Stepping back. Or to the side. I’m not sure.

A friend of mine posed a question on Facebook recently: When was the last time you got annoyed with anyone that wasn’t because of something they said on Facebook? I’m paraphrasing awfully. Her question was much more eloquent. But it rang true for me. I get SO ANNOYED by people I usually treasure by things they share, post, or do on Facebook. These things are starting to define these people for me, and who knows how many people think less of me from the BS I post on a daily basis (for the record, mostly Henry pics). But still! I got into a heated exchange with a girl that I have known since 2000, an ex college roommate. I love this girl and think the world of her. Then I post an article she doesn’t agree with, she kinda attacks the article, I attack her, and now a bitter taste is left in my mouth even though we hugged it out. Over what? A Facebook post? Ridiculous.

On a larger scale, I’ve had to hide the feeds of people I care about because everything EVERYTHING they post makes me roll my eyes. It isn’t their fault, it’s mine and my weird hang ups on different topics. In real life if these topics come up, we can discuss them, laugh about them, move on. On social media, it sits there and stares at you all day until more crap pushes it off your page. A cycle of never-ending stupid. I’ve lost friendships over misunderstandings on Facebook. Real, long-standing friendships. They see a picture and jump to wild conclusions and delete me and never talk to me again. Yes, this happened. So I’m taking a break. I doubt anyone will even notice, unless they read it here or wonder where their daily Henry pic has gone. And those who do notice will text me and we’ll talk and then I will re-activate it soon, and most will be none the wiser. Either way, I’m backing way off. Maybe I’ll have more time for blogging. Wouldn’t you be so lucky.

 

 

33

Today is my 33rd birthday. I still can’t believe it. I was thinking last night about how 17 years ago, I was 16 (seems like yesterday, really) and 17 years from now, I’ll be 50. What the what?! I’d say that I hope the next 17 years go by slower than the last, but we all know that’s not how it works.

Anyway, I had a GREAT day. Slept in a little, Henry wasn’t in teething pain and spent most of the day dancing and sleeping. After his morning nap, I snuck out and went shopping BY MYSELF. My dad sent me a very generous visa gift card. I spent most of it on the baby/things we need. I know, I know. My mom did the same, and I’m saving that for a pedicure and something else just for me next week. I also received some nice gifts from friends, which was a total surprise.

Tonight, my mother made me a great meal and cake from scratch. She broke out the real cloth napkins. And had proper place settings. The tv wasn’t even on. Lights were dimmed. Ambiance was very calm. Guys. That’s a big deal in our house. It meant a lot, all of that effort to make me feel special. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it forever. I’m a lucky girl.

I like how she even set out Henry’s own iced tea (his favorite beverage)

Blurry photo of Henry eating cake. Like I said, lights were dimmed.

Also, today was a huge day for my very dear friend Natalie, who has overcome so much in the past few years, only to close on her own house today. HER house. No one else did it but her and I’m very proud. What an accomplishment. Really. Also she will now live 5 minutes away from me so that’s also cool. I’m so excited for her!

Alright. Dexter and bed. Goodnight!

Quickie

Sorry for the absence. Dexter isn’t going to watch itself. Here are some random thoughts I’m having tonight:

1) People who don’t have a sense of humor annoy me. Lighten up, folks. No one takes you as seriously as you take yourself. Promise.

2) I saw a documentary about Bronies last night. So this morning, I decided to check out this My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to see what the hoopla was about. It’s super cute but I’m not a Pegasister yet. However, my 13 month old son was totally into it. Baby Brony? Maybe.

3) Good things are on the horizon. Please keep sending those prayers, positivity, rainbow sparkles, whatever. It works!

4) Cute video of Henry practicing good self-esteem skills.

I’ll type up something more substantial later this week. We are almost through with season 6, so I’ll have lots of spare time soon. Unless anyone has any good Netflix recommendations?

All I wanna do is sleep and eat cereal.

