Merry Christmas!

Alternately titled: Holy shit, it's Christmas.

So, this year we begged off from doing anything out of the home for Christmas (like relative visiting, you know) because of my "delicate condition" and --oh my god! I totally want to make it a tradition. I don't want to hurt people's feelings or anything, but it's sooooooooo nice to just stay home all day long and nap and play with our new stuff and be together. Mmmmmmmmmm. It's lovely.

Anyway. On to the stuff. It seems to me every single year that what we've gotten for the girls isn't adequate. It's due to my upbringing. The eighties. Excess. Every year when I was a kid, I had an enormous pile of presents under the tree. It took a long time to open them all! This year, despite our having spent a whole crapload of money, the girls only had 4 presents each to open, two Santa presents, stocking stuff, a couple of for-both-of-them presents, and a couple of for-all-of-us presents. It seems simultaneously like too much, too little, and just the right amount. Laura Ingalls was happy with an orange, a peppermint stick and a doll. Sometimes, I think that kind of satisfaction would be really nice to know.

On the other hand... here's what we got. Our family Santa present was a GameCube, Paper Mario, Zelda Windwaker, and Metroid Prime (which the GameCube came with and none of us likes (I really shouldn't have gotten that one but I was all non-thinky and the salesguy was all oh yeah it's great they'll love it!)). Saren got a talking Pikachu, which was her most favorite present. (She was intensely worried about whether or not Santa was going to bring it for her, to the point of tears. I had to tell her to have some faith in Santa Claus, but since she knows that Santa is only pretend, that wasn't working, and I told her to have some faith in me. So she did and she stopped worrying.) Harper got a Fur Real newborn kitten. Those were their two electronic stuffed animal toys. Saren got a Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban DVD, and Harper got the first Shrek DVD (this is because she recently got a stuffed Shrek that inexplicably has become her best friend in the world). They both got Barbies from the Barbie movie, The Princess and the Pauper, and jointly they got the DVD of that. Harper got a My Little Pony and Saren got Zelda Link to the Past and Four Swords for her gameboy. Harper got a Care Bear cousin and Saren got a bank because her last one broke. They both got new jammies, which they opened on Christmas eve. Saren's have unicorns on them and Harper's have penguins. They've decided that they want to wear them all day long because they love them so much. Then, underwear, socks, mittens, hats, chocolate, Pokemon cards, a yo-yo, silly putty in red and green--all in their stockings. That was the stuff from us. They also got a bunch of stuff from grandparents. I won't list it all. They are both very happy and just swimming in new stuff.

I don't know if I do this every year, but I find myself thinking of ways in which to make things work better and be more fun for next year. Most likely I do do that and then I forget it all. I think the biggest thing would be that I need to start earlier. We had to delay two of the grandparents' gifts due to paint-drying issues. I was thinking that this year, all year long, I could have a big box in which I put all kinds of crafts that they make into it, so that we could have a lot of stuff to choose from for grandparents' gifts. And I'd really like to do a bunch of knitting projects all year long for people. I was way too broke to really buy anything for my mom or dad and I regret that. So that's the main thing-- better planning. Better saving. And we should stay home and have a family day each year.

Ready!

Not actually ready though. Please tell the baby that it needs to stay inside for about 2 and a half more weeks. Send some keep on cooking vibes our way.

Yesterday I had a lot more contractions-that-aren't and this morning I woke up to find that I'd lost some of my plug (another of those pregnancy/birth TMI things, sorry). I think I'm about 2-3 cm dilated. Did I say 1-2 last time? It's very difficult to reach and I'm not entirely sure of what I'm feeling, but I do get the feeling that these contractions are doing something. Again, not terribly worried, but in the back of my mind keeping my options open. In two and a half more weeks, when I've reached 37 weeks, I won't be worried at all.

In any case, I decided today that I wanted to be more prepared right now than I am. So we bought a car seat today with some of the Xmas money my mom gave us. Also diapers and wipes. Now I just need to get it cleaned up around here and to keep it that way and I'll feel a lot more prepared.

Just two and a half more weeks baby, and then you've got the green light. Whenever you're ready.

What Manner of Beast Are Ye?

This is what I say to my belly all day long whilst I am feeling various lumps and bumps, some of which move, and some which don't. I can't make heads or tails of it. (<---- that was a funny joke!) There are some bits which are definitely a foot... or an elbow, hand, or knee. And there are some which are definitely either a head or a rump. But it's very difficult to tell which is which. What manner of beast are ye, indeed?

