When you have a big hungry son, an even bigger, hungrier husband, and the biggest, hungriest fetus growing inside your belly (so what if it’s 4 pounds?!) you spend a lot of time at the grocery store. In fact, I feel like I’m ALWAYS there. Always picking up some random ingredient for dinner and always doing the weekly grocery shopping. And frankly, I hate buying food. I’d so much rather be spending cash on clothes or makeup or something much less practical than sustenance.
However, today I found the most adorable little market where I’m sure I’ll do all my shopping from now on. Whereas most grocery stores are hideous concrete eyesores with florescent lights and ugly parking lots, The Good Earth Market looks like a little cottage. It’s covered in shake shingles and surrounded by an organic farm and garden. Very quaint.
And it’s not just cute — it has all the random items that I’ve learned I can’t live without like raw organic apple cider vinegar, probiotic kefir, grass-fed and finished beef, and sprouted live grain bread. You know, what I like to call “miracle foods” that in one way or another, I’ve been suckered into believing are the elixir of life and will make me look younger and skinnier than ever before. And healthier. Yeah, can’t forget that one…
This is my new grocery store. How charming is it!? It looks like a house or a B&B. Maybe I'll bring my sleeping bag next time and really creep them out.
Well, I’m officially a pregnant insomniac. Every night I get into bed and lay there for at least an hour, tossing, turning, and cursing Grey’s hot breath, before I finally pass out. Last night though, it took even longer to fall asleep, so I decided to entertain myself by looking at my old grade school yearbooks. I was NOT disappointed.
First, let me say I have an abnormal recollection of my school experience in kindergarten through eight. I can name every teacher I ever had and still draw diagrams of my former classroom seating charts. I attended Catholic school and graduated with a class of sixty, and I still feel closer to those kids than some members of my extended family. I guess spending 9 years with people will do that to you.
So looking at these yearbooks was a pleasant blast from the past. The pictures alone in these vintage LifeTouch yearbooks are priceless! The mullets. The turtlenecks. The XL plaid shirts. All such staples from the late 80s and 90s when I was in grammar school. Then there are the notes within the books. Hilarious “remember whens” and obscene references to our principal’s penis scribbled all over the fading pages had me literally crying with laughter as I flipped through.
But then of course my pregnant emotional side came out, because as much as I enjoyed my late-night perusing of these mementos, looking at them made me sad too. I found myself getting pissed I couldn’t remember inside jokes that my friends and I swore we’d “never forget” and feeling melancholy about the nonsensical nonsense classmates scrawled in the books. Plus, the blue sky background of the photos seems so sky’s-the-limit that it’s hard to imagine any of the kids in the pictures ending up as a cashier at Wal-Mart or a divorced exotic dancer with four babies with different dads. But I guess that’s what’s so great about these LifeTouch yearbooks — they capture the moment in time, not the future!!
Apparently I didn't like this picture of myself (I'm the one scribbled out on the far left).
Both times I’ve been pregnant, my friend Kris has been pregnant too. Like I posted earlier — we even had a co-baby sprinkle this time to celebrate. Last time I was six weeks farther along than her in my pregnancy, and this time, she’s six weeks ahead of me.
We honestly didn’t plan it to be this way. It’s not like we were comparing fertility schedules. Um, wait, actually, we did do that. But whatever, it’s not like we ever actually said — “Let’s get knocked up at the same time.” Somehow, it just magically happened to work out. And I’m so glad it did. I can’t imagine going through this pregnancy (or the last one) and not being able to call Kris at 7am every morning and utter the words, “I’m so tired I want to hurt someone” or texting her stuff like, “My boobs are the size of elephant balls.”
As her delivery date draws near (any day now is fair game!), it’s dawning on me that pretty soon, I’ll soon be the only pregnant one. Which is bittersweet. Though I’m SO excited to meet her new little bundle, it’ll be kind of sad going the last six weeks as a solo prego. Oh well, I’m sure in a few years, we’ll be doing this all over again!
Ollie, Kris, and I at the Sprinkle. Another odd random thing about Kris is that Ollie loves her more than anyone. Even saying prayers every night, he always screams, "Bless Kris!" before anyone else. Hopefully we can arrange the marriages of our next babies and be inlaws!
After I complete a year of Naked Thanks (365 days this November 13th!!), I very well might start another blog called, “Old Dudes of Delaware.” It’d be simple — I’d just take snapshots of the eccentric old men I see, because there are quite a few. Actually, the elderly fellas of my new state are one of my favorite parts of moving here. I feel like living on the movie set of Grumpy Old Men whenever I leave my house. It’s constant entertainment!
