If you really felt as ill as you said you did to the person on the other end of your cell phone, while you walked up and down the literature section on the 5th floor (where I was), why didn't you stay home for a few days? Don't sniffle your way around the books anymore. Stop wiping your runny nose with the back of your hand and then running that hand along the shelf.
Your eyes looked so swollen and your nose so red. I'm sure some sleep and some soup would have done you good. It sure would have helped out the library patrons, too. Some of us are pregnant around here and really not looking forward to flu season.
Take care.
Sincerely,
A pregnant lady who is NOT happy to be home with a sore throat and burny eyes today
dear boy in the library,
The gods of good sleep mock me.
I thought I woke up inside a vacuum cleaner last night. I looked at the clock, it was 1am. A vacuum cleaner roared upstairs, in the room right above us. K woke and said, "Are you serious."
I went upstairs to talk to the guy. The vacuum was actually louder in our room than it was up here. The guy apologized quickly and turned off the vacuum.
I went back downstairs and lay down to sleep.
The floorboards kept creaking overhead. I think he would search for a creaky floorboard, and when he found one, he'd step all around it until all of the squeaks were out of it. I let him do this for about a half an hour.
Why did I wait so long? I thought it would end in just another minute. I thought I'd be able to sleep through it. I didn't want to be a bothersome neighbor.
I went back upstairs. I thought about going in my undies to make a greater impression, but I dressed first.
He apologized quickly. "Oh, is that loud?"
I went back downstairs and lay down to sleep. About a half-block away a car alarm went off.
oh. my. cute.
I know a brilliant, multi-talented woman who shared one of her secrets with me yesterday. Because of her expert instruction, I made his adorable bear (and C. made the halloween pumpkin in his hand).
I'm addicted. After we went home, I spent an hour—which I SHOULD have spent creating a lesson plan—looking on the internet for ideas of more cute, little felted things I could make. I'm pretty sure that's all I want to do for the next two months (thesis defense? pshaw!).
I'm not going to tell you how incredibly simple this is to do. I want you to be amazed. Isn't he cute?
it's a halloween miracle!
In the neighborhood where I grew up, the "Great Pumpkin" would deliver Halloween treats to people's porches, with a poem that told them to put a pumpkin in their window and then pass the favor on by anonymously delivering treats to other neighbors.
I think my neighborhood now must have a Great Pumpkin, too—just a different kind—because a good deed showed up anonymously on my porch: yesterday, someone swept the stairs in front of my apartment. I thanked my husband, but he wouldn't claim responsibility.
So, dear pumpkin, if you read my blog, thanks for sweeping my porch. I think I'll pass a good deed along to another neighbor.
The Ultra Sound
I edited the ultrasound down to one minute and added a song that K sings to her tummy.
I was going to make a dance club version, or do one with Black Sabbath's "Embryo." But I have homework to do.
Grandparents will get a DVD copy.
This video popped up as a related alternative to watch afterward.
meet our gummi bear
A few months ago, we went to the emergency room (nothing major—just pain that made our midwife nervous, but turned out to be nothing). The visit was a joke. We waited 3 hours to talk to a goober of a doctor, who charged our insurance over 300 bucks for the 9 minutes he spent reciting to us everything he remembered from medical school about the third trimester of pregnancy (I was only 10 weeks along).
BUT. I'm not writing this post about him. I actually think the visit was worth every minute and penny spent. When I had an ultrasound that day, we saw a teeny, tiny little baby on the screen. The lab tech said it looked like a gummi bear.
picture from moist production dot com
So true!
And the name stuck. Maybe because of the accuracy of the description. Maybe because my relief that the ultrasound was our last step out of the ER made it sound cuter than it was. Or maybe because it made the baby feel more real. Whatever the reason, I've been calling the baby by my favorite gender-neutral name these last few weeks: Gummi Bear.
We took another look yesterday. And, wow. Little Gummi has grown quite a bit since that ER visit. Her (her!) head, brain, spine, heart, arms, legs, feet, and hands are all accounted for. She (she!) swats away ultrasound transducers when they get poked in her face. She (a little gummi girl!) is excited to meet all of you.
And I'm sure you want to meet her. So, here she is. Our little gummi bear:
Santa, are you there?
K and I have been debating whether or not should teach our kid about Santa. We still have some time to think about it. K is about five months along. We find out the gender this Friday.
Here's a list of pros and cons. So far the cons outweigh.
Pros:
It's fun.
You get to eat cookies on Christmas Eve.
Our kid won't be the jerk kid who tells all the other kids that "Santa ain't real."
You can use him as a boogey-man to scare your kids into being good.
BOO-ze". . .has belief in Santa Claus ever closed the door to knowledge as loyalty to a scientific credo so often has? Is it better for a child to believe in Santa Claus with the understanding that someday he is going to revise his views than for him to be taught what is scientifically correct . . . from infancy, so that he will never, never have to revise his views on anything and thus go through life always right about everything? Which course is more liable to lead to disaster, the open-ended Santa Claus, or the ingrained illusion of infallibility?"
Cons:
When K was a child, she was so grateful for her Christmas presents that she looked up and said, "Santa, wherever you are, THANK YOU!"
Her mother was rather put off. She had stayed up most of the night wrapping and setting everything just so, after countless hours of shopping, after months of working at the ER so that she could afford everything. After all that her kids thought she had just gotten them a couple of things, but that Santa, what a guy.
Santa can cause your child to lose their faith in God. (That's right, I just used "their" as a third-person neuter. Take that, grammar Nazi).
For example, a friend of ours wrote recently:
"Last night when J was helping the kids with personal prayers he started with [our 3-year-old daughter], who looked up [at] him, thought for a minute, then said "Dad, Heavenly Father's not really real anyway." Oh man. Darn Santa Claus. Darn the Easter Bunny and curse the Tooth Fairy."
K knew a family who didn't celebrate Santa, because Santa is an anagram of Satan. Of course that line of logic can get you into trouble. For example:
Abraham Lincoln is an anagram of Banal Charm Loin. So apparently that great president was some sort of boring yet hypnotic sexual deviant. Better not teach your kids about him.
Latter-day Saints = A Startled Sanity. Therefore Mormons are crazy.
Anywho. Let us know what you think we should do. Otherwise we'll probably teach our children this. (on youtube)
More fun anagrams (I got carried away on the website):
Thomas S Monson = Most Hansom Son
George Bush = Be Gore's Ugh (Just ask Al Gore)
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