Its like sardines, I tell you...

I feel like my organs are packed in like a can of sardines. I have my office chair and my car seat in the most reclining position that still allows me to see my monitor / out the window safely for some breathing room.

I can handle the constant pressure on my bladder, my ribs and feeling like I might explode by 7pm at night. I'm not a wimp when it comes to physical discomfort. What worries me is that I still have several months to go and I am clearly already out of interior cargo space. Crap. So I assume from here on in, this is when it stops being cute and the seams just get more and more stretched and things get real ugly.

I will know when that day truly comes because my wonderful husband will continue with the "you're beautiful, Honey" song and dance but I will see the fear behind the brave face he's putting on, hiding the "Holy Crap, how friggen big can my wife get before she explodes? in his eyes". Me, I am just waiting for the morning when I wake up and I look down and the covers look like Jiffy Pop compared to when I went to bed.

Ronry, I so ronry...

Andrew has been away since last Sunday, taking son #1 camping in the Rockies. I'm glad that they went, 15 is a tough crowd, there are alot of distractions at that age. Its hard to find things to do with him that we all enjoy. He's not hard to please, his ideal weekend would be a trip to Futureshop for a new game, followed by a fine meal of foot long subs or chicken fingers. After dinner, he'd let out a burp of appreciation, takes his socks off, crack his knuckles and slip away into XBOX land for as long as we will let him go. He's happy as a clam, you barely know there is a kid in the house. Which is not exactly what we're looking for when we've been looking forward to having a kid in the house. So when he shows any interest in anything that is not video games, we go with it and hope it sticks.

I tell Andrew that having a teenage boy around has taught me lots about what to appreciate about having a baby boy. Things like to get in as much hugging and kissing and cuddling as we can before he cuts us off at around 10 or 11. Or cherishing when he looks at you like you're a ROCK STAR when he's 4 because by the time they're 14, that look is replaced by eye rolling and they think you're a big dork unless you happen to have a super cool job like blowing up stuff or shooting things.

Anyway, its important that they get the man time alone together. Normally I enjoy having the house to myself and a break from cooking supper and shaving my legs. But this has been a weird week of scary nightmares, weird noises that I can't blame on Andrew (our house is about 100 years old, so when the weather changes the house creak), dealing with intruders - the squirrels get aggressive around now and do things like try and gang bang the garbage cans or cling to the kitchen window screen. I've also had no one to show all the neat stuff I've been dragging home and the baby has been moving around which is really weird and exciting and although I have friends here they are all prego too and like 'Oh yeah, I've had that for weeks'.... Andrew also compliments me alot, and it kind of sucks to get dressed in the morning and not have anyone tell me I look nice. Or that supper was good (he actually wouldn't be thrilled with all the take out this week). I've had no one to spoil or bug.

I'm glad the boys had a good time on their camping trip, I hope it was good enough that they'll want to do them for many years to come, its fun to think about Cody at 30 and Andrew at 50 and the new critter at 15 heading out for an annual man trip, but I have learned this week that I am no longer cut out to be home alone for more than a week at a time. I can't wait for him to get home.

I'm being eaten by zombies. (and other pregnant dreams)...

I've always had fairly vivid dreams...

Lately though, thanks to the extra hormones racing around, I have been having the most bizarre, crazy, lucid dreams I have ever had in my whole life. I've dreamt about people and things I haven't seen in years. I've had baby dreams where I'm forgetting the baby or feeding it something weird or holding it wrong. Sometimes they are naughty Jackie Collins type of dreams. I get those. They make sense. But then there are the freaky nightmares that come from who knows where, and those are really disturbing and freaking me out.

Last night I woke up from my latest "zombies are coming to get you dream" all sweaty and gasping and tangled and had to turn all the lights on and watch some soothing vacuous HGTV before I could get back to sleep a couple hours later.

The general theme seems to be 'things are going well, then it starts to go real bad and gets real scary and because of one simple, critical error on my part (like not locking the door or charging my cell phone) it leads to me being trapped, then devoured by scary zombie monsters, chased down by people who are going to torture me, the kids get stolen or the house falls down and I can't wake myself up, and its my own damn fault.

So what's going on? A fear of intrusion? Of being trapped? The spicy pizza I ate for supper playing tricks on me? Making an irreversable mistake? I'm betting on the mistake thing. When I was a kid and made a stupid mistake and was upset about it my mother would say "Calm down, Child, no one is going to come cut your legs off over it." Which is true, except in my dreams they do. And then eat them in front of me.

All I know is that if it doesn't mellow out I am going to be one wicked property developer from all of the late night HGTV shows I'm watching at 3am.

An afterthought. (after I Googled 'Zombies")

Control and related themes of power and exploitation are basic to the voodoo zombie. "They work faithfully and are not worried about long hours," Zombies of the Haitian Voodoo variety represent a loss of cognition/consciousness and also a loss of free will.

By "controlling" another person and eliminating that persons ability to make choices, let alone engage in conscious thought, the "controller" has reduced that person to the level of an animal and has robbed him of his humanity. To fear zombification, then, is to fear exploitation.

Maybe the 'zombies' are all the other parents who keep warning me that I will need to just submit and join them in faithful servitude to Kids and I'm afraid of being devoured by parenthood and losing myself. How's that for deep?

