And Yet...My Arse Grows

Today is another Monday that we sent LP to day care. Once again, being alone in the house makes me highly productive. Especially, I think, my fat cells. Despite the fact that I am going to the doctor today and getting weighed I still felt the need to enjoy mucho mucho carbs, because, well, I could.

Wouldn't it be nice if Mommy junk eating and calorie burning was measured in errands?

Consumed	Calories
Strawberry frosted donut	-10 since consumed while shopping
Onion roll with lunch	-10 from packing, carrying and dropping off clothes to Goodwill an hour before
Rolls at Bertuccis (Sunday lunch)	-10 because sat next to and monitored LP during meal
3 hard pretzels as after-dinner snack	-2, had to clean up crumbs from both me and LP when done
Snapple iced tea	2, burned most while chasing after LP in furniture stores

A Good Dresser is Hard to Find

The Hoos and I spent the weekend furniture shopping. Our bedroom furniture is a random assortment of mismatched IKEA and hand-me-downs. However, we are not looking to get ourselves new furniture, rather we are hoping to get LP a new dresser so we can turn the one we have over to Bun.

When we sought out furniture before LP was born we went to all the baby stores. Mostly because we needed a crib. Of course we got sucked in to the whole "Oooohhhh! We're having our first baby" excitement and ended up buying a dresser from a baby store (and a glider...but that came in handy...and I did resist getting the glider footrest, thank goodness!). We paid too much for what we got and LP's clothing has pretty much already outgrown the dresser we purchased for her.

Lesson learned, we are shopping in grown-up furniture stores this time around. You would think that with the pretty constant need for furniture there would be a plethora of options. You would think wrong. It seems the manufacturers are not the best at market research or understanding consumer needs. The sizes are all wrong, the styles are usually way-over-the-top ornate or hold overs from the 70s, and the construction...let's just say that I will be pregnant longer than some of these babies will hold together.

Who wants drawers that are only 4 inches deep? Are those for people that only wear skin tight clothing or skimpy lingerie? Because seriously, two folded sweaters stacked on top of each other are more than four inches tall. Couple this with the fact that a lot of the drawers are only 13 inches deep. I am short and my pants need to be triple folded to fit. Which then pushes them closer to the four inch max height limit.

LP will be two when we give her the new furniture, I don't think black laquer is really her style. And the marble topped dressers...maybe if she planned on cooking in her bedroom. Fortunately we found a couple of things that we like. We like them so much that we would rather put them in our bedroom. They aren't cheap, but the sales folks claim that they should last so long that LP can "take them with her when she gets married." So I figure that LP's future husband will buy her some new stuff and the Hoos and I will finally have the furniture we deserve. Twenty five years isn't too long to wait.

'Nother Day, 'Nother Doctor Visit

Ah, yes, don't we all just love the smell of the doctor's office? Today was actually a planned visit for LP, it was to recheck her ears and eyes. And...she still has an ear infection. And her nose is congested. So tonight she will start a new round of anti-biotics and a decongestant. Yay for us!

And just so we don't miss the doctor/patient experience too much, I have an OB visit on Monday and LP has yet another recheck on Tuesday. There will be no problem using up all of our fflex-spending account $ this year!

I feel really bad for my little baby. She has been a bit cranky lately and not interested in putting her diaper on. We thought she just liked running around naked, but maybe she doesn't like laying down because it makes her ears and sinuses hurt? Who knows? To be honest, her nose hasn't even been running, I guess that is the difference between "congestion" and "snot".

Speaking of noses...

After the doctor we stopped at Stew's, our local the grocery store. They always have lots of free samples and the lobster bisque they were handing out in small cups was particularly excellent. As I was strapping LP back into her car seat after eating our way through the store, she starts rubbing my nose, "Nose! Nose!"; me: "Yes, baby, that is mommy's nose." Then I looked at my reflection: there was lobster bisque on the bridge of my nose! Lovely. No one said anything to me! One woman talked to me and LP for several minutes by the salad bar (2 minutes after consuming the bisque sample) and the cashier that checked us out never said a word.

To further my food-related misery, LP hit me in the head with an unwanted piece of honeydew (off of previously discussed salad bar) and then threw her yogurt-covered "schpoooon!" at my pants to close out her lunch. Ah, the joys of motherhood.

Chez Mi Casa

When I was 12 or so, my grandfather took my family to Windows on the World in a limo to celebrate my grandmother's 60th birthday. This was a big to-do and we got all dressed up to go into this fancy restaurant in the city. I knew it was fancy because the menus had no prices and the bathrooms had attendants.