It took 8 days (9 if you count today as a recovery day for me) for us all to work through the cold that began with Saren. For my part, I took a ton of vitamin C and drank much orange juice and ate a couple of oranges when it was coming on, and I believe it was a lot better than it could have been, despite my being pretty miserable yesterday. Both Harper and Pat still have yucky lingering coughs, but I think I'm going to be able to avoid that, mostly. Maybe I'll get some of those gummi bear vitamin C's and ply the girls with them next time an illness comes along.

The other day I shaved my legs (just the bottom) dry because I was in a hurry and I had forgotten to do it in the shower. Sometimes I am so not a girl. And now I'm paying for it with the itchiest legs this side of the Rio Grande. Never, ever do that. And never put salt in your eye.

Also, I forgot to take a picture of me and the girls in all our pink glory! We are going to a Christmas party tomorrow, so maybe they will want to wear their pink again and then I'll take a pic. The thing for my grandparents went well, even though I started to get a headache toward the end due to having my hair pulled back and my cold just beginning. The idea of the thing was that people would stand up and say nice things about my grandparents. I had written a little thing for them, which I was trying to get out of reading in front of 100 people. In the end, I went ahead and did it though. My voice was shaking and I'm quite sure I looked and sounded like a dork, but I had a few people nicely come up to me and say that I did well (they could probably tell that I needed to be reassured that I hadn't made an ass out of myself), and I really did like what I wrote. My grandparents liked it and that was the most important thing anyway.

Adventures in covering my belly.

So, tomorrow is a thing for my grandparents 50th anniversary and I wasn't planning on going. The reasons for this are manyfold, but mostly they involve my being grumpy, huge, pregnant, and broke. My mom asked me about it last night and said that she felt it was important that I be there, so I revised my plans (the ones that had me doing nothing) and now I'm going to go. And I'm not terribly grumpy about it either, so that's a plus.

My mom called and offered to come by and loan me a skirt to wear to it and also to bring by some money to make sure we have enough gas to get through to our next paycheck even with this extra trip. When she got here, she offered to take me and the girls shopping to get them new clothes and shoes to wear tomorrow night. Well, okay! Listen I have twinges sometimes about people buying things for me and my girls, but when it comes right down to it, I won't say no.

So we picked out some really cute outfits for the girls and then she offered to buy me some shoes because the only nice ones I have are sandals and they are too cold. So we found me some good ones and then when we were passing by the maternity clothes, I saw a sweater that was pink and my mom got that for me too because then I would match the girls, who were getting all pink. (Awwwww.) She also bought us dinner. My mom's good.

When we got home, I tried on the black skirt with the pink sweater and it made me look like a pink and black house. Then I tried on another black skirt I had that was shorter and actually was maternity, but it made my legs look... well, like they look. They seem to have gained a lot of weight with this pregnancy, though some of it may have been swelling due to having just walked around a lot. Also, I can't put my damn legs together when I sit down, so an above-the-knees skirt is sort of out of the question. I was about to settle on a pair of quite casual pants, when I decided to try on some non-maternity skirts in my closet. I found one that is pink, matches, and doesn't look horrendous! The only real problem is that I have to wear it under my belly and though the sweater comes down low enough to cover it, I can't, like, lift my arms too high or anything or else my bare belly will show. My bare belly is kind of cute though, despite the stretch marks, so people can just deal.

And that is the end of my story! Hooray! I have a new sweater! Perhaps I will take a picture of myself in it. Also with the girls in all their pink glory.

Oog. We're all sick.

Oh, wait. I'm not sick. I just have a feeling I am going to be sick soon. And P@'s not sick, he's just sic, meaning he spells his name wrong.

So, anyway. Tomorrow I reach 33 weeks. Here are some realizations I had concerning this. 37 weeks is considered "full term." Meaning, if I were to go into labor at 37 weeks, and I happened to be going to the hospital, they wouldn't try to stop it. They wouldn't call the baby premature or anything. This is, of course, all relative and babies come out when they are ready, but still... 37 weeks as full-term is a useful number. So, considering that, I realized that it is possible that the baby will be here (by which I mean here) in four weeks time. I had been pretty much saying to myself two more months (which, using January 29th as the date isn't even true anymore anyway), but I think my brain needs to accept the possibility that it could be quite a lot less than that. And I need to a) get in the headspace for it, and b) make sure everything is prepared. This is problematic at this point because Christmas is coming up and we are broke. All of our extra money is going to Christmas presents. But I plan on making sure that the house is in order and my birthing space, particularly, is in order by the end of the year. Then, with the year's final paycheck, we can make sure we have all the last things that we still need. Most particularly a car seat, but also things like diapers (want to use cloth, but will have some disposables on hand just in case we can't get any cloth ones in time), wipes, extra-super-duper strength tylenol for afterpains, etc.

