7 Weeks....

....is not even two months. In fact, it could be more like one long month and then two weeks. Not much at all, really. But that's what we have left, and thankfully it is all coming together! Last weekend we spent some time getting the nursery arranged and the crib assembled. In true Casa de Erwin fashion, there were struggles with the room arrangement as it is is not a large room that somehow has three doors and a whopping two electrical outlets. After moving things around into a zillion different arrangements, we settled back on our first configuration.

I present to you....Super's 80% finished nursery!

So it's not very girlie, but it has bright colors and there IS PINK in that rug, so I think that makes it very clear that it's a girl's room. Plus, some of the remaining accent items will have pink in them, so there's that.

This weekend is my baby shower, which is VERY exciting. While I am thrilled to get fun new baby stuff, I am more excited about having all my favorite ladies in the same place for an afternoon. It is not something that happens very often and I am REALLY looking forward to it. I hear there will even be a possible niece Chase appearance, which will be fun. I hear she has new teeth, can crawl, and is making all sorts of leaps and bounds at NINE MONTHS. I cannot believe it's been 9 months already...She will be almost exactly 11 months old when Super is born.

Speaking of the lady of the day, bust out the cocktail umbrellas because Super is now the size of a pineapple. OUCH! I'd rather not think of her in that particular form, but I gotta go with what the phone tells me. She is now 17 inches long and 4.25 pounds and has lungs that are almost fully developed. I'll tell ya what is also a bit more developed are her little muscles. What used to be cute little flutters have turned to what feel like jabs and violent pokes. I now know why I never hear new moms complain that they miss those little flutters of movement. By the time she's born I am sure it will feel like there's a 7 pound wrestler in there.

The phone also continues to talk about heartburn and swelling. While I have had a few bouts with both, my main issue has been just a general discomfort. This is exacerbated by the fact that the bathroom on my floor at work is closed (construction, naturally) and the elevator in the building is broken. The frequency of bathroom breaks is, well, frequent, so I spend half my day running up and down stairs. I guess it's good to get in some cardio.

The phone also advises that I should be getting a pedicure to help with the soreness and swelling. Far be it from me to disobey the phone...

Wrap up

Well, it's finished. While it seemed to take forever while it was happening, it now seems to have gone relatively quickly in retrospect. I am sure Rick will disagree as he did the bulk of the painting and making of these here cabinets:

This is the cabinet/book shelf Ricker constructed at the bottom of the stairs going down into the basement. He put all his fancy art books on the left and my crappy trashy novels on the right. Don't judge.

Ah....the couch that almost never was. I like to think this was another time the pregnancy came in handy as the Phillips furniture guys didn't want to disappoint me. All this section needs is some art work, which Rick is working on I am sure.

There are now two large folding doors covering that opening into the storage closet, but of course I forgot to take new pics this morning. Use your imagination people.

That's the window where Steven the Frog resides. His property value has increased dramatically with this fancy new view. Can you blame him for wanting to come inside?

Stairway up to the main floor. The door to the utility room has since been reattached, but you get the idea.

I think it is safe to say that the basement looks MUCH better than it used to (before pictures found here). The nursery is almost finished and should complete the list of tasks needed around the house (at least my list, the Ricker will never stop adding to the list). While not practical for most, I highly recommend pregnancy as a motivator to get all your home projects completed!

Crickets

Kids are tricky. I was once again reminded today that you really need to pay attention to what you say to them. I was waiting for a tour of a local daycare today when a little 3 year old girl popped her head over the gate for this exchange:

Girl: Hi! Whose mommy are you?

Me: My baby is in here (points to belly).

Girl: You have a baby in your belly?

Me: Yes I do.

Girl: Like in your tummy-belly?

Me: Uh-huh (instantly regretting this conversation and convinced that I have ruined some child's stork fairy tale, which will inevitably result in some poor parent having to have an awkward conversation over dinner)

The little girl looked a little confused, walked away and did a lap around the play room and came back to the gate.

Girl: Hey, did you know my mommy told me that babies come out of a mommy's privates?

