Spin Cycle: Confessions

I must confess, first of all, that the Usher song "Confessions" started running through my head as soon as I read the title for this week's Spin Cycle.

Oh, but that's not my REAL confession. It's just, like, an extra. A bonus. (You're welcome!)

I could confess my absolute TERROR about becoming a mom in just a few short weeks, but I've already done that. It's still there though. It's like a teeny little monster that lives inside of me, surfacing occasionally just to drive the PANIC deeper into my soul. I really hate that monster.

So, I am going to confess how EXCITED I am that I won't have to go back to work this year. (Unless Baby makes an early appearance. She'd better not. If she tries to make an escape, I'm going to cross my legs until she gets the picture.) I hate to brag about it, and I'm really not trying to, but I am just so happy that I don't have to worry about arranging two or three weeks of daycare or try to juggle my schedule against Mr. Clean's in order to make it work out. It was an enormous relief to find out that I could just barely eek by with the amount of leave I have saved up (for this very purpose, I might add) since I became a teacher four years ago.

In the same realm, I must also confess that I have started the downhill, I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass slide that I believe many teachers fall into in the weeks before they are due. There's just this aura of "Who cares?" that seems to surround me. My students are talking? Eh. They're middle schoolers. They talk. Grading papers? I'll get to it...eventually. Meetings? Perfect time to zone out. After all, I won't be here for X, Y or Z that they're discussing anyway. But the thing is, this is totally UNLIKE me. I'm usually way into work--staying late, always caught up on grading so I can hound students about missing work, and busy being the meanest teacher in the entire school. (Okay, well I may not be the meanest, but I try.)

GLEE!

OMG, Glee is coming back soon! Joy! Rapture!

I just saw the commercial. I almost peed a little!!! (Good thing I'm packin' protection downstairs these days in case, you know, I sneeze or laugh or cough.)

I'm a total Gleek. Not crazy, stalkerish Gleeky. But I have both of the CD's. And it's set for a season pass on my TiVo. That's going to come in handy because there's a good chance Baby won't always agree that watching Glee is at the top of her to-do-right-now list.

Any other Gleeks out there?

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Pullin' the Plug

Mr. Clean and I attended a prepared childbirth class this weekend. Since I procrastinated and waited until the last possible moment to sign up for a class, our best option was the two Sunday classes that are FOUR HOURS EACH. At least it's not a waste of our time. It was a great experience for Mr. Clean because I've been reading the books but I don't share all of the information with him, so there's a lot he didn't know about. He's becoming well educated in the area of pregnancy and birth. (And he's getting really good at back rubs. We practiced in class but I'm thinking we need to practice at home, too. Just in case.)

Anyway, we've had a joke since around Thanksgiving that Baby might "reach for the plug" and try to come early. Now, I knew about the mucous plug because I'd read the books, but Mr. Clean wasn't aware that there was an ACTUAL plug--until yesterday. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when they mentioned the loss of the mucous plug during the movie. He leaned over and whispered (grinning like the Cheshire Cat), "I didn't know there was REALLY a plug!" He's still talking about it today. You'd think he'd discovered there really IS a Santa Claus.

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I think I might actually watch "American Idol" this year. I got hooked on the auditions somehow and noticed there is some real talent this year. Any AI fans out there? Who do you think is a front runner? I don't know their names, but I sure like the guy that did Paul Abdul's "Straight Up" and that chick with the horrible teeth dreadlocks.

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I was reading Heather's blog today and am VERY excited at the prospect of breastfeeding because she lost 20 lbs in like TWO WEEKS. Um, sign me up for that!!!  My goal is to lose all of the 40ish lbs weight that I've gained before the end of the summer. That gives me some wiggle room since I'm pretty sure it won't be as easy to get the gym as it was pre-Baby.

Mr. Clean goes practically every evening. He looks good. None of that sympathy weight that lots of dads gain. Nope. He left it to me to gain all the weight. And then some. Definitely enough for both of us--and maybe for the dog, too.

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I really, REALLY hope Baby gets Mr. Clean's eyes. He has these beautiful blue eyes (mine are just poopy brown) and really long lashes. My lashes are blonde and short and if I'm not wearing mascara, I look like I don't even HAVE lashes. I really hope she doesn't get his nose though. Please, dear God, no. It works for him, but I think I would have to put funds aside for a nose job if she got his nose. For her sixteenth birthday she can get a car or a nose job. (Okay, I'm totally joking. Mostly.)

Spin Cycle: I can't live without...

