Oh and....

We finally ordered a new camera today--should be in soon, so I promise to post pics often so that my blog won't be so boring.

The first step is admitting you have a problem...

I've never been one of those girls who gets all crazy about "the way that babies smell". Sure, I get it. I've smelled a baby before and it is nice when they smell like baby powder or whatever that smell is. BUT, I've also smelled babies that didn't smell so nice--like say, babies who have a dirty diaper; or babies who've just puked all over themselves (that sour-milk smell about sends me over the edge...guess I better get over that real soon). So, I've always watched in wonder as my girlfriends' ovaries explode into 100,000 pieces when they smell anything associated with a baby.

Well, after I posted my last blog entry, about being a bad mother already, I decided to get motivated to do something productive on the "get ready for the baby" front. I decided to tackle the mound of clothes, burp cloths, blankets, etc. that I've been half-heartedly organizing in the baby's room and start washing small loads of them. I'd already bought my Method brand baby laundry detergent and decided to give it a whirl. I thought that starting small and easy would be best, so I collected all of the baby's new hooded towels and washcloths and threw them in the washer with a capful of baby detergent. The instant that the hot water hit the mixture of the towels and the detergent, something came over me. I swear to God that the Method people put hormones or pheromones or something in that detergent because I felt an uncontrollable urge to wash all of the baby's clothes immediately. Heck, I wanted to wash all of our clothes in the stuff--our sheets and towels too--everything! The smell was deliciously sweet and wonderful! When I got the first load of delicious towels out of the dryer, I totally did that whole "lady in the laundry detergent ad" maneuver and buried my whole face in the pile of towels and sniffed to my heart's content--weird stuff, I tell you. I also have sort of a towel fetish and really enjoy folding towels (a trait that I share with Kevin's mom) so I tackled the pile of freshly, baby-fied towels and practiced folding them until I had formulated the "Perfect Baby Towel Fold". Now, the towels are stacked to perfection, alongside the wee little baby washcloths, in our spare bathroom cabinet. Surely this isn't my nesting instinct because I was under the impression that that doesn't kick in until very close to delivery--and we still have a ways to go until that time. My money is on baby detergent manufacturers putting something addictive and/or hormonal in their product.

A Half-Assed Mother

I'm already a half-assed mother and my baby hasn't even been born yet. First of all, I get these incredible bursts of energy and decide to do stuff around the house--like organize baby clothes by size, color, washing instructions & degree of wearability. I begin the project with gusto and then slowly get more and more distracted, bored and/or tired and eventually wander off to watch tv or surf the net. A similar pattern follows other lofty project beginnings such as washing all baby clothes, linens etc. (as I type this, a damp load of baby, hooded towels sits in my washer, awaiting a trip to the dryer--which is located approximately 4.5 inches from the washer); cleaning the kitchen; putting up our Christmas decorations; etc.

Even worse than the half-finished projects: Kevin and I skipped out of day two of childbirth classes. We suck. We sat through 4.5 hours of monotone descriptions of effacement, dilation & mucus plugs yesterday. I thought that I would claw my eyeballs out. I typically have absolutely no symptoms of ADHD, but yesterday, my legs were twitching, my fingers tapping, I contemplated walking out of class to run laps around the building several times. It was oddly out of character for me. Also, just sitting for that long killed me. I felt like my tailbone was going to snap off at the tip, float around in my body until it impaled one of my vital organs (in fact, I was sort of hoping for something interesting like that to happen, to break up the monotony). The mere thought of going back today for another 4.5 hours of that was eating me alive. So, we skipped (I didn't have to work too hard to convince Kevin to skip with me). According to our instructor, today's lesson was going to be about epidurals--which, in my opinion, I know that I want one; don't need to know much more about it than I already do--poke me in the back, take the pain away, that's all I need to know about the procedure.

So, we've spent our afternoon of freedom doing things around the house. I've actually gotten a few things accomplished and am planning to do a few more tasks which I may or may not complete.