Me: blank stare

I figured it was best to quit while she was ahead.

Big Babies and Big Daddies

We are at week 32, officially. Though as previously mentioned, Super might be a bit on the large side. She continues to grow and is now around 3.75 pounds and just under 17 inches long. She will gain almost half her body weight between now and birth, which is crazy to me. I guess now is not the time to be counting calories! Over the next few weeks she will start to get her "real hair" (not this soft lanugo hair that will start to shed now). I can't wait to see what color her hair is!!! I wonder if it will be as thick and lustrous as mine was when I was a child. Stop laughing, Mom.

Super is now the size of a LARGE jicama. Not to be confused with an averaged-sized jicama. Get it straight.

Thank you to the person that already found all these fruits/veggies and scaled them for me.

And in other "Big" news, the last beam is going into the Marlin's stadium tomorrow. And because he's Big Stuff, JLo gets to sign the beam. I would have told him the baby's name to write on the beam had he asked, but I guess that opportunity has passed.

They love graffiti in Miami

Only one more year on this project and then it's Opening Day Miami 2012. Crazy to think that Super will be almost 1 year old by that time. I wonder if we can put together a Miami Vice birthday cake?

She's just big boned

Yesterday was our 32 week (a few days early) checkup with Dr. J. Blood pressure was still good at 100/80 and I gained a whopping 2 pounds. Of course, given the 9 and 6 pound weight gains of the past months, I think my body is trying to fight back. Or we might have reached our maximum weight threshold.

Super's heart was beating strong (after he finally found it) and she is now in the head-down position. The most interesting part was that she is measuring about a week big, so around 33 weeks. Time will tell whether that means she will arrive early (like her Dad) or be larger than average (like her Mom).

Either way, there are now discussions of getting our hospital bags packed and questions regarding the location of labor and delivery and when we need to come into the hospital. I keep praying that everyone that tells me the last few weeks of my pregnancy will seem to take forever are right. Heck, at this rate I will be happy to have the last few weeks of my pregnancy!

Resurrection

For the few of you OG blog followers out there, I have a bit of news that is bound to thrill you. Thrill might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I know I was pretty dern excited when Rick informed me on Sunday night that STEVEN IS ALIVE!!!!

"Who is Steven and why weren't we sure he was alive?", you might ask. No, Steven is not some character on a soap opera. If you will recall, Steven is one of the three frogs (Steven, Tyler, and George Burns) that lived in our window vaults last year. I posted about them here.

When winter rolled around I just basically assumed they would die of exposure. Well, it shows you what I know about frogs, because look who wants in to the newly finished basement!

Hey jerks! You left me out here all winter long. Lucky for you, I tripled in size and survived the elements. It looks pretty sweet in there. Have you been DVR-ing "Heavy" for me?

So now it's a standoff between Rick and Steven. Rick needs to open the window to reinstall the screen, but Steven is perched so close to the opening, there is no doubt he will make a lunge for the basement if given the slightest of openings. I guess I could offer my services to manually relocate Steven, but that would be too easy. Now I just have to keep my eyes peeled for Tyler and George Burns.

Guess who's on vacation again???

I swear these two take more vacations than George W. Maybe it just seems that way because by the time Super arrives, I won't have had more than a long weekend in over a year. Woe is me.

Looks like the Red Fish are biting down in Orange Beach, which makes Big Daddy and his gaggle of fishergals very excited!

I will continue to sit here and take the text message assault showing me all the fun I am missing and try to live vicariously through the Loyd/Hagemann clan. I will remind myself that I will have what is sure to be a VERY relaxing eight weeks off here in no time. Can you take a six week old on a plane?

I think we were set up

As we get closer and closer to Super's potential birthday, nerves are mounting over at casa de Erwin regarding what to expect when she arrives. Will we be good parents? What kind of baby will she be? Will we ever sleep again? Is the fun officially over? And it's funny, when you are pregnant with your first child, these are the themes that people keep bringing up. There are warnings of sleeplessness, fussy babies, the end of your social life, and the implication that "it's over". Of course, because no one wants to be viewed as a baby-hater, they will add "but it's the best thing in the world", some times seemingly as an afterthought.

