A week?!?!?

I haven't posted in a fucking week...that is totally inexcusable. Even when I have been on vacation in the past, I don't think I have ever gone a full week without posting. Heck, I had surgery in August of '07 and only missed like four days...so, I am kinda embarrassed about taking this long to finally post again.

Super busy week, with lots of school work. I am trying to get ahead so that I can take a week or two completely off when the babies are born and not be completely lost. I am feeling pretty good right now so unless something super weird happens, I think I will be OK. Knock on wood.

Doctor's appointment with an ultrasound last Friday, and everything looks good. The babies are 3 pounds 10 ounces and 3 pounds 7 ounces and healthy and active. My cervix is the same size as it was four weeks ago, so the bed rest regimen is working so far. No signs of pre-term labor at all, and all of my tests remain good (my blood pressure is lower than it was at my first appointment!) So, fingers crossed that things remain on course:-)

The Boy is diligently working on his baby-preparation task list, which includes the assembly of lots of stuff...a crib, dresser/changing table and other smaller stuff. No painting or anything of the babies room. I am not really of that kinda stuff (also, not a fan of the word "nursery"...it's just a bedroom).

Don't tell her I said this, but it is looking good for Munchkin's trip in a couple of weeks. Her PT is going great, she is regaining strength and flexibility really quickly, and she has been very good about doing her exercises every day...she has like a giant rubber band and a list of things she is supposed to do. In addition, Frenchie's Mother has said she will make sure that she observes any doctor's orders that she is supposed to (she also suggested she bring a friend to make the travel easier and make sure she never gets stuck in a spot where she has to awkwardly hoist a heavy suitcase anywhere...since they have a big house rented, it really just means she needs to find a friend who's parents will spring for the plane ticket, which likely won't be hard).

OK, that is enough for now...I will do better about blogging regularly this week...toodles!

Who wants to be my nanny?

OK...to continue my thought from last week...while I am not totally sold on figure skating as a sport, I wouldn't really argue it that strongly because basically when it gets down to it, usually the guy who does the hardest jumps without falling wins. But ice dancing? C'mon!!! The announcer seriously reported that one girl would get extra points because of the good sideways twinkle in her eyes. Also, she looks like a character from Avatar...

None of these, however, hold a candle to Solo Synchronized Swimming as the dumbest thing I have ever seen because it is both asinine and completely inaccurately named.

Moving on...

Super awesome and fun baby shower:-). I was pretty good about staying reclined the whole time, even though it was pretty hard because I really wanted to be up and around to greet people and whatnot. And we got all kinds of super cute baby girl clothes and stuff that almost makes me really excited about having babies. At the moment, it is filling up The Boy's parents living room until we make some room for it. He has a little bit of furniture moving to do before we can move the stuff in.

Some things I have decided on:

There shall be only one crib. At least for the first couple of months...no one really seemed to think there was a need for two, and it will save on the furniture buying, moving and assembling for now.

There shall also only be one of a whole bunch of other things like swings, bouncy seats, play mats, etc. If we need a second because they both love being in them at the same times, we can always get another one later on, but there is no reason to get over-cluttered if we don't need to.

There shall maybe be no new car. We sort of thought we would get a new one, but don't really need it. Mine is going on six years old, but it has really low mileage and is probably big enough. If I thought that we would be heading back and forth to the beach every weekend in the summer with three adults, two babies and all of their stuff, then I think we would have gotten something bigger with a third row. But since Munchkin will be at the beach all summer (and could always ride down with someone else if she had to) it doesn't seem really necessary.

There shall likely be a nanny. Simply put, it is cheaper and more flexible than day care. Having babies in day care is both really expensive (roughly $2,000 a month each) and inflexible (you can't do part time...it is all day, five days a week or nothing). I can adjust my schedule so I have no classes one day a week (at least) and The Boy can likely work four days a week as well (or like four and a half by having one of his real or my pretend cousins who are in the 14-18 year old age come over after school to babysit so he can work from home that afternoon.) His Mom said that she wants to do at least one full day a week permanently (seriously, how awesome is she?) which leaves us needing to fill in like a day or two every week with a Nanny. This means I have to start looking for one...

Alright, that is a lot for one Sunday night post...so I will have to continue this brain dump later on;-) Toodles!

