not that you asked...

There's never much to blather on about during Fourth of July week

We went to the local farmers’ market on Saturday morning where I saw—and you guys, I swear on my LIFE I am not making this up—I saw a parrot get a phone call.

No, really: Asher and I were looking at this parrot that was being pulled through the farmers’ market in a wagon (well, in a cage that was clearly specially built to fit inside a wagon, which makes me certain the parrot gets out of the house MORE THAN I DO) and the lady pulling the wagon stopped so all the kids could gather around and gawk at it, and then a cell phone rang, and the woman pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the display before flipping it open and HOLDING IT UP TO THE PARROT’S HEAD. “Talk to Grammie!” the woman trilled.

Dude, it was SO FREAKING WEIRD. How far gone do you have to be before encouraging your parrot to talk on a cell phone, IN PUBLIC seems totally normal? Please listen to me: if you are considering handing your cell phone to your parrot AT ANY TIME, except in the privacy of your own home where NO ONE CAN SEE YOU, please stop and reconsider. I BEG YOU. If not, then you deserve every bit of the whispering and pointing and staring and also ALL THE LAUGHING. Because I don’t care what you think: THAT PARROT DOES NOT TALK. It imitates. Genuine conversation is completely out of the question. Genuine conversation involving a cell phone is just plain ASININE.

Please don’t peg me as a Bird Hater. I mean, yes, I do kind of hate them, them and their little scritchy claws and worm-shredding beaks and their WEST NILE VIRUS, but I am still KIND to them.

IN PREGNANCY NEWS:
So, I need to clear the air. Despite what I previously said about my Environmentally Friendly Pregnancy and all the yellow mellowing I’m doing to Save The Planet, I realized that I am not fooling ANYONE if I’m going to continue going through almost an entire roll of toilet paper EVERY SINGLE DAY. I believe I restocked my bathroom with nine new rolls around two weeks ago, and I’ve got exactly one left. And before you call me on my poor math skills, let me remind you that I use other toilets occasionally, like the toilet downstairs or the one at Target (only when necessary, but it turns out it’s necessary more often than I ever thought possible) or the one at my parents’ house. So what I mean is, CUMULATIVELY I am using an entire roll of toilet paper a day, which is clearly an increase from my cumulative toilet paper usage 13 weeks ago. I don’t know exactly how to go about rectifying this situation with the environment at-large. How can I make it up to you, World? Drink fewer cans of soda? Mop the floor with a grody old mop instead of a disposable Swiffer pad? TAKE FEWER SHOWERS? (Third option: Not tolerated by husband who shares queen-sized bed.) I am at a loss.

IN HOUSEHOLD NEWS:
GAH, I am tired of cooking. Six months ago, I was all, “I CAN COOK! Cooking is GREAT! My food is TASTY and EDIBLE and doesn’t give me DIARRHEA like I totally thought it would!” But now I am all: Seriously? I have to make dinner AGAIN? Just like I did YESTERDAY? I mean, I want to EAT dinner (obviously), but lately, I really really don’t want to make it. And it’s summer, so the last thing I want to do is make something heavy and time-intensive, which really is the only kind of thing I’m decent at making, besides chicken nuggets and corn on the cob. What do you people eat in the summer? Do you have a good salad recipe or a light dinner you make often? I am DYING over here, of a winning combination of Food Boredom and Pregnancy Hunger and General Indifference. You don’t even have to leave a recipe, you can just tell me you like a certain dish. I am capable enough to look it up somewhere. (Usually.) THANK YOU.

Does anything I write anymore just stick to one subject? Or even subjects that are VAGUELY related to each other?

