I am never asking for help again

Last Friday I was at D'Agostino's (are there supposed to be two apostrophes in it? freaking apostrophes) looking for cooking wine. I had already gone to Westside Market, stroller in tow, and hadn't been able to find it there. I dragged the stroller and my 100 lbs of groceries all around D'AGs, and still could not find the effing cooking wine. I was about to give up when I saw a D'AG guy unloading chicken and thought, "Should I just go buy real wine? Or should I ask him? There's no harm in asking him right?" RIGHT.

Me: "Excuse me, do you know where I can find cooking wine?"

Him (smiling): "What?"

Me: "Cooking wine."

Him: "What?"

Me: "Cooking wine? Cook-ing wi-ine."

Him (looking apologetic): "Sorry (touching his ear). I am hearing impaired. Can you say it again?"

At this point, I want to kick myself. Really, did I just pick the only hearing impaired employee to ask a question? And it's not like I can just walk away with a "Oh sorry but your deafness is not convenient for me."

Me: "COOK-ING WI-IINE?"

Him: "Chicken white?"

Me: OMFG. Just tell me to go away or ask someone else. "No, cooking wine? Like, white wine? Sherry wine? Marsala wine?"

Him: "Chicken fried?"

Me: Oh dear God in Heaven, please let the ceiling fall upon my head so that this conversation can end. "No...cooking wine. Cooooking wiiine. Cooooooooooking wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."

Him: "Sorry..."

I went back today for something else and guess what--freaking bottles and bottles of cooking wine was like 2 feet away from where I was standing with the chicken guy.

Remember that scene from Psycho?

If either my mother or mother-in-law says ONE MORE TIME that I need to lose the baby weight, I will seriously kill them. There will be tears and blood and possibly little pieces of brain, and it won't be mine.

My mom started her campaign 10 days after I gave birth. TEN F*CKING DAYS. My mother-in-law says shit like, "you shouldn't get any fatter than you already are, but here take this cake home and eat it".

I don't know what purpose they think their comments are serving. Do they think I am deliberately plan to keep these extra 40 lbs or so on? Because it's fun to continue wearing my maternity clothes? Because I like looking and feeling like I've ingested a healthy toddler? I just wish they would, oh I don't know, THINK before they open their fat traps. If they thought about it, then they would realize they should keep their yaps shut. If I've decided to keep the weight on, then their comments are irrelevant because I already made my decision. If I've decided that I want to lose the weight, then their comments are still irrelevant because I'm already there.

If I knew we were playing a game of dumbshit honesty, then I have lots of helpful advice to volunteer to them as well! "Look at all your wrinkles! Jeezus you look frickin' old. It must really be awful to lose your hair like that, and look like a balding man. Why are you making that ugly face right now? Are you in a bad mood right now because you are in menopause?"

Every time I think about this, my brain lights on fire and my mental function grinds to a halt. There is no one in the vicinity that I can kill right now, so I am going to go swiffer the shit out of my apartment instead.

Tender moments

Sometimes when I am holding V, she looks up at me. Her face relaxes, and her eyes gaze into mine. I think, "how sweet..."

And then she kicks me in the boob, or tries to pull out my hair, or grabs the skin on my neck, and a couple of times, has dug her fingernail into my nipple. It hurt so much that I involuntarily yelled OW! and she cried.

Ah, those tender moments. How they scare me.

Child model I think not

I decided that this year we would do a holiday card, complete with a picture of our little monster looking all Christmasy and cute. I've gotten a bunch of these over the years, and it is one of those Things That You Do while your child is still cute and has not begun the sudden descent into the fiery and uglifying circles of puberty.

Easier said than done!

Trying to pose a 3 month old for a picture is like trying to hold hands with an octopus. First you have to prop her up, then look at the camera! Oh no she's spitting up so let's wipe that off, and now she's falling over, so sit her back up and look look look LOOK AT MOMMEEE! and now she's sliding down again and foaming at the mouth and all she wants to do is cram her hands into her mouth, stare at her feet and fold herself into a V shape that is NOT conducive to good picture taking.

