Corn Chips

I went to Payless last week to find a single pair of shoes that fit my feet. I had been wearing the same pair of adorable red Madden Girl Patent leather shoes, but they were definitely worse for the wear. Imagine how my feet smelled every time I came home from an 8 hour day at work when I was wearing the same pair of shoes day in and day out! So it was time to replace them with a plain pair of cheap black flats that I can stretch out and will probably never wear again.

I started my search at Payless by Target on Highway 6. You are almost always guaranteed to walk out of Payless with a pair of affordable shoes! So I'm feeling lucky.

I went in and immediately I'm burning up hot, I feel like I'm sweating from head to toe. I look over at a heavy-set woman who came off as being a little bit (what's another word for ghetto?) "disadvantaged". She was yelling obsenities back and forth with her friend who was on another aisle. Anyway, she was in a jacket and I felt pretty confident that she would be hot too. So I say "Fweefff...it's hot in here!" She just looked up at me like I was crazy without saying a word in return. I looked down and mumbled, "Maybe I'm just having a hot flash." And then I went back to hunting for the perfect pair of shoes. I assumed the so far one-sided conversation ended there.

She then asked me when I was due and I told her February 5th. We taked about swollen feet. She told me about her daughter who had just had a baby. I felt like we had really bonded over the fact that I was pregnant and she seemed really sympathetic to my growing feet problem.

Then all of the sudden she got up to walk out of the store, looked over at her friend and said "I gotta get outta here. Her feet smell like CORN CHIPS!"

Nightly Routine....

I went to the doctor on Monday and my blood pressure was a little bit high. The midwife told me that it is now time that I slow down and start acting like a pregnant woman! What does that mean?! I don't feel tired and I don't feel like I need to stop doing the things that I normally do. She even mentioned the word "bedrest"! Yikes! I didn't hear a word after that....my blood pressure skyrocketed just thinking about laying in bed for 5 weeks.

My sister came to the appointment and according to Shannon, the midwife was just trying to get my attention. She was saying that if I didn't start taking it easy that it could potentially lead to leaving work early or even bedrest. Not cool.....

So I have changed my ways.

Some probably thought my life was boring before pregnancy. Your typical 40 hour a week career. Dinner with friends occasionally, home to cook dinner and clean the house or do laundry, indoor soccer once a week, rowing on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Church on Sundays. No clubs or bars or particularly late nights. Pretty simple, but I enjoy it.

Now, you will undoubtably think that my life is boring.....

Work from 8-4:30

Walk for 30 Minutes on My Lunch Break

Home by 5

Into Pajamas Immediately (love it!)

Sit Down on the Couch

Flip on the TV

Troy Comes Home by 6:30

Eat Dinner

Practice Relaxation with Hippie Nature CDs (also a good excuse for T to rub my back...love it!)

Go to Redbox to Rent a DVD

Go to Kroger to Take My Blood Pressure in my Pajamas

Go Home to Watch Movie

Fall Asleep During Movie

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

It's a rough life, but I am kind of enjoying it! Troy has really stepped up to help out so there is not much left for me to do around the house. I may have gained 700 pounds but there just may be something to this whole pregnancy routine. I'm starting to understand why some women have 18 children. If you stay pregnant your whole married life you will be treated like royalty. Every decision you make has to be "for the baby's sake". Plus, at what other point in your life is the doctor going to require that you take it easy and not push yourself?!

She did mention that sometimes pregnant women with anger management issues develop high blood pressure during pregnancy. I blew it off. But then on the way home I yelled at two cars who cut me off, cursed when I hit my head on the sun visor and had steam coming out of my ears when I couldn't find my keys in my giant trendy purse. I then thought back to the breakdown I had on Christmas Even when Troy mentioned that he had "done everything" to get us ready for Christmas. I was actually banging on the glass shower door "gently reminding" him that I had done all of the work in the months before to get ready for the holidays while he made fun of me for starting in November. HE had vacummed the carpet and washed his truck which in my opinion didn't fall under the category of "everything"....so I made sure that he knew it.

