Friday, March 31, 2006

G'Night

More than 6 hours since the last post. Oh well. Good night everyone!

hi Mom

This is per Mom's request. She wants me to put a new post up every 6 hours or so just letting her know I am still the same, so she can stop calling me and checking. So I'll just put this up, then delete it and put a new one up later continuously so she knows I'm not in labor yet. Love you, Mom! And RELAX!

Don't be an Ann-hog

My husband has accused me of being an Ann-hog for keeping the baby to myself all this time. :)
Man, I miss Arrested Development !

At this point, she's not going to have a March birthday unless there's a fast labor (and I've had no signs of an impending one yet) because there are only 13 hours and 4 minutes left in the day. I've always considered March an unlucky month so I had mixed feelings about having a kid's birthday in this month anyway. There are no holidays in March, it's a long month with 31 days which always seems to stretch on and on. Growing up in ski country, it always meant an end to great snow, and a start to a rainy muddy time when everyone had a cold. Sometimes you get Easter in there but not usually.

Around February, when the baby became "viable" as Doc puts it (the point where if she were born, no medical intervention would be necessary, she's be tinier than usual but healthy), I started thinking about "what if she was born on ___". At that point, she had the possibility of sharing a birthday with me, or one of my numerous Pisces friends (I seem to have mostly friends who are Pisces or Aquarians). Then 3/20 came and she is now going to be an Aries. She also had a shot at sharing a birthday with her paternal Grandpa (3/13), St. Patrick (3/17) Francesca (3/25), Julia (3/27), Angel & Stephanie & Hagop & Barbara's dad (3/31). I am sure there are a few I am forgetting but those are off the top of my head.

Now coming up, we have the possibility of April Fool's Day tomorrow (one of my favorite days of the year! I love practical jokes) but no one will believe us if we give them birth news on that day. Then the next day is Aunt Marguerite's birthday, and Aunt Joan's the day after that. I can't imagine must past 4/3 because it seems too surreal. But the rest of April, Kate and Aunt Patty and Helen and Gabi and Armida all have birthdays. And probably a lot of other people I'm forgetting. So we'll see...

Oh, and for those that aren't related to me or didn't know my family in 1977, you might not know this but my mother was pregnant with my brother for OVER 10 MONTHS. So if his neice is like him, I'd better get comfy in my maternity clothes...

I just lost a whole post!

Wah, I just spent 20 minutes writing a whole post and it got deleted! :( I'll rewrite it later but for now, just know that I'm still the same, no baby changes.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

If It's Thursday, This Must Be Beverly Hills

Went on a painting spree, then a shopping spree today. Went to the garage intending to get some green paint to do a minor touchup on the column between the dining & living "rooms" (really it's one big room, separated by this column). Grabbed the paint, saw a long-lost can of the "raw cotton" paint we used in the kitchen, so took that as well. Got upstairs, got started with the touchups and when I finished, banged the lid on the "raw cotton" back on with a hammer a little TOO excitedly. The side of the can caved in! And of course then the lid wouldn't fit. The problem is, we only had a 1/2 pint of this paint left, and they no longer carry that type at the hardware store.

So I rushed it over to TrueValue to see if they could pour it in a different can for me. They did, but pointed out that 1)they do carry this shade again and 2)there was still a lot left sticking to the sides of the can that I should use up today.

Hmm, I was in the car. I could rush home and do more touch-ups, or I could continue 2 miles up the road and do some shopping. (Well it's not literally on the same road!) Of course, shopping won out and I went to Crate & Barrel to buy an overdue shower gift and an early wedding gift. Then I hit Paper Source and got a baby-girl pink shade stamp pad and an "It's a Girl" stamp. I have about 5 ideas for the birth announcements, and one involves using that stamp. If nothing else, and it doesn't fit into the design, I may just stamp the envelopes with it.

Anyway, back to the shopping, I have to say I really like this "princess hours" thing, as my dear friend Jenna calls it. It was just me and one other person in Crate & Barrel, I think. I wouldn't say parking was easy because it was lunch hour near a bunch of restaurants, but it wasn't very bad when I compare it to other parts of town. I think it took about 5 minutes to park, tops. I prefer Beverly Hills to Santa Monica whenever I have to run errands that take me to big chain places like Crate & Barrel. It's 2.5 miles away from my house, the parking is free and easy, and it's a nice safe, stress-free trip through an awesome neighborhood (Beverlywood).

And Santa Monica, the correlary, is a wonderful place to live (so I hear) but they don't make it very easy for shoppers! Lots of one-way streets, lots of meters that seem empty until you're almost in the space and see that it's "valet", lots of overfilled parking garages with unclear confusing signs so you don't realize you will have to pay to park, etc. Such a hassle that I was "boycotting" the city for awhile after one particularly bad forty-minute long search for a parking space.

