Mandajuice

This is going to be the most miserable summer of my entire life

Remember how I was complaining about the rain?  Well, the weather has finally turned for the better.  In fact, it is downright PEACHY here.  High 70's, light breeze, not a cloud in sight.  It's a perfect early summer in Northern California.

It's also just warm enough inside for me to want to turn on the air conditioning before taking a nap.  Which is exactly what I did a few days ago.

And? Nothing happened.

I told Dave about it and he said he'd take a look at it and then, neither of us having been inside in the late afternoon, we both forgot about it.  Until today.  When I woke up from my nap in a pool of sweat, bolted upright in bed (well "bolting upright" at this point involves 30 seconds of grunting and moaning, but you get the idea) and realized

WE DON'T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING.

As in - NONE.  No A/C.  Sure, the THERMOSTAT has a cooling button and a cooling program and a way to set the temperature, and you can flip the A/C switch and it SAYS in fancy digital letters that it's turning on, but nothing turns on.  BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO TURN ON.  It dawned on me that I've never once noticed a big humming box sitting next to or in back of ANY of these apartments.

I  AM GOING TO DIE.

And before you go telling me what a pansy ass I am, just STOP.  We used to live in Davis (near Sacramento), for god's sake, I KNOW what heat is.  I also know how much it sucks.  It's why we moved back toward the coast and now pay double the rent.  Hot places can suck it.  They aren't for us.

But that's not the problem.  The bay area generally isn't even hot enough that having A/C is necessary.  I'm a big girl, I can open a window, strategically arrange some electric fans and be perfectly comfortable.

Oh.  Except I can't.

Not here.

In spite of paying an enormous chunk of rent, we live a stone's throw from highway 101.  And when I say "stone's throw", I don't mean it in the figurative sense.  I mean I could LITERALLY pick up a rock and chuck it at rambling Wal-Mart truck.  It would require some damn good aim and a pretty rockin' arm, but STILL.  Stone's.  Throw.

To top it all off, we're on the ground floor.  I would never open the windows in the kids' room and leave them in there for a nap.  Anyone could walk by and TAKE THEM.  And even if we figured out a way to make it safe to leave the window open AND my child(ren) could sleep through the traffic noise, the sun just bakes that side of the apartment during the afternoon.  Oh!  And there are no windows on the other side of the apartment, just a sliding glass door that I would never leave open if I wasn't sitting right next to it.

So, yeah.  I'm basically stuck in a two bedroom apartment all summer with two small children, no air conditioning and no ventilation whatsoever.  Fun!

Minimize THIS Old Man

I guess I finally figured out how to get readers to come out of the woodwork - offer them cash.  So, KEEP THE GUESSES COMING!  As promised, I have no comment on the responses except to say that my mom, bearer of four extremely post-term babies, guessed June 2nd - the latest date of any of you so far and frankly, the date on which my doctor will surely induce me if I am still pregnant.  (I think she's trying to keep me from being too disappointed if Baby Sister doesn't come early).  And as hopeful as I am that she'll pop out tomorrow, she'd be the first baby born to a woman in my family to ever arrive before a due date. 

Tonight as we were finishing up our homemade cheeseburgers, Dave asked how lunch with my friend Jamie went today and what we talked about.  And as I was telling him, briefly mind you, about their struggle to get their toddler to eat new foods, he got up and walked out of the room.  WHILE I WAS TALKING.  I pointed out how incredibly rude this was and he said, "I wasn't even  thinking about it.  It was like I was surfing the web and minimized our conversation so I could come back to it later."

I guess I should be grateful he didn't completely X out of me.

Taking all bets

A lot is going on around here, stuff I'm not ready to talk about quite yet (good stuff, happy stuff, BLOG stuff).  But it's seriously stressing me out.  I'm having those stress nightmares where you wake up sweating and can't stop thinking about What You Need To Do, ALL THE STUFF YOU NEED TO DO, and when you try to stop thinking about it, you've really only succeeded in telling your brain to think about it more.  My plate is very full and it's about to get full-er and I'm starting to worry about how long I'll be able to keep my Clean Plate Club membership in good standing. 

