Happy Birthday, Tel!!!!

I hope today is wonderful. And that there are presents galore. How is the birthday week going so far? Please don't fret about the number because you are young and fabulous.

In honor of your birthday, Bug has taught herself how to roll from back to front by going to her right side. And now she is trying to roll herself back onto her back (please please please). Generally, she just rolls onto her tummy and gets stuck. But this is momentous as she had only been rolling to her left.

I Dream of French Fries

When I was 28 weeks pregnant with Bug, my doctors told me that I would have to take a 3 hour glucose tolerance test to determine whether I had gestational diabetes. If you do have GD and it goes untreated, your chances of having a larger baby who may have her own issues with blood sugar increase. Before the test, I had to carbo load for the 3 days beforehand then go in first thing in the morning for blood tests. They take a vial of blood to test your fasting glucose level. Then they hand you Glucola. Mmmm yummy. Or not. "Lime or orange" they ask. Does it really matter? No. It's 100 gram glucose solution. It's like drinking 2 really unpleasant lemon lime sodas for breakfast as breakfast with no chaser. Delish. Then you wait. For an hour, when you get the fun and frivolity of another blood draw. Repeat. And repeat. And then, if you are me, you go directly to Taco Bell before running back to work.

This would be bad enough for a regular person, but just imagine how fun it is when you are 6 months pregnant, when the smell of fries or bacon or even apple cinnamon oatmeal can drive you to madness and it's 11:30 am and all you have ingested is Glucola and water. Heck, by that time ever day, I would have eaten at least twice. And it's god awful boring since you can't really do anything during those 1 hour periods but sit and read. Since exercise burns glucose, you can't even take a walk.

So the day after I take the test, the phone rang at work. "Jen, we are sorry to tell you that you have gestational diabetes." "What does that mean," I ask. "Well, you have to change your diet completely, cutting out all of the fun things you actually want to eat and you have to exercise every day and you have to see a nutritionist" she says. Or something like that. Great, that's just what a pregnant lady wants to hear. Funny, though, they didn't really tell me precisely how I was supposed to eat. That happened when I met with a nutritionist the following week.

Until then, I thought it meant that I would just have to cut out sweets. Ok, I could do that for 12 weeks in order to make sure Bug was going to be healthy. Not a problem. I'll just switch from pink and white circus animal cookies and ice cream to Pringles. No worries. But no. There's so much more. It meant counting every carb that went in my mouth. It meant eating 6 times a day every day. It meant being particular about the time of day I got to eat certain food. No dairy or fruit at breakfast. No cereal. Must have protein and carbs for each meal. Must test my blood 4 times a day. Essentially, it led to one heck of a rut. A typical day would be an English muffin with peanut butter (the healthy, no sugar kind) and water for breakfast. Peanut butter without a glass of milk is not so fun. Yogurt, string cheese, and half of a piece of fruit 2-3 hours later. For purposes, of GD, cheese is protein, not dairy. And beans are carbs. Lunch involved protein, carbs (30 grams), and vegetable. Depending on what is out there, 30 grams of carbs could be a single slice of bread or a dozen crackers. Then in the afternoon, another snack. Then dinner where I got 45 grams of carbs (try 2/3 cup brown rice) with my protein and veggies. And finally, another snack. It was exhausting. It was also like being on the South Beach Diet. If I was a good girl and my glucose level after a meal was nice low number, I could have a treat -- 1 piece of Dove dark chocolate (about the size of a nickel = 5 grams of carbs).

But I did it. But that doesn't mean that I didn't dream of French fries. A lot. I mean, they had already taken away cocktails, sushi, and stinky cheese just because I was pregnant and now the fries and the shake that should accompany my cheeseburger. It was tragic.

Sometime during my pregnancy, we learned that there was a new Barney's near our house. Woohoo. So we went. Often. And there I was removing half the bun from my burger, replacing the milkshake with water, and having some fries. Like four. Then I would write it all down so the nutritionist could see precisely what I ate. What a pain. I made a spreadsheet and just block copied the entries the repeated themselves. Suffice it to say, I had so much yogurt during that time that I may never eat it again.