I had the day off Friday. I slept almost the entire day. I got up around 5 and got ready for dinner with some friends. So that’s that.

Saturday, I woke up early and had a TON of energy! I had so much energy that I was worried it was a sign of impending labor. I’m at almost 36 weeks, and I want this kid to cook as long as he can (without going over, please). We checked off so much from our to-do list yesterday, including the big things like pre-registering at the hospital and getting Chris the flu shot. Next up, he’s gotta get the DTAP shot. That one’s a little more painful.

Piece of cake.

We also test drove some recliners at La-Z-Boy, checked out some new glasses for me (since contacts will be impractical for a while), and did a full grocery shopping trip. For me lately, this is crazy busy. By the time we got home, not only was I exhausted, but my feet and legs were killing me. I am very thankful for a husband that rubs my feet. VERY.

My fears about getting a burst of energy before labor may be wrong because today? More sleeping. Then a bath. Then dinner. Then lots of laundry (including all of Henry’s baby clothes). And now blogging and not doing other things I should/meant to do today. I’ll probably go to bed early. I’m exhausted again.

I’m still monitoring my blood sugar and everything is still normal. It’s actually kinda interesting seeing what does and doesn’t make my blood sugar levels spike. Like tortillas and veggie chicken patties make it go way up. Pizza and liquid creamer does nothing. After 5 days of doing this, I weighed myself and I’ve lost 3 pounds. Maybe I’ll keep it up even after the baby is born. It’s basically high protein and counting carbs and sugar. I haven’t even glanced at the calories or fat on things for a change, so it’s not so bad. But honestly, I’d kill someone for a bowl of cereal right now, so it’s not easy either.

No pie for Thanksgiving, but I was given the green light on cheesecake. Maybe I will make that an annual tradition from now on. I don’t need no pecan pie.

Mmmmmm…pecan pie.

My life lately…

…has consisted of me doing the following things:

1. Lots of doctor’s appointments. All is status quo. Baby is 5 lbs 12 oz now with 4 weeks to go. I’ve been monitoring my blood sugar and all is normal. The doctor is just being over cautious, which is…whatever. I am an exemplary patient. I do what they tell me to do.
2. I have an almost 6 pound baby directly on my bladder. We saw his face again on Tuesday. He’s pretty damn cute if I do say so myself.
3. Chris and I took a childbirth class. That was actually pretty interesting and I probably could have blogged about it. But. I didn’t. Sorry. Anyway, I learned a lot and so did Chris. He took a ton of notes and was really engaged. That made my heart pretty happy.
4. After the birth class, we did something social for a change and had dinner with some friends. They were so kind to grill us some steak and we spent hours just talking and laughing. That was nice since once Henry comes I’m sure our social life will be even more non-existent.
5. I finally had to fill out our birth plan. As of now, here’s where I stand: I am gonna go for all natural (like I’ve always wanted) but I’m signing the waiver form for an epidural in case I want one. And if things don’t work out how I want them to, then I’m not going to beat myself up over it (as long as baby is ok). The only thing I am adamantly against are analgesic pain killers.
6. I’m training my replacement at work, which makes the whole “I’m going to be a stay at home mom!!!” more and more real. My life is about to be unrecognizable, and I’m both excited and anxious.
7. I’ve gained a total of 20 pounds and I’m happy about that. My doctor thinks most of it is water weight since my legs and feet ARE HUGE. At my appointment yesterday, the doctor pulled up my pant leg to check out the swelling and audibly gasped. I wasn’t even offended. I was all, “Yeah, I know. It’s crazy, huh??” Let’s put it this way: I was wearing socks with monkeys on them (I’m 13 apparently) and the outlines of the monkeys were embedded onto my feet. And the top of the socks left a good 1″ dent in my ankles. Cankle town is no joke anymore. It’s  REALLLL.