Could I BE any more vague???  I swear details will be coming soon, once everything is sorted out.  Until then, you'll just have to bear with me and help distract me.  And here's how!  Dave's been wanting to start a contest:

PART ONE - GUESS THE DAY AND TIME:
Whoever gets closest to accurately guessing the day and time of Baby Sister's birth gets a $50 Target gift certificate.   Dave keeps asking me for my own guess, but I have no clue.  As much as I feel like this baby may come early, I won't be the LEAST bit surprised if Mrs. Uterus is just not cooperating.  It wouldn't be the first time she showed me who was boss.  For the record, I had an OB appointment this morning and in spite of all the annoying contractions, NOTHING has happened yet.  I'm not dialated or effaced or any of that.  My due date is May 19th, which is accurate since I know when we conceived and all the ultrasounds have confirmed the same date.  Oh. And Alex was 11 days late, for whatever that's worth.

PART TWO - GUESS HER NAME:
We'll throw in $50 cash to anyone who guesses the baby's name.  We haven't shared the name with anyone, won't share the name until she's born and will give ABSOLUTELY NO HINTS.  Even if you get it right, you'll receive NO COMMENT until the bundle arrives!  So have at it.  Guess away.

Still extremely pregnant

Seriously.  Y'all are jumping the gun.  As far as I'm concerned, I may very well be in nesting mode for the next five or six weeks.  I'm not even DUE until May 19th. 

And I'm planning to bring the laptop and (once the epidural is securely fastened) blog the entire birth live (if possible).  So, don't worry, you'll be the first to know!

Nesting

I'm pretty sure you're only allowed to call it "nesting" if whatever you're doing has the potential to cause you physical harm.  Washing and re-washing baby clothes?  Not nesting.  Vacuuming out the heater vents?  Not nesting.  But standing on your son's tiny fold-up lawn chair to remove decorations from your 30th birthday party (which was, oh, only 20 days ago)?  Nesting.  Although given that I find SHOWERING to be overly physically demanding these days, I'm pretty sure that ANY cleaning I do at this point can be considered nesting.  So this morning I nested the entire house clean.  I even cleaned both bathrooms and vacuumed every inch of carpet.  Now that I'm sitting down, I'm afraid I won't be able to get back up again.  Dave may come home tonight and find me sitting right here in a puddle of my own urine.

I'm not kidding about the showering thing.  Alex and I shower together, usually every other day (unless we're stinky or someone has a syrup mishap).  And I've totally noticed that my ability to stand up or run errands or even make dinner is significantly less on the days we shower.  It's the standing.  If I stand still for longer than literally ONE minute, I start having contractions.  And I totally don't get it!  How could I make it through 42 weeks of pregnancy with Alex and not have a single contration until labor started?  And now here I am at 36 weeks and I can't even take a frigging shower?!  I'm actually starting to consider, if only for a brief, fleeting moment, the idea that I might not make it to my due date.  I mean, I did go out and buy diapers yesterday, so we'll see. 

A trip to the library

Since at this point I'm about as ambulatory as your average 90 year old, Dave came with us to the library this afternoon.  And thank god - I could barely walk, much less carry our usual 30 pound bag of books.  As we were rounding the corner to the kids' section, we shared the pleasure of Alex remarking:

"Mom. I'm NOT gonna take off my shirt at the library, so everyone can know I'm a PIRATE!"

On the way home, Alex was pissed that I wouldn't give him any more fruit snacks so close to dinner.  He kept bitching and moaning from his carseat and Dave, always the firm one with discipline,  intervened with "Knock it off, Alex.  No means NO."  So Alex retorted with his new favorite phrase: "MOMMY!  Talk to DAVID!" 

Yeah, Buddy, Divide and Conquer, good luck with that strategy.

I'm starting a new MEME

I'm exceptionally cranky lately.  Seriously, EVERYTHING annoys me.  Like right now I'm annoyed that I feel all hot and sweaty from the waist up, but my legs are cold and have hives.  And that last night I was changing my shirt and lifted my boob up to clean the crumbs out from under it (I had been wearing a low cut shirt all day and we have a toddler, you do the math) and in the process I managed to squirt milk at least three inches.  THIS BODY!  It's making me mental!  And who better to take it out on than the person who is RESPONSIBLE FOR MY CONDITION: my lovely husband David.

So here you are.  A list of totally harmless, yet UNBELIEVABLY ANNOYING things my husband does pretty much every. single. day.  I think it makes a good meme, so if you're brave enough to risk your own husband reading it, consider yourself officially tagged.  I can't be the only person on earth who is so easily annoyed by her other half.