So I’m watching one of what seems like a thousand new episodes on HGTV that tout Green or Environmentally Friendly remodeling. And while I get that new decking made out of recycled plastic or house numbers made from recycled street signs is important for Saving The World Little By Little, I’m kind of wondering what they’re doing with all the stuff they’re ripping OUT of the house in order to make room for the new stuff. I mean, you can’t replace the countertops with new, trendy, recycled versions without, oh, I don’t know, FINDING A PLACE FOR THE OLD ONES? Don’t you think that should be part of this whole Green Revolution? Don’t just tell us WHAT to buy for our homes; tell us exactly what we should do with the old stuff. Because all those green products are kind of redundant if you just throw all your old crap into a landfill. Am I right? Shouldn’t the Green Revolution be about more than what you BUY? Shouldn’t it also encourage people to think more about what they should do with what they already have? I suppose nothing could be less sexy than a show called Garbage: What You Should Do With Yours Beyond Separating Plastics From Cardboard And Aluminum, but it doesn’t make any sense to me that we’re not addressing all the stuff we ALREADY HAVE.

Nevertheless, if someone came to me and asked me to host that totally unsexy show, I would absolutely do it, even though my interest in saving the world is hovering somewhere around Moderate. I would do it simply because I have heard that when you host a television show, you get free makeup and haircuts! And frankly, I need a haircut. The last time I got a haircut was in November, and do you want to know why I haven’t gone back for another one? Well, only because my hairdresser is the last person on earth who doesn’t know I had a miscarriage, and GAH, now that it’s been SO FRICKING LONG, long enough that I would have HAD that baby already, I think it might end up being a horribly awkward encounter. I mean, now I can go ahead and say that I’m past all of that pain and safely in my second trimester with another baby, but FIRST we have to get through the pleasantries, i.e., “Wow, you look great! When did you have the baby?” UGH UGH UGH.

It’s just been so LONG since I’ve had to inform anyone about it, you know? And it’s no longer this little stab in my heart and it doesn’t make me want to burst into tears to think or talk about it, so it’s more about the Awkward Moment. And although technically I am The Victim in this situation and I am the person to whom this bad thing happened, I fear ending up being The Comforter instead. You know what I’m talking about? When you tell someone something sad or awful that happened to you, and they become visibly upset or anxious, and then YOU end up comforting THEM about it, even though IT WAS YOUR DAMN PROBLEM. That’s the moment I want to avoid. I will tell you, I may have even considered calling the salon and asking the receptionist to make a note in my electronic file: Had miscarriage. Gloss over entire subject, please. Offering 20% discount would be a nice touch, and would it kill you to throw in a few free products for once?

Do you know I have never once gotten a free product at my salon? And I have been going there faithfully for years. Yet my brother, ON MY RECOMMENDATION, took his business there and GOOD GOD, you’d think the women in that salon had never SEEN a man before in their ENTIRE LIVES. When he left after that first haircut, he had gift certificates for return visits and three different serums and balms – FULL-SIZE VERSIONS – to take home with him. It was kind of disgusting. Now my brother is a stylish, attractive person, and I say this in a totally non-creepy, non-incestuous way, but DUDE, how offensive is it that I have pledged my faithful allegiance to this salon and have sent no fewer than TEN customers their way in the last couple of years and yet my brother waltzes in with his rocker hair and his stubbly beard and the employees are THROWING THEMSELVES AND THEIR FULL-PRICED PRODUCTS AT HIS FEET? Unfair. Totally UNFAIR. Wouldn’t it be nice if it worked the other way around and all I had to do was walk into a car repair shop and the hot, greasy mechanics were throwing free oil changes and wiper fluid my way? Wait, no, that doesn’t even BEGIN to compare. Never mind. I’ll just stay bitter about this.

And now, presenting: TWELVE WEEKS



What is more disturbing: seven months of zero hair maintenance or the glaringly obvious fact that I CLEARLY do not wear a bikini at the pool? It’s like the friggin’ blinding-white underbelly of a DOLPHIN. Although… not nearly that smooth. (Stupid hormones.)