Fast forward 20 years and while we don't have menus in my house (well, take-out menus) I do have my own personal bathroom attendant! Let me explain. And sorry in advance if this is too much information.

As discussed in the past, LP is sort of in the process of potty training herself. As such, I try to encourage her to feel comfortable in the bathroom. I am also trying to show by example how I use the bathroom when I need to by announcing, "Mommy has to pee" as I walk to the restroom.

Yesterday the little stinker pushed me out of the way, running ahead of me to the fabulous pink tiled bathroom on the main floor of the house. She ran in, lifted the lid on the toilet seat to prepare it and took a handful of "tissue! tissue!" while she waited for me to settle in. She then attempted to stuff the "tissue" around me into the toilet when she anticipated I was done. As I stood up, she flushed the toilet and gently lowered the lid announcing "All done!". She then carried her potty, which doubles as a step stool, over to the sink for us to step up on to wash our hands.

I don't remember getting this level of service at Windows on the World. But I imagine I would have been creeped out if I had. However, when it is LP doing the attending it is just too adorable. Not that I want her to grow up to be a bathroom attendant...

Insult to Injury

I just returned from picking up lunch from a cafeteria in another building in my office park. The Injury: I hadn't planned on buying lunch, but since someone had thrown out my Trader Joe's pad thai from the office freezer (it was a frozen meal! it wasn't going to go bad and stink up the joint!), I had no choice.

The Insult: As I ascended the stairs after returning, a colleague walking behind me shouted, "Amy, I am glad to see you are taking the stairs!".

WTF! Do I look that huge? I am pregnant.

She then went on to explain, "Your pelvic floor will thank you." Double WTF! Is my pelvic floor any of your business?

The Hacker

Is it just me or does coughing always seem to get worse at night? Seriously, I felt fine all day yesterday, occasionally coughing when I talked too fast or breathed too deeply and about 10 minutes before bedtime I start hacking away like a two-pack-a-day smoker. Good timing, because really, who needs sleep?

Last night at 12:30 I got up out of bed and dragged my sorry butt into our guest room. I figured the Hoos did not need to lay awake along with me. Of course, my wonderful husband followed me into the guest room to help me clear off the bed (did I mention the 'guests' that use the room are my clothes?). He then returned five minutes later with my pillows. It was very sweet of him, but of course it defeated the purpose of me moving to the guest room.

Soon after getting into the spare bed, my cough subsided (big shock there). Rather than risk tempting fate, I decided to stay the course. Today I am exhausted and relatively cough free. (again, a shocking conclusion to a crappy night).

Maybe this is "body boot camp" for when Bun arrives.

Diagnosis This

I hate going to the doctor. Actually, the only time I like going to the doctor is when I am pregnant because it means I am tracking the progress of the little person growing in my abdomen.

Regardless, yesterday before my class I spent about an hour trying to identify a new primary care physician (PCP). I don't know about you, but the only doctor I go to annually is my OBGYN. If I need to see another doctor I just try to identify the one closest to my house that takes my insurance. And I haven't been to the doctor since we lived in White Plains, NY - about 4 years ago. The Hoos has been going to the same doctor his entire life, which has its own problems because the good doctor is getting set to retire.

This time around I decided it might be good to start establishing a relationship with a doctor. We own our house and probably won't be moving too far any time soon. One of my colleagues lives close to me and had some ideas. Unfortunately, one practice she offered was not accepting new patients and the other one did not accept our insurance. Another friend I was going to hit up for a referral just posted a blog entry about a horrible doctor's experience...so I am guessing she won't have a recommendation...

I ended up going to a step slightly above a "doctor in a box" e.g., a walk-in clinic. The doctor was nice enough, but I was the youngest person by about 40 years and there were lots of signs about controlling your diabetes. Oh, and the hole in the wall in the examination room? A little disconcerting, but at least I didn't have to take my clothes off.

The end result is that I still need a PCP and that I have...a post-nasal drip. No bronchitis, no sinus infection, just an annoying cough caused snot leaking down my throat. At least now my parents and the Hoos will stop bugging me to get checked out.

Mishigas and Mushrooms

Before I get started, the title:
Mishigas: Yiddish for craziness
Mushrooms: You know, the employees that you keep in the dark and feed lots of sh*t to. Not sure if I am the mushroom or if I work with a lot of them.

On to the show:

Apparently this is my 301st post. I wish it was about something more exciting, really. Let's pretend it is all about the awesome SuperBowl last night. Go Giants!