Boring! But not really. To me anyway. The rest of you can skip over that last paragraph. Oh, but you probably read through it already! My bad. This part is more interesting. I've had a couple of bouts of menstrual-like cramps. They last about 30 minutes to an hour and are not at all regular. They feel just like I'm either having my period or like I'm in the very very beginning stages of labor. Even though I never experienced anything like that this early with Saren or Harper, I'm not terribly concerned about it. I know from the reading that I have done that my body is just gearing up, and that's heartening to me. And I know from my gut feeling that everything is just fine. So, when I wake up in the middle of the night with crampy pains, I can console myself with the thought that my body is getting things started so that I will have a fast, easy labor. And not get irritated with it and accuse it of getting back at me for not having had a period for the past 7 months.

I was curious and I decided to check to see if I am at all dilated. (Warning: You can skip over stuff now if you don't want to read words like cervix or imagine how I was able to check my own. Oops! Too late. My bad.) I don't have very much experience checking dilation (read: none), but my internet-educated self's internet educated guess is that I'm somewhat effaced and very slightly dilated. No more than 1 or 2 centimeters. So! All of this is really exciting and it's starting to bring home the fact that we will, indeed, be having a baby! My goodness! If that isn't completely insane, I don't know what is.

Oh, no! I'm gigantic!

I've been meaning to copycat Annika for ages and get myself a Photobucket account. The last time I tried, though, they had a message that said that you could only register for new free accounts at certain obscure times. But today it said I could do it! So I'm testing it out and it actually looks even easier than I thought it was going to be. Yay!

Here is me at 30 weeks. I think. I don't label things properly, so it might be 31 weeks. It couldn't be 32, could it? Anyway.







Click to see a larger version. That's where the gigantic part comes in.

Loooooooost

We finally got around to watching the last episode of Lost that I had recorded. It was excellent. Things are really picking up now. There was also a preview thingy for the new season of Alias, which is going to begin in January and have no weeks without an episode (I can't figure out if this is a good or bad thing. I like not having to wait, but maybe the breaks are better for me than I think.). It partly got me excited about it and it partly made me groan to myself because I got so irritated with it last season.

Lost and Alias, Alias and Lost. I was thinking about television shows and their relationship to myself the other day. The way Pat relates to TV is so totally different from the way I do. It's got a stronger hold on him than it does on me. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad or a good thing, just a thing. He always remembers when a show is going to be on whereas I would never, ever be able to watch every episode of any series without either his help or some serious VCR programming. He thinks about shows when he's not watching them, whereas I think about them for a little while after I see them and then I forget about them. I never watched a television series religiously (making sure I see every episode, I mean, not worshipping it) until I met Pat and he and I started watching Buffy. Truthfully, I missed some of that and wasn't too bothered about it. Alias, I just sort of stumbled upon, and Lost was something that he was interested in because of having read about it or seen a preview. I like seeing every episode of Lost because I really like the show, but it also seems a bit random to me. My liking of it, I mean. I don't think about television, I just let it happen. That makes sense in my head. What I mean is, there's no planning or anticipation, television either just enters my world or it doesn't. If Pat wasn't around, I'm not sure very much of it would.

Hold on a sec. I've just remembered a show that I watched nearly every time it came on, if I remembered. Avonlea. They reran that one quite a lot so it was easy for me. I miss that show.

Dear Jesus, I'm Grumpy.

Put this on the list of things to remind me of in times of... forgetfulness. I do not like Walmart. There is nothing that will ever make me like Walmart. And I like Walmart Supercenter even less than I like regular Walmart. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Walmart and it is worth it to pay more money for something as long as I can keep my big fat butt out of Walmart! But Pat did make me laugh while we were there by saying, "Support Walmart!" I can't remember where we first saw that, but they were actually being serious. I do remember that.

I'm enormous and achy and tired and hungry. Kill me.