shower | That La Kid

it’s not that tough.

by Wendy J. La

Ya’ know, if you stumble on something at Goodwill, like, a $10 American Girl doll in like-new condition, or a similar hidden treasure, and you know that I’ll love it, I don’t see any fault with wrapping it up and giving it to me as a gift. Actually, Haley and I were with my cousins when we found American Girls’ Felicity and Kaya. We couldn’t leave them.

It makes sense. I love my AG Samantha. (Actually, she dates back to Pleasant Company.) I’m a collector. A psychology student that I had to go see at AIW (As part of my psychology class, we had to go. I’m crazy, but that’s not why I went, I went for the grade.) gave me a Mickey Mouse beer stein and it’s prominently displayed on a shelf in my living room. I forget where she found it. Maybe she just had it forever, she might have said yard sale. I forget, but I love it. I love that she thought of me. It’s such a rare, unique, and special thing. I’ve never seen another one like it.

But I don’t know, you guys. Don’t just go to Goodwill to find something for the sake of finding anything. If you are there and see Bruce-sized pajamas for, like, $2. That’s cool. You were thinking of me, and I appreciate that. Give it to me the next time we see each other. But don’t wrap it up and present it as a gift for him. You have created work for me. “Happy Birthday, wash these clothes.”

It’s slightly alarming that the need exists for this post.

Maybe there is no need for a post. Do people do this, or is one person just doing it to me? Maybe the need is for a note to the individual… but, okay, you tell me how to broach that subject.

I take a lot of stuff to Goodwill and consignment shops. Do you know why? They have no value to me. They’re not special. They’re the throwaways. It’s not about money, I don’t care what you spend, it’s about value. Like I said, we didn’t bat an eye at buying AG dolls for $10 because they are valuable to us, if nothing else. (But they actually are valuable to everyone else as well.)

Rather than continue harping on why it’s in relatively poor taste to gift someone used articles of clothing, I will instead point out several options for super-cheap or easily made gifts. I get it if you’re broke. I get it. Your life’s not about making money, you’re a do-gooder. You want to make a difference. I get it.

Check ebay. For example, I searched “Disney.” Then arranged the results according to price + shipping, lowest first. I immediately found a Walt Disney 6 cent stamp for $ .99 shipped. Buy a mini-frame. You know, they often use them for place settings at weddings? (I think I actually have TWO of those laying around my house, if you don’t, they’re like $1.) Cut a piece of acid-free paper to fit the frame and mount the stamp to it. Boom. Nice, sweet, thoughful… $2. (Unless you’ve been to a wedding in the past 5 years, then it’s only $ .99!) The same price as a shirt at Goodwill that was somebody’s throwaway. I love it. I’ll sit it on my mantle or desk. Super cute. Crafty. Thoughtful. I appreciate you.

Check Amazon. I have a Kindle. Did you know that? Maybe we should talk. Maybe if you had a conversation with me you’d know that I hate folding clothes but love playing “TripleTown” and “Candy Crush” and “Where’s My Water” and “Monsters, Run.” Are there any other Kindle apps that I might enjoy? You can save 80% on, like, 350 different Kindle books. Buy me a book! Again, I looked for about 30 seconds and found something that I’d enjoy. You can choose the delivery date and everything. (FYI, fiction isn’t my thing, but I love art, history, humor, and religious works.)

Your recipient doesn’t have a Kindle? Do they have a Smartphone? Do they have a computer? It’s 2013. You can’t dance around this technology issue.

I sent my sister a $10 Starbucks gift card on her birthday that I got for free by signing up for a Starbucks account or some crap. $10! That’s at least two tall white-chocolate mochas. I know she’ll like that. It cost me nothing.

Still evasive about the recipient having or not having technology, huh? That’s okay. If you’re reading this, you can find things.

Make me a cake. Just the fact that you mixed, and baked, and decorated, I mean — that takes me all day. Make me a mix CD. There’s thought in that. Did you know if you draw on a plain ceramic mug with a Sharpe and then bake it you will heat-set it? Yeah. Custom mugs anyone? Cut out a little heart on cardboard, trace that heart onto a map, cut out that map and Modpodge it to the cardboard, put a ribbon on it, boom: sentimental ornament that will recall that trip we took that one time. (“I’ll put that flea in a box…”) Do the same thing with a bunch of Disney characters from a book that you found at, oh, I don’t know, Goodwill? You could make a whole set: Snow White and all seven dwarfs.

