that. I drop the fish pellets right in front of it and it turns in cirlces, panicking because it can't find the food, then knocks it down so it sinks to the bottom and it's something else nasty I have to clean out of its bowl. I hate fish. But I have to keep this one because I'm friends with the mom of the child who orchestrated the gift and she will notice if the fish disappears. Argh.

Have you ever noticed that the people who give the most unsolicited advice always start out by talking about how they hate when people give unsolicited advice? For example: "I know everyone will tell you how they did it over and over again and you just have to ignore them! What's with people? You just have to remember that bottle feeding is the only way to go." or some such nonsense. Those people are usually in pretty thick with the "Just You Wait" people too. I've been getting a lot of phone calls lately from people seeing if I'm still pregnant (Yes, thank you for pointing that out) and they are often accompanied by a frenzy of last minute advice.

Say, if I'm going to make and freeze a sausage and egg casserole, do you think I should cook it before freezing or no? Everything else I've frozen is made and ready to be cooked, but I wondered if that's something you should do with eggs. I'm not an expert on the freezing properties of eggs.

Anyone Know Step 16?

I became energized and enthusiastic a couple weeks ago, determined to cook some meals to freeze so that we will have actual food to fall back on after the baby comes and all the company leaves. Thus far I've covered the basics: BBQ, spaghetti, chili, chicken pot pie, and taco meat. Yesterday's endeavor? "Easy Enchilada Casserole". It has the word easy in the title, I've made it before...this should have been no problem.

Step One: Cook chicken and chop into pieces.

Step Two: Feet and ankles threatening to tingle and swell. Rest. Read a chapter of book. Pee.

Step Three: Saute onions, add tomatoes, black beans, corn, and seasoning. Simmer.

Step Four: Backache beginning on right side. Piglet doing Irish jig on left rib cage. Rest. Watch an episode of Laguna Beach. Lose 20-30 brain cells. Pee.

Step Five: Grate 3 cups of cheese. Berate self for buying only block cheese after learning of the evils of pre-grated cheese filled with preservatives and extra expense. Hate block cheese.

Step Six: Pee. Hang out in bathroom for a bit because it feels good to sit down and read Glamour. Reminisce upon what it was like to wear real clothes. Torture self by trying on jeans. Congratulate self on both thighs and backyard fitting into jeans. Avoid looking at front of said pants.

Step Seven: Layer bean mixture, chicken, cheese, and corn tortillas into baking dish. Voila! Meal accomplished at last.

Step Eight: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place one pan in oven, set timer. Prepare other dish for deep freeze.

Step Nine: Crash on couch with full body pillow. Endulge in self-pity. Watch Men In Black and empathize with corpse whose body is taken over by alien.

Step Ten: Strange beeps emit from oven. Harsh crematorium-like smell renders the air foul. House could be burning down. Can't. Seem. To. Get. Off. Couch. Will check in two minutes. Hmmm. Fumes might be bad for baby. Investigate.

Step Eleven: Oven has somehow turned itself to Self-Clean mode with casserole trapped inside. Oven is attempting to cremate casserole at high temperatures and has locked door to keep me out. Oven is possessed. Frantically press all the buttons on the oven. Receive error message and watch eerie orange glow permeate from the oven.

Step Twelve: Flip breaker. Open all windows. Turn on all fans. Oven door still locked.

Step Thirteen: Inform husband we will be going to the burgerhouse for dinner. Attempt to eat kid's meal, find self stuffed after 4 bites. Curse alien inside self for lying on stomach. Alien kicks in glee after caffeine from Dr. Pepper reaches him. Pout and gaze longingly at fries.

Step Fourteen: Upon returning home, pretend oven and ashen casserole within oven do not exist. Go to bed with windows open and hope for the best with fumes. Sleep well.

Step Fifteen: Morning. Oven cool, but still stubbornly locked. Flip breaker to on position. Door opens. Remove charcoal casserole and attempt to chisel. Decide to soak instead. Will be all day job. Debate cooking again tonight.

Possible Insanity Approacheth.

I just bent a long, very strong thumbnail all the way back and it got stuck and bled. I tell you because I have no one else to tell. Everyone I know is at work and probably doesn't want to hear about my sad thumbnail, my achy back, or my frequent urination. I doubt people want to know about the dishwasher door raking down the front of my shin or the glass shower door making the "going-oing-oing" noise when I bashed into it with my shoulder either.

There is a strong possibility that I am going insane. There is a series of numbers written on the desk pad in front of me that I cannot decipher: 1, 9, 13, 16, 18. It's not a pattern that I can figure out, it doesn't relate to anything I know, and worse than that? I'm pretty sure it's in my handwriting.

Final thought: I believe the makers of the baby products have some sort of alliance with the battery people. Can someone give me a good reason that things like baby swings can't plug into the wall? There is only one out there that does and I don't like it. What's a person to do?! I'm investing in rechargeables, but still. I remain annoyed.

Thank you for listening, dear internet.

No, thank you!

What'd I do this weekend? I finished my thank you notes! (YEAH, baby!) And that is truly almost all I did this weekend. It seems that I have transformed into some large blob of gestational mass. A pretty inactive blob at that.

So, I'll talk with you about thank you notes. First of all, as much as I hate writing them, I do think they are a nice tradition. How many other pieces of mail do you actually receive that have real, true handwriting on them? And a stamp? Real mail rocks in this modern age of IM and email. But thank you notes can go wrong.