My theory is that Chaney and Dan sensed this and arranged for our friend from college, Spencer, and his baby boy, Townes, to come to St. Louis to lunch with us yesterday. Immediately everyone was charmed by baby Townes, including my beloved nieces that waited on his crayon-clutched hands and his croc swaddled feet. Because Townes has impeccable taste in the ladies (and because Chloe moved a seat away to allow for Spencer to oversee the feeding), Townes took a special liking to Ms. Parker.

It was almost too cute to handle. He kept grabbing her hand and putting it around his shoulders and on his head...

He'd lean in her general direction for the smooch attempt...

He was apparently head over heels by the end of the meal and just grabbed her shirt and went for the kiss. Both were thrilled to mug for photos the entire time, which made me so very happy.

For the rest of the day, Rick and I kept talking about how cute Townes was and what a good baby he is. And for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about how much love and joy that baby brought to a table full of family and how my heart swelled to see my nieces play and care for him with such tenderness.

So it probably wasn't a set-up....but it did go a long way to remind us of how wonderful babies really are and what a blessing they bring to your life. Thanks Baby Townes!

The word of the day is "top strips"

So today is carpet day, and to say Rick and I are excited is a bit of an understatement. The carpet symbolizes the completion of the basement, which will lead to completion of the nursery, which means we are ready for baby. Sometimes carpet is not just carpet.

I was stationed to work from home to "oversee" the carpet guys. Why Rick trusted me to oversee any of this is beyond me...But after this most recent exchange, I think I might understand why he left me here. No one wants to upset a pregnant woman.

Noberto (this is not a typo, it is No-Berto) and his trusty sidekick who we will call "Cubs Hat" arrived to install the carpet and immediately Noberto was pointing out that there are two different types of concrete on the floor of the basement. This is apparently significant because he doesn't want to nail the "top strips" (this is what I thought he was saying, my man has a bit of an accent. I later learned he was saying "tack strips") into the "different" concrete because it might bust it up. I tell Noberto to do what he has to do to make this work. Seeing that I do not understand the gravity of the situatuion, he goes on to explain (with Cubs Hat interjecting when it is clear that there is a bit of a language barrier) that now he has to glue down the top strips and the glue must set for 24 hours, then they have to come back to install the carpet. Hold the m-er f-ing phone, Noberto. The Herrrweens (that's how he says it) have plans for this basement this weekend that do not involve a 24-48 hour carpet installation delay.

I point out that the guy that measured should have pointed this out and Noberto responded with "No shiz, girlfriend" (I paraphrase) and I must have started to look upset. Noberto, who is clearly not related to Manny with Totsy, actually is a problem solver and suggests they give it a go and see if the nails hold in the concrete because he "doesn't want to stress me out". He's even putting down a little bit of glue on his dime just in case.

Turns out, the concrete is not as crappy as it looks and all is well down in the basement (so far). I can hear them hammering away down there and I even hear some sweeping up happening. They must know how much I hate dust. Sometimes pregnancy does have its privileges...

9 Weeks-Holy Cow.

Nine weeks left. 63 days (had to double check my mental math with a calculator on that one). That is not a lot of time. Thankfully the basement will be "finished" tomorrow when the carpet is installed. Then Rick gets to move all that stuff back down into the basement and we get to finish up the nursery. Home stretch, people!

Not a lot of development in Super-world. She is now 16.5 inches long and around 3.5 pounds. She is now the size of FOUR NAVEL ORANGES! Strange. In looking at this here ruler, the 16.5 inches makes a lot of sense. I have recently felt movement on the sides of my body, just above my hip bone area and around my upper rib cage. I think this baby likes to stretch her long legs in the diagonal direction. Good thing I have a long torso to accomodate those limbs! From the looks of things, the last thing on Super's to-do list are continue to fatten up and put the final touches on those lungs of hers. Looks like she's in the home stretch too!