Almost:



Almooost:



Ugh photo session FAIL:

Feets

This is something I meant to post about like 6 months ago but never got around to it.

One of the awesome things that can happen to your body when you get pregnant is that parts other than your glorious womb can swell like freaking camel humps. It doesn't happen to everyone. Only the truly lucky, such as moi. My feet and legs decided that it needed to retain every drop of water I drank starting from April till the day I gave birth, at the end of August. By the end of it my legs were starting to look like elephant legs. I would post a picture but it would sear your eyes, so I will instead post a pic from the earlier stages of swelling:



There is no treatment for this. You just live with it. If it's benign swelling it doesn't hurt; it just looks freaking gross. It wouldn't have been so bad except that it was summer, and there was no hiding my Jeezilla feet in flip-flops. Every OBGYN appointment my rail-thin non-swollen doctor would ask if anything was of concern, and I would say, "the swelling", and she would cluck empathetically and say, "have you tried compression stockings?"

I in fact did try compression stockings, which Jeezsister got me from the hospital. Voila:



My doctor would say, "the stockings are probably not too comfortable to wear in the summer." Oh really? Probably not?

Let's put aside the fact that the stockings make my legs look like gigantic tapeworms with little bloody orange mouths. What you're telling me is that the way to solve the discomfort I feel from the appearance of my swollen feet is to wear these? "Oh no one will notice the swelling now." I guess that is true, because people would be too busy wondering why I've dressed up like a giant toddler in white tights.

Suffice it to say that I did not end up wearing these. However, I do have a very nice collection of compression stockings in various sizes that you could use for a Halloween costume, as bungee cords, etc.

Vacation with a 3 month old

For some reason I thought vacation with a baby would be like going on regular vacation, the only difference being that I bring the baby everywhere. Not the case!

First of all, 99% of your luggage is devoted to the baby, and you need to bring every thing that the baby may possibly need. It was a 4 day/3 night trip to the Dominican Republic, and I brought over 40 diapers, 10 pairs of baby socks, 10 changes of baby clothes (clothes for the plane, each day, and clothes to change into on the plane or in the DR in case the baby craps into her clothes, which has happened before), a package of baby wipes, baby formula (liquid and powder), bottle parts, the [chicken] breast pump, pump parts, a device that sucks snot out of the baby's nose, baby bath products, baby carrier and other baby crap. I had like 58 lbs of baby crap in one suitcase, for which I had to pay an overweight fee of $100. I could have fed, changed and clothed an orphanage of babies. I packed like a shirt and shorts for myself and squeezed it into the corners of the suitcase.

Then you have to get your carry-ons in order. Mostly, you will need to create a mini-version of your big suitcase, in case the baby gets hungry, craps, etc on the plane. And then you also need the car seat if you bought a seat for the baby, the stroller that you will gatecheck unless you want to lug the baby in the carseat through the airport (the carseat itself is not that heavy, and the baby weighs maybe 13 or 14 lbs, but together they chemically react to weigh 100 lbs), and the stroller cover, unless you want to risk having your stroller murdered by homicidal airport luggage handlers. Somewhere in there, you have to squeeze in everyone's passport, money, and if you have room, something to read.

Don't even talk to me about going through security with a baby. You've got to get all your crap into those stupid bins, take out the liquid baby formula and let the TSA agents know that there's liquid in excess of the usual amounts in your stuff and it's baby formula, take the baby out of the stroller, fold the stroller and take yourself and the baby through the metal detectors while 3000 people are standing in line staring at you. Seriously I could understand if someone forgot/lost their baby during this process, because you are supposed to do about 23 things instantaneously, with 2 eyes and 2 arms. Dear God please make me an octopus right now please please please.

Then there is the plane ride. There is not much to be said about this. If your baby doesn't cry, it's awesome. If your baby cries, you want to take a running start at the emergency exit so that you can float peacefully amongst the silent fluffy clouds.