Me. Me. Me. “That’s fine,” you say, “for you. Bruce has no desire for a $ .65 octopus necklace!” Learn something. Google “blanket stitch,” and design a t-shirt using a fabric remnant.

It’s painstakingly custom-made by hand! That’s valuable! I’ll keep that forever!

It is ridiculous how ~~cheaply~~ inexpensively you can put together a present. Go look at Pinterest. People on Pinterest are so much smarter and more thoughtful than I will ever be. Google “Free DIY Printable.”

You don’t have to do this big thing. Just a little token, a little gesture, is sufficient. And let’s face it, a shirt that’s been caressing someone else’s stinky pits or a sleeper that some other baby pooped in is no big thing anyway. I’d like to research the History of a Gift in modern times. Specifically, I want to know how we got to this point. When we were kids, anything was okay. “Look, I drew this for you.” That’s pretty neat, you did that by hand. You put yourself into it. I guess we got older and started making our own disposable income and wanted to do more, which evolved into making money, albeit never enough, and having bills, feeling obligated to buy presents. We can go back to the drawings. What did I do to make you think, “okay, I have to get her a shirt,” or, worse yet, a skirt and a pair of pants. Not a SHIRT and pants, a skirt, a bottom, and pants, another bottom.

What woman buys another woman a pair of pants?!

Pajamas are the exception. But one doesn’t just gift a pair of pajama bottoms.

It’s so… ugh… I just have run out of words to describe how I feel smiling as I open something that perhaps someone else opened once upon a time. You know how re-gifting is tacky? You’ve heard that, right? This is like re-gifting, except worse. We can assume a re-gift is something new that you don’t like so you don’t use it and instead you gift it to someone else, in the same new gift condition in which it was received. This is kind of like that, except someone else didn’t like/want/need this so much that they gave it away. It was a little bit nicer than trash, so they didn’t want to throw it away completely, but they really can’t have it in their house anymore.

And now it’s in mine.

(OMG… side note, I just did this and it took me 20 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88cn_rtLo Bruce pulled up the < key. Holy crap.)

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overwhelmed

by Wendy J. La

There are so many one-liners that I keep thinking up as facebook statuses, but then I’m like, “No, I really need to just write a blog post.” At the same time, I am totally speechless. They don’t make big enough words to describe how special I feel. It’s amazing that so many people can love someone so much when they haven’t met him yet. He is one fantastically lucky little boy to be entering a family that’s this incredible.

My baby shower was the shower that I have fantasized about since Tom and I started thinking about making babies.

It started on Saturday morning. Tom and I were up at 6:30 to continue cleaning after having been up until 2 (me) and 3 (Tom) the night before. At about 10:30, the doorbell rang and we were pretty far from being ready for company. Tom answered it, I freaked out about still being in my pajamas. I crossed my fingers and hoped it was a neighbor. I said, “Is it people?” Tom looked out the window by the door and said something to the effect of, “Oh, it’s people alright!” He opened the door and it was Lindsay Kaye and Sarah. All the way from Florida, a whole day early! They were hungry, so the first thing that they did after hugging and hugging and hugging and touring the house was run out and try to find something to eat. They found Five Guys and brought back lunch for everybody.

Since they picked Five Guys, we had to show them this:

After we ate, they helped us clean up and put a whooooole bunch of boxes in the attic. Since I want to live here forever and never move again, there’s nothing in the attic that we have to ever get to unless we are moving out. I have a crapload of Disney collectibles that each came in a box with styrofoam and whatnot, so we put all of those in the attic and that’s it. Tom doesn’t like going up there, so he’s putting all the holiday decorations in the garage. Anyway – in 3 minutes, Lindsay, Sarah and Tom took care of a job that Tom and I have put off for 3 weeks.

Kayce showed up sometime in the early afternoon. Kayce – drove all the way from Northern VA, stopping in Cville, just to go shopping at Ikea with me and watch me open a bunch of presents. I mean, basically that’s the only reason everyone was there. Amazing. AMAZING. Amazing that all these people would come all this way for that.

