On Saturday night, and again on Sunday night during the Oscars, Liftoff Boy started thumping me with some pretty impressive strength. It felt just like someone touching my abdomen from the outside, poking it with a finger or something. When I put my hand down, I could feel the poking. He mostly has been doing it at night, but last night I couldn't feel much of anything and as of this morning, I've begun to fret. Now, yesterday during the day I felt movement from time to time, just not the feelable pokiness. But I miss the feelable pokiness. It's cool. And now I find myself puting my hands on my belly and moving it a bit, trying to wake him up so he'll play.
I need to stop worrying. He is very small and I'll only feel the pokiness if he decides to kick or push particular spots. He could be giving himself a very elaborate face rub or be doing jungle gym stuff with the umbilical cord and I wouldn't know. But I'd like him to move so I can feel him again. I'm only 22 1/2 weeks and a lot of women feel nothing at all at this point... But come on, Kiddo. Show me what you're up to.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Of routines and other things
A good friend of mine who writes a blog wrote a post about routine, which I read this morning. She's doing the stay-at-home-mom thing and planning to homeschool and is working hard to create a safe haven of domesticity for her son. I read her blog entry and felt pulled into the general coziness of it, but also felt myself screaming "No no no no!" on the inside.
I am not really a routine-based person. My mother is, and it was one of the things that made me most unhappy as a little ENFP child (raised by an ISTJ - you do the...math?). She was about realism and established routine - the bathroom gets cleaned on certain days, certain days are for laundry... I remember not feeling secure because of it, but limited. As I got older it became a goal to break routine. Could I get her out of the house and make her miss her bathroom cleaning? Hmmm....
My work as a professor means that I do have a routine...that lasts 15 weeks. And then it changes to something else. Some semesters I wake early, others I wake late. Sometimes Liftoff Guy and I can carpool to work, some semesters we can't. I can handle the routines because I know they won't last. They'll change eventually into the big open opportunity of winter break or summer vacation, from solid back into liquid. If I find myself establishing a routine at home, I'll break it on purpose. In the mornings I weigh the cat, give the cat her medicine and make coffee. But sometimes I'll make the coffee first and do the next bit while it's brewing. Sometimes I'll weigh her and then give her the medicine and THEN get the coffee going. If I put the water in the coffee maker too many times in a row and save the grinding for afterward, I'll find myself mixing that up. I try to change things all the time.
This means that it's going to be tricky when Liftoff Boy arrives. Babies are supposed to love routine, thrive on it. Well, routine tends to make Mommy miserable, so there will have to be some compromises. I think LG is less routiney than he could be. Maybe we'll have a flexible little boy who enjoys mixing things up and not knowing what comes next.
Despite this, I do feel warm and domesticated here. We usually eat dinner together and sometimes lunch. Last night LG ordered pizza and we settled in with that and watched a video about the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" that sent 1930s Americans into a total panic. Then he went to read the paper while I watched a favorite guilty pleasure, Zoolander.
As for Liftoff Boy, I began working on a baby registry yesterday and have been reading lots about the colic and the "fourth trimester". Since motion seems to be so important I began thinking about the baby carrier by a famous maker that we got on a famous auction site, but also about mechanized sleeping things that move babies around. I found moving sleeping things on the registry site and then lo and behold, the next section of the book I'm reading was about them too. In a positive way. LB is going to get lots of love, but he's also going to have some interesting techy experiences, from mechanical sleeping arrangements (if he's colicky) to pumped milk. I suppose infant care is going to be very routine based, but I'm sure I can mix it up to some extent... I'll figure out how at the time.
I am not really a routine-based person. My mother is, and it was one of the things that made me most unhappy as a little ENFP child (raised by an ISTJ - you do the...math?). She was about realism and established routine - the bathroom gets cleaned on certain days, certain days are for laundry... I remember not feeling secure because of it, but limited. As I got older it became a goal to break routine. Could I get her out of the house and make her miss her bathroom cleaning? Hmmm....
My work as a professor means that I do have a routine...that lasts 15 weeks. And then it changes to something else. Some semesters I wake early, others I wake late. Sometimes Liftoff Guy and I can carpool to work, some semesters we can't. I can handle the routines because I know they won't last. They'll change eventually into the big open opportunity of winter break or summer vacation, from solid back into liquid. If I find myself establishing a routine at home, I'll break it on purpose. In the mornings I weigh the cat, give the cat her medicine and make coffee. But sometimes I'll make the coffee first and do the next bit while it's brewing. Sometimes I'll weigh her and then give her the medicine and THEN get the coffee going. If I put the water in the coffee maker too many times in a row and save the grinding for afterward, I'll find myself mixing that up. I try to change things all the time.