Then you get to the resort. Note of warning: your baby may hate and scream her head off at everything. She may scream while sitting at the breakfast table, standing at the breakfast table, being jiggled up/down, side/side at the breakfast table, sitting in the stroller by the pool, sitting in the carseat by the pool, sitting in the baby carrier by the pool, etc. She may end up spending 90% of the time being put to sleep in her carseat, under your coat, in the closet of your hotel room.



Yes, you could have done that in NYC for thousands of dollars less, but don't think about that.

In the end, you may return home paler than you were when you left. Congratulations, you have just gone on vacation with your 3 month old.

Poo 24/7

Once you become a parent, the one thing you have to get over is poo. Because there is no escaping it.

When V was first born, her first few poos were like black tar. That apparently is normal; it's called meconium and it is all the crap that she was saving up in her body during gestation, that she was now giving to me as a "hi, nice to meet you, here is some black poo" present. I would swat at it with these flimsy, tiny squares of wet tissue they called baby wipes, and it would just morph into little black peaks on her butt. A spatula would have worked a lot better.

Then once V started eating, her poo got yellow/brown and liquidy. Liquidy as in the consistency of pea soup. And lots of sharting. I'd be feeding her in my lap and I could feel the heat of each shart against my leg. At first I'd run with her at the first shart and change her diaper. I stopped doing that once I realized that usually she wasn't finished with just one. I would open her diaper and there would be MORE COMING OUT, and I would shove more wipes, diapers, whatever was in reach under her butt to contain the ever continuing spillage. Meanwhile V would wriggle and kick, sticking her feet in her poo and waving them around, and I would throw wipes at her like it was a ticker tape parade.

Once I was changing V's diaper and she shat a stream of poo that landed on my hand, the wall and the floor. For three seconds, I froze. Time stopped. All was silent. And then chaos ensued. "DON'T PANIC!" I was yelling, "DON'T PANIC!" over and over. To who I'm not sure, since it was just me and V in the apartment, and she was clearly ok with the whole situation. It's times like those when you are grateful for the fact that the baby wipes seem to have all been glued to each other, so that when you pull on one, you get a whole string of them, because I needed all one hundred fifty of those suckers.

Working vs Staying at Home

At work, I dealt with unreasonable, irrational opposing counsel, who would angrily demand ridiculous things one minute and be suspiciously nice the next. I couldn't wait for my maternity leave.

And then I found out that my baby is the same. She is unreasonable -- you want to eat now, at 4 in the morning? I was sleeping woman -- irrational -- pushing my milk jug out of her face so that she can cram her fingers in her mouth and scream about their milklessness -- and possibly suffering from a personality disorder -- going from smiles to screams back to smiles in a matter of seconds.

One thing that work did for me was to acclimate me to a routine of just-enough-sleep-so-that-I-don't-die, which has continued since I took leave. Also responding to the unreasonable demands. It's like she is sending a constant stream of high priority emails but instead of emails they are high-pitched screams that grow evermore in intensity and frequency until they exceed the spectrum of human hearing and she is fully contorted, mouth open so that I can see clear down to her larynx (hello evil vocal cords) and dogs around the neighborhood are going mad. This week she has a sore throat so I can barely hear her cry. I won't lie, I am kind of enjoying it.

Babies do really look like this when they cry by the way:



It turns out that all those cartoons are very lifelike.

Hey Fatty

You know you have to do something about your fat ass when your friend's 3 year old points to your stomach and asks, "Is there another one in there?"

Hi salad, you and I are now best friends.

Breastfeeding

The word "breast" makes me feel uncomfortable. I never use it, and whenever I hear it, I simultaneously think of chickens first, then women.

But that is not my point. My point is that I know that God is a man. I know because when he was thinking about how human beings would nourish their children, and considering the infinite options (infinite because he is God and if he decided that women would feed their children from bottle attachments that would sprout organically from their hands, then it would have happened), he decided, "oh I know, they shall feed their children from their nipples, and milk shall flow from them". Why not our feet? Arms? Foreheads? Any other part of our body besides one of the most sensitive parts?