Later in the afternoon, Trudy, Sunny and Haley showed up WITH MOM! Mom! …or, well, Grandma – I guess… who tried to tell me all week that she was going to the UVA game and coming after that surprised me and showed up with the Herolds + Hay Nick. First Lindsay and Sarah, then Mom.. that’s TWO awesome surprises.

We went to Ikea. Tom was versus me. He’s always versus me. I sat a bunch of stuff by the door to go to Goodwill on Friday night and asked him to load it up and take it. Wouldn’t you know it, not only was the truck (that we needed to fill with baby furniture) full of stuff, but it was also out of gas – which we had ALSO talked about waaaay before everyone was walking out the door to go to Ikea. Try Thursday night. Between Thursday night and Saturday evening he didn’t have a second to put gas in the truck – get outta here.

I didn’t want to be held up any more from getting the gang to the meatballs. I told Tom to drop the stuff off at Goodwill, go to South Carolina to get gas, and then meet us at Ikea… instead of napping, which was our original plan for him.

Trudy drove Grandma, Kayce and me. Lindsay drove Sarah, Haley and Sunny. Tom came by himself after doing his chores, ate with us and then napped in the parking lot. We needed the truck… and on the way home it would only seat two anyway, so we needed to take that many cars.

IKEA was, well… it was IKEA, which is always awesome. We had dinner, then went shopping. Oh! I just remembered one of my would-be facebook statuses. We had a shopping list that totaled over $800 and through savvy shopping, endless generosity from my Mom and sisters and aunts and cousins, and pure dumb luck – we walked out of there spending $175 out of pocket. I was flabbergasted. So flabbergasted in fact that I just used the word “flabbergasted.”

I was adamant about making Tom come in and pay with his debit card so we could get 1%, or what I thought would be $8, in cash back… but after all that we made less than $2. Ha. AND there was no coupon on the bottom of the receipt… so who knows if they even do that anymore.

I told Tom on the way home from Ikea that I felt like all the molecules that make me up were buzzing. I felt electric. There was so much happiness in me that my cells were unable to contain it all.

When we got home, Aunt Lindsay and Aunt Haley put Little Happy’s crib together. Tom took Grandma and the Great Aunts to WalMart and Krispy Kreme.

It was a late night. Everybody was exhausted. We had a huge slumber party.

It was awesome. Can you believe all this people went through all this for me?! Well, for one lucky little boy, anyway.

The next morning was a frenzy of activity. Dad and Lindsay went to the grocery store. Then Dad and Debbie went to the grocery store. Then Dad said he needed some wires to hang up the chandelier and had to go to Lowe’s, and before I knew he was gone, he was back and the chandelier was hung. Our menu was based on the invitations. We had Mexican dip, Chinese wontons, Hawaiian pineapple, American (although not Native American) mac n’ cheese, Italian caprese skewers, and ham and cheese croissants from France. Each dish had a little small world kid on a toothpick stuck in it. I wish I had taken pictures. It was so cute. I found a tube of toy buildings from around the world at Michael’s, so the Pyramids, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Parthenon, Empire State Building, Taj Mahal, and Eiffel Tower were scattered around the food as well. The cake also matched the invitations PERFECTLY.

I made a pennant banner out of card stock and hung it over the fireplace. It was a quick and dirty project, but in hindsight I like it so much that I think I’m going to hang it in the baby’s room. I wrote “baby” in a different language on each flag. It looked so good.

We played a lot of fun games that I’ve never played at a shower before. Haley and I had each bought a bunch of prizes. It’s funny, because I picked some of my favorite things, fancy soaps, and Haley picked her favorite things, wild animals on stickers, magnets and notepads. There was a worksheet with a list of features (eyes, hair, smile, toes, etc.) and you had to check off whether you thought that I wanted the baby to get each feature from Tom or from me. We put paper plate on top of our heads and had to draw a baby without looking. Everyone tried to guess how big around I was and cut a piece of yarn that length. My cousin Erika came within about ONE INCH!

Speaking of Erika! She and my Great Aunt Jean left Rockville, MD at 5:30 AM to surprise me at the shower. I was totally blown away! Flabbergasted again! I still can’t believe Erika was there. Amazing. Surprise number 3! And Jean! Surprise number 4!