This means that it's going to be tricky when Liftoff Boy arrives. Babies are supposed to love routine, thrive on it. Well, routine tends to make Mommy miserable, so there will have to be some compromises. I think LG is less routiney than he could be. Maybe we'll have a flexible little boy who enjoys mixing things up and not knowing what comes next.
Despite this, I do feel warm and domesticated here. We usually eat dinner together and sometimes lunch. Last night LG ordered pizza and we settled in with that and watched a video about the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" that sent 1930s Americans into a total panic. Then he went to read the paper while I watched a favorite guilty pleasure, Zoolander.
As for Liftoff Boy, I began working on a baby registry yesterday and have been reading lots about the colic and the "fourth trimester". Since motion seems to be so important I began thinking about the baby carrier by a famous maker that we got on a famous auction site, but also about mechanized sleeping things that move babies around. I found moving sleeping things on the registry site and then lo and behold, the next section of the book I'm reading was about them too. In a positive way. LB is going to get lots of love, but he's also going to have some interesting techy experiences, from mechanical sleeping arrangements (if he's colicky) to pumped milk. I suppose infant care is going to be very routine based, but I'm sure I can mix it up to some extent... I'll figure out how at the time.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
little anxieties
I've had two nights sleeping without any kind of cold medication - and last night I woke up at 1:30am in full drool all over my pillow and my blanket. Yuck! And after attending a senior capstone class and discussing sex and archaeology for three hours then coming home and watching election results, I found that my dreams were full of students and debate and drama.
Bad dream about Liftoff Guy writing to the physics department in an e-mail about how anthropology was useless as a discipline and then spending too much time with another one of the lab instructors (female). In the dream LG was a lot like Evil Ex, just really mean. Evil Ex was someone I was in a very long term relationship with, but who ended up cheating and being emotionally abusive while I held on out of a misguided sense of loyalty I had picked up from my mom. I had to hide most of the bad stuff from friends and family and it was really traumatic so sometimes those feelings will rear up in dreams...
Weather here is bad and dangerous again. It's sunny, but very very cold and the roads are icy and they keep showing horrible traffic on tv. Scary stuff. I'm worried about getting out of here.
Finally, I've begun reading about colic, even though Liftoff Boy won't be emerging for another 4 months or so. And this is making me anxious. Maybe he won't be colicky - but I want to be prepared and be able to handle it if he is. I'm borrowing worries again...
Bad dream about Liftoff Guy writing to the physics department in an e-mail about how anthropology was useless as a discipline and then spending too much time with another one of the lab instructors (female). In the dream LG was a lot like Evil Ex, just really mean. Evil Ex was someone I was in a very long term relationship with, but who ended up cheating and being emotionally abusive while I held on out of a misguided sense of loyalty I had picked up from my mom. I had to hide most of the bad stuff from friends and family and it was really traumatic so sometimes those feelings will rear up in dreams...
Weather here is bad and dangerous again. It's sunny, but very very cold and the roads are icy and they keep showing horrible traffic on tv. Scary stuff. I'm worried about getting out of here.
Finally, I've begun reading about colic, even though Liftoff Boy won't be emerging for another 4 months or so. And this is making me anxious. Maybe he won't be colicky - but I want to be prepared and be able to handle it if he is. I'm borrowing worries again...
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Little Update, Down and Up...
Things have calmed down somewhat. I was on Jeopardy! last year - my episode was filmed in March and it aired in June. I came in second place by missing the Final Jeopardy question... it still makes me slightly sad, although the experience was fun. I should have won, though, dammit! Anyway, they played the repeat of the episode tonight, which I wasn't expecting. I still lost. At least I got my two Daily Doubles right... So I did respectably.
In BETTER news, we found out about Liftoff Kid! He is officially Liftoff Boy! In my group of friends it seems like everyone has a boy...so now me too! We're excited and it makes the pregnancy so much more real to know the baby's sex and be able to use his name. This is cool.
In BETTER news, we found out about Liftoff Kid! He is officially Liftoff Boy! In my group of friends it seems like everyone has a boy...so now me too! We're excited and it makes the pregnancy so much more real to know the baby's sex and be able to use his name. This is cool.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Surviving.
Well, Dad got through the weekend okay and is feeling better, despite leaving the hospital in a rage on Thursday night, driving home in the dark (which isn't legally allowed based on his driver's license), and only realizing the next day that he left with the IV needle and some attached stuff hanging out of his arm. Yikes. But he's on meds and feeling better, so this is good.
Liftoff Guy and I continue to be sick but are finishing our antibiotics. Our joint religion/science academic presentation thingie on Saturday was cool and went well even though there were some fundie types in the audience that were sort of scary.
The weather has been scary too.