I counted the days until my due date of April 7. I made lists of all the things I would eat after I had Bug because generally GD goes away after you have the baby. Mmmm fries. And ice cream. And Oreo cookies. And cocktails. And pizza. And extra dark chocolate truffles from the Godiva store. I told myself the first week would be a freebie and then I would resume my new, healthy eating habits. Ha.

About two weeks before my due date, I went for my weekly checkup and the doctor said I had made no progress toward labor and to come back in a week. Ok. The following night, G, my brother, and I went to Barney's because I decided I was entitled to at least a fry or two. Our waitress, after noticing my ginormous belly, tells me that she works as a doula in Marin and starts giving me advice on things I should do and tea I should drink for the next few weeks to make labor easier. Gee, thanks, I think. In any event, I order my dinner, decide I'll remove even more of my burger bun than usual and counted out ten piping hot fries. Ten is a big deal when you usually only get four. So yummy.

Seven hours later, I was in labor. My brother is totally convinced that the fries were what did it. Perhaps Bug realized just how much her mama needed fries and decided that she would help me out. Or perhaps there is magic in the fries. I don't care. I think they might only work for me and I will leave my brother to his delusions. The good news about Bug arriving when she did (other than moving up my chances for snacks by eleven days since the doctors would not have let me go late) was that my brother was in town and able to meet her the day she was born. She might not have cared all that much, but I know he did.

Bug is now five months old and I'm still waiting for those healthy habits to kick in. But they can wait until after tomorrow since I'll be going to the Godiva store, thank you very much.

These Aren't the Pants You're Looking For

I took H (also known as Bug) to the local mall this afternoon to accomplish three things: 1) finding a shower gift for XT; 2) buying a birthday gift for Miss Ali; and 3) buying new jeans because my size 12 Gap boot cut stretch jeans haven't gotten too big.

Unfortunately for Bug and me, the mall is god awful lame. Horribly lame. But it does have a Macy's with a home section and there is a Gap. The good mall has a Macy's, but no home section, a Willams Sonoma, and a Gap, but had we gone there, we would have been stuck in afternoon rush hour traffic on the way home. So lazy me, I chose the crummy mall one freeway stop away for my shopping in the hope that I would get to purchase the thing I really wanted to get off the registry.

Task No. 1
We went up to housewares, printed the registry and found out immediately that what we wanted to buy was still available. But no, our lame store doesn't carry that. Those jerks. They suggested I go to the City or Santa Rosa or Stockton. Swell. Mr. Macy's guy was less than helpful and chose to speak to me like I was an idiot. Buddy, just because you are dumb doesn't mean that I am. Good thing I had a contingency plan and I found something else I wanted to purchase. Problem solved. After taking it to gift wrap, it was time to move on.

Task No. 2
I had asked what I should get for Miss Ali and I followed the instructions. Easy peasy.

Task No. 3
This should have been easy. Go to Gap. Find appropriate pants. Buy pants. Go home. But no. It seems Gap has some new method for selling pants rather than just by style. So I get the size 10s I desire and decided to try a pair of pants in the new Curvy category since I have a backside that balances out the bosoms so that I don't tip over and went to the dressing room excited about the potential to get that much closer to a single digit size. It should be noted that I bought the size 12s in question just a few months ago and was wearing them this afternoon. So these 10s should fit, right? Well, I could get them buttoned, but it wasn't optimal. Or comfortable. Or roomy. It seems that there are a few sizes in between my current, broken in pants and the new ones. Or else Gap changed something just to piss me off. And don't get me started on the "curvy jeans." I'm not sure how they define curvy because those suckers were tighter than the "original jeans." Must it really be so difficult to find suitable pants? I guess I'll just go get a new belt and work with what I have until the pregnancy pounds I already lost take a few more of their friends on a permanent vacation. So to paraphrase the Soup Nazi, no jeans for Jen. At least not from the Gap.