I really want to go into detail about all the incredible stuff that I got, but don’t want to bore you. It was really just… I don’t know. I already used “amazing” and “incredible.” Did I use “awesome?” It was awesome. It was epic. I cannot understand how people love me so much, I just don’t have the brain power to comprehend it. I’ve been unpacking Lil’ Happy’s gifts this morning and it just moves me to tears. I don’t think it’s pregnancy hormones, I think it’s just being so full of joy that it leaks out of my face.

The things that stand out most in my mind are the handmade things. I wanted to buy a stool at Ikea for his room. Ikea was out of the yellow ones. But that’s okay, because Great Aunt Trudy MADE him a stool with Mickey and the gang on it. Anyone can wrap up some onesies and socks and blankets and things, but his Great Aunt Debbie made a platter of onesie cupcakes. It was so adorable that I didn’t want to take it apart. I still don’t. Great Great Aunt Sara Beth made him a blankey and a hat. I am so excited about those that they’re going to the hospital with us. They smell like her house. Love, love, love it. Kayce and Erika are BOTH in the process of stitching something up. Kayce’s sneaky. She surprised me. I didn’t know she did all that. Erika said, “Yeah, she does… and she knits all the time. She’s very crafty.”

OMG, I still can’t believe Erika and Kayce were here for the shower. Totally awesome.

Grandma, Grandpa and Lil’ Happy’s Aunts kept giving us presents filled with more presents. You know? Not just a bathtub, but a bathtub stuffed with shampoo, towels, lotion, etc. We didn’t just get a diaper bag with a giraffe on it, it was stuffed with diapers, bottles, bibs, diaper cream, etc. I LOOOOVE those types of presents.

—

I really wanted to decorate onesies at the party, but we didn’t get around to it. It worked out alright, though. Lindsay, Sarah, Tom and I decorated a few after everyone left. I had such a good time doing that. It was fun with out intimate little group. I think the one that Tom made is probably my favorite, but he doesn’t want you to see it until you see it on the baby. Sarah’s are hysterical. Lindsay’s are PERFECT for MY kid. Mine were kind of anti-climactic compared to everyone else’s.

Looks like this post has gotten long enough. I’m going to go reopen some more presents for a while.

Kirk out.

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asian time

by Wendy J. La

Tom has a tendency to run his life on something his best friend Nathan calls “Asian time.” Basically, it means if he has to be someplace at 7 o’clock, he leaves the house at 7 o’clock. I’m not sure if this actually has anything to do with being Asian.

I, on the other hand, cannot stand being late. I think I was traumatized in my youth by choruses of, “well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence” when we’d have to run from one family’s Christmas to the other. I don’t know why – but we were always late to everything. Fifteen minutes late to church, like clockwork – every week. You’d think that we would have just started waking up 15 minutes earlier. Nope.

I don’t like close calls!

I’m nervous the shower will fall into Asian time. (Sounds so racist, we really should come up with another name for it.)

We have 2 weeks until the baby shower. There is one weekend in between. In those two weeks:

We need to buy bedroom furniture for the grandparents’ bedroom downstairs.
We need to have that room painted or paint it ourselves.
We need to unpack.
The Target registry is almost entirely online-only items. So, do I wait until the shower to see what we get? Shipping takes a while, so we’ll have to order what we don’t get and pray it gets delivered before our boy does.
I’ve got to buy some newborn size diapers. (Cloth or otherwise.)
If I get newborn cloth diapers, I have to wash and dry them about 10 times BEFORE we put them on Jr.’s butt to increase the absorbency to full capacity.
My dad needs to hang my Mickey Mouse chandelier and move the light switch in the Bonus Room. And we need to patch and paint the spot where the switch is now.
Tom’s Uncle Larry is coming to stay with us during the Democratic National Convention, the week leading up to the shower.
Pick out, figure out how to pay for, and purchase the most awesome rocking chair I can find. (Special gift from my Baby-Daddy.)
Pack for a month in Charlottesville.

So, I. AM. PANICKED.

…to say the least. I reckon I should go unpack instead of writing a whiny blog.

The planner in me is like, you can’t just do this on Asian time. But… there is a little half-Asian boy inside me that is doing EVERYTHING on at least half-Asian time.

We are really doing this. In about a month, I WILL HAVE A FREAKING BABY.

Hooooooooly cow.

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craft all the things!

by Wendy J. La

We have so many pictures to hang on the walls!!! Yesterday we found the Ark of the Covenant: a box full of pictures big and small from the Virginia house that had been wasting away in the garage for a year and a half. I can’t wait to unpack my life!!!