Well, crap, by posting this I'm missing the beginning of tonight's House Hunters episode

It’s been a bad few weeks in the Electrical Appliance department around here. First the upstairs desktop computer (THE ONE WHERE I DO ALL MY HARD BLOGGITY BLOGGY WORK) stopped connecting to the Internet. This is not usually a problem when you have a husband who is up to his eyeballs in computer parts all day long, but it turned out that it was a problem he was unable to fix by himself. Then our satellite reception crapped out on both TVs because the trees in our backyard had grown too tall and prevented a clear view to the southern sky or a laser pathway to Mars or whatever it is you need these days to get good satellite reception. Then the dishwasher started funking up, and then the refrigerator started leaking all over the floor, and finally, just yesterday, the check engine light in my car came on, even though I just had $600 worth of work done on it three weeks ago. And that’s not counting the $400 tires we replaced TWO weeks ago. And I know, tires have absolutely nothing to do with my engine and what might be wrong with it or whatever, I’m just pointing out THE HORRIBLE TIMING and the fact that we are now PRACTICALLY DESTITUTE.

We got FiOS installed exactly one week ago (which appeared to solve the TV and computer issues in one fell swoop), except two days later, it completely crapped out. We could watch ONE CHANNEL, and it was lame music videos in HD, and I am sorry, but there is only so much KT Tunstall one can take. Finally someone came out this morning and fixed it. It was a different guy than we had the last time, however, this did not stop me from coming out of the bathroom in my pajama pants and see-through, braless tank top ensemble at the exact moment he was coming up the stairs. We almost collided, and he looked thoroughly embarrassed. And I would have felt bad about that, but after he fixed the TV in our bedroom, the smell of Hard Working Man remained, and that happens to be a smell I think should be reserved for construction sites and tractor supply stores, NOT MY VERY NICELY REDECORATED BEDROOM.

During times like these, I should be prohibited from watching nice, young, hopeful couples who are being featured on House Hunters. Last night (via the OnDemand service, which we somehow were able to still get even though I haven’t seen Matt Lauer for WEEKS) I was watching this couple who I am sure I would have found absolutely adorable had I not been feeling like my entire house was about to come crashing down around me. And they toured three homes that were absolutely AMAZING opportunities for a first home: stainless steel and granite countertops in beautiful, roomy kitchens; three bedrooms with hardwood floors; bathtubs with mosaic tile surrounds—all at least $25k less than what we paid for our first home, even though OUR first home came with an original 1970s kitchen and more old, creepy linoleum than you could shake a stick at. And yet, they were finding things WRONG with these homes! At one point, the guy actually said, “Well, I like the house, but I’m not so sure about where the staircase is. There’s some dead space behind it.” Which, ok, it might be a little bit annoying I guess, but OTHERWISE, the house was PERFECT. Perfect! Dude, the staircase: LET IT GO. I must have shouted “I HATE YOU BOTH!” somewhere in the vicinity of 45 times during the 24-minute run of the show. And I did. I hated them last night. I hated them SO MUCH. For being so damned PICKY, about EVERYTHING, even though OBVIOUSLY, had I had the opportunity to be pickier about OUR first home, I would have been.

And then they bought the cutest of the choices and they decorated it really badly, which made me hate them even more.

But that was yesterday, people, when I was all angry and hormonal and STILL IN MY FIRST TRIMESTER. Today we cross over to Second Trimester Terrritory, and if you must know, I am FLABBERGASTED. How did this happen? I mean, I watched the weeks tick by, OH SO SLOOOOOWLY, but suddenly, here I am, one-entire-third of the way through? And tonight I realized I have the beginnings of an Actual Pregnant Belly, and it is SHOCKING. I don’t know WHY it’s so shocking—after all, there was that positive pregnancy test, and the ultrasound, and then that appointment a few weeks ago where I HEARD THE HEARTBEAT with my NON-SUPERSONIC EARS, but it’s like the belly makes it seem way more real. (Also it makes me feel much better about eating roughly eighteen meals a day.)