To put this in perspective, if men were the ones who had to feed the children, it would be like making them feed them with their milk-filled penis (penii?). Ouch, right? RIGHT.

Sometimes V will take my boob and SHAKE IT BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN HER GUMS like a dog shakes its prey to break its spine. Basically she is trying to kill my boob, and she is succeeding. It's been 10 weeks now, and a truck could run over my boob, and it's possible that I would just scratch at it like an itch.

Hello from the dark side

I finally got my first comment on my blog. I was so surprised that I thought I hallucinated, but no, there it was.

What have I spent my days doing? Mostly, feeding, doing laundry, staring at the mirror at my naked self going OMFG, cleaning poo--the normal mom duties.

I only do about 4 things a day, so it is weird that I seem not to have time to do anything else. Those things are: feeding, pumping, changing diapers and doing laundry. But it's because I do them in endless 2 hour cycles. And it's a challenge to get whatever I need done in a 2 hour cycle, so that I can start the next 2 hour cycle on time. It reminds me of Battlestar Galactica, when the humans start jumping through space to escape the marauding cyclons. No matter where they jump, the cyclons are able to find them exactly 33 minutes later, so the humans live in 33 minute cycles for weeks, and look increasingly greasy and shitty because they can't sleep, eat, shower, etc. It's like V is a baby cylon, chasing me in these 2 hour cycles. When those 2 hours are up and there isn't something producing milk in her mouth, THE SHIT HITS THE FAN.

When I'm not doing those things, all I really want to do is watch tv or read a book. But then I remember that I'm supposed to play with my baby and read to her and talk to her and shit, so that she, like, develops. Sigh. So I read little baby books to her. Sometimes I read my books to her. So she's heard some Jane Eyre, Hunger Games, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Either way I'm pretty sure I sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown. "Mwa wa wa?" I sing to her too, but I've realized that I don't know any kids songs. I know Old MacDonald, but I don't know a lot of animals or their sounds. Under pressure, I said things like "giraffe" or "hippo", and then realized that I don't know what sounds they make. But it was so boring to limit myself to ducks and dogs and whatever. So now there are all sorts of shit on the farm, like rocks (which say "rock") and drug dealers (who say "pssst"). I also put V on the farm. She says "waahh" or "fart".

I've lately gotten my shit enough together to go for short trips outside. For ex, I've gone to TJ Maxx and Whole Foods for fun. That's right, a trip to TJ Maxx is a treat for me. The other day I got a pair of $35 boots of the highest quality pleather. Yeah parenthood!

Baby poo

V cries right before she makes a big poo. I would cry too if I crapped my pants like that.

Post-delivery update

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Birth story

So about an hour after I wrote the last post, I start seeing clots, and I consult with my friends, the phrase "placental abruption" is mentioned, and I freak out. I page the doctor again, and she says, "eh, this is all normal and it's not placental tissue you are seeing, but if you want, you can come in to get checked." I decide to go. I sadly put my uneaten lasagna in the fridge and go to the hospital. At this point it's only 6:30 or 7 PM, and no sign of a hurricane yet, and cabs are plentiful.

They put me in triage, and there is no conclusive sign of any rupture in the amniotic sac and I am only 1 CM dilated, but they decide to admit me since it's likely my water did break, my blood pressure is elevated and I've felt a few contractions. I ask the doctor, "so, any way to put this on pause till Monday PM when Jonker gets back from the motherland?" The answer is no, and they put me on pitocin at 10 PM. I didn't realize that I would literally be tied to the bed by a bunch of wires and monitors, and getting up to pee is a major event that requires the assistance of a nurse. By 2:30 AM, I am only 2 CM dilated. I am feeling the beginnings of some stronger contractions, and I can tell that I am not going to like it. My sister, the ever clever anesthesiologist, says i should just get the epidural and lie if they ask how severe the pain is, not because they will deny me the epidural, but because they will judge me as weak. I wait a little because I feel as if I should "earn" the epidural and give myself a small taste of what I will be avoiding, and get the epi around 3. The attending comes by to shoot me up (the one upside to having a relative work at the hospital) and I try not to think about the risk of permanent neurological damage if they stab me in the spinal cord. Apparently he has to poke me a couple of times because of my "pronounced scoliosis". Thanks for pointing that out guy. In 15 minutes I feel like I am sitting on a cloud.