I'm having a hard time with this one because there are several things I can't live without. I mean, I probably could if I was forced to, but let's not go there if it's not necessary. I'm already living without wine and brie. I may have to do serious harm if you took any of these away from me:

Coffee/Caffeine
I looove coffee. I could drink it all the time, many times a day if (A) I wouldn't have a heart attack as a result and (B) it didn't cost an arm and a leg to buy one. (Starbucks, you are killing my bank account!) During this pregnancy, I have learned to live without the delightfully upbeat effect that caffeine gives me. I still have my morning Starbucks (my to the financial dismay of Mr. Clean, who continues to tout that we should own stock because I am probably keeping their Western Division in business...or whatever) but I get decaf. Decaf is BORING. I still get the taste I love but I don't get the cracked-out high buzz. That AM buzz is what gets me going in the mornings--or at least it used to.

Last year my students could tell when I hadn't had my morning cup 'o joe. They also knew it was no time to fuck with me. Those were quiet mornings.

Mr. Clean
Oh. My. God. Can I just say how fucked up my shit would be without that man? (That's technical terminology, just so you know.) He keeps me organized, on time, and happy. He keeps the house clean, pays the bills, and does all the yardwork. If I listed everything he does around here, you would start to wonder what I actually do. (Admittedly, it's close to nothing. Yesterday I emptied AND loaded the dishwasher. That hasn't happened in YEARS. He was ready to get the camera out and document it.)

Mr. Clean is probably one of the hardest working people I know. He deserves to be on Oprah or something. You know those episodes where you surprise your spouse and then Oprah gives them all sorts of cool stuff for being an amazing person? Yeah, he should be on one of those episodes. (Preferably the one where she gives him a vacation. For two.)

Facebook
In an earlier post, I mentioned my addiction to Facebook. It's similar in strength to my addiction to coffee. I love "communicating" with people in this simplistic format. You can see what they're up to without having to call and have an actual conversation. I don't mind talking on the phone, but Suzie Q from high school that I haven't talked to since graduation isn't really on my list of people to call and have a gab session with. Much easier to see her status update and click "Like" or leave a short 'n sweet comment.

I also can't go a day without playing enjoy some of the games on there. Yes, I'm one of those lame people that play things like Farmville and Restaurant City. It's fun! (Who wouldn't want to run a farm without ever having to get dirty? Plus there are green alien cows. Um, awesome.) Oh, and they have SCRABBLE! Who doesn't love a good game of Scrabble? (Okay, I am a total word nerd and have no problem admitting that. I just have problems spelling now that I'm thinking for two.)

Random Tuesday Thoughts

A couple of days ago, I was leaving a Facebook message on a friend's wall. (By the way, I am ADDICTED to Facebook. It's bad. Baaaaad.) I was going to say something was "right up his alley" but I could NOT remember how to spell alley all of a sudden. At first I typed "ally" but I knew that wasn't right. So of course, I went to dictionary.com and checked and I was right--about being wrong. So typical.

So then I started thinking that, surely, alley was a word because I've been using it for decades and, for god's sake, used to even have one behind my house when I was little. How the shit do you spell it? I tried other spellings that I KNEW were wrong (allie, for example) and finally just gave up. Defeated. Okay, I am a TEACHER people. A language arts teacher. And, typically, a pretty good speller. So the fact that the spelling of this stupid little word eluded me for something like 30 minutes was ridiculous/humbling/humiliating/irritating as hell.

Finally, instead of saying that whatever it was that I was writing about was "up his alley" I had to think of something else to say. Bah! Then like, oh, 30 minutes after this whole debacle, it just POPPED INTO MY HEAD. A-l-l-E-y. Duh. Of course! Why didn't I think of that?! Oh. My. God.

I think the string of expletives that escaped my mouth at this realization would rival the length of the Great Wall. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But not really.

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Speaking of expletives and realizations, Mr. Clean and I have come to the conclusion that, at some point, Baby will arrive (SOON!) and we will have to stop cursing like sailors. Dirty, potty mouthed sailors that love to use cuss words for every part of the English language. (Need a verb? Fuck/Fucked/Fucking! Need an adjective? Fucking/Fuckable/Fuckalicious! You get my point. We love the F-bomb in this house. Fuck yeah!)

My parents are starting to figure out they, too, will have to stop cursing so much. (I get the F-bomb usage from them. I was the playground Cuss Queen in the third grade. No joke. I wish I had a crown and a sash to prove it.) I'm not sure how we will all communicate. It's going to make conversation difficult. We will actually have to THINK before speaking. The horror!

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My dog is an addict. She's addicted to dog bones. You think I'm joking, but if you try to take away her crack--er, I mean bone--she will tear your ass apart. Like good parents, we keep giving her more, feeding her addiction. I believe this is known as enabling. Yup, we're enablers. She's going to end up on "Intervention." You just wait.

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I just erased three paragraphs because they sucked and really, there was no point to what I was saying. You're welcome.

To Do List

This weekend my parents visited and we managed to get Baby's room about 99% ready. I feel an extreme sense of relief. (That room was a DISASTER. She would have been sleeping in her bouncer instead of her crib.) However, that relief is going to be short-lived because the to do list is still long...and keeps getting longer.

