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.

Things to say

Things a pregnant woman might like to hear even if she is fairly certain it's a lie:

"No, let me get that for you." (as said by a random parent)

"You look like you do 'being pregnant' well." (as said by the nine-fingered [female] security guard at school)

"Wow, you look like you've gained hardly any weight! I can't believe those pants still fit you so well." (as said by Em)

"From the back, you hardly look pregnant, you just look nice." (as said by Andrew)

Things a pregnant woman doesn't want to hear, even if she is fairly certain it's the truth:

"Are you having twins? Is that why you're so big?" (as said by a school counselor)

"Are you sure you have four weeks left? You look huge." (as said by the office secretary)

"Oh, look, you're waddling!" (as said by a science teacher, the other office secretary, every other math teacher in the department, and several students and students' parents)

Hee. Why yes, apparently I am measuring big, per the doctor today. But, um, have you met me? I am 6'1". And not a delicate flower 6'1". I was a ten pound baby, y'all. Little Man? The sperms what made him were from a tall person too. A betting person would put him at "above average size".

In other news:

• I don't just nest, I renovate. The kitchen is going well. We had an awesome meeting with the woman who's going to be installing our IKEA cabs and there's a few issues to address, but I think we can do that. And the moldy leak might be okay. And the engineering problem that caused the sinking second floor is taken care of. So, you know, no big deal and no stress...
  
• IKEA did call and say my kitchen order was available for pickup. So I showed up at the store and said, "Do I LOOK like I would order a kitchen for pickup?" They fixed it.
  
• My sister arrives the day after tomorrow. Her car seat arrived today. I can't wait.
  
• I got my hair cut. I have my first new hairstyle since the Mistake of a Boy Shag disaster from 2002.
  

Peace out, ya'll. Next time I update, it'll be my spring break. W00t!

Homeful and hopeful

Basement door-no-more
Originally uploaded by karijean

Okay, only a mild freak-out yesterday. Today sucked, but I got through it. I only had to stay til 4:30.

I was able to meet with my sister's new landlord today. And as a further sign that Portland is the smallest big city--or the biggest small town--you've ever seen, I've met him before. In fact, five years ago, I interviewed with him for a job. Of course, he didn't remember me at all (giving some indication of how spectacularly I failed in that interview) but still. My sister is now not officially homeless. In fact, she's quite homeful.

And then I got home and--the workmen were still here! And there were changes! Huge changes! It's crazy how fast this is moving. See in that picture? that there's completely new subflooring? And the basement door opening that's already framed out? because they've already moved the basement door. (to the other side, just FYI--opening in the hallway) Here we are, one week into construction and one major move--done!

Of course, it's just that much closer to having to have everything else lined up, but here we are. I can do this. I can do what needs to be done, and then be done and relax.

Crappity crap crap

I can't do it. I am letting everyone down. 150 students, other teachers, everyone. I can't do this. I spend every single day--EVERY SINGLE DAY--with too much to do and not enough time or energy to do it. Everything is clawing for my time and attention and I can't get it done. By the end of the day, I hurt--I HURT--and all I want is to go home and put on pajama pants and put my feet up to let my ankles drain and then not have to move until I go to bed and not think. And yet, there's still more that has to be done. I could work til six at school every day (that'd be an eleven hour day) and MAYBE get caught up, except I really truly can't physically work until six. That's imagining that mentally I could do it.

You know that pregnant brain thing they say happens? it does. I can't keep track of things, and so I let deadlines slip or forget to call video services to tell them that they can't interview my science students (and so they show up anyway, and oops! we can't do the interview, sorry!), or to copy my tests for Tuesday (so I have to find time to copy them on Monday and I JUST DON'T HAVE THE TIME) or arrange for a sub for Tuesday. And that's just shit I need to take care of tomorrow. Oh, I mean, over and above teaching. Which--I have no idea what I'm going to teach tomorrow.

And that's just in my work life. The other plates I'm juggling--friends, family, oh, that whole kitchen thing? I forget to make those calls too. And I just feel like more shit. I don't have wiggle room left for deadlines, personal or private, and I feel like I'm missing them all.

Updates and countdowns

Five weeks. That's the number of weeks from tomorrow until I start my maternity leave.

Maternity leave.

Heh.

I still can't believe it. Did we really make it this far? Really?

I still pinch myself regularly and maybe giggle to myself a wee bit. There's this teeny tiny thing that'll be part of our life in, like, oh, a month. It's hard not to feel his kicks and rolls and nuzzles against my belly as some kind of ultra private communication (although I did hold Becca's hand against his movements--at her request, I might add--and her subsequent agonized writhing still makes me laugh).

