The Bachelor

First of all...keep the baby dates coming, this could be fun:-) As a reminded, my due date is May 4th, but it is unlikely that we will get very close to that. The doctor considers April 6th to be a good target date where they should be strong and healthy...anything beyond that is icing on the cake. But, there are no rules that say I can't go full term!!!

In other news, I watched my first ever (I think...at least the first in a VERY long time) full episode of The Bachelor last night. What. The. Fuck. It kinda made me ashamed to be a woman, or at least to be told that these are "amazing, beautiful women".

1) Some of them are sorta cute. One looks like a horse. None are that good-looking. Which would be OK if they were bringing something else to the table. But...
2) I can't even imagine how low your self-opinion has to be to go on a show like that. The whole situation is completely fucked up (we can talk about The Situation some other day...hee hee) and can only exist because of self-esteem issues. Think about it...these girls have to basically show up and beg for attention from one guy, putting on a lengthy show to demonstrate which of them can do the most to please him. Never once do any of them get to ask what he may bring to a relationship...they just have to assume he is awesome and then grovel.
2a) Case in point...I saw on The Soup where a girl got kicked off for flirting with a cameraman. Yet, the guy is allowed to fool around with all of them and spend "romantic overnights" with any of them that he chooses. So, he can bang every one of them and they all love it, but if any of them say hello to another guy, they get booted.
3) If there is a worse way to start a relationship, I can't think of it. There are cameras everywhere...the guy is simultaneously making out with 30 other girls (and sleeping with at least several), everyone is on vacation and you get tiny snippets of time to actually meet each other, each one of which has at least the outline of a script drawn up. Also...how long are they there for? I feel like they all fall madly in love with him sometime between 15 and 25 minutes of meeting him...
4) What is up with the production quality? It seemed like the whole second half of the show was filmed on someones Flip...was there something weird going on last night?

Anyway, I realized that maybe my brief love of the show wasn't gonna work when I noticed that there had been a 30 minute long, tear-filled scene where one of the girls quits (not real sure why, to be honest) and I couldn't muster an ounce of interest. It was supposed to be crushingly emotional and devastating for both of them, but I just couldn't figure out why they were taking it so seriously...can you imagine if you broke down like that every time you went on two dates with someone and realized it was just not happening? At least I know I wouldn't have sat on his lap and flashed my panties to a national audience while I did it;-)

So...anyone care to defend the show? Did I miss something?

Monday Monday

I am not sure I ever told you that The Mouth finally went home last week. She ended up staying for a couple of weeks (she stayed at Smoking Hot Roommate's place most of the time) and it was really nice to have her around. She benefited from it as well...gave her a chance to decompress, re-evaluate and plot her next steps.

Which, by the way, I am super jealous of...after she spends a couple of weeks putting together graduate school applications and doing some interviews for that (she will get in wherever she applies...and will likely join at least one of my longest-term readers as a UCLA grad:-)), she is taking off the the Virgin Islands to tend bar and be a bum for about six months.

Much trouble will be caused, I am sure. Mostly, I am just glad that she was feeling better when she left.

This weekend would have been the fourth straight year of going with Munchkin and her friends on their President's Day weekend ski trip. Obviously, neither of us can go, which is a total bummer...her friends Mom was totally heartbroken that we couldn't come:-) That was always one of my favorite weekends of the year, and I sincerely hope that I get to do it again sometime. Not real sure whether that is realistic or not!!!

Her foot is doing better, but she is really going nuts at being limited like she is. There was a school dance on Friday that she couldn't go to and her friends were all hanging out at the mall on Saturday and she couldn't do that, either. Fortunately, they all came over on Saturday night to keep her company but she is just not wired to be this sedentary. She should be able to walk without restriction soon (later this week maybe), at least for short periods, which will be a big help. The crutches totally suck and are making her kinda bitchy...lol

So...I think I may run a little blog pool to guess the birth time and date of the babies. Or, I guess of the first one, since the second will be just after that;-). Anyone wanna play? Comment, email, IM, whatever your guesses to me. I will try and think of a prize...