For example, I think that thank you notes should be somewhat personalized. As in, they should not resemble a form letter. I've received many thank you notes that sound like this: Dear Pigs, Thank you so much for the _________. We look forward to using it for many years to come. We're glad you could be a part of our wedding day. Sincerely, Generic Friend. Not that there's anything wrong with this format. I mean, they are saying thank you after all. It just seems too easy.

I just feel the need to be sincere as a result of my Extreme Guilt Complex at receiving all these gifts in the first place, and I get it in my head that I need to show my worthiness of the present through the awesomeness that is my thank you note. It is unbelieveable how much people will shower upon a baby. So, in a thank you note, I feel the compulsive urge to say something about the gift, something about the person, and try to convey the deep gratitude (guilt) that I possess. It's a tricky little game, and certain circumstances can make it even more challenging.

For instance, group gifts throw me off. On one hand, I think group gift equals group thank you note, but this only applies if it's in a workplace where said thank you can be passed around easily. I feel this is okay, especially if the present is of the gift card variety. But then what do you do when it's a real gift? A real gift with multiple components? That's when I start overanalyzing. How do I thank each of them for the same gift in their own special way without writing the same thing? What if they compare thank you notes? People do that, you know. (Okay, I do that.) My husband's (4) aunts who all live on the same road in the same small town all gave us about the same amount of money as a gift. I nearly developed an ulcer over that set of thank yous. (I can assure you that they compare.)

Now you have read probably more than you ever cared to think about thank you notes. You can see what sitting around as an amorphous, gestating blob does to your mind. I can dwell upon simple things at great lengths and manage to somehow accomplish nothing at the same time. The highlight of today? A trip to the grocery store! And maybe? Maybe? If I'm not too wiped out from that and I get a good rest in, I may play Bunco tonight. Rock on, good readers.

"You have a stain on your shirt."

I went to school today to visit some of my former inmates coworkers and have lunch. It was nice to see people, but the fun part was attending the 5th grade recess to see some of my kids from last year. Some select comments for your amusement:

"Your stomach is really hard!" [poke, poke]

"My mom sweats a lot too. She's fat too."

"Why are your feet darker than your face?"

"You're still skinny even though your stomach's big!" [am sending this child candy immediately following publication of this post.]

"Did you have the baby yet?"

The last comment came from our favorite Mr. Owens. I'm glad to know he's still in rare form. Well, not for him, I suppose.

After hearing about the latest staff meeting, the new assessments, the missing administrators, and the switching of students to new classes because of parents request after school has started, it confirmed for me that I only miss the kids and my friends. The job? Don't want it!

News and Such

I haven't been writing much of late. I don't feel like I've had enough going on of interest to bore you with it, but if you insist on reading, then read on.

I guess the big news this week is that we had Piglet's 36 week sonogram and had my suspicions confirmed: he's a tank. The thing is that I'm really not very large, so people haven't felt very sorry for me when I am decked in the side, ribs, bladder or stomach with some rather vicious and somewhat violent motions. My guess is that not only is he ginormous, but he doesn't have a lot of space in which to be ginormous. So he's squashed. He's a squashed, large, active fetus. Pre-birth sonograms are not known for their accuracy and can be plus or minus a pound or so, but before the sonographer did the measurements, she goes, "Whoa. This is a big baby." I thanked her politely and continued to tolerate the blue slime being smeared around my belly. Piglet disrupted the picture no less than 4 times as he kicked her little instrument around roughly. Based on her measurements, she estimated his current weight to be almost 8 pounds. This would be more than my personal birth weight, but the husband was a ten pound tank himself.

Today I journeyed to my least favorite store on earth, Babies R' Us to spend some gift cards and get some finishing touches from the 'ol registry. I detest Babies R Us. I hate their customer service, I hate the lack of organization, and I really hate the way every where you look in there, something has a nipple on it. Nipples, nipples, everywhere. (Guess what kind of hits I'm going to get from that statement?) I just really don't like going there.

I particularly don't like going there when I have outgrown my maternity shirts and refuse to buy new ones. REFUSE. I'm not even that big compared to other people who are 36 weeks pregnant. I don't understand what people do. Is this how housecoats were invented?? Forget it. So I walked around the store with not only my 3 inch elastic sexy shorts waistband showing, but a good 2-3 inches of [very gleaming white] belly hanging out. I'm a real looker right now.

Now for the best part: I got to buy a rectal thermometer today. It was by far the highlight of my day. You would be amazed to know just how much variety exists in the rectal thermometer market. I had no idea! Short probe, long probe, flexible probe....thumb grip, warmed tip, ten second/twenty second readings, nightlight. The choices were endless! You could buy slipcovers, rectal thermometer lube, disposable....you name it. Combine that with my immature case of giggles I dissolved into and I think the sales people were ready to see me go. I'm sorry, but rectal thermometers are funny.

So, as I mentioned, not a lot going on in my world. The nursery's ready, the laundry is done, I've been freezing meals to eat later...that's about all I got! Just need to finish up those pesky thank you notes.

Just a Thought...

Is it ever okay to pee in the shower? Are there any rules that apply?

The Battle:

What I Should Be Doing vs. What I Am Really Doing

Should be:

*Finishing my stupid scrapbook before the baby comes

* Finishing thank you notes

*Making my grocery store list so we can eat this week

*Cleaning the bathroom

* Showering

Am Actually:

*Eating choclate chip cookies

*Reading blogs

*Watching medical mysteries on TLC

*Watching Mike put together baby stuff

*Watching Mike clean the floors

*Lying on couch in ugly harness thing

*Pretending I'm a whale and making whale sounds a la Dory