Everything changes. But not today.

Last night we went to a movie. An only okay movie ("21", a movie that was a good idea, but the middle goes on foreeeeeeeever), but it was a movie and we had soda and popcorn and Milk Duds.

I was sitting near the exit waiting for Andrew to go get the car (priveleges of swollen ankles) when a dude dressed like Jimi Hendrix (of course!) walks by.

"Any day now?" he asks me as he walks by.

I actually had to think for a moment for what the hell he was talking about. (I never said I was bright. Cute, but not bright.) Then I laughed. "Yes. Yes! In fact, Tuesday!"

It's crazy to say that, FYI. I'm not due next week, next month, or "soon", but in, like, hours. (Forty six of them, by the way, if anyone is counting.) The privelege of a scheduled C-section*.

I woke up this morning, slowly (okay, fine, I woke up with the burning need to pee as a result of a nine plus pound infant plus assorted biological accountrements sitting on my bladder, but let's run with my fairy tale here, okay?) and realized--I have one more of these left. I have one more morning where I have no pressing need to wake up at crack-of-my-ass early in the morning.

Then I have to be at the hospital at 5:30 and everything changes.

---
*Of course, all statements along these lines are accompanied by an understood "...y'know, assuming it's not earlier"

Big changes. In the kitchen, anyway.

Wanna see the changes I've lived through--with respect to the kitchen, anyway?
There's a slideshow of pictures taken from the same viewpoint.

Look for big changes in the next week. It'll be Andrew's job to take the pictures, but they may not get uploaded to Flickr until... well... I think we're kinda busy next week.

Again, I stress that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

Can y'all imagine how hard it is to be nesty when... well... your dining room looks like this????

Maternity leave continues apace. It's much less relaxing than you might imagine if you have to leave your house because they're sanding drywall. But fortunately, I have good friends who let me nap on their couch. I set myself one or two goals per day--like, "Buy diapers" or "Find nursing bras that could double as catapults in case of apocalypse" and that way, when I'm able to do that one thing I'm able to still feel accomplished. And I sit for long periods of time. I like that part, too. My ankles don't hurt nearly as much.

But then I get home and I can't clean, organize, nothing... to absolutely no one's surprise, they're a tad behind on the kitchen. They say that they'll finish next Friday. We'll see. On the bright side, I did organize the baby's room. In the meantime, I've managed to only have one minor meltdown this morning, which--let's consider that a bonus, shall we?

Yes, let's.

And lo, the maternity leave begins!

Yee ha!

So, I have a sub. A sub who, as it turns out, is going to the same baby doctor clinic we went to.

How to handle the hormotional.

I might, on occasion, have a wee little freak out.

Maybe.

Here's what Andrew's done when, perhaps, I might have started crying, and maybe saying something like, "But you're not listening to me. I don't like it when you don't listen to me."

He leads me over to a chair, and tucks me up in a quilt (that Nicole made), and then he brings me these:

and then he leaves the room to get me a drink.

Last Monday. Maybe.

I've been planning on starting my maternity leave at the end of this week. At first, it was just a little gift to myself, based on my friends lamentations wishing they'd been able to take more time off before.

Now, though, it's become necessity. A day of teaching immobilizes me for the rest of the day--my back and pelvis feel like they are being ripped with every move. Getting up to pee, lying down in bed, anything at all hurts. Wheee!

And of course, now that it's become a virtual necessity, bureaucracy is rearing its ugly head. The personnel department of my school district is requiring a note from my doctor's office in order for me to take that time as my sick leave. Because, you see, I can't take sick leave unless I"m actually sick. Being thirty bijillion weeks pregnant apparently isn't enough of a reason because, as the darling personnel woman told me, "some people just want to take that week off to goof off."

Dude, I'm not even going to be able to goof off.

My doctor's office refuses to write me a note to get me on maternity leave because there's nothing in my file that puts me on bed rest. And they can't fit me in before Friday, THE DAY I WANT TO GO ON MATERNITY LEAVE, for me to even try to convince them that I really really need this.

When the nurse from the doctor's office called me on my cell phone to tell me this, I was limping around the grocery store, trying to pick up some necessities for school tomorrow. "I can't write a note for you until your C section," she said.

"I'm 38 weeks pre-e-e-e-gnant," I said, starting to snuffle. "I can't wa-wa-walk. I ju-ju-ju-just want to go on mater-er-ernity leave!" There I am, staring at dog food, trying not to cry and failing miserably. So miserably that a kind elderly woman with severe osteoperosis stopped me with concern to check if I was okay. When the hunched over old lady who can't see above the third shelf is asking me if I'm okay, I'm in a bad bad way.