Bug was a star for the shopping trip. She was due for her afternoon nap and took it right there in her stroller, not minding all of the times I ran it into the walls of the dressing room. She's awake now and in a good mood, so I think it's time to give her some snuggles.

But stay tuned for when (at my brother's request) I inform you all of the magical, labor-inducing fries at Barney's. Mmmmm Barney's.

God, I Am So Boring

I am currently obsessed with learning how to play bridge. I'm not really sure why. But it's something to do with my day and it's more fun that job hunting. I can play on the internet while holding the baby and tending to her fussiness.

I have also memorized the daytime talk show schedule, so I know exactly what I am going to watch on tv pretty much all day long. It's quite sad, really. I need to get out more because, frankly, I need to challenge my brain a bit more. I can go for hours without talking to an adult. And I can't get very much done otherwise because H wants to be held all the damn time. Now, don't get me wrong. I adore her and think she is the best thing that will ever happen to my life. But sometimes a girl wants to say fold the laundry, or heaven forbid, use the restroom without hearing some fairly loud complaints that may or may not turn into full blown crying. Or even update her blog. Like now.

Time to rescue H from the evil place that is her activity mat. I think she thinks it's trying to attack her.

Melancholy Mommy


I have such a case of the blahs.

There is nothing like job hunting to make a girl feel like a worthless piece of crap. It's way worse than dating. I have been applying for all sorts of jobs and it's really sad when I get excited because I receive the automated e-mail response that they received my application. Most of them don't bother to respond at all. They just leave me hanging. I understand that they get eleven million applications for each job, but still. Common courtesy would be nice. I would be happier with a "sorry, you are a huge loser and we wouldn't hire you to scrub our toilets" than to get the silent treatment. Well, maybe not.

So I apply and apply and there always seems to be someone better, more qualified, etc. for the job. But I keep doing it because a) I'm a masochist and b) presumably someone will decide to hire my sorry ass. And c) someday we really would like to buy a house and that's not really possible if I don't work.

I went to bed last night in a lousy mood, which makes it a bit difficult to fall asleep since I tend to obsess. Nothing like feeling like a failure to keep a girl up at night.

Since G was the one who brought up the evil subject of my joblessness, it was on him to change the subject and try to turn my brain off. We ended up talking about bridge bidding strategies and that really helped and I fell asleep. Yes, I am learning to play bridge.

And then, lovely guy that he is, he took the middle of the night baby feeding to let me continue to sleep. I married a good one. I'm glad I got that right.

Time to hug my baby and try to ease those blahs.

I'm Easily Entertained

The most exciting thing that happened to me today was causing my wee one to launch into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. There are few things better than a giggling four-month old. I'm not even sure how it started. She was having her usual evening fussies and I put her on the floor so I could check on dinner. As usual, she immediately rolled over from her back to her front. Generally, she's not wild about being on her tummy. But today was different.

So silly mommy decided to get on the floor with her and grin idiotically (I have gotten good at that). Well, H started laughing her little machine gun fire laugh and I laughed back. This went on for I don't know how long until she got so giggly she managed to roll onto her back. I was shocked, since she's not much for rolling front to back. If she were, then there wouldn't be the constant need to rescue her when she gets on her stomach and this feat wouldn't be a big deal to me.

Of course, I had to put her back on her stomach to see if it would happen again. It didn't. But there was a good giggling fit, so I can't complain too much. The only thing that would have made this better would have been for me to remember that we bought a video camera for precisely this reason.

A Tale of Two Cribs

A few years ago, when my niece moved from her crib to a real bed, my brother-in-law and his wife (we'll call them BIL/W) decided that they would have the crib stored for G and me for when we had a wee one of our own. They left it, minus the mattress, in G's parents' garage. When I learned of this, I thought, great, something we won't have to buy.