Space invaders

Ah, how to summarize the weekend? It would help if I could recall what we did. On Friday night there was a sandwich. I remember that. And then on Saturday there was painting....and more painting...and then a basketball game (chloe) and a soccer game (Parker). On Saturday night we went to Atomic Cowboy to celebrate Liza's birthday with a group of people. Because I have a limited shelf life of about 10 waking hours (less if physical activity is involved in those 10 hours), I had to bail on the festivities fairly early. I am probably the only person in the world that is excited about the "springing forward", because it means that my bed time becomes less-lame by one hour.



Sunday was a big day because it was couch delivery day!!! Ricker and I had busted out our best geometry skills to find a couch that would fit down in our basement, and it was the moment of truth. The Phillips Furniture guys show up, and immediately one is saying positive and uplifting things like "Oh no way" and "that will never happen" when glancing from the couch to the doorway. As someone who will navigate something quite large through a somewhat small space here in a few months, his negativity was not appreciated. To avoid being the pregnant woman screaming directions at the men holding the big heavy couch, I vacated the premises. To the front yard. Where I stood until I heard the welcome sound of a couch being thumped down the basement steps. I rushed back inside to see that they had made it down the steps, only to get hung up at the turn at the bottom (this part wasn't constructed when we were taking our measurements for the couch...oops). Ultimately, all the brilliant minds (I was back in the front yard) maneuvered the couch into the basement and my fears of having gone through all this trouble and expense only to be able to fit beanbag chairs down there went out the window!


To celebrate, we took Liza and David up on their offer for pizza night! Liza and David are quite the little chefs/bakers, and are the only humans I know to actually get a ridiculous amount of use out of a bread maker. Like, we are talking multiple times a week. Sometimes they even bring us stuff. It's a pretty sweet gig. I offer you this photo montage of the evening:

Proof that at one point, David's dog Chase (not to be confused with Liza's dog, Chance, named before the two got together) actually let me pet him at one point in the evening. Very exciting!

This was my pizza. My pizza wasn't wearing pants, so blogger censored the bottom half of the photo. Gotta keep it clean.

Amy enjoying her spicy pizza, which ultimately had to be accompanied by some milk to put out the fire.


Shisha making up some fixins.

David keeping a close eye on things. I fully admit that I require supervision in the kitchen.

Chance kept an eye on things too. Mainly Ricker's phone.

We'll end with an obscure pic of the belly adjacent to the stove. Apparently Rick felt the need to photograph this moment because it hasn't really happened during this pregnancy. Thanks to delish pizza, the belly will be a little closer the next time. Thanks Shish and David!

Celebrations and Fears

One of the stranger side effects of pregnancy is that I cannot seem to get a handle on dates. The days of the week always feel "wrong" and I seem to be constantly switching up dates for things. Case in point: I was convinced that my dear sister Liza's (Shisha) birthday was on Wednesday. Then I realized it was actually on Thursday, but I just couldn't snap back and felt like somehow I had missed it. Well, yesterday came and went and I posted in a rush due to work stuff and again missed her birthday.

Well, I didn't MISS it, but I missed the opportunity to post about it. We did go out for a family birthday celebration last night, which was delightful. All were in attendance, everyone left stuffed, and minimal tears were shed. I call that a success.

Happy Birthday Shisha!

While some might consider turning 32 terrifying, it's pretty low on my list of fears. What's numero UNO is earthquakes. I guess it is my geology background, because news of any sort of quake flips my insanity switch. When we had that minor quake here a few years back, I rushed to the store to assemble my disaster preparedness kit. I was running through the aisles like a maniac on Supermarket Sweep, convinced that I was going to miss the last pack of batteries or first aid kit. Well, for a city that freaks out at news of half an inch of pending snow, St. Louisans are surprisingly nonchalant regarding earthquakes. I believe Liza put it best when she said "You are totally that crazy person in all the movies that warns people of looming disaster while they are stocking up their bomb shelter...you know, the only one that survives."