Hey, you guys don’t have any good book recommendations, do you? I could use some help in two categories: books I can read here at home when I have a good hour or so to myself (nights, occasional naptimes) and books I can start to stockpile for a beach vacation next month. Obviously, books I can read at home can be a little deeper and more complex because I can stop when and where I want. Books for the beach, as we all know, should be lighter and easy to pick back up and quickly remember exactly where I was before I had to stop reading so I could tear someone’s poopy swim diaper off and trek it through the hot sand to the garbage can.

The thought of corn kernels also makes me want to vomit

The guy who showed up yesterday to install our new FiOS Internet and TV ended up being a really normal, decent guy. Which was a real plus, as he sat in our little living room with us until well past 9:30 last night, hooking all our crap up while we made halting conversation about gigabytes and high definition and dogs who are biased against people who wear glasses.

You know, if someone comes to your house to fix your toilet or install your new dishwasher, it’s one thing. They generally stay in the area of your house where the problem is: if it’s the toilet, they stay in the bathroom. If it’s the dishwasher, they stay in the kitchen. If you need your gutters cleaned, they’ll be out there on your roof, and if they’re building a deck, they’ll probably spend their day in your backyard. This guy, though, this guy had stuff to do in FOUR DIFFERENT AREAS of our house, and in case you’re new here and haven’t heard, OUR HOUSE IS PRETTY DANG SMALL. And the fact that he was doing stuff to the TV and the Internet meant that there was absolutely no background noise anywhere in the house, and therefore, it was completely silent except for our lame attempts at conversation for almost FOUR HOURS. Four hours! It was awkward cooking dinner while he stood directly outside the kitchen window fiddling with wires, and it was even MORE awkward EATING that dinner while he toiled away in our living room. I mean, was that even proper? Would it have been more polite to offer him a turkey burger and an ear of corn? Except that we only had TWO ears of corn, because I don’t know if you’ve heard, but IOWA FLOODED and two ears of corn now cost just as much as a gallon of gas these days. Should I have opened him a can of corn KERNELS?

Anyway, then, REMEMBER, there was no Internet, and I don’t know what you guys do after dinner, but that’s Prime Internet Time for me and without it, one can only entertain themselves with the 10,000 Baby Names tome for a few minutes MAX, so I went upstairs to take a (much-detested, yet also desperately-needed) shower. Except then! MOST AWKWARD OF ALL, because I forgot to take clothes into the bathroom with me, and Verizon Guy had some work to do in our BEDROOM, and what was I going to do, saunter out in a towel while he was putting our television back up on the wall? So I had to linger in the bathroom FOREVER, until I was sure he was out, but even then, even though it was past 8:30, I couldn’t just put on my comfy pajamas because he was STILL THERE and didn’t need to be privy to my see-through, braless ensemble. (See-through because it’s OLD, not because it’s SEXY, as if you needed me to clear that up.)

Regardless, all the awkwardness paved the way for two televisions that actually WORK (we’ve had a completely garbled satellite signal for about two months, which resulted in the signal blacking out about every five seconds, which you can imagine might drive a person to the BRINK OF INSANITY and also TEARS) and an Internet connection that does the same, which: HALLELUJAH. Unfortunately, Verizon Guy couldn’t do anything about our moldy, non-draining dishwasher or our leaking refrigerator, but at least we are able to entertain ourselves while we eat questionably-refrigerated food off our dirty dishes.