Okay, I have been waiting, and waiting for this.

Basically, you buy as much food as you want in the cafeteria at Ikea, and then use it as a coupon on your purchase of $100+. With a nursery to furnish, I was like, “How AWESOME would it be if everyone that is coming to the baby shower goes with us to Ikea to buy the $800 worth of baby crap and WE ALL eat for free?!?!?!”

Not happening. Eat for Free is the weekend before the shower. Womp wah. And as it turns out, that’s a VA weekend for us.

However!

However, there IS a silver lining!

My dad needs to come down here and hang up my Mickey Mouse chandelier and take care of some other electrical work before the shower. So, I think I conned the family into coming down after the UVA game on Saturday. We can buy part of the Baby La Collection and at least Mom, Dad, Tom and I will eat for free! (Squirt can have some free Texas toast, I guess, as this only applies to the restaurant, not the food stand near the exit that sells the pizza.)

—

We had a busy day around here yesterday. My beef isn’t with opening boxes and putting things away. I just don’t want to take everything up and down the stairs. Tom is perfectly willing to take stuff to where it needs to go, but he doesn’t know where that is. Match made in Heaven!

I actually emptied one of those under-bed storage containers, which has been full of junk (art supplies and cards and pictures) since maybe high school? Middle school? There was some college junk in there, too, so who knows. Anyway – it’s totally empty now. All the cards are in boxes with other cards. The pictures are in boxes with other pictures and the art supplies are all sorted into their appropriate bins.

I told Tom that my Art Closet is a dream come true.

“You want crayons, here’s the crayons! Glitter, what color? Seashells? There’s a box for that.” It’s like my own personal Michael’s Arts & Craft store in the hallway, and it makes me want to get crafty RIGHT NOW. Now I understand why people get so excited about organization. It’s really a beautiful thing. My whole life has been, “dammit, I knew there was a glue stick in here somewhere!” And now I can just go to the glue bin! (Or the hot glue gun/sticks bin, depending on the kind of glue stick to which I was referring.) (Was that the proper use of which?)

I think I’m going to go stand in front of my art closet for a few minutes. Kirk out.

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baby shower invitations

by Wendy J. La

Lindsay and I, well, mostly Lindsay finished the baby shower invitations over the weekend. They look outstanding.

Neat, huh? My only regret is that it doesn’t say, “it’s a small world” on the invitation anywhere. I think people get it, though.

The basis for this idea is this invitation that I designed for my cousin’s wedding. But how much better is this – using the double doors AS DOORS and opening the exterior of the it’s a small world attraction to the symbolic inside of the ride. It’s like being there… in invitation form. I wish I could make it play the song.

So… here’s the play by play. I drew all the little kids, drew the exterior of the attraction, and drew the clock face. Tom scanned all of my pencil drawings and since my computer DIED on my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day… I told Lindsay all of my ideas and she colored everything in.

I sketched them, Tom scanned them, and Lindsay colored them in.

Original Sketch – This is my original drawing of the ride exterior.

Lindsay emailed me printable .pdf files that I could print from my lesser laptop. I bought photo paper and printed the invite interior. On a second sheet, I printed 2 sets of doors. The dimensions of the door invitations are the same as an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet folded in half, so the inside is borderless… the one thing I don’t hate about my evil printer is that it does print borderless when you can get it to print. Instead of folding it in half, you fold the left and right quarters in. Anyway, it makes measuring and designing pretty easy.

Here are the door pieces that I printed, cut, and glued to the outside of the invitation doors.

Putting it all together.

Shutting the doors.

AND VOILA!

Piles of finished product.

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shower invites

by Wendy J. La

Most of the shower invites went out today. I wish I had put a tracking number on one of them so I could keep an eye on where they are. I wrote a blog post about creating them, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise in case someone who reads this happens to be invited so I scheduled it to post on the 24th. But man-oh-man am I excited!

They’re pretty cute. I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle/cost/hours of back-breaking (yeah, that’s right – Lindsay bent over her computer or me bent over the cutting board) work. I could probably have just bought something, or created a simple postcard… but it was nice to have my vision become a reality.

Side note, if you get an invitation with a dirty rubber cement spot on it that I tried to rub off, don’t take it personally. I stuffed the envelopes in the dark at 3 this morning, so it’s totally random.