The news of the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunamis solidifies the plans for at least part of the weekend. It's time to update ye ole disaster kit! And since I am in nesting mode, my kit shall be grander than all the other non-existent kits in the land. And for those of you looters that think you can glom on to our kit once the "big one" hits, be warned. Rick has a semi-automatic pellet gun, and he's not afraid to use it. Just ask the squirrels.

10 Weeks to go!

One phone app actually references the "home stretch"! Super is now around 16 inches long and weighs 3 pounds. In the saddest development so far, she can now generate tears. Not sure what she has to cry about in there, but let's hope she gets it all out of her system before she is born. She is now the size of a good old fashioned, run of the mill cabbage.

Smuggling cabbage

The phone tells me I should expect to gain about a pound a week from here on out. Good times! It also tells me that I might start to feel more emotional than normal in these next few weeks. MORE emotional? I wasn't even sure that was possible. This is not good news for Rick.

Not with a bang, but a whimper...

....this is how my relationship with Manny with Totsy will end. Though I should add that we were all set to bang it out. Rick had compiled a borderline blackmail-ish email stating that he was prepared to go global with his anti-totsy campaign via his City Museum Facebook and Twitter accounts should Manny not cough up the goods within a weeks time. While he was compiling the email, I was busy assaulting Totsy's facebook page with comments about their atrocious customer service. Apparently I was spoiling the mood of the Totsy fan page, because they sent in their "cleaner", Sophie (is there anyone in this company that doesn't end their name with a "y" or "ie"?), to shut me up. I received a private message via facebook from Sophie with Totsy saying that she was "so sorry" about my issues and what can she do to help (in other words: What can we do to shut you up, you insufferable twit?).

Long story short, Sophie contacts Manny, and Manny contacts me. Manny's a real problem solver these days, and his solution to the problem is to offer me a full refund and a shipping label for us to ship everything back to them because now he has NO IDEA when this stuff will come in. For a nano-second I thought that was reasonable. Then I remembered the size of the box the stroller came in, the fact that we would have to take the stoller apart (once we found an ark-sized box to fit it in) and then somehow have blind faith that they would give us our money back. Well, we all know where I stand on blind faith these days. Please see any basement construction related posts...

So I politely responded to Manny applauding his ability to offer the one solution that was actually MORE of a hassle to us than what they had already put us through. That takes serious skill, buddy. The only thing that would have been more inconvenient was if Manny had offered to ship me a pair of roller skates and a map to his office, so I can stroll that thing back to him myself. Jerk. After pointing this out to him, and outlining several other options that I felt reasonable regarding us keeping the stroller and them offering a pro-rated refund, Manny finally counters with an offer to refund a portion of the costs incurred. Fine. You have a deal.

As it stands, we should be getting our partial refund "any day now", and so the saga with Manny and Totsy concludes. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for deals on the Easywalker Carrycot!

Triple the fun!

I have previously discussed my cousin, Kate, who was pregnant with triplets. Yes, you read correctly. Past tense. As in, already done been borned. They came into this world yesterday, slightly ahead of schedule, but all three baby girls and Mom are doing well.

These are not real babies.

Jane (3 lbs 1 oz), Emma (3 lbs 15 oz), and Julia (4 lbs 5 oz) continue the trend of tipping the scales even further in favor of the female contingent in this family. Sorry fellas. I am sure one day they will all marry wonderful men and you can increase your male bonding at that time.

I have been taking comfort in the knowledge that as long as Kate is still pregant, that means that we still have time before Super is born. So now that little comforting thought has gone out the window. See you soon, Super!

A fuzzy, dusty blur

My husband is a machine. An obsessive compulsive, attention deficit disorder, insomnia-ridden machine. And when you combine all those traits with his desire to keep his pregnant wife from burning down her house out of sheer insanity, you get a man that spends almost 48 hours straight in a basement priming, painting, spackling (sp?) and sanding to just get this project FINISHED! If I wasn't so thrilled with the results, I might feel a little guilty. However, there were a few things he was working on that were not wife-driven that occupied a large portion of his time, but more on that later.