Which leads me to a question. So I noticed that our dishwasher is moldy all over the bottom. This is gross, and disgusting, and also UNACCEPTABLE. Dave claims this is not a big deal; that the dishes are still getting clean and that it is FINE to keep using the dishwasher As Is. Personally, the idea of continuing to use the dishwasher in its current state makes ME want to vomit. So I have been hand-washing everything and have big plans to drag my family out somewhere over the weekend to secure a replacement. But we had a small verbal disagreement about using the dishwasher, I suspect because our rule is that whoever cooks does not clean up, so that means Dave is responsible for hand-washing all our dinner dishes, which he CLEARLY does not want to do. Wait, I’m not sure any of that has anything to do with what I wanted to ask, which is: Do you hand-wash your sippy cups? Because our dishwasher has NEVER gotten them clean, to the point where I take them apart and wash them in hot water because they sometimes get crusty and moldy, which is just horrifying. And Dave says that sippy cups should always be hand-washed (even though they have all those teeny tiny parts?), and I say that if you have a dishwasher that wasn’t made in 1982 and also doesn’t HAVE MOLD ALL OVER THE INSIDE, that sippy cups should get clean. Am I the idiot or is he?

My Bladder and Me

I get up to pee an average (AVERAGE) of six times a night. OK, so technically, there have been nights (two, actually, and I CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THOSE NIGHTS) when I’ve only gotten up twice. But there have also been many, many nights when I have gotten up at least ten times. After lying there awake for a few moments trying to convince myself that I’m not THAT uncomfortable, I end up in the bathroom ridding myself of the equivalent of a TABLESPOON of pee. A tablespoon! How is it that a TABLESPOON of pee can make me feel like using the bathroom is a matter of utmost urgency? How is it that a mere tablespoon of pee is the reason I’m getting out of bed every hour on the hour? (I am going to confess to you that I do not flush the toilet every time I go, by the way. Dave finds this absolutely disgusting, but IT IS NIGHTTIME WHEN I AM DOING ALL THIS PEEING, and so no one can see inside the toilet, and also HELLO, and welcome to my environmentally friendly pregnancy.)

Also, something that sucks even WORSE than getting up to pee ten times a night is coming back to bed to a loudly snoring husband. I can’t fall back asleep when someone is sawing logs three inches from my face, so as a result, I have spent a few nights on the couch in the last week. But sleeping downstairs means that when I have to get up and use the bathroom (which I will OBVIOUSLY have to do, and REPEATEDLY), I have to walk down a dark hallway where I routinely kill large spiders, and that’s creepy, so I just go back upstairs and tough it out. (“Tough it out” is secret code for “beat the crap out of my husband until he rolls over and FINALLY SHUTS UP.”)

Last night I was lamenting My Peeing Situation to Dave, who had no idea exactly how often I get up in the middle of the night. “Maybe you could wear a diaper,” he said. And then, “No, wait. I can’t sleep next to someone who I know is wearing a diaper. Forget it.” (Always his needs first, people. EVEN THOUGH THERE IS SO MUCH SNORING.)

But Internet, it made me think. I mean, getting up to pee is inconvenient and frustrating, and also really really annoying, but would it EVER be frustrating enough that I could actually consider wearing a diaper to bed? Just so I could be a little lazier? And if I did decide to wear a diaper to bed, is there any way I could kind of, I don’t know, un-potty train myself to use it unconsciously? I don’t think it’s actually possible! I mean, how exactly do you undo 28 years of proper bladder etiquette?

So then the only option would be to wake up when I have to pee, and then try to force myself to let it go in to the diaper instead of getting up for the toilet. Except that it takes me about six hours to pee in the OCEAN (it feels SO WRONG) so I’d never actually be able to pee into a diaper, LYING IN MY BED. I mean, would YOU? What if it leaked out onto the sheets? What if I felt all clammy and wet? What if the entire room just reeks of PEE? Not that it matters, because let’s be frank: I will never, ever wear a diaper to bed if I am able-bodied enough to haul myself ten feet down the hallway to the bathroom. THIS IS A PROMISE.

Would it be totally wrong to admit I’m fantasizing about that day six months in the future when I’m mercifully hooked up to a catheter?

Am gestating and such.