I also don't feel like I've ever had a time in my life when I've laughed as much as I have in the past three months. At Andrew, with Andrew, at Mateo, at Will being the cutest ever with Mateo... just at anything.

I wish these next five weeks could just go super fast, just speed by.

Of course, I'm exhausted. Not from all the laughing. But from lugging this GIANT BELLY everywhere. "Don't take this the wrong way," a coworker said today. "But are you sure you have five weeks left? You look like you're going to pop tomorrow."

I FEEL like I'm going to pop tomorrow. My maternity pants don't fit anymore, and my maternity shirts don't go down far enough (and the bare underbelly look--totally awesome at high school... I wear a Bella Band every day underneath my shirts and over my pants, to bridge the gap, as it were). The babe spends most of the day writhing back and forth, pushing against my bellybutton (which, surprisingly, kind of hurts). My ankles regularly swell to sizes larger than my knees. I feel like I'm continually letting a deadline slip (oy, the grading I haven't done) and letting someone down by not doing something that I should be doing.

Oh, and! I found my first stretch mark. Which I'm kind of, "eh" about. It's not like I'm pissed about it (because, let's face it--as Andrew has pointed out more than once, it's not like I had a taut belly before), but I'm also not all "It's a SYMBOL of my LOVE for my CHILD" all Earth Mother blah blah blah. Actually, the day I found it, I noticed that in a certain light it'd disappear. So I spent about five minutes swinging my belly back and forth in front of the mirror all, "Hey look, hon! Now you see it! Now you don't! Now you see it! Now you don't!"

Because I'm all classy like that.

But I can't believe we're on the last countdown. It's gotten to the point where scheduling comes up at work, and I look at the date of the next meeting or the next due date and I think, I won't be here for that, because I'll be on maternity leave!

Thirty nine days until everything changes. I can't believe we made it here.

Apartment hunting

Apartment hunting is totally way more funner when (a) landlords call you back right away, I mean, like, RIGHT AWAY, (b) you have more than one choice of apartment/house in your stated budget (c) the budget you're working with isn't your money but someone else's and (d) that someone else is totally used to renting in a crazy-expensive urban setting where they could get half the apartment for twice the price, so much so they don't even realize that they are actually looking at (virtually, at any rate) some pretty swank pads, even if they are "way out".

Saw two apartments today, have appointments for three more tomorrow. The two today--they'd do, but I totally think we could do better.

Yay apartment hunting!

No mo pouting!

Grin
Originally uploaded by karijean

Don't pout CNIU (cutest nephew in the universe!)! Your mama got a job! and you'll be back out here soon!

WOOO HOOO!

That's what I'd do, too

So. Um. What should one do if one were six weeks from welcoming a new, helpless and probably kind of needy new family member?

Start a kitchen remodel, of course!




Um. Can't go back now!

That's kinda how I feel, too.

Pout
Originally uploaded by karijean

They were here for a three days. And I loved it. I took about a thousand pictures of The Cutest Nephew In the Universe, culled it down to 272 for saving on my computer, and culled further, oh the culling! to flickr. And Lee and I stayed up way too late (like, till TEN!) watching trashy reality TV and didn't even GET to the Top Chef! And it was like we'd never lived nine time zones away from each other.

She, of course, was mildly freaked out by how nice Portlanders are, taking me back to those first months in Portland when the bagger at the grocery store really did seem to care about whether my afternoon had been going okay and how that freaked me, a verteran of Minnesota Nice. And then Lee took Portland by storm, rustling up interviews for every spare hour or four. So my fingers are way crossed for her.

And then, after a whirlwind where we didn't really do anything but then were never bored either, in the dark of Daylight Savings Time Morning, they were gone. And that kind of sucks.

You can practically hear the sympathy.

Um, Ms. Whole Nother Day, I don't think I want to take this test.

Well, uh... who ever wants to take a test, doll?

But Ms. Day, I'm not ready!

I'm really sorry to hear that. But I've been talking about the test all week.

But Ms. Day, I'm not caught up on the homework--I haven't done any of it.

Pause. Deep breaths..

Well, now, that I can't help you with. That was a choice you made.

I was absent!

Two weeks ago. For a day. You've had plenty of time to get caught up, come in for help, and get ready. Do what you can, I guess.

Yes, this actually really, word-for-word happened. She answered one question out of 27.