We went to dinner and an art show with Liza and David on Friday night. We had met previously in the evening at Home Depot and placed our carpet order and FINALLY narrowed down our paint selection to three colors. We purchased samples of all three and some primer and we were set to go. While I was sleeping on Friday night, Rick primed the entire basement and placed the sample colors on the walls. I woke up on Saturday morning, we agreed on the "Light French Gray" and then headed off to BIRTHING CLASS! Woohoo! Yes, amidst all of this, I keep having to remind myself that there is a child coming in a few weeks and we should probably look into caring for this little one at some point. Easy to get distracted these days.

But our eyes were on the prize for about 8 hours on Saturday. We learned all about what to expect when we get to the hospital. Rick learned that we don't need to rush in the second I start with contractions (we all know how he loves to be early), and for a brief second I started thinking I could handle natural child birth. I blame paint fumes for this moment of insanity. Just when I think I couldn't love my husband more after staying up all night painting for me, I got to watch him furiously taking notes, entering milestone dates in his iPhone and his intense focus when learning how to bathe and swaddle a newborn.

Here he's burping the doll. It was absolutely the cutest thing I have ever seen. I felt like my heart was going to burst. I had to channel this emotion later in the weekend.

After baby class, we went straight to Home Depot to pick up more paint and various other supplies. I will take this time to describe Rick's "other project". Long about Thursday of last week, Ricker began to focus on the fact that the original drywall in the stairs going down into the basement had a slightly different texture from the new drywall that had recently been added. The old area has a slightly rough texture and the new was smooth. My solution/observation was that the difference was more significant because they hadn't been painted the same color yet, and that it would be less noticable once paint went up. Rick wasn't having it. Not on his watch. There will be no unmatching walls in his house!

I should have paid more attention to the contents of the basket at Home Depot on this Saturday trip, but again I was blindly accepting that all was under control. There was a huge bag of "quick setting something" that looked a bit technical, but I figured he had a plan and he seemed confident. To show what a team player I am, I donned my protective mask and put up the first coat of paint on about 70% of the basement before my back started to ache. I resigned myself to the bedroom for the evening and left Rick down in the basement for the night.

I awoke at 3:00 am to the sound of sanding. He's got it under control. Sure, he's not sleeping, but he tends to get a bit hyper focused on things like this. No big deal.

I woke up again at 6. Still sanding.

I finally went down at 7 when the sanding stopped, figuring it was finally safe. I noticed a bit of dust around the house, but it was hard to tell if this was drywall dust from earlier in the week or new stuff. Again, no big deal.

I was met at the top of the stairs by someone that was barely recognizable. Rick's eyes were bloodshot, he was covered in a fine white powder and he seemed a little manic. I started to get concerned at this point when he talked of "one more coat" and that he felt he was close. At this point, I figured the train had left the station and there wasn't much I could do but say "Ok" and do what I could to be supportive. To demonstrate that, I even went on a supply run for him (I am a enabling spackle mule now) that morning. This is something I am now regretting. I was asked to pick up something that was different that the material he was using for the first coat. Whatever. I ask no questions. Blind acceptance.

I left to meet some friends for coffee/lunch (I was double booked!) while Rick did whatever he was doing and met his family for lunch. When I came home, he was just about to start sanding down this second coat. I retreated to the bedroom (which is upstairs, he is in the basement) and while checking emails, I started to notice the sensation of film on my face and keyboard. I looked over at my phone, which had been sitting for maybe 30 minutes and it had a fine, white powder all over it. I immediately ran down to shut off the heat/vents and told Rick that there was something going on. He screamed "Viva la revolucion!" and kept sanding (not a direct quote, but captures the essence of Rick at this point). The dust situation downstairs was significantly worse than upstairs and I felt a little ill at this point. But, again, I was told we were close.