Today is U-Day. The Big Ultrasound. Today, baby permitting, we find out if this is Liftoff Girl or Liftoff Boy who's been acting so quiet and then takes a few moments to kick the heck out of mom before settling back down. Weird feeling yesterday while I was sitting, waiting in the car for LG to to to the post office. All of a sudden a bam bam bam. Bam bam bam bam. Bam bam! In my lower pelvis. It sort of hurts, I mean, not horribly, but still. I still can't feel anything if I put my hand on my tummy though.
I don't want to be nervous about the ultrasound, but I bet I am. I'm also annoyed that I haven't been able to really exercise lately because of being sick, then being sick again, and then being sick now. So I don't know what things like my blood pressure are going to be like.... Especially when I'm worried about whether they'll spot anything unusual or abnormal or we won't find out the baby's sex.
I'll update.
Liftoff Guy and I continue to be sick but are finishing our antibiotics. Our joint religion/science academic presentation thingie on Saturday was cool and went well even though there were some fundie types in the audience that were sort of scary.
The weather has been scary too.
Today is U-Day. The Big Ultrasound. Today, baby permitting, we find out if this is Liftoff Girl or Liftoff Boy who's been acting so quiet and then takes a few moments to kick the heck out of mom before settling back down. Weird feeling yesterday while I was sitting, waiting in the car for LG to to to the post office. All of a sudden a bam bam bam. Bam bam bam bam. Bam bam! In my lower pelvis. It sort of hurts, I mean, not horribly, but still. I still can't feel anything if I put my hand on my tummy though.
I don't want to be nervous about the ultrasound, but I bet I am. I'm also annoyed that I haven't been able to really exercise lately because of being sick, then being sick again, and then being sick now. So I don't know what things like my blood pressure are going to be like.... Especially when I'm worried about whether they'll spot anything unusual or abnormal or we won't find out the baby's sex.
I'll update.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Not my favorite day....
Today has been a bit strange.
It started off interestingly...I woke up having dreamed about what "really" happened in the Garden of Eden. In my dream, God created Adam and Eve as a diversion. They were basically toys and they weren't "real". When the snake (Satan) got them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was playing a trick against God. This made them "real," not toys, and God was responsible for their souls after this. He didn't want to be. It was like having a set of Legos and then something happens and they come to life and you're responsible for feeding them, giving them shelter, etc. And they don't really die! In the dream it was clear that this "realness" was passed down to all of humanity, so God was tricked into this huge responsibility that he never really planned. And as I was waking up, it made it a bit clearer that inefficiencies in the human body existed because we were never meant to last - we were just playthings that came to life.
Weirdness. I woke up feeling like I'd been told something very significant. This is what I get for teaching the Gnostic gospels to class on Monday.
Today I felt sicker. I ran around getting medicine for Liftoff Cat and because of residual snow it took much longer than I planned and I ended up having to reschedule my physical therapy appointment. I called the doctor on the drive home (well, the nurse), described my symptoms today and they got me on another prescription for antibiotics because I seem to be getting another sinus infection. Liftoff Guy is still sick - I think he has bronchitis.
This afternoon was working on stuff for work, and the evening was dinner with a job candidate. Things were hunky-dory until my drive home when my brother called. Apparently Dad, who also had a lot of chest congestion, had a doctor's appointment today and his doc decided he probably had pneumonia and had him go to the emergency room. Dad went there just as my brother called him and didn't properly hang up his cell phone. This meant my brother listened to Dad getting a Tylenol for his fever and an IV put in... But when I called the hospital they said he hadn't been admitted and was still in the emergency room. Right now I don't know what's going on.
But today has been too much. I hope Dad's okay.
It started off interestingly...I woke up having dreamed about what "really" happened in the Garden of Eden. In my dream, God created Adam and Eve as a diversion. They were basically toys and they weren't "real". When the snake (Satan) got them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was playing a trick against God. This made them "real," not toys, and God was responsible for their souls after this. He didn't want to be. It was like having a set of Legos and then something happens and they come to life and you're responsible for feeding them, giving them shelter, etc. And they don't really die! In the dream it was clear that this "realness" was passed down to all of humanity, so God was tricked into this huge responsibility that he never really planned. And as I was waking up, it made it a bit clearer that inefficiencies in the human body existed because we were never meant to last - we were just playthings that came to life.
Weirdness. I woke up feeling like I'd been told something very significant. This is what I get for teaching the Gnostic gospels to class on Monday.
Today I felt sicker. I ran around getting medicine for Liftoff Cat and because of residual snow it took much longer than I planned and I ended up having to reschedule my physical therapy appointment. I called the doctor on the drive home (well, the nurse), described my symptoms today and they got me on another prescription for antibiotics because I seem to be getting another sinus infection. Liftoff Guy is still sick - I think he has bronchitis.