I promise to be better about blogging soon. I’m just so exhausted lately. Last night, I laid down at around 8 pm and passed out cold. The other night, I fell asleep mid-sentence while talking to Chris and holding my iPad. I woke myself up a little while later by snorting really loudly and had drooled all over myself. Sexy.

Growing a kid takes a lot of a girl.

Can’t complain.

I have somewhere around 90 days to go until this baby comes, and my shoes are already giving me bruises. I’ve mentioned before that by Friday, my feet and ankles double in size. This week, I took off my slip on Chucks (aka, my most comfy shoes), and I had a big red welt on the top of each of my poor, fat feet. I took a picture for posterity, but I don’t think anyone really wants to see it. I’ll spare you.

Saturday, my husband and I ventured down south a bit to visit my brother and niece in Belen, NM. I spent my childhood summers down there and a lot of time as a college student doing laundry at my grandma’s house. The town really hasn’t changed much since. I did get a little sad when we drove past my grandma’s old house. The last home my grandma and grandpa purchased together, and the one he passed away in. I still remember every detail of that old home, and I get a little mad that other people live there now.

My brother Danny made us for real homemade spaghetti. Like, he rolled out pasta dough, used a Kitchen Aid attachment, and made spaghetti. He also made us homemade french bread, which my husband (the carb-o-holic) really appreciated. Both of my brothers are really good cooks, but that gene must have skipped me. I do alright when I really try, but they just have this natural knack for the culinary arts. Why they aren’t working in kitchens as executive chefs, I have no idea.

Chris took this picture. He also took the second loaf of bread home.

My niece Katy is 6 1/2 now and just as cute as can be. I love that age. She is so smart, imaginative, and sweet. I just really love hanging out with her.

I told her to smile and this was the face I got. When I giggled, she said, “What? I can’t show my teeth! They’re coming out!”

“And then, and then, and then…”

My bro’s freezer. “I’m not a big sweets person,” were words he lied.

I had the worst headache all day probably due to the lack of sleep the night before (what’s new?) So instead of celebrating our 2 year anniversary a few days early like planned, we went home and picked up Chinese take out and watched a movie on Netflix. I fell asleep early, only to wake up to watch Saturday Night Live (we never miss in this house). They did a Gangnam Style parody, which made me extremely happy. If you’ve yet to see the internet sensation known as Psy, behold it here on my blog. Turns out this guy went to Boston University at the same time my husband did. I like to pretend they were best friends and maybe one day they will reunite and then we’ll be best friends.

All in all, it was a pretty great day.

And the winner is…

…Chris. He wins an award for the Most Patient Man on the Planet Earth. This is how I know that one day he will win a Father of the Year award. I have to give him public props for how great he was this weekend in particular.

Friday night, I was feeling so bloated that even sitting on the couch was uncomfortable. Instead, I told Chris I was going to lay down in the bedroom. I had a little pity party of one for a few minutes because it was Friday night, and I was in bed at 7 pm. He surprised me by picking out a movie and cuddling with me. He wanted to spend Friday night with me, he said. It was a really sweet gesture since I know he’d probably prefer to play some PS3 and watch movies on our big living room TV instead of the tiny one in the bedroom.

He chose Willow because I’d never seen it. We had a great time watching 2/3 of it before we both passed out cold. It was the best Friday night I’d had in a long time.

The baby was the best actor in the movie. Such great reactions!

Saturday, we got up bright and early and went to the first showing of the The Campaign. I love anything Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, so I thought it was great. Afterwards, we were starving. I was at the stage in hunger where I was going to get real stabby if I didn’t eat immediately. So of course, we drove around FOR AN HOUR before deciding on where to eat. Chris was very patient and sweet even though I was a giant, evil beetch. It all ended in a very delicious cheeseburger from the Elephant Bar, so all was right with the world shortly thereafter. No one got stabbed. (He should have received a medal).