Sport?

Have I mentioned that I have a baby shower tomorrow? I believe that I have left it out...my bad. Well, I do! The Boy's Mom, angel of angels, is throwing it...you know, because she felt like just moving in with us for 10 weeks to play Nanny wasn't contribution enough:-)

I am actually sort of looking forward to it, and not just because it is an excuse to get out of the house for an afternoon! It gives me a whole other couch to be reclined on, which is very exciting...lol. Or maybe I can sit in the recliner. Or maybe I will just mix it up. Just the usual suspects, a handful of friends and some of The Boy's family, so it should be nice and relaxing and fun.

My Aunts are a little bit bummed that I can't come to Chicago, because they wanted to have a baby shower, too. So, I am a little bummed about that as well...but no traveling for this girl:-( Which also means that I missed out on the chance to spend Tinkerbelle's school vacation with her this week...also a bummer (last year we went to Disney and it was awesome!)

Other than that, very little going on in AM-land. Munchkin's foot is doing pretty well, and her physical therapy has gone according to plan. No more crutches, but she is far from 100%. At least she can walk around now, so she is less cooped up and bitchy...lol. (I kid, she really is almost never legitimately bitchy.) Her trip next month is still up in the air...

OK...I like watching figure skating, and I think they are remarkable athletes. But I have a hard time with any sport where you can't tell who wins without an arbitrary and subjective judge. Same goes for half-pipe snowboarding and moguls skiing and freestyle aerials. I love watching that stuff...and my love for stoner snowboard chicks is well-documented...but they are more performance art than sport. Can you imagine if the 100 meter dash was interrupted because, at the 50 meter mark, someone had to stop and do four dance moves and then keep running again? That is moguls skiing...

Which is not at all meant to demean the athletic ability required to do them. There is very little that requires more training and more pure strength and agility than ballet, but that doesn't make it a sport either. At the same time, it does not look like the curling team misses a whole lot of buffets and could well chain smoke and drink heavily while competing...but at least there is a totally objective means of telling who wins.

I am not sure what my point is...and I can't promise to have thought this through...but if you need someone to tell you who wins, and there is room within that for a judgement of artistry, then it is not a sport. And the corollary would be that you don't have to play a sport to be an athlete. Are figure skaters athletes? Absolutely! They train like the dickens, are in great shape and have physical capabilities above and beyond those of even superbly talented people. And curlers (or archers or shooters from the summer games) could never physically exert themselves even the slightest and still be great.

OK...that is my story and I am sticking to it.

On Grammar

So...as you have all guessed, I have been inspired by seeing three totally different spellings of the just passed holiday celebrating our 43 (well, 42 if you only count Cleveland once) previous chief executives. In a random sampling of ads, news stories and other assorted media, I have found three different spellings spread out pretty equally.

One thing I know...it absolutely, positively can NOT be President's Day. That makes no sense at all, unless we are intending only to celebrate the current President. Since, at any given time, roughly 48% of the people probably dislike whoever is in the office, it seems unlikely that we would give him a holiday every single year...

That gets us down to Presidents' day versus Presidents Day.

The argument for the first is that the day belongs to all of our Presidents, and that the correct grammar is therefore to use the plural possessive form.

The argument for the latter is that it is to celebrate the Presidents and is named after them, but does not belong to them.

And, um, I don't have an answer to you, because my extensive (brief) research has uncovered an alarming parallel fact: Mothers Day, Father's Day and Veterans' Day all have the same three-way mis-spelling issues (although you can argue that either Mother's Day or Father's Day is correct because you can in fact celebrate just your own parents, not anyone else's).

And to really muck things up, the official designation from the US Code (section 6103a of Title 5 if you are curious) is that today is George Washington's birthday (it is not, by the way). So there is really no official source on the name.

So...um...I guess I have wasted a whole bunch of blog space? Good thing it is free...

In other news, three straight days of sitting on the couch was too much for me. I got bored, antsy and cranky and just developed a really bad case of cabin fever. Not helping this was that Munchkin was suffering from much of the same issue (although this is thankfully the last weekend that will be the case) so we were irritated together. And once we finished the chocolate that Frenchie sent her, we had little left to do.