But those days are behind me. Now I just say,

321...123...what the heck is bothering me?" - Carl Winslow, Family Matters

or another cult classic,

"Serinity Now!" - Frank Costanza, Seinfeld

or Troy's personal recommendation,

"Woosah...." - Mike Lowry (Will Smith), Bad Boys II

Woosah just makes me laugh, so that tends to do the trick.

I am 99% sure that I just get nervous in general when I go to the doctor and that is the cause of this high blood pressure.

But....why mess with a good thing?

It was Nineteen Eighty Somethin'

So I grew up wearing biker shorts under the t-shirt dresses that my mom made me so the boys on the playground wouldn't see up my dress when I was hanging upside down on the monkey bars (not to brag, but I was the champion backward and forward monkey barist at Settler's Way Elementary School). Isaac Fox (the unrequited love of my elementary school life) wore the coolest New Kids on the Block hat sideways that coordinated perfectly with my awwwwesome M.C. Hammer Pants. That was just after I stopped wearing the banana clips and wire bows that my mom made me. When I wasn't wearing a t-shirt dress, I would get the biggest and brightest t-shirt I could find, put it over my stirrup pants, and tie it over to the side and accented with a t-shirt clip covered in rhinestones. Classic.

Hairspray. Hairspray. Hairspray. The bigger and fluffier the bangs the better! Who didn't want the D.J. Tanner (please google "Full House" if under the age of 20) wave of bangs flipped over their face?!

Me and Jackie Taylor had competitions to see who could dance to and lip-sink Mariah Carey's Hero the best. Jackie was a tiny little girl who had a lifetime of dance lessons. I was a squatty little soccer player who washer her hair once a week. You can guess who won most of those competitions. If not lip-sinking, we were trying to see who could hit Mariah's high note, I could whoop her on my worst day. I have always had a freakishly high-pitched voice (came in very handy at my first New Kid's concert).

The classic shows were Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, Strawberry Shortcake, Duck Tails and Fraggle Rock. Then The Price is Right, The Andy Griffith Show, The Munsters, The Adams Family and The Beverly Hill Billies. And then came Charles in Charge, Silver Spoons, Family Ties, Full House, Urkel (a.k.a. Family Matters), Saved by the Bell (one question...Zack or Slater?), The Cosby Show (Jelloooo puddin' pops then later Jello Gigglers), Days of Our Lives circa 1986 when it was still really good and Marlena was possessed by a demon. Back when times were simple...before Japanimation, before reality TV, before CSI when the extent of a murder mystery was Murder She Wrote and Matlock.

FOCUS, KRISTIN....

Is there a point to this? Not really...is there ever? But I have two concerns. 1.) Turner will never be exposed to all of these classic shows and styles and traditions that I grew up with. and 2.) What will he grown up on? What will his Fraggle Rock be? Who will be his creepy Mr. Rogers?

I will do my best to avoid Pokemon, Sponge Bob Square Pants,Teletubbies and Barney. But believe me when I say that my kid WILL know every word of Old Yeller and Savage Sam if I have anything to do with it. He will have watched Yankee Doodle Dandy,John Wayne's The Sons of Katie Elder, and Meet Me in St. Lois a few times before he reaches his 5th birthday. Now THAT you can count on because some things are too good to let slip through the sands of time!

D'Oh!

D'Oh! Everytime I look in the mirror lately I can't help but think "Homer Simpson". Not my best look. But I keep telling myself that I only have six weeks left. What can you do?

Troy took a very unattractive picture of me taking a nap on the couch with my belly hanging over. He refuses to show it to me (which is probably smart) but thought it would be funny to send a pic text of it to everyone in my family. Ha...ha so funny I forgot to laugh (throw-back saying from the late 80's early 90's). Anyway, when I used to dream about being pregnant I thought about how my husband would FORCE me to take pictures because I would be glowing and illuminatingly beautiful. Not exactly how it's played out....but again, what can you do?