This afternoon was working on stuff for work, and the evening was dinner with a job candidate. Things were hunky-dory until my drive home when my brother called. Apparently Dad, who also had a lot of chest congestion, had a doctor's appointment today and his doc decided he probably had pneumonia and had him go to the emergency room. Dad went there just as my brother called him and didn't properly hang up his cell phone. This meant my brother listened to Dad getting a Tylenol for his fever and an IV put in... But when I called the hospital they said he hadn't been admitted and was still in the emergency room. Right now I don't know what's going on.
But today has been too much. I hope Dad's okay.
Blech
I am a disgusting ball of immune responses. I have my third bad cold since getting pregnant (had a stomach virus too, just for variety), and this one I got from Liftoff Guy. Thanks, LG! He sounds like he has bronchitis but I'm hoping to avoid that myself.
Yesterday we had horrible snow, very heavy, that lasted all day. It wasn't so bad in the morning, but I felt terrible and when I looked at the forecast and contemplated getting to work, feeling really ill, then having to negotiate 9 or so inches of snow in order to get home, all I could think was, "It's a trap!" So I wimped out and canceled classes. LG headed out anyway but his afternoon lab was canceled too when they decided to shut down campus at 4pm. He said I was "wise" not to go in... but this means I have to go in today to finish a report. The good news is that there's no snow today.
So - head to the vet and pharmacy today for meds for Liftoff Cat, go to physical therapy, drive out to campus and do that report, drive to a downtown hotel to pick up a job candidate for our department, take her to the local tapas restaurant with a couple of other faculty members and....go home and sleep?
Right now watching "A Baby Story" and then into the shower. But still so sick... Bleh.
Yesterday we had horrible snow, very heavy, that lasted all day. It wasn't so bad in the morning, but I felt terrible and when I looked at the forecast and contemplated getting to work, feeling really ill, then having to negotiate 9 or so inches of snow in order to get home, all I could think was, "It's a trap!" So I wimped out and canceled classes. LG headed out anyway but his afternoon lab was canceled too when they decided to shut down campus at 4pm. He said I was "wise" not to go in... but this means I have to go in today to finish a report. The good news is that there's no snow today.
So - head to the vet and pharmacy today for meds for Liftoff Cat, go to physical therapy, drive out to campus and do that report, drive to a downtown hotel to pick up a job candidate for our department, take her to the local tapas restaurant with a couple of other faculty members and....go home and sleep?
Right now watching "A Baby Story" and then into the shower. But still so sick... Bleh.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Hmmm....
My Liberal Identity:
You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.
Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com
The Adventures Continue....
Liftoff Guy and I woke up this morning to the sound of a high-pitched screech. After some fumbling around looking at our alarm clocks and being confused why they'd make such a sound, we were able to pinpoint it to our carbon monoxide alarm. Oh joy.
This led to me throwing Liftoff Cat out into the cold rain and throwing some windows open, while LG tried to get me to close the windows to see if the alarm would sound again. So we closed the windows and waited and as soon as the furnace went on again, so did the alarm. This time, I insisted on keeping the windows open and we shut down the furnace. LG called a furnace repair company and we were both very happy to have our little gas-powered mini-fireplace in the living room to provide heat without turning on the furnace.
The furnace guy is here now doing a furnace inspection. He tested our levels with his level-testing thingie and they were about 27 with the furnace running. This number is within safe limits, but problematic because it's not clear where it's coming from. What's also surprising is that wall unit alarms usually don't go off unless the level is 50-70. So we don't know if the level was higher than that or if we have a particularly sensitive alarm or what. But it's no fun with a 6 pound cat in the house and a half-pound baby in utero. Hopefully we'll be able to get this taken care of quickly.
This led to me throwing Liftoff Cat out into the cold rain and throwing some windows open, while LG tried to get me to close the windows to see if the alarm would sound again. So we closed the windows and waited and as soon as the furnace went on again, so did the alarm. This time, I insisted on keeping the windows open and we shut down the furnace. LG called a furnace repair company and we were both very happy to have our little gas-powered mini-fireplace in the living room to provide heat without turning on the furnace.
The furnace guy is here now doing a furnace inspection. He tested our levels with his level-testing thingie and they were about 27 with the furnace running. This number is within safe limits, but problematic because it's not clear where it's coming from. What's also surprising is that wall unit alarms usually don't go off unless the level is 50-70. So we don't know if the level was higher than that or if we have a particularly sensitive alarm or what. But it's no fun with a 6 pound cat in the house and a half-pound baby in utero. Hopefully we'll be able to get this taken care of quickly.
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