I try to sleep but with the blood pressure cuff tightening to a diameter of what feels like 1 inch (I have the burst capillaries to prove it) and checking my blood pressure every 15 minutes, it is hard. I think I drift off to sleep around 4, and wake up again around 7 or 7:30. The resident checks me at 8:30 AM and I am 8 CM dilated. The monitor by my bed which shows the contractions and fetal heartbeat for each woman in L&D shows that the floor has gone from 30% full to completely full overnight, and everyone is running around and monitoring patients via cell phone while delivering other patients in the next room. Fortunately most of the nurses and doctors had decided to come in early the night before to avoid getting stuck in the hurricane. By 9 AM I am 10 CM dilated, and we start pushing.

During this time, a great many doctors, nurses and other unidentified personnel walk in and out of my room, some for no apparent reason. My hoo-hoo is also facing the door, so everyone (except my sister, who is pointedly staring at the wall, ceiling, floor, everywhere but my hoo-hoo) is looking at my private place. Great.

I push, and the epidural thankfully is totally working, and I don't feel anything except some slight pressure. While pushing, I am mainly just hoping that I am not pooing. I push for an hour, and pop! goes the weasel.

It was all quicker and easier than I thought it would be, but I understand now why people would choose to do home birth. I still would not, but there is definitely something to be said about not being put in a strange room, hooked up to machines and nurses walking in and out every half hour.

Come on Irene

This morning I woke up to some blood and small gushes of clear fluid. I freaked out a little, because it would be just my luck to start going into labor as a huge hurricane approaches. I paged my doctor's answering service, and some doctor I don't know said if I have additional leaking to let her know but to stay home for now.

I haven't leaked again, and I haven't been having any contractions, but mostly I am reluctant to go to the hospital because if I do, I will definitely be stuck there till Monday even if it's nothing, because the hurricane will be here by the time they decide not to admit me.

So I'm going to wait it out, make lasagna, watch Battlestar Galactica, and if this baby decides to come, the doorman is going to have to deliver this baby. Yay for google-searching "how to deliver a baby".

1 CM dilated, 80% effaced

Still only 1 CM dilated, but 80% effaced, so that's something.

I wish someone had told me that in the days before labor, you experience constant little contractions that feel like you need to crap all the time. I spend too much of my day thinking, "Is that a contraction? Or do I need to poo?"

Other things to know about pregnancy/labor -- check out the following terms:

Lightning crotch
Bloody show
Ring of Fire
Blowout

These are actual terms that describe things that are and will happen to me over the next week or so.

Balanced diet

One way not to gain 40 lbs in less than a year is to not bake entire desserts for yourself and eat them.

Yellow cake:



I left a bite because they say portion control means leaving some on your plate.

Blueberry pie:

I don't have an after picture of the pie because I think I may have also eaten the pie dish, the counter on which it sat, etc.

One Giant 8x8 Brownie:



It did take me a number of days to eat each one, but I did it like a freaking champ.

They say it's temporary

One of the awesome conditions you can develop during pregnancy is urinary incontinence. Unfortunately I sneeze pretty often. There has been an abundance of "achoo! .... f*ck" going on because I have peed myself a little. I may sneak some pampers from the nursery and stick them into my pants. After all they are essentially maxipads for teeny people.

1 cm dilated

The doctor and I battled again today, and I am almost 1 cm dilated. "I can almost get one finger in there," she said. Ew.