Take today for instance, here is what I encountered when Grey and I dropped off some boxes at the recycling center:
It’s an old man with his head completely inside the dumpster, looking for glass bottles and other treasures. In DC, this wouldn’t be a strange sight because homeless people do this all the time. The difference is that this guy, well, he’s dumpster diving purely for fun. In fact, he’s drives a mini van (behind him) and I think he lives a few streets over from us. Apparently, some people golf when they retire, some fish — and some dig through recycling with a custom dumpster hook made especially for reaching the good stuff at the bottom of the barrel.
Then, the other day, I spotted this guy at Lowes:
In case you thought shorty overalls were just for toddlers: they’re not! How amazing is this ensemble? Of course, after taking this pic I immediately posted it on Facebook so the world could enjoy.
I love these guys. They are unknowingly hilarious and they bring a smile to my face. Sometimes they make me nutty by driving 10 mph down the highway or cutting me in line at the deli, but no matter. I’m grateful for the laughs!
So now that I pretty much look like I have a beach ball under my shirt, I’ve really started to notice people coming out of the woodwork offering me their thoughts on pregnancy, nursing, and the stretching of one’s vagina. In the past 48 hours, I’ve had a myriad of people approach me with their strange comments and advice — all unwanted — of course.
For instance, a woman at the post office asked me if I was planning to nurse. When I told her yes, she conspiratorially said to me that I should rub my nipples in breast milk to avoid chafing. Jesus. What the hell do you say to that? “Gee, thanks! I can’t wait to douse my boobs in my own lactation! Can you pass the stamps?”
Then I had a woman come up to me in the grocery store the other day and ask when I was due. When I told her the c-section was scheduled for November 16th, she replied, “Oh good for you! You know, between you and me, my vagina has never been the same since I delivered naturally. I still leak pee every once in a while.” TMI, lady! That wasn’t the mental image I wanted while loading my shopping cart with cartons of lemonade!
I’ve come to realize the whole stretching of one’s vagina is something that people are apparently dying to talk about with perfect strangers because why else would all these random people broach the subject with me? It’s like I have: “Talk to me about your giant hoo-ha: I want to listen” tattooed on my forehead. It’s just sick.
Other topics I’ve been hit with while filling my gas tank or getting a pedicure include: Unwanted facial hair during pregnancy (from a woman I swear had the worst five-o’clock shadow I’ve seen in a while), the benefits of kegel exercises (this one is actually a personal favorite coming from my former company’s head tech guy), and the prospect of drying my placenta to make jerky (I kid you not, while standing in line at the butcher).
People always say they have issues with people trying to touch their belly when pregnant. At this point, I’d welcome a belly rub if it meant I didn’t have to listen to some stranger tell me they craved their own poop while pregnant or something equally disturbing!
Somehow, I don't think this book prepares women for the insane-as-hell comments people on the street will offer up to them.
Like I said in yesterday’s post, we’re ordering a lot of things on the Internet these days and one of them has been bars for our windows. Not because we live in a dangerous neighborhood, quite the opposite in fact. We are trying to keep our little beast IN, not OUT. Ollie’s gotten to the point where I wouldn’t put it past him to just kick out his bedroom window and climb out on the roof to avoid going to bed. We started getting seriously worried about this potential scenario and consequently ordered the bars for our windows you see in the picture below. Grey’s big task this weekend is to convert the nursery to an Ollie-proof cell from which our little Houdini can’t escape. Ah, the joys of parenthood!
I think the fact that we have no purchased bars for our windows ranks right up there with the fact that we also own a kid leash for little Ollie. Should I be worried about a pattern here? What’s next — handcuffs for trips to the grocery store? It makes me wonder if I’m just a bad mom who has no control over my child, but then I assure myself, I am a GOOD mom, but I still have no control over my child!
"Why mommy, why am I in prison? Can't I go outside and play?"
The Internet has become a dangerous, dangerous place for me these days. Now that the closest Whole Foods or Nordstrom is an hour and a half away from my house, I find that I’m ordering way more stuff from the web. Backsplash tile, lip gloss, a weed wacker, Ollie’s Halloween costume, bars for our windows (another post entirely) — we seem to be buying a lot more online just because there’s not a local Target or Trader Joe’s nearby.
Though they seem to materialize by magic on my doorstep, I know there’s actually a man behind the appearance of these daily presents: my friendly neighborhood UPS guy. At the rate we’re going, I’m sure by Thanksgiving I’ll be setting a place for him at my table. Or could he be a potential godparent? I see him so frequently, he already seems like a part of the family. No joke, I heard Ollie call him, “Papa” the other day.
The last time Grey or I had such a close relationship with our package delivery man was when he lived in Newport, RI and I lived in Philadelphia. We we just started dating and due to the fact that it was long distance and because I stole an insane amount of free postage from my advertising sales job, I sent Grey packages on a daily basis. Sometimes he’d just receive a big box with a scrap of paper inside saying, “Hi.” Other times, I’d send him 100 pounds of homemade cookies priority overnight. The price of shipping never deterred me because I billed it to my company, so $75 bucks to have a greeting card arrive by 9am the next morning didn’t seem extravagant. They paid me peanuts (literally, sometimes they’d try to offer me jars of nuts instead of a paycheck), so I figured what they didn’t include in my salary, I’d take in the form of free Fed Ex.
