22 weeks!

Holy moses. Is it just me or are these Thursdays coming faster and faster? We have a lot of work to do over at Casa de Erwin to prepare for Super. We had a lot riding on a productive weekend, which was wiped out by the Great Erwin Plague of 2011. Here's hoping Rick and I are fully recovered so we can really make some progress this weekend.

As for Super's progress, she is now almost a foot long and still hovering around three quarters of a pound. One of my aps has given up the veggie comparison, while the other picked up the torch just in time to compare her size to a spaghetti squash. Getting a bit obscure, no? She is getting more acive and tooth buds have formed under the gums. Dear Lord, please give this child a full set of chompers. Mommy and Daddy have tight annual vacation budgets that do not account for orthodontia. And in your daily dose of too much information, her ovaries are starting to produce eggs.

In somewhat related news, I had my first stranger approach me and ask when the baby was due. Of course, there was an 80-something old man in Miami that pointed at my stomach when we walked into his pizza place and exclaimed "Pizza for TWO!", but for some reason that doesn't count. Old people say crazy things. This was someone around my age that was sitting next to me at an "Excelling as a Manager or Supervisor" training class I was sent to yesterday. I think my boss is trying to tell me something, though I am not sure what. I was thrilled that I finally looked pregnant enough for people to finally comment and was content with the knowledge that this pregnancy was finally legit....Until I got home and looked at myself in the mirror. I had thrown on a grey sweater over a shirt and pants on my way out the door that morning without really assessing my appearance. When I did finally see what I looked like, the expression of shock on the girl's face when I told her I was 5.5 months pregnant made a bit more sense. While cozy and comfy, this sweater was doing me no favors and I appeared to be 250 weeks pregnant. Oh well. I say it still counts.

I will leave you with this photo I snapped in the ladies' bathroom at the Holiday Inn in Arnold. If you are ever feeling blue about having to attend a boss-mandated Supervisor Training, be thankful you are not the person eating butterfingers in the public bathroom stall. It can always be worse. It could have been an almond joy wrapper.

Apologies to Mrs. D

I remember when I was in my early 20s and I met my dear friend Emma for the first time. It was St. Patrick's day and she had just started dating a guy named Kevin D (last name withheld to protect his privacy and to keep his lawyer-self from suing me). Kevin and Emma would later marry and have two beautiful children. But before there was marriage and babies, there was plenty of time spent discussing this new relationship with Emma. Tales of dates, "disagreements", and delight. As it goes with any relationship, once it started getting serious Emma went to meet Kevin's parents. I can only recall two bits of information regarding Kevin's parents:

1. They are from Boston (or the greater Boston area)
2. Kevin's mother washes her walls. As in the walls of her house.

Because we knew everything when we were 25 and clearly had our lives sparkly clean and organized, we scoffed at what was clearly some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. We taunted Emma with warnings that she better get her walls clean every time there was news of Kevin's family coming to visit.

Imagine my dismay when I was just sitting here on my couch, working from home on this wintery day, and looked up and saw this:

Not the greatest picture, but in real life you can clearly see a hand print in the dust that has somehow accumulated on our walls, once again proving that with age comes wisdom. Looks like my only option is to follow the ways of Mrs. D and clean these walls. Or turn off that lamp.

Blabbermouth

This is Cottage 13's 100th post! Who knew I had so much to say? Of course, I don't have anything earth-shattering to report in this particular post, other than Rick and I are still sick. I finally broke down and called the doctor today to see if there is anything else they can give me for this nonsense. I guess they are calling in a Z-Pack. Ricker is the sickest I have ever seen him. He was actually NAPPING all weekend, which is unheard of in this house. He was suspiciously quiet last night though, which usually means he got a little liberal with the nyquil. More power to him.

Meanwhile, I was up most of the night worshipping at the altar of the neti pot. For those of you not familiar, the premise is that you pour a saline solution into one nostril and it (along with whatever is up there) comes out the other nostril. Now, this is all fine and dandy assuming there is a somewhat clear pathway for said saline solution. I guess at 3:00 this morning, that wasn't the case. Stop reading now if you are easily grossed out (I know most of my family has no issues with the gross stuff, so this is for you guys). Instead of the saline flowing out my other nostril due to blockage, it re-routed out my mouth. Excellent. I guess that was a partial blessing in disguise because the stuff that came out was no joke. I kept thanking of the Mr. Mucus Mucinex guy the whole time and vacillated between being both disgusted and fascinated. Needless to say, that didn't help much with the nose, but I guess it made the throat feel better.

So I am home again today and currently plan on trying to actually take a sick day (this plan will change later in the day as the emails amass) and catch up on my Lifetime Craigslist Killer TV movie. Lifetime makes everything better.

Culinary Genius

You know you are pregnant when you look at a perfectly lovely jar of nutella and think, I bet that stuff would be awesome with some marshmallow fluff.

You know you are sick when you can't muster up the energy to go to the store for marshmallow fluff.