Today, the nesting kicked in again big time. What’s really strange is Chris has also started nesting. He’s been cleaning out the office/future baby room diligently every evening — getting rid of old DVDs and comics. Today, as I was cleaning this apartment from top to bottom, he was organizing our kitchen cabinets and scrubbing the appliances. I giggled to myself at the sight of it because if you knew my husband, you’d know just how out of character this behavior is. But I’m not going to complain. He can keep doing this forever, please.

When the house was sparkling and we finally sat down, he told me, “We make a great team.”

Yeah. I totally agree with that.

Kenny Loggins and other thoughts.

Things have been pretty uneventful around here, so here’s some stuff.

1) Watching Caddyshack tonight, Chris asked me at the beginning who sang the theme song. I told him Kenny Loggins. “Kenny Loggins?” he asked. “Yep,” I replied.  Five minutes later as the opening credits reveal it was indeed Kenny Loggins, I hear from the other room, “Katy! It’s Kenny Loggins!”

I’m alright…

2) By the way, I want to write a movie and have Kenny Loggins do the soundtrack. It baffles me that he doesn’t do more theme songs now.

Impressive.

3) I’m a little disappointed that I am not craving more things in this pregnancy. I’m also sad that I don’t have a ravenous appetite (like I usually do when I’m not pregnant). Mainly because I wanted to have an excuse finally for eating all of the time. I’m crazy, I know. I’ll shut up now.

I wish I could, Gene Wilder. I wish I could.

4) Baby H is kicking a lot harder these days. Chris can feel him too (so he says) so that’s cool. The good news is he doesn’t move much in the middle of the night. Maybe he’ll be on a good sleep cycle! At least that’s what people have told me. Probably not true. But, it helps me sleep better now, so it’s still a win in my book.

5) Now that the Olympics are over, we feel a little lost. We don’t even flip through the channels. The TV just stays on the Gordon Ramsay channel. I mean FOX.  For serious though, I love him, but how many shows does the man need? Four, I guess.

You donkey! 

Yep. That’s all I got.

Making room.

The nesting has begun. I thought these overwhelming urges to clean and organize came later on, but I am officially in nesting mode. We did a lot of cleaning today. Chris even SCRUBBED THE BATHTUB. I had to really emphasize that because he has never cleaned a bathtub in his life. It wasn’t that dirty, but for the past couple months, it’s been difficult for me to bend over (obviously), so it was too dirty for my liking. He did a great job, too. I couldn’t even find anything to criticize!

We live in a 2 bedroom apartment that we love. It’s overpriced and we considered moving for several months now, but we are spoiled and our apartment has everything that we need (want): refrigerated air (not crappy swamp coolers that a lot of homes here have); washer/dryer; dishwasher (we did not have this in LA and I hated my life); high ceilings; walk-in closets; good size but not too big for me to dread cleaning. The only thing it doesn’t have is a yard, which we really wanted for the Quincess. But all the houses we looked at renting that had all of the amenities our spoiled asses required were more than we pay for our very nice apartment. So, we’re staying. And, we’re not buying yet because we are not sure we’re staying in New Mexico for the long haul. (We also didn’t want to move while I was pregnant. Or, I didn’t want to move while I was pregnant.)

So anywho, the second bedroom right now is our guest room/office. We will be taking out the guest bed and putting in a crib and turning it into Baby H’s room. The baby will be chilling with us in our room for the first couple months with one of these things. But when he’s ready for the crib, I wanted to have something set up for him. He’ll just have a desk and a giant bookcase in there, but that’s ok, right? That will hopefully make him appreciate literature? Yeah. It will.

The mini co-sleeper: the best option for the mom who wants to co-sleep but is too terrified of squishing the baby.

I am not too big on buying a bunch of expensive baby furniture. So, we’re going to hit up garage sales and craigslist for a small dresser and refinish it ourselves. Then we’ll put a couple shelves on the walls for a little bit of decoration. Aaaand, that’s pretty much it. I am sure Baby H won’t complain.