Update

All went well with the doctor...blood pressure still good, no signs of pre-term labor, babies heartbeats good, and my cervix appears to be holding steady. So, week one of partial bed-rest must be considered a success...

No means "No". Unless it means "maybe".

So, as I am sure none of you are at surprised about, I got talked out of a firm "no" on the trip to St. Bart's in March. Munchkin can be really persuasive, and she is really hard to say no to!

I agreed to the following...if her doctor and physical therapist say that she is cleared to be on her foot without any restriction (except for running and sports, which will be out for a while), and if my doctors still say that everything looks OK and there are no signs of pre-term labor, then I will let her go. I think that her foot will be the real issue, and at a minimum, this will ensure that she is really good about her PT instructions until then, which will only be good for her. So that is that, and we will have to see how it unfolds.

In the meantime, I am nervous for tomorrow's doctor's appointment. Things have gone really well on the quasi-bed rest front and I still feel great. And I can definitely feel a difference...there is less of a feeling of them weighing down (and kicking me so much) in the crotch. Hopefully, that feeling of eased stress is reflective of the actual state of my cervix. Status quo will be totally OK by me...

Wish me luck!

What is this strange word that starts with N?

As you are all well aware, "No" is not a word that Munchkin hears very often. I am not sure, in the complete sense, that I would say that she is "spoiled", because she certainly doesn't act ungrateful or entitled. And, she is an orphan, so I guess she doesn't get everything. But, when you really get down to it...she gets pretty much everything she wants and does pretty much whatever she wants.

I have written about my parenting philosophy a lot...which is basically giving kids as much leash as you can before they get themselves all tangled in it (I went with that over the rope and hanging metaphor...you know, because I didn't want to write about hanging children). This is not a philosophy that would work with most children, or even a substantial minority of them...but it has worked really well with her. She is mature enough to handle the freedom and responsibility, so I give it to her.

That means that when she asked if she could move to the beach last summer, I figured out a way to accommodate her. And when she wanted to got to France, we figured that out, too. In addition to me, she has two other older "sisters" that indulge her, as well...and as long as she continues to be the remarkable young woman and great student that she is, she will continue to get the same treatment.

But, very occasionally, I have to tell her no, and we have run up against one of those times. Normally, she just shrugs and says "OK, I understand," and then I never hear about it again, but I am sensing a little bit more resistance this time, which I hope is not a sign of things to come.

Frenchie's family is vacationing in St. Bart's in March, which coincides with Munchkin's spring break, and she has been invited to join them. First of all, raise your hand if you are jealous? OK, I have to bring my hand down to keep typing... And I would love to let her, for all of the obvious reasons, but I think it is gonna be a no-go.

First of all, it is a long and expensive flight (because you can't fly direct, it actually takes longer to get there than it would to get to Paris). She could actually pay for it herself, but I would rather she didn't. Oh, and just in case either of those two older sisters thinks it would be a swell birthday present, consider this your written request not to;-).

Second, she will still not be 100% mobile by then. She won't need crutches, I don't think, but her foot will not be completely healed and she will still be recovering. I don't want her carrying baggage around three or four airports and then most likely being up and around and pretty active for the whole week she is there on a bad foot.

Finally, that will be about 2-3 weeks before the expected birth date of the babies. My official due date is May 4th, but the Doctors' goal is to try and get to 36 weeks, which means April 6th. Anytime after 32 weeks it becomes kind of an "any minute" proposition, which puts her vacation right in the middle of that. It may be selfish of me (actually, it is also practical) but I don't want to have to worry about having her a couple thousand miles away if anything goes wrong.

So, I gave her a preliminary "No" and am pretty sure that will be my final answer. Which I am bummed about, and she is obviously super bummed about...it will mean waiting another 4 or 5 months to see him again, which is really hard for her. But, let's be honest: if "Couldn't spend a week in St. Bart's with boyfriend and family" is at the top of your 2010 list of Greatest Personal Tragedies, then it was a pretty good year;-)