So anyway, had a relaxing time in BH, got the stuff I needed to get, came home and since the raw cotton paint hadn't dried up, decided to paint the kitchen ceiling. Maybe not something a 9 month, 1 week pregnant person should consider doing. But it was not actually the ceiling, just the metal things around the edge of the flourescent lights. They were brown before, which always bothered me since we painted the brown cabinets (now they're a nice light green shade called Scotland Road) and they stood out. So anyway, I stood on a chair, put masking tape around the edges, and used the leftover paint on the metal light frames on the ceiling. Then when I was done and ready to do the second coat, I realized I could do it without even using a chair. 5'9" has its advantages!

So no baby news, obviously, but then again you knew that, because how would I have been able to stand on a chair and paint if I were having contractions? :)

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Boo-boo...and baby dropping

I have been suffering most of the night because I burned my finger frying a quesedilla. :( It was enough to have me thinking I might need an epidural if I can't handle a little boo-boo. I was brave and took the ice pack off after only a few minutes so I could practice dealing with the pain. But I've remembered this about myself-I'm a wuss!

The baby, I was informed at the nurse-midwife visit tonight, has "dropped", is "engaged" and is "in position". Happy news? But I looked it up and according to Dr. Spock, "Also called lightening, engagement may occur for first-time moms days or even weeks before you actually give birth". (italics my own) Nothing icky has happened yet and I've felt no discomfort. Other than the finger! Wah!

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Day-Time

BTW, that was a good book. But this is a different kind of story, not involving a kid with autism. Just a friendly dog minding his own business at the dog park.

A few weeks ago the Culver City Dog Park opened, and we decided to take Jake. For those of you who don't know him, he is a Snoopy-looking little guy (English pointer mix) who weighs 48 pounds. Sometimes he thinks he's big & tough and he growls, but he's exactly like the guy in Office Space who listens to rap music but then gets scared when he sees real black people. Oh yeah, that's Jake. He's all growl but push comes to shove, he hightails it for Mommy's lap.

Anyway, so we took him to the park the first day it opened. He's been to 3 other dog parks dozens of times and never had a single incident. Here, within minutes this mean looking dog name Shiloh came over and growled at him. She was a reddish brown Chow/shephard/?? mix. Jake moved away and gave her this look like "ok, lady, I'll give you your space. i'll just go over HERE and you go over THERE and that's fine". Then he & I went to get a drink at the water fountain. She followed us over to the fountain, put her face right by his in the water bowl and growled again. This time, he growled back like "hey, leave me alone, I was here first!". Then we left and walked over to a bench.

I sat down on one bench, Ryan was on the other one next to me and Jake was over sitting next to Ryan, getting petted. Not doing a THING wrong. Out of nowhere, Shiloh went under the bench where I was sitting and crouched, then SPRANG in the air, landing on top of Jake, and just started biting him! :( Jake was crying and whimpering and people came running over to pull her off. Jake was covered in mud and shaking. Shiloh's owner came and took her and shouted "bad dog" to her. Jake tried to get in my lap for protection. We immediately took him out of the park and back to the car, then upstairs for a bath.

Ryan had a lunch appointment he was late for so he took off. We thought at this point that Jake was just dirty and shaken up. BUT, when I gave him his bath I discovered a deep bleeding puncture wound. I finished the bath, dried him off and had to rush him over to his vet. (Not that easy to do when 8 months pregnant by myself!) It turns out the other dog had bitten right into his muscle! :( He needed to have part of his back shaved around the wound, to get an antibiotic shot, and to take antibiotics pills and acidophilus. I also had to pour this stuff "Flush" on it 3 times a day. Total vet bill $140. We would like to find Shiloh's owner and have him pay, but don't even know if he'll realize the damage his dog did since we were so freaked out and left so fast that we didn't exchange info.

The good news is that we have been back to that park about 5 times since then and Jake is completely over it. He has a great time playing with all of the nice dogs, and we have not seen Shiloh ever again. Jake's patch of shaved fur is growing back nicely.

Overdue

Hi! So now that I have a new Blogger account I can officially comment on Estaban & Jennamile's blogs and I can post here so you all can stop calling me 5 times a day to ask how I'm feeling when what you really mean is "did you have the baby yet and forget to call me?"

So...what is "Brighter Schemata" anyway? If you plug my name into spell check, it used to change it to that. Now of course, I have added my own name to my spell check list. Alias Daffy, Step-lion, Jewel Randomizer, you get the drift.

So back to how I'm doing, right at this moment. I'm overdue by 2 days, and the little girl will be born when she wants to. I don't feel at all different, she hasn't "dropped" and I don't have any weird symptoms. My family is HOPING I will suddenly get this "nesting instinct" and start cleaning the house, but really, all I've been up to is listing some old stuff on Ebay, baking cookies (is that nesting enough for ya? but really i'd do that anyway if i wasn't pregnant, i love baking!) and probably lavishing too much attention on Jake the Dog. And sleeping more than usual.