11.27.02

85168407

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:59 am by Anne

oh no.

fries with ketchup sound really good to me right now.

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85162420

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:41 am by Anne

Last night Shan and I drove to the second birthing class held at the hospital. We got there a few minutes late (wah!) and noticed not only that about 4 couples from the first class didn’t show up but that there was a substitute instructor. The truth be told, neither Shan nor I were interested in being there. I worked until 5:50PM, we ate a rushed chef salad that he had assembled, and then were on the road by 6:30. I was exhausted and wanted sleep.

Anyway, the substitute instructor was nice enough but very long-winded, ie she blathered…a lot. She spent entirely too much time talking about her own qualifications, which hospitals she worked at, etc and misused the term ‘ambivalent’ when she meant ‘ambiguous’, not a crime by any means, just when irritatingly repeated over and over again. Then she broke the men and women into two separate groups and each group had to agree on which stages went to which part of labor. It was another time-suck from which no one could escape. By the time the 1.5 hour break rolled around Shan was becoming bitter. He wanted to leave; he wasn’t learning anything new; everything the instructor was saying (who, by the way, spoke in a voive uncannily similar to the Pope-character from ‘The Princess Bride’…wuv, two wuv….) was intuitive, etc until finally, during a video on breathing techniques (more mouse-like chirping sounds and very uncomfortable looking women) Shan’s phone rang (embarrassing!) and he rushed out. It was his Mommy who had forgotten we had class that night. When he sat back down he whispered, “Now we have an excuse to leave if you want to.” I was irritated with him and said, “If you want to leave then fine but you go talk to the instructor, I don’t want to be rude.” Yes the class was dull that night but I was irritated with his bull-headed impatience. Then I realized there was no reason for us to stay there if we didn’t want to; it’s nice being an adult. So he scootched up and talked with the lady quietly and we left full well knowing that most of the other people there would probably have liked to be doing the exact same thing.

We drove over to a bookstore, where his parents were perusing, across town which happened to be attached to a Starbuck’s. I was thinking about a decaf latte until Shan pointed to the La Madeleine nearby and suggested palmiers and coffee. How could I say no to a palmier, that gorgeously baked elephant-ear shaped, carmelized sugar coated puff pastry, which is just perfect when freshly eaten with a steaming cup of dark french roast coffee. sigh. Crispy goodness. We hurried over there, I stayed in the car while Shan went in to see when they were closing and he came back with a papersack of the goods. His conversation:

Shan: Hi there, what time do you close?
Bakerman: 10 PM
Shan: Oh, that’s in 6 minutes, well, we were all planning on coming in for coffee and dessert but we won’t do that to you. Instead, I’ll buy the last palmiers you have to go.
Bakerman: hmmm. (looking around) We are out of palmiers but I will give you the last cinnamon twists for free.
*note: C.T. are strips of puff pastry that have been twisted into hearty lengths of about 10 inches and baked with similar sugar carmelization technique. I had never before eaten one.

Then we drove home. The twists were quite good although I missed having something soothing to drink alongside them. What do you want for free?!

sidenote: Shan promised to read through the birth-booklet that the hospital group goes over in class even though he believes the proper way to handle himself will be ‘intuitive’.

The day before Thanksgiving is going to be a crazy one at work. One of my clients wanted to know if I was going to be in Dallas today. I told him the odds were very poor, since I only drive there when absolutely necessary (I didn’t use those words exactly), but that I would be happy to meet him somewhere in between his office and mine. He has a high sample load (30-40) to get analyzed. goody!

Also, I met Amo in town and we picked out a lovely off-white chenille for the rocker! It is super-soft and gorgeous!! I nearly forgot to mention that I went to one of the houses Shan is working on and we both checked out a room that was painted in a light-lavender color. I brought over the paint swatch booklet, pulled out the ‘winsome lilac’ card and held it against the walls. Very similar in hue but the overall effect was awful! We are both less supportive of lavender walls in the nursery now but I am wondering if just going a shade or two lighter would fix the gag reflex. In any event, we have a week or so to paint and I am leaning towards a real light blue now. More news to follow.