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wahoowah

by Wendy J. La

I’m not a huge fan of Lord Hardwicke’s. It’s not my favorite place. The burgers are like charcoal bricks. You have to pay extra for fries, they give you chips. I forget why, but I told Tom to remind me never to get the Club again. I was very offended once when we walked in 15 minutes before they closed and they wouldn’t serve us. That just grinds my gears, ask my dad about the fried chicken people on Friday nights when he was trying to pick my mom up after work for dates in high school. You just don’t do that. You’re not closed. I never wanted to go back after that. You don’t want my money tonight? Fine. I won’t give it to you ever again.

My family loves it. So, we keep going back. Their pizza is pretty good. I have to be careful with this gestational diabetes thing. I ordered a taco salad. No jalapenos, but since the menu said “ask your server for sour cream or salsa,” I did ask for sour cream. “What kind of dressing?” Dressing? Really? It’s a taco salad. “Um, yes, I’d like a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette…” What? I thought sour cream or salsa was the dressing on a taco salad. I mean, I guess if you’re Lindsay, and eat ranch on anything and everything, well, yeah… I guess you could go with ranch. I just don’t see ranch and sour cream. In lieu of ground beef, they put chili on it. It was different. Not bad, just different.

I guess I just do not understand the things that they do.

I had a good weekend, though. We went to Maryland to see Tom’s mom before she leaves for Texas and she went shopping with us at Buy Buy Baby. I found the small world swaddling blankets that I LOVE live and in person! I was able to hold them, and eventually buy them – which I thought I’d have to do online. I am irritated that I didn’t have a 20% off coupon (they’re a branch of Bed, Bath and Beyond) but so, sooo happy to get those things. Overpriced, but I love them. We also saw a red dragon humidifier that I LOVE and it IS available at Target ($10 less!), so I put him on the registry.

I need to do serious research on breast pumps and strollers. I like the pattern on the stroller that we picked, but it’s huge and bulky. It comes with the infant carrier, you know, a travel system… and I feel like those are mandatory. I’m open to suggestion on that. As far as breast pumps, I’d say more than, “open” to advice – I desperately need help. “…I’m supposed to attach this contraption to those and do what now?!” I’m not all that into nursing, but I do like saving money. My plan was to pump and bottle it. I’m sure for a while there I’ll just be pumping it straight into the kid. No sense washing bottles or getting out of bed and going down to the kitchen to get a bottle… too much hassle. BUT at some point, I’ll be pumping regularly? I hope? They say the handhelds are more for occasional use. I guess I’ll need to pump at Disney World in December so Lil’ Happy can stay in the hotel with Grandma some times. Right? Help.

Lindsay finished helping (i.e. creating in their entirety) with the shower invites. They look amazing!

Did you know UVA is playing Penn State the day before my shower? Crap. Kind of rains on my weekend getaway parade.

I forgot about football. When we got married, I was diligent about picking a weekend that wasn’t a game weekend. There was only one such weekend in the fall, and one of my bridesmaids was already scheduled to be a bridesmaid in another wedding the same weekend. We tied the knot in December after all.

Anyway… if it’s not one thing, it’s another. There’s no game the weekend of the 15th or 22nd, but Lindsay has something else to do on the 15th. Haley’s birthday is the 22nd – not to mention I’ll be at 38 weeks, and from what I understand, at that point it could be any minute. So – the nursery needs to already be ready already.

I worry I waited too long! Everything I read said guests would be miffed if I had it too early – but now I’m worried it’s not going to come together here at the last minute. Aiiiiiya!

AND… it doesn’t help that we thought we were pregnant countless times and it turned out to be my imagination AND I look about as big now as I did when I had Mr. Nasty. Like, I think if you saw me on the street you’d say to yourself, “Hmm… is she pregnant, or fat?” The size of the Happy bump is comparable to the size of the Nasty lump. In some ways, I’m still not convinced that we actually are pregnant.

Although I never had to pee this much with the cyst.

P.S. Strawberry shortcake and a handful of VA peanuts for breakfast, and my blood sugar was in good shape. 106 and it needs to be under 120. Not whole wheat, but it’s nice to know I can eat it and survive.

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lately

by Wendy J. La

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. No progress on Little Happy’s room or anything. At this point we’re just trying to get out of the old house. We’ve got one week.