Upshot is, I can't figure out how to satisfy the paperwork needs of my asshole personnel department, where I can't use my sick leave unless I'm actually sick (and being hugely pregnant is apparently not enough), and my doctor's office where they won't write me a note to get me on maternity leave unless I'm actually sick enough to require bed rest. So I've been spending most of the afternoon and evening crying at the injustice, although it doesn't seem to be helping a whole lot.

I'm very confused about the whole paperwork for maternity leave. This whole thing just sucks. Andrew said, worse comes to worst, I just don't show up on Monday. Fuck, at this rate, I may just not show up tomorrow.

PS: Just to cap the shit sandwich that today is, I just found out from my Daycare Of Choice that we probably won't get in next fall. We are waitlisted everywhere but Kinderkennel, and we've been looking basically since I was four months pregnant. What the hell, karma!!!!! This is SO NOT FUCKING FAIR!

Yes. It's huge. Trust me, I've been lugging it around forever. I KNOW.

So... I'm in the 95th percentile for babies' sizes. At 36 weeks.

At my "Holy crap you're huge!" ultrasound appointment last week, they estimated my baby's weight at 7 and a half pounds.

Gain half a pound a week...

carry the one...

this is one big bowling ball that's rumblin' around in there.

So everyone who's telling me how freaking huge I am? GOT IT. Can we all just move on?

But the award for creepy interaction of the week goes to the substitute working in the room next door.

As I passed by him on my way to lunch, a sixty-ish ex-coach-looking man with the "Guest Teacher" lanyard around the neck of his athletic jacket clutches my upper arm and leans in close to my ear. "Have they told you it's twins yet?" he croons into my ear.

No, you creeptastic grossinator. Now stop touching me.

Looking forward

At my baby shower yesterday (with some very cool women... I'm so grateful to my friends!) someone asked me, "What--besides, well, a baby--are you most looking forward to?"

And admittedly it wasn't hard to come up with a few things. Walking without pain? That. Yeah. Wearing shoes that don't slip on? And maybe burning the three pairs of shoes I've been wearing since Christmas? That. Definitely. Wearing my wedding rings again? That too.

But I started thinking about it another way. What am I going to miss?

"You said that when you got pregnant, you wouldn't complain," my sister pointed out last month. And yeah, when I wasn't pregnant, or was trying to get pregnant, I can't even tell you how very very much it pissed me off to hear how hard it was to be pregnant, and how much it sucked. How much a parasite that unborn baby was (oh, that one was tough to hear). I was definitely going to be a better pregnant woman and approach it with the gratitude appropriate for the situation. Right?

Ahem.

Now, clearly, I'm going to have to eat my words because I have clearly done a lot of complaining. So I will totally cop to the first part--being pregnant is hard. My body has not adjusted well to its altered center of balance, to the extra weight, to the stretching ligaments.

But you know what? As hard as it has been, as hard as it still is, pregnancy still doesn't suck.

I get to feel that baby rolling around. I get to rub my belly and feel like I could be petting my baby. I get to anticipate and share that anticipation with Andrew. I also? get to lie on the couch and ask my husband to bring me a soda. And he does. A friend on his darts team told me that she's never known a man to be as excited about his child as Andrew is. So I get to see that transformation, too. I get to see Andrew become the father he was meant to be.

That said? I can't wait to give all of that up, be mobile, and hold my baby. And see Andrew actually be the father he's become.


-----------------
Nine days of work left until my maternity leave starts. Wooo hooo!

Should we be worried?

 

What is weird about these directions?

Experiment

KitchMA2
Originally uploaded by karijean

This is your kitchen on drugs. Or rather, without cabinets, countertop, or chair rail. And in some cases, plaster.

Family

Up close
Originally uploaded by karijean

So, my sister has moved here.

Having her as a house guest while she does things like make sure her apartment has heat has been the easiest and funnest thing ever. First of all, she does dishes, which, let's be honest, don't get done that often around here. Second, she brings the most awesome toy with her. He's about two feet tall and has the best-smelling head ever.

We've been tooling around Portland trying to get her the necessities to set up a household with a wee little boything (you know, little things, like, a bed... and maybe a crib... girl travels light) and since it isn't my money, it's been tons of fun.

I'm generous that way.

There's no plot twist to this blog entry, no funky story, just... things are good.