1. He uses multiple coffee mugs every morning.  You know, because I just LOVE washing dishes.  Then he leaves them in front of the computer in our bedroom.
2. He leaves the coffee maker sitting at the very edge of the counter where little hands can reach it.  We have a pod machine, so if Alex just pushes the buttons, he gets rewarded with boiling hot coffee on his hand.
3. When he stirs his coffee, he uses a spoon and then just leaves it on the counter in its own pool of milky coffee froth.  Three cups of coffee = three dirty spoons and three dirty mugs.
   
4. He never wipes off the counters.  Ever. 
5. He gets ice out of the freezer about five times a night and if a few pieces fall on the floor in front of the fridge, he ignores them.  Then I walk in there with bare feet.
6. He throws his coat on the floor when he gets home from work.  Or on a chair.  Or on the couch.  He NEVER hangs it in the coat closet which is two feet from the front door.
7. He takes off his socks every night while we're watching TV so he can scratch his feet.  Then he leaves them on the floor (or the couch or a chair) for me to pick up.
8. He also does this with every piece of clothing that ever touches his person.  It all ends up on the floor SOMEWHERE in the house.  Usually some place other than the dirty laundry pile.
9. When he makes scrambled eggs, he mixes the eggs in a bowl.  Which he then leaves on the counter.  Because dried egg is even EASIER to clean than coffee stains.
10. He refuses to make the bed on principle (that principle being that he hated having to do it every day as a child).  Which is fine, but when he gets up in the morning, he swings the comforter all the way over onto my side of the bed and leaves it there.  While I'm still sleeping.
11. He doesn't put the toilet seat cover down before he gets into the shower.  When he gets out, he leaves a trail of water all over the bathroom.  Which I then sit on the next time I have to pee.
12. When he drops the soap in the shower, as long as he's already used it, he leaves it there.
13. He leaves his shoes on the floor in the middle of the hallway.  You know, where I'd just NEVER trip on them on my way to the bathroom.
14. He makes me buy giant bags of raw spinach so he can "eat more healthily" even though I DETEST spinach.  He NEVER eats it and it just sits there festering until the fridge smells like his feet.  Meanwhile, if I make a vegetable with dinner, he refuses to eat it.
15. SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH.  You'd think he had fleas.
16. If he opens a cabinet to look for something, it stays that way.  This morning he was looking for a new bag of coffee pods and left FIVE cabinet doors wide open.  And then he complains that I slam them to loudly.  Gee, ya think?
17. He thinks it's funny to chew ice and then fling it at me while we watch Jeopardy.
18. He mocks me while I watch my favorite TV shows.  Especially Gray's Anatomy.  I never mock his OMCD (Obsessive Military Channel Disorder).
19. Last night he taught Alex to call me "Ball Chopper" and then he pushed the race car cart all over Safeway while he and Alex taunted me laughing "Hurry up Ball Chopper!"

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway:  I love my husband exceptionally much.  I really do.  He's a great guy and I'm lucky to have him.

I. Am. Horrified.

I was just sitting in the bathroom checking out the Rochester Big and Tall catalog when I thought I heard our answering machine click on and the sound of my own voice asking the caller to leave a message.   I figured I just missed the phone.  Turns out I didn't miss anything. 

It was MELANIE on Sprout, introducing the next show.

Please shoot me.

Easter

I feel weird.  I keep trying to explain it to Dave but I can't really put my finger on it.  It's not high blood pressure or preterm labor or anything scary.  I'm just a little dizzy and I'm having more contractions than usual.  Baby Sister is just ROLLING around inside me most of the time, so I know she's okay.  If I didn't know better, I might think I was about to go into labor.  But I DO know better.  I know much, much better.  She'll probably brew for another six weeks.  And I'll probably just feel weird the whole time.

Anyway, Alex thinks the Easter Bunny is AWESOME.  This was the expression on his face when we told him it was time for the egg hunt (yesterday at my parent's house):

(Click to see the whole set at Flickr)

And this morning, we The Easter Bunny sent him on a treasure hunt with a treasure map and all!

Every time I have a contraction, which is more often than I prefer today, I'm getting this weird dizzy headache.  Am I crazy or has this happened to any of you?