To Do (preferably BEFORE Baby gets here):
1. Finish and send thank you cards. (To my credit, they are half way done. I have the family cards finished, just not the work ones. At least I won't have to stamp those.)

2. Get the hospital paperwork finished and turned in. (Apparently it makes your arrival easier so you aren't screaming bloody murder, ready to have a baby, trying to remember your address and phone number. Sounds like a good idea to me.)

3. Wash all of her new clothes (and there are LOTS). At least they're sorted by size. Man, she sure got a lot of clothes.

4. Get necessities such as diapers (I have enough for like one week, tops), wipes, and "personal items" (mommies, you know what I mean so I'll leave it at that).

5. Pack the hospital bag. (Hey, what do I need to pack? You people have done this before. Surely you have some amazing insight into this.)

6. About a bazillion other things. Seriously, if told you everything on the list, you would be here forever. (Or, more likely, become seriously bored and leave. Probably the latter. Yeah.)

I only have like 3.5 weeks to do everything. That may seem like forever, but it IS NOT. Plus, I am quite a procrastinator so that's not going to help anything. Hopefully Baby is a procrastinator like me and will stay put until she's due.

Just Swell

My feet are swelling like balloons. I went from no swelling to WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY FEET?! overnight. I don't even have ankles anymore, I have cankles. At the end of the day yesterday, they were practically the size of tennis balls. I know it's normal to experience swelling, but this is ridiculous.

Four weeks to go. Four puffy, swollen weeks.

Warning: TMI

Here it goes. If you are unwilling to read about peeing, pooping, and heartburn, RUN NOW.

Okay, you had your chance. It's go time.

I am so glad I am in my last month of this pregnancy. It's really been pretty mild and hasn't given me too many problems...UNTIL NOW.  Here are the fun things I am dealing with:

1. Every morning at 2 a.m., I wake up with the worst heartburn EVER. The thing that wakes me up is the acid reflux--everything "refluxes" right into my mouth so I basically ALMOST THROW UP but manage to wake up the split second before anything escapes.  Then I have to sit up, belch LOUDLY (I could probably compete with some beer guzzling frat boys at this point), and take a half-dozen Tums.

Oh, Tums are my best friend lately. I love them. I never leave home without them. There's a bottle by the bed and one in my purse. (And I make Mr. Clean buy the Smoothies because the other kinds are just gross.)

Next time I have a doctor's visit, I am asking for a prescription for some sort of antacid or whatever will prevent me from throwing up in the mouth every night and suffering the inferno that constantly brews in my esophagus.

2. Around the time I am done downing my Tums, I realize I have to pee. So I prop myself up, roll over, sit up, and get out of bed. It's a fucking PROCESS to get out of bed. I long for the days I could just jump out of bed like there was nothing to it. I feel like the giant blueberry girl on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the oompa loompas roll her away.

3. At about 4 a.m. my body decides it now needs to poop, and no it will not wait, you need to poop NOW. So I have to wake up and take a poo or I feel sick. Ain't that grand?

The benefit to this new schedule of bodily functions is that I'm up every 2 hours, so when Baby arrives I'll already be prepared for her feeding schedule. I still have a month of this crap left though. Hopefully I can maintain my sanity (and not throw up all over Mr. Clean in the middle of the night due to the acid reflux).

I'm being followed!

I have a follower! Um...WOW! And thanks!

Guess that means I really have to keep up with this thing. Luckily it hasn't been too difficult so far. (Although Mr. Clean keeps looking over suspiciously to see why I am typing so much. He doesn't know about the blog yet. I should probably clue him in, but then he'd be all WHY ARE YOU TELLING PEOPLE THAT? Sigh.)

RTT: Random Tuesday Thoughts

So even though I have never officially joined the RTT linkup, I am going to participate. Hope that's okay. If not, I guess it's too late anyway!

I had both of my baby showers (family and work) this weekend. Someone told me not to register for or buy clothes because I would receive so many. They were dead on. The grandparents were the worst.  They literally gave me STACKS of clothes. I think I got enough outfits to last a lifetime...if she stayed in the 0-6 month range for her whole life. I'm not really complaining though. I am incredibly lucky to have the amazing support of my family and my coworkers.

I am tired of seeing Facebook status updates with spelling and grammar errors. I'm not perfect in this area, but I'd like to think I'm close. Besides, these are grown ass adults. They ought to know better by now. A friend posted something about attending a "bad suite convention - AKA career fair." Uh, unless you are at a convention about crappy Vegas hotel rooms, you are spelling that WRONG. This guy has been looking for a job for a looong time now. I hope there aren't more errors like this on his resume, although that would explain why he can't seem to find gainful employment. I had another friend that posted about his arms being "soar" after riding quads all weekend. I replied that I hoped he didn't fly away anytime soon. He didn't seem to get it and said he wasn't going anywhere. Riiiight.