Random Pregnancy Blogging

I think that I'm going to miss being pregnant. From what I hear, in the last few weeks, you just want it all to be over, and I understand that, but I've really enjoyed being pregnant. I've had, by all accounts, the best pregnancy ever. I never once threw up--didn't even ever feel nauseous; I haven't had the moodiness or other hormonal maladies; haven't gained an extreme amount of weight; the baby is healthy and seems to be quite content where she is and what she's doing--all in all, just a really easy time. It's pretty cool to have this special time with her where she and I are sort of one person. She moves a lot and, unless I invite someone else to feel my tummy, it's our little secret when she moves and how much.

I had a baby shower over the weekend and got so much loot--it was absurd! She now has enough clothes to last at least the first few days at home (kidding). She actually has more clothes than I think she'll ever be able to wear! It's amazing! She also got a lot of the things on her registry that we really needed. This little girl is so lucky--she's loved by a lot of people already.

It's hard to say if it's my "nesting instinct" or just the usual, Weird Jenny-ness, but I'm itching so hard to decorate for Christmas. The only thing that's holding me back this week is that we have plans for friends to come over both tonight and tomorrow night and I'm not ready to share the extent of my Christmas fetish with them--even though they probably already know. I do plan to put up at least some decorations next week.

I really need to focus this weird nesting onto getting the nursery put together. I keep blaming my procrastination on Kevin and his not having put the crib together yet, but we also don't have a mattress for the crib yet either. Also, I just recently decided to take up a client's offer to paint the nursery for me, so now I'm thinking that I'd like the painting to be done before I start arranging things. I could begin the task of washing all of the little clothes in the special baby detergent that I bought (I'm bucking the system and bought the Method brand of baby detergent--supposed to be better for the environment--as opposed to Dreft). I also know that whatever soft, snuggly surface we create in the nursery (be it folded blankets, her little bouncie seat, her crib, etc) will be covered in cat hair before she comes home from the hospital, so that's hindering my desire to get everything clean and pristine.

That does it for now--I'll post more entertaining thoughts and factoids as they come to me.

Overkill

Am I the only one who's insanely sick of seeing "Anna Nicole's Tragedy" or "The Devastating Death of Anna Nicole's Son", etc. all over the TV lately? Sure, it is sad that her son died tragically--no one deserves it and no mother should have to endure that. BUT, here's the thing: he died of a drug overdose (not that that justifies his death); Anna Nicole is clearly a drug addict herself; not sure what's going on with her smug, creepy lawyer/husband. I'd be more likely to deem his death a tragedy if he'd died in a car accident, of cancer--something to that effect.

I caught a bit of footage taken during Anna Nicole's recent c-section on Entertainment Tonight yesterday. In the tape, Anna is on the operating table screaming and crying and saying, "I wanna see ma presh-us baabee". She was clearly high as a kite. Also, she was offering commentary to Entertainment Tonight, telling them what she was thinking/feeling during the c-section. She kept saying that she was in a lot of pain and felt a lot of the procedure. I couldn't help but wonder if it was because her body is so immune to drugs, that she really wasn't anesthetized enough during the procedure--which is disgusting in and of itself. Maybe she should've done a few more hits of Trimspa before the surgery.

This post has no point at all except that I'm sick of this story and am more than ready for it (as well as the people involved) to go away. Anna Nicole gets way too much publicity as it is and she milks every publicity opportunity for all that it's worth. I don't understand what the appeal is, other than the fact that she and her story are really a fiery, twisted-metal, multiple ambulance-style car accident that America can't not look at.

Whole Foods: Oh how I've missed thee...

At the time that I found out I was pregnant, I'd been vegetarian for about 2 years--sometimes even venturing into a Vegan lifestyle (no dairy, eggs, etc). When I got pregnant, I immediately began researching how to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle during pregnancy and was convinced that I could do it. All that went down the drain when my usual vegetable cravings were replaced with Whataburger cravings and junk, junk, junk food cravings. When faced with the possibility of eating a salad or a hamburger, the salad made me throw up a little in my mouth, whereas the hamburger sounded absolutely divine. I opted to go with my instinct (gut, if you will) and eat what sounded good.