Do you know how I know? Because they sent me home from the doctor’s office with THIS monstrosity:



Which clearly says:

“Hello! Everyone in the parking lot of the hospital! Or whomever may saunter past my car and look through the window while it is parked at Chick-Fil-A where I am eating fried food and treating myself to a milkshake! I AM HAVING A BABY! And I just might feed it Similac because look at the awesome travel feeding organizer they gave me! What on earth do I even need a travel feeding organizer for, I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO TAKE THIS BABY ANYWHERE! Nor will I have the wherewithal to! I already HAVE another child, and I can barely manage HIM!”

Also, maybe you won’t care so much, but I know my husband, He Who Has Made TWO Trips To CVS To Purchase Stool Softeners, will. BEHOLD:



My first thought: Why on earth has no one thought of this before? And my second: This product must have been TOTALLY rushed to market, because WHAT is UP with the graphics on the box? Is that really a little winking graduating baby? Give me a freaking BREAK already; I get enough of this Your Baby Must Be THE BEST BABY OF ALL BABIES from the pro-breastfeeding camp.

And not that I’m saying breastfeeding is WRONG, because breastfeeding is totally great and wonderful and awesome, but I find that the marketing for it and for prenatal vitamins and for formula and everything else with DHA and ARA and Metafolin or whatever is geared towards making you feel like these are the only decisions you’ll ever make that will help your baby be the SMARTEST, FASTEST, MOST AWESOME baby in the whole wide world and then guess what? That baby grows up to be a kid, then a PERSON and even if it’s a really really smart person (with partial thanks to the prenatals/breastfeeding/awesomely engineered formula), it doesn’t mean you can slack off on the good, old-fashioned PARENTING thing. And yet, sometimes I feel like the marketing for some of this baby stuff is trying to get us to believe just that.

Rant over! But still: TINY WINKING GRADUATING BABY. Over the line.

Next up: Labeling Your Toddler




Also Your Dog


Also Get Your Parents To Buy a Kitchen Table With a Built-In Lazy Susan Which You Can Totally Use To Spin Small Children and Make Them Dizzy For Endless Hours of Amusement






Oh, I totally ALMOST forgot, the reason they sent me home with that bag of crap pictured above in the first place is because I heard the baby’s heartbeat this morning at my appointment. Turns out you need a living fetus to get one of those bags, and I PASSED. In fact, it was actually already sitting in my exam room when I walked in, which at first felt like a total jinx. It took a long time for my doctor to find that little bugger (not only was I worried that she wouldn’t find one at all, but Asher was strapped into his stroller three feet away and was working on his LAST THREE GOLDFISH CRACKERS, all HELL could have broken loose at any given moment) but then suddenly, there it was, and I smiled and got this big tingle from head to toe and then a little tear leaked from my eye and DUDE, it was totally straight out of something up for Best Picture, I swear.

And then this afternoon I ran out of clean clothes and so I threw on a maternity t-shirt (I got all my maternity stuff out of the attic and washed it the other day; I guess just in case I accidentally turn 18 weeks tomorrow or something, I guess) and that ended up being a big, fat, billowy mistake that did not go unnoticed, I assure you. Thank God all I did was spend my afternoon watching toddlers eat chalk and spin on tabletops. The glamorous side of motherhood, it continues to elude me.

Gussy: to enhance attractiveness

Over the weekend, I bathed five times in the span of 48 hours. FIVE TIMES. That’s more bathing in two days than I normally do in, like, SEVEN. (Which, incidentally: SHUT UP, I know I’m gross, but there is just no point in showering if you’re just going to get up the next morning and exercise and get all sweaty again, right? AM I RIGHT?)

I took a shower Saturday morning because we were going to a wedding. And then I showered Sunday morning for church. Then I showered Sunday afternoon because I spent two hours roasting by the side of the neighborhood pool and had to go to the in-laws’ for dinner. And then our TV stopped working on Sunday night and so I took a bath with a book. And then I got up and showered AGAIN this morning because it is going to be 8,000 degrees out today and I can’t push the stroller around the lake in that kind of weather because if my hands get too sweaty I’ll lose my grip and Asher will roll crazily down a hill and plummet directly into the lake. And it will be SO HOT OUT that his little body will SIZZLE as it hits the water. So I went out and ran errands instead, and the showering was part of my master plan to look Responsible and Non-Greasy and also Like a Normal Functioning Member of Society.