It’s been a rough few days.

We bought a house, closed on 7/27 and have to be moved out of our rental by 8/18.

I don’t have gestational diabetes per se… but my numbers are elevated. So I’m diligently trying to figure that whole mess out.

Tom went to Dallas last Thursday and Friday, so in addition to be pregnant and having to work on the old house by myself, I was super-duper depressed at being alone. There’s nothing in the new house to eat. So, I had to go to the store. Everyone I know who has a pet can just walk out the door and go to the store. Not us. We have to dog-proof the whole house. Close all the doors to all the bedrooms… Put boxes on the couch so she doesn’t jump up there and cover it in fur… Move anything that’s edible higher than 5 feet off the floor… It’s exhausting. I just want to be able to go to the freaking store without having to turn my pantry into Fort Knox. I just want things to be easy. I just want my life to be simple!

So. I put the dog in the garage. I prayed she wouldn’t crap in the garage – because I’m still nauseous all the time and didn’t want her sh*t to make me throw up. Still, I bought clothespins at Walmart so I could put one on my nose if she did poop and figured we could use them at the baby shower.

It started raining when I went into Walmart, when I was ready to leave it was a gosh-darned MONSOON. I got soaked, despite the umbrella (“…big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways…”) I looked like a drowned rat. Aaaand I slipped in the parking lot. Stubbed my toe. I’ll live. My super-long second toe kind of folded and saved the rest of me from going down, but it got cut pretty bad and hurts like a mug. Added injury to the insult of being soaking wet, and lonely, and sad, and frantic about Jasmine.

At home, of course there was sh*t in the garage, which infuriated me. Of course. Just because I DID NOT NEED THAT IN MY LIFE AT THAT MOMENT. So, okay… fine. I can pick up poop. I mean. I’m having a baby. Me an’ poop are about to get real friendly.

But geeeeeez… do I hate dog poop.

So, I open the clothespins and they don’t fit on my GIGANTIC, HUGE, ENORMOUS, TITANIC nose.

I stuffed a paper towel up my schnoz and picked up the crap, put it in a bag and cracked the garage door so I could throw it out on to the driveway and throw it away when it’s not raining cats and dogs. Oh! And speaking of rain/dogs… Jasmine decides she’s out. She’s gon’ bounce. She peacin’. So, she runs out of the garage into the rain. Nice little plus. Like my evening wasn’t already awesome… now I get to go find a wet dog.

JASMINE! WHY YOU SO DUMB! WHY YOU RUN OUT INTO STORM!

I don’t get it. I’ll be damned if I’m going out there. I yelled and she came back. I yelled at her to stay and went inside to get a cup of water the flush out the pee that she also made for me while I was gone. Come back out – she’s gone again.

SUNNUVA!

I called her again and she came back. WTF, Jasmine?! It. Is. RAINING. Stay in the garage… if for no other reason, because I JUST told you to.

WHY YOU SO DUMB?!

This happened every time I went in to get another cup of water. By the time the pee was flushed out into the rain I was ready to just shut the door and leave Jasmine out there. I didn’t. I called her back into the garage from wherever the heck she was. I stood by her bowl and watched her eat the food that had been there since I left. (If you don’t know this dog, she loves to eat. We pour the food at dinner time, she eats it. Interesting, huh? Leave her in the house and she will eat anything within those 5 feet of ground level. Leave her in the garage with a full bowl of food and she doesn’t touch it.) Poured her some water. Stood there while she drank it. Went in the house, told her to get the F away from me, and I finally got to eat something. Finally. Sat in the kitchen and cried and ate “dinner,” a Lean Cuisine.

I was beginning to think Tom had forgotten about his wife. It was about midnight, Texas time. So… clearly he’s having more fun than I was. Whatever. I’m going to bed… Jasmine was finally dry, but I didn’t want her near me and she knew it. She got as close as she thought she could safely, which was the landing halfway up the stairs and eventually outside my bedroom door.

Tom called at about the same moment I gave up on him.

Maybe none of it is a big deal, but I FEEL depressed. So, I FEEL like it’s a nightmare.

Tom got home and we decided that we’re never doing that again. Ever. That was stupid. Lil’ Happy and I are going next year.

