Placenta Brain

I have most definitely reached that stage of pregnancy where my brain has taken it's leave of my body. Pregnant women should NOT under any circumstances try to calculate simple math in their heads if they want to seem reasonably intelligent. Nor should they try to figure out vanity license plates without help, but that's a whole 'nother story.

So, I'm sitting at home with the BWB watching a Miller Lite commercial where they blatantly misused the Less/Fewer thing--one of my BIG pet peeves. They claimed that Miller light had 1/3 less carbs than something else. Carbs is plural, it's FEWER people! But, thinking that ad execs and others must have checked this out so I pondered how I might be wrong. To say 1/3 less is fine if we're say talking about fat, so maybe they aren't thinking of carbs as plural but as a single entity. So, this somehow leads me to try and figure out what one third of 2 is. Don't ask me how or why, just keep reading. So, I must have looked perplexed because my math major husband is grinning at my inability to do fractions. First I'm subtracting 1/3 from 6/3's to get 1 2/3's, but this wasn't right. Then I switch to decimals, .33 from two, um--BWB is laughing his ass of at this point, and I'm feeling oh about as smart as a roly-poly (though curling up in a ball to protect myself was awfully tempting). He finally puts it in an equation for me, and I'm still sitting ready to break out my calculator and plug in some logarithms and square roots to get the answer. Finally, my brain must have temporarily returned from it's sabbatical to say "hey dumbass, you freakin' multiply 2/1 by 1/3 (2/3), then subtract 2/3 from 2 and you get 1 1/3. Moron."

Moral: Pregnancy + Simple Calculations = Many laughs for the newly celibate BWB

And Then There Were Three...

So the first of my triplet laden friends is fetus free as of 7pm last night. One girl and two boys were delivered via c section after an exam showed a cerclage that was tearing (fucking ow) out of her cervix. All babies are in the NICU, which is normal, two are on oxygen, again normal. One boy was 4lbs 4ozs, and the other boy and girl were 3lbs 14ozs. Freakin' tiny, wow. I'm trying to fathom their size as you could put two of them together and still not equal dinoboy's birthweight.

More than pondering their weight, I ponder the impossibility of caring for three newborns, i mean I was a raving lunatic trying to get through the first few weeks of having one infant. Nursing, changing, burping, nursing, dressing, changing, nursing, changing, nursing, changing... I think you can see the recurrent theme here. That's a shitload (no pun intended) of diapers. I am overwhelmed for my friend, and thanking God every damn day for my single little fetus playing hopscotch on my bladder. Did I mention my friend's husband, which is actually BWB's HS buddy and long time friend, is in his residency? And that this couple lives in a two bedroom one bath house? Did I mention that they had THREE babies? OK, I'm hyperventilating, and this isn't even my life.

I think I'm going to go lay on the couch, watch some Spongebob with DinoBoy and relish how easy my life is.

The liberation of hair reduction

Few things can be as upsetting or liberating to a woman as a haircut. One wrong snip and she's crying at her reflection, one great cut and she's a new woman. As of yesterday at 4:00pm I am the latter. I've been going to a stylist every five weeks for a year now--a miracle, coming from a woman who was lucky to see the sharp end of scissors twice a year and lived in french twists and ponytails. Ironically, I found my stylist through my pediatrician's office, Dinoboy was a year and in need of his first cut, a woman in the waiting room told me to whom she took her son (and for $5 a cut no less) and a love affair began.

My stylist must be the gayest straight man there is, he's married with three young boys (under 5) but might be mistaken for Carson of the Fab Five if we were going strictly on mannerisms. I adore him and damn, he cuts good hair. I've been giving him his druthers with my long neglected locks and I've never left disappointed. I've been maintaining a mid length style with several shorter layers and the closest I've come to actually having bangs in about a decade or more.

So, with about 5 minutes, er weeks left in pregnancy, I decided that I had to do one of two things: a) grow my hair long enough to put up and out of my face b) chop it all off for a maintenance free style. After brief discussion, we went with the latter.

So, I'm sitting in the chair, and you know that moment of panic when you see just how much hair is falling on the floor? Yeah, I had one of those moments. I saw a straight razor hacking away all but maybe an inch of hair on the back of my neck--never has my hair been so short. I put on a brave face and chatted away with Carson (with whom I can't help but be cheery) and watch as any semblance of length I had disappeared. So now I'm sitting there with wet, straight and very short hair and resisting the urge to freak out. He starts blowdrying and telling me what to do for this new cut and after a very small amount of effort we are finished and DAH-ling, I--LOOK--MAH-velous (ala Billy Crystal). OK, seriously, I adore this, wtf didn't I do this years ago. My hair is super short in the back and angled down to chin length to frame my face--it says a lot when a style is flattering to an 8 month preggo lady.

So, the true test, BWB gets home, he is greeted by his freshly shorn son and happy about that, then he looks at me with wide eyes. I...um...though you were growing your hair out?! After explaining the change of heart, he stands me up, turns me from side to side and says, "I love it! You look amazing." And I got similar comments throughout the evening when I'd catch him staring at me. Wow, nothing says good haircut like a horny husband, eh?

TMI B4 C-O-F-F-E-E

So, I'm in the Citgo this morning getting a cup of coffee before work and I hear two employees--a 20-something guy and an older woman having a conversation. I am in Missouri and these were gas station employees, so pictures fewer teeth than avg and rednecky accents.