As evidence of this, The Boy worked all day today, and I am not entirely convinced that he didn't have the day off;-). So, against my own rules and my doctor's suggestion, we went to the grocery store. I know...exciting, huh? Didn't matter, we just needed to get out of the house, get some fresh air and experience civilized other people. Also, we really needed Doritos, but that was just sort of a side story...

And if that doesn't sum up the excitement of my weekend, then I don't know what will!!!

Hodgepodge

Oh yea...I am sick with Olympic fever...bad case and there seems to be no cure, other than a couple hours of speed-skating and luge. And, sorta waiting for Lindsey Vonn with great anticipation...she better be worth all the fuss!!! Her shin seems to be getting more news coverage than the offensive in Afghanistan. The fact that she looks dynamite in a bathing suit is probably not totally unrelated to that level of attention.

Next...the woman who shot up the University of Alabama Huntsville? And may have sent a pipe bomb to someone? And may have murdered her brother? Could that story get weirder..? (And, is this as big a story nationally as it is around here, where the pipe-bombing and brother-murdering may have taken place?)

Finally, a spelling question: President's Day, Presidents' Day or Presidents Day?

Discuss...and enjoy your day off if you have one:-)

Cupid rhymes with Stupid...just saying

Anybody have any fun plans for Valentine's Day? As I mentioned last year, it should always fall mid-week, as it is just fun enough to spice up a work day, but not fun enough to devote lots of energy to. It is a good excuse to wear red and get flowers at work...but anything beyond that is overkill.

Munchkin got her flowers at school today from her brother, which he does every year and she appreciates dearly. Not sent Frenchie a package of stuff earlier this week, and I have to feel like he has something cooked up for her as well. I hope so...she is totally bummed to be missing the ski trip this weekend, and that would cheer her up.

I can't imagine that we will actually do anything on Sunday...not worth leaving the house for. Maybe my two Valentines will cook me dinner:-) Wouldn't that be real sweet of them? Or maybe they will get sick of me and go out on their own Valentines date...lol. As long as they bring me something chocolate.

The Olympics start tonight, which I am sort of excited about. I like the summer Olympics better, but the winter Olympics do contain my favorite set of athletes...totally badass snowboarder chicks. I especially like how they always seem to be completely stoned:-) I am hereby vowing that each of my daughters will get the chance to be super hot, totally kick-ass snowboarders...adorable bundles of pigtails, puffy pants and pot...

That's all I got for you today...have a fun Valentine's Day if I don't write before then:-)

The Great Storm!!!

Can someone explain Buzz to me? It seems like it is sort of Twitter, kinda? But also a little bit more like email. And with a little old-fashioned message board group thrown in. I am not sure that my life is really going to be incomplete if I don't use it...but we will see...

Also...WORST SNOWSTORM EVER!!!

The weathermen got all fired up all week about the great storm that was coming. Government workers were sent home early. Schools were cancelled. Offices closed. People were encouraged to stay off of the roads. Grocery stores sold out of milk, eggs and bread (which I still don't understand, but whatever).

And then something on the order of an inch and a half of snow fell. Is it me, or are weather people in New England incredibly bad? Not that I have lived everywhere, but in Chicago, if they said it would be cold and snowy, it usually was. We may have had shitty weather, but at least the forecasters usually got it pretty close to right. In Phoenix they did, too, but that is not that hard...the weather is pretty consistent.

But around here? It is like the forecasts are pulled out of a hat! On any given day, you can assume that the temperature will probably be somewhere within about 15 degrees each way of what they say. Precipitation levels are probably about 50% reliable. And not just "Oh, they said 8 inches of snow and we got 10"...like "today they are promising a storm big enough to shut down the city during rush hour and maybe as much as 14 inches in some places," only to have virtually no snow at all fall.

The other part of it is, even when they are right, they change the forecasts so often that it does nobody any good. Trying to plan a summer weekend trip? Well, you will probably get a totally different forecast for the weekend on Tuesday than you will on Friday afternoon. So, they may technically predict the weather on Saturday correctly...but if they do it after being wrong all week when people were making their plans, what good does it do?

I wonder if anyone has any data on this...does someone track the accuracy of weather forecasters by region? Someone must...I feel like there is somebody who measures everything:-)

Am I making this up? Or are the weather folks around here really that much less accurate than the rest of the country?

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;-)