This way of eating has gotten me all the way to my third trimester. Now, I'm not sure if my body is beginning to shift back to normal or what, but I'm beginning to crave healthier fare again. As a result, I'm finding myself thoroughly disgusted with our local grocery store (Kroger). Quick backstory: we recently moved from very near downtown Houston to just outside of Loop 610 (only about 10 min from our old house). At our old house, it was very easy for me to toodle over to Whole Foods to do my grocery shopping--in fact, I only went to Kroger when we needed toilet paper; ketchup; etc...stuff that you can't really buy at Whole Foods. Now that we've moved, we're farther away from Whole Foods and have a Kroger right around the corner from our new house. In addition to the convenience and in an effort to be more cost-conscious, I'd resolved to shop exclusively at Kroger for our food. After about 2 months of shopping there, I finally broke and have disgustedly given up on that store.

Naturally, Whole Foods spoiled me with their beautiful produce; plethora of organic options; the fact that they don't carry anything with high fructose corn syrup or partially-hydrogenated oils. Stepping foot back in a Kroger was an experience for me. 99% of the produce is conventionally grown--and not good! Gnats buzzing happily around everything; rotten tomatoes; etc. They do have a small organic produce section, but most of that stuff is old and rotten as well; not to mention very expensive. One day, I set out to buy granola bars and wanted to find some with no high fructose corn syrup. After looking at the ingredients on approximately 45 different boxes and brands of granola bars, I ended up empty-handed--they ALL had high fructose corn syrup. One evening, I sent Kevin to Kroger to pick up some grapes, cheese, crackers, etc for dinner (one of our favorite snacky-type of dinners to have). He splurged at Kroger and bought a $7 block of some sort of smoked Swiss cheese--which was about the most exotic cheese he could find at Kroger. When he got home, he unwrapped it, only to find it completely moldy and slimy on the bottom--and I'm not talking about good, fancy moldy cheese...this was old, gross, Kroger mold.

So, I finally decided that, in order to preserve my sanity and the health of Kevin, myself and our baby, I would begin shopping at Whole Foods once a week to get all of the stuff that I can't get at Kroger (produce, etc). I went to Whole Foods for the first time in a couple of months this week and it was heaven. I felt like I'd returned home. I stocked up on beautiful organic apples (which taste delightful and are crunchy instead of mushy!), fresh salmon fillets, smoked Gouda cheese, etc. Even checking out at Whole Foods is a delight. The checkers visit with you and offer bags of ice to ice down your cold groceries, in case you're not going straight home (which I wasn't and gladly accepted the ice). The difference is night and day. Now, if I'll be able to limit myself to only going once a week, I'll be in good shape.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

So, when I found out I was pregnant, I had lofty ideas about blogging throughout the pregnancy, not only for the entertainment of my readers (um, reader ...Hi Mom!) but for myself as well--to document this time in my life. Let's see...as you can tell from the frequency of my posting, that didn't happen.

So, I finally thought of something that I wanted to blog about and here I am...you know, like that friend who only calls or shows up when there's something in it for them? That's me! Oh, and what size shoe do you wear?

Today, I'm officially in my third trimester of pregnancy. As a result, my body is starting to develop quite a swollen appearance and I'm beginning to get a tad uncomfortable (Now With 75% MORE Waddle!). I'm also having trouble controlling bodily functions such as belching (more specifically, "vurping" {vomit burps}) and my favorite: farting while (whilst? Does that make it sound anymore demure?) walking. The other night, Kevin and I were sitting on the sofa together, snuggling. He leaned over to kiss me and I completely belched right in his face--I'm talking about a full-on, fraternity party-post-keg-stand-beer-belch. We both had to laugh, because, well, what else can you do in that situation? And I told him, "So, I guess this is why society suggests that you be married before getting pregnant? 'Cause the things that my body does these days just isn't conducive to impressing someone on a first date!".