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11.25.02

85080965

Posted in Uncategorized at 6:29 pm by Anne

So I come home for lunch, full well planning on eating leftover lasagna from last night, and in fact, I wound up polishing it off. No big thing since there were only two bites left! After ragging Shan out for leaving such a paltry amount ( He should have just eaten the rest yesterday for crying out loud!) I grabbed a banana and a granola bar and went to the gym. Gym clothes stretching across my belly is not a pretty sight and luckily there was only one other woman there today. Right after, I ran to the grocery store to try and prepare for this friday’s feast to end all feasts, which will follow the previous day’s feast at Gramma’s. Have you ever noticed how many people frown at the grocery store?
Too much selection must be the problem. I snagged another free turkey (due to spending over 50 clams) and am thinking it might freeze well until Christmas. I almost just passed it by but then I remembered that if Lily makes an early appearance, there’s a good chance my family will be droppping by from California and Virginia. At least, I hope so.

Last night during supper I said, ‘Isn’t it weird that that it’s not going to be just you and me anymore?’ Shan answered, ‘It IS weird!’ Then I remembered having coffee with Ally on friday and how a group of highschool cheerleaders breezed in, barelegged and in tiny skirts, loudly enjoying themselves while a few middle aged men enjoyed the show and I shuddered inwardly. It’s too early for me to be worrying about how she will behave as a teenager!

Tomorrow I am meeting Shan’s Mom at a fabric store. She is going to re-cover an old rocking chair cusion for us! Right now we are thinking about a chenille fabric and I’m going to bring the paint swatch just to make sure it will look good once the walls are done.

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11.23.02

84971339

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:02 am by Anne

Friday’s appointment was a long one. For the first time I was armed with a slew of questions for the Dr. to answer and we kept him almost an hour. Some of the things I learned:

*No travel is allowed after the 34th week, which happens to be next weekend, which means no trip to Austin to see the dang ‘THE RATGIRLS� HOLY ROCKIN� CHRISTMAS’, or to make Christmas stockings with Cecily. *There will be no pre-delivery shave/enema. Thank GOD.
*All rooms are private at this hospital.
*Shan can cut the cord.
*I can deliver in any position I want, even using ‘the birthing bar’ despite the Dr. not liking its use.
*Baby will tend to move less as available space decreases, sorry baby!
*Sleeping on my back is fine. If the uterus begins to press down on the vena-cava, I’ll start feeling nauseated and uncomfortable and will change positions before causing harm to Lily. (note: I still tend to sleep mainly on my side though.)
*Castor oil will not induce labor but it will cause explosive diarrhea and irritate the colon.
*Hot sex will not induce labor, either, despite the resulting prostaglandin influx.

Dr also told us a horrifying story. One of his patients was married to a car mechanic and at work, the mechanic was told by one of his buddies that ‘Castor oil’ will lead to labor, so when this guy got home, he told his wife to go to the store and buy some ‘Castrol’ oil. You might think common sense would make an appearance soon but it does not. The pregant lady goes to the local ‘Wal-mart’, shops through the automotive department, and brings home a quart of WD-30. Naturally, she can’t ingest it directly, it just tastes too awful, so she cuts it with some Dr. Pepper and when she starts feeling bad, she calls my doctor and explains everything to him. He contacts the local poison control who advise him not to induce vomiting because the car oil can lead to death via the creation of abscesses in the lungs. So they give the lady medicine to flush it through her G.I. tract and everything turns out okay, except that the new baby has complete idiots for parents.

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11.22.02

84917586

Posted in Uncategorized at 4:48 am by Anne

Yes, it is 4:38 AM. I woke up at 4 and couldn’t get comfortable, not with all the pillows in the world at my disposal. So I got to thinking about the menu for this year’s day-after-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving get-together, and realized I could start preparing a few things in advance. This got me out of bed. So far I have scrubbed a few potatoes and set them to boiling for the Potato Rolls but as opposed to the recipe directions, I am going to shape them into clover leaf rolls.

Today I am meeting an old friend from school for coffee around ten. She is in town for a motorcycle show that’s in Dallas-proper this weekend and is bringing her new great dane puppy to our chat. Then, at 2:30PM is my bi-monthly Drs appointment. (I scratched down a number of questions yesterday.) And finally, at 4PM I am meeting a different school friend for coffee. At least one or both of these coffee-talks will feature decaf lattes of some sort, I don’t want to make Lily too crazy. The more I think about her being all squished up in my belly, the more I sympathize with her. Good thing she doesn’t have any idea of how much more room there is outside of there; she might be pissed.