Guy: So, I ain't done with tryin' to have kids, we're doin' them whatchamacallit, imfertility treatments
Woman: You doin' that imvetro?
Guy: Noooo, my spermies is fine, they just ain't gettin' to where there supposed to. She's takin' some pills.
Woman: Clomid?
Guy: Nah, them kind that make you have more then one. Man, I hope she don't have more than one, her pelvis can't handle no two.
Woman: Well, the size of the woman don't really matter, I'm smaller and did just fine.
< My brain must have ceased function for a minute because I missed how it transitioned to this>
Guy: My ma cain't have no more kids, she had her girlie parts removed. They's told her after my older brother that she couldn't have no more kids, then 2 months later, he he he... Well, actulally, it was more like a couple yrs since he's three yrs older than me.


Now, I'm not sure what disturbs me most.
1. That this conversation didn't strike me as overly odd.
2. That this guy was going above and beyond to breed (ack)

hmmm... definitely #2

That Damn Song Running Through my Head

I'm currently alternating between two songs that run through my head at those moments in the middle of the night when my bladder deems fit to rouse me from my slumber. The first is BNL (Bare Naked Ladies), Who Needs Sleep (No, you're never gonna get it!). This at least I find apt since I have had pregnancy induced insomnia for a few months now. The other is a song I can't even remember who sings or it's title, but damn if it isn't persistant. It goes something like this:

My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her
His girl took a week's worth of valium and slept
And now he's guilt ridden sobbin with his head on the floor
He think about her now and how he never really wept, he says.

We can't be held responsible
She was touching her face
Can't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

For the life of me
I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd live and die for these sins
We were merely freshman.

MAKE.IT.STOP!

5 Signs You Are Watching Too Much Nickelodeon

5. You'd like to ska-doo into that tropical billboard you pass on your way to work.
4. You actually ponder why Dora's backpack finds it's contents so tasty.
3. When Blue's Clues is coming on you really hope it's Steve, not Joe, that is hosting, because Joe is a tool.
2. You find yourself using an episode of Fairly Oddparents to illustrate a point you're trying to make.
1. You know all too well who lives in a pineapple under the sea...and start craving crabby patties.

Bickering

Ever feel like any discussion with your spouse is just SSDD? (same shit different day) I swear if I kept an expandable file of all of our arguements I could basically just pull out a given folder and read verbatim a conversation we'd had four months prior. Last night was one of these nights.

BWB: Why are we arguing so much lately?
Me: Um, because I'm a grouchy pregnant lady, duh.
BWB: Seriously, we seem to be bickering a lot lately.
Me: Seriously, I'm moody and hormonal and being kicked by a fetus for hours a day and have to keep up with a 2 yr old.
BWB: I'm tired of the nagging, I feel like you have more say in what I do around the house than I have say over what you do.
ME: That's because you ignore what needs to be done around the house and need reminding.
BWB: Why can't I choose what projects need to be done on the weekends?
Me: Because your projects consist of sitting on the sofa watching poker tournaments and MASH reruns.
BWB: I feel like you don't give me any credit for working long hours and that I come home starting at zero.
Me: No honey, you are the big bread winner, blah blah blah. I know you support our family, and support me when I need it, blah blah blah...

Referencing my files, I see we had this same conversation 11/13/03, 8/10/03, 5/3/03....and so on. I think I will just hand BWB the script so he can have the discussion without me in the future.

Friendship

It really is a rare and precious thing, true friendship that is.

My friends come from many different eras of my life. I have one lifelong, one from hs, one from college, but my best girlfriends have all come to me over the last 6 or 7 years via mutual friends, my old apartments, the internet, work, and most recently my kid. The formations of these friendships didn't resemble the nurturing of a seed to a flower, but rather an instant click, a deep down knowledge that there was some commonality, a bond, the need for one another's personality in your life. I often ponder in amazement the luck I have had finding friends like this, with such little effort. (And often bemoan the fact that I live at least 500 miles away from the lot of them).

I'd always been the type in HS and college to enjoy the company of men over women, it's only been in the last several years that I realized the true importance of having girlfriends. I thought women were so catty and such PITAs and hey, a lot of them are, but there is a camaraderie and intimacy among women that you just don't find with men, even a spouse. Maybe a better word is an understanding, an "I get you, and know just what you mean". This mutual prehension has become crucial in the last several years for me, when the drudgery of daily life, of work, of marriage, of kids just wears you down. A girls night out is the best drug, it revitalizes you (or at least it does me). It gets me through those times when I feel like hiding under the covers with a pint of chunky monkey, or digging my eyeballs out with a spoon, or throttling the BWB and dinoboy.

So, this is a thank you to my girls, those RL and online, those near and far, those lifelong or weeklong, I love you.

A letter to Curly

Dear Curly,

As much as I love your ambitious workout schedule, I would appreciate if you could move your Tae Bo class from 10:30pm to a more reasonable hour. Though exercise is very important, so is sleep (not to mention the unpleasantness of getting up to pee 4 times in 30 minutes due to roundhouse kicks to the bladder). I'll also request pushing back 5am yoga a couple of hours. Your attention to these matters would be much appreciated.

Love,
Mom

Color me crazy
One would think that choosing all the decorative facets of one's soon to be new living space would be enjoyable if not exciting. I beg to differ. Deciding if I desire a stainless or ceramic (and if so what color) bar sink and what style faucet (and what metallic shade) to match a marbled laminate counter with bordeaux cherry cabinetry and buttercream walls is about to send me cowering in my newly drywalled bathroom. More choices is good, right? (Parenting with Love and Logic, says so). I don't buy it. The more choices I have, the more I feel my brain working itself into a frenzy. Just to prove my point, this is coming from the woman who painted her son's big boy room over three times to have the perfect shade of red.

Now, I have to decide on colors for the office, bedroom and bathroom by Monday. The open areas will be done in blues and buttercream, I have forbidden myself to ponder that any further. So, I think I've narrowed it down to gold brown or olive greenish, hmmm olives, I think I need a dirty martini, fetus be damned... ;)

Boredom reigns...at least enough to jump on the blogging bandwagon.