Wednesday, October 22, 2008

After the Ultrasound News


We'll be welcoming a baby boy to our household!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Pink or Blue??

Today's the day! We find out if we're having a boy or a girl. I think girl. Jaime says boy. What do y'all think? I'm opening up comments to all guesses.

p.s. Do those bears look depressed or what?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Training Envy

I'm working at a mini-expo at Austin Fit this weekend for their Rock 'n Roll & AT&T marathon training groups. I love to be around my runner & walker friends. The energy is amazing. I'm also heading up a water stop next week for the R&R training group's long run (21 miler!). I've been reading a training blog of a fellow Austinite who's getting prepped and psyched up for the Komen 60 miles in 3 days race. Exciting!!

And it's making me envious that I'm not training for something. Well, something other than cooking up a healthy baby. Realistically, I'm way too tired after working an 8 hour day to day anything but a few tasks around the house (laundry, dinner) and then head for bed. I wonder if twentysomething mama's to be are as tired as I am or if this is a byproduct of being "advanced maternal age"?

I rubbed elbows with runners, duathletes, triathletes (even some Ironman triathletes) and bootcampers last night at Bettysport's anniversary happy hour. I really love the Austin athletic community. They're so...nice. As a girl who's fought the chub all her fricken life I'll admit that my opinion of healthy, athletic types wasn't always a good one. When you're the last one chosen for a team in P.E. class throughout your formative 12 years of schoolin' you just don't feel all warm & fuzzy about athletes. Lucky me, when I started my late-in-life quest to join the ranks of runners and such I was profoundly grateful to find that the experienced athletic community in Austin is supportive and friendly and warm to beginners. (Besides, we make y'all look even better when we run slow and all ungraceful-like.)

But all this exposure to the fit & happy crowd has really started me thinking about my post-baby goals. You know, the ones aside from breastfeeding, healthy baby checkups, learning how to use cloth diapers if I choose and all that fun OMG we're really parents stuff. I know that I'll be itching to get back to my neverending goal of shaping up. I need to look at fun races in the fall and then set up a training schedule that won't leave me feeling overwhelmed. After all, I will be a new mom.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Do Not Insult The Pregnant Chick

I have now had the "are you sure you aren't carrying twins" insult topped by something even more offensive. It's when someone who sees you every flippin' business day tells you "I can't even tell you're pregnant".

Thanks for that. I needed to hear that when I'm not carrying a child I still look like a pregnant woman. My belly always sticks out and up. I always wanted to know that even though I've graduated to elastic topped pants with waistbands that come up to your belly button and sometimes higher I really don't look any differently than I always do.

:::sigh:::

The L Word

No, not that one. Although y'all know I do love me some lesbian high drama television. I'm talking about love. Yeah, that L word. I was driving to my office this morning after dropping my life partner off at work and thinking about our relationship. Just yesterday I was telling someone I hadn't seen in a few months that yes, I'm engaged and no, it's not that I've been training for competitive doughnut eating, I am in fact pregnant. Yes, I work fast. It wasn't that long ago that my friends were lending a sympathetic ear to me crying in my beer. (Or as sympathetic as possible and then when they were over it they'd say "What about Jaime? Why won't you go out with him?". Yeah, you know who you are.)

I used to long for the kind of romance where a guy composes a love song about how infinitely wonderful you are and releases it publicly, like that Tal Bachman song. Or maybe I'd land a man who would at least sing that song to me. Well I found a singer who writes his own material but so far there's been no love song to me, about me, for me. Although friends will remember my vivid dream (nightmare?) that Jaime proposed to me in the middle of a gig and then jumped back up onstage and sang "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" to me. A song about a teenage hooker. Thank goodness in real life there was no Nugent before, during or after the proposal.

After much introspection I have come to the realization that it isn't about someone writing a song that shows the world how they feel about me. I don't need the news broadcast to the universe. I've found that it is personal (as I write this in a public blog, how ironic!). It's about being valued and appreciated, being told and shown that I am loved. And I get that, every day. I don't take it for granted, either. I reciprocate equally, so that Jaime knows that he is loved. There is no shortage of sweet words in our home. Even on days when neither of us are feeling particularly loving we still confirm it verbally to the other...and it makes almost everything all right. What it doesn't make right it at least makes tolerable. That, my friends, is what makes the world go 'round.