Yesterday I came home from lunch and found the most gorgeous invitation to the baby shower Cecily and Ann are throwing me in a few weeks. I knew it would be beautiful because of Cecily’s penchance for fashioning vastly creative and lovely things (jewelry, cards, phototgraphs, etc) but I still gasped after opening the envelope. Small, soft pink cardstock with a white liner inside which gave all the information in a light gray-ish blue except for the words ‘Baby Shower’ which were in a lovely green but it was the front that was so startlingly beautiful. Cecily had gotten together with a designer at work (Avocado Girl) and figured it out. Avocado Girl had found a stylized picture of a ‘Lily of the Valley’ and somehow traced and printed it in addition to making an original and new font to spell ‘Lily’, both were artfully placed a little off-center. This doesn’t come close to describing its perfection, so let me just quit now with the convoluted second rate description and assure you that had they made a similar item for your shower, you would have been all teary-eyed as well.

This weekend we are holding an informal meeting with all the nearby homeowners concerned about the zoning changes. This means I’m going to have to break out the mop and scented candles again and since I got in a number of samples at work yesterday but went home instead of analyzing them, I’ll be working a few hours this weekend. While I baked mini- banana and cranberry breads to give to my sister and mother-in law that night, Shan canvassed the neighborhood trying to get signatures for the petition. I felt bad about not going with him because I knew some people wouldn’t answer their door when they saw it was some guy they didn’t know with a buzzed head standing there. I wouldn’t!

Yay Friday!

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11.21.02

84878569

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:40 am by Anne

In our quest to convert the spare room into a nursery, Shan and I took out one of the spare twin beds last weekend. (Ok ok, it was mainly him..I just watched and pointed.) His grandparents wanted to borrow it for a while, which was just perfect because we were going to borrow one of their big wooden rocking chairs. So all week long, we’ve had this dismantled twin bed lining our hallway while Shan kept getting bogged down with other projects that kept him from loading it and taking it over to their house. Well, last night turned out to be the night to finally do it. His Father took everyone out to supper and afterwards we converged at the house. Grandma, Shan’s Dad, and I chatted while Shan and his Grandpa loaded the bed and took it to their house and little by little, my back started to hurt. As the evening wore on, my belly also started hurting…kind of a stretching-pain. I was looking forward to going to bed as soon as the men got back home but this was not to be.

As soon as Grandaddy and Shan got home, Shan’s Dad left and Shan said, “Well, is everyone still up for a game of dominoes?” I almost started crying right then and there. It’s like this, I HATE being the one to say, “Ok, time to go home.” or “I don’t feel well.” So instead, when Grandaddy asked, “Well, Hon, do you feel allright for a game?” The ‘no’ was just on the tip of my tongue when I blurted through it with, “I feel just GREAT, let’s go!” So we filed to the table and played a game of ‘42′. I’m happy to say that Grandma and I totally skunked the boys, and I started feeling a little better halfway though but I have a feeling that Grandaddy picked up on my discomfort a little, and that kinda sucked. After the game he said to me, “Now you go rest, Hon.” wah wah wah. I suck even when I try not to suck!

Sleep was good until about 4 AM when my back woke me up hurting in two distinct regions. Small of the back makes sense to me, but this upper back pain, I don’t know about. I had to assemble this strange pile of all the pillows so that I was kind of sitting up but it was so unnatural, though more comfortable, that I had trouble going back to sleep completely. Shan only mumbled a little when I pulled some of the comforter off his face. Clueless man!

Now I have gingerbread latte breath.

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11.20.02

84820150

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:11 am by Anne

Last night was our first baby class at the hospital. We were one of the last ones to scoot into the room and it was packed! There must have been at least 16 other couples there but thankfully the person running the show was late so I didn’t feel bad about our time. I hate getting to things late. Most of the couples were in our age group and the youngest I’d guess couldn’t be more than 17 or 18, we were sitting right next to each other and chatted a bit.

I’m trying to remember the most interesting parts of the three hour ‘class’. At one point I leaned over to Shan and whispered, ‘This is like biology for idiots.’, forgetting for a moment that his interests have always leaned away from the natural sciences (unlike my background in biochemistry) and more into (mechanical/engineering) until he whispered back, ‘I don’t know these things!’ At one point, each pair was handed a few vocabulary words to match with their proper definitions and after completion the instructor went around the room and we were supposed to read off what we thought was the right answer. Shan leaned down and said, ‘Looks like you get to talk about the perineum.’ He was right. I got to use the words ‘anus’ AND ‘vagina’ with that definition. This morning over coffee he grinned at me and said, ‘I’m just glad you got to say ‘anus’ in front of everybody.”