The only problem was that I couldn’t let anyone know it was me sending the mail, so I sent my daily packages in code. I’d address then to “Captain Sexy,” “Lieutenant Luscious,” or “Big Fella” from aliases like “Screw You ClearChannel” or “Pay Me More, Bitch.” It was perfect: I remained anonymous and fully employed while Grey’s Rhode Island Fed Ex man got a kick out of delivering multiple boxes per day to the local “Love God.” It was a beautiful relationship!
The UPS guy and his noble chariot. He's my lifeline to the outside world!
The date is set; I will have my baby no later than November 16th! Today I actually scheduled my c-section after worrying about the choice for months. That being said, this doesn’t actually mean I will definitely have the baby ON the 16th; I could go into labor earlier than that and end up having a c-section on November 9th or the 13th, but in case I don’t go into labor beforehand, I at least have a date set for the procedure on the 16th.
If you’re wondering why I have to have a cesarean, it’s because I had one with Ollie (after 20+ hours of labor), and the hospital here in Delaware won’t let me try for a VBAC. Something that is kind of disappointing and also a relief at the same time. On the bright side, I don’t have to push anything 7+ pounds out my crotch, however, it is surgery, and well, being cut open is never exactly fun. I’m really fine with the C though. I had such an easy recovery last time from my surgery that I think this time will be even better (since I won’t have the stress of labor first).
But you can’t imagine how much this whole pick-the-birthday-thing has been stressing me out. There’s something about choosing the date your child is born that just doesn’t sit right with me. There’s so much pressure! This is a date the kid will celebrate for the rest of his life! And that I will celebrate! Then I started thinking about auspicious days and lucky days and astrology and that REALLY turned up the heat on my scheduling of this surgery.
Luckily, I turned to such reliable sources as random websites for help. I began madly Googling, “auspicious days in 2010″ and “best days to have a baby” and “lucky days in November” and came across ChineseFortuneCalendar.com which told me November 16th is a lucky day. Since my due date is technically the 22nd, they won’t let me schedule before the 15th, and I figured if the 16th is said to be an auspicious day, then it’ll be a good time to bring on a baby, right? And you never know, I could go into labor well before the 16th, but at least I know I won’t be going past then!
Whereas DC had the ballet, the opera, the National Gallery, the Kennedy Center, Delaware has the Monster Mile. Yep, it’s the Dover International Speedway where the likes of um, well, whoever the famous Nascar race car drivers are, race their cars.
This weekend is the opener to the Nascar season (I don’t even know if I’m saying this properly) and people have been camped out by the Speedway for weeks. Literally, even ten days ago when we drove by the track we saw Nascar die-hards in their RVs and campers just biding their time before the race. Seeing this made us wonder what we’re missing. So Grey and I decided what better way to spend a gorgeous Saturday afternoon than to have our eardrums blown out in a stadium with 100,000 men in sleeveless tank tops. It’s Nascar time!
The only problem is that word on the street here in DE is that the Speedway’s alcohol rules were just amended. And people are PISSED. Now, fans may not bring in more than three cases of beer per person into the stands. Yes, ONLY three cases PER person. That’s it! Apparently they’ve really tightened things up with this new strict policy. Before, Nascar junkies could tote in as much beer as their suburned bodies could carry, buy now they’ll have to content themselves with a mere 72 cans per person. Shucks.
Last week my dad drove down from Erie to help us with tying up some loose ends in the home renovation department. For lack of a better term, he was pretty much our bitch for five straight days, doing things like painting the front fence, putting up an arbor outside, installing door trim, fixing the porch screens, and basically every project we could think of that we don’t have the time or energy to do.
Not only was it nice to have the help on the house, but it was also great to spend some time with my dad. Ollie enjoyed seeing “Butt-Butt” (apparently how he pronounces, “Gramps”) and I had fun too (especially with a live-in babysitter for the week).
The only snag in my dad’s trip was when we accidentally “glutenated” him (he’s a Celiac, so can’t have anything with wheat) by giving him a bag of regular pretzels. But after researching how to stave off a gluten attack (apparently a shot of tequila and some Benadryl — who knew?!) he didn’t end up getting sick — which was a good thing.
The other crazy part was when my dad and I dropped Ollie off at his preschool. When we said goodbye, we heard the teacher say, “OK, Ollie, say byebye to Mommy and Daddy.” HA! They thought he was my husband. Which is gross — AND distrurbing, at least for me — because that means the teachers either think I’m a goldigger who married an old guy or else they actually think I look old enough to be married to a 63-year-old!!
I have to give my dad credit though, he doesn't look 63, and it's not just the tie-dye. Here he is reading to Ollie the spelunker.
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