Marketer's Dream

We are party animals. We spent our Friday night in the cold and flu aisle of Walgreens trying to figure out what cold meds Rick could take to help him sleep through the night. Because I am living vicariously through him now (and am considering that I might have a small-ish infatuation with over the counter meds) I spent about 5 minutes comparing the active ingredients in various Nyquil, Tylenol, and Robitussin products for him. I had narrowed it down to two. One was cheaper than the other by a whopping two dollars, so that's the way I was leaning when Rick ripped the other out of my hands and declared that was the one he wanted. When I questioned his decision, he pronounced "It's cherry vanilla swirl Nyquil! It's all about the flavors baby!" So much for my scientific review.

On the drive home he stated that he wanted to try the China Inn, because it has a "real deal Chinese roof". If any market researchers need a subject to test a potential commercial campaign, Rick's your guy. Here's hoping that the cherry vanilla swirl does the trick.

She's 21!!!

Weeks, that is. It will be quite some time before ol' Soup's allowed to legally enjoy adult beverages. She is now hulking around at 3/4 of a pound and some of that weight gain is thanks to muscles that are now beginning to get stronger. The eyebrows and eyelashes are now almost fully formed. The brain has developed to a point where Super now has wake and sleep cycles. This has been something I have noticed regularly in the past week or so. She tends to wake up about 20 minutes after I eat something (or at least gets to movin') and typically rumbles around when it's time to leave work. I think there have also been a few bouts of hiccups in the past two days, which is actually pretty cool to feel.

The baby is now around 10 1/4 inches and the veggie comparison is suspiciously absent from my weekly update on one of my aps. The other references a banana. I am assuming that's just the length because I don't think a banana-shape on a child (or adult) would be very flattering.

Phone Doc mentions that my belly button will likely start to pop out in the coming weeks. As Rick can attest, I am more than a little grossed out by belly buttons, particularly my own. Mine seems to be infinite and from the way it looks, it should probably emerge out of my back. I have never seen the end of it. Mom made a bet with me ($100) that we will see the end of the belly button my the end of this, and I don't think that is possible. Time will tell. I don't know if I hope that happens or not. It will be equal parts disgusting and fascinating to see a part of my body that hasn't seen the light of day in 34 years. I'll stop there.

The phone also keeps telling me that this is the most comfortable stage of my pregnancy, which would probably be true if I wasn't sick. When not pregnant, I like to test the boundaries of my body's tolerance for medication when I am not feeling well. I think both my doctor and Super would frown on that type of behavior right now, so I am suffering through. No afrin-advil-nyquil-ambien cocktails for me (it was just once and was taken over the course of a few hours, don't judge, and I slept like a maniac once it all kicked in and felt much better the next day thankyouverymuch). I also read this little tidbit in my pregnancy packet last night, which did not make me feel very optimistic about the coming days/weeks, "If you develop a common cold your symptoms will be more severe and last longer than in a non-pregnant state....A common cold may linger for 10 days to 2 weeks as compared to 3-4 days in a non-pregnant state." It then goes on to list the measly 3 things that are safe to take (none of which are part of my aforementioned cold-remedy cocktail). Awesome. God certainly has a fun sense of humor about these things. Let's make it 2-3 times worse for those ladies and make sure they can't take anything to feel better. Hardy-har, Heavenly Father. If anyone needs proof that God is not a woman, I think this is it.

Slugs and Snails...

...and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of! But we are preparing ourselves for sugar and spice and everything nice because Super is a GIRL!!!! Yes, dear POMBs, our suspicions were confimed on 12/27/10 that we are having a girl. All signs were pointing to a girl based on countless old wives tales, chinese gender predictors, and the always reliable "needle over the belly" test, which repeatedly pointed to girl, no matter how many times we tested. We stopped just short of Mom's recommended "pee in drano" test after reading warnings of noxious fumes generated during the process. I am sure that would have also told us that Super is a girl.

We found this shirt while shopping in Miami this weekend. Every girl needs a super-dog and a super-horse as a sidekick.

The ultrasound showed that everything checked out as normal. Super has long legs, which we are not sure where that came from. Perhaps I am hogging all the torso genes, which left more leg for the baby. I am no genetics expert, but I am sure that's how that works. Super continues to be on the move and I can feel her more and more these days. Parker got to feel a good THUMP while we were on vacation, but we are still waiting for Rick to have that experience.

In other non-baby related news, today is the 40th birthday of the king of slugs and snails and puppy dog tails, our dear brother Patrick! He was the first and last boy to be birthed on our branch of the family tree and he is definitely holding his own. His birthday was the reason we were down in Miami and we had a fabulous time. Patrick makes 40 look a lot like 30 and has taken all of the fun out of calling him old, because he could soundly out-run, out-bike, or just about out-anything any one of his younger (or older) family members. Plus, I am guessing he probably still hits pretty hard, so I will just continue to praise him for his youthful spirit and appearance and pray some of those genes were shared amongst the rest of the siblings.

So happy birthday to our dear Happy. I hope you have a great day. More tales from the "Sober Adventures in Miami" to follow in the coming days....