We watched two different birthing films. During the first one, the woman made all kinds of annoying mouse-like squeaks during contractions and her husband was right in her face, counting both verbally and with his fingers, I wanted to smack him and slap a cork in her mouth. She didn’t use an epidural or any kind of pain medication which kind of surprised me. Apparently, the average amount of time for a first time labor is 14 hours. Good God. The second birth film involved an older lady and this one was much more of an expose. Totally nude, legs apart, they zoomed in on the baby ‘crowning’ and believe me, THAT looks painful. This second baby had a whitish coating all over it’s body called vernix. The lady in the video exclaimed, ‘It doesn’t even look like a baby!’ Kinda makes you shudder doesn’t it? After the shoulder pops out, the rest is a cake walk, …although the placenta also has to come out. We saw that too and this is where the squeamish in the class looked away. This guy across the room who thought he was hotsh*t couldn’t take it but Shan handled everything just perfect. I realize this isn’t really an indication of how he’ll behave when Lily is ripe for arrival but I’m not worried about it at all. He’s good. So after this lady delivers her kid, the camera pans in on the placenta sliding out. This was the most surprising to me. I had no idea it looked the way it did and in my surprise I gleefully whispered to Shan, ‘Now, if I were Darwin, I’d be eating that after delivery.’ Meanwhile a doctor in the movie picked up and massaged the placenta in a little receptacle, while talking about which side was connected to baby and which side was connected to Mother. That seemed a bit overdone.

All through the class people were free to ask questions and towards the end of class, a very pretty but heavily made-up woman, who could serve as a poster child for what every Dallas-woman should aspire to look like, raised her hand. She twittered around abit, obviously uncomfortable, and said, ” I don’t really know how to say this but…in these videos you see EVERYTHING. Maybe I have watched too many movies, but isn’t there going to be blanket hanging over me so I won’t see anything?” While the rest of the class mulled this, Shan leaned up and whispered, “She must be baptist.” The instructor assured her that, as opposed to the videos, we will be wearing hospital gowns or nighties but that when it came down to the actual delivery, modesty kinda goes out the window and how that is a good thing. No kidding!

I think my favorite thing about the class was being with Shan. It was kind of like being in class with my sister, where we could cut up during the boring parts, but since Shan and I didn’t go to college together, we’ve never had a chance like this. He thinks the class is good, since he won’t read any of my birthing or pregnancy books, and the most important aspects will be presented to him there.

The magical third class is when all will be revealed. A lot of the questions people asked were diverted by the instructor with a, ” We’ll be going over that in the third class.” That kind of attitude always irritates me. Who knows what’s going to happen between now and the third class for crying out loud?

Anyway, that’s how our first night of birthing class went.

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11.19.02

84766452

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:52 am by Anne

I set the alarm for 4:30AM to wake up in time to get a look at some of this morning’s Leonid Meteor Shower. All the annoying meteorologists yesterday talked about how amazing it would be and how this intense of a shower wouldn’t happen for another one hundred years, so how could I refuse? I wound up snoozing for an extra ten minutes before throwing on my robe and house shoes and took Darwin out back with me. Shannon woke but opted to stay snuggled in the covers after instructing me not to get cold. The moon was extrememly bright, I hadn’t realized it would be full, and gorgeous. In fact, everything illuminated by the light was just beautiful in that ethereal moonglow that objects take on in the early morning. Then I saw a streak, and another. I sat down against the fence and craned my neck back to see as much as I could while Darwin went back to the door to the house to wait. She didn’t get it.By the time I counted about 16 different passes, Shan stumbled outside in his big robe, caveman slippers, and strange fleece jesterhat. He watched a few minutes with me and suggested we move to the front yard. I grabbed my little hat and sat outside in the front. It was a good call; we could see a lot more streak action going on. Down the street, someone in a car was putting things in mailboxes. I imagined if they saw us huddled out in the front they might think we were insane and this was confirmed when Shan came up behind me with his butane heater and switched it on. It reminds me of a jet engine and gives off all kinds of good heat. We laid on our backs looking up at the show and the car passed us and our mailbox rather unceremoniously. They didn’t get it either.

