Olfactory progress! and other things...

I woke up right at 7am today, since LG was supposed to go observe a lab this morning. He was still asleep, but when I spoke he announced that since he only had to observe, he wasn't going to go in. He moaned and coughed and sounded miserable, so I got up and left voicemail and e-mail for the instructor so she wouldn't miss him...and then, of course, I was too wired to go back to sleep.

Physical therapy took longer than I had planned to get to because my car was under an amazing layer of ice since our storm thingie on Wednesday. Simple brushing and scraping were getting me nowhere. If it was like that on my car, the streets must have been delightful. But I eventually got to PT and did a number of exercises. Basically, I'm extremely mobile, but I seem to have a pinched nerve because of compression in my lower back. She gave me exercises to do to help open it up. At one point I had to lie on my belly for a little bit and that was bizarre. It felt like someone had put a softball into my waistband and was asking me to put all my weight on it. That there uterus has gotten bigger, I tell you what.

I don't know if the PT helped, but we finished up and I made another couple of appointments and then headed out to get cold stuff for LG and then stopped at Fresh Market. I can smell again! I had a horrible sinus infection in November and lost my sense of smell entirely for 3 weeks. Then it started to come back, but was really limited. I could only smell what was literally under my nose. In the last two weeks I've begun to be able to smell ambient smells again - coffee being brewed in someone's office, popcorn in the anthro lab...and grocery store smells today. Even freshly baked bread! I am so happy because I was afraid it was gone forever.

Now it's like 4pm and I'm trying to work on stuff for the language class. It's interesting, and I like it, but I'm also restless and kind of bored and keep updating my e-mails to see if anyone has written me. I'm also restless because another storm thingie is due in, this one involving less ice, but a major snow dump of 4-8 inches. The chances of them cancelling school tomorrow are almost nil, so I'm freaking out a bit.

The IntelliGender Test

Okay, I guess it's one photo per entry. So, in my previous entry I mentioned taking the IntelliGender test (add first morning urine to chemicals; swirl; see if the concoction turns dark green (boy) or dark orange (girl)). I took it last week and it said "girl." I have promised to let the folks at IntelliGender know on February 12th whether they got it right. Apparently their "girl" results have been more accurate than their "boy" results so far....

Now to bring Unexpected Blueberry Tea to L. Guy in his office next door. I like to surprise him. Yum, tea.

My inaugural post

I have friends with blogs and decided I wanted one that was on the more personal side. This is probably because I'm 18 weeks pregnant with baby number one and need somewhere to vent and journal and do all those fun things.

Today the university where I work had a snow day, which means I didn't have to drive on ice through blinding clouds of blowing snow to lecture on Judaism and Christianity. The bad news is that on Friday, weather permitting, I'll have to somehow cover Judaism, Christianity AND Islam in one 50-minute period, and I'm not sure if it can be done. But with midterms coming, I have to get us back on track.

Pregnancy-wise, I'm definitely getting rounder. Even though I worry sometimes that I haven't felt anything moving, and even though for a "fluffy" person like me, it's pretty early to feel anything, I have had quite a bit of tickling and odd sensations in my lower pelvis today and I know it's the Liftoff Kid at work. I've felt movement on and off since New Year's Eve, which probably means this kid likes to party. Or that s/he was protesting watching a 1970s TV-movie that starred Cliff Robertson as Buzz Aldrin (the deeply painful Return to Earth). Liftoff Guy had a 16 mm copy of it and that's how we rang in the new year, watching that on a makeshift screen in a friend's basement. It was actually really fun.

We get to find out if Liftoff Kid is a girl or boy on February 12th - assuming LK cooperates. According to a probably silly test I took last week called IntelliGender, however, LK is a girl. We shall see, but I've had 4 or 5 dreams now that the baby's a girl and most of the family seems to think so. If LK's a boy, there will be some adjustments to be made, mentally.

I'm trying to post some photos and the blog software wants them to be at the top of the page. Not sure how to adjust that.