Thursday, July 23, 2015

Brown sugar

Pregnant Chicken tells me that, at 34 weeks pregnant, Brown Sugar is the size of a five pounds bag of sugar. Delicious.

Speaking of Pregnant Chicken, there are a couple pretty amaze balls giveaways sponsored by her and BabyList. I thought about using BabyList to set up a registry for Brown Sugar, then I realized that I don't really need shit for a second baby, and our house is only 1500 square feet. 1350 square feet of it seems to be devoted to baby shit, 100 square feet for the dogs and the other 50 for the mister and I).

The most amazing giveaway is the $4000, everything fancy for your baby plus a year of 7th generation diapers. If you think that your baby deserves nice, fancy things that you would never spend money on because you're poor and can't afford to live anywhere better than Idaho, this is the perfect opportunity for your new bundle to get a taste for the finer things before he is bitch-slapped into reality and forced to realize that the neighborhood his parents decided to buy a house in is probably one of the worst in town for schools. (But he's not even born yet. Why is he worrying about schools? You never should have entered that giveaway from BabyList! Pretentious little fuck.)

There's also the Body After Baby giveaway. I've been thinking about tight lacing to get my ribs back where they belong, but maybe shape wear could do the trick? And if it's free, why not try it?

And there's also a Babyganics and Target giveaway. I've never used the Babyganics products because, as mentioned above, I'm not fancy. Any more. I used to be fancy, though. I would drink $14 cocktails made with elderflower liqueur and squid ink and eat Basque tapas at the fancy Basque tapas bar that was right next to my house and go to fancy and ridiculous art parties at the underground gallery and venue that was two doors down from me and up the creepy stairs.

Anyway, enough about me in my twenties. Back when I was cool. I was also really drunk. And all those $14 fancy cocktails could have gone into an IRA or something grown up and fancy. Instead, all my paychecks from my first real environmental job went to booze, books and music. I WAS LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM.

Okay. Now that's really enough.

This is Mr. Adventure's first week of work, and Chumby's first week of not being at home with him. Things are going great with the mom from my mom's group, though. Chumb doesn't really care when Mr. A drops him off and he cries when I make him leave. I think he wants to live with them. They have all the cool toys, so I totally don't blame him. They also have a really nice yard and lots of windows in their house. I want to live with them, too. But, today is his last day going there. I'm taking tomorrow off and next week he starts Day Care and I start working Tuesday through Saturday so we can save a couple bucks on childcare expenses.

And my best friend from college is flying in this weekend with her husband! I'm assuming it's mainly so she can make fun of me for being so fat.

I have an appointment with the midwife today. I'm meeting her partner for the first time, just in case she is the one who is on call when I deliver. I think it's so that way I know who she is, but when you're balls deep in labor, you kind of don't give a shit who comes in the room. At least, I didn't. I didn't even open my eyes when my midwife came in. I heard her voice and she got there just in time to put on gloves and catch Hamburglar as he came flying out, like Slimer from Ghostbusters flying through a wall. But less green. And more solid.

Brown Sugar is the size of a butternut squash or something. You should probably just eat some butternut squash soup. Anything more than that and you'll end up with heartburn anyway.

According to that weird pregnancy website I found, the tip for this week is, "If you are facing trouble sleeping, try drinking a warm cup of milk and eat a banana. This will soothe you and even rock you to sleep. Try it out as it may work for you!"

I want a giant banana to rock me to sleep.

I think that's about it. I need a nap. I've been at work by 5:15 every morning this week. And I'm all fat with baby in my lungs, so it's hard to sleep. Boo hoo hoo, poor me, etc, etc.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Scary firsts

I've been wanting to write about this, but also not wanting to because it was super scary.

Hamburglar had his first fever 4th of July weekend. Well, the third of July. He wasn't very hungry at dinner and he felt really warm, so I checked his temperature and it was 101. We gave him Tylenol and some water and put him to bed. Mr. Adventure checked on him and changed his diaper at 11. His fever was still 101 (or 101 again?) and he gave him the very last of the Tylenol, which was maybe half a dose?

We figured fevers aren't a big deal. All kids get sick eventually. Chumby has had the occasional cold, but nothing really bad other than a lot of snot or gross poo diapers.

Around midnight, Mr. Adventure heard what he thought were hiccups coming through the baby monitor, but they didn't stop, so he checked on Chumby and he was having a seizure. I heard him say, "Oh my God!" but it wasn't the gross poo OMG, it was more of a panic. I shot out of bed, he handed him to me, he was twitching still a little bit and his lips were turning blue. Mr. A had a friend over who called 911, but the ambulance was seven minutes out and we only live about a mile from the hospital, so Mr. Adventure drove to the ER while I cradled Chumby, who was still non-responsive.