Fast forward to this year. They remind us about the crib and tell us just how wonderful it is and how expensive it was. H spent her first few months sleeping in a bassinet, but it became apparent that she would need something bigger and soon. So we made arrangements to drive to G's parents' house 40 miles north of us to check out this crib. We found it in pieces up in the rafters. It was not wrapped in anything. This fact is important because G's parents smoke in their garage. So we took it down with the plan to get it outside to air out and to be wiped down since it was dirty. We also wanted to assemble the thing to make sure all the parts were there. We think we had all the parts, but can't be sure since there were no assembly instructions to be had. Hmm. How to build the thing?

For the better part of an hour, we tried to build it. There was a lot of cursing and a little bloodshed and we still couldn't get it right. We decided not to take it with us that day since we didn't know if we would ever be able to build it. This annoyed G's dad who wanted the thing out of his house. It's not like an unassembled baby crib takes up much space, but he got bent anyway.

We later put in a call to BIL to get instructions on how to build the thing, but he didn't know how. He said W would tell us. Then it became, "she'll show you how to build it at your house." Ok, that works. Only she's staying about two hours away from where we live and an hour from where the crib is. This is a summer arrangement while their new house is under construction. So how to get the crib here and get her here to build the thing?

Well, she calls me and says that she's going to be in our town two days from then and could build it for us then. Except that we didn't have plans to fetch the thing before then. So she offers to fetch the thing and bring it down here. I said thank you. As it turns out, we wouldn't have been able to fetch it before she was to be here because our van was in the shop for some minor repairs.

Later that afternoon, BIL calls to ask if we can't pick up the crib because it's really too much to expect his wife to do it for us. Well, I didn't ask. I said no, we wouldn't be getting up there and our car didn't have room. "Can't you borrow a friend's truck or something?" he asks. I said we couldn't and that if W wouldn't be able to bring it, we would figure something out. He then calls G at work to suggest G rent a truck to fetch the crib so W wouldn't have to. G says no and then said don't worry about bring the crib here or assembling it, we would come up with something else.

We found a crib and mattress on Craigslist and bought it. The instructions were attached and it works fine. Meanwhile, G's dad is still bent that the crib is at his house. G and I went to his house, fetched the thing with the plan to dispose of it, so now all is ok with him. We thought, wouldn't it be funny to figure out how to build the thing and then sell it ourselves. Hee. It's currently in pieces in our place.

This was about a month ago. Three days ago during afternoon naptime on the couch with H (she takes a nap everyday at around 5), G called about the crib. It seems that he wants the receipt from Goodwill. Yes, that's right. The crib that was supposed to be given to us and that we removed from G's parents' garage is, apparently, his property again, such that he should get the tax write-off. If I had been awake when he called, I probably would have lied and said we already took it to Goodwill and didn't get a receipt. But I'm not that quick when I am half asleep. So I said we still had it. He then requested that we mail the receipt to him. Hmm. One telephone called to Goodwill revealed that they don't accept baby items.

Since I think it still smells like smoke, I think we will just take it to the city dump. Then I'll forward the bill for dumping it to BIL since, after all, it's his crib.

Peter Pan

It's official. I'm a grownup. I'm not sure when it happened, but it happened and the reason I know this is because I own a minivan and I'm happy about it. Yikes. And to think that it wasn't that long ago that I heard some kids talking (while looking in my direction) about the grownups looking at them and I turned around to see where those grownups were.

There are certain things I know did not make me a grownup: getting older, getting married, having a baby, graduating from law school, blah blah blah. One certainly doesn't have to be a grownup to do those things. I think maybe the process started when my dad died and moved along some when my mom died 19 months later. Throw in my miscarriage and that might be how it happened.

I asked my husband, G, when he thought it happened to me and he didn't know. He doesn't consider himself a grownup, notwithstanding the minivan. Lucky duck. So I asked my brother and he said that he thought it happened when G and I started looking into a bigger place shortly before H was born this March. Could be.

I suppose it was inevitable. One can only go through so many major life events and not have it happen. But did it really have to happen so soon? I haven't even turned 35 yet. In any event, maybe it's not such a bad thing. And it doesn't mean I can't be bummed that we didn't get to ride the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland last week or enjoy Oreo cookies for breakfast.