Then we went back to bed. Darwin tap danced all over the floor, her schedule had been interfered with and she thought we were going to fed her breakfast I guess. Finally everyone went to sleep.

I have a 10 AM appointment with a possible client and am wearing my nicest pregnancy outfit: black yoga pants and a little (or should I say BIG) camel colored sweater set from the Gap. I wonder if he’ll ask me if I’m pregnant. So long as he doesn’t reach across my desk and put his hand on my belly I think it’ll go well.

20 more minutes, I should probably stop by the lavatory.

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11.18.02

84713261

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:01 am by Anne

This weekend was excellent. After a thoroughly active and successful Saturday, Shan and I spent a lot of Sunday getting the garden and flower beds ready for the first freeze. I trimmed roses like a mad-woman and raked up the canes into great big piles that Shan loaded into the back of his truck. I love the way that worked out, being pregnant does have its perks. We did this first in the front yard and then in the backyard. I left cutting back the roses that were still blooming like they were, meaning to cut a few bouquets but then forgot. wah wah wah. The few plants in big pots; madevilla, hibiscus, lemon tree are all watered and put to the side so that we can bring them into the house. They can’t tolerate a freeze of any kind so we’re going to try a little experiment and keep them inside this winter. This may require some creative furniture placement.

The other *BIG* deal is that Shan assembled the crib today. Although we planned on painting it white, because of some of the stained pieces already in the room, the rocking chair, the bookcase, the lion cub and wolf picture frames, we have decided to keep it the way it is. I remembered to take some pictures of the process, both for Cecily and for Lily. One may get posted, we’ll see. He is awful cute and all. The second big thing concerned the paint job in the nursery. Currently it is a warmish vanilla color and I want to change it to a light lavender. This has been something I have been looking forward to getting finished for months now and yesterday Shan got a little wiggy. In fact, he went so far as to suggest that, in light of all the other projects he had to complete by Christmas (including all the ones afifliated with work), he would prefer to wait to paint until after Lily was born and blablablabla. So I sat down on the edge of the bed with him, looked him in the face, and turned on the waterworks.
I very rarely do this kind of thing, believe me, but as I explained it to him, this was something we had been talking about for months previously; it’s not like a last-minute throw together kind of an idea. I think he’s going to let me have this one.

Now I am back at work, slammed with things to do, and still I blog.

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11.16.02

84629981

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:19 pm by Anne

So we got to the movie a half hour before it started and the line was exasperatingly long. Despite fandango’s disclaimer that pre-purchased tickets cannot be returned, Shan and I went to the later 4:10 PM showing-line to hurry up and wait and exchanged the 3:25 PM tickets. I’m really glad we did that even though it meant standing in line for an extra hour. It’s just the pits getting to a movie too late to find good seats, at least two seats next to one another in the non-nosebleed section! The hot popcorn was devilishly good and although the dreamy iced coke was perfect at first, towards the end it got too watery so I finished the movie with my smuggled bottle of water.

‘The Chamber of Secrets’ was different from the first Harry Potter movie, with less character development overall, but the effects were good and it was still very entertaining. No spoilers here. I am really looking forward to the 4th book being made into a movie. It is my favorite so far but, holy cow, it seemed a little like they had to cut out a lot from the second book for this movie. I wonder how they’ll manage the 4th one?!!

But let me be honest. The movie I am REALLY waiting to see isn’t coming out until the 18th of December. I don’t care how whale-like I become or how uncomfortable my back or belly feels, nothing will prevent me from seeing the first showing of ‘the Two Towers’. Nothing. Even if I am dilated, effaced, or having to conceal a bed pan or whatever. Lily is going to love Tolkien. At least I hope so.

So far I managed to make 8 little jars of cranberry-orange marmalade. It is a very festive reddish color but I am thinking I need to make a batch of more normal marmalade just so that I’m not giving out too many jars of red colored jam this year (you see, I have a few strawberry-ginger preserves and strawberry-rhubarbs that I canned over the summer) and an orange would be a sunny addition. gahhhh. Besides, I have a great clementine marmalade recipe that I used last year and an overabundance of clementines in the fruit bowl. Those little guys are awesome!

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