We were at the ER for a couple of hours. His temperature was 103.5 when they took it. They gave him some ibuprofen or something and his fever started coming down. I loved the nurse we were assigned. He was so kind and gentle. When Chumby started feeling better, he asked for a sticker (because all grown ups who work in buildings with fluorescent lights have stickers, obvs) and the nurse went out to see what he could find. He came back with a stuffed bear.

Febrile seizures are somewhat common in infants and small children, but it doesn't make it any less frightening when it happens. I remember clearly the day I realized I was mortal (after an express kidnapping in Central America!) but I think it's even scarier to discover your children are mortal. Mr. Adventure didn't sleep all weekend. Chumby's breath smelled like he was dying. That was really scary. They did a chest x-ray and tried to get him to pee in a bag (that never happened. Even though we tried running water and watching the episode of Daniel Tiger where everyone goes to the potty). The doctor said he had pneumonia and prescribed 5 days of antibiotics. I didn't know you could have pneumonia with no symptoms.

I think with all toddlers, you know they're feeling better when they are well enough to be total a-holes. So, Chumby is back to his usual self. Hopefully Mr. Adventure and I will be back to our usual selves soon.

In pregnancy news, 33 weeks pregnant. I've started calling the baby Brown Sugar, because I primarily eat generic rice krispies with brown sugar. I wonder if what you eat really impacts the temperament of your baby? When I was pregnant with Chumb, I ate a lot of salty foods and he was a pretty salty baby. He's a super sweet toddler, though. Brown Sugar/Sean Connery is all about the sweet.

Pregnant Chicken talks about breast vs. bottle feeding in her 33 week pregnant post. The first time around, I was so insistent that Hamburglar would only be breast fed and I would do it for a year. And I totally did. This time, I'm like "fuck it! Who gives a shit what this kid is eating as long as he is eating and growing?" Although, my favorite thing about breastfeeding is that it is free. And, as a family on a budget, I'm hoping I can only breastfeed this guy as well. At least for the first 6 months. I kind of hate breastfeeding and I really hate pumping, but it does give me a good excuse to take a break from work and watch shitty TV on my smart phone. Though, I don't have Netflix anymore and I'm still rocking my S2, which doesn't support Amazon Prime instant video.

We may have picked a name. I'm not willing to commit yet, but Mr. Adventure's terrible suggestions have finally worn me down and I kind of don't care what we name the kid anymore. All I know is that I am going to pick a quality and classic middle name so that if he hates the name Mr. A has picked, he can thank me for a quality backup name. During one of my many, many googling sessions of things like "baby naming for assholes," I came across this post from the daddyfiles on baby naming. I liked it.

At 33 weeks pregnant, Brown Sugar is the size of a durian (see: WTF is a durian? from 2013). Here is a recipe for Durian Puree Cheesecake. And here is a recipe for Durian Breakfast Muffins. I feel that the muffins really get into the spirit of faux infant cannibalism, because the recipe calls for brown sugar.

I think that's about it. Mr. Adventure scored a fancy day job, so he's trading in his Stay-At-Home-Dad hat for some Lord-Loves-A-Workin'-Man boots. He starts Monday, though, after being offered the job yesterday, which gives us very little time to find a day care/child care situation. The extra complication is that I don't get until next week, our budget is super tight and daycare is mother f-ing expensive. But, I have a mom from my mom group that said she can help out at least until we find something, or, if things go well, she may be willing to watch Chumby until I go on maternity leave in September! Keep your fingers crossed.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

31 weeks

I am huge.

I think my stomach has tripled in size in the past three weeks. And, as a point of reference, my bra size is a 36H. So that is a giant belly.


Do you like my kitchen floor?

Anyway, at 31 weeks, all the normal pregnancy culprits are there. I have heart burn. My lower back hurts. I'm peeing 1000 times per night. It's good stuff.

At 31 weeks, Sean Connery is the size of a pineapple, leeks and a mini skirt. So, slap on a mini skirt that will fit you and grill some pineapple and serve it with leeks? Or you can make this recipe that came up when I googled "Pineapple and leeks" just now.

According to my old favorite, weird blog, only 6-8 hours a day will be dedicated to feeding and changing my newborn. I hope that's true this time around. Because I'm pretty sure that's all I did the first time around. Maybe with some intermittent napping.

According to me, I had to pee all the time last time, too. And I hope this baby is also not a dick. And there's a much better pineapple recipe in my post from the first time around.

One thing that's way better about this pregnancy is that I do not feel like I was kicked in the clam with steal-toed boots. So, that's awesome.

That's all. Happy 4th of July. Blow things up. And eat a pineapple.