Category Archives: A Laugh At My Expense

Maternity Monday- 26 Weeks

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Well hello, 26 weeks.  We finally meet.  This is the last week of my second trimester, and from what I’ve been told, 3rd trimester reverts back to feeling a lot like I did in first, but with a bigger belly and more nesting.  So I’m going to enjoy these last 6 days of “second trimester glory” while they last.

To honor the end of second trimester, I actually let someone take a picture of me and my belly.  I’ve been getting a lot of questions (mostly filtered by Angel from his family) about the presence of photos, to which I always responded that I don’t feel real cute and don’t need photographic evidence to remember that.  Well, today I guess I thought I looked cute, so I had hubby take a picture of me after I was ready for work:

Hubby doesn’t know how to count to 3 before snapping but I have to take the good with the bad.  For some reason this morning, my phone wasn’t appreciating the “focus” feature, but whatever.  It’s big.  I think that comes across.

Mini Me is almost 2 pounds now.  I think I should celebrate this milestone with a two-pound box of chocolates.  You know, in order to really get a good visual.  And those flutters and sweet movements that I was feeling before?  Yeah, those now feel like a rabid mongoose flipping out inside of a burlap sack (if I knew what that really felt like).  In the last few weeks he has fully developed all 5 of his senses like a goddamn GENIUS child, and books now say that I have gained 16-22 pounds if I’ve been following a “nutritious and sensible diet plan.”  Bite me, books.  Little Man is perfecting his breathing with some nasty amniotic fluid but that will help him when he takes his first breath of air, so awwww.  You breath that fluid in and out and swim around while you still have the “room.”

My baby at 26 weeks

I think in the last few weeks I’ve come as close to loving pregnancy as I’m ever going to get.  I’ve started nesting, nagging Angel to finish up painting the room, and went Danny Tanner on my kitchen.  I have the cleanest kitchen in the state.  Seriously, I scrubbed the inside of my fridge like my life depended on it because for some reason I couldn’t relax my mind knowing that there was possibly a bottle of salad dressing that expired last week!  I’m also loving the way that I look in maternity outfits (finally) because I have enough of a belly to make them look the way that they are supposed to.  So I look good, and I feel good, and I’m ready to quit while I’m ahead. I don’t mean that, Little Man.  Stay in there as long as you need to.

And sleep!  Oh my God, the sleep!  I missed sleeping!  I’m back to going to sleep early, waking up at a reasonable hour, sleeping through the night (less bathroom breaks at 1 and 4 exactly- which is odd), no crazy baby dreams, no anxiety.  Just me and my sleep.

This must be the amazingness that everyone speaks of second trimester.  I’ll do my best not to feel cheated that I didn’t get this feeling until the second trimester was ending.

Let’s check in with how my adorable husband is handling me rounding the bases home:

  • Sympathy cravings- sausage? really?
  • Nesting
  • Loss of sleep due to crazy baby dreams

I usually forward him my “your baby is 26 weeks!” emails on Monday mornings and at about 9am this morning he was asking me where it was.  So I’ll throw “baby anxiety” onto the end of the list for completeness:

  • Anxiety

It appears that I’ve lost all of these symptoms, and the poor guy’s gotten them!  This proves that it really is a team effort.  So other than feeling like a total Goddess, my week has been pretty dull.  I would talk about my new baby rocker, but that’s going to require a post all of its own (Coming to a blog near you).

Nesting

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Rivas, Christina S 1:40 PM
do we have a flashlight?
Rivas, Angel D 1:40 PM
i don’t think so
why?
Rivas, Christina S 1:41 PM
just wondering in case the power goes out from these storms
Rivas, Angel D 1:41 PM
ohhh
we have candles
Rivas, Christina S 1:41 PM
well, you’re not supposed to use candles because of the fire risk
and we only have the two
maybe I’ll see if I can find a cheap one on amazon in case we need it
I don’t want to be fumbling in the dark for a baby
seriously, this nesting/maternal instinct thing is really weird
I have no idea why I have a sudden urge to plan for a blackout
Enter: 2 Mag Light flashlights.  They’ll be here in 2 days

Maternity Monday- A Lesson In Knowing When To Stop

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24 weeks!  Finally!  Not sure what the significance of 24 weeks is, but whatever, I’m there! Yay me!

My baby is 12.5 inches, which is about the size of a foot long submarine sandwich loaded with extra olives- mmmm (though has already costed a touch more than one), and is over a pound. I haven’t felt as tired lately because I’ve been way into the Olympics.  After the first week of events I’ve decided that we need to figure out a way to get a tiny treadmill up there for Baby Rivas to start practicing so that I can be the mom crying in the stands instead of the soon-to-be-mom crying over P&G commercials on her couch.