The screen on my laptop, my only means of communication with the outside world, went black on Tom’s first day away – JUST as I was opening photoshop to create Baby Shower invitations. I also have someone WAITING for me on Etsy, and no way to create a listing. Our shower leaks. The washing machine stopped working. The ceiling fan and light in our bedroom turn on and off at random. And oh yeah, we have a house to move out of. Oh yeah, and my nose is huge.

Friday night – Tom was finally home! I met him at the door. It was like in the movies where they guy has been over seas fighting Nazis for 9 months. We just wanted to be together. We drove to get food at 11:30 – not because we were hungry, but because we wanted to drive around and talk and just be together. Took the Holy Terror with us. Got home and Tom showed me cupcakes! And presents! We were in bed around 12:30.

At about 1:30 am, his phone starts going off and we both thought it was the alarm. We were supposed to leave early to go to Virginia. It wasn’t the alarm, it was the neighbor that lives by the old house. She said some kid told her he thought our house was robbed. We got dressed, loaded Jasmine up in the truck that was full of stuff from me moving earlier that day and went to the old house. The cops were there. They said the back door was open. Great. We went in the front door. The cop was like, “alright – what’s missing?” “Nothing. It looks just as it did when I left this evening.”

Turns out, they had parked the getaway car in front of our house, broke in to a house about 5 houses down and ran behind all the houses in-between with the goods. But it wasn’t us. It’s like Tom’s back home and all is right with the world. Nothing is a big deal. Everything’s okay.

We were up late.

We went to Virginia for a glorious wedding – but traveling is always tough anyway. I’ve got this gestational diabetes problem and it’s been tough to find good nutritious food on the road. Anyway. Being on the road is just an extra stressor on the existing list of crap that’s going on. We were both tired from the night before.

It was a whoooole weekend that we weren’t moving.

It was a great weekend. Great wedding. Great day at Busch Gardens – although I could not ride a damn thing.

I take that back, I rode the carousel. Everything else was either too dangerous or part of the Sesame Street Forest of Fun.

As if my list of whiny complaints wasn’t long enough, at the wedding a friend of mine pointed out that my voice is suddenly very deep. Yes, it is. Thank you. I actually find it quite devastating. Huge nose… growing a beard… voice of Gaston… wedding band doesn’t fit… yes… pregnancy is AWESOME.

Side note: this sounds like me, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770619/, I’d love to know other peoples’ opinions on the subject. People on various message boards claim the nose thing will go away after I have the baby, but the deep voice bit sounds like a legit issue (that will resolve itself eventually, but an issue nonetheless). All the stuff about the ovaries sounds like me… just sayin’. Look at it.

So… yeah. That’s what’s happening down here. I’m just kind of waiting for this pregnancy thing to get fun. At first, I figured it was lame because I was waiting until after my cousin’s wedding to make a big deal about it. But here it is a month later and I’m still miserable. I don’t feel special! I’m not glowing! I’m just… kind of… blubbering. I’m tired. I’m fat. I’m sad. Projects are not getting done. The house is a mess. I was looking forward to the baby shower because that’ll be fun… show off my new house, you know? But like, people have a problem with it because I want it to be at my house in Charlotte. That’s really getting to me for some reason… like, making them unhappy is completely filling me with anxiety and irritability. There really just aren’t words to express my feelings about that. I can’t imagine any of the complainers being like, “oh – you know what, I’m going to have my baby 4 hours from home because that’ll be easier on Wendy,” but that’s what I’m doing for them. (Not just for them, I like the doctor, too – but if you ask, “wow, why are you having the baby in Cville?” First thing out of my mouth is, “Well, my whole family is there.”) And they can’t come here, to my home for a shower, so I can nest for one f*cking minute before I have to move to Charlottesville for a month – away from Tom, and we’ve seen how well that worked out – and live as a guest, out of a suitcase while I have this baby?!

Buuuuut…. trying to be optimistic. I don’t know. Trying. Sorry if you wanted a fluffy entry about magic baby fairy dust. Tom makes me feel better. We tried for so long. This is our little miracle. I’m hoping it’ll be a whole different story when he emerges from… my… gosh… I do not want to think about that right now.

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4 Comments »

That La Kid

wishin' an' hopin'!

it’s not that tough.

overwhelmed

asian time

craft all the things!

baby shower invitations

shower invites

wahoowah

lately

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