I hate to write another post about showering, but it looks like it’s just HAPPENING, without my even TRYING very hard. I just have to say though, that of all the Daily Upkeep things I do every day, I would love nothing more than to cross Personal Hygiene off the list. I would rather do laundry, empty the dishwasher, and SCRUB TOILETS than spend 30 minutes a day cleaning, dressing and gussying up myself, and frankly, I’m not even much of a gussier. Wouldn’t it be nice to just wake up fresh and pretty? And to STAY LIKE THAT ALL DAY? Showering and all the crap you have to do afterwards (including DRYING OFF and MOISTURIZING also APPLYING DEODORANT, GAH) is like the biggest time suck in the world. (My husband, on the other hand, would rather eliminate eating from his daily routine. He wants someone to invent a Meal Pill, so that he can just swallow it and get all his required nutrients while feeling full at the same time. I find this idea absolutely HORRIFYING. This is because I like to eat, even if it takes time and requires clean-up, and even though some of my more recent eating bouts are probably more responsible for my gut than the fetus that is occupying it.)

Showering, though, BLAH. Maybe there are people out there who GENUINELY ENJOY the daily routine of getting up, showered and dressed (WHO ARE YOU?), but I could GENUINELY do without it. More so now than when I was going to work every day, but even when I was working and it was absolutely NECESSARY to be clean (the Employee Handbook said so), I still dreaded doing it and looked for shortcuts wherever I could find them (2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, OH HOW I LOVE THEE). However, now it is summer, and I am in the odd in-betweeny stage of, Is she packing it on? Or is she maybe pregnant?, and these two things make it even more complicated.

For starters, when I finally convince myself it is necessary to shower, it’s not an in and out process. It’s hot out, and I have a kid who likes to cool off in the water, and therefore, I can’t exactly chase him around the public pool with hairy legs and a gorilla-esque bikini line. A 10-minute job, minimum.

And then I get out of the shower, and in order to finish up my morning routine, I have to find a way to keep Asher occupied while I dry and style my hair, and even though it doesn’t take me more than 10 minutes start to finish, and he can do, like, 17 puzzles or something in that amount of time yet HE INSISTS THAT I HELP. And he tries to squeeze into the bathroom with me, and WE DON’T BOTH FIT, and then he wants his toothbrush or his step stool or my pill bottle and, well, it isn’t the most relaxing scenario, you can imagine.

And then (THEN!) I have to get dressed, and NOTHING FITS RIGHT. I don’t have to tell you what THAT feels like, do I? (If I do, then let me also assure you that I HATE YOU. VERY A LOT MUCH.)

So I stay unwashed a lot, as a general rule.

I have no earthly idea why I wrote this post, but here it is 9:24pm and I just got back from a 3-mile walk with the dog and I’m SOPPY with sweat and yet… I think I’m just going to air dry and call it a night. (The sheets need to be washed tomorrow anyway.)

Also, I came up with a BRILLIANT idea a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to share it with anyone just in case the pregnancy didn’t go anywhere, but here we are in week 10 and things seem to be going pretty well and I think we should be able to hear the heartbeat at my appointment on Thursday and, well, I just thought that maybe when it’s time to reveal the sex of the baby to The Internet (OF COURSE we’ll be finding out the sex, I can’t believe you EVEN HAVE TO ASK), I thought it might be fun if we reveal it by way of The Wetsuit.

What do you think? It’s like a bonus: you’ve waited FOREVER for me to climb into that thing and prance around like the idiot I clearly am, and wouldn’t it be even MORE FUN if there was a big, super REVEAL at the end of it? Come on, you KNOW YOU WANT IT. And you’d only have to wait TEN MORE WEEKS.

GENIUS, PEOPLE. Genius.