Speaking of movement, little guy must be running out of room to kick me unnoticed because last night was the first night that I woke up due to Mini Me movement.  It was adorable and endearing and all of that… for the first 30 minutes.  If his ears are developed enough to hear me then he is already learning how to defy his parents wishes.  Isn’t that sweet?  So now I imagine my Baby Rivas looks something like a Tarsier:

Tarsier- a big-eyed, hairy, nocturnal mammal who clings to things like trees and bushes

This is probably why my doctor hasn’t recommended any ultra sounds after 20 weeks, especially in 3D.  It would just make my imagination worse.

I’m also getting comfortable with all of these odd pains and symptoms that I’ve been feeling and what’s causing them:

  • Sharp pain in my lower abdomen: my baby somehow got a hold of a spork
  • Burning in my throat: baby doesn’t like what I ate
  • Pain in my tunny: baby did like what I ate

I was told “everything in moderation” and got a lesson in when to stop this weekend.  Angel was awarded the Husband of the Year Award when he indulged my taste in rockers for the nursery at La-Z-Boy, was a silent shopping partner on hanger holding detail at Motherhood Maternity in the mall, and then took me to In-n-Out for lunch because burgers sounded good to me.  This is about the time that I decided to quit while I was ahead and stop asking for things because he apparently forgot what the word “no” means and I didn’t want to remind him.  I also gave him a big kiss and control of the remote for the evening for letting Momma get what Momma wanted all afternoon.  Love this guy!

Attack of the Bed Pillows

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My adorable husband has been having trouble waking up in the morning with neck and back pain.  But I haven’t had anything 31 years old that hasn’t broken yet so it’s to be expected.  He went to the chiropractor who cracked his back, told him to get a shaped bed pillow, and sent him on his way.

So he traded his two king sized pillows in for one small shaped pillow to support his neck.

Now, you remember me telling you about how I now sleep with a pregnancy pillow that’s the size of a Backstreet Boy?  Now we have that, 2 king sized pillows, one neck pillow, and a feather pillow.  I woke up in the middle of the night with one pillow on top of me, one wrapped around me, the dog sleeping on one, Angel hugging one, and the smallest neck pillow the only one being put to proper use.

My bed has completely been taken over by the Pillow Apocalypse and it must be stopped.

Week 18

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Aaaaand I’m back to being nearly a week behind.  Whatever, deal with it just like I have to deal with the fact that I’m in constant search for the bathroom….

Our baby is 18 weeks old (give or take Bad Mommy’s lack of counting exactly), the size of the baked potato that I’m about to inhale for lunch, and can hear what I’m saying now.  “You stop kicking and let Mommy eat or so help me God I’m coming in there!”  While we’re on the topic of movement, let’s discuss how adorably annoying this is.  They are getting less “I think the baby just moved” and more “I was totally just kicked or punched” and “Awww, baby is rolling over!”  It’s a crazy sense of relief when the baby is moving and fist-pumping his way to freedom because it reminds me that the little munchkin is still there and breathing amniotic fluid like a champ.  While we were laying down watching TV the other night, the baby started to move and I told Angel to put his hand on my belly and see if he can feel it (I’ve felt it outside myself only twice).  I asked him a few times “did you feel that?!” but alass, he hadn’t.  I thought he started pushing on my tummy to see if it would help but instead he was like “I felt that one!!” with a big, adorable smile on his face.  So apparently he wasn’t pushing, the baby was just coming to saying “hi” to Daddy.

I’m also hungry.  But not until I start to eat.  It’s weird.  I’m not hungry at all, I get food in front of my face, and all of a sudden you don’t want to be the thing standing between a starving pregnant lady and her lunch (or you will be destroyed).

The pregnancy pillow is still the greatest thing EVER.  While very comfortable, trying to roll over with this sucker is a giant exercise in AWKWARD.  Molly has also decided that she likes it as well because now she can sleep up against it and not get kicked or rolled over onto in the middle of the night.  She has no enjoyment of risky sleeping, apparently.

We find out on Tuesday if I’m busy baking a boy or a girl.  Angel and I have always been in agreement on the “find out the sex” front because truth be told, we’re either surprised at 19 weeks, or at 40.  I am still convinced that it’s going to be a boy, but more and more of a feeling now that I’m in for a huge surprise come Tuesday.  Or maybe this baby will be modest and we won’t have a choice but to wait until 40 weeks?  There’s no real wrong answer here, provided that everything is healthy and fine and this little boy or girl stays put until he or she is fully cooked, amen.