At around 4:30 in the afternoon the sanding stopped. Rick emerged from the basement looking like father time on a cocaine bender and proclaimed that he was finally finished and satisfied. I then noticed that he had forgotten to take the entire spice rack (that is about 4 feet high) off the back of the basement door while all this sanding was taking place. Each of the 100-ish little spice bottles had their own little dust mountains on them. Here's where Rick got lucky, because the pre-pregnancy Kaly would have likely flipped ye old insanity switch at this point. However, my long dormant nesting urge kicked in hard core and I got to cleaning spice jars and vacuuming that house for all it was worth.

Doesn't look too bad.....

....but then you pick up the stuff on the table and this is what you are left with.

Because GB had warned me this might happen, I felt she she get a dusty shout-out.

The dust continues to literally and figuratively settle at the house. We still have a ways to go and the offer has been made (and accepted) to bring in professional cleaning people to help with what is left. Rick has learned that sometimes the collateral damage along the way might not be worth the end result and I have learned that blind acceptance is no way to go through a home project. But at the end of it all, I am thankful for a husband that not only wants everything to be perfect for his new family, but is willing to take himself to the brink to make it just so, and that makes my eyes a little watery.

Though it's probably just the dust.

Cultural Experience

I am surrounded by construction. They are also renovating our office building, which has recently included varnishing all wooden surfaces and repainting. It's a fume-a-palooza. If I wasn't concerned about the VOCs or whatever else is in the air, it smells of rotten mayonaisse and shoe polish and it's more than I can stand. The fumes are no better today, so I found myself at the Panera in Creve Coeur working for the day. I sat down next to a table of 70-something jewish gentlemen (not stereotyping; this becomes a relevant item shortly) and am equal parts disturbed and enchanted with their conversation (these are not soft talkers):

Round 1
Man #1: "My sister in law said her goal this year is to go on one date."
Man #2: "Is she do-able?"
Man #1: "No"

Round 2
Man #1: "I am thinking of giving up golf and taking up tennis."
Man #3: "I like tennis, but I look horrible in those outfits."

Round 3
Man #2: "(Insert someone's name here) is a total anti-semite. He called his assistant a f-ing (insert horrible defamatory jewish term here)."
Man #1: I will never watch another Mel Gibson movie again. Though he was good in 'Bird on a Wire'".
Man #3: "Was it Goldie Hawn or Meg Ryan in that movie?"
Man #2: "Meg Ryan. I haven't watched a movie with her since she cheated on Dennis Quaid. It's just not the same."
Man #1: "She was great in that movie with Billy Crystal, Sleepless Seattle or something."
Man #3: "oh no, that wasn't the name. It's on the tip of my tongue. The one with the diner scene. I'll have what she's having."

Hilarity ensues.

The conversations were peppered with f-bombs and it was hilarious. I might have to hang out here more often. Maybe they'll make me one of their crew. Anyone that has such strong opinions about Meg Ryan is ok by me.

Squash anyone?

What a strange word....squash. Sqquuuuaaaassshh.

Super is the size of a butternut squash this week, weighing in at 2.5 pounds and just under 16 inches long. She continues to increase her fat deposits, her head is getting bigger and she will triple in weight by in the next 11 weeks (I am now focusing on what's left rather than how far we've come). That's some crazy growing! As a result, real estate in ye olde womb is becoming more and more precious and the jabs and kicks are more frequent and often startle me a bit.

Bump.com warns of extra gas during these next few months and tells me not to sip my drinks (?), chew gum, or talk while eating (I would never) to avoid swallowing air. They also talk about varicose veins and say to avoid sitting or standing for prolonged periods of time. Not sure what my other options are there. Not great on providing viable solutions over at Bump.com.

I did start to get sad yesterday thinking about how I will miss not feeling the little bumps and nudges after she is born. Of course, yesterday I also got sad about the lonely piece of bread left in the bag and how dirty my computer keyboard was, so not everything is 100% reasonable in Kaly-ville. But I guess a baby in the hand is much better than a baby in the belly, so I am sure that was yet another thing I shouldn't be sad about.