It is such a pain to get up once I sit down. I need someone to be my bitch until I give birth. Someone to bring me water, the remote control, cut my toenails, etc. Any volunteers? In exchange you will have my marvelous fat company.

My arms are too short

Actually, my stomach is too big. I can't reach far down enough to cut my toenails. So I just sit and stare at my toenails. Will someone please come cut them? Please?

Clueless

I took a class on how to care for newborns. There was one couple whose baby I feel sorry for, because its parents are forking retarded and will probably make the baby retarded. The instructor told us to change the baby's diaper before and after each feeding, because chances are the baby has done a pee or a doodoo. These geniuses asked, "if the baby hasn't gone, should we still change the diaper?" Oh my dumbasses. I fear for that child.

Va-hee-nahs

I was watching some labor videos online and I realized that I can add another thing to my "Things I am Really Scared of" List. That would be: giant vaginas. (Shudder.) They look like huge crevasses that expert hikers fall into and die in, because the crevasses extend for miles and miles of darkness and no one can ever find them.

My doctor checked me for the first time yesterday, to see how my cervix was doing. "I'm gonna use two fingers!" she announced before she Went In. And that sh*t freaking hurt. I grabbed the sides of the bed thing I was on like I was on one of those mechanical bulls, and for a second we were locked in a battle -- her hand up my va-hee-nah trying to reach my cervix and my va-hee-nah clamping down on her hand and saying nooooo you shall not pass. It shan't be happy when it has to pass a small human in a few weeks.

Speaking of va-hee-nahs, I need to schedule a waxing. I don't know what is scarier, a giant V with hair sprouting from it, or a giant V that you can see with absolute clarity because the hair is gone. I figure the latter gives better visibility/is more hygenic and is slightly less gross for the doctor and nurse, who are going to be the only people who will see my V. Everyone else in the room is going to be by my head with strict instructions not to look at my V. Jonker will probably stare at the ceiling the whole time anyway. In any case, getting waxed when you are very pregs is an exercise in complete trust. Like when you have to let yourself fall backwards into someone else's arms, hoping they will not let you fall on the ground. I have to trust the waxing woman when she says the lines are even or straight, because I for sure can't see anything past my stomach.

Adult Bibs

I need one. Have you ever tried to eat food with a big ball on your lap? Try not to spill anything on that. Sadface.

Help me Rhonda

I look 53 weeks pregnant and have gained 38 lbs so far. I am well on my way to exceeding the recommended weight gain for people of my size.

I feel like 7 lbs is an excessive amount of weight gain for 2 weeks, and may indicate pre-eclampsia but my OB-GYN didn't seem to think anything of it and my blood pressure is normal. So that means I am not sick, just extremely fat. Also the baby is estimated to be about 5.5 lbs, so the fatness is all me, and not the baby.

I put on a maternity shirt yesterday and it was TOO SMALL. The swelling in my legs and feet is getting excessive, to the point where it's difficult to walk because I can't get one thigh past the other thigh without creating a friction force of near infinity. I have ankle rolls. I have trouble squeezing my feet into flip-flops. Putting pants on requires some acrobatics and precise swinging of the pants onto my feet because I can't bend down far enough to grab them with my hands. When I have to get up from the couch I have to wiggle to the edge of the seat and prepare myself physically and mentally, so that I can lift the great weight that is my body to a standing position. In bed, whatever position I happen to fall in when I get in is the position I have to sleep in, because I can't roll myself to another position.

Oh the joys of bringing another life into the world.

I am a manatee

I got weighed again today. So far I have gained about 31 lbs. I say "about" because I didn't get weighed the first time until I was a couple of months pregnant so it's possible I have gained more than 31 lbs.

I took a picture of myself today:

Actually this is a more accurate representation, with respect to my face:



I am not going to name any names, but I saw someone a few days ago and that someone smiled at me and said, "You've gained weight." I smiled back and didn't grab that smiley mouth with both my hands and wrap it around her head. I am learning to be Patient and keep the violence in my head. I'm sure this will prove helpful as a parent.