I Just Want Sleep!

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It appears that we’ve been plagued with early morning faulty electronic activity.  First there was the alarm-event-heard-around-the-world, and then this morning there was the fire-alarm-heard-around-the-house.  The smoke detector (which, when asleep with the bedroom door closed sounds very much like the house alarm) started going off.  Naturally, our dog starts shaking and crawling on top of me to hide, while Angel and I curse the alarm for waking us up and debate who the unlucky one is going to be to get up in the cold and go address the situation.

I lost.

Our smoke detectors are all wired together, so when one starts beeping THEY ALL START BEEPING.  It’s really wonderful in a really annoying way.  I identify the rogue device, remove the battery, put the alarm back on the ceiling, and go back to bed.  30 seconds of silence later, our detector has decide it’s not done talking to us.

Long story short we have COMPLETELY uninstalled and dismantled the smoke detector and it’s STILL GOING OFF.  Why do alarms insist on going off in our house in the middle of the night?  We are very unfriendly folks when woken up

Car-nage

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Have you ever had one of those days that the second you leave the house, you become aware that it was probably a bad idea?

This happened to me while merging onto the highway (and checking my blind spot like an appropriately safe driver, may I add):

Damn you, rocks!

By the time I pulled into work, the crack had already grown to an inch in size, and I expect the afternoon sun to take care of the rest.  Right after this happened, I opened my Frappuccino bottle (because I’m getting good about stopping at Starbucks and am instead buying it for cheaper at Costco) while I hit a bump and am now wearing my beloved Frappuccino… but that’s okay because coffee is the new black.  I also have Frappuccino all over my seat, steering wheel, and floor mats.  Bucket seats are exactly that, folks!

Le sigh.

This is why we have high quality front loading washers and a Tide theft problem.  Clearly everyone else spills coffee on themselves on their way to honest paying jobs, because there’s no other logical excuse for stealing Tide.

I really just wish Tide thiefs would come clean.

Diary of 7 Comp Days From Work

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Day 1

Sorry I didn’t actually update my blog regarding my time off to do nothing.  I was busy…. doing nothing.  I woke up late, read an entire book between naps, cuddled with Molly, and watched a few movies on HBO.  I accomplished nothing, I did no house work, I didn’t shower or change out of sweat pants, and it was everything I thought it could be.  I tried to make coffee in the morning, but we didn’t have coffee beans and I was too damn lazy to go to the store to get some- so I went back to bed instead.

 

Day 2

The no alarm thing is really easy to get used to.  I woke up at 10 and felt like a teenager sleeping through the day.  I sat out in the sun of the backyard with the dog for 30 minutes, caught up on my trashy TV, finally showered so I could take the dog to the groomer and to the mall to get soap from Bath and Body Works, and then came home to finish doing nothing before Angel and I went to go to our Boot Camp workout class.  And then we ate the fridge out of leftovers because I’m still on this kick of doing nothing (which has no end in sight).

My ass is starting to form in the shape of the couch.  I’m so proud.

Tomorrow Angel’s taking the day off, too.  He’s either jealous of my and Molly’s laziness, or….?  No, he’s jealous.  We were thinking about going skiing, but they haven’t gotten any snow in the last week and we decided that we didn’t want to drive and leave the dog alone since she’s still a little sick.  So instead, we’re now thinking we’ll take the dog for a walk down to the shopping center for lunch.  Assuming, of course, that I wake up before lunch.

This not working thing is way too early to get used to.  I’m worried that I’m not going to want to go back to work on Tuesday- even though it’s just for the day (I have Wednesday off).  Quarter life crisis in full run.

A Lesson In Foreceful Cooperation

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Let me start by saying that I have faith in the judicial system.

 

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, allow me to take a moment to openly bitch about the way they treat victims.  I got subpoenaed on Saturday to testify against the 2 ass holes who broke into my house.  Court date is in 2 weeks, and it states rather largely and very clearly that a warrant will be issued for my arrest if I don’t show.  Annoying, but free day off of work. I get it.  I’m not going to fight.

 

So I call the attorney this morning to ask what I’m going to have to do when I’m there and voice my concerns over these documented gang members knowing who I am when I testify against them.  You know what I’m told?  I’m told that I don’t have a choice and I do have to show up, or I will be arrested but I’m allowed to “voice my concerns.”  So then I ask, “what does voicing my concerns get me if I clearly don’t have a choice?”  And then I’m given a lecture about cooperating while I slam my head against the wall for 30 minutes.

 

They gave me many options:  I testify and let the documented gang members know who I am and what I look like, or I get arrested for not cooperating.  This is what my tax dollars are buying me.