Anyway, right now I am relaxing on my couch thinking about how I have overdone it today and my groin hurts. I believe this is due to my cartilege stretching and whatnot due to hormones.

I don't remember my groin hurting so much when I was pregnant with LP, but I am sure it must have. I probably don't remember because when it hurt I could sit still. This morning instead of sitting still I sat on the side of the bathtub reading books for at least 40 minutes while reading to LP. Once again, she didn't pee, but she sure looked cute jumping up and running away from me with her little tush waving in the wind every 5 minutes to get more books.

Before spending the whole morning watching LP on the potty, I received a phone call from the General Counsel of my firm. He know I work from home partly on Mondays and Fridays and called at 9:11 to see if I had received a call at the office about "one of our boats sinking." Umm...okay. That doesn't really sound like the typical media call I receive.He asks me to check as he will be waiting for me to call him back. Checking my messages it turns out that at 9:07 I did get a message from a marina asking me to call because something happened to one of our boats.

I know, this sounds like a lame story, but really it is giving me an opportunity to complain about people.

1. The receptionist/switchboard operator at my office. I work in the headquarters of our firm, in total there are 1700 people employed at over 60 offices. Any time she receives a phone call and doesn't know who to route it to, she attempts to send it to me. You know, because I handle PR and media calls. In the spirit of being nice, let's pretend that she thought "The Elizabeth Marina" was a newspaper.
2. Yes, I check my voice and email when I am working from home. I check email much more frequently actually, and I still don't check it every five minutes. Cripes! And how did the GC even know I had received this call? Is he monitoring me?!
3. Whomever is the actual contact for the marina. Hello - do you not have your contact information updated with the people that work there? Why the heck are they calling the main number at our office?!

Unrelated, but the Hoos just called from the doctor's office. He has bronchitis and pink eye (wonder how he got that?). Please send positive health points my way, I am so not interested in getting sick.

A Family Project

Back around Christmas time, the Hoos bought a 20-gallon aquarium for the house. LP loves animals and we thought she would enjoy having a few of her own.

For the past few weeks he has been contemplating buying a background for the tank. This is basically wallpaper for the back of the tank - I am not sure if it is for the fish or for the people viewing (shockingly, I am neither the green thumb nor the Dr. Doolittle of our house).

Yesterday instead of purchasing a commercial background, the three of us used construction paper to create our own little fish scenery. It came out great. LP was in charge of the glue stick and some placement, I cut out bubbles and fish and the Hoos handled the plants. It was fun, silly, and way cooler than anything we could have puchased.

If Not Now, When?

I have a disease. It isn't life threatening, or even related to my physical health, but it definitely makes me question my mental health. I don't even know if it has a name - what is the opposite of procrastination?

Seriously, I just can't let stuff go undone. If something needs to be taken care of and I really don't feel like doing it, I ask myself, "If not now, when?". If I can't put a finite deadline on it or the alternative timing just doesn't seem right, I force myself to take on the task right away.

For example, LP is napping right now. Instead of taking a few minutes to relax and sit on my big old arse on the couch, I ran around like a crazy person:

• 1:55 - Put LP in her crib
• 2:00 - While listening to LP scream unhappily, pick up and put away all of the toys that we played with this morning
• 2:15 - Check my email and do a few small projects for work
• 2:35 - Prep the turkey meatloaf for dinner
• 2:50 - Clean up from meatloaf prep
• 2:55 - Notice that dishwasher is done running and full of clean dishes. Contemplate writing on blog, but instead empty dishwasher
• 3:05 - Sit down and formulate blog entry

See? Sick, sick, sick! I am five months pregnant, I deserve a break, right? But I just refuse to give it to myself. In fact, even as I write this I am thinking about getting up to put up a load of laundry. Despite the fact that I did three loads yesterday while watching a sick LP in the afternoon, the pile doesn't look like a dent was made.

The other person seriously suffering because of my illness is the Hoos. Just this morning he was sitting at the breakfast table and noticed a credit card bill, "I usually don't even see these, they are gone by the time I get home." I didn't want to tell him that I had checked the statement online earlier in the week and already set up the payment online, so I just didn't bother to move it into the office with my usual efficiency since it was really already taken care of.

The poor guy. Seriously. He asks me to leave stuff for him to deal with when he gets home from work - like the garbage, laundry, dishes, etc. - but I just can't. I know he will take care of it, but I just can't leave the timing to chance. Yes, he'll get the laundry, but it will be in a few hours, or tomorrow, and by then I could already have it folded and put away.

Do they make a 'chill pill'? Because I think I could use a few bottles.