"Well, it's 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some quality time with the kids." ~Homer Simpson, thoughts on parenthood.

Quick Funny..

Troy and I took a breastfeeding class recently and Troy laughed out loud when the video we were watching said, "Make sure the baby has a mouthful of breast." Of course he made me laugh until my eyes were full of tears. And when we looked around the room to see the other 10 couples reactions they were all staring at us like a couple of idiots.



Just a preview of the years to come I guess....

Brest Pumps (That makes me laugh...)

That's always been a funny phrase to me, it sounds so bizarre and the actual contraption looks just as bizarre as it sounds.

What's not so funny about breast pumps is how incredibly expensive they are, they can easily run up to $400 a pop.

Fortunately for me I have a friend and co-worker who recently had a baby and was willing to give me hers for a very reasonable price. She set it up in her cubicle to show me how it works and how to put the whole contraption together (I had never actually seen one close up). We sat there in her cube as she demonstrated the sucking effect on her hand, illustrated where to put the breast pad leaky thingies and proudly showed me the plastic shiny nipple protectors in all of their glory (still not sure what those are for, though I guess I will find out). Our Manager walked by but barely did a double take as he has seen and heard much stranger around our office. This was just after he overheard me advising a co-worker to kagel. I loudly (because I have no other volume) informed her that she needs to "clench and release 200 times a day" when she announced that she would have an accident if we kept making her laugh.

(Kagels are a muscle exercise that can help you control your bladder and can also help you recover from delivery more quickly....but that's a completely different blog).

Anywhooo...I brought my new contraption home, along with the satchel bag and equipment bag (one of my co-workers actually asked me if I was headed to the airport). Troy loves toys and mechanical things, so I figured this would be no different. And it wasn't. He opened the satchel as if it was a Christmas gift and began putting the wires together and screwing on the majiggers. He cranked it up to level 5 and looked at me expectantly. He gave it a second thought and said that I shouldn't test it out as in a worst case scenario it could send me into labor, or at least could start something that shouldn't start happening for another 2 months...if you know what I'm sayin'.

So he pulls up his shirt and places the cone shaped foreign device on his own nipple. I almost fell down laughing and assured him that it would not work on his little man-boob. But he instructed me to turn on the pump nevertheless.

Sure enough, it worked (which leaves hope for my sister in the future should she decide to have kids....just kidding Aunty Shanty)! It contracted and released just as it should....again I'm crying laughing at this point so I can't actually see what was going on. He turned off the machine, looked out the window and said, "I really hope our neigbors can't see this, I would never live this one down!"

This is just in case you need a visual while laughing at him in your head......................................He is such a good sport and is going to be an amazing father...look at the sacrifices he has already begun to make! Good times....baby love, mucus plugs, and breast pumps.....

Another Two Words: Stretch Marks

Well...this should really be more like a FOUR letter word! Stretch marks....yuck...I can't even stand to type it, much less look at them in the mirror!

At 5 months I ignorantly thought that I was pretty much in the clear if I didn't have any stretch marks. I thought I was somehow going to be the one person to not get them during pregnancy. WRONG! They're slowly creeping up toward my belly button and hopefully that's where they will stay, but I guess only time will tell.

I got in bed two nights ago, got settled in and then remembered that I hadn't put my lotion on. When I asked Troy to get it for me he said, "Nah. It's not really working anyway." Very nice. I was just telling a friend over coffee that I wouldn't mind if Troy was a touch less honest with me somtimes! I'm not the woman who looks in the mirror and asks if my butt looks big, because I know I will get an honest answer...ha ha!

BUT I'm holding out hope that the lotion will help everything to go back to normal after I have the baby. From everything I have read they normally disappear a few weeks after delivery...here's hopin'! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed....

47 days to go..whoo hoo!