"Wang dang, what a sweet poontang / a shakin' my thang as a rang-a-dang-dang in the bell"
~Ted Nugent~

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

My Babydaddy's A Rockstar


Not only do I think he's supremely talented but so do music industry folks. Jaime's band SuperCrash is slated to be one of the openers for Great White at this week's Gonzalez Thunder Rally. It's bound to be a fun weekend with great rock & roll, food and fun. Bret Michaels will be there on Saturday as part of his Rock of Love Tour.
It won't be all music all the time. Saturday has biker games including a "race" where the slowest to finish wins. Must be pretty hard to ride slowly on a bike and not lay it down. There's a comptetitive bike build off and even a shopping area with vendors selling everything from jewelry to handmade leather goods. My friend Leigh of Leighelena will be there with her wonderful enamel jewelry selection. I'll be coming home with some new pretty gift for me, guaranteed.
Come out and have fun with me this weekend at the rally. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and are inexpensive considering you've got some huge acts along with many more great Central Texas rock & roll bands. There's even VIP packages available that include backstage passes, private restroom facilities and food. What's not to love?

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Fun Times in Knocked Up Land

Let's make this quick. Here's what I've learned lately and what those damn baby books don't really address:

1. You pretty much can't take any meds other than your prenatals, Benadryl and Tylenol. So when Austin allergies bash you upside down and back again, you are left with a throbbing 10lb head full of snot and no functional method of symptom relief. A date with my neti pot helps, but only for about an hour.

2. Hormones. I've never been bitchy. Really. My friends will back me on this. I've always had a laid back attitude and unless seriously provoked, I'm not a hostile woman. Until now. I am soooo full of love and tenderness and joy at the budding life within that if you cut me off on the interstate and then slow down so that I have to slam on my brakes just know that it's only because of the sweet little spawn inside me that I don't DRIVE MY FRICKEN SUV OVER YOUR UNINSURED ASS. Granted, it's a very small SUV but I guarantee that it will snap you out of your hip hop induced coma and make you at least throw the bud you're smoking out before the cops arrive. Because oh yes, there will be cops. And that, my friends, is the hormones just for driving. There's also the raging hormones for stupid people at the grocery store, the asshats at ACL who kept bumping into my baby belly (yeah, I'm showin') and the dizzybizzys who have the nerve to ask me "Are you sure you're not having twins?" No, you dumbass, I am not and have never been a skinny chick. When a big girl gets knocked up we are going to look bigger faster than you anorexic little stickgirls. Thanks for asking. I feel like the Goodyear blimp and I've just entered my 2nd trimester. Wait a few months and I'll completely eclipse your teeny tiny bobble head atop your bulimia-ravaged body. Oh wait, I need a toothpick...perhaps you could be so kind as to lend me your arm?

3. Your uterus and growing placenta is in close proximity to your bladder. Very close. So close that when you have severe allergies and you cough hard, you pee. And if you sneeze, you pee more. It is just plain wrong that I am pregnant and still utilizing feminine hygeine products, even more so that I'm using them like a flippin' diaper. It's embarrassing but it's happened so often this week that I'm beyond my initial self-disgust and sharing this with God and everyone.

4. Saving the worst for last...most of you know I love to cook. I adore cooking shows. I love to plan out and create gourmet meals. Well, during pregnancy some odd things can happen. My morning sickness went away and I was happy because I couldn't face cooking odors for several months without yakking. Now it's worse. I have a complete revulsion for raw beef, pork, fish and fowl. I can barely look at it in the grocery store without getting all over grossed out. I tried to make pork stir fry and was so revolted when I was slices up the raw meat that I just couldn't eat dinner. It's irrational and I don't like it but I don't have any control over it. I can certainly eat if it's placed in front of me, already cooked. I just can't deal with the raw stuff. I'm hoping this goes away in time. I'm sick of eating out, tired of frozen meals and completely over fast food. I want homecooked goodness. And I want it without feeling as if I'm going to puke.

5. Beer aromatherapy works. I can't drink it but a good sniff is deeply satisfying.