The doctor commented that as far as she could tell I was measuring normal, and that I could get a growth scan in a couple of weeks to take a closer look at the Jeefling. I said, "is it possible to have a 31 lb. baby? Because it would be nice to go down to my original weight right after labor."

She looked at me like I was Extremely Stupid. "No, you don't want a 31 lb. baby." I looked at the ground. "Yeah, you're right. I don't." I hate you.

Are you coming to clean my gigantic poo?

Help

This fetus is trying to bust out of me the wrong way. Little nudges and pokes inside have turned into whopping 360 degree kicks and board breaking. How do I tell it to go towards the light? If this keeps up...

it will not end well.


I guess it's getting pretty tight in there, and the baby has decided to take my inner organs and stack them neatly out of the way in the corner. I can see unidentifiable body parts pressing against my stomach and moving around, and there is nothing more distracting when you're trying to watch an old episode of Bones and your t-shirt starts flapping up and down by itself. It's FREAKING ME OUT.

Argh the freaking heat

It's like 300 degrees outside today. I almost died on the way from the Columbus Circle subway stop to Wendy's. That's a distance of like 2 blocks. I stopped for provisions and continued my way to the office (another 7 or 8 blocks) which is usually a frozen mecca. (Think Narnia and the White Witch, who cursed the kingdom with winter for one hundred years. I am the ridiculous looking faun-human-associate.) But not today. It's still freaking hot in here.

I don't know if it is a fat person thing or a pregnant thing, but this fetus-growing experience makes me hot all the time. My feet used to be like little icicles year-round, but no longer. I now grow sweat spots in the places where only fat men grow sweat spots, like the crease between their man-boobs and stomach.

Looking as hot as the Hoff


I can cuddle with the bickster only for short periods of time before we part in mutual disgust at the unholy heat generated between us. Right now I'm hiding behind my desk because I have to hide my fat-man-sweat-spots until they dry. The thought of having to venture outside again to go home makes me want to cry fat sweaty tears.

The White Witch lets us take 2-4 weeks of short term disability before the due date, depending on when the doctor says you can or should no longer work. I used to wonder what about late stage pregnancy would render a woman unable to work, short of an actual medical condition like preeclampsia. Now I know: fat man sweatiness.

OMFG it's a baby.

I'm starting a new blog because sometimes I just like to chuck everything out and start anew. Mr. Mewkersons and I used to move from apartment to apartment this way, leaving all sorts of furniture in our wake because it was just easier to leave it there than cart that sh*t to a new place. Yeah, we're frickin lazy.

Anyhoo, Mr. Mewkersons and I are having a baby. See infra:

Hello, little Mewkersons.


It is strange to me that you need to pass a test to drive a car, but anyone can have a baby. Every electronic device I've ever purchased comes with a very long and detailed instruction guide, with pictures and an index. From what I hear, babies arrive completely naked, no batteries or accessories or how-to guide included.

I don't know how to take care of a baby, because that subject was not covered at school or in my SAT or LSAT prep books. I've ordered a bunch of books and and google things like "what do newborn babies wear" on a daily basis, but I am not confident that that will get me that 800 if you know what I mean.

Helpful diagram


I learned two weeks ago that babies are not supposed to eat peanut butter, in case they have allergies. How am I supposed to have known that? My life experience dictates otherwise -- for instance, Nikklebikkles loves peanut butter, as do I. Sometimes we hang out on the sofa and eat spoonfuls of peanut butter together (if we are sharing a spoon, I get to go first). So this baby may not survive for very long. Particularly if my history with plants and pets more sensitive to lack of water, food and general care are any indication. I once killed a cactus by accident. That's not easy to do. Bichons apparently are very hardy, despite their delicate appearance.

More peanut butterz plz?


I'm at 33 weeks as of today, which leaves me 7 more weeks to learn about babies and watch the rest of Friday Night Lights on Netflix. Go Panthers!