I’ve already hung up his wardrobe in the master closet. We have a low hanging rack we’ve never used, so I bought some baby rack dividers, and started hanging them up. We still have a lot of organizing to do, but it will come together.

I’m glad I hung these up in our closet. It makes me so happy to see his little clothes when I go in there to get dressed, and it makes me feel like we’re already a little family.

We also dog sat my mom’s schnauzer, Benny, today while they went out of town. Here’s a cute picture of him. He’s got an intense stare that he can hold for minutes, I’m sure. It makes me laugh.

That’s Quincy’s tail in the foreground. She has to have more attention, ya know.

Colorado and goodbyes.

I was so excited to go out of town last week, even if it was for a night. Chris and I love travelling together and we always have a blast. It could be because we leave our mundane worries at home or it could just be we enjoy each others company. Either way, it’s awesome.

On Friday, we drove 200 miles to Durango, CO — one of my favorite places on planet Earth. That might seem like a long way to go for 24 hours, but honestly, we really enjoy the road trip part of it just as much as the destination. Northern New Mexico is gorgeous (and quirky), and we have fun having long conversations and laughing. We did not turn on the radio or play tunes from the iPhone. Nope. We just talked. Brilliant nuggets of convos such as: “Chris, these rocks could be petrified Dinosaur poop. I’m not a scientist, but it kind of looks like it.”

When we arrived in Durango, it was pouring rain. We didn’t care though. We pulled out my old pink Umbrella that I got at a Walgreens in San Francisco years ago. Chris held it for us. Another reason why I love him: he doesn’t give a s–t  about holding a pepto pink umbrella in broad daylight.

Downtown Durango is great. Lots of cool boutiques, restaurants, coffee shops…you get it. We stopped into the Old Tymer’s Cafe, which we later found out is co-owned by Christopher Lloyd. We had no idea, but had we known, we would have sought it out for sure (big Back to the Future fans in this household). The food was really great, too.

Outside of the Durango train station. This picture is very American.

Afterwards we did a lot of walking. I shopped in a cute little baby store and we went to a couple clothing stores. My leg was doing it’s burning/numbing routine, but I sucked it up. It’s my vacation! So off we headed to the Animas River to walk around some more. And some more.

I want to live here.

Swelling in process. 

By the time we checked into our hotel, my WHOLE BODY was swollen. I looked in the mirror and actually kinda scared myself. And the cankles? I’ve never seen anything like it. Instead of Mayor of Cankle Town, Chris said I was the Professor Emeritus of National Cankle University. I totally was. But this time, it was all over my body. My wrists starting hurting really bad shortly thereafter, which is a common complaint when retaining water. Nice.

Oh! I did have a hormonal moment: as we we were walking along the river, a very pretty blonde cyclist passed us and smiled at me. I immediately burst into tears because my leg was numb, I was swollen, and felt gross. Chris of course just hugged me and told me I was not gross, I was carrying his baby, and to shut up. (Ok, he didn’t tell me to shut up, he was actually really sweet, but I am sure you are sick of hearing about that).

He really is sweet, though.

The next morning, we did more of the day before: shopping, eating, and walking along the river before we headed home. We were happy to get home to our Quincy. She was happy to see us, too.

And exhausted. She passed out on the baby clothes I was putting away.

Yesterday, we said goodbye (or see ya later) to one of my best friends, Park. He has decided to get the hell out of Albuquerque and finally have some adventures. Park has always been there for me and supported all my decisions, so even though I was bummed to see him go, he’s got my full support. He deserves it. When I moved to LA in 2006, he came out to visit me with his brother Sam and spent the entire day with me going to the Getty Museum, Universal Studios, and Santa Monica Boardwalk. He even insisted on buying me a new watch so I wouldn’t be late for my new job. He’s, simply put, a wonderful person and I’ll miss him a lot…until October when he’s coming back for my baby shower. He promised. Now that it’s in writing, he can’t back out.

Getty Museum, 2006.

Last night. Outfits very similar.