I am really looking forward to this weekend. My mother is going to come over and help me get Baby's room finished. This includes painting. I have no idea what color or colors we'll be painting the walls, but I'll let you know when I figure it out. My mom is just about the best interior painter EVER. She's remodeled and painted the interiors of every home she's lived in and has got the whole process down to a science. I think I should hire her out and take a cut of the profit. I could make some good money that way. I'd be like a paint pimp. (Insert joke here. Pregnancy brain won't allow me to come up with anything clever.)

Spin Cycle: Pet Peeves

I have several pet peeves. You can find some examples here and here. But if you are one of the 3 people (Woohoo! 3 whole people!) that have read those already, here's more recent  peeve 'o mine.

Yesterday I had one of my regular checkups to ensure Baby and I are cohabitating nicely. After the nurse weighed me, checked my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat, I got to wait for the doctor. No biggie, except while I waited patiently but uncomfortably BECAUSE I AM PREGNANT I could hear an entire conversation between my doctor and the nurses. That lasted for like 5 minutes. Which is forever in "I'm waiting for the doctor" time. Especially when the only thing to look at is the giant, detailed poster of a vagina plastered to the door.

Normally I really don't mind waiting for things. I'm actually a pretty patient person. (You kind of have to be to teach middle school. Or almost any grade level, really.) But the conversation I overheard was about Avatar. The movie. With the big blue aliens. I loved the movie and thought the 3-D was cool but ARE YOU REALLY MAKING ME WAIT IN THIS ROOM WITH A VAGINA POSTER AND PEA-SIZED BLADDER WHILE YOU TALK ABOUT A FRIGGIN' MOVIE? REALLY?!

All I know is that it had better not happen when I am delivering Baby or I will rip someone a new one (before Baby rips me a new one. Oh yes, I went there.)

Da Bomb

I had a dream last night that I dropped the f-bomb in my class. Let's hope I'm not clairvoyant.

Just call me Jackhammer

Apparently I was sawing logs again last night. Or maybe I should say I was JACKHAMMERING CONCRETE.

I woke up at 12:30 AM and Mr. Clean was not in bed. At first I thought he might be milling about (he frequently has mini bouts of insomnia) but the house was still totally dark. I went back to sleep and awoke again at about 2:30 AM. No Mr. Clean. It occurred to me in my drowsy haze that it might have something to do with all of the animalistic sounds I'd been making the past few nights. (Um, not because I'm an animal in bed or anything. Because I'm sick. With a cold. Get your mind out the gutter you pervert.) I decided I didn't care if he was in the other room because I'm miserably ill, carrying his baby, and he will have to learn to live without sleep pretty soon anyway. I'm such a sweetie.

Sure enough, he came into the bedroom at 6 AM. I know because he scared the crap out of the dog, who barked LOUDLY, scaring the crap out of me and nearly inducing an early labor. (Don't worry, Baby is still in there. She doesn't scare easily, just me.) Turns out Mr. Clean slept on the couch. That probably sucked a lot for him because we have a really small ass couch. (We no longer have a spare bedroom with a bed because it is now the baby's room complete with all of the TONS OF STUFF that comes with one of these things.)

Guess who is napping again today?

Miserable

I got completely SACKED with a wicked cold this weekend. It started out late Thursday as bit of a cough but there were no other warning signs. I mean, usually when I get a cough, there's a sore throat and some other misery involved. Nope, not this time.

Saturday morning when I woke up my nose was completely stuffed, I had a hacking cough, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. And I probably would have if I could have breathed (is that right because it sure sounds weird?) through my nose. When I'm really sick and stuffed up, I have a horrible time sleeping because I am incapable of falling asleep breathing through my mouth. It just doesn't happen for me.

Under normal circumstances I would have chugged some Nyquil and said hello to the blissful, passed-out-drunk coma it manages to always put me in. But things aren't normal because I'm baking a bun in my oven, which means I can only take certain medicines and Nyquil is not one of them. Dayquil isn't on the list either. (Being pregnant sure makes you appreciate the drugs you're allowed to take when you're not knocked up!) I decided to go ahead and take some Benedryl (which is on the "allowed" list) last night so that I could at least get a few moments of sleep. Mr. Clean said I was sawing logs, and I felt pretty good when I woke up for real (not my 4 AM trip to the potty), so I guess it worked out. (I'm pretty sure I kept him up, too because he's taking a nap right now.)

I'm still plugged up and coughing and slightly miserable today, but I refuse to use any of my sub days at work because I'm saving them for when Baby comes, which means I have to be a total trooper and suck it up.

I suppose that's enough whining for one day. I'll have lots to more bitch and moan about once the baby comes!