YOU PEOPLE never...

My mother and I have been chatting alot lately about children and child rearing lately. My mother is the type to never come right out and say 'YOU SHOULD". She will say.

"Well, YOU PEOPLE (meaning my brothers and I) NEVER did that."

Examples of what 'us people' did and didn't do...

• YOU PEOPLE had to take turns watching what you wanted to watch on TV, there were 6 people in the house and one TV for everyone.
• YOU PEOPLE said please and thank you and knew your place with adults - down the totem pole where you belong.
• YOU PEOPLE weren't allowed to "gallavant the streets at night" (for most people this was going to a 7 o'clock show, not 'gallavanting')
• YOU PEOPLE weren't allowed to touch what wasn't yours. I never put any of my nice things away, and we could take YOU PEOPLE anywhere and you weren't savages.
• Mostly it was just "YOU PEOPLE were just TOLD....blah blah blah and you just did it".

When its something that she as a mother probably should not have let us get away with, she blames it on my father. Well, your father would never....so we didn't.

Examples of what my father would never do...(and still won't)

• Eat vegetables, tropical fruit like plums or peaches, just apples and bananas. No noodles in any kind of 'exotic' shape other than spaghetti or rice in any other context besides Chinese food.
• Let us watch M.A.S.H. or anything else that may be on while 'his news or his show' was on.
• Give a shit what anyone else had or was doing, whether it was good or bad.
• Pass by a Tasty Treat without stopping or limit options once we were there.
• Be able to keep a surprise a secret even if you duck taped his mouth shut.

Its almost AUCTION season again!!!!

I have a whole new focus this time. Even though we don't currently have room for a full on nursery, I still have nursery plans. If I buy enough furniture, Andrew will eventually have no choice but to buy me a house.

Baby furniture is surprisingly flimsy for items that are supposed to withstand children, theoretically from infancy until you kick the little suckers out for university. Pressed wood and laminate, all at hardwood prices, because they know you are totally irrational when pregnant and your husband is scared of you and your hormones and will let you have whatever you want.

So we have the sleigh crib. Jacob the two year old tested it and seemed to give it a soggy thumbs up. Now I want and armoire and change table/dresser. And I want to paint them black or red. And I want them to look old and antiquey. Solid hardwood stuff comes up all of the time at the auctions, so I'm pretty sure I can get something similar to the high end stuff like the pieces below, which would be about $5000, for a few hundred than paint them for 90% of the look for 10% of the cost.

I also really enjoy this farm quilt. Its a little pricey and I haven't become irrational enough to spend $150 on a "My Little Farm" baby quilt set. Partially because these days they tell you to put them in a crib with nothing but a sheet or they will smother or choke to death and even though I think its stupid and unlikely, I'm not going to be the first to allow her kid to smother or choke on a tractor applique.

Its also partly because I know at that price I wouldn't actually let the Kid touch it with its grubby little mitts. I'd like to hang it on the wall as art. Hmmm. Art is clearly a more justifiable expense than bedding. Its practically and investment. Really, enough with the justifications, all I need to do is show it to Andrew and make him love it - because if he loves something he will just buy it and enjoy it without guilt or shame.

Its not exactly what I thought....

My personal observations on pregnancy that I expected but were different than I thought.

"Tired" I am not just tired, I am falling asleep in my supper at 6pm kind of tired.

"Getting Big" Sadly being taller and larger framed is no insurance against exploding like a can of caulking, holding more water than a resevoir or having control over 'how' I will distribute the baby weight, even though I have gained exactly by the book.

"Baby Brain". People have stopped trusting me with anything of any consequence because I am brain dead and have the attention span of a flea. I have forgotten to do stuff, walked out of a store without paying for something I tried on (and left on) and missed appointments.

"Holy Crap Moments" There are times when I panic a little. I worry that I 'just wont' take to' this parenting thing. I can deal with meltdowns and diapers and moldy chicken nugget dinosaurs in my purse, its really a localized fear and hatred of 'children's music and programming' . I plan to enjoy fun music and appropriate shows with the Kid, but I just know that no matter how much the Kid enjoys grooving to to the cool SRV version of Mary Had a Little Lamb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaX7Y1GQl5wLamb (its not like the lamb gets drunk or stoned or Stevie says the F-word in the cool version) and watching Discovery someone will feel bad for the Kid and think we are big meannies and introduce the Kid to Dora.

"My kid will never.....". You will find yourself silently judging and evaluating everyone else's parenting and children's behavior. Its tolerable for others only because they did the same thing -they just roll their eyes back at you for being dumb enough to judge someone else's parenting when you have no children.

"I will be practical and frugal, pregnancy is temporary and babies grow way too fast" Wrong again. I got excited and bought maternity clothes too soon, I have already outgrown a couple things. Whoops. I justify it by reasoning that I will wear them post baby while I'm getting back in shape. I have also bought more than one irrationally priced cute baby item and pretty much overspent on pretty much everything I've bought so far. The most recent of which was a designer stuffed sheep from the baby boutique and $4 infant socks. (they were both so soft and squishy). Now when I see the two sheep together I want to go back and buy the big one too. I like to sit the sheep on my stomach.