Investigative Journalism

It's that time of year again. The time when the weather is just a hint warmer on some days, and if you are really lucky, you hear birds chirping signaling what can only be the near onset of SPRING! As if spring wasn't enough of a hot bowl of awesome in and of itself, there are other spring bonuses that are just icing on the cake. Since I cannot currently enjoy a cold beer on a scenic patio (one of the first rites of Spring), I was pretty jazzed about another spring bonus: Girl Scout Cookie arrival. And since we have two nieces and live in a neighborhood filled to the brim with 6-9 year old girls, you better believe I got my order on this year.

Sure there were disclaimers issued when I was whizzing through the newly revised order form. I heard something about there being "new names" as a result of some bakery change and pesky copyrights or some such nonsense. I couldn't be bothered with these details. I had orders to place, people! You don't get a 9 pound weight gain in one month by resting on your laurels. You have to work at it.

Once the pencil shavings had settled on the order form, I wasn't quite sure what I had ordered, but I didn't really care because I knew I had ordered everything but Trefoils (the Almond Joy of Girl Scout Cookies) and how could I go wrong? They are freaking Girl Scout Cookies.

We picked up our boxes on Sunday. I was pretty excited and downed something called a "Thanks a lot" immediately. It was one of the new offerings and nothing to write home about. I was slightly put off by the name (kept imagining it said in a sarcastic tone) and thought it would seem less smarmy if they had named it "thanks so much" or "you are the best", but I figured those GS people know what they are doing. I was undaunted.

Somehow I skipped consumption of cookies on Monday because I must have been in a coma or something, but I remembered them yesterday when I was working from home and decided to treat myself to a sampler platter. The caramel delites (formerly Samoas) weren't much different, so no problem there. Then I moved on to the "peanut butter sandwiches" (talk about phoning it in on the name, formerly do-si-dos), which were dry and a little gross. To round out my experience, I decided to end on a high note and go with the unchanged, always a winner, Thin Mint.

So that's what disappointment tastes like.

As the room spun around me and I clutched the box of imposter Thin Mints to my chest as I slumped to the floor, I started having flashbacks to Parker talking about this new bakery issue. I really should pay more attention when she speaks; it's not like she's one to go spouting off useless information. I then headed to the computer to figure out what had happened. The results were shocking. SHOCKING!!!

Did you know that Girl Scout cookies have different names in all areas of the country? It's been that way forever. So don't go to Arizona and strike up a conversation about Tagaolongs. They won't know what you are talking about. They are called "Peanut butter cookies" in other necks of the woods. All this confusion is apparently the result of these two bakeries that were used: ABC Bakery and Little Brownie Bakery. What name you got was a result of which bakery the cookies came from. Little Brownie Bakery had the trademarks on all the fun names, and as evidenced by their own bakery name, ABC Bakery had the dumbed-down descriptive names. I guess "Thin Mints" was just dumb enough to make the name suitable for ABC Bakery, resulting in the wide acceptance of that cookie name.

It appears that Little Brownie Bakery is no more and all cookies were produced out of Another Bland Cookie (ABC) bakery this year, resulting in the less than stellar cookie review. Can you handle all this cookie knowledge? I know, it's a lot to take in all at once. All I know is that somehow, the Girl Scouts have managed to generate a cookie that repulses even a pregnant woman, which doesn't bode well for the future of that organization. I am sure I will still eat them, but let the record show that it's under protest.

Pile it on!

Have I mentioned that there is another project going on in the house? I know I have discussed the basement, which is being taped/mudded as I type, but I don't think I mentioned what is now being referred to as the "bonus room". It is a glorified crawl space over the garage, connected by a full size door to Super's room. Since we have serious storage issues here, we decided to convert this to a play room/storage area. That's currently being worked on and Joe seems confident he can knock this out in a week. Again, blind acceptance.

Of course, because this was a storage area, and the basement is currently occupado, all of the junk is now located in the nursery again. The storage shell game continues....But this is the door from the nursery into the Bonus Room.

This is inside the Bonus Room, which is actually pretty large.

Once the basement, nursery and Bonus Room are complete, that should be it for projects. Have I mentioned that there